Arthur pc-3

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  'Dread they were, but beautiful to behold. Achingly beautiful. Like Morgian, they were exquisite in their perfection. But it was the perfection of empty precision; soulless and insensate, lethal, immaculate in its vanity.

  To see them – oh, just to see them stopped the warm heart beating in my breast. I grew cold; my flesh tingled with the terrible malice of their presence. The stench of rotting corpses filled the air. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

  'Morgian stepped nearer. She was in the full flowering of her fell glory. Gloating, her eyes dancing with malice, she exuded venom. The eyes excised on her palms radiated the force of her wickedness like waves rippling out from a stone plunged into deep water. This was calculated to unnerve me.

  'But I was not unnerved, neither did I fear. In truth, once I had weathered the first storm of her hatred, I knew that she could not touch my soul. She might kill me – Ha! Any brute barbarian can do that with a sharpened stick! – but Morgian could not destroy me. She could not make me renounce the Light, or die cursing my Lord.

  'I found my voice. "Do your worst, Morgian. I will not be moved. In the name of Jesu, Son of the Living God, I possess the strength to defy you."

  'These words had scarcely left my mouth when I became aware of wings around me. Strange, I know – but there is no other explanation. Wings! Enfolding me, sheltering me, protecting me. Whether the wings of angels, or of the blessed Christ himself, I cannot say. But I was surrounded. Peace flowed out to me. Peace in that place of horror. Think of it! I knew beyond all doubt my Lord and King stood over me. His Swift Sure Hand upheld me.

  'Morgian sensed the shift in the battle. It made her angry, though she could not see the source of my courage. "Words! Words! Fool of a Prophet! Your insipid god cannot save you. No power on earth can save you now!" She raised her hands and crossed them above her head, and began calling down the powers of the Air and Darkness.

  'She chanted her ghastly incantations, and I heard the frozen scream of the howling void.

  'So strange, but even then – at the very moment her power had reached its full height, she had lost. I had not given in to her. In the face of her hate, I did not hate. Neither did I cower or flee.

  'Great Light, the Enemy's power is so fragile! The devils can use only what we ourselves will give them. Do you see? Give them nothing, and their power fails; it falls like a spent arrow, like a blade broken and blunted.

  'Morgian railed at me, she cursed. She summoned the demons of hell to her bidding. Oh, you should have seen her. It was terrible to behold. But the wings enfolded me, I did not fear.

  'She summoned a gale of fire. The rage! The rage and hate surged out of her in a vile and poisonous stream. Dark lightning flashed and the blighted grove began to burn. Branches flamed and fell around me; trees became torches and toppled one over another. But I felt no heat; no flame touched me!

  'Emboldened, I called to her. "You see the truth at last, Morgian: by the power of the Holy One, the True God, I am saved. You cannot harm me. Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in you. All honour and glory and power belong to Him. So be it!"

  'This she could not abide. Neither could she stand against it. For so quickly had she consumed her strength that she now had nothing left; she was exhausted. She could not even hold up her hands any longer.

  'I taunted her. "Come, Morgian!" I cried. "Your lords are watching. Show them how their creature wields the weapons she has been given."

  'Her eyes were wild with madness and fury. The fire mounted still higher. Trees burst with the savage heat. But the grass beneath my feet did not so much as wither. Cool, sweet air bathed me.

  'Exultation swept through me; I opened my mouth and sang. I sang hymns of praise to my Lord. I sang a song of victory to my King. And I danced before him. The demons crowding behind Morgian shimmered in the lashing heat, then faded and vanished.

  'Morgian's face went black as the evil swelled within her; murderous rage held her in its jaws and shook her. She screamed and her scream could have felled an army!

  'She leapt at me, her fingers like claws, raking. I threw my arms up to protect my face, but attack did not come.

  'I heard a voice call her name. "Morgian!" The sudden shout stopped her. I lowered my hands and looked; a man appeared on a horse, galloping towards her through the flames… '

  Myrddin paused; at the mention of the man his voice had become heavy with grief. 'You recognized the man,' I said.

  'I knew him,' Myrddin replied. 'May God save him, it was Lot.'

  'Lot!' Gwalcmai and I shouted together.

  Myrddin bent his head slowly. 'It was. Even through the smoke and flames, I knew him.

  'He called to her. Morgian stood frozen in her malice. But Lot raced to her, leaned low and gathered her up; he hauled her up before him in the saddle. The horse reared, hooves flashing at me, and they fled.

  'I called to her: "Come back, Morgian! Let us finish what you have begun." But they did not turn back. Anger surged up within me. And, God help me, I went after her. I did not want her to escape.

  'At the edge of the grove they stopped and half-turned towards me. I thought that Morgian would face me. But she had one charm left. She threw her hands over her head and screamed the spell. Hideous, it was a last cry of defiance and despair.

  'I halted. Lot wheeled the horse away. In the same instant lightning fell from the sky and gouged a crevice in the earth between us. They fled together. And I lay on the ground for a long time, dazed, shaken, my skull ringing like a sounding bell. I opened my eyes and I could not see. The lightning burned and blinded me.'

  He raised his finger-tips to his eyes. 'My sight is gone – my foresight also. I can no longer see the scattered pathways before me; my feet will no more tread those Otherworld places. All is dim, the future is featureless and void. I am twice blind.' He paused and shook his head sadly. 'Well, I am to blame. I abandoned the protection of my Lord to seek her death. And now I bear the scar of my folly. Oh, but I was loath to let her go.'

  Gwalcmai, his face ashen – even in the firelight – turned stricken, tear-filled eyes to me. 'I will avenge this wrong,' he vowed softly, little knowing what he said.

  'How can you accuse yourself?' I asked Myrddin. 'Surely, Morgian is responsible; she did this to you. She is to blame.'

  A mocking smile touched Myrddin's lips. 'Do you not see it yet? This was never my battle! It was between the Prince of Darkness and the Lord of Light, between the Enemy and Jesu. I had no part in it.'

  'No part in it? If not for you she would have triumphed long ago!'

  'No,' Myrddin shook his head slowly. 'That is what I believed, too. For a long time I have carried that burden in my heart and soul, but it was a lie! Yes, that too was a He.'.

  'I do not understand,' I said firmly.

  'It was never my battle,' the Emrys explained gently. 'My own pride, my vanity, my puffed-up importance kept me from seeing that.' Myrddin gave a bitter laugh and raised a hand to his eyes. 'I was blind before, but now I see quite clearly: my Lord is All-Sufficient to his own defence. He did not need my help. It is he who saves and protects, not me, never Myrddin.'

  He paused, as if reflecting, then added, 'I tell you, it is the Enemy's delight to make us think otherwise. But it was only when I knew my own weakness, when I came alone and unprotected to this place, with no other plan or purpose but to stand against Morgian – only then was my Lord free to act.'

  'But you did it. You faced her.'

  'I did nothing?

  Silence. The crackling of the fire and the quiet rippling of the nearby stream grew to fill the night.

  'I did nothing, Pelleas,' he said again softly.

  'Lord,' I said, putting my hand on his arm, 'Pelleas is not here. It is me, Bedwyr – and Gwalcmai.'

  Myrddin Emrys reached a hand to his head. 'Oh,' he said, 'of course. But where is Pelleas?'

  'I do not know, Emrys. He set out to find you – before Lugnasadh it was.'

  Myrddin rose and stumbled a few pa
ces forward. Telleas!' he cried, lifting his face to the night. With a mighty groan he crashed to his knees. 'Oh, Pelleas, fair friend, what has she done!'

  I rushed to his side. 'Myrddin?'

  The pain in his voice was a knife to carve the heart from the breast. ‘Pelleas is dead… '

  My spirit shrank within me, and I heard the sinister echo of Morgian's words to Myrddin: This time your precious Pelleas will not interfere.

  Blessed Jesu, I prayed, let that be a lie, too.

  NINE

  Charis was thankful to have her son returned to her alive. She mourned his blindness, but set to work at once to heal him. The normal serenity of life at the Tor yielded somewhat to the urgency of Myrddin's injury as the Lady of the Lake searched her wide knowledge of medicine and consulted with the good brothers of the Shrine.

  Yet, in the end, they were forced to the conclusion that if Myrddin's sight were to be returned, it would be at the pleasure of the Gifting God. The efforts of men would avail little, so he must wait and let God work his will. Until then, Myrddin would wear a blind man's bandage.

