Merlin

TWELVE

So it was that I found myself once more in the saddle – this time on the way to Llyonesse. Before starting out, however, I managed a short stay at Caer Cam to visit my grandfather Elphin. To say they were happy to see me would be to tell a lie through gross understatement. They were ecstatic. Rhonwyn, still as beautiful as ever I remembered her, fussed over me and fed me to bursting – when I was not lifting jars with Elphin and Cuall.

Our talk turned to matters of concern. Here, like everywhere else, men were mindful of Maximus' taking the purple, and his departure to Gaul with the troops. And they had a grim opinion of what that meant.

Cuall summed up their attitude when, after the beer jar had gone round four or five times, he remarked, 'I love die man – I will fight anyone who says different. But,' he leaned forward for emphasis, 'taking almost the whole of the British host is dangerous and foolhardy. He is grasping too high, is Maximus. Aye, but he always was a grasper.'

'Nothing good can come of it,' agreed Turl, CualTs son, who was now one of Elphin's battlechiefs. 'There will be much blood spilled over this, and for what? So Maximus can wear a laurel crown.' He snorted loudly. 'All for a handful of leaves!'

'They came through here OP the way to the docks at Londinium,' explained Elphin. 'The Emperor asked me to join him. He would have made me a governor.' Elphin smiled wistfully, and I saw how much that might have meant to him. 'I could not go -'

'You speak no Latin!' hooted Cuall. 'I can just see you in one of those ridiculous togas – how could you ever abide it?'

'No,' Elphin laughed, 'I could not abide it.'

Rhonwyn hovered near and refilled the jar from a pitcher. 'My husband is too modest. He would make a wonderful governor,' she bent and kissed his head, 'and an even better emperor.'

'At least I would not be tempted to go borrowing trouble beyond these shores. What's wrong with an emperor making his capital right here?' Lord Elphin spread his hands to the land around him. 'Think of it! A British emperor, holding the whole of the island for his capital – now, that would be a force to reckon with!'

'Aye,' agreed Cuall, 'Maximus has made a grave mistake.'

'Then he will pay with his life,' growled Turl. Bone and blood, he was his father's son.

'And we will pay with ours,' said Elphin. 'That is the shame of it. The innocent will pay – our children and grandchildren will pay.'

The talk had turned gloomy, so Rhonwyn sought to lighten it. 'What was it like with the Hill Folk, Myrddin?'

'Do they really eat their children?' asked Turl.

'Do not be daft, boy,' Cuall reprimanded, then added, 'But, I heard they can turn iron into gold.'

'Their goldcraft is remarkable,' I told him. 'But they value their children more than gold, more even than their own lives. Children are truly the only wealth they know.'

Rhonwyn, who had never born a living child, understood how this could be, and agreed readily. 'We had a little Gern that used to come to Diganhwy in the summer to trade for spun wool. She used thin sticks of gold which she broke into pieces for her goods. I have not thought of her in all these years, but I remember her as if it were yesterday. She healed our chieftain's wife of fever and cramps with a bit of bark and mud.'

'They know many secrets,' I said. 'Still, for all that they will not long remain in this world. There is no place for them. Already the tallfolk squeeze them out – taking the good grazing land, pushing them further and further north and west into the rocky wastes.'

'What will happen to them?' wondered Rhonwyn.

I paused, remembering Gern-y-fhain's words, which I spoke: 'There is a land in the west, which Mother made and put aside for her firstborn. Long ago, when men began to wander on the earth, Mother's children were enticed to stray and then forgot the way back to the Fortunate Land. But one day they will remember and they will find their way back.' I ended by saying, 'The Prytani believe that a sign will tell them when it is time to return, and one will arise from among them to lead the way. They believe that day is soon here.'

'The things you say, Myrddin,' remarked Cuall, shaking his grey head slowly. 'It puts me in mind of another young man I used to know.' He reached out a heavy hand and ruffled my hair.

Cuall was no great thinker, but his loyalty, once earned, was stronger than death itself. In older times, a great king might boast a warband numbering six hundred warriors; but give me just twelve like Cuall to ride at my side and I could rule an empire.

'How long can you stay, Myrddin?' asked Elphin.

'Not long,' I answered, and told him of my journey to Llyonesse and Goddeu for Avallach. 'We must leave in a few days' time.'

'Llyonesse,' muttered Turl. 'We have been hearing strange things from that region.' He rolled his eyes significantly.

'What strange things?' I asked.

'Signs and wonders. A great sorceress has taken residence there,' said Turl, looking to the others for confirmation. When it was not forthcoming, he shrugged. 'That is what I hear.'

'You believe too much of what you hear,' his father told him.

'You will stay the night at least,' said Rhonwyn.

'Oh, tonight, and tomorrow night as well – if you can find a place for me.'

'Why, have we no stable? No cow byre?' She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me. 'Of course, I will find a place for you, Myrddin Bach.'

The time passed far too quickly, and soon I was waving my farewell to Caer Cam, with only one regret – aside from not having enough time to spend there. And that was that I had missed seeing Blaise. Elphin told me that, since Hafgan's death, Blaise had been travelling a great deal and was seldom at the caer. He said the druid had told him there was strife within the Brotherhood and that Blaise had his hands full trying to avert bloodshed. Beyond that, Elphin knew no more.

The day after I returned from Caer Cam, we started for Llyonesse. Now I had never been to Belyn's realm in the southern lowlands, and knew little about it other than that it was Belyn's realm and that Maildun, Charis' brother and my uncle, lived there with him. The Llyonesse branch of the Fisher King's family was seldom mentioned; other than Avallach's hint of a longstanding disagreement between them – and that I had only recently found out – I knew nothing at all about what sort of man his brother Belyn might be, or what sort of reception we might expect.

We travelled through country in the first blush of summer, green and promising a good harvest hi time to come. It was a rough country, however, and grazing grass was short, the hills steeper, the soil rocky and thin. It did not boast the luxury of the Summerlands, or of Dyfed.

Thrust out like a ringer into the sea, Llyonesse, with its crooked glens and hidden valleys, was a wholly different realm from the Summerlands or Ynys Avallach. Sea mists might rise at any time of the day or night, the sun might blaze brightly for a moment, only to be veiled and hidden the next. The sea tang on the air made the breeze sharp, and always, always there was the low, murmuring drum of the sea – a sound distant, yet near as the blood-throb in the veins.

In all, I would say the land breathed sorrow. No, that is too strong a word; melancholy, is better. This narrow hump of rock and turf was sinking beneath a dolorous weight, moody and unhappy. The strange hills were sullen, and the valleys sombre.

As we rode along our way, I tried to discern what it was that made the region appear so cheerless. Did the sun not shine as brightly here as elsewhere? Was the sky hereabouts not as blue, the hills less green?

In the end, I decided that places, too, have their own peculiar natures. Like men, a realm can be marked by the same qualities that characterize the soul: amiable, sad, optimistic, despairing… Perhaps over time the land takes on the traits of its masters so that it comes to reflect these traits as impressions to anyone who journeys there. I believe that certain powerful events leave behind their own lingering traces which also colour the land in subtle ways.

This was Llyn Llyonis, now known and feared by many as Llyonesse. I could understand the fear – Llyonesse was not a convivial place. And the sense of brooding sorrow increased the closer we came to Belyn's palace, which was perched on the high cliffs of the land's end, facing west. Like Ynys Avallach, it was a strong place: high-walled, gated, and towered. It was larger, for more of Atlantis' survivors had stayed with Belyn than had gone north with Avallach in those early years.

Belyn received us with restrained courtesy. He was, I think, happy to see us, but wary as well. My first impression of him was of a man given to bitterness and spite; one in whom life has grown cold. Even his embrace was chill – like hugging a snake.

Maildun, my uncle whom I had never met, was no better. In appearance he was very like Avallach and Belyn; the family resemblance was strong. He had the imperious bearing and was a handsome man, but arrogant, moody and intemperate. And, like the land he lived in, possessed of a potent melancholy that hung on him like a cloak.

Nevertheless, Gwendolau and Baram did their utmost to ensure there would be no misunderstanding of their motives. They gave the gifts Avallach had sent with them, carefully explained their reason for coming, and generally behaved as brothers long lost and lamented. They must have sensed the temper of the men with whom they had to deal, for they treated them warmly and, before our stay was over, won Belyn as a friend, if not Maildun as well.

I suppose there were important matters accomplished, but I do not remember them. My attention was otherwise engaged.

From the moment we rode into the foreyard of the palace, my spirit felt a heavy, suffocating oppression. Not fear – not yet; I had not learned to fear it – but the stifling, cloying closeness of a thing wretched and pathetic. I knew that this, and no other reason, was why I had come. And I decided to make it my affair to learn the source of this strange emanation.

