“ARE we ready?” Nimuë asked the demon. She petted her shoulder. If she looked very carefully, she could see the outline of the creature. Her magic had given him life and strength. Soon she’d be strong enough to bring him fully into this world.
“I am ready,” the demon affirmed. “Full night is upon us. The moon is dark. You have our tools. Let us begin.”
“Are you certain this will keep Wren from meeting her father?” Nimuë asked. She’d been unable to seduce the aging magician in over a year. But she had delved into his mind numerous times while he slept and learned much more than he would have willingly taught her. She settled for his knowledge rather than his life. Though, if she could manage to banish his spirit to the Netherworld in Wren’s presence, she’d be truly happy for the first time in her life.
Then she’d just transplant the half-formed demon into the old man’s body and have a fierce lover as well as a magical partner.
The demon didn’t like that idea. It wanted a younger, more resilient body; preferably one of Arthur’s warrior companions. They agreed, by mutual silence, to discuss the matter fully when Nimuë commanded enough magic to perform the transformation.
“Our work tonight will give us partial revenge,” the demon reassured her. “Wren will not be able to resist the traps we set for her.”
Nimuë crept into The Merlin’s chamber. He slept deeply, aided by the potion she had slipped into his wine. The tools she needed lay where she had left them on the little travel chest. She grabbed the scroll, herbs, crystals, and vials. At the last minute she lit a small lantern from the smoldering coals in the brazier. Why waste her strength calling the element Tanio to bind her spell when she had fire at hand?
The guards at the gate looked right at her without seeing her. That was a spell she had perfected early on. Few knew she lived in Camlann, fewer still saw her walking beside The Merlin, gleaning knowledge from him.
She passed a hand before the eyes of each guard. “Sleep,” she commanded each in turn. “Sleep until I return this way.” They dropped their heads, eyes closed, knees locked so they remained standing.
The small pedestrian gate beside the massive entrance to the caer opened easily on well-oiled hinges — a chore she had taken care of last night. The hinges were supposed to squeak to alert the guards of anyone sneaking in or out of Camlann.
Nimuë used the demon’s night vision to survey the wide processional way. It ran in a dozen loops and twists down the slope of hill.
“There and there and again here and here.” The demon highlighted the nine places Nimuë needed to set her spells.
“Nine! I thought you said I only needed three,” Nimuë protested. “I’ll be so exhausted I won’t be able to watch them work when she arrives tomorrow.”
“Three times three. We need them all. But don’t worry. I’ll watch to make sure she falls victim to the traps.” The demon laughed in her ear.
Pouting, Nimuë reluctantly set her steps for the closer target.
“No,” the demon almost shouted. “You must begin at the bottom of the hill and work upward.”
“But then the pattern will be set widdershins. I only know how to do this deosil, as The Merlin taught me.”
“If you do this his way, the magic will invite his daughter in. We need to repel her, make it impossible for her to walk through the gate. And she must walk. If she rides, the horse will protect her from the bulk of the magic. She will feel ill, uncomfortable, but will still be able to pass.”
“I assure you, Wren will walk. She never mounts a horse unless she has to.”
Grimly, Nimuë marched to the bottom of the hill, cutting across the looping road, tripping over obstacles and sliding on her bum on the steepest part. By the time she reached the first target, she was dusty, sweating, and tired. She wanted a drink and a chance to rest before throwing her remaining strength into magic. The demon prodded her with sharp bites on her neck and shoulders. She swatted at it to make it stop. It merely laughed and faded into the Netherworld a little so that she hit herself.
“Damn you! That hurt. I need rest.”
“You need to work.” The demon bit her again.
“All right!” For once the demon’s prodding didn’t send sexual thrills through her body. Normally she reveled in them because they reminded her of Carradoc’s rough enticements.
She laid the herbs and kindling in proper order, sprinkled them with a little water from a clear spring, and set light to the combination from her little lamp. While Pridd, Tanio, and Dwfr merged with Awyr, she read strange sounding words from the scroll. She didn’t know the meaning of the syllables she uttered, but the demon did. She guessed that was enough.
Then she moved uphill, to the next target and set it with the second set of phrases on the scroll.
She was about to add fire to the third target when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder.
“Yeek!” She jumped up, searching for an attacker.
“I won’t hurt you, Nimuë,” The Merlin said from the darkness behind her. “What are you doing?”
“Um — I’m — um — why are you awake?” She fought to keep the panic out of her voice.
