Merlin

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Yes, I screamed at the devil’s spawn before me, my voice awesome and terrible, rending heaven with its cry:

  Earth and Sky, bear witness!

  I am a man, see how I die!

  See how my sword breaks forth flashing lightning!

  See how my shield dazzles like the noontide sun!

  See how my arm strikes fierce judgment!

  Make ready your graves, Earth!

  Open wide your insatiable maw

  to swallow the food I give you.

  Gather your mists and clouds, Sky!

  Weave your somber vapors

  to make a funeral shroud for the dead I bring

  you.

  Hear and obey! I, Myrddin Emrys, command you!

  I screamed and my scream was terrible to hear. I laughed, and my laughter was more terrible still.

  Alone, I flew to meet the Saecsen host. Alone, I hurtled toward them, bereft of sense and feeling…

  Insane.

  The tall horsetail standard which a Saecsen carried into battle loomed before me: a cross on a pole bearing a wolf’s skull on either end of the crosspiece with a human skull in the middle, and the three fringed with horsetails of red and black. I drove straight toward the thing with the point of my sword.

  I do not know what I thought or what I intended to do. But the force of my charge was such that upon reaching the battleline the first enemy I encountered were simply swept beneath my steed’s pummeling hooves and I was carried well into their midst as I made for the standard. The standard-bearer, a tall, muscled chieftain, dodged to the side. My blade came level and, with the momentum of my charge behind it, neatly sliced the solid pole in half as if it had been a dry reed.

  The Saecsen battlechief—an enormous brute with pale yellow hair hanging in long braids from his temples—stood beneath the standard with his house carles around him, staring in amazement as the emblem sank like a stone. The cry of outrage reached my ears as a mild and distant sound, for I had once again entered that uncanny state where the actions of others were as languorous and slow as those of men half-asleep.

  The flying, careening warhost became a massive, lumbering thing, heavy-footed and dull, without speed or quickness, overcome by a languid torpor. Once again, as in the battle at Maridunum, I became invincible, dealing death with every well-calculated blow, hewing down mighty warriors with effortless strokes, my movements perfect in their deadly grace.

  The clash of battle reached my ears like the sound of water washing a far-off shore. I moved with elegant precision, striking boldly and with vengeance, my sword a living thing—a streaming crimson dragon spitting doom.

  The enemy fell before me. I carved a swath through their close ranks as if I was the scythe and they the corn standing for harvest. I struck and struck, and death fell with every stroke like judgment.

  The battle surged around me. Gwendolau’s charge had succeeded in driving through the enemy the first time, but the second charge had bogged down. There were simply too many Saecsens against us, and we were too few horsemen. Even when a man killed with every stroke, as my men did, two more barbarians leapt up to drag him from the saddle before his blade was clear of the dead weight.

  I did what I could for those closest to me, but my charge had carried me into the center of the Saecsen warhost, out of reach of most of my warband. All around me I saw good men dragged down and hacked to death by those wicked axes. There was nothing I could do about it.

  The battle lord, a fair-haired giant, rose up before me with an enormous hammer in his hand. Slavering with rage, he bellowed his challenge to me and planted his feet, swinging that hammer, thick-sinewed shoulders and arms bulging with the effort. He stood like an oak tree as I urged my horse toward him. Sunlight glinted in his yellow hair, his blue eyes clear and unafraid, taunting me, the hammer in his hands dripping blood and brains from the skulls he had smashed.

  I spun toward him and waited until he swung the hammer up for the killing blow. My first stroke ripped low across his unprotected stomach.

  A lesser man would have fallen, but the golden giant stood his ground and swung the hammer down with such force that his wound burst. Blood and entrails gushed forth, and I laughed to see it.

  The hammer swung wide; and as his hands came down to grab his belly, I plunged the point of my sword through his throat. Dark blood spewed out over my hand.

  He stood a moment, his eyes rolling up in their sockets, then collapsed. I jerked the blade free, laughing, laughing, roaring with the absurdity of it.

