The Broken Kings: Book Three of The Merlin Codex

by Robert Holdstock

Chapter One

  Omens

  … Argo, Jason’s enchanting ship, came back to Taurovinda, Fortress of the White Bull, a year after she had sailed away. She came back along the river known as “the Winding One.” I had always held a secret suspicion that she would return, but she stayed quiet for a full turn of the seasons, resting below the fortress hill in the subterranean waterways: the springs, streams, and hidden tributaries that connected Taurovinda to the otherworldly Realm of the Shadows of Heroes. And so for a while I was unaware of her presence.

  Jason and those who were left of his crew of Argonauts slept in her embrace, belowdecks, close to the Spirit of the Ship, the heart of the vessel. Argo protected them: her captain, her crew drawn from lands across the known world, some from out of time itself. Perhaps she thought of them as her children.

  But why had she returned? When I first realised that she was there, she closed herself off from my gentle probing, hull-silent, denying her spirit to me after her first breath of greeting. Why had she returned from the warm seas of the south?

  The strange changes in the sanctuaries of the fortress itself should have given me the clues.

  Niiv, the enchantress from the Northlands, daughter of a shaman—bane of my life since I had first encountered her with Jason—had joined the women who guarded the well. Now there were four of them, all young, wild, unkempt, capable of the most astonishing and terrifying shrieks of laughter and amazement, or of horror and despair: all the screams of the “far-seeing and deep-sensing” that make such guardians of the sacred so disarming, so dissociated from the people who live around them.

  Niiv, by this time, had become my lover. She shared my cramped quarters in the fortress, but not my squalid hut in the heart of the evergroves, by the river, a living space among the honoured dead.

  In the early hours of each morning, when she crawled across me, seeking me out for satisfaction, she stank of mysteries. The smell of old earth and sour sap filled our small lodge. We lived close to the guarded orchard where the Speakers for Land, Past, and Kings—the oak men, as they were known—held their ceremonies. Our own ceremonies were noisier. Niiv was primal and eager. Delight glowed from her. There were times when she was brighter than the moon.

  As she scoured my body, her cries of pleasure echoed with recent memory: of the way she had also scoured the world of spirits during her time by the well. When she finally collapsed across me, sighing deeply, the sigh of softening was more to do with her waxing understanding of enchantment than with my own waning presence inside her.

  I loved her; I feared her. She had learned to treat me with just enough disdain to draw me closer. She was aware that I knew what she was doing. It made no difference to either of us. Passion flourishes with teasing.

  * * *

  All the signs were that the hill below the fortress of Taurovinda was coming alive in a way that signalled danger from the west, from across the sacred river Nantosuelta—the Winding One—from the otherworldly Realm of the Shadows of Heroes.

  To Urtha, High King of the Cornovidi, and to his Speakers and High Women, the signs were sudden and dramatic: sweeping storm clouds that formed unnatural shapes above the hill before abruptly shattering in all directions; then the thundering of a stampede of cattle, though no cattle were to be seen; other physical manifestations that were frightening and suggestive. But there were subtler marks of the change that was in progress, and I had been aware of them for almost a full cycle of the moon.

  The first phenomenon was the backwards movement of creatures. When a flock of birds is swarming in the dusk sky, it’s easy to see only the shadow movement without noticing that the flock is flying tail-feathers first. Deer seemed to be swallowed by the edge of the woods, pulled back into the green rather than retreating from view. At dawn, as first light cast its faintest glow, the dogs and bigger hounds of Taurovinda all seemed to be cowering, as if at bay, facing some unseen aggressor, walking stiffly, tails first, into the shadows from which they had emerged to scavenge.

  As fast as these moments of disorientation occurred, so they ceased, but there was no doubt in my mind that the past and the future were becoming entangled in a deadly weave.

