Merlin's Ring

by H. Warner Munn

  They looked out, from their height, across a beautiful valley, and Biarki said, “I have been thinking, partner, that all we see here could be ours, if you would but play the man.”

  Skeggi said then, “Speak clearly. What would you have me do?”

  Biarki, thinking Skeggi could be easily persuaded, replied, “Look you, now. First, we shall kill that troll who came out of the ice and holds your daughter under his spell. Then, when she is free, we shall be three axes together against these little people”—for Biarki stood head and shoulders above all but a few, and so looked down upon them—“and I doubt not that Flann, of the quick tongue, will be gladder to give orders than he was to take them. So we may make them all thralls and we shall be as jarls and own the whole land.”

  But he did not go on to say that after this was done, Flann’s life would be short and perhaps Skeggi’s as well.

  Yet this thought came to Skeggi, and he said, “And if I will not, what then? For I am inclined- toward these people.”

  Then it was as though a red mist rose before Biarki’s eyes and the sky and earth came together as a melting flame and the pool was filled with blood and his face was as the face of a trolL

  Skeggi saw his anger. He loosened his ax in his belt and moved a little way off, but he was hampered by the birds and he could not go far.

  He was trying to rise when Biarki leapt to his feet in his fury, shouting, “Then, Skeggi Hairymouth, I call you nid-dering and no man!”

  And with a single sweep of his ax he split open Skeggi’s head and laid his partner dead at his feet.

  His rage passed, and when Biarki knew what he had done, he was afraid. Even hi this far land, he knew he was under Odin’s eye, and he did not believe that the Norns had planned to cut the thread of Skeggi’s life at this time. This was clearly a blood debt that would be held against him, and he did not wish to pay it, now or ever.

  He walked over to the pool and looked into it. It was very deep. The water was boiling and bubbles rose and burst upon its surface, giving off little puffs of steam. Steam whistled and piped from little cracks around it in the rocky rim.

  If a body would not stay hidden in the depths, surely the flesh would soon be boiled from the bones and dissipated into a scum, and the skeleton would sink of its own weight, never to be seen again.

  Biarki laid hold of the body and dragged it to the water’s edge. He did not like to lose the good ax, but it would help to weigh the body down. He rolled the body over and the water seetked about it.

  There was not muck blood on the rocks. A few cups of water were enough to wash it away. When he had finished, the body had already sunk out of sight in the clear depths.

  He saw the auks and with a shudder of disgust at this reminder of the vanished man he threw them into the pool too.

  They were large and heavy with fat and almost immediately a film of oil began to spread over its surface. It shimmered in the sunlight and the bubbles no longer burst througk it The steam was held within the water as the oil quickly covered the pool.

  Then, as Biarki watched, he saw a strange and terrible thing that almost unhinged his mind. A moment longer the pool was quiet, then suddenly a round dome of water grew in its center, upon which Skeggi’s body rode and tossed. It shot upward in a monstrous pillar of whitely boiling water and steam and as it rose it roared and hissed. As it rose, so with it rose Skeggi, up, up, and up—two hundred feet and more, into the air—and as he rose he beckoned to Biarki, with waving arms from which the flesh was already falling, as though be besought Biarki to follow him into the clouds.

  For this pool, so placid in its seeming, was the monstrous Geysir—Gusher—from which all others in the world derive their names! Biarki fled screaming from this ghastly sight.

  Now, as he ran, adding to his horror, a great gyrfalcon stooped down upon him out of the heavens, like a falling star, and fixed its talons in his shoulder, beating him heavily about the face with its wing elbows.

  He tore it loose, strong as it was, and threw it to the ground, but it sprang into the air on its broad pinions, shrieked and rose, seeking altitude, and then Biarki again heard the whistle of air in its stiff feathers as it dived to strike and tear again.

  This time, he was prepared. He flung up his buckler to protect his face, struck it sidelong down, cut a wing from its three-foot body and ran on, leaving it dying there. He was in too much fear to make certain that it was dead.

