HE is not innocent! Andraste whispered to me. He is as unnatural as the child you feared Nimuë would bear her father. He can never be innocent while he guards the gate to the Netherworld. Demons already feed on his heart.
Not Andraste. She would never countenance the death of a child, a baby, barely two years old, no matter how twisted and dark its heritage. The Goddess, Dana/Andraste in all Her guises, was a mother as I was a mother. The death of a child wounded us all.
Back at Caer Noddfa, my physical body longed to rush away from my tiny fire to guard my own children. In my astral form I resisted the temptation. No matter the danger, I had to remain separate from my body until I finished my battle with the demons at the portal far to the North.
To save Curyll and your Da, you must destroy the demon child, the demon within the gateway spoke to me seductively. It imitated the speech and rhythm of the Goddess, but it could never match the love and protection of the true Goddess.
I would not give it another death to feed upon and make it stronger. There had to be a way to close the gateway to the Netherworld without harming the baby.
Balances and patterns. Fulcrums and levers. The concepts had been pushing me forward all night.
Gently, I slid the astral sword of Andraste beneath the sleeping baby. I used it as a lever, lifting Mordred as he sucked his fist in his sleep. My heart cried out for my own son, Yvain, so like this little boy in size and manners.
Mordred rolled off the blanket onto his tummy. He lay beyond the narrow gateway between the upright stones, still sucking on his fist, still sleeping. With one swift movement, I slashed at the chains of darkness and blood, severing them, cauterizing the ends. The demon screamed. It tried to climb out of the barrow, out of the Netherworld. One of its many black arms reached up and grabbed my wrists. Searing pain within my mind and body almost made me drop the sword, my only weapon against the beast. My body called my spirit back. My mind needed to retreat and nurse the pain.
Two more arms stretched toward the chains, trying to reforge the connection to Morgaine and the unbalanced elements. Yet more arms reached for me, trying to drag my spirit below. The seventh arm clung to the lintel stone that capped the two uprights. This was not Samhain; the demon could not easily move through the gateway. Some tendril of Andraste’s control blocked it.
Before it could climb farther into this world, I slashed at it with the sword. The pain of its brand on my wrist made the blow weak. I missed the demon and struck the tall barrow stones that marked the portal. Sparks of eldritch light, forest green, sky blue, sunny yellow, and blinding white flashed from where the blade struck the stones. The demon cowered beneath the light.
I slashed again and again, wildly. I kept the demon at bay more by force of will than skill or strength with the sword.
Close the door, Andraste said. Her voice was stronger, surer. Driving the demon back restored Her vitality.
“How?” I asked whatever god, spirit, or element listened. I was tiring. I’d been soaring through time and space for a long time. My physical body began to crumple and withdraw from life, too long vacant of my spirit.
I looked at the baby again, reminded more strongly of my own little boy. I couldn’t leave my son motherless. But I couldn’t return to my body until the gate was closed and the demon safely locked away.
Use the sword. Find the barrier that Morgaine cast aside. Close the portal. Now, before it is too late.
I couldn’t find the barrier. Nothing resembling a door or a gate or even a large stone lay within my dimming vision. Nothing to block the barrow entrance. Nothing to stop the demon. Only the child’s blanket lay flat on the ground within the opening.
I raised the sword one last time, determined to slay the demon if I could do nothing else to stop it. Point down, both hands on the hilt, I jabbed deep into the heart of the demon. My hands slipped at the last moment. I lost my balance and loosed the blade. It slid under the blanket and threw it over the demon. It screamed.
I grabbed the sword one last time and plunged it through the blanket.
As I plummeted back into my body, I heard the sword of Andraste shatter. A thousand shards of blinding light pierced my mind.
Pain engulfed me.
o0o
Nimuë clamped her hands over her ears. She couldn’t tell which was louder, Morgaine’s inhuman screech or the frantic gibbering of her demon. Both hurt her extended senses.
“Quiet!” she commanded.
Her demon subsided into softer whimpers.