  Secondly, there was riddle-speaking. Again, it passed as quickly as it had been manifest. A quick greeting, a passing remark by a blacksmith to his apprentice, and the words were meaningless, though spoken meaningfully. To the listening ear they made no sense, a sequence of sounds, guttural gibberish. But the riddle-speakers themselves saw no difficulty. It was as if a forgotten tongue had briefly possessed them. Which indeed it had.

  This was something I knew well.

  As I saw Time begin to play tricks, I looked for its source of entry into the fortress. I went first to the orchard, the grove guarded by Speaker for Kings, tight spinneys of fruit trees, hazel and berry, hidden behind a high fence of tangled wicker and thorn, dense enough to stop even the sleekest animal entering the enclosure. The trees were in blossom, their branches reaching to the setting sun. This was quite natural for the orchard.

  Next, I visited the well.

  The well was situated at the centre of a high-walled maze of carved stones. At the heart of the maze was a grove of dwarf oaks, green with moss, boughs dripping with fronds of lichen. Within the grove lay the smaller stone enclosure that protected the rising water source itself.

  Around the wide mouth of the well were seats made of a pink crystalline rock that was familiar to me not from Alba, but from countries in the hotter, drier, more fragrant south: Massila, Crete, Korsa. Those were the lands of the ma’za’rai—the dreamhunters—who prowled the forested hills at night, carrying curses and distributing them. Like the ma’za’rai of those far-off islands, the three women who served the well of Taurovinda were often to be seen racing like hares across the hill in the moonlit darkness, feeding on insects and small animals, leaping in the manner of mad hounds to catch a bird in flight, taking on strange shapes, though by dawn they were once again as mischievously pretty as in their sixteenth year.

  When a new woman-at-the-well came, it was always when an older one had gone. Downwards, no doubt, into the waterways below the fortress itself. But one day a fourth woman joined them, and three became four, and there was no disruption to the enchantment.

  The new woman was Niiv.

  After the first signs that the Shadows of Heroes were active again, I spied on the women every day. They spent most of their time seated on their crystal benches, staring into the open throat of the hill, occasionally casting blood-smeared stones or plaits of grasses and herbs into the mouth, and singing out the insights of what they called the “glory-vision,” the vision of strangeness, dreams of distance. When the water responded, it bubbled to the surface, almost playfully, and then the wild celebration started. I took no pleasure in witnessing the activities. Suffice it to say that the women manipulated the water, and drew forms from it. All of that was normal. It had been normal water-magic since long before the citadel had been built upon the hill.

  Now, though:

  I watched the four women from my hiding place. Were they aware of my presence? Niiv, perhaps, but Niiv trusted me, believing that I trusted her. They were excited, peering into the well shaft, clearly puzzled by something.

  This time when the subterranean flow shifted to the surface it came up as a great spout of angry water, roaring from the deep, punching out and knocking over the nymphs who had summoned it. It flexed and shimmered, a creature waiting, watching, liquid muscle swaying like a liquid tree, reaching out and probing the shivering women.

  Gradually they found their courage, Niiv most noticeably. They let the fronds of water embrace them, stretching and spreading into its grasp. And when they were entwined with the blood of the earth, so the deep world of the hill began to surface and show itself, to reveal that which was buried there.

  Faces from a past older than Taurovinda leered and peered from the water, unblinking gazes that were lost as soon as they had glimpsed the living world.
<
br />   These once-living forms, these memories of men and women, had become elemental. Their decay in the flesh had left them as mere dreams, shadows haunting the stone below the hill. But now they were released. Some fled, hollow birds breaking from the water, dispersing through the air. Others sank back down, preferring to remain at rest.

  Horses emerged, racing from the well, manes flowing, sending the guardians screaming into a crouch as the grey shapes leapt over them, disappearing into the stone maze. Then dogs, hounds of all shapes and sizes, but muzzle-bared and hot for the hunt, backs ridged, bodies flowing with speed as they bounded across the walls, baying fiercely then mournfully as they vanished into the world of men, shades only, but alive again.

  Hounds and horses, buried with kings, now seeking the ghost-trails of the wild hunt.

  * * *

  And then I saw for the first time the echo of the ancient man who lay there, the founder of the citadel himself. Durandond.

  He rose, naked and unarmed, a water-spectre presenting himself in his middle years, older than when he had listened to my prophecy, so many generations ago, but still years away from the brutal moment of his death.

  He looked to the East, to his homeland, then to the skies. Did his gaze catch mine as he turned back to survey the enclosure? I couldn’t say.

  The expression on Durandond’s face was of sadness, then of anger, as if this sprite, this liquid ghost, was aware of what was coming to take his proud fortress once again.

  The water dissolved. Durandond returned to the bone-chamber below the hill.

  The moment had passed.

  Chapter Two

  The Sons of Llew

  On the third morning the sun seemed to break at dawn towards the west, a sudden, startling flash of gold against the dark of night. The gleam faded as quickly as it had come, only to sparkle again and again, as if it moved through the forest that separated fortress from sacred river, and the unknown realm beyond.

  When the true dawn came, so flocks of birds rose in outrage from the woods, and that fire-fly kept on coming, finally emerging onto the Plain of MaegCatha—the Battle Crow—in the form of a bright chariot, with two screaming youths driving a pair of red-maned horses.

  One of these wild figures leaned forward at the reins; the other straddled the chariot, feet on the sides of the metal car, naked save for a short scarlet cloak and the torque of gold at his neck and the tight belt around his waist. He held a thin spear in one hand and a bronze horn in the other. As the golden chariot struck a rock and lurched, so he tumbled to the floor of the car, and a furious argument commenced, though the driver, long yellow hair streaming, laughed as he whipped the steeds.

  The chariot sped across the plain; the deep horn was sounded; the gathering crowds on the fortress fled around the walls, following the wild riders below as they passed to the north, between hill and evergroves, before turning across the eastern plain to approach the spiralling road with its five massive gates. One by one, as the triumphant youths howled up the steep road, the gates were opened and closed behind them.

  They came into Taurovinda, racing in a wide circle three times before the fiery arrival was calmed. They jumped from the chariot, buckled on their kilts and cloaks and unharnessed the panting horses, holding the weary animals by the muzzles and stroking them. They seemed unaware that Urtha and his retinue were standing close by, waiting to greet them.

  “Well run!” said one.

  “Well driven,” said the other.

  The new dawn set a new and blinding fire to the golden-wheeled chariot.

  These breathless arrivals were Conan and Gwyrion, sons of the great god Llew. They were stealers of chariots. I had met them before. Half god, half human, they were the world’s greatest thieves, and they were constantly being hunted by their father and their angry uncles, most particularly Nodens. Indeed, the grim-eyed, bearded face of Llew himself glared from the side of the vehicle, an image that appeared to writhe with new fury and the silent promise of retribution.

  It was the gift of these boys that they were incapable of judgement or fear until harsher judgement invoked semimortal dread. And yet they always turned up again, as cheery as before.

  They bowed low to Urtha; then Conan saw me and grinned. “Well, Merlin! As you see, we have escaped from that old bastard our father again. Though this time not without cost.”

  He held up his right hand; brother Gwyrion did the same. Their little fingers had been cut away and replaced with wood.

  “This is the tinder with which he’ll fire our bodies the next time he catches us,” said the eldest of the two. “But it’s a small price to pay for our freedom.”

  “For the short while we’re free,” added Gwyrion.

  “But it will take him a good while to notice the absence of this vehicle, and his two horses. He spends a lot of time sleeping these days. And we can outrun the Sun itself!”

  Urtha pointed out that they had been running into the sun. The young men looked up into the sky, then to the east, then engaged in a brief and furious row, each blaming the other for stupidity, before pausing, then laughing out loud.

  Gwyrion took the horses to the stables; the chariot was hauled into cover, and Conan approached me. He had aged several years. There were lines at the edges of his eyes, and the beard that he shaved so close was hard stubble, its fiery red now tinged with grey; he seemed drawn, yet strong. When I had last encountered this reckless pair, they had been ten years younger, even though that encounter was only two years or so in my past. Such was the capricious nature of Ghostland, where they had been trapped.

