Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  In the darkness Merlin caused the image of it to project from his mind into the space before him. It was an illusion, but with solidity and dimension. He examined it. Could this, then, be the hallowed Grail, this common-looking object?

  It had to be. And it was meant to stay in Arthur's keeping.

  But what about Saladin? The man had done Merlin and the others at Camelot no harm. If he did not offer the precious cup as a gift to the king, whose place was it to take it from him? To steal the cup would be a lowly act. Arthur would never even accept the cup under such circumstances.

  The image dissolved before Merlin's eyes.

  There was the dilemma. To acquire Arthur's immortality, Merlin would have to cheat another man of it—a man who had saved Merlin's own life. And yet to let it go. . .

  To let it go would be to see the awful dream become a reality: Arthur dying, still young, his vision forgotten, the world fallen back into chaos and savagery.

  He left the grove in full daylight feeling tired and even older than his years. He would have gone back to bed if it were not for the commotion at the main gate. Horses were stamping, their armored riders covered with blood, as the servants poured out of the castle, wailing as they carried in a blood-soaked litter.

  Merlin's heart quickened in his chest. He knew that this was more than the usual check of the wounded and dead after battle. He ran up to the litter, barely able to breathe.

  "Arthur!" he whispered.

  "He took an arrow in his back." This from Launcelot himself, the greatest of Arthur's warriors, who was said, because of his purity, to have healing in his hands. He was sobbing as he helped carry the litter inside. "I touched him. He's breathing, but there's nothing, nothing I can feel . . . " He turned his head angrily, his great dark mane stiff with the blood of his king.

  "You must heal him, wizard!" he demanded, the words filled with helpless violence.

  But Merlin knew he could not. He had not even known that the king had been wounded. Last night's dream had been a premonition of immediate danger, and he, Merlin, the great sorcerer, had not even recognized it.

  He was overcome with self-loathing as the knights lay Arthur on the rough oaken table near the castle's well. The king's wounds, Merlin saw, were mortal.

  "Shall we take him up to the solar, sir?" Gawain asked politely. He was a rough man, used to action. In the stillness of the silent stone walls, Gawain seemed to want only to do something, anything, rather than stand by uselessly while his king died.

  Merlin shook his head. The narrow curved stairs leading to Arthur's private rooms would be too difficult to negotiate. It would only hasten his death.

  Then he remembered his dream again, and his breath caught. He could not save the king, but another could.

  As if his thoughts had been spoken aloud, a voice answered them: "He is dying."

  Saladin was standing behind him, looking down over Merlin's shoulder at the blood-covered king.

  Launcelot snarled through his tears. The aging Gawain reached for his sword in his fury at the Saracen's quiet declaration.

  Merlin looked up at the man silently. Saladin stared back at him. "Help him," the old man said at last. His voice was the merest whisper.

  Saladin turned toward the entrance of the room. Merlin ran after him, touching his arm. "I beg this of you."

  The tall man took a deep breath. "You're talking nonsense," he said.

  But the old man followed after him doggedly. "The cup of Christ," he pleaded. "You must use it to save the King."

  All of the assembled knights and servants were watching them now. Merlin and Saladin had spoken in Latin, so the others could not understand them, but they would learn about the cup soon enough.

  It was bound to come to this, Saladin thought. In thirty-two hundred years, he had revealed the secret only once; but once, he knew, was one time too many. Now the whole world would hunt him down to possess the cup.

  "How dare you do this to me," Saladin hissed. He disengaged Merlin's hand from his sleeve and flung it aside. "Let him die!"

  At this, Launcelot lunged forward, his blade drawn. Saladin threw him off with a strength Merlin had never witnessed before. The big knight virtually flew away from him, crashing sprawled on the stone floor beside the well. The force of Launcelot's fall caused the well's handle to spin out of control, sending the big wooden bucket to the bottom with a splash.

  "Do not set your dogs on me again, Merlin," Saladin warned. "I could kill Arthur and a thousand others like him." Slowly he walked over to the table where the king lay. He leaned across the Siege Perilous and touched Arthur almost lovingly. "Perhaps I would wish to be king myself," he taunted. "A king among your savages. I could be, as you well know. I would have a long, long reign."

  With that he took a short, jeweled knife from his belt and held it above Arthur's throat. "Far longer than your precious Arthur's."

  The knife came down. One of the serving women screamed. Launcelot scrambled to his feet. The other knights rushed forward.

  Only Merlin did not move. At the moment when he realized that Saladin meant to vent his anger at him by murdering the king in front of him, his eyes rolled back in his head. The movement was almost involuntary, as was the welling of power he felt rising within him. It was the creature, the unseen beast he had carried inside him for so long, now standing, straining, exploding to life inside Merlin's body.