Morgaine continued to shout her frustrations to the four winds. But even the winds calmed, the seas retreated, the rain eased to an annoying drizzle, and the land stopped heaving.
Nimuë breathed deeply as she assessed the damage wrought by the sorceress on the ramparts of Dun Edin. Strangely the landscape returned to its normal flat plain at the base of the upthrusting crag.
The dead remained strewn about the field of battle. She turned a full circle to find the living. Morgaine’s forces huddled at the base of the crag. Ten individuals fell to their knees, crossing themselves repeatedly. They wouldn’t last long in Morgaine’s camp. Arthur and his mounted companions rallied their troops back at their campsite. Some men from both sides escaped. They ran and ran as far and as fast as they could.
“Where is he?” Nimuë asked the demon. She continued to circle, seeking one personality with her magic and mundane senses.
Wh-wh-who? the demon sobbed.
“Merlin, you idiot. He was standing on that knoll and then Morgaine knocked him flat. Now he’s not there.”
I — I think he’s dead.
“He can’t be dead. Wren isn’t here to witness his destruction. I won’t let him be dead!” Nimuë stamped her foot.
You have no control over his life. You never did.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He loves me. He has given me all of his magical knowledge.” She used some of it to narrow her vision to the last place she had seen The Merlin, looking for traces of his aura. Bits of blue light faded before her eyes without trace of which direction he had taken.
You stole the knowledge from him while he slept. He doesn’t realize that his strength and his spells fail because you have bled him dry. And now I fail as well. The demon fell back into his pitiful sobs.
“Nonsense. Our magic is as strong as ever. We have maintained our anonymity here in the army when I am supposed to be back in Camlann.” She doubted anyone in the army camp knew of her presence except Carradoc. She could never hide from her father, even when she wanted to.
Nimuë brushed her shoulder in her usual gesture. The demon did feel smaller, less substantial.
But the portal to the Netherworld is closed. I can’t go back, I can’t come forth into this world. I’ll he this half-formed being for all eternity! The demon’s voice dissolved into wails and screeches. The portal is closed.
“We showed Morgaine how to open the portal once. She can do it again. We’ll help.”
Promise?
“I promise. But first we have to find Merlin. All this time cuddling that disgusting old coot will be wasted if his daughter isn’t here to see his demise.” She cast out her magical senses, seeking the familiar scent of the old man’s magic.
Nothing.
Almost as if he had vanished into thin air.
“Where can he be?”
Morgaine won’t give him up easily.
“Morgaine has him?” Of course. Who else could have whisked him away without a trace? The Merlin certainly didn’t have enough strength left to manage more than the most rudimentary spells.
She won’t give him up. She blames him for all of her troubles. Him and Arthur. She seeks to destroy them both.
Riders thundered up from Arthur’s camp. A burial detail and the chirurgeons followed the armed escort.
Nimuë willed herself to fade into the heather and bracken. Her reddish-brown gown, the same color as her hair, eased the process. Her old black gowns, in stark contrast to her hair, presented a greater challenge to her spell.
“Morgaine will give Merlin to me. We are allies. We have been since I first found you at the standing stone,” Nimuë said when the men had passed her.
They began the grisly work of cleaning up the battlefield. The warriors kept the looters at bay. A few of Morgaine’s men crept out from the protection of the crag to perform the same chores for the men from the Orcades.
The stench of death drove Nimuë back toward her tent at the fringes of Arthur’s camp. The demon reached for the rotten smell, thriving on it. She slapped his pincer away from a staring corpse directly in their path.
The demon wrapped his multiple arms tightly around his shriveled body. She won’t give up Merlin until she finishes killing him. That could take weeks. I need her to open the portal now. I need the portal open! Its pouts sounded strangely like its earlier screeches of distress.
“I’ll find a way to bring you forth later. Right now, I think we need to talk to our ally. And if she won’t give me Merlin, then I’ll destroy her. I know her secrets and how to use them.”
But the portal... She has to reopen the portal first!
o0o
Father Thomas found me huddled in a weeping mass of cold pain at dawn. Dew had settled on my thin white shift. My bare toes ached with chill, feeling as if they would shatter like ice on a pond at the first touch.
