"Hush. You are not an ignorant woman. A man is judged by deeds, not appearance."
"I bartered well myself, Arthor," Merlin goes on, pleased with himself for finding in a village of these remote woods strong horses for the future king—and without recourse to magic. "Behold the two fine mares I purchased at the grange town of Cherrywood for a pouch of drachmae. Silver has no legs, yet it runs swiftly. Not, however, as swift as gold, eh? And it's gold Master Sphenks will have for these magnificent horses in Camelot. And where are you bound, my boy?"
"Hammer's Throw," Arthor replies. "And you'd best come with us, old man. There's a monster about. A lamia."
"A lamia!" Merlin wears a frightened expression. "Master Sphenks and I have seen the likes of such horrors in our travels through Dalmatia. They are shapeshifters, young son, and with a mighty thirst for human blood."
"Will you ride with us, then?" Arthor asks, and hears Melania's groan.
"Not to Hammer's Throw," Merlin answers, wiping the dew-lapped rain from his haggard face. "There's no one in that thorp powerful enough to fend a lamia. We are off to Camelot to sell these steeds to the warriors gathering there. That's where you'll find the might and experience to track and kill lamia. Come with me. The lady may have her own horse for the journey. We'll make good speed and seek help from those that can give it."
Arthor shakes his head. "Not Camelot. My fate calls me elsewhere."
"Fate, is it?" The gleeman looks down at his wise dog, who looks up at the hermetic figure and sapiently shakes its head side to side. "What do you say to that, Master Sphenks?"
The dog leaps straight upward, spins about, and lands with a bark.
"Master Sphenks says we should talk about this thing you call fate," Merlin replies, and points to a grove of maple. "Let's shelter here briefly. I've victuals from the grange town. We shall eat and talk about fate, eh?"
"No." Arthor nudges his palfrey forward, and Melania hugs him more firmly. "There's a lamia about. We must keep moving."
As the couple step past, Merlin gestures to the bulging saddle pouches on his mares. "I've blue cheese, rye bread, and crisp apples," he says temptingly.
"Enjoy them, old man." Arthor nods to the gleeman and salutes his wise dog. "May you fare well on your journey to Camelot."
Merlin gnashes his teeth and throws his grass hat to the ground as Arthor disappears into the arched vaults of the forest. He dare not use magic again. The Furor is somewhere nearby. This gray weather is his aura. If the north god finds the wizard, death will come swiftly to Merlin in a bolt of lightning. The best he can hope to do now is what he has been doing all along—watching from afar and anticipating the young king's needs.
In the maple grove, he ties off the horses, drops a wad of dried meat for the dog, and crouches under the drizzling rain, listening for evil.
Melania can still feel his eerie presence as they ride among the rain-lit trees. The time she spent possessed, first by the lamia and then by the Saxon's gods, has heightened her psychic perceptions. "He is not a natural man," she warns Arthor. "We are well to be away from him."
"Yet I wish he had come with us," Arthor says. "I owe him a life debt and would be unhappy if the lamia kills him."
They ride on in silence through primeval woods that the rain, fine as powder, has drained of natural hues and stained in seven shades of lavender. Among a holt of willows that offer some seclusion, Melania asks to stop to relieve herself. Arthor complies and holds her hand as she dismounts. Her dark, curly tresses, glossy and heavy with rain, lend her the appearance of a Babylonian princess, and the longing that Arthor feels for her grips him like grieving.
She retreats behind willow curtains. Arthor ties his palfrey to a thin mulberry tree among tangled lupines and lilies glittering with pearls of rain and strides into the obscurity of the forest. He leans against a twisted larch, pulls aside the loin-wrap beneath his tunic, and listens abstractly to the stream of water sizzling across fallen cones and needles. He wonders if he can win Melania's love. Perhaps, he contemplates, I can win the fortune she needs to reclaim her estate. Yet he cannot imagine how he can earn that much gold with his sword.
Short-Life is my sword now, he reminds himself, adjusting his loin-wrap. I've earned it fairly by doing as Kyner commanded—and it led me to Melania. Now, if God wills, it will lead me to the fortune I need to make her my own.