  The power was blinding; the wizard's eyes were suffused with an unearthly light that he could feel coiling through his viscera like a great hot snake.

  Slowly his hands raised, palms up, as the power focused in them and crackled out through his fingers. He did not see the knife drop, as the others did. He did not see the look of astonishment on Saladin's face as the power pushed him backward like a wall, slow and inexorable in its force, or the light which glowed in the space between the two men like a flaring sun. Merlin saw nothing and felt nothing, not even the remnants of anger toward the tall man who would see his king dead. The power burned all emotion out of him, burned him pure. He was no longer a man, he knew, but a receptacle for this shapeless, invisible beast that had lain inside him for more than seventy years. He was the power, and nothing—the gods help him, not even himself—could stop it.

  Saladin resisted, holding his hands up in front of his face, squinting against the awful glare. But the light only grew stronger, and the invisible wall pressed against him, suffocating and relentless. With a cry he slid backward, his shoes scraping against the stone flags of the floor, until he slammed against the side of the well. His back snapped. Everyone heard that. And then his head lolled back, unconscious.

  "He's falling in," someone said, but no one dared to intervene in the terrible miracle they were witnessing.

  A sound came from Saladin as he toppled backward into the well, a low sigh that reverberated from the damp stones to the water below, so that all that could be heard by the breathless spectators was an echo, melancholy as the song of a wild bird.

  When Merlin came to himself, Launcelot was on his knees, making the sign of the cross. Gawain still held his hand to the hilt of his sheathed sword, the muscles in his face working frantically.

  How could Merlin explain to them what had happened? He himself had no idea. And yet he knew that it was he who had called the power forth and directed it at the man who had once saved his life. In those first weak moments after he emerged from the thrall of the power, when his human limbs felt as if they would shatter to fragments and his heart pounded as if it were about to explode, he felt only fear. For there would be no rest for his soul now. He had trespassed beyond the boundaries of everything mortal.

  And yet he would not have acted otherwise. Not for the blessings of the gods themselves.

  "Bring him up," he commanded hoarsely.

  The servants in the room drew away from him.

  "I said bring him up!"

  Gawain leapt to the well, his grizzled face registering relief at having a task to do. He began, slowly, t
o bring up the big bucket with its heavy load. Launcelot rose to help him. Soon all the knights were clustered around the well, pulling on the long rope, shouting orders at one another.

  Merlin moved back to Arthur and touched his bloody face. He was still alive, though he had long ago passed out of consciousness. The old man picked up the jeweled knife that lay beside the king and waited.

  "The rope . . . It's breaking! I can feel—"

  Three of the men fell backward, the frayed rope dangling from their hands.

  "A dead man in the well," one of them moaned. "And the king not half-alive."

  One of the maidservants sobbed hysterically. The steward came over to shake her.

  Merlin waited.

  "We'll close it up," Gawain offered gruffly. "Close it up and dig another . . ."

  And then Saladin came, as Merlin knew he would, roaring with the voice of a caged beast as he clawed his way up the sheer wall and burst out of the opening, arms outstretched, fingers splayed to kill.

  The knights screamed.

  "Hold him!" Merlin shouted, raising the knife.

  They leapt on the tall stranger, the dead man brought back to life by whatever evil demons he commanded, as Merlin cut the sodden velvet pouch from Saladin's belt.

  At once he saw the superhuman strength fade. Kicking and flailing, Saladin had become no more than a man, angry, terrified, panicked. And mortal.

  "You do not deserve to possess this," Merlin said, holding the cup.

  The silence in the room was charged. Then softly, bitterly, Saladin laughed. "That is what I said to the man I stole it from."

  The old man blanched.

  "Don't be a hypocrite, wizard. You're as much a thief as I was."

  Gawain snaked the dagger to Saladin's throat.

  "No!" Merlin shouted.

  "Let the barbarian kill me here," Saladin drawled. "I'd rather not hang, if it's all the same to you."

  Gawain pressed the knife more deeply against his neck.

  "Enough!" Merlin slashed the air in front of him with his hand. "He is to remain unharmed, do you understand?"

  Gawain looked at the wizard in bewilderment. "But he tried to kill the king."

  "Give him safe conduct to the open road."

  The Green Knight's expression grew truculent. "He belongs in the dungeon—"

  "Do it!" Merlin ordered.

  Another knight, Launcelot, put a restraining hand on Gawain's arm, then nodded. Gawain sheathed his knife.

  Saladin straightened out his wet clothing. "A life for a life, eh, Merlin? Is that what you're offering me?"

  "That is correct," the old man said. "My debt to you is now paid. I owe you nothing." He gestured to the knights. "Take him. And do not return to this hall. I must be alone with the king."

  The knights pushed Saladin roughly toward the entrