The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2)

by A. A. Attanasio

  Morgeu watches him for a while from where she sits, secluded among the incense shrubs of lime at the spur of the mount. Her back leans against a glacial boulder. Satisfied that Brokk will remain busy for the time being and that no one will disturb her, she closes her eyes to the grove's teal blue sky and green shadows and listens to the quiet thunder of her pulse in the rushing darkness. Trance fills her bones with fog. Narcotized by magic, she drifts all day within the empty kingdom of herself, listening, waiting.

  Leagues away, Merlin digs a magical ditch hours deep and trips Fen into it. And as the lamia-possessed Saxon falls toward night, Morgeu finally feels the demon-wizard's magic bending the span of distance and time, feels it with an acute precision that snaps her alert.

  Orange caravels of cloud sail toward an immense red sun. The river Amnis flows molten among fiery islands of willow and birch. And crystal lakes, arctic green and blue, hover in the sky between the layers of twilight.

  Morgeu staggers giddily upright. I've found him! A circus of wrens chatters in the bushes and bursts into flight as she shoves her way through. At last! I've found him!

  She locates Brokk on the sheer side of the mount, nimbly dangling from the draping ivy, feeling among the black lilacs and blue and white periwinkles for a lever to move the magnetic stone. He waves her away when she calls to him. "Away with you, woman. I must unlock the sword now. Kyner and his clan will be here soon enough. I've no time for your wrathful magic."

  Unable now to rely on him to watch over her tranced body, Morgeu seeks other sanctuary. By amber light, she makes her way to the riverbank, where night gathers its mantles of mist. Dark spires of trees burn like tapers at their tips. She situates herself in a remote root-cove, and the ground under her wobbles with liquid rhythms, buoyed by the watery understory of tree roots afloat on the river.

  The last glycerin streaks of day relent to night, and Morgeu gives herself to her trance. She has eaten nothing all day, and her body is transparent. Easily, she shines forth from herself and glides into the dark. The cold onyx light of the Amnis guides her downstream a long way before the forest canopy opens, and she flies higher under an uproar of stars.

  Following the reverberations of Merlin's magic that she sensed earlier in trance, she journeys over the dark world. Faeries sparkle ahead. She follows their presence into the nightheld forest. For a long time, she swims among fluid moonlight and wooded hills that seem to have no beginning or end. The moon blazes, and hurrying clouds race with its brilliance through the forest.

  She passes over Melania and does not even see her, for her magic has one ambition, to find her blood-kin. And then, as if rising from the well of a dream, he appears—a young man asleep beside a fire whose embers breathe purple. She recognizes him at once, even in the nebulous moonlight and nightshadows, for he has their mother's leonine brow and square jaw. And she knows that if he were to open his sleeping eyes, they would be yellow, the bestial color inherited from his Roman father, Uther Pendragon.

  Watching him sleep, so young and yet with bold features already hardening toward manhood, she feels ruth as in a dismal rain. This youth knows war's sudden hot violence but not yet its lingering legacy of grief nor the original brutal necessity that suffered him into being and by which he must live and die. He sleeps quietly, his unmarred face soft, even gentle. She can see the child in him. Inspired by his beauty and their kinship, she wants to whisper to him all that she knows and fears to know about their destiny.

  Then the hurt of what he is to her—child of her mother's faithlessness, born by her father's death—and the mad anger that grows from that hurt assert themselves and pull her away from the sleeper. Stunned that at last she has found him, Merlin's creature spawned on her mother by Merlin's proud Christian warrior, she glows with pain.

  The sight of the boy's shield leaning on the tree alongside him inspires more anger. The icon of the virgin mother of Jesus watches over him with a kindly sorrow that seems reserved for him alone.

  He is Christian, she realizes with a pang of anguish from her memories of this foreign religion. It had been the faith of her father, Duke Gorlois. That did not save him, and so she loathes it. Of course her brother worships the nailed god. He is Merlin's creature.

  All the more determined to use Merlin's own creation to wreak vengeance on him, Morgeu soars into the night. She has seen him. She will come to him in her body and use her body as a weapon far more precise than steel.

