"Why is that wrong?" Merlin tests. "He united all the city-states to serve one another."
Arthor answers with disdain, "He built the State—the rule of men not in nature but over nature."
"He did not ignore the Greeks," Merlin presses. "He was Aristotle's pupil."
"Who taught him reason—but he ignored the earlier Greeks, the beauty Socrates worshiped, the goodness Plato tried to define. In our quest for empire, we have forgotten that there is far more to life than reason, old man. We turn our back on nature. As Pythagoras warns, 'We have forgotten that there is a beauty to nature that balances the music of numbers even with the tragedy of blood.'"
Merlin nods and smiles to himself, satisfied that this angry youth has framed his vexed soul in noble ideals. "Yes, Arthor. What you say is true. We love power, and we are ashamed of beauty."
"And so our lives become miserable tragedies," Arthor continues, hot with emotion, "vulgar efforts to pass greatness from father to son when greatness cannot be passed on at all. Each individual, each society, must make its own greatness."
"You speak like a Saxon," Fen mutters. "You despise the tradition of monarchs, even as you love the freedom of the strong man."
Arthor glares at him, and the Saxon nods knowingly.
Sunbursts of late afternoon flare in the tunnels of the forest, and the riders continue in silence toward the burning end of the day.
Chapter 14: The Weapons Master of the Gods
Brokk is the cleverest of the Furor's dwarfs. The gods created him to know and to make. He knows how the world fits together in tiny pieces called atoms and how atoms are joined together with tinier pieces yet, with little bits of lightning that the atoms share. He knows that things are solid, liquid or gaseous because of how the atoms fit together, how they share their portions of lightning. He knows the atomic secrets behind the appearance of things. Reflectance, ductility, compression, color, and density have everything to do with how atoms fit together, and in his workshop in the arctic north he and his dwarfs have tools that rearrange atoms with heat, pressure, and lightning, in both subtle though hair-raising static charges and stupendous thunderbolts. But out here in the summer woods, all that the dwarf has is his mind, and he is baffled by how the lamia, given him by the Furor, shapeshifts.
The creature obviously is composed of a viscous kind of lightning, plasma, as are the gods themselves. Wandering through the forest's green shadows, Brokk wraps the lamia around him in one shape after another, each time feeling like a coal breaking into flames.
The heat of the lamia rends through Brokk and feeds off the image of the thing the dwarf stares at. The heat burns him into that shape. He flares to a crow, flaps up into the forest canopy, and perches above the rumpled green world blinking at the sun and wondering how this can be, this total realignment of his atoms.
He unravels the lamia to the shape of mist and settles through leafy branches to the forest floor drifting on the summer breeze. He rolls himself into a mossy boulder, stretches into a svelte rowan hung with red pomes, collapses to a brown puddle reflecting the shattered sunlight of the forest ceiling.
A deer peers down at him, and he struggles to rise into its nimble form—but he lacks the strength. Hard as he tries, fatigue defeats him. Then he rips himself free of the lamia, snaps it loose, and hangs it on a sun shaft.
It looks grotesque. Withered gray as steam with a face streaked like soot outlining blistered eyes and a smeared mouth. It gazes mournfully at him.
Brokk cannot understand how such a vague entity can exist let alone mutate into any form he commands. Its taloned hands swipe at him and pull across his stout body like clotted rags. It wants to eat. But the dwarf is made of god-stuff by the gods themselves, and the lamia cannot draw sustenance from him.
The dwarf drags the limp thing after him through the forest following the dim melody of a goat bell. At a stand of pine and barberry, he stops when he sees a salt peddler walking a forest path with his goat. The animal carries sacks of Droitwich salt and dried seaweed from Rameslie.
Brokk throws the lamia at the salt peddler, and it attacks with a hot scream. The traveler jerks about, and for an instant his eyes pop open wider than seem possible. His floppy cap and jerkin shred away, flying off in rags like gusty leaves, and his rib cage flays open, spilling glistening viscera and the life-heat the shapeshifter hungers for. The dwarf crosses his arms and watches it feed, watches it ripping flesh, bursting joints, cracking bones to release the effluvial heat, the lifesmoke that it absorbs.
When it is done, the dwarf hangs it again from a sunbeam and admires the sleek, silken contours of its body. Its hair streams like twilight's lavender powder, and its skull-face scissors fangs. It wants more.
