by J A Cummings
“The figure in the cloak was taller than any man has ever been, a giant, and he reeked of the grave. Behind him, in the flickering torch light, I could see an endless line of men. But they were not men.”
He hesitated, and the youth could not endure the wait. “What were they?”
Bedivere held up his hands and covered his face, peering out between his fingers. “They were the shambling shades of a thousand corpses, all of them bloody and torn with the wounds that had sent them to the grave. They were the ones moaning. They were moaning and lamenting as they dragged along behind the figure, and suddenly I knew who he was.”
“Who was he?”
“It could have been nobody but Gwyn ap Nudd, also called Arawn, the god of the Underworld. He was gathering up that year’s crop of souls and dragging them home with him by a chain. All around them, driving those souls onward, were his terrible hounds, the Cwn Annwn, with their blazing eyes and their terrible baying, nipping at the heels of the poor lamenting dead. And I knew as surely as I know that you are sitting here that if he saw me, my blood would curdle in my veins, and my living flesh would wither and crumble, and I too would be dragged into that sorry cavalcade.”
Kay shivered. “What did you do?”
Bedivere sat again. “I did what any sensible man would do. I hid behind the tree, pulled my cloak over my head, and waited for them to pass me by.” He took a drink from his mug. “When the god reached the tree where I was hiding, I heard him stop and sniff the air, like a bloodhound.” For effect, he lunged at Kay and sniffed loudly at his ear. The young man recoiled. “I was frozen with fear. And then I heard a voice.”
“What voice was that?” Brastias asked, interested in spite of himself.
“It was the voice of that dreadful god. He said, ‘Bedivere Bedrydant! I know your scent!’”
“What did you do?” Kay cried.
“What could I do? I was too terrified to think. I was so terrified, in fact, that I began to tremble, and I made the bushes around me shake. ‘Bedivere Bedrydant!’ he said again. ‘Bedivere Bedrydant! Come out!’”
He paused for effect, knowing that he had his audience clinging to his every word. “Well, I did the only thing I could think of to do.”
“What’s that?” Ector asked.
He straightened. “I stepped out from behind the tree, and I faced that terrifying specter. I looked into the empty sockets of his eyes, and I raised my shield, and I said, ‘Here I am! And I will fight you to stay here in the land of the living.’”
“How were you not killed by his gaze?” Kay asked.
“That’s what the shield was for, you see. It reflected his gaze back at him.” He nodded. “And Gwyn ap Nudd’s horrible gaze fell upon that shield, and the power in that gaze reflected back at him, and wouldn’t you know? He turned himself into a withering husk and blew away, and all his captives with him! Ha!”
Kay sat back, aghast. “You’re a bloody liar!”
Bedivere laughed heartily, taking no offense. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see it.” He reached into his pocket. “But here I have a souvenir of that day.” He produced a gold chain. Hanging from it was a blackened acorn, pierced to let the chain pass through it. “This acorn was beneath the feet of Gwyn ap Nudd when he turned himself to ashes, and it took on a little of his power. Now it’s enchanted.”
It was Ector’s turn to look askance at the storyteller. “Enchanted? Really?”
“Really. Merlin himself said that the acorn will prevent supernatural creatures from seeing me if I wish to be invisible to them, and that I can use it three times to kill an enemy with a single thought. After the third enemy dies, the acorn will turn to dust and blow away, and then the god will come looking for me.”
“Merlin said that?” Kay repeated, awestruck.
“He did. And so I keep it with me, and it keeps me safe from the fey, and if I need it, I can slay an enemy with its magic, if my force of arms is not enough.” He put the acorn away again. “Of course, I have never had the need to use it.”
The young knight-to-be shook his head. “Amazing.”
“Yes,” Bedivere smiled. “It is.”
Brastias snorted into his mug. “What a fool.”
