CHAPTER 51

She could not say his name. Her hand flew to her mouth and she tried to hold back her little gasping cries. He came toward her and took her in his arms, and she quivered against his chest like a wounded bird. The wool of his tunic was rough against her face, and the muscles f his chest were hard and unfamiliar now. But he held her to him like a precious thing, he kissed her hair and soothed her as she wept, and after a long time, she grew still.

Now her body began to remember the feel of his, the tall, slender frame, the broad shoulders, the lean, supple hips. The soft stubble on his chin, his fine leather breeches, the dagger at his waist, his coat of mail were as familiar to her as her own skin.

They stood together in the glade, bathed in the glimmering light. Overhead the moon smiled to herself and sailed on. The stars forgot to dance, and stood still in their tracks to gaze down. The forest air vibrated with the vital hum of life itself, and all the woodland creatures rejoiced with them.

A thousand voices cried through the moist night air.

“Live!” hissed the blindworm, working through the earth.

“Love!” urged the owl, calling from the highest tree.

There was a pause longer than life itself.

“Lady?” he said.

The music of his accent stung her ears. She lifted her head and saw him truly for the first time. His bright brown eyes burned through the dusky night with their Otherworldly gleam. His thick chestnut hair glinted with fragments of fire in the moon’s pale beam. A light shone in his face as he looked at her. He sighed, and she heard herself sighing too.

He brought her hand to his lips, and she felt the rising swell of life itself. She heard the crying of the white waves on the sea, and the laughter of the storm on the mountaintop. Her body remembered all his gifts of love, long days of beauty and endless nights of bliss.

“Tell me, lady, am I still your knight?”

His voice was calling from another world. And still she could not speak his long-loved name. Tears poured from her eyes and she cried aloud in pain.

He kissed her lips as gently as a child. “Hush, my love. Come indoors. Let me bring you into the warm.”

MAY THE DARKNESS seize him now, wherever he is—

If he is—if he exists at all—

Had he seen him, curled up in that bed? Or was it a spirit shadow, sent for torment’s sake?

Merlin clambered down from his mule, almost too tired to curse. The going had been hard on the rough mountain pass, and soon it would be night. Already the first stars of evening were coming out. Heartsick, he leaned on the mule’s bony back, and sank into bitterness. How long ago had he embarked on this cursed quest? And when had he started to know that it had failed?

Perhaps the boy had died all those years ago, lost with the other newborns who were cast away. Perhaps he had perished of a childhood fever, as so many did. Perhaps the boys he had narrowly missed so far were nothing but fetches, designed to lure him on. Grimly Merlin recognized that he had been too ready to believe that Mordred lived. The hunger to find a Pendragon had seized his soul. Could Morgan have devised the whole thing all along?

He did not know. All he knew was that he must fall back to his cave in the Welshlands, and think again. He was almost on the Welsh borders where he stood. Once over this mountain pass, he could call himself home.

With a groan he secured the mule’s bridle, turned the beast loose to graze, and lowered himself down. The stony ground struck cruelly hard and cold, punishing his lank haunches, but all he could feel was the turmoil in his soul. Had his power betrayed him, had his craft failed him now?

He clutched at his head, and tore his iron-gray hair.

“I am Merlin the Bard!” he cried aloud to the uncaring sky. “Bard and Druid, seer and prophet, singer, dream-weaver and teller of all tales, I am old, I am young, I was dead, I am alive, I am Merlin!”

His scream rang around the high crags, echoing mockingly from peak to peak—Merlin, Merlin, Merlin—

“And grief upon me for this!” he keened, punching the air. “Grief, grief, grief upon all my hopes!” He beat his head with his fist. Where had he gone wrong?

No, not wrong, that he would never believe. For many lives now he had borne the Druid mark, worn all the cloaks of power, prophesying in the shining feathers of peacock, crow, and swan, and no man on earth had vanquished him in contest when his singing robes were on. In dreaming consciousness he had seen past and future, and often both at once. And he had seen the boy.

A faint comfort eased his wounded soul. Arthur had lain with Morgan, that he knew. Morgan had had a son, he knew that too. The boy lived, Pendragon lived, of that he had no doubt. And he would find him, however long it took.