"Later," Brokk promises, and removes his grinning dagger to butcher the goat. Watching the lamia feed has whetted his desire for blood-sticky meat, and though he does not have to eat and usually thrives off the electrical sap of the Storm Tree, he guts the bleating goat and gnaws its living heart.
As a raven, Brokk circles above the forest until he spies Chief Kyner's caravan on the Roman highway that leads toward Camelot. Lord Kyner rides a roan steed at the head of the company.
The disguised dwarf spools downward and lights on a dray cart in sight of the chieftain. And there, he commits to memory every detail of the large man's physique—the ropelike braid of graying hair, small brow blunt as masonry shadowing hard eyes with a calmness and shade of blue stolen from the sky. His dense mustache hides his mouth, yet it must be severe, for the jaw thrusts forward belligerent as a pike's. He wears Roman armor even in this summer heat—a red leather cuirass embossed with the Christian chi-rho, wrist straps on forearms swollen with muscle, hair glinting like coarse copper shavings.
His famous sword, the Bulgar saber Short-Life, is missing. Instead, he carries a plaited belt, ivory-trimmed scabbard, and a gladius, the short Roman sword. Beneath the scarlet fretted hem of his blue tunic, his knees grimace like twin faces knotted with muscle. The crisscross straps of his sandals attach to soles studded with hobnails. To the last inch, Kyner is a fighting man.
His son Cei rides alongside on a gray charger. The youth is a dimmer version of the chieftain but without the mustache, revealing a severe mouth. "The fork at the old willow approaches, Father. Let me take the lead. You've been riding point all day. Go back to the wagons. Lie down with a wet towel and read the clouds for a while."
"At the willow perhaps," Kyner says. "The road enters the forest then. It will be cooler."
"You might have a good word for the women when you go back," Cei enjoins. "You've not shown them a joke or even a smile since we left White Thorn. That troubles them, and then the children worry and little goes right with the clan."
"I'll find my wit again when we get to Camelot," he answers sullenly.
"It's Arthor, isn't it?" Cei probes testily. "You worry he won't meet us there."
"He's able. No grief will come to him from the brigands, and Aelle has promised him safe passage. I worry only that a feisty milkmaid might waylay him. He has a pagan's lust about him."
Cei shakes his head with regret for the chief's blindness. "It won't be a milkmaid that keeps that scoundrel away. He's done with us. Done with the Celts. His wild Saxon blood has spirited him away. You were purblind to give him Short-Life, Father. You'll never see that blade again."
Kyner reins himself away to keep from cuffing his son. "I'm going back to the wagons," he says, turning to ride along the line of drays and ox-drawn covered vans. "Watch for the willow's fork."
Brokk flies ahead of the trundling caravan and, around the shank of a hill, finds the fork in the highway. The landmark willow lies several lengths down the south curve of the road, partly obscured by a stand of shimmering alders. The dwarf places himself close to the fork's northern swerve, which dips into a long, forested valley, and he unfurls the lamia.
Growing a thousand slumped shoulders, he sways to the likeness of the willow and waits, weaving sunlight throu
gh his listless branches. The caravan rumbles by. He glimpses Kyner asleep on his back in one of the rocking carts, a flaxen daughter brushing flies from his brutal face.
Brokk waits until the caravan wholly disappears into the dark tunnels of the forest along the northern fork that will take Kyner into a rambling valley far from Camelot; then, he yanks the lamia away from himself and stuffs it into his hip pouch. Briskly, he climbs the shank of the hill, and with the strength of two men dislodges several boulders. They crash through the bramble, digging up a torrent of smaller rocks in a fuming earthslide that smothers the fork of the highway. Finally, he mutters a dwarfish curse that will obscure all exits from the valley.
With that obstacle firmly in place, the dwarf pulls out the lamia, wraps it tightly around himself, lathing his body to a spear of sunlight, and hurls himself into the sky toward Camelot. He flies among cloud trails, and the sky turns white. When he explodes out the far side of the clouds into blue space, the construction site of Camelot wheels below, a scattered nest of rocks and girders cradled among pine mountains.
The River Amnis descends from these green earth summits in shiny loops. Then the forest soars closer, and the dwarf zips through a maze of boughs. Ahead appears a river gorge of birch islands and erratic boulders dissolving in mist and haze.