“I rarely sleep more than a few hours these days and often wander the city at this hour. I smelled your magic and came to investigate, I appreciate the help you gave me in getting to sleep tonight. That potion is most efficacious. I believe I lingered in slumber an extra hour, perhaps two.” He yawned without bothering to hide his mouth behind his hand.
“But what brings you out tonight, Nimuë? The dark of the moon is a dangerous time to wander unescorted.”
“I’m setting wards on the city. We don’t want strange magicians sneaking into Camlann to disrupt the Ardh Rhi’s wedding.” She twisted the truth only a little. The Merlin always knew when she lied.
“Commendable idea, my dear, but you need to start at the top and work deosil.”
I told you so! Nimuë sneered at the demon.
“I thought to work in a circle, starting and ending at the bottom, the first ward a stranger would encounter.”
“Interesting idea. Let me ponder that. Meanwhile, we will finish in the customary order. I’ll do the next ward, at the gate and we’ll alternate. Shared magic is always stronger.” The Merlin picked up her sach of herbs, vials, and kindling and hoisted it to his shoulder. “What scroll is this?” He spread it out, peering at it from the light of the little lantern.
Nimuë sensed his growing dismay at the same time the demon grew heavier on her shoulder. It reached out one insubstantial pincer to grab the rolled parchment out of the old man’s hands.
“These spells will not do at all,” The Merlin mused. He let the rolled parchment snap closed. “Though I can see why you thought they might. The Arabic writing is confusing if you are not thoroughly grounded in the language. I will set the rest of the wards with the proper Greek words. Go back to bed, Nimuë.”
“No!” She fought for an excuse to stay. He’d do it all wrong. He’d negate the first three wards she’d set. “I need to do it. I started it. I must complete it or it will unravel.”
“Yes, you are right. But let me whisper the proper spells into your mind as you recite the words.”
“I have a better idea.” She smiled with all the brilliance and seductive power she could muster. Holding his gaze with her own, she touched his left temple with her fingertips. The spell he wanted her to use embedded in her own memory quicker than thought.
“You do that remarkably well, my dear.”
“I learned from the best.” She let her fingers shift from quest to caress, lingering near his mouth. “Go back to bed, Myrddin Emrys. You need your rest.”
He froze in place, eyes wide. “Don’t move, Nimuë. Don’t think, don’t breathe.”
“What... ?” she whispered. What could have frightened the most powerful magician in all of Britain?
“A demon hovers around the ward you were about to set. It has been giving you improper directions.”
Nimuë almost relaxed. The dismissive words, “Oh, that,” wanted to leap from her tongue. She swallowed them.
“A d... de... demon!” She feigned panic.
“You must not light this ward. Scatter it to the four winds with your foot.”
She obeyed.
The demon growled in her ear. Its ferocity frightened her.
The Merlin wove his hands in an intricate pattern, muttering foreign words. The hair on Nimuë’s arms stood on end at the eldritch energy that crackled from his fingertips.
“There, the demon fades and retreats.” The Merlin sagged visibly.
The demon left Nimuë. She missed its now familiar weight on her shoulder and in her mind. She felt naked, exposed, vulnerable. She wanted to stamp her foot and scream in frustration.
“Let us start this all again, properly, from the beginning. Whoever summoned that demon wants to destroy the Ardh Rhi. I merely want to disrupt the marriage before it ends in disaster. You will help me, won’t you, Nimuë? With Wren’s assistance, we just might be able to prevent our lovesick Ardh Rhi from plunging us into another disastrous war.”
“Of course, I’ll help you, Myrddin Emrys. I’ll help you do what must be done.” Somehow, she’d take his spells and twist them. Somehow. She hoped the demon reemerged from the Netherworld long enough to help her.
o0o
We traveled to Camlann slowly. We took nearly a month when a fast rider could do it in a week, less if he had changes of horses arranged ahead of time. Marnia suffered a miscarriage the day before we left. She and Kalahart remained at Caer Noddfa to guard and manage the estates. Berminia offered to care for her younger sister until she recovered. Mostly, she refused to go anywhere with me.
I stalled and delayed as much as possible. Carradoc’s returned confidence and joviality made my own self-absorbed sullenness stand out. Even he noticed how I dragged in the mornings and sought our pavilion early each night. My pregnancy showed more each day. I prayed that this baby would be small like her brother. And late.
More than my pregnancy made the journey interminable.
“I dread the future, Carradoc,” I explained when he questioned me two days out from the Ardh Rhi’s new capital. “Dana does not privilege me with glimpses of the future often, but every vision I have had has been true. Something terrible awaits us in Camlann.” Even though my fingers and toes never warmed, I couldn’t linger by the fire lest I look too deeply into the flames and see the nature of the disaster. If Carradoc discovered the truth...