The sweet mists of evening were rising to the mountaintop. The old enchanter gulped down great drafts of air, drawing in the life-breath of the earth. But as his heart revived, his doubts did too. So many years in the search—the boy would be full-grown.

“I wanted the child!” he cried to the barren crags. “Another Arthur, to be mine from birth!”

Lovingly he recalled the infant that Arthur had been, his honest, slate blue eyes and pale gold hair, his well-made frame. Fostered by Sir Ector, the boy had grown in grace and strength with every year.

“And I, Merlin, had the shaping of him, body and mind!” he proclaimed. “Arthur was mine—he was only mine!”

With a start it came to him that those had been the best years of his life, in truth of all his many lives till now. Sir Ector had thought himself lucky enough to have the care of Arthur’s body, rearing Uther Pendragon’s child in his household as a brother for his own son. He had never done battle with Merlin for Arthur’s soul. Merlin had always been welcomed by Sir Ector like royalty himself. As he was, he reminded himself touchily, being Pendragon born. Wherever he went, he should be feted and adored.

Sir Ector—

Merlin’s mind drifted off. How long was it since he had seen the old knight? Was he even still alive? A pity he had not kept in touch, for Sir Ector’s estate lay hereabouts on the Welsh borders, not far away. For old times’ sake, Merlin mused unhappily, he might have looked in on the kindly old man who had helped him to make Arthur what he was.

Darkness and devils, why dwell on triumphs of forty years ago? Merlin’s yellow eyes glazed with bile. Go on, old fool, forget that your beloved Arthur is approaching middle age, and has no son. Forget that the House of Pendragon has no heir.

He leaped to his feet with a wail. “I have abandoned Arthur for all these years to find his son. And I am no nearer to that than when I began!”

He surged to and fro on the mountain, railing at the stars. “You have cursed me with the fate of a Lord of Light,” he wept. “How many lives must I suffer to keep Pendragon alive?” Till the boy was found, the House of Pendragon hung on a thread. And who knew if his own thread would hold, or when the Old Ones planned to sever it?

“Why have I failed?” he begged the gusting winds. “I have denied the spirit woman access to my flesh. I have stayed away from her dark tower, and kept my body pure. I have communed with rocks and trees, I have cast the runes, lit sacred fires and called up visions in the smoke. I have crisscrossed these islands, and everywhere made magic older than the Druid kind. Yet still I cannot find if the boy lives!”

His lamentation echoed to the stars.

Find the boy—

Find the boy—

The echo mocked him from the highest crag. How much time had he wasted along the way? How long had he spent in the Orkneys, vainly courting the favor of Queen Morgause and her knight?

The shadow of blood passed over Merlin’s twilight eyes. Ah, poor Morgause. Well, she had paid a high price for her love. But soon, very soon, the queen would rejoin her love, where he waited for her in the world beyond the worlds. Together they would wander the astral plane hand in hand, nevermore to part. Through all eternity, Morgause would be with Lamorak. Their love was never perfect, but it was enduring, like the sea.

Fool that he was! He should have known the boy would not be there. Yet where?

“Where? Tell me where!” he screamed in anguish to the rising moon.

A huge indifference answered his heartfelt cry. Suddenly his old heart and brain could go no more. With the last of his strength he hobbled across to his mule, heaved himself into the saddle, and pointed the patient creature down the mountainside.

The tears were pouring unchecked from his eyes. He had failed; Merlin had failed. There was nothing to do but fall back to the Welshlands, and take to his crystal cave. There he could hide, and rest, and pray to his Gods that his powers would return. He could roam with the wild pigs in the forest, ride a rutting stag under a horned moon, sing to the stars, and drink rock water for his wine.

The trusty mule picked its way down the rocky path.

“Yet I am Merlin still!” the old man sang. “I am fire, I am frost, I am the tree, I am the leaf, I am Merlin!”