Amren had nearly filled his creel with fish for the evening’s meal. He was enjoying the softness of the wind, the infinite sounds of the wood, and the way the sunlight sparkled on the tiny wavelets of the lake. His happiest times were spent this way, alone with the world, a single soul in the embrace of the Mother.
His father had tried to raise him to the new religion, even though Bedivere’s own faith shifted like the wind. The Romans had been in power, and the Romans had carried the cross, so Bedivere had found it politically expedient to have a Christian son. His mother, though, had carried on the old ways, true to her native gods and goddesses, and he had learned their stories at her feet. His spirit responded to her tales more than it ever had to the careful catechism of his father’s priests. Not even her abrupt death one dark night filled with anger and violence had changed his mind.
He kept his thoughts his own. Bedivere didn’t need to know what he thought about religion, no more than he needed to know Amren’s feelings about the many sins that lay heaped around them in Viroconium. If he never saw that place again, he would die happy. Too many ghosts. Too many shadows.
A cloud of dragonflies erupted at the lake shore only a few feet away, and a figure seemed to take shape in midair, created by the flashes of sunlight off their gossamer wings. When the colors and the dazzle fell away, he saw a strange young man standing in the reeds, his hands gently stroking the long, tapered leaves. Amren felt his mouth fall open, and he stared.
The young man approached, and Amren could see that he was dressed in a black tunic and breeches, a boiled leather cuirass strapped over his torso. He wore a sword at his hip, and a dagger on the other thigh, but they seemed superfluous to the power that hovered around the newcomer like a cloud. Amren rose, his gaze never breaking from where it was pinned to this strange new arrival. He felt he should have known him, but something about his face prevented recognition.
“You have a bite,” the young man said, his pink lips curving upward at the edges. He flicked a finger, and Amren’s string jerked. The fish that clung to the hook at the end soared up out of the water and landed on the grass beside the creel, flopping.
Amren found his wits again and caught his prey, liberating the hook from its lip and locking it up inside the damp wicker basket. He tied the lid closed, and when he looked up, the stranger was standing over him.
“Who are you?” he asked, his mouth running dry with fear. His left hand slipped toward the blade he kept at his belt.
“I am a friend,” the visitor replied. “They call me Myrddin.”
His left hand went from feeling for his weapon to reaching out to steady him against the nearest tree. Dizziness washed over him, unexpected and sudden. “Myrddin,” he repeated.
“Yes.” He smiled and looked out over the water. “Did Arthur not tell you that he has been meeting with me in these woods every day?”
Amren felt surprised and somewhat betrayed. “No,” he admitted.
“Good. I told him not to.” Myrddin smiled at the boy, his teeth very white and very even. “You have no need to fear me, Amren, son of Bedivere.”
He wasn’t so certain. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk about Arthur.” Myrddin crouched on the lake’s edge and dabbled his fingertips into the water. Minnows swam to him, their open mouths nibbling at his skin. He smiled at them, exuding an air of harmlessness. That air made Amren distrust him even more.
“What about him?”
“Times are changing. He will soon be thrust into a position and into a place where you cannot follow.” He looked at him, and his eyes were blue, but with fire at their center. Amren recoiled. He had seen those eyes before. “You see, he will need to take a wife, and he will need to have an heir someday, and for as long as he has you, t
his is something he will never do. Do you understand me?”
Amren backed away. “What are you talking about? Arthur’s just a squire. He’s not even of noble birth. Why would he need an heir?”
“You do not need to understand what I say. You only need to believe it. When the time comes for him to take a wife, will you leave him?”
“I will never leave Arthur.”
Myrddin rose and walked closer, slowly, his eyes never leaving Amren’s, the fire in those eyes holding the boy fast. “Not even if that is the only way for him to gain his birthright? Not even then?”
The boy felt his heart begin to pound, and he reached again for the knife at his belt. Myrddin held out his hand, and the weapon abandoned him completely, flying free until it was firmly in the strange young man’s grasp. Amren stumbled backward.
“What is his birthright?”
