The Mammoth Book of Merlin

by Mike Ashley

  The palace surrounded the Mother Throne, before which Ganicenda placed a Globe of Life that was Merlin’s footstool. And because her feet went down to Sheol, she caused to be raised from out of the earth a circle of seven pillars and laid upon them a massive, circular stone, whereon grew a shining bush hung about with hazels.

  To the eye that looks but does not see, there was no castle, but a mountain that had not been there beforetimes, or an impenetrable mist into which few ventured and fewer returned with mind intact. To anyone of true vision, there it plainly stood, a gargantuan log castle with one hundred doors that opened into Everywhere, yet without windows.

  Ganicenda gave no windows to the palace because Death enters through windows. By her trick of architecture, she caused Merlin to be immortal.

  Soon thereafter Merlin sat in languid pose, his feet upon the globe, saying to himself, “Mine is the fairest tower in the world!” He leaned back and gazed upward through the smoke-hole in the roof, through which he read the stars. And the stars whispered to him, “Mightiness, mightiness, mightiness,” but he was not even then fully enlightened, and pondered careless interpretations by means of wild surmise.

  Now Merlin of the Wood was very black, even as Nimuë of the Lake was black but comely. And Nimuë said to him, “Sylvester, Sylvester, come into my rose-petaled bower.” Merlin set down his ghastly, enormous axe that was stained with sap and blood; and he removed from himself the visage of a greybeard and cast aside his ragged garment made from skins of wolves. He revealed himself youthful, hairless, and dark as a sapphire lit by starlight from within, a beautiful giant with strength in all his limbs, including that which extended mightily from the center. Nimuë said, “Sylvester, Sylvester, lay your body on this bed of moss and flowers, your head upon my myrrh-scented pillow.”

  As he lay upon her, she wrapped him in her thousand arms, her thousand legs, that were a radiating energy. He became the axle through the center of the universe. And from their glad repose, Nimuë taught the tawny Merlin all things, yea, the things of All.

  She invested him with such an energetic wisdom that when they quit the bed of rose and myrrh, he said, in a voice that caressed, “You are the dancer between two armies. One of your armies is terrifying for its protective righteousness, and the other is terrifying for its unforgiving judgement. Will you continue, O Nimuë, to fill me with the Light of your Instruction, or will you in the end set upon me corrupt minions from underneath the Earth?”

  As Merlin spoke, the blackness of the Lady became pale as bone, then paler, until she rushed away from him, having become a sinuous, serpentine river that flowed from out of his hands, leaving him bereft of all but her scent of myrrh, and rose, and hazel.

  Then was his love for Nimuë like wormwood in his mouth. “I must rule the whole of the world to impress Nimuë the Daughter of Eve,” said Merlin. “I will perform deeds no Son of Adam hath dared before this time.”

  He repaired to his log castle that had no windows, but only an opening in the roof, through which he read the stars. He saw therein that which he believed his need required, and he said, “I will upraise a barbaric bastard to be king. And through him will I hold planets in the cup of my hand, and be to Arthur like God.”

  So saying, he stood abruptly, filled with false insight. The Mother Throne sank into the Earth; the glimmering sheet of water dissipated into mist; the wall of glittering fire became a pillar of smoke that rose through the star-hole of his log castle’s roof and was no more. Sylvester tore the burning thistle from off the vast stone table, and set it behind him on the ground, where it rooted itself in the place where the Throne had been, and lost its glow. Then lifting the round tabletop from off the circle of stones, he rolled it through an open door, and followed after it, vanishing forever from the forest and the sylvan glade.

  Then did the River that was Nimuë became salty as from tears.

  In the depths of her lake, Nimuë possessed a crystalline palace, wherein doves with jewel eyes and rose-tint feathers sang and fluttered from room to room. To the random observer on barge or bank, the castle appeared to be only an enormous grey stone. But for the visionary, the castle possessed a clarity of structure that rendered it invisible, so that all within the stone was seen: Nimuë, Queen of Depths, in the guise of Rahab the Dragon, upon her garnet throne; with birds of fire going in and out of her stormy mouth.