I paid the required respects, and then, as unobtrusively as possible, made myself free in Belyn's palace. My first discovery was a young steward, a boy named Pelleas, I had seen lurking about. As he appeared to have no formal duties, I made him my ally and befriended him. He was eager to help me explore the palace, and I was gratified to have such a resourceful guide. Pelleas also knew quite a little about matters of court, and was not shy about revealing what he knew.

'All you see here was built later,' he told me when I asked. 'There is an older stronghold a little way up the coast – not much, mind, just a tower and an enclosure for cattle.'

For two days we had been searching the extensive grounds and buildings of the palace, and had not found what I was looking for. Time was running short; Gwendolau and Belyn were about to conclude their business.

'Take me there,' I said.

'Now?'

'Why not? Does not a steward serve a guest's every need?'

'But -'

'Well, I feel the need to go and see this tower of which you speak.'

We saddled horses and rode out at once, though the sun was already well down on its plunge towards the sea. The sea cliffs of Llyonesse possess a lonely and rugged beauty, looming over relentless waves that hurl themselves ceaselessly against black rock roots, to break and break again in frothy seafoam. On the sea side, what trees dare break soil grow as stunted, mis-shapen things: thin and with twisted branches for ever swept backward by the constant blowing of the sea wind.

The trail to the tower hugged the lea of the hills so that the wind off the sea did not buffet us so badly, but we felt the rhythmic thrumming of the waves resounding through caves deep underground.

The sun was touching the sea, pooling light like molten brass on the far horizon, when we came within sight of the tower. Despite what Pelleas had said, it was no mean thing. Many a British king would have considered himself blessed to own such a stronghold, and would have made it all his world. It was of the same peculiar white stone as Belyn's palace, which in the dying sunglow became the colour of old bone. It was square-built for strength, but tapered from its solid foundations to a series of rounded turrets so that, as we rode towards the scarp of land on which it stood, it looked like a thick neck with a face for each direction.

This, then, was where the last of Atlantis' children made their home on these foreign and forbidding shores. It was here the three crippled ships made landfall, here that Avallach and Belyn settled the remnant of their race before moving on to claim other lands.

Surrounding the fortress was a cattle enclosure of stone on top of an earthen bank, now ruined in many places. Heather flowed about the place like a second sea, inundating the inner grounds and washing right up to the stone tower itself. We tied the horses outside the turf bank and walked in through one of the numerous gaps in the fallen wall into the inner yard.

The tower gave no signs that anyone lived within, but the deepening sense of lethargy, of hopeless woe, gave me to know that I had found the source of the oppression I sought. The tower was inhabited, but by what sort of creature I had yet to discover.

Pelleas called out a timid greeting as we came into the yard. Our shadows leaped across the derelict ground and onto the tinted stone. There was no answer to his call, but neither did we expect one. He pushed open the wooden door and we entered.

Though weak sunlight streamed through the high, narrow windows, the shadows already grew deep in the place. Opposite the entrance sat a huge, cauldron-hung hearth with two chairs nearby. But the hearth was filled with ashes, and the ashes cold.

Wooden stairs leading to the upper chambers stood at the far end of the room. As I started towards the stairs, Pelleas lay hand on my arm and shook his head. 'There is nothing here. Let us go.'

'All will be well,' I told him. My voice sounded thin and unconvincing in the place.

The upper level was honeycombed with small rooms, one leading on to the next. Twice I glimpsed the sea through an open window, and once I saw the trail we had ridden to reach the tower. But one room contained another stairway and this one was stone and led to a single topmost chamber.

I entered the chamber first. Pelleas did not care to have anything to do with this search, and only followed me because he was not willing to stay behind alone.

At first I thought the man in the chair by the window must be dead – perhaps had died this very day, this hour. But his head turned as I crossed the threshold and I saw he had been sleeping. Indeed, he had the look of one who had been asleep for many years.

His white hair hung in wisps, thin as spidersilk; his hands, crossed on his breast, were boney and long, the untrimmed fingernails thick and yellowed. His face was that of one long dead: grey and spotted with blotches that faded into his moth-eaten scalp. The eyes that stared from his head were sunken pits rimmed red and weepy.

In contrast to this wraith's wasted appearance, his robe was rich velvet, embroidered with fantastic symbols and cunning designs in threadwork of gold and silver. Still, it hung on him like the rags of a corpse.

He did not seem at all surprised to see me, and I knew he was not. 'So,' he said after a moment. Just that. I felt Pelleas tug my sleeve.