“It is something that he cannot gain with you beside him. I am offering you assistance, Amren. I will help you find a new life somewhere else, anywhere you’d like, as long as it is far from here. But you can never see Arthur again.”
Amren backed up another step. “You can’t make me leave him. I won’t leave him. I love him.” He nearly tripped, caught himself, and retreated further. “What are you talking about? What is he meant to be?”
Myrddin took a deep breath. “What he is and isn’t will be of no concern to you in a very short while,” he promised. “And what he is to be must not be interrupted by interference from beings of no consequence like you.”
The boy’s retreat was ended when he backed into the bole of a tree. He gripped the bark, holding on in near panic as Myrddin came closer. Soon he was standing toe to toe with the frightened boy, that little smile still on his face.
“You must understand,” the man said softly. “This isn’t personal. Think of it as a worthy sacrifice instead. He must be what he is meant to be, and his grief for you will spur him to be the man he must become.”
“I know you! You are Merlin.”
“By any name, my mission is the same.”
Amren said one last word. “Monster!”
There was no more time for talking. Merlin grasped his face between his hands, his fingers spread wide and tangled in Amren’s brown hair. He pressed against his skull with steady force, and the boy’s jaw sprang open as if of its own accord. A gurgling cry began in Amren’s throat, and Merlin hissed words of dark magic into his open mouth. A twisting white light roiled forth, the life force and energy of Amren’s soul, crossing through the open air between his mouth and Merlin’s. With a final anguished cry, Amren lost the fight, and the last thread connecting his spirit to his body snapped.
The druid breathed deeply, taking in the dislodged spirit and draining the life from the boy between his hands. Merlin dropped Amren’s body to the ground as he consumed the last of his soul. His cheeks were flushed with stolen life, and his eyes glowed with it, illuminating the undersides of the leaves on the tree. He turned the boy’s corpse face down with a nudge of his foot, and out of a pocket he drew a dagger. The wooden hilt was clearly etched with the blazon of Prince Pryderi. He drove the dagger into the boy’s heart from behind, nearly pinning his body to the ground.
“Rest then, Amren, and never rise. You have played your little part.”
Satisfied with his work, he vanished into the mist once more.
Arthur returned to the keep with his coneys, hoping that his tardiness was not too great. The afternoon shadows were lengthening across the bailey as he made his way to the kitchen, his steps light and quick. The cook, Mairwen, met him at the door with a clucking tongue.
“At last! You boys spent all day out in the wood. Where is Amren with those fish?”
He frowned. “He hasn’t returned yet?”
“No, not yet.” She put a pitcher full of wine into his heads. “No time to talk. Go and serve this to your father’s guests.”
“In the hall?”
She put her hands on her ample hips. “Where else?”
He left the rabbits with her and hastened into the hall. He could hear men laughing, and he smiled in response as he entered the room. Sir Bedivere was wiping tears of mirth from his eyes when Arthur came in, and he greeted him warmly.
“There he is! Welcome, young Arthur.”
Sir Brastias moved aside on the bench so make room for him to sit. Bedivere said, “You’ve grown tall since last I saw you!” He clapped the youth on the shoulder. “You must be fourteen now? Fifteen?”
“Fifteen, sir,” he answered politely.
Brastias nodded. “Almost ready to become a knight, yourself.”
“Not before he squires,” Ector said. “Kay has served as a squire to me, and now he’s ready to take the next step. Arthur will be Kay’s squire.”
“Where is Amren?” Bedivere asked. “I am eager to see my son.”
Arthur shrugged. “I thought he would be here already. He went to the lake to catch fish for dinner while I went to the wood to hunt.”
“And what did you catch for us?” his foster father asked.
“I found some nice, fat rabbits.”
“Ah! Excellent. Rabbit stew on the menu, boys.”
Kay mused, “The fish stop biting in mid-morning. Unless he fell asleep on the bank, he should have been back by now.”
“Amren loves the wood,” Bedivere said. “He probably is just taking his time getting back, poking at leaves and such.”