  She pondered the treachery of the Sylvan Merlin who had turned away from a perfect, loving togetherness in favor of the world of materiality, misusing spiritual powers possessed through her. Nimuë’s gift was meant for purposes nobler than power to govern, to conquer, to amass great wealth and fame. Merlin had become a treasonous lover, an abuser of Truth, and Truth abused rises up like a lioness enraged, a cobra no longer charmed, the Dragon-mother leaping from her depths to engulf the earth with boiling floods.

  Well she knew that it was not truly Sylvester who set out to upraise the barbaric Arthur. Rather, it was Ambrosius, whom Sylvester, as shapeshifter, so easily became. A true shapeshifter cannot change that which is material in his nature without changing that which is spiritual. Hence Ambrosius, contrary to Sylvester, knew not Nimuë, so was unaware by what means he misguidedly betrayed her. He did not know who or what it was that tugged at mind and heart with vague, uneasy promises of redemptive unifaction, versus threats of destruction and everlasting regret. He mistook this aching, invisible thing that pulled at him as Destiny, and could not imagine he might ever be deprived of godlike power. Poor Ambrosius! Pitiable wizard that was meant to be the living soul of nature!

  With every Good that Lilith undertakes, there is a shadow underneath; and for every Evil to which Lilith aspires, a bright truth arises from it.

  The two natures of Lilith, that dwelt harmoniously within Nimuë, sought foremost to assist her errant lover, so that Arthur might be illuminated in accordance with Merlin’s desire. But this achievement was to be Merlin’s greatest failure and undoing, for She simultaneously sought an unrestrained vengeance for Merlin’s faithlessness.

  Thus pondering in the watery void, Nimuë struck upon a labyrinthine plan, and called forth from her womb a boychild fair and innocent, whom she named Lleminawac, “Whose Hand is Purity.” She reared the pale lad to young manliness in a twinkling, though it seemed to him like many years, and this occurred in a chamber of light beneath Loch Corrib. At length she sent him forth in a bewildered state, under numerous compulsions, and he was afterwards called Lancelot of the Lake.

  Then she rode forth on a dappled mare, whose form was like smoke, with a small white hound scenting the way through darkness, and thirty long, sleek, black bitches swift upon the mare’s heals. And she came in cloudy moonlight to a menhir in a glade, breathing her Breath of Life upon it as she said, “Come forth, Baal Zephon. Come forth from your eons of slumber, bringing with you all that you have learned from the Lord of Death!”

  White eyes opened in the stone’s grey surface. Moments after he was called forth, there stood a rustic knight, Sir Balin the Savage, He of the Dolorous Stroke, predestined destroyer of Castle Sangrail upon the Glassy Isle.

  The white-eyed giant knelt before the Lady of the Lake. She kissed him at the left side of his throat, leaving her mark upon him. Then he strode away toward Camelot, his cloudy mind roiling like a nimbus.

  And Nimuë called forth a thoughtful and fearless knight whose name was Pellinore.

  He wandered idly through Cornwall and Wales until he came to the lake’s shore. He did not suspect he was beckoned, but thought only, “I have found a holy place.” He stood leaning upon a spear’s haft, the blade of which was a long as a sword, and double-edged.

  He sighed in appreciation of the wildness and startling beauty of the lake. His seeker’s heart noted first the enormous stone beneath the lake. As his observance grew deeper, the stone became translucent, then transparent to the point of invisibility, so that he saw miraculous subaquatic doves flitting within crystal chambers.

  At the heart of the mystic c
astle, coiled upon a carnelian throne, he saw Nimuë in the form of the Echidna, such as was a dragon from the waist down, and a woman of grave and terrible beauty from the waist up.

  As Nimuë uncoiled herself from the throne, her tail split in two, so that she slithered weirdly upon serpentine legs around and around a spiral of crystal stairs, her upper body writhing like a black flame. The water fell away from her, so that she came upon the surface of the lake, a monstrous giantess dwarfing the tall quester.

  She roared and bared two long fangs that dripped venom, dashing her head toward Pellinore as though to devour him in one bite. He raised his long-bladed spear and scuttled backward, sorely confused by the vision shifting and wavering before him; for now he perceived an obscene reptilian head turn to mark him with one dark eye. That eye glimmered as with starlight reflected in a deep well. It observed him evilly, swaying back and forth, seeking a means to strike around Pellinore’s steady spear.