  I had slain the Saecsen battlechief! He had murdered my wife and unborn child, and I had felled that great brute with a child’s trick. It was simply too absurd for words. I wept with laughter until I tasted the tears in my mouth.

  When their war chief went down, the barbarians fell into confusion. They had lost their leader, but not their heart. And none of the cold-blooded ruthlessness, either. They still fought with crazy courage. If anything, losing their leader inspired them to higher, more reckless valor. Now they fought for the honor of accompanying their battle lord into Valhalla, the great Hall of Warriors in their wretched Otherworld.

  So be it. I helped as many as possible earn that privilege.

  But my sword brothers were not so fortunate. Too many of them were driven down that day. I remember turning as the tide of battle receded from me momentarily, turning and looking out over the field to see only a small handful of my valiant warband still holding their own against the barbarians. So few…and they were all that was left.

  I made to ride toward them, but the gap closed again and they were lost. That was the last I ever saw of them alive.

  A dreadful earnestness stole over me—a murderous fury. I slashed and struck with all my strength as if my heart would burst. I killed and killed again. I began to fear that there would not be enough enemy to slake my thirst for blood. I gazed about me and there were more dead now than living, and I despaired.

  “Here I am! Here is Merlin—take me!”

  Mine was the only voice on the field. The barbarians stared at me with cow-stupid eyes, mute before my righteous rage, the strength going out of their hands.

  “Come to me!” I cried. “You who exult in death, come to me! I will cover you in glory! I will give you the delight of your hearts! Such a splendid death I will give you! Come! Receive the doom you deserve!”

  They looked at one another with wide and staring eyes. There must have been seventy or more of them left to face me. Oh, the fighting had been cruel.

  But I blazed, Annwas; I blazed with a fierce and righteous fire, and the enemy quailed to see it. Their courage flowed away like water.

  They stood staring, and I raised my blade and called upon heaven to witness their destruction. Then I put spurs to my mount, and that spirited animal responded; though its head drooped and its nostrils streamed blood, it lifted its hoofs and bolted straight toward the barbarians.

  The sun itself was dim compared to the brightness of my blade as I hacked and hewed through them. Seventy men, and none could lift an axe against me. They fell like toppled oaks, going down into death’s dark cavern, clutching their wounds and crying.

  Blood soaked the soil beneath their feet, staining the turf the color of wine. They could not stand up for the blood. I chopped with my sword, cleaving their unprotected heads from crown to chin. They dropped dead to the blood-wet earth.

  The slaughter was appalling.

  In the end, the few who still lived threw down their weapons, turned, and fled. But even these did not escape my vengeance. I rode them down from behind, galloping over their stumbling bodies, turning upon them again and again, until not one remained in the world of the living.

  Then it was over. I sat in my saddle and gazed out over a hideous carnage. Saecsens lay thick on the ground, and I screamed at them: “Get up! Get up, you dead! Take up your arms! Arise and fight!”

  I taunted them. I challenged them. I screamed at them and cursed them even in death.

 
But there was no longer anyone to hear my taunts.

  Five hundred Saecsens lay dead upon the ground, and it was not enough. My grief, my hate, my rage still burned within me! Ganieda was dead and our child with her, and Gwendolau, Custennin, Baram, Pelleas, Balach, and all the brave men of my warband—all the quick and bright, their hearts beating and breath in their lungs, alive to love and light, now were stiffening corpses. My friends, my wife, my brothers were dead, and the blood-price I claimed that day, mighty though it was, could not pay the debt.

  Oh, Annwas, Winged Messenger, I myself slaughtered hundreds. Hundreds, do you hear?…Hundreds…

  And it was not enough!

  I looked out on the battlefield shimmering in the heat haze of a midday sun. So still…so still…and silent—save for the croak of the circling birds; for already the carrion crows were flocking, picking at the eyes of the dead. In this I knew the stark reality of war: all men, friend and foe alike, are food for the scavenging beasts.