  The hurried return to her flesh startles her awake under the transparent night. Leaves rustle in the dark with the susurrations of the river wind, and the root mat upon which she floats bobbles as she rises.

  "I have found him," she whispers to herself with icy glee. "Now, a horse. I must ride to him at once."

  While she slowly wends her way back through the night forest beside the sultry river, Brokk mucks amidst the silt at the bottom of Mons Caliburnus. The water laps at him as he yanks at the ivy tendrils on the rock face. He touches the slick rocks and the pelts of moss with his wise fingers, feeling for magnetism.

  His flesh, woven of god-stuff, prickles at the nearness of a powerful magnetic field. The flux lines are so strong he should have sensed them much earlier, except that he has been looking in the wrong place, atop the hill, near the star stone. The magnetic counterpole is here at the bottom of the mount, its presence hidden by the hill of earth above.

  He gropes among rock lozenges that Merlin has jammed into the crevice to hide the lever that reverses the polarity of the magnetic star stone. Clever! he thinks, admiring the Fire Lords for the ingenuity with which they constructed the machine that holds the sword Lightning in place.

  A thrashing commotion and a splash wrench Brokk full about, and a nervous cry creaks from his lungs. For one instant, his heart frosts with the fear that the Dragon rises to claim him.

  He spies a gliding owl, its claws holding a lively rat snatched from the river, and he blows a relieved sigh. The Fire Lords placed the star stone in this gorge, because here the Dragon's claws can easily reach through the earth's crust and strike at any gods who dare trespass. Even dwarfs, small as they are, are not safe from the terrible beast. All entities made from the energy of the World Tree, the electromagnetic field of the planet, are suitable prey for the Dragon.

  Inspired by dread, Brokk digs away the obstructing debris from the horizontal crevice and takes hold of the magnetic lever. It is a rough-hewn lobe of rock, the star stone's twin, and when the dwarf heaves it toward himself it grinds over ferric bearings and spits sparks.

  In that infernal strobe fire, the chthonic man grins with impish delight, for he feels the magnetic polarity shift. From above, a silver peal rings among the stars like a cry broken from the moon.

  Brokk clambers excitedly to the top of the mount and meets Morgeu there. She stands before the anvil rock, tall and pale as a candle, pointing to where the sword Lightning lies on its side.

  "I heard it fall," she says in a breath of awe, and reaches for the weapon. "It cried like a bell."

  "Don't you touch it!" Brokk adjures, scrambling to the star stone. "This is the Furor's blade. I alone am commanded to return it to him."

  "Oh, let me not impede you, mighty Brokk," Morgeu speaks scornfully, and stands aside.

  The dwarf seizes the sword Lightning and twirls it expertly. "It is yet whole! The Fire Lords have not damaged it." He clucks a satisfied laugh to see the silver blade skirl the sheen of stars and moon to liquid blurs in the air. "The Furor will be pleased. I am off to him!"

  "Wait, dwarf!" Morgeu speaks sharply. "I helped you, and you have agreed to help me."

  "Helped me?" Brokk's sour features contract. "You did not help me."

  "We agreed that if I confronted Merlin with you, you would help me find the son of Uther Pendragon so that I may take his seed for my tantric magic." She boldly steps within range of the sword, her tar-drop eyes cold as boreholes of the night. "You promised me, Brokk."

  "We did not confront Merlin." Brokk flaps his
lips with a loud, mocking rasp. "You led me to an old carpenter who knew nothing about the magnetic structure of the star stone. I had to puzzle it out for myself."

  Morgeu stiffens. "I went with you in good faith to meet Merlin. That it was not Merlin is more of Lailoken's devious ways, no fault of mine. I kept my word, though it might well have killed me had we indeed encountered the demon-wizard. I kept my word, Brokk."

  The dwarf holds the hilt in his fist and the blade in his palm and pugnaciously thrusts forward his big face. "And now what do you want from me, sorceress?"

  "What you promised. Come with me to the forest where I have located my half brother. Help me to work my tantric magic with him."

  Brokk snorts and turns away, executing nimble sword swipes at the stars. "I cannot be bothered with such mortal folly. Seduce your brother on your own."

  "You are reputed to be wise, Brokk. It is not wise to break your word to Morgeu the Fey."

