Lady of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Awareness of his body returned, but it was at a new level. Gawen found that he could see, for the darkness around him was lit by a radiance that shone from within. He was no longer cold—in another moment, he thought, his inner heat would turn the water to steam. When it touched his lips, he laughed.

  It was at that moment that the level of the water began to sink once more. It did not take long for the well, its inflow blocked and exits freed, to draw in enough for the Druids to release him. Gawen hardly noticed. He was light! That new knowledge was the only thing that he could think of now.

  Below the well a great fire had been kindled; if he had failed, perhaps it would have warmed him. They told him that he must go through it in order to continue, and Gawen laughed once more. He was fire—why should he fear the flame? And, naked as he was, he walked across the coals, and though the heat dried the water from his body, not a single toe of his foot was burned.

  Brannos was waiting for him on the other side.

  “Through fire and water you have passed, two of the elements from which, as we are taught by the ancient men of wisdom, the world is made. There remain earth and air. To complete your testing, you must find your way to the summit of the Tor—if you can….”

  While the old man was speaking, others had brought up earthen pots in which herbs were smoking, and set them around him. Smoke billowed upward, sweet and choking; he recognized the acrid-sweet scent of the herbs they used to bring visions, but he had never encountered it in such concentration. He took an involuntary breath, coughed, and forced himself to breathe again, bracing himself against the wave of vertigo that came with it.

  Accept it, ride it, he reminded himself of old lessons. The smoke could be a great aid in detaching the mind from the body, but without discipline the spirit could be lost in evil dreams. But he, coming to it already filled with sacred fire, needed no help to transcend ordinary awareness. With each breath he felt the smoke pushing him further from ordinary consciousness; he looked at the Druids, and saw them haloed with light.

  “Ascend the holy hill and receive the blessing of the gods….” Brannos’ voice resonated through all the worlds.

  Gawen blinked at the slope above him. That should be easy enough, even when his spirit was flying. In seven years he had climbed the Tor so often, his feet must know the way by now. He took a step and felt his feet sinking into the soil. Another—it was like wading through deep water. He peered ahead of him; what he had thought was firelight on the ground mist seemed now to be a glow that was coming from the earth itself, and the hill had the luminous transparency of Roman glass. The stone that marked the beginning of the path was a pillar of fire.

  It was like the light he had seen coming from his own body—like the auras that he saw surrounding the others. It is not just me! he knew then. Everything is made of Light!

  But the things revealed by that illumination were not the same as they appeared in the light of every day. It was clear now that the labyrinthine path he knew so well led not around the Tor but into it. He felt a moment’s fear—what if his vision deserted him and he found himself trapped beneath the earth? But this new perception was so interesting; he could not resist the desire to learn what lay within the holy hill.

  Gawen took a deep breath, and this time the smoke, instead of disorienting him, only made his vision sharper. The way was clear. He strode boldly forward.

  From the westernmost point of the Tor, the passageway led directly into the hill. He found himself moving in a long curve through some transparent medium that resisted like water and tingled like fire but was neither. It felt, he realized as he rounded the far curve and started back again, as if the substance of his body had become less solid; he flowed, rather than pushed, through the soil, and only his hold on his body of light allowed him to retain his identity.

  Now he was nearing the point of entry, but rather than spiraling around, the way doubled back upon itself. Once more he swung back and around the hill. This curve was longer; he sensed that he was moving away from the center rather than closer to it. But the same compulsion drew him around once more, so close to the surface that he could see the outside world as if through a crystal haze. Around and back again he passed, and now at last the way led straight into the hill.

  He was very deep now. Power throbbed from the heart of the hill so strongly that he could hardly stand. He pushed against the passageway, trying to reach it, and felt the first ecstatic disintegration of his being begin as he touched the barriers. The way is barred, came a voice from deep within; you have not yet completed your transformation.

  Gawen drew back. He could see that the only way out was to go forward, but the pain of moving away from the center was almost more than he could bear. But this turn of labyrinth was more tight than the others, and presently he rounded a sharp curve and staggered as the current of power that flowed through the Tor caught and swept him toward the heart of the hill.

  From somewhere beyond the circles of the world a voice proclaimed, “The Pendragon walks the Dragon Path….”

  It was like sunlight coruscating from the ice-sheathed branches of a winter wood; it was like the blaring of trumpets, a shimmer of notes from all the harps in the world; it was all bliss and all beauty. He was the Head of the Dragon, and he floated at that incandescent point which was the center of the world.

  But, after an eternity beyond time, it seemed to him that someone was calling him by his earthly name.

  “Gawen…” The call was faint with distance, a woman’s voice he ought to know. “Gawen, son of Eilan, return to us! Come forth from the crystal cave!”

  Why should he, he wondered, when here was the end of all desire?

  Could he? he wondered, immersed in this blaze of beauty which had neither beginning nor end.

  But the voice insisted, separating into three voices sometimes, then joining once more in a single cry. He could not ignore it. Images came to him of a beauty which was less perfect but more real. He remembered the taste of an apple, the flex of muscles as he ran, and the simple human sweetness of a girl’s hand touching his own.

  And with that memory came her face. Sianna…

  I must go to her, he thought, reaching out into the radiance. But he could not leave when he could see nowhere to go.

  “This is the test of Air,” came another memory. “You must speak the Word of Power.”

  But they had not told him what that word might be.

  Fragments of old tales shimmered in his awareness—the stories old Brannos had told him, bits of bardic lore. Names were magic, he remembered, but before you could name another, you first must name yourself.

  “I am the son of Eilan, daughter of Bendeigid…” he whispered, and more reluctantly, “I am the son of Gaius Macellius Severus.” There was a sense of anticipation in the presence that surrounded him. “I am a bard and a warrior and a Druid trained in magic. I am a child of the holy isle.” What else could he say? “I am a Briton and I am a Roman, and…” Another memory came to him: “I am the Son of a Hundred Kings….” That seemed to mean something here, for the radiance flickered, and for a moment he glimpsed the way. But still he could not move. He groaned, dredging his mind for another name. Who was he? Who was he here?

  “I am Gawen,” he answered, and then, remembering the force that had swept him inward, “the Pendragon….”

  And with that word, he felt himself lifted, rushed through a tunnel of light by some force beyond comprehension that thrust him to the top of the Tor and flung him, gasping, onto the moist turf inside the circle of stones.

  For several moments, Gawen lay panting. His ears were ringing; only gradually did he become aware that somewhere in the distance birds were beginning the first tentative chirps that would greet the coming day. The grass beneath him was wet. He had fingers…. He clutched at the grass, feeling its strength, drawing in the rich scent of damp earth. He realized with a pang of loss that he was merely human once more.

  There seemed to be a great many pe
ople gathered around him. He pushed himself upright, rubbing his eyes, and found that not everything was back to normal, for, although the sun had not yet risen, everyone he looked at was haloed in light. The greatest radiance came from the three figures before him—three women, robed and veiled with the ornaments of the Goddess on breast and brow.

  “Gawen, son of Eilan, to this sacred circle I have called you….”

  They spoke in unison, and the hair lifted on his neck and arms. He managed to stand up, only momentarily embarrassed to find he was still naked. Before them—before Her—he thought he would have been naked even if he had been wearing clothes.

  “Lady,” he said in a hoarse voice, “I am here.”

  “You have passed the tests the Druids set you, and endured the ordeals. Are you ready to take oath to Me?”

  Gawen managed some sound of assent, and one of the figures moved forward. She seemed taller than the others, and slender, though a moment ago they had all been equal. Above her white veil a garland of hawthorn made for her a starry crown.

  “I am the Maiden, forever Virgin, the holy Bride….” Her voice was soft, sweet.

  Gawen strained to make out the features beneath the veil. Surely this was Sianna, whom he loved, and yet her face and form kept changing, and the love he felt for her was sometimes that of a father, and sometimes a brother’s fierce affection, and sometimes that of the lover he would like to be. Only one thing was clear to him—he had loved this girl many times before, in many ways.

  “I am all beginnings,” she went on. “I am the renewal of the soul. I am Truth, which cannot be soiled or compromised. Will you forever swear to help what is good come to Birth? Gawen, will you swear this to me?”

  He drew in a deep breath of the sweet dawn air. “I swear.”

  She came to him, lifting her veil. It was Sianna he saw as he bent to kiss her lips, Sianna and something more, whose touch was like white fire.

  Then she was moving away from him. Trembling, he straightened as the middle figure came toward him. A wreath of wheat ears crowned her crimson veil. Who, he wondered, had they found to play this role in the ritual? Alone, she seemed in one moment smaller, and in the next gigantic, a massive figure whose throne was the whole world.

  “I am the Mother, forever fertile, Lady of the Land. I am growth and strength, nourishing all that lives. I change, but I never die. Will you serve the cause of Life? Gawen, will you swear to me?”

  Surely he knew that voice! Gawen peered through the veil, and flinched from the flash of dark eyes. But he recognized, with a sense other than sight, the Lady of Faerie, who had rescued him.

  “You are the Door to all I desire,” he said in a low voice. “I do not understand you, but I will serve you.”

  She laughed. “Does the seed understand the power that makes it burst from the darkness into day, or the child the force that thrusts it forth from the safety of the womb? That you should be willing is all I require….”

  She opened her arms, and he stumbled into them. When he knew her as the Lady of Faerie there had always been a distance between them. But in the softness of the breast against which he lay there was a totality of welcome that made him weep. He felt himself a tiny child, cradled in soft arms, soothed by an ancient lullaby. His real mother was holding him. A memory he had repressed since infancy now recalled her white skin and bright hair, and for the first time in his conscious life he knew that she loved him….

  And then he was standing once more, facing the Goddess, and Her third shape moved painfully forward to confront him. Her crown was made of bones.

  “I am the Crone,” she said harshly, “the Ancient One, the Lady of Wisdom. I have seen everything, endured everything, given everything. I am Death, Gawen, without which nothing can be transformed. Will you take oath to me?”