Brokk lands among lime shrubs at the base of a knoll. He unwraps the lamia and shakes it out like a sheet, fitting it over himself to fit his memory of Chief Kyner. Parting the shrubbery, he sends several wrens hurtling toward the calm clouds. Above him, atop the grassy mount, the sword Lightning stands in a black stone wedge-shaped as an anvil.
No one else appears to be on the knoll, and the dwarf strides uphill as Kyner. At the stone, he stands gawking like an astonished lover, arms outstretched, sidling back and forth, regarding the sword from differing angles. He does not touch it at once, fearing the magic that has placed it point down so firmly in the stone.
Bending closer, he examines the rock with its freckles of orange rust. Is this a Dragon's nerve? he wonders, feeling the magnetic abundance of the boulder and fearing that to touch it would alert the planetary beast and draw it upward from its chthonic trance. With the lamia, Brokk suspects that he could loft swiftly into the sky and avoid the Dragon—but then, maybe not.
"'Tis a beautiful blade," a gruff voice speaks in Brythonic from behind the dwarf.
Brokk leaps about, startled to confront a Celtic warrior with braided, brindled hair, heavy mustache, and an eagle's stare pressed into his elderly face. He is taller than Kyner and wears old-style garb—a chieftain's browband of reeved leather, sword strap across his naked chest, fawnskin leggings, and soft boots.
The aged chieftain laughs mightily. "You're getting old, Kyner, when a tired elk like myself can sneak up on you." He slaps Kyner's shoulder, and his yellow eyebrows lift. "But you are solid, old friend! You feel steady as an oak."
Brokk gropes to determine who this Celtic chieftain is—Urien or Lot? "Greetings, friend."
"Friend now, is it?" King Lot smirks behind his immense mustache. "What of my soul burning in eternal damnation, then? Last we spoke, I thought you loathed me for spurning your Hebrew messiah."
Brokk shrugs. "Turn the other cheek, love your enemies, that's the Christian's way, is it not?"
"Is it?" Lot juts his jaw skeptically. "You seem not at all the stern messenger of your desert prophet that I remember."
"It's the sword," Brokk declares, turning to face the shining blade—as much to hide his bewilderment as to admire his own craftsmanship. "In truth, it has bewitched me. Behold. Is it not the most lithe weapon you have ever seen?"
Lot puts his hand to the helve of gold and faces the wonder in his warped reflection within the mirror-polished serif of the handguard. The sleek haft feels chilled even though the summer sun touches it. "Will you try your hand at it then, Kyner?"
"Nah," Brokk immediately dismisses the idea. "The magnetic flux density in this stone would defeat an elephant."
Lot's thick brows knit with incomprehension. "Magnus ... what? Don't soil my ears with Latin, man. What are you talking about?"
Brokk scolds him without taking his eyes from the luminous sword and the star stone that holds it, "It's not Latin, fool. Magnet. It's Greek. We call it lodestone."
"The anvil is a lodestone?" Lot runs his fingers over the unreckonable slag with its great lobes and pollen-fine flecks.
"A lodestone the likes of which I've never seen," Brokk says, almost undervoiced, to himself. "Its flux density is incredible. Must be the work of the Fire Lords—the Annwn."
"Aye, the Annwn, no doubt." Lot regards his old comrade in arms with a puzzled look. "I find it strange to hear you talking of Fire Lords, Kyner, and—what more was that you spoke of? Flux lines? Is that something in your Bible?"
"Never mind." The dwarf dismisses that with an impatient look and turns away from the stuck sword. "Merlin would know. Perhaps you could find out for me. Ask him how he switches the lodestone's polarity."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lot gripes. "Ask him yourself. Am I your courier now?"
Brokk wrings his hands contritely, and, taking Lot by the elbow and leading him away from the star stone, speaks the truth. "I would ask him, but I tell you, I dread him. He claims to be a Christian, yet he frightens me."
"I know what you mean," Lot agrees, and lets himself be guided downhill, nodding. "I have always been uneasy with his Christianity. He stole our queen to the faith you share with him. Not even Morgeu can win her back to the old ways now. And when I brought my sons to meet him upon our arrival here, he seemed—odd. More so than usual."