  I saw Lord Death moving among the tumbled corpses, rubbing his fleshless hands and grinning his lipless smile as he gazed upon my wonderful work. He greeted me.

  Well done, Myrddin. Such a handsome harvest; I am pleased, my son.

  My horror could not be contained. Dark mist rose up before my eyes; the voices of the dead filled my ears with cries of sharp accusation. The bloody earth mocked me; sky and sun jeered. The wind laughed. I fled the field, seeking refuge in Celyddon’s deep, black heart. I fled to the nameless hills, to the rock-bound mountains, to this barren outcrop with its cave and spring.

  And here, Annwas, here is all Myrddin Wylt’s kingdom. Here is where I have dwelt, and ever shall dwell.

  Death, you have taken all the others—why have you not taken me?

  13

  I raised my head and looked out across the night-filled valleys. The storm had passed, and the stars shone brightly. The air was scented with pine and heather, and from the forest below came the bark of a hunting wolf—a single short cry in the darkness.

  At my feet Wolf pricked her ears; her golden eyes flicked to mine, but she did not move. The small fire Annwas had made still burned; the pot bubbled, and the cakes were baked. He sat watching me, his face sorrowful and serene.

  “Do you hate me now, Annwas?” I asked in the silence of the snapping fire. “Now that you know what I have done—do you despise me for it?”

  He did not answer, but picked up a bowl and ladled stew into it and offered it to me. “I can hate no man,” he replied gently, offering me the bowl. “And this is not a time for judgment.” He broke one of the little loaves he had made and handed it to me. “We will eat now, and you will feel better.”

  We ate together in silence. The food was good, and I did feel better. The fire warmed me, and the stew—how long had it been since I had meat in my stomach?—soon made me drowsy. I sopped the last of my broth with the bread and stuffed that into my mouth, then laid the bowl aside and drew my cloak around me.

  “Sleep now, Myrddin,” Annwas told me. “Sleep well.”

  It seemed like only an instant, but when I opened my eyes again the new-risen sun flamed the high peaks, and larksong fell golden from the sky. Annwas had the fire burning brightly and had brought water in the pot for me to drink.

  “So, you are still here,” I observed, pouring water into my bowl and lifting the bowl to my mouth.

  “I am,” he nodded.

  “I am not going back with you,” I told him bluntly.

  “That will be your decision, Myrddin.”

  “Then you are wasting your time. I will not leave this place.”

  “As you have said. But I tell you, I have not come to take you away from here.”

  What did he want from me? “Then why have you come?”

  “To save you, Myrddin.”

  “Do I look in need of saving?”

  “Your work is not finished,” he replied. “In the world of men, affairs continue apace, and Darkness covers nigh all. It has even reached these shores. Yes, the Great Darkness men have feared is here; it has gained a foothold on the Island of the Mighty.”

  I glared at him, for his words disturbed me more than I liked. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “I tell you merely what is.” Annwas handed me half of the second loaf he had made the night before. “What you do about it is up to you.”

  “Who are you, Annwas Adeniawc? Why have you come to me like this?”

  He smiled gently. “I have told you, Myrddin. I am your friend.”

  Then he rose and stepped to the cave entrance. “Come with me now.”

  “Where?” I demanded suspiciously.

  “There is a stream in the glen below—”

  “Yes?”

  “We must go there.”

  That was all he said. He turned and started down the trail. I watched him go for a moment, and decided that I would not go. But he stopped, turned, and beckoned me. I rose and followed.

  The stream was not large, but it was running with the rain from the night before, and there were deep pools around the boulders, and it was into one of these pools that Annwas led me. “Lay aside your cloak, Myrddin,” he instructed, stepping into the water, “and your clothing.”

  My clothing, as he generously called it, was little more than a filth-crusted loincloth. It fell from me as I shrugged it off. “I have already been baptized,” I said.

  “I know,” replied Annwas, holding out his hand to me. “I just want to wash you.”