  “Merlin,” he said. “We crossed at the Ford of the Overwhelming Gift. But there is a hostel there now. The hostel has risen again. That hasn’t been seen since the plain around Taurovinda was forested. There’s something wrong. We entered the place, of course. We waited there briefly, in the room of the Spears of Derga. It’s where we were hosted. The hostel is on an island in the middle of the river. It’s not a bad place. Plenty of food and gaming. But that’s beside the point. There is a man there who says he knows you. He wishes you to come and sit with him at the feast. He says to say ‘Pendragon,’ and that you will know him by that name. He says the hostel is safe for the moment, but there are already several hundred men in the various rooms, and many of them are keeping a silent counsel. Gwyrion and I were hastened on our way before we could investigate further. It’s all very suspicious.”

  Suspicious in what way? I asked him.

  Glancing round, he murmured, “They are crossing from the wrong side.” (It was not wise to talk too openly of the hostels, not even for a semimortal.) “Either that,” he added, “or they are the wrong patrons. Gwyrion and I can cross in either direction. The Shadow Heroes cannot.”

  I began to see what he meant: some hostels at the river—including the one under discussion—had been constructed to admit travellers from the realm of the living into that of the dead. This was the ordinary way of things. Others, though, were meeting places to evict those from the realm of the dead back into the lands of the living. These were to be feared. Conan was suggesting that the Hostel of the Overwhelming Gift was being compromised.

  I realised suddenly that Conan’s hand was on my shoulder, the young man’s face etched with query. I had been dream-drifting, and he was calling me back.

  “Thank you for the information,” I said to him, but he shook his head, still quizzical.

  “This Pendragon. A king-in-waiting if ever I saw one. He knows you. And yet he’s of the Unborn. Are you aware of that?”

  “Thank you,” I repeated. “Yes. I’m aware of it.”

  “He knows more about you than can yet have occurred. Are you aware of that?”

  “I’m not surprised by it.”

  The intensity in his gaze relaxed, and he was reckless and wild again, green eyes sparkling with potential mischief. He had given up the pursuit of the answer to his question. “You’re a strange man, Merlin. I don’t think I’ll ever understand who
you are until the time comes for me to grow up, to become the Lord in place of my father, Llew.”

  “The same could be said for me,” I replied.

  “Yes! But you won’t have to fight your brother.” His features darkened. “I don’t relish the far-to-come, Merlin, when brother and brother must fight for the chariot without stealing it.”

  He turned away and went to find lodgings and rest in the king’s enclosure.

  Chapter Three

  The Rising of the Hostels

  It is the privilege of the human offspring of inhuman gods to run or ride, on horseback or in chariot, through the world of transient shadows, the world of men, with blithe indifference to their encounters with the otherworldly. To Conan, the existence of a hostel on the river Nantosuelta was just one more stop for a feast, a good sleep, and a few days of gambling, perhaps, or games, perhaps an adventure along a path that had, and would, lead him to many such locations in this world or that. To the Cornovidi, the people who farmed the lands around the fortress, those simple people who maintained the vast high-walled enclosure, the appearance of the hostel would have been terrifying.

  It was more than five generations, I understood, since the Hostel at the Ford of the Overwhelming Gift had last shown itself.

  I decided to keep quiet about Conan’s conversation with me, for the moment at least.

  But even as I made my preparations to travel to the river, to investigate the presence of the Unborn horse-lord, Pendragon, so—later in the same day—a cry came from the watchtower on the west wall that the king’s children were coming back from their hunt, and they were riding in the wild fashion, as if running from danger!

  * * *

  As they came with hailing distance of the Bull Gate, the uthiin warriors who were their guardians broke away and returned to the fortress; Kymon and Munda stood up on the saddles, arms stretched, searching the high walls above for a sign of the man they wished to speak to.

  That man was me.