  Morgian was not destroyed, but her power was broken. She had fled and would trouble us no more. Myrddin did not think she could ever recover her powers. Once exhausted, he explained, they rarely return. In this, he may have been optimistic. But he knows these things better than anyone.

  And then there was the problem of Lot. It was possible that Lot could have come to Llyonesse: he might have sailed the moment we left Caer Edyn. Considering the time we took on the way, it would not have been difficult for him to go ahead of us.

  Still, I thought it unlikely. Gwalcmai was too deeply ashamed to say one way or another what he thought. He felt that his noble name had been dishonoured and his clan disgraced. Wretched and humiliated, it was all he could do to hold his head up. He dragged himself around the Tor – fairest of abodes in this worlds-realm! – the very image of despair. I tried my best to cheer him, but my words were little comfort. The wound to his northern pride cut deep.

  I talked with Myrddin about this. 'Of course it is not Gwalcmai's fault. I do not condemn him. But I saw what I saw, Bedwyr. I cannot change that,' he insisted.

  'But might you have been mistaken? Might it have been someone else?'

  'Of course, it is possible,' he admitted. 'But this someone else wore Lot's face and spoke with Lot's voice – someone else so very like Lot that he must be Lot's twin.'

  While Myrddin conceded that he might be mistaken, it did not get us very far. For Lot, as far as I knew, did not have a brother.

  Nor was Gwalcmai any help. 'My father has no brother,' he confirmed sadly, 'Loth had but one son, and I have never heard of another.'

  This was a problem without an immediate solution. So, I left it to God's care, and went about my own affairs. Myrddin would be well enough to travel in a few days' time, and I was anxious to return to Caer Melyn as swiftly as possible. The weather had turned windy and wet. The days were growing colder. As pleasant as it is, I did not wish to winter on the Glass Isle. We must leave soon if we were to leave at all before spring.

  Charis, fearing for her son, was reluctant to let us go. Yet she understood our need and showed me how to change the cloth over Myrddin's eyes, and how to prepare the mud mixture that would soothe her son's burned flesh. From the thick-wooded west side of Shrine Hill, I cut a long staff of rowan for him, so that he would not stumble; it gave him the look of a druid of old, and many who saw him took him as such.

  Avallach gave us the pick of his stables; and we took a horse for Myrddin and left the first clear day. The ship waited where we had left it. I paid the fisherman who kept it for us; and we settled the horses on board and then pushed off.

  The day was bright and the wind fresh. Yet, when I saw the land receding behind us, a pang of grief pierced me like an arrow. For we were leaving Pelleas behind, and I knew in my bones that we would never see him again.

  If my grief throbbed like a wound in my flesh, how much greater was Myrddin's?

  'He is gone,' he lamented in a voice so soft it broke my heart to hear it. 'A bright star has fallen from heaven and we will see it no more.'

  'How can you be certain?'

  'Peace, Bedwyr,' he soothed. 'If he were still alive do you think I would spare myself, even a moment? When in my madness I cowered in the forest, it was Pelleas who found me. He searched for years and never gave up. How could I do less?'

  Gwalcmai heard all this and, upon disembarking at Abertaff, he mounted his horse with us, but soon turned onto a southern track. I called after him, 'Caer Melyn is this way! Where do you think you're going?'

  He paused and looked back. 'To find Pelleas!' he answered. 'I will not sit at meat with Arthur until I have found him.'

  'Gwalcmai!'

  The headstrong young warrior set his face to the south and raised his spear in farewell. 'Greet my brother for me, and tell him what has happened.'

  'Tell him yourself! Gwalcmai, come back!'

  'Let him go,' said Myrddin. 'Let him do what he must.'

  'But you said Pelleas was dead.'

  'He is.'

  'Then his search is senseless.'

  "'No,' Myrddin said. 'His search is redemption itself. He may not find Pelleas, but perhaps he will find and reclaim his honour. I tell you the truth, if he stays he will sicken with remorse. Let him go, and he will come back to us a champion.'

  Few there are who can stand against the Emrys' inscrutable wisdom. I am not one of them. I did as I was told and granted Gwalcmai leave to go where he would.