He approaches a slantwise and wild chestnut, places both hands against it, and extends his right leg behind him, pressing the heel to the ground to stretch his taut hamstrings. Nearby, among breeks of kingscord and puffballs, blue chicory blooms. He considers harvesting several stems to chew as they ride—when the chestnut heaves forward!
Its branches sweep down and snaggle Arthor as he falls backward, and the scalloped fungus that ledges its trunk folds back around a leering face riven in the bark. Leaves snap like sparks. Branches squeak and cry. Mounded roots suck loudly, pulling free from the soaked earth. And Fen's countenance unwrinkles out of the brown moil of wood and knots.
In an eyeblink, the naked Saxon stands before him, the guardian band about his throat glittering like living snakeskin, and his clawed hands gripping Arthor's shoulders.
"You gave me to the Thunderers." His silver hair writhes like worms in an updraft of blue wind, and his body looks sinister, unnaturally swollen and chocked with electric veins. "Now I will give you to death."
Arthor draws Short-Life, swiping the blade through the Saxon's midriff. Ether fire sprays like green blood from the abrupt wound, and Arthor jolts with shock, the meat of his body jumping on his skeleton, twanging tendons, searing nerves. He howls as much with fright as pain to see Fen's cleaved belly heal itself like so much quicksilver bleeding together.
"You cannot kill me," Fen cries with a rabid laugh. "I have become more than man."
Arthor sags, and the taloned hands lift him off his feet. Panicky, he hacks at the thick arms upholding him, and they slice like water. The splash of energy lights the grove with spectral radiance and jars through his sword arm and into his chest where it strikes his beating heart. He hits the ground breathless, voltage like blue mold tufting from the tips of his cheeks, nose, and chin, and he thinks he sees his naked bones in his hands, dull shadows in his shining flesh.
With a sucked-in scream, he pulls breath back to his lungs, and his bruised heart thumps so hard against his ribs he nearly passes out. Fen's severed arms spin brilliant wires of blue light and reattach themselves to the cut elbows with a thump of thunder.
"I am made of wind and lightning now." The Saxon laughs at him, his skull glowing through his flesh and rubbing the air around him with a trembling halo. He towers above his fallen prey, his eyes like fierce stars, bright with maniacal silence, a god of dementia.
Arthor crawls backward, abandoning his sword. He does not have the strength to rise. And as he falls flat under the pressure of terror, Melania steps over him. Her lodestone dagger slashes once, and the grasping claws shrivel like torched grass.
Fen bawls, and the stars snuff in his eyes. Their smoke wreathes his once more human face, a face wrung with shock and pain. "You!" he gasps, clutching his cut hands to his mortal chest, looking thin, pallid, and frail. "Who are you?"
Melania replies with a thrusting jab; Fen hops back, falls over a root-ledge, and scrambles away tucked over his pain. Where once he stood, a burned smell slithers in the pattering rain.
Arthor sits up, heart banging at the door of his head. At first he can hear nothing else, and Melania's lips move soundlessly. Then she presses very close. "He is gone."
She slips the stone knife in her sash and rubs his shoulders. The white fabric there bears seared claw marks. "He taunted you," she says in a voice that reaches him, "or you'd be dead now. We must stay close. We have only this one weapon to protect us."
He stands and retrieves Short-Life. At the spot where the illusory chestnut had stood, miasmal haze rots the air with a feculent stink. The forest extends through rings of darkness in every direc
tion, and he peers anxiously into those shadows for the vacant eyes and chewing jaws.
Melania takes his arm and guides him back to where the palfrey nibbles at the leaves of the mulberry tree. The gleeman and his wise dog are standing there with the two mares. "Master Sphenks smelled trouble," Merlin says, eyeing Arthor for damage, unhappy to see pallor in his cheeks and tremor in his eyes. "The lamia, yes?"
Master Sphenks bounds atop the palfrey's saddle so that it stares eye level into Arthor's fright. It takes the reins in its teeth and, standing, bobs as a rider would.
Melania, who edged away at the sight of Merlin, laughs outright, a short, helpless gust of mirth that penetrates Arthor's torpor. The shadow falls from the boy's numb face, and a vague smile appears.
"Master Sphenks wants you to ride with him to Camelot," Merlin interprets. "Surely, now you see there is no hope in going on to Hammer's Throw. Come with us to where the lady may find true sanctuary among the chieftains and warlords of Britain."