He did not know how many miles he passed this way. Day was breaking as he came off the mountainside and made his way down through the trees to the road ahead. As the woodland thinned out, he saw an old woman by the wayside, gathering twigs. Her long, lean body was bent almost to the ground, and her black garments were wrapped tightly around her against the cold. As he drew near, Merlin was swept with a hunger to hear her speak a word. The good wishes of old ones had a power he needed now.

“Greetings, mother,” he called.

The old woman straightened up, as far as she humanly could. Her smile was pleasant enough, Merlin noted with a slight lifting of his burdened heart, and old age had not touched her deep black eyes. But her head sat sideways on her crooked spine, and one knobbled hand clutched at her ancient hip.

“Good day to you, father,” she returned in an old, cracked voice. “D’you travel far?”

“Far enough,” he replied distantly.

She nodded, seeming unoffended by his tone. “You’ll be wanting to rest then, sir. A night on the mountain always takes its toll. There’s not an inn hereby for miles around. But there’s a good old knight who’s known to take strangers in.”

Merlin’s eyes turned color. “Hard by?” he said.

“Near enough,” she conceded. “It’s old Sir Ector, a good knight of these parts. I suppose you know him, sir?”

Merlin felt a wind from the Otherworld. “I do.”

She cocked her head like a blackbird, and flashed him a piercing glance. “Go on, old sir. They are expecting you.”

Merlin rode past the old woman and did not turn his head. If he looked back, he knew, there would be no one there. He had not asked her how many miles it was. It did not matter; the mule would take him there.

Behind him, Morgan stretched her long body and resumed her natural shape. She smiled as she watched him riding on his way.

To Sir Ector, Merlin, go!

She uncoiled lasciviously, exulting in her power. Merlin would do her will as he did every time he came to her in her spirit body, begging her favor to answer his desires. And now she would see the fruition of all she had labored for since Uther came.

Thunder and lightning convulsed her brain.

Go, Merlin! Seek and find!

And then beware, Arthur, beware!

TO SIR ECTOR, yes, that was where he must go.

Merlin’s mind was floating, beyond hope, beyond thought.

Sir Ector.

Could it be...?

He had never considered Sir Ector, the old knight tucked away in his hidden valley hard by Wales. Sir Ector, the King’s loyal vassal, Arthur’s foster father, the most devoted man alive—would he harbor the child of Arthur’s mortal foe? Yet if the boy came as a squire, how would he know whose son he was?

And where better to hide the boy than under everyone’s nose? Sir Ector never left his lands to come to court. Arthur had not revisited his boyhood home in thirty years. Fond greetings passed between them, to be sure, but after a lifetime of fostering boys to train up as knights, would Sir Ector report to Arthur or anyone else if another young lad had joined him along the way?

The mule plodded on, mile after patient mile. At last they crested a hill, and the castle of Sir Ector lay below. Trembling in every limb, Merlin rode up to the gate tower and through to the inner court. A group of young lads on the verge of manhood were indulging in a fierce game of rough-and-tumble around the courtyard in the sun, laughing and chasing each other like puppies at play.

Most of them took no notice as the old man rode in. With his gray-green grass-stained robes, ancient furs, and well-worn boots, Merlin seldom attracted attention unless he chose. But one of the boys acknowledged his arrival with a wave. Breaking away from the group, he leaped toward Merlin in a graceful run.

“Good day to you, my lord!” he cried as he came up.

He was taller than all the rest, with a slender, well-made body and finely proportioned limbs. He carried himself like an athlete, and had a horseman’s long, strong legs and clever hands. His dark wool tunic showed off an ivory skin and a head of thick black hair. His eyes were blue-black and smiling, large and lustrous, and fringed like a girl’s. He had Arthur’s open, trusting gaze, and he was the handsomest youth that Merlin had ever seen.

His voice was light and melodious, with the faintest hint of Wales. “Can I help you, sir?”

Pendragon...

The old man’s heart soared and burst with love. He knew he was grinning like an ancient loon.

“Yes, indeed, my son.”

Cackling, he handed his reins to the boy, and leaned down to stare him in the face. “Your name, young man?”

The boy fixed him with his hyacinthine eyes, and gave him a dazzling smile. “It’s Mordred, sir,” he said.