“Your father always said that the future is not written in stone. Visions are enigmatic so that men can take charge of their destinies and make changes for the better,” he replied, polishing his already gleaming sword.
“Only if you make the changes The Merlin wants,” I said bitterly. “His need to control people and events overrides the truth of the gods.” I paced the pavilion, straightening the bedding, feeding the brazier, checking the water pitcher. All useless activities. But I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t rest, couldn’t stop asking myself questions.
What, or who, was Da trying to control this time? I wouldn’t know until I confronted him in the capital. Two days’ easy ride. I had two days to find a way to keep him from controlling me ever again.
We approached the refortified hill from the northwest. Romans had pulled down the centuries-old hall and ramparts. Arthur had rebuilt them. The sun was nearing the horizon when the caer came into view. The setting sun reflected off the newly erected timber walls topping the first rampart, giving them a golden sheen. Stone foundations for the timber made the walls soar higher than normal. A second walled rampart separated the Long Hall from the town that sprawled down the slopes of the hill. The huge Long Hall was clearly visible on the crown of the hill, a suitable capital for a British Ardh Rhi. This was the largest hill fort I had encountered on any of my travels throughout Britain.
The broad dirt road had been pounded flat and smooth by hundreds of soldiers, pilgrims, and petitioners over the course of the summer. Dust rose with each plodding step of our horses. Carradoc whipped our mounts into a fast trot, pushing aside anyone who stood in our way and leaving the baggage carts to catch up when and how they could. I closed my ears to the curses of those on foot who also trekked toward the capital for the festivities. All my concentration belonged with my horse and staying mounted. A fall now, at this speed, would surely damage the baby and myself beyond repair.
But I knew better than to try to curb my husband’s arrogant push to reach the Ardh Rhi before the city gates closed with the sunset. As we neared the Autumnal Equinox, the days shortened rapidly.
The massive gates still gaped open, wide and inviting through a shining arch. My heart lifted in spite of my doubts and questions about the coming meeting. Camlann seemed to reach out to me, beckoning me forward.
We followed the twisted road up the steep slope. I knew that each switchback and bend offered opportunities for defenders to set traps and rain missiles on enemy heads from the top of these very high walls. My heart beat hard as I recognized a ritual maze in the making. Power rose in my blood as I marked each twist upward. But it was new power, raw and untapped, set there recently rather than the ancient forces I had met above Venta Belgarum or on Avalon’s tor.
Had my father surrounded Camlann with magic, or had another? The power sang in my blood as if it were my own, not someone else’s.
I gathered the power around me in a cloak of protection. The energy fled as fast as I grasped it. I expended some of my own strength to bring the magic back. It dissipated as sand through my fingers. And so it would for any magician or priest who sought the power. Further attempts to control the power would sap all of my energy while denying me access to fundamental strengths.
What enemy plagued the new Ardh Rhi that his defenses had to be magical as well as military?
I set a mental barrier between myself and the traps. For the sake of my baby, I couldn’t waste any more strength on it.
“Your father awaits us, Wren,” Carradoc announced quite loudly as we ducked beneath the timbered archway of the first rampart.
“Where?” I didn’t see any single figure that stood out in the crowd filling the lower plateau of the hill fort.
“Up there, beside the Pendragon.”
I followed Carradoc’s pointing finger with my eyes above a second timbered wall to the immense hall that filled the crown of the hill. Tree trunks carved with mystical symbols stood on either side of the doorway. The carvings soared above the rooftree in proud proclamation that here resided a king of note, a warrior worthy of the crown. Victory banners fluttered from dozens of flagpoles marking an avenue approach to the hall. Two mounted warriors could ride through that portal without ducking. Standing in the center of the opening, filling it with his personality, stood my tall, slim father in a robe of bright blue. But he couldn’t dwarf the man who stood beside him. Curyll’s sun-bleached hair gleamed golden-red in the dying light. His torc glowed in a bright echo of the sun on his back, the same rich gold as my father’s torc. A band of imperial purple graced the Roman toga he’d draped over his white tunic and leggings.
My heart leaped to my throat in joy at the first sight of my lover. My father, The Merlin, stood beside him, in a place of honor given only to a valued adviser.
Then I realized the import of Curyll’s majestic clothing and golden torc. Arthur Pendragon, Ardh Rhi of Britain, was the father of my child.