Arthor looks to Melania, who nods. If the lamia had slain Arthor, she would be alone again in these woods, prey once more to the viper-priest and his cruel tribesmen. Far better to seek safety among the Christian lords of this island, even if she must abide the presence of this haunted man with the bleached beard and cadaver's wax face. Perhaps, too, her tolerance shall be rewarded if she finds a British prince willing to return to Aquitania with her for adventure and profit—or marriage.
"Will you escort me to the gathering of lords in Camelot?" she asks Arthor. "I have the will but not the might to master the lamia I set loose on your island. Let me at least confess this trespass to those who have the means to right my wrong."
Arthor does not protest and looks into her as if reading a coded message. All hope of defending her from the monsters that assail her withered away when he hung in the predacious grip of the lamia. His heart still speeds like a runner leaving no tracks. He has lost his conviction he can protect the innocents of the land from Fen's bloodlust, and he even doubts that he can defend himself.
Shivering, he senses the cold designs that death has on him and in him. Now he simply looks to see in this beautiful woman what remains of his amorous ambition. He knew when he first saw her that she would never be his, though he had aspired to triumph somehow with valor. The lamia stripped him of that. If they part here, she will leave with his pride.
"I shall ride with you to Camelot," he agrees, "but I cannot escort you to the festival itself. I have sworn to go my own way in the world." Though I never thought it would lead to such abominations as this, he thinks to himself, knowing full well that Fen will come back for him, and he may never live to reach Camelot.
Master Sphenks barks approval, drops the reins, and licks Arthor's face. Arthor wipes the slobber from his cheek and pushes the mutt off the saddle.
Melania accepts the blond mare, and Merlin climbs onto the gray. They ride back the way they had come, Master Sphenks leading the way, and soon Arthor relaxes into this decision. The dog will not be fooled by the lamia, whatever shapes it may assume.
The lad puts a hand over his thudding heart and slowly convinces it to calm down. Never before has he been so frightened. Doom seems to surround him. Evil shadows loiter in the mist-brewing trees, and the rag ends of fog among the shrubs hide threats and violence.
With accuracy, Melania reads his sullen mood, and says to him quietly, "Arthor, do not fret. You are the bravest man I have ever known." Her large eyes brim with sincerity. "Fen hunts you, because you saved me from the barbarians. If you had been less courageous and had left me, you would have no troubles now. I owe you my life." She holds out the lodestone dagger, presenting him the silver-bound haft of quartz. "Take this. It will serve us best in your hand."
Merlin, riding ahead, pretends not to hear or to notice the glow of pride that brightens Arthor as he accepts the weapon. The wizard will have much to teach him about the lure and allure of desire that burns all the keener the closer it comes to the flame. But for now, it is enough that he has drawn him toward Camelot, and the dangers between here and there preclude all the elections of love.
The faithful enemy lurks somewhere in the cool rain. At nightfall, as the drizzle drums to a downpour, Merlin feels the Furor closing in. When he purchased the mares in Cherrywood, he smelled the weather and had the foresight to pack canvas waxed with cerate. The travelers cast it over a capacious hawthorn bush on a knoll and create for themselves a shelter against the torrent. The wizard leaves them there eating apples, cheese, and rye loaves and sets Master Sphenks as a guardian while he goes out into the stormy night to spy upon the one-eyed god.
The black-faced wind carries the Furor's scent, and Merlin follows it to a covert of interlocking elms on a higher hill. Rain oozes through in thin vines, and the wizard curls into a dry, hollowed bole and listens deeply to the heartbeat of the storm. He has no trouble locating the furious god of the barbarians, who presides with his slithers of lightning among the Thunderers at the far end of Crowland.
In trance, Merlin listens to their music, their femur-bone flutes, percussive skulls, and drums skinned with human hide. He feels the ritual power of their shaman, the viper-priest Cissa, as he sways to the dance that binds him with the frenzied bodies of his tribe. Cissa pitches forward into his own trance. He is not seeking Merlin, or Arthor, or the lamia-possessed Fen. The shaman writhes on the mossy earth to bring the Furor into flesh.