Arthur frowned. “He wouldn’t take so long, not with fish in his basket. He wouldn’t have wanted them to go bad before he got them home.” He looked at the men. “I’m going to go look for him.”
“As you will,” Ector shrugged.
Bedivere’s expression turned serious. “Be careful. There are many warbands these days, and their scouts may be on the move.”
“Warbands?” Arthur echoed.
The knight nodded. “Yes. The people are growing restless without a king, and there are men out there who are looking to gather in his abandoned power for themselves. The warlords are gathering their forces and starting to contest with one another. We are headed for dark times.”
“Damned shame,” Brastias opined. “Pendragon was able to keep all of these petty kings in line. Now they have nobody to fear.”
If they hurt Amren, they will fear me, Arthur thought grimly. He rose. “I’ll be back soon, Father.”
Ector considered for a moment, then said, “Kay, go with him, just in case. I don’t know if any of these warbands are close enough to be poking around on my land, but if they are, I don’t want them to think that Arthur is theirs to take.”
His son blinked. “To take?”
“He wouldn’t be the first boy pressed into service as a slave. Every army needs porters and someone to dig their latrines, after all.”
“Pryderi is out there, not far away,” Bedivere advised. “I saw his scouts on the other side of Lake Bala. I doubt if they have come this far, but when I saw them, they challenged me on the road. I was riding alone and coming here for happy times, weighed down by that boar I brought to you. There were six of them, so I did not accept their invitation to a fight.”
Arthur felt sour. He remembered Bedivere’s willingness to accommodate Catigern, and his heart hardened toward the man. Coward.
“Six against one is hard odds,” Ector said, reading his foster son’s face and knowing full well what he was thinking. “I doubt anyone would have taken that invitation on their own.”
“Pryderi is no simple raider,” Brastias said, “and his men are chosen for their strength. If he is coming, Ector, then you had better prepare to defend this keep if you don’t want to swear your oath to him.”
“My oath was sworn to Uther Pendragon, and I will not re-swear until there is a new High King on the throne.”
“Pryderi may well make you swear.”
“He may try.”
Arthur looked at the men, all three of whom were still sitting on their benches, and he felt a creeping disgust at the
ir inaction. “I’ll be back,” he said, his voice low, “and I will bring Amren back with me, and all of his fish. There’s no need for Kay to come.”
His brother was disinclined to leave the companionship of their worthy guests, and he looked to Ector. “He’s just going out to the lake, Father. It’s less than a mile. Surely he’s too old to need a minder.”
Their father stroked his chin with his one good hand. “How close was Pryderi, you say?”
“Close enough,” Bedivere replied.
“I wouldn’t go out alone.” Brastias looked into his mug. “Especially not as a boy.”
“There’s a boy out there alone right now,” Arthur snapped, his vehemence surprising everyone, not least himself. “If it’s as dangerous as you say, he should be sought for. I don’t care if anyone else comes or not. I’m going.”
Bedivere rose. “I will come. It will be good to see him again.”
“Kay,” Ector said, his eyes on Arthur’s face. “Go.”
He was the very picture of reluctance. “Yes, sir.” He left his mug behind for Aithne to refill, straightened his tunic, and rose.
Arthur did not choose to wait. He turned on his heel and left, Bedivere and Kay following after him. His senses were beginning to tighten, and he went back outside the keep without giving them the chance to catch up. Something was beginning to feel very wrong.
They made their way to the lakeshore, none of them speaking. Arthur led the group, striding quickly through the brush while Bedivere and Kay brought up the rear. There was a strange silence in the trees, as if they were watching and holding their breath. He had never felt such an ominous sensation. His palms were sweating, and he could hear his pulse in his ears. He was afraid.
He reached the lake and immediately saw Amren’s creel and pole, haphazardly abandoned in the mud. Bedivere saw it, too, and stopped cold. Kay went to the creel and looked inside.