'I am Merlin,' I said, using the form of my name most common among my mother's people.

He made no sign of recognition, but said, 'Why have you come?'

'To find you.'

'You have found me.' He lowered his hands to his knees, where they lay twitching feebly.

Yes, and having found him I did not know what to say to him.

'What will you now, Merlin?' he asked after a moment. He did not look at me when he spoke. 'Kill me?'

'Kill you! I have not come to harm you in any way.'

'Why not?' the wretched creature snapped. 'Death is all that is left me, and I deserve it.'

'It is not for me to take your life,' I told him.

'No, of course not. You believe in love, do you? You believe in kindness – like that ridiculous Jesu of yours, eh?' The mockery in his words was stinging sharp. As he spoke I did feel foolish for believing in such things. 'Well?'

'Yes, I believe.'

'Then kill me!' he shouted suddenly, his head snapping round. Spittle flecked his lips. 'Kill me now. It would be kindness itself!'

'Perhaps it would,' I allowed. 'But I will not take your life.'

He glared at me with those dead eyes of his. 'How not, if I told you I was responsible for your father's death.' His grisly grin sickened me. 'Yes, I murdered Taliesin. I, Annubi, killed him.'

Even as he said those hideous words, I did not believe him. He hated, yes, but it was not me he hated, nor my father,. If he could have killed, I think he would have killed himself instead, but he could not. This was part of the thing that was poisoning him. Still, he knew… oh yes, he knew who killed Taliesin.

'You are Annubi?'

I had heard of him – not from my mother, but from Avallach, who, in his stories of Lost Atlantis, had told me about his seer. The man I had imagined bore no resemblance to the shrunken wretch before me.

'What do you want here?'

'Nothing.'

'Then why have you come?'

I lifted a hand helplessly. 'I had to come… to find out -'

'Go away from here, boy,' Annubi said, turning his dead eyes away from me. 'If she found you here… ' He sighed, then added in a whisper,'… but it is too late… too late.'

'Who?' I demanded. 'You said "she" – who did you mean?"

'Just go. I can do nothing for you.'

'Who did you mean?'

I saw a flicker of something cross his face – the vestige of an emotion other than hate or despair, but I did not know what it was. 'Need you ask? There is only Morgian… ' When I said nothing, he looked at me. 'The name means nothing to you?'

'Should it?'

'Wise Merlin… Intelligent Merlin… Hawk of Knowledge. Ha! You do not even know who your enemies are.'

'Morgian is my enemy?'

A spasm twisted his mouth. 'Morgian is every man's enemy, boy. Supreme Goddess of the Night, she has the hunger and the hate. Her touch can freeze the blood in your veins; her look can stop your heart beating. Death is her delight… her sole delight.'

'Where is she?' I asked, my voice a whisper in the fading light.

He only wobbled his head. 'If I knew, would I stay here?'

Pelleas, behind me, tugged on my arm. With the setting sun I felt the doom of the place increasing and wanted suddenly to be away. Yet, if there was something I could do I must do it.

'Yes, go,' rasped Annubi, as if reading my thoughts. 'Go and never come back lest you find Morgian here when you return.'

'Do you need anything?' He was so pathetic in his misery, I could not help asking.

'Belyn looks after me.'

I nodded and turned away. I had to run in order to keep up with Pelleas, who led the way back through the tower as though Morgian's breath singed the back of his neck. He reached the front door, still standing open as we had left it, and dashed outside.

I was right behind him. But before leaving that place, I knelt on the threshold and prayed a prayer against evil. Then, taking up a handful of white pebbles from the path, I marked out the sign of the cross before the door. Let it be a warning, I thought. Let her know who it was she had chosen to fight.

Our party left Llyonesse the next day, but the sense of lingering doom stayed with me a very long time. Riding back through that cheerless land was no great help, serving only to reinforce my already doleful mood. Gwendolau and Baram felt it, too, but less keenly. For a time, Gwendolau tried to keep up his usual travel banter, but it became too much and eventually he lapsed into moody silence like the rest of us.

I did not feel myself until the Tor came into view across the marshland. By then, just seeing the Glass Isle was enough to make our hearts leap in wild relief. In any event, my mother was waiting for me at the gate – which I wondered about, until I realized that she had guessed about Morgian and Annubi.

They left here on the night your father was killed,' she told me, her voice soft and low. We were sitting in a corner of the hearth and it was very late at night. Nearly everyone else had gone to their beds. Charis had waited until we were alone to tell me. 'I never found out where they had gone.'