Merlin relaxes. For a while, he lingers in the tree hole on the hill's backbone, observing from afar the one-eyed god's indulgent desire to throw himself into a human body. It darkly amuses him to watch this electromagnetic majesty nosing the earth for the honey of a blood-and-guts existence.
His amusement shines darkly, because he knows that the Furor comes to flesh covetous not of human life, which seems contemptuously meager to him as to all gods. The Saxon god of war shrinks to the trembling moment of man to taste for himself the honey of his people's awe.
The old prophecies promise him these western islands. In time, they will be his. Neither Merlin nor all his magic can stop that. Soon enough, the Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Picts, and Gaels will rule these lands, erect their tombs and altars, and sing praises to their war god. The Furor stoops now to sip that rare, effluvial nectar of anticipation, condensed to the utmost sweetness of imminence in the fervid brains of his worshipers.
So absorbed is the wizard in his tranceful observations that he does not sense Fen's approach on the knoll below. Master Sphenks, lulled by the rain, has curled up and fallen asleep against Arthor, who dozes lightly, listening through the sinuous rain for rustlings in the underbrush. Melania shifts restlessly. Something large as the night summons her.
Fen squats nearby, bloody fingers hooked about the guardian band clasping his throat. He wants to yank it off, throw it into the night, and let the lamia devour him. When the monster glowed with strength after consuming his tormentors among the Thunderers, Fen exulted. But since Melania cut his hands with the lode-knife, the power has drained from him. Now the lamia wants to eat. It licks the salt in the blood of his wounded fingers and jangles the harp of the rain with its needy moans.
If Fen pulls the band from his throat, the lamia will kill him and the shame of his capture by Kyner, his humiliating return to the Thunderers as a boy's gift, the sickening hunger of his possession will end. But there may be a better way. The witch who wounded him perhaps can take this demon off of him.
The storm returns night to its original blackness, and Fen uses it to hold his beckoning. Like a prayer, he beseeches the night to bring her to him. If she is a witch, she will hear him, he reasons.
Instead, it is the lamia that hears him and calls to her through the urn and her blood, the two containers that once carried the predator. Her blood remembers the lamia's possession. The urn on the ground beside her amplifies the summons.
A feeling like something of loveliness, like something wild and her own, draws Melania out of the shelter and into the night. She thinks she swelters
and needs the cool caress of rain to soothe her. Darkness among the trees glitters like ebony and opals, a bright darkness the envy of angels, and she goes to it.
Fen is there. Slender in his nakedness and shivering, he has no shade of threat about him, and his silver-whiskered face with its acute cheekbones looks anguished as Christ's. He kneels under a spruce, his hurt fingers grasping the guardian band. When he sees her, he lets go and sways to his feet.
"You came!" he sobs.
Melania shudders, alert and surprised to find herself here. She steps away, alarmed.
"No—don't go," Fen calls. "I will not harm you." The lamia lifts away from his slashed fingers and gleams like the merest thread of sunlight in the starless gloom, revealing Fen's long body shining with rain. "Stay, please. The monster that holds me—I will not let it harm you."
Melania glances about for others and sees only the impenitent darkness of the forest. She hugs herself against the rain. "You called me here."
"Yes. I prayed for you to come—to remove this thing from me. Will you help me?"
The lamia sweeps open, fangs gleaming in its skull-face, its shaggy mane a shroud of boreal lights.
"No!" Fen cries, and clasps his will to the monster. It buckles in the air, inches from Melania's startled body. Exerting every muscle of body and spirit, Fen drags the lamia away from its prey. "Run!" he shouts, and the thunderbolt scar upon his chest writhes with his strenuous effort. "I cannot hold it long! Run!"
He cries to the gods of darkness, and the black legends of pain open within him. He bears their telling, rending his body's muscles and the fibers of his soul, until the witch has fled. She is his only hope, and she must not die.
Once Melania has gone, the lamia turns on Fen. But its gnawing at his open wounds is the smallest cruelty after what he endured to hold it back. He knows he will never again have such strength, and he turns away and hobbles into the night.
From under the rain-singing flap of canvas with Master Sphenks at her side growling into the storm, Melania watches his distant white shadow disappear like a light without a body.
The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2) Page 19