  In that self-same moment Sir Pellinore saw, however briefly, all things from the Beginning of Time, unto the Dissolution, and knew not merely his own destiny, but that of the Universe entire; for Time was a serpent coiled twice upon itself, and Time’s name was Nimuë.

  No sooner was this known to him than his mind clamped shut over a multitude of scenes, lest a premature enlightenment destroy him as with fire. He was left with only his sense of awe for the creature that swayed before him.

  A tongue like a two-tined fork licked forth. Pellinore gasped in horror of that tongue, each part long enough to wrap about him twice. His two-edged spear-blade batted the tongue with eager self-defense. As the blade swung left then right, he was bathed in blood from the gaping mouth. The fangs fell loose in the form of finely scabbarded swords whirling away through air. The twin swords splashed into the midst of the lake; and one was destined for the hand of Arthur, the other for his twin sister, called Cybele, the Morrigu, or Morgan le Faye.

  The dragon dwindled until black Nimuë clad in white stood at the lakeside. Her abandoned serpent’s skin sank into the watery void; and that skin was Morgan who hid herself in an aquatic forest with one sword in her left hand, one sword in her right, waiting, waiting.

  Having been doused with dragon’s blood, Pellinore found that his skin acquired a ruddy glow. Bewildered more and more, he threw aside his weapon in horror of his actions, for he saw in Nimuë’s apparition something of Stella Meris, Mother of Stars and Sea, known anciently as Ashtaroth, and afterward as Mary.

  Pellinore fell to his knees, whispering, “Forgive me, My Lady. I did not know that it was You.”

  Nimuë took him by his shoulders to raise him from his knees; and still she was taller than he. She bent to his throat, to the right side, and there kissed him, leaving a pale white mark. Pellinore shivered and sighed as he slipped from her embrace, falling weakly to his hands, his brow damp and his golden locks dangling from his head hung low.

  Nimuë said, “From this time on, you are my champion, and may never come to harm, for you are sheathed in the blood of Rahab the Dragon-mother. There are numerous compulsions upon you, that over time, one by one, you shall feel unfold. Go forth and do slaughter for My sake, but remember this, there is one you may not slaughter, whose name is Artos of Camelot.”

  He bowed his head once more in deep devotion. When he lifted his gaze, the moonlit lake was no more, nor yet the sylvan watershed. Rather, he found that he had pitched a pavilion at the ford of a brackish river that wound its way near Camelot.

  * * *

  All who tried to cross, Sir Pellinore challenged. He spared nothing of mercy, but seemed to despise all who sought the court of Arthur and his mage, Ambrosius.

  A chieftain of a far country came with his squire, and saw Pellinore standing utterly naked on the bank of the ford. The wandering chieftain said, “I seek the Court of the Matchless King, to serve who rules there. I have no time to joust with madmen without armor.”

  Pellinore whirled his spear three times about his head, declaiming fiercely, “There are madmen ringed everywhere about the Court you seek. No one may see to the heart of the world who cannot first defeat madness.”

  The spear of the wandering chieftain broke against the ruddy chest of the naked challenger, whereas the chieftain was run through the heart, lifted into the air like a bloody flag, and tossed away as would be a worthless tattered rag. The body was carried away face down in the river, blood tinting the water all about.

  The dead knight’s tearful squire ran forth with shortsword upraised; and, sobbing like an orphaned child, he strove to avenge his master. Pellinore swung once and disarmed the lad. He swung a second time, and tore open his arm. Now the young squire stopped weeping, and stood ready to be slain, his chin held in defiance.

  “What is your name,” asked Pellinore.

  “Girflet,” he replied.

  “I will not slay you, Girflet, for you are but a child. I will let you pass, so that Arthur and his mage may learn why it has been that none have come to him by this road for many a day.”

  Girflet led a horse across the ford, then mounted unsteadily to gallop away.

  A champion, mighty of appearance, rode out of Camelot, his lance longer than Pellinore’s spear. And he said to the demonic guardian of the ford, “You have done harm to many that I love. Therefore have I come to sweep you from your camp by the river.”

  “Know you this,” said Pellinore haughtily, astride a red roan mare. “I and this spear are baptized in dragon’s blood, and may never come to harm in this world.”