  As it happened, the falcon was still living when a raven, always the hungry scavenger, dropped down to see. As the raven hopped closer, the falcon’s eyes filmed over and its beak closed.

  Curiously enough, the raven did not stop to feed. Instead, it seemed to forget that it was hungry. It flapped awkwardly up again and at a low altitude followed the staggering man as he ran on across the lava beds, heading back south toward the village of the Culdees.

  During this time, Flann had been delighted to find that Gwalchmai had suddenly lost interest in Thyra. He could not understand it, but when Thyra sought his company, forsaking the stranger with whom she had become so close, he did not question her or his good fortune.

  Thyra linked arms with him and they walked and talked as they had in gay moods before. That was enough for Flann. Once in a while she pressed his arm close against her body and they walked on without speaking. Occasionally she looked up at him as though she were seeing him newly, and was pleased at what she saw. It was almost as though she was comparing him mentally with Gwalchmai and had decided that she liked Flann the better of the two.

  She raised her face up to him and Flann was sure that she wanted to be kissed. He was about to try when she looked up into the sky and the spell was broken.

  The expression so familiar to him lately came again upon her face. She stiffened and pressed backward out of his arms. A raven had just flown overhead.

  To Thyra, it was as though a beloved sister had come home and they had embraced in greeting. Corenice was back.

  She had been worried, though dimly, when her father left with Biarki, for what Corenice knew, Thyra also knew, and Corenice had felt the other’s anxiety. So, to relieve the minds of both, for pain one felt also hurt the other, Corenice had gone questing—in the body of the gyrfalcon.

  Thyra instantly learned what Corenice had discovered.

  She could not cry, for Corenice dominated her body, but there were tears just the same.

  Corenice had learned to admire and respect Skeggi for his courage and integrity. Chiefly she felt anger, as she had at the geyser. This was a frightful deed, which called for justice and immediate punishment

  So it was that Gwalchmai and Flann were informed of the murder. Immediately arming themselves, although Flann could take the word he received only on trust, the little party moved north to meet BiarM—the two girls in the one body and the two men who loved them both.

  Biarki meanwhile had covered much ground, being hagridden with fear. He was weary, but when he saw the three avengers coming -from the village and marked with what determination they strode in his direction, he was aware that they knew what he had done.

  He had planned a story that would explain Skeggi’s absence, but he cast it out of his mind. Somehow he felt sure that it would be useless. The raven, Odin’s messenger, had seen and told all. His doom was upon him and that it would befall and was not to be avoided seemed only just.

  At this end to all his hopes and plans, he went mad. The tendency to go berserk, which had always cursed the men of his family, now descended upon him.

  The familiar red tinge colored all his little world again. The yellow of lichen and the green of the grass became submerged In scarlet. He ripped away the shirt from his body. He felt suffocated from lack of air and must bare himself to the wind.

  He bit the edge of his buckler until his teeth splintered and his mouth bled. He howled like a wolf and rushed, foaming, in great bounds and leaps, against his enemies under a bloody and setting sun.

  He swung his battle ax first against
Flann, for it was he who had been hated longest. Flann was less tired, but escaped only by sucking in his belly; the ax swung on in a figure eight and struck him a glancing blow in the back that laid him flat

  With scarcely a glance at him gasping on the ground, Biarki turned upon the others. Merlin’s ring grew hot as fire upon Gwalchmai’s finger and he knew he was in as great a danger as he had ever been.

  His own buckler was up and he received Biarki’s blow full upon it. The shock numbed his arm. His guard fell. He heard the girl scream. He did not know if it was Thyra or Corenice.

  His drawn sword licked out beneath the drooping shield hi the old legionary trick that his father had taught him. It drew blood, for he felt it strike upon bone, but Biarki seemed impervious to wounds. It was only with the utmost effort that Gwalchmai was able to protect himself against the ram of ax blows. Again and again the short Roman sword struck into Biarki, who roared with pain but did not appear to weaken. Then Gwalchmai’s buckler fell.