  “I can wash myself.” I drew back.

  “Na, na, I know, I know. But come, let me do it for you this once.”

  I stepped into the cold water, my flesh prickled, and I began shivering. Annwas took my hand and brought me to stand facing him. He dipped water with the bowl in his hand and poured it over me. Then he produced a chunk of soap—the hard, yellow kind such as the old Celts used to make in huge blocks for the whole clan, from which each household carved off what it needed—and he began to wash me.

  He washed my arms and chest, then turned me to scrub my back. “Sit,” he commanded, and I sat down on a nearby rock while he washed my legs and my nasty, matted hair and beard.

  All this he did quickly and cheerfully, as if it were his life’s chief fulfillment. I allowed him to do it, thinking it strange to be washed like this—me a grown man, being washed by another grown man.

  But it did not feel strange. It felt comforting; more, it felt appropriate. This, I imagined, was how the emperors of the east came to their thrones.

  Oh, it was good to be clean. Clean! How long had it been? How long?

  He washed my hair and then, to my surprise—although nothing about Annwas should have surprised me by now—he brought out scissors and a razor of the Greek variety, and, kneeling before me in the water, he set about shaving me, first clipping the tangled curls short, then scraping the skin smooth with the honed edge.

  When he finished, he laved water over me with the bowl and then said, “Arise, Myrddin, and go forth to meet the day.”

  I stood, water streaming from me, feeling the sickness of all the sick years, the years of waste and grief and death, flow away. I stood and that sick skin sloughed from me and I was clean once more, clean and in my right mind.

  I stepped from the rock pool and picked up my cloak, though loath was I to put on that filthy thing again.

  Annwas had foreseen my predicament. “Leave the cloak where it is. You will not need it.”

  Well, perhaps he was right. The sun was bright and warm—still, it would not always be so. The mountains were cold at night; I would need it then. I stooped to pick it up again. “Leave it,” he said.

  And he turned to point down the trail. “See,” he said, “one comes who will dress you in clothes appropriate to your rank.”

  I looked where he was pointing and, heaven bless me, I did see a lone figure toiling up the track, leading two saddled horses.

  “Who is it?” I turned to Annwas, who had come to stand beside me.


  “Someone whose love has carried you further than you will ever know.” His words seared into my heart, but his glance did not condemn me. “He comes, and I must go.”

  “Stay, friend.” I put out my hand to him.

  “I have done what I came to do.”

  “Will we meet again?”

  He held his head to one side for a moment, as if appraising me. “No, I think that will not be necessary.”

  “Stay,” I insisted. “Please, stay.”

  “Myrddin,” he said gently, gripping my hand tightly in his own, “I have ever been with you.”

  One of the horses on the trail below whinnied. I turned to see that the man laboring up the trail had approached more closely, and his form did seem familiar. Who could it be? I took a step closer. “Farewell, Myrddin,” Annwas called, and when I turned toward him he was gone.

  “Farewell, Annwas Adeniawc, until we meet again,” I called, and then sat down on the rock to wait until my visitor should present himself to me.

  14

  I did not have long to wait, for the man followed the trail up through the scree directly to the stream where I sat upon my rock. He did not see me—his eyes were raised to the cave still some way above, where he meant to find me.

  I should have recognized him, but did not. He labored up the trail and when he made to stop at the stream, I stood—thereby giving him considerable fright: meeting a naked man on a mountainside at sunrise was not what he expected.

  “Greetings, friend,” I said as I stood. “Forgive me for startling you—that was not my intention.”

  “Oh!” He gave a little shout as he jumped back, as one might from a viper. But instantly his face changed. I knew him then, but the truth could not be accepted at once. And he recognized me. “My Lord Merlin!”

  He dropped the reins and sank to his knees, tears starting into his eyes. His hands shook as he reached out to me, and he grinned like one demented with delight. “Oh, my lord Myrddin, I dared not hope—”

  I stepped toward him hesitantly. “Pelleas?”