  "I am not afraid of your petty enchantments, witch."

  "My enchantments may indeed seem petty to likes of you," Morgeu replies, her sinuous voice lowering to a tone of threat. "I am no stranger to the Furor or his followers. The Picts themselves named me the Fey, the Doomed. They respect me. And I will tell them—and make them believe with my petty enchantments—that Brokk is a liar. He does not live and work for the Furor as he proudly claims but for the Furor's wicked brother, the Liar—Loki."

  Brokk swings about and waves the sword menacingly. "Watch your tongue! I could kill you in a blink."

  Morgeu steps closer so that the sword tip touches her breastbone. "Then kill me now," she challenges, the black fire in her eyes flaring with indignation, though within she feels sick with fear of the dwarf and disgust that she should die like this, slain for her stubborn pride when fate calls her to so much more. "Kill me now, for if you let me live, I will sing to everyone of your perfidy."

  "Be silent, woman," the dwarf grumbles angrily, and lowers the sword. "I am Brokk, the Furor's faithful retainer. My word is good. I merely question the validity of our agreement. The carpenter was not Merlin."

  Morgeu's stomach unclenches, and she softens her tone, "You asked me to help you take the sword. You have the sword. Would you have been so bold in attacking the star stone with your agile mind had you not known Merlin is absent? My courage in facing him and uncovering the truth at least afforded you that assurance."

  Brokk swings his slung head like an unhappy bull, unable to refute her claim. "Where is this brother of yours?"

  "In Crowland, near Hammer's Throw."

  The dwarf stalks off down the mount, muttering irately, "Use your enchantments, then, and get us some horses. Be quick about it now. I'm not walking to Crowland."

  Morgeu lifts a silent shout of triumph to the moon and skips after him. The moment they fade into the night, the furtive shadow-figure of Hannes rises from his covert under the hackberry shrubs near the star stone. Chanting a spell of invisibility, he has lain for hours among the cedars and then here in these shrubs, watching, listening. He had hoped to stymie the dwarf with his magic, but the sight of Brokk shapeshifting to Chief Kyner terrified him. Then, when the sword fell, he thought to leap up and seize it—but the appearance at that moment of Morgeu the Fey stabbed him again with fear.

  Now he dances around the empty star stone, waving his stave frantically, trying to grasp out of thin air what best to do. He throws a desperate look to the moon among her flocks of stars. How would Merlin face this? he asks, then immediately quails, But I am no Merlin! What can I do? What can this befuddled carpenter do?

  A lugubrious necessity occurs to him: He must pursue the horrible dwarf and the sorceress. He must retrieve Excalibur, else he has failed Merlin, and the king to be, and all Britain as well.

  He swipes his hat off and dashes it to the ground. "Why did I let Merlin talk me into this?" he moans aloud. "I can't leave the stone empty. By dawn the others will see it. Surely, there'll be hell to pay then!"

  Magic! he thinks. I must work a magic greater than any I've accomplished so far.

  He sits on the stone and holds his staff in both hands at arm's length. After wriggling himself into a comfortable position, he wills the stave to transform into the shape of Excalibur.

  The pith of himself from where the life's potency that is magic originates tightens, quivers, and aches with what is asked of it. Figurations of mist seep from the gnarled stick and vaguely outline a sword shape. In a breeze, it drifts away.

  "No!" he shouts his frustration; then conks himself on the head with the staff to punish himself for his outburst. "Patience, Hannes. Supreme patience, now. The night is yet with us. Take your time. Reach deeper."

  Hannes closes his lids and opens his eyes inward. There he sees the spinneret of his soul, the magical organ within his marrows that spins the threads of his blood, that grows the filaments of his hair, that weaves the mosaics of his bones, and that knits the reality of his dreams. It is itself a white thread, a very fine needle of lightning, a single, tenuous ray of starlight that is his life.

  He sets the spinneret of his soul turning, and fine, diaphanous silks of energy haze within the inward darkness of himself. Carefully, with the same tedious attentiveness he once applied to working fragile and rare woods, he shapes the magic.