  The next blow took the sword from his grip and it slithered across the ground. As he also fell, Gwalchmai knew well that it was Corenice who threw herself upon him. Biarki swung up his ax in triumph. Gwalchmai’s hand went up to push her aside or to fend off the blow. A gush of white brilliance shot from the stone in the ring, straight into Biarki’s eyes, blinding him with its flare.

  At that insant, Flann seized the sword.

  “Biarki! Die!” he yelled and the giant turned upon him.

  A little of Biarki’s mania had worn away. He approached Flann, panting, swinging his ax in circles, his blood spattering the ground. Still, his strength was enormous and they could hear the whistling sound of the weapon through the air.

  It was clear that Flann was no novice with the sword. He handled it well and despite its lack of length, he dealt Biarki two blows that would have dropped a lesser man— one in the biceps of the left arm, which caused Biarki to fling away his buckler, and another deep gash in the same side along the ox-like ribs.

  Biarki bellowed and seized Flann in an iron grip. Flann could not reach him with the sword point, but drew the edge along his side until Biarki lurched back. Flann’s face was dark with agony. He did not fall, but stood almost unconscious, struggling for breath, with the point of the sword touching the ground, balancing upon it.

  Biarki reached for him again, bleeding profusely, but Gwalchmai had recovered now. He slipped between the two, carrying Biarki’s discarded buckler, and brought it up under the madman’s jaw with the sound of an ax blow. Like an echo there came a second crack as that stout neck broke.

  Then Biarki fell like a tree that has faced its last storm and the others collapsed, almost as far gone as he, while Thyra-Corenice hugged and kissed and prayed over both her valiant men—but in thankfulness to different gods.

  4 Out Oars for
  They stayed through the long dark winter with the Culdees rather than return south so late in the year. It was not so much through dread of the stormy seas that they so decided, although most of the electrical storms occurred at that time and the little boats remained in their housing. It was because there seemed no urgency to seek another sort of life.

  Murder and bloody vengeance brought sorrow to the small self-sufficient community. The outside world had impinged upon them briefly enough, but these events caused long-buried memories to come to the surface and now the people went about soberly and with less laughter. They remembered persecutions and deaths and brutalities.

  Maire Ethne took the fatherless girl to her heart, comforting and fussing over her, and both Thyra and Corenice felt her love and compassion. If these two had come to be as sisters, they now felt that a mother had swept them into her arms.

  Once, in a moment when Thyra was dominant, she went to Maire and hugged her. “If ever I have a daughter, I shall name her after you,” she said, and the bishop’s wife kissed her, feeling honored and well repaid. ‘

  But Corenice knew sorrow, for she had longings too, and she knew well that this symbiosis, which gave her a semblance of mortal life, could be nothing but temporary and she did not know when the end of it might come.

  So Gwalchmai and Flann and the girl dwelt in the village longer than‘ they had expected to stay, hoping to show by their actions that they were of good will. By mingling thus and working with the folk they became accepted and when the sun came back the spirits of all were lifted.

  During the winter, the communion of the three, who were four, became deeper. Flann’s puzzlement was complete, but he learned to accept a way of life he did not like or understand.

  Sometimes when Corenice was gone, roaming the undersea in the body of a seal, rushing through the water in play, his own Thyra emerged and smiled upon him sweetly and it was as though summer came into his dark mood. Then he was happy.

  They walked along the beach or up into the hills. They talked or were close in long understanding silences; they spent much time together over the bishopV books, Thyra’s expressive face pensive as she listened, half convinced, to the expounding of Flann’s Christian faith, satisfied that they were together.

  These moments came more often as the whiter wore on, and Flann noticed that whenever Thyra was thus kind, Gwalchmai was absent In fact, Corenice and Gwalchmai swam together upon occasion, for he was being taught the trick the Atlantideans knew and had learned to cast his spirit forth and live the life of others, though not as yet for long.