'But you guessed.'

'Llyonesse? Of course it was a possibility.' She made a small, empty gesture. 'I should have told you.'

I remained silent.

'I know I should have told it all long before now… but I could not bring myself to it – and then you were gone. So -' She made that curious gesture again, a small warding off movement of her hand against an unseen adversary. But then she settled herself, straightened her back, and squared her shoulders. 'Well, you must know the truth.

'After my mother was killed in that ghastly ambush -' she broke off, but continued in a moment. 'Forgive me, Merlin, I did not know how hard these words would be.'

'Your mother was killed?'

'That is what started the war between Avallach and Seithe-nin. Well, in the ninth year Avallach was wounded in a battle – I knew nothing about it; at the time I was bull dancing in the High Temple. When I returned home, my father had taken another wife, Lile. She was a young woman who had a knack for healing and she nursed my father. He was grateful to her and married her.'

'Lile? I do not remember her. What became of her?'

'No, you would not remember. She disappeared when you were very young.'

'Disappeared?' That was an odd way to put it. 'What happened to her?'

Charis shook her head slowly, but more from puzzlement than sorrow. 'No one knows. It was only a few months after Taliesin was killed; I had come back here to live. And although Lile and I were not the best of friends, we had learned to respect one another; there was no trouble between us.' Charis smiled, remembering. 'She liked you, Merlin. "How is my little Hawk today?" she always asked when she saw you. She liked holding you, rocking you… ' she shook her head once more. 'I never understood her, Merlin. I never did.'

'What happened?'

'The last time anyone remembers seeing her was in the orchard; Lile loved her apple trees. Many of them she had brought with her from Atlantis – can you believe it? Apple trees… all that way, through so much turmoil. And they live, they thrive here… such a long way from home we all are… ' Charis paused and swallowed, then continued.

'It was dusk. The sun had set. One of the grooms saw her riding out earlier; she told him she was going to the orchard. She spent so much time among her trees. But when she did not come back, Avallach sent men to the orchard. They found her horse tethered to a tree. The animal was half crazed with fear. Its haunches were streaked with blood and there were deep scratches across its shoulders as from a wild beast, although no one had ever seen anything like them before.'

'And Lile?'

'Of Lile there was no sign. She was not found, nor ever seen again from that night.'

'And you never spoke of her after that,' I said.

'No,' my mother admitted, 'we did not. If you ask me why, I cannot teil you. It did not seem appropriate somehow.'

'Perhaps she was carried off by a wolf, or bear,' I suggested, knowing full well that was not the answer.

'Perhaps,' answered Charis, as if considering it for the first time. 'Perhaps by someone or something else.'

'You have not mentioned Morgian,' I reminded her.

'Morgian is Lile and Avallach's daughter. When I returned home to meet Lile, Morgian was already three years old. She was a beautiful little girl. I liked her then. I did not see much of her, however, because preparations for leaving Atlantis took absolutely every moment. And yet, I remember her playing in the gardens… and, even then, with Annubi. She was always with Annubi.'

'She is not with him now.' '

Charis considered this. 'No, I suppose not. Anyway, after the cataclysm we came here and she grew up like any other child. I did not pay much attention to her; she had her interests, I had mine. But she came to dislike me for some reason, and I always felt awkward and ill-at-ease with her. Things were not well between us, and I never understood why.

'Once, after Taliesin's people had come, she tried to steal Taliesin's affection for herself. It was done very clumsily and did not succeed, of course. But it set her against me.' Charis paused, choosing her next words carefully. 'And this is why I believe she caused Taliesin's death. I do not know how it was done, or whether she meant me to die instead, but I have always known she was behind it.'

I nodded. 'You are right, Mother. Annubi told me he was responsible, but he was lying.'

'Annubi?' There was pain and pity in the word.

'I think he hoped to anger me so that I would kill him. He wanted release, but I could not do it.'

'Poor, poor Annubi. Even now I do not have it in me to despise or hate him.'

'Annubi is Morgian's creature now. His misery is complete.'

'He was once my friend, you know. But our world changed and he could not. It is sad.' She raised her eyes from the dying embers on the hearth and smiled weakly. 'Now you know it all, my son.'

She stood and kissed my cheek, resting her hand lightly on my shoulder. 'I am going to my bed. Do not sit up too long.'

She turned to go.

'Mother?' I called after her. Thank you for telling me.' She nodded and moved off, saying, 'It was never meant to be a secret, Hawk.'