  Arthur accepted this decision. In view of all that had happened he could do no less, though it chafed him to lose so fine a warrior as Gwalcmai had shown himself to be. He lamented Myrddin's blindness, but was glad to have him returned alive. And Caer Melyn was so busy with preparations for winter that we could not dwell over-long on the mystery of Lot's treachery. We had neglected the stronghold for the whole of the summer, and there was much to do before the icy winds howled down from the north.

  We were kept busy during the long winter, too: mending weapons and making new ones, and repairing tack, equipment and wagons. What with all the hammering, sharpening, burnishing and polishing, we might have been such a city of smiths as Bran the Blessed encountered in one of his fabled journeys.

  But Arthur knew the coming campaign would be hard fought. He wanted everything to be ready. When Bors returned from Benowyc in Armorica, the Duke aimed to sail to Caer Edyn. For the next attack, he reasoned, would come at Britain's new shipyards.

  In this he was not wrong.

  Snow still clung to the sides of the mountains when we set out. The wind that filled our sails also cut through our cloaks and set our teeth chattering in our heads. The coastal waters were not as rough as we expected and, after only a few mishaps wherein one or another of our inexperienced seamen floundered or lost the wind, the fleet made good time.

  Ectorius had not been idle through the winter, either. He rode down to the new docks to welcome us with the report that five new ships awaited our inspection in the Fiorth.

  'Come and see these sleek-hulled beauties,' crowed Ector. 'Lot's wrights are a marvel. As long as we kept them supplied with timber, they worked. Why, we cut the trees and they worked right through the winter and never a grumble about the cold.'

  'But I gave them leave to return to Lot in the winter,' said Arthur.

  'Is that not what I am saying myself?' replied Ector. 'Lot deemed it best to keep them here. You driving off the barbarian horde saved his ships, so he had no need of them in Orcady.'

  'When did Lot leave Caer Edyn?' I asked, hoping to resolve the mystery of his appearance in Llyonesse.

  'Well… ' Ector pulled on his red beard. 'It was late.'

  'How late?' Arthur asked. He understood what I was after.

  'Well, now I think of it, not all that late. Before the Christ Mass, it was.'

  'How long before the Christ Mass?'

  'Not long – only a few days.'
r />   'And the rest of the time he was here?"

  'Where else would he be?' Ectorius was becoming suspicious.

  'Are you sure?' I demanded. 'Lot did not leave and come back perhaps?'

  'He was here, Lord Bedwyr. You yourself saw him. He was here, and here he stayed until the Christ Mass – or a little before, as I say.'

  'You are certain?' said Arthur.

  'It is God's truth I am telling,' swore Ector. 'Now then, what is this about?"

  Arthur was reluctant to say, so I answered for him. 'Lot was seen in the south – after Lugnasadh, but well before the Christ Mass.'

  'No,' Ector shook his head adamantly, 'it is not possible. I know who it is that sits at my board. Lot was with me here.'

  So, instead of helping solve the mystery, I had only deepened it. Naturally, we did not speak a word of this to Gwalchavad, who had wintered with Ector and was there to greet us on our return from the south. We told him that his brother had gone in quest of Pelleas, but no more than that. Still, we wondered: who was this second Lot who had rescued Morgian?

  The old Roman shipyards lay a short ride east along the coast. We heard the clangour of hammers and the shouts of the labourers before ever we saw the docks. But, coming upon them suddenly around a bend in the shoreline, I would have vowed the Romans had returned.

  A whole forest of trees had been felled and stripped, and the logs stacked along the shore, where scores of men shaved, split and trimmed them. Fifty huts and lodges had been built – some to house the workers, some to house ships so that work could continue in bad weather. New wooden docks had been erected on the old stone pilings, and the channels dredged of silt so that the ships could be brought up for repair, or launched without waiting on the tide.

  Everywhere I looked I saw men with tools of one sort or another. And the noise! The sawing, the chopping, the shouting – men bawling orders and answering with bellows, yells and roars. The gulls shrieked and chattered overhead, and windblown waves slapped the pilings smartly. The air smelled of fresh-cut wood and sweat, of sea-salt and sawdust. It was as if the world had suddenly woken from its long winter sleep and begun to work at shipbuilding.