  So this was the courting Corenice had so long awaited and that had been so long postponed. They journeye,d together in the world of water as mer-man and mer-maiden, although when Flann saw Gwalchmai lying upon his bed-with eyes closed, he supposed that his friend was asleep.

  Despite the natural jealousy, they were friends—the more so because Flann did not nurture illusions and false hopes.

  He had been a thrall. He did not expect Thyra to forget. He would never be able to forget it himself.

  Then the spring came and it was the time of pairing, when girl and boy find each other good to look upon in their youth and their elders smile upon them—remembering.

  Flann was alone on the beach, mending a boat, for Gwalchmai and Corenice had strolled into the hills, hand in hand. His heart was lorn and his thoughts were bleak. He would finish his work, provision the boat, and row away, never to come back.

  Possibly it would be better to go out to sea with the leak unpatched. What, after all, was there in life without Thyra? Not at all unusual thoughts in spring—but perhaps Flann’s musings were darker than most, for his misunderstandings were deeper than those of other men.

  The two who perplexed him were behaving quite sedately, sitting and watching, by the edge of a warm little pond where two stately trumpeter swans were circling. Corenice was silent, for* she was remembering the swan-ships of Atlantis and all the beauty and pride and grandeur that was gone forever. Gwalchmai’s thoughts were elsewhere.

  The swans were coming to an understanding. They laid their bills together and dabbled at one another’s feathers. They intertwined their long necks and murmured, deep in their throats. It was easy to believe that they spoke oft love and shared dreams and plans as human lovers do.

  Gwalchmai said, “Trumpeter swans mate for life. If one dies, then the other pines away.”

  “So it should be,” agreed Corenice. “If you were to really die, I would not want to live. It was only because I did not know that I could wait so long for you.”

  “And yet, we have each other not, my dear one, nor ever will, it seems, while we live thus and you keep your promise to this other one you dwell with!”,

  “It is not my house,” she reminded him, gently. “I am only a guest in it. I must not forget and you must help me to remember.”

  “I am not made of iron, Corenice, and I love you.”

  Then there was a long silence. The gulls swooped overhead, peering down with their bright eyes. The ducks were busily at Work, marking out their territories, gathering materials for their nests. Every living creature in sig
ht, it seemed to Gwalchmai, was with a mate.

  Even the lordly pair in the pool were content with each other. Only the two humans were so far apart—though-seeming to be so close.

  “How long must we wait, Corenice? How long shall our lives last, seeing that I have drunk the elixir of life and you, * it seems, are immortal in the spirit? Suppose you feel that you must always give such a promise to she whom you in-habit?” •

  “Does it matter so much if you must needs practice patience for a little while, my heart’s darling?”

  “Only if one of our lives should end, for I do think our love will not. Why cannot we be as happy as those swans, who need only each other to feel that they own the world? Why should we not be as they?”

  “If we should become as they, it would mean that we would never part,” said Corenice, with unaccustomed shyness for her.

  “We knew that long ago! Are you not content?”

  “Then let it be as you say!”

  Gwalchmai closed his eyes and lay back upon the moss. The huge swan lifted his head and stared around at them, as Corenice bent over the apparently sleeping man and kissed him tenderly.

  The swan gave forth a clarion call and beat the water into froth with his wings.

  “I am coming! I am coming!” laughed Corenice.

  A second later, the swan’s mate spread her ten-foot pinions and leaped into the air, to be followed immediately into the heights. They swooped down and up again, in a mad race, hastening into the sky, then falling with furled wings until they almost touched the ground, scattering the gulls, buffeting away the sticks and grass the ducks had heaped together.

  They called to each other with their glorious ringing voices, like silver trumpets challenging the angels who man the ramparts of the castles of the clouds.

  Then they glided down, merging then: reflections with their bodies and came to rest together in the little pond.