At last determining who this chieftain must be, Brokk replies, "Ah, brother Lot, Merlin is a demon, after all."
"Always before he seemed so," Lot concurs. "This time he appeared more of a bumbling fool."
"Merlin—a fool? Surely, a pose. He means to deceive his enemies." Brokk releases Lot and backs away through the abundant grass, lifting his tunic as if preparing to urinate, and stepping out of sight behind a chokeberry bush.
"The wizard certainly has enough enemies," Lot continues. "Even his fellow Christians mean him harm. My spies in the Roman camp tell me that Severus Syrax plots to take the title of high king with or without the sword—with or without Merlin. What do you think of your fellow Christians now?"
No sound comes from the chokeberry.
"Eh, Kyner?" Lot steps behind the bush. "Kyner?" No one is in sight on the entire slope, only a brown rabbit flitting under giant clouds swept along by azure time.
Brokk hurries to find Merlin, hoping to spy on the wizard and learn what he can about the magnetic stone of the Fire Lords. Approaching Camelot, he slows down and sits for a long time as a rabbit listening to the pine breeze. He is afraid of the demon. Surely, Merlin will see through his disguise and feed him to the Dragon.
The dwarf reminds himself that the Furor sent him to this place not to confront Lailoken, a Dark Dweller from the House of Fog, but to retrieve the sword Lightning.
At the sight of Merlin, in his wizard's robes and tall conical hat of power, standing before the gargantuan ramparts of Camelot, the dwarf retreats. The demon mingles among revelers accompanying Severus Syrax and his retinue as they march under summer's ragged clouds toward their campsite on the pasture.
Brokk breaks away before he is spotted. He runs toward the low mountains, skittering through tall grass and red wildflowers, seeking sanctuary in the sunny woods, where he can think.
He stops on a needle-strewn slope among warm fragrances of resin and amber sap. A tall, broad-shouldered woman in a green gown descends among the scaly-barked trees, her masses of frazzled red hair glinting with silica-sparks of magic. He recognizes her pale, lunar face with its tiny eyes black as puncture wounds, small nose like a bat's upturned snub, and a hard, defiant chin. He recognizes her as the sorceress Morgeu, called by the tattooed Picts the Fey, the Doomed.
"I see you there," she calls out, pointing a long-nailed
hand at Brokk. "Hidden as a smutchy hare. Come out, whatever you be."
The dwarf unravels the lamia and stands up.
Morgeu's tiny eyes widen in dark dismay, and a silver knife streaked black with tarnish and poison appears from out a sheath hidden in her billowy sleeve. "Keep away! I offer you pain and slow death, dwarf!"
"Do not fear me, Morgeu the Fey." Brokk laughs thickly. "You know me not by sight but by name, whereas I know you by both, for you once sought to work magic with my master and creator, the Furor, the All-Seeing Father of the north gods."
Morgeu waves her poisoned knife before her, aghast at the squat troglodyte and his shadow—the cawing specter with its bone face of fatal contagion. "Years ago I offered myself to the Furor as a bride—as my mother had before me..."
"But the Furor would not taint himself with you," the dwarf completes for her. "I know. You sought my master's power to help with your famous hatred of the demon-wizard Lailoken."
"Who are you?"
With a smile of thick, square teeth, he announces, "I am Brokk—"
"Weapons master of the north gods," Morgeu speaks in an awe-drenched whisper, and lowers her knife arm. "Why do you seek me out? And what is that hideous thing you hold?"
Brokk has not sought her out, but now that he has fortuitously stumbled upon her, he states with bold command, "I need your help to retrieve the sword Lightning for my master."
Morgeu humbly lowers her cold face. "My magic cannot undo the power that holds the sword to the stone. That is the work of the Fire Lords. I am but an enchantress who works magic by trance."
"You are too modest, Morgeu." Brokk can see the amethyst carats glinting in her aura, showing the interior music of her tranceful magic. "Among the dwarfs, you are renowned as a sorceress."
Morgeu watches through the jagged red veil of her hair the thing in the dwarf's hand writhe. Its eyes of powdered glass glint hungrily in their sockets, and she replies, "My sorcery ended years ago, when the demons who empowered me fled from their brother Lailoken. I am but an enchantress now—and I do not like the look of that thing you hold. Tell me, Brokk, what is it?"
The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2) Page 14