I cried as he lifted me. He clucked soothing noises at me and carried me to the caer.
“Send bandages and healing herbs to Dun Edin,” I wailed. “Take your holy water and prayer beads. We must stand against the darkness. All of the gods must stand together against the darkness.”
“Hush, child. Your nightmares have ceased. Dawn lights the sky again. What made you spend the night out alone in only your shift, weaving pagan magic? You’re barely healed from your winter’s ordeal.”
“You don’t understand....”
“I understand more than you think. Now rest quietly for a bit, or you’ll not rise again to fight your demons.”
A guard stood ready to open the gate of the caer for us. Marnia and Hannah brought hot soup and blankets that had been warmed by the fire. I melted into the comfort they all offered, desperately needing to regain my stability, and yet too afraid to spend the time healing when I should be on the road to Dun Edin to begin the next battle against Morgaine.
Strangely, the sun rose in a cloudless blue sky. The same color blue as Da’s eyes. Birds sang a glorious welcome to the new day. The old raven who perched on the well croaked a grumpy greeting to me as we passed him.
Life continued. Demons did not stalk the earth unhindered. Perhaps I had succeeded in closing the gateway to the Underworld. But if Morgaine lived, she would find another way to open the portal. She still had her unnatural son to anchor her power in darkness.
I couldn’t rest until Morgaine was separated from Mordred and the little boy protected from her bitter desire for vengeance. Every time she used Mordred, as she had used him last night, she would tie his soul closer to the demons. The voracious beings of another world hungered for human souls. Their world was so dark they had to blacken our light in order to expand and grow.
All life hungered to grow, in body and spirit.
But demon life quests were mutually exclusive of human life patterns. We couldn’t both survive in the same world. Morgaine’s gateway had to remain closed.
By midmorning I had slept a little and eaten a little more. The day was warm, but I remained chilled. I dressed in my warmest winter gown and prepared to ride.
Arthur’s army hadn’t had time to return to Campboglanna, not as scattered and decimated as I had seen them to be. I would have to join the Ardh Rhi and my father at Dun Edin. Two days’ hard ride if I took the easy route along Hadrian’s Wall to Pons Aelius, the large fort near the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall, then north along the coast to Dun Edin. Due north cross-country was half the distance and an almost impossible ride through some of the wildest country in Britain. That route would take longer, if I survived the steep escarpments, rivers in spate, and bandits.
“You cannot ride that far alone, Lady Wren,” Kalahart held my horse’s bridle, preventing me from riding out the gate.
“Then catch up to me when you can with the pack pony.” I jabbed my heels into the horse’s flanks. The horse reared and pawed the air. I barely stayed mounted. Riding still didn’t come easily to me, but I was almost used to it. I had chosen one of the fractious stallions Carradoc had been training for war. The beast was too young and wild yet for the disciplines of a warrior, but he was fast, with a stone heart that could run for hours without tiring. He’d get me where I needed to be faster than anything else in the stable. If I managed to stay on his back.
“Let her go, son,” Father Thomas said with resignation. “A demon rides her soul. She’ll not be rid of it until she finishes this quest. I’ll pray for you both.”
I didn’t hear the click of the priest’s prayer beads over the pounding hooves of my stallion. I didn’t need to watch to know he fingered the chain of beads uneasily.
Newynog’s daughter galloped at my horse’s heels. My aging companion wouldn’t be able to keep up. She already trained her replacement.
I wondered briefly if Kalahart would indeed follow me. Marnia’s baby wasn’t due for another four months. She’d not likely deliver while he was away. Still, he doted on her, fetched and carried for her, rarely left her side for more than a few moments. They both feared the dangers of another miscarriage.
“If anything happens to Lady Wren, Carradoc will kill me,” Kalahart muttered.
“Her husband’s vengeance will be less terrible than her father’s or the Ardh Rhi’s,” Father Thomas replied. The last thing I heard as I galloped down the terraced road of the caer was the priest saying, “You’d better go after her, son.”