  From memory, he binds energy to the precise image of Excalibur. The effort is excruciating, especially the blade itself because of its utter simplicity, empty as a mirror. The detailed rowels and circlets upon the haft come more easily to the craftsman, and when they are in place he must return again to the silver reflectance of the blade.

  When the image is replete and he opens his eyes, dawn lies like a fleece on the horizon. He stands and wedges the stave into the cleft of the anvil stone. Then he steps back and wills the stick to assume the shape of Excalibur.

  This time, his viscera cramp so tightly, he feels the magic wrenching him inside out, and he crumples to his knees with a withering cry. Dizzied with pain, he kneels with his brow to the wet grass and gasps for relief. When the hurt subsides, he wearily unfolds.

  Eyes half-lidded, he gazes at the glare of morning light shining from the boulder and winces, blinded. His hands shield his averted face until he can see again, and then, through the narrow slits between his fingers, he witnesses the triumph of his magic—golden rays of reflected sun piercing the misty morning from the naked blade of Excalibur.

  Chapter 19: Crowland

  Rain drizzled out of a blind sky as Arthor and Melania ride through the woods of Crowland toward Hammer's Throw. They seek Fen, hoping to tear the lamia from him and return it to the urn. Arthor has no idea how they will do that. He trusts the brown-eyed woman, with her classic face of a Roman Venus, who claims her stone dagger will prove sufficient.

  In his mind, her beauty vouches for her wisdom. She appears even lovelier now that she has had the chance to bathe in a stream, rubbing away the grime of her captivity with wild rose petals and river kelp. With her sable hair coiled in rope braids and worn over her right shoulder, gathered with a twine of purple clematis, she looks disarmingly regal despite her tattered, faded, and drenched gown.

  Angels of fog stand among the trees. Arthor proceeds warily, senses alert, gazing through billows of shadow and smoke for Fen's pale figure, listening past the dismal seepings of rain for footfalls. He interprets the silences as well. The punctuating calls of birds must come at hopeful intervals, or he stops and listens deeper, trying to smell danger beyond the lingering, mulchy scents of sodden loam.

  Melania gladly clings to his back. His muscular solidity comforts her, soothing the anguish she experienced in the hollow trances that Cissa forced on her. With her arms around his torso, feeling the straps of strength in his chest and stomach tighten and relax as he surveys the way ahead, she is anchored in actuality, far away from her disembodied suffering.

  He smells of horse and male musk. His bronze hair streaks across his pallid brow and white neck, shorn in the Roman style, in defiance of his Celt
ic foster family. Even this bitterness, which she saw harden his boyish face when he told his story yesterday, pleases her—for now she knows he will not abandon her. He has nowhere else to go.

  She watches him smelling the wind to find direction, and she rests her cheek against his wet back, closes her eyes, and lets the rain trace its cool fingertips over her face.

  "Who goes there?" Arthor calls out.

  Melania straightens and peers over his shoulder. In the forest tunnel hung with the rain's soft incense, a tall, lanky old man approaches, leading a gray and a blond mare. A small black dog with a white splotch around one eye steps pertly at his side.

  "Ho! Arthor!" the old fellow calls in a voice sonorous as a cavern's echo. '"Tis Master Sphenks still suffering the company of his gleeman, that being Hannes, myself."

  Arthor feels Melania stiffen behind him, and he speaks to her, "Don't be afraid. I know this old man. His wise dog saved my life two days ago. He is a harmless old fool no matter his gruesome aspect."

  "He is gruesome," Melania whispers. She sees the demon in Merlin, the preternaturally long skull, his rut-warped brow and eye-pits huge as adder's sockets, and his mummied flesh, sunken of cheek. "I don't like him, Arthor. Ride by."

  "I see you survived your visit with the Saxons," Merlin says in his big, hollow voice, "and now look—you came away with a southern beauty. You fared well in that grim barter, son."

  "This is Melania of Aquitania," Arthor says, and the woman thumps his back with her fist.

  "Ride on, I say!" she whispers hotly. "The man is evil. Can't you see it?"

  Arthor twists about and reprimands her with a frown. "Hannes is a Christian. And he saved my life, I tell you."

  "But look at him, Arthor! He has the devil's eyes. And behind that beard, I will dare to say, there are predator's fangs."