  I know about Death, thought Gawen, remembering the empty, accusing stares of the men he had slain. Death had struck men down as a reaper scythes the harvest that day. What good could come from that? But even as he remembered, the image of sheaves of grain in the cornfields came to mind.

  “If it has some meaning,” he said slowly, “even Death I will serve.”

  “Embrace me…” said the Crone, as he stood staring.

  Nothing in that bent figure attracted him. But he had sworn, and so he forced leaden feet to carry him toward her, to stand as her black veils stole vision, and her bony arms locked around him.

  And then he felt nothing, only floated in a darkness in which, presently, he began to see stars. He stood in the void, and facing him he saw the woman, her veils floating around her, a beauty beyond youth in her eyes. It was Caillean, and it was someone else, whom, in ages past, he had served and loved. Bowing deeply, he saluted her.

  And then, as before, he was himself again, trembling with reaction as he gazed at the priestesses, black and white and red. In the east, the sky was beginning to glow with the first blush of the coming dawn.

  “You have sworn, and your oath has been accepted.” Once more, they spoke in unison. “One thing only remains, to call down the spirit of the Merlin, that he may make you priest and Druid, servant of the Mysteries.”

  Gawen knelt with bowed head as they began to sing, waiting. It was at first a wordless music, note building on note until he felt his flesh tingling with the vibrations of that sound. Then came words, though they were not in any tongue he knew. But the need, the supplication, was clear.

  Wise One, he prayed, come to us, if you will, come through me. For we badly need your wisdom here!

  A choked sound from someone in the circle brought him upright, blinking at the blaze of light. At first he thought that the sun had risen and the Master of Wisdom had not come. But it was not the sun.

  A pillar of radiance shimmered in the center of the circle. Gawen called forth his own light to protect him, and with altered vision saw the Spirit they had summoned, ancient and yet in his prime, leaning on the staff of his office, with the white beard of wisdom spilling across his breast and a circlet set with a shining stone upon his brow.

  “Master, he has sworn,” cried Brannos. “Will you not accept him?”

  The Merlin looked around the circle. “Accept him I shall, but it is not yet time for me to come among you.” His gaze came back to Gawen, and he smiled. “You have sworn, and taken the priesthood upon you, and yet you are no mage. In the crystal cave you Named yourself. Say, then, my son, by what Words you were freed?”

  Gawen stared at him. He had always been told that what happened at such moments must be forever a secret between a man and his gods. But as he remembered what he had said, he began to see why these names, unlike all others, must be proclaimed.

  “I am the Pendragon…” he whispered. “I am the Son of a Hundred Kings….”

  A murmur of wonder rippled around the circle. The air grew brighter. The eastern sky was ablaze with golden banners and sunfire rimmed the hills. But that was not what they were looking at. Gawen felt upon his brow the shining weight of a golden diadem, and saw his body enveloped in a royal robe, embroidered and gemmed as no artist now living in the world could do.

  “Pendragon! Pendragon!” the Druids cried, giving him the title of the Sacred King, who rules by the spirit, not the sword, the living link between the people and the land in which they dwell.

  Gawen lifted his arms in acceptance and in salutation, and the sun rose before him, and glory filled the world.

  Chapter Seven

  The dragons tattooed on Gawen’s fore- arms prickled in the warmth of the afternoon sun. He looked down at them with the wonder that had not left him since the Merlin appeared. The sinuous serpentine lines curved across the hard muscle and back again. They had been pricked into his skin by thorns and stained blue with woad by an old man of the little dark folk of the marshes. Gawen had still been half tranced when the work was begun, and when he started to feel the pain he pushed awareness away again. The tattooing had smarted at first, but now only an occasional prickle reminded him of it.
/>   They had told him to rest, but to lie on a bed of sheepskins, bathed and dressed in a tunic of embroidered linen, seemed scarcely more real than the ordeal he had endured. Gawen could not deny what had happened to him, but he did not begin to understand it. The Druids called him Pendragon, hailing him as a priest-king, like those who had ruled in the lands now drowned beneath the sea. But it seemed to him that the Vale of Avalon was a very small kingdom. Was he, like the Christos whom Father Joseph had called a king, to have a kingdom which was not of this world?

  Perhaps, he thought as he sipped watered wine from the goblet they had set by his side, when this night was over he and Sianna would reign as king and queen in Faerie. The thought made his heart pound. He had not seen her since the ritual in the dawning. But tonight she would dance around the Beltane fire. And as a king he would walk among the revelers, with the power to choose any woman who might catch his eye. He knew already which one he wanted. Despite his time in the Army, since first he had seen Sianna there had never been any other girl he would have chosen for his first experience of a woman’s love.

  He found himself growing ready even thinking about it. If things had gone according to plan, they would have come together a year ago, but he had deserted her. Had she waited? He had dreamed that she had, but he knew the pressures upon the priestesses to participate in the rites, and had not dared to ask. It did not matter. In spirit she was his. From across the waters of the marshes drifted a faint tremor of drums. Gawen felt his heart beating with them, and smiled even as his eyelids closed once more. Soon, it would be soon.