  “And you know this,” was his reply. “Within me runs the very blood of dragons!”

  He dashed forth upon a stallion. Pellinore met him halfway in the river. The long lance splintered upon Pellinore’s naked chest and he was not unseated from his roan. The court’s champion, winded by a blow, plunged backward into the river, his armor so heavy he could not rise easily, but might have drowned had not Pellinore gotten down from his steed and lifted the champion’s head from out of the water. Pellinore raised the visor of his fallen foe, and drew forth a dagger with which to give a coup de grace.

  Swift astride a coal-black mare rode a greybeard in mage’s robes, whom Pellinore knew to be Ambrosius. From some distance closing fast, the sorcerer began shouting baleful spells that fell impotently from the ruddy skin of Pellinore. The spells in no way restrained hand or dagger, poised above an opened visor.

  Addressing his fallen opponent, Pellinore said, “Before I’ve killed you, tell me who I slay, that I may pray for the easeful repose of thy spirit.”

  “I am Arthur Pendragon,” said the champion, causing Pellinore to sheathe his knife. With deep chagrin he drew the fallen king to the bank of the river.

  Merlin sat by the sickbed of Arthur, whose ribs were crushed. Pellinore was there as well, for Arthur, before he fell to raving, granted a king’s absolution, and invited the ruddy knight into the privileged circle.

  Now Pellinore coursed about the room, filled with self-recrimination. Seeing Merlin Ambrosius so uncertain in the face of Death, Pellinore decided upon an action. He leaned close to the sweating face and matted hair of Arthur to whisper, “Your spirit must seek Nimuë, My Lady of the Lake.” Instantly the body of the injured king grew calm, as his spirit fled away from Camelot by some method Pellinore half-wittingly induced.

  “Leave this room at once!” cried Merlin, who left off his murmured spells upon hearing the name of Nimuë, though he knew not why her name roused him to such a passion.

  Pellinore bowed before leaving, turning in the doorway to see that Merlin strove ineffectually to rouse Arthur.

  It seemed to Arthur as though he came to a beautiful glade under clouded moonlight. From out of a weird dark lake arose a pale arm which upheld the sword Caliburnus. Arthur waded into the waters and took the strange blade from the shy nymph.

  He knew that he was dreaming, yet it was not wholly a dream, and he heard himself asking, as from a far place, “Art thou the Lady of the Lake that hath handed me this sword?”<
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  “No,” replied a voice behind him. “She is not; but I am Nimuë.”

  The naiad’s arm withdrew below the surface, leaving not the slightest ripple. Arthur turned about and saw a woman upon a smoky mare, with thirty black hounds and one white running close to the ground in figure eights, in and around the legs of the moveless mare.

  Arthur waded from the shallows. He stood as near to her as dream allowed. She asked, “Which will you value highest, little dragon? The steel of Caliburnus, or its sheath?”

  He drew forth the metal and inspected it in a shaft of moonlight. “The sheath is carved with Celtic whorls and set all about with jewels. It is too gaudy for my liking. But this metal I cannot help but admire, and shall keep it by me always.”

  “One day, that blade shall break. It is the sheath you should better value. For so long as you possess the sheath, you will be invulnerable, even as you found my champion Sir Pellinore of the Glassy Isle.”

  “Since you have already a Champion,” said Arthur, “what boon is left that I can offer?”

  “I will ask one gift, although you can give me nothing from your present dream. I will come to you in the world of materiality, although I warrant you shall not give whatever I require.”

  “I would deny you nothing,” protested Arthur.

  She smiled when he said that, but there was nothing merry in her smile. She said, “If you possessed sufficient wit to ascertain your moment of crucial and difficult obedience, you would never have preferred hard steel to wisdom, for such is the true nature of the sheath you’ve dismissed as gaudy. Soon I will send to you the Giant’s Daughter to teach you the ways of wisdom. She that is Eve Incarnate will reveal to you the things of All at the halfway-place on the Road of Sheol. If you love her unreservedly, you will come in time to Michael in Heaven to stand beside him in defense of the Spirit. But if you despise your Illuminatrice, you will remain in the world to await the Dissolution, striving uselessly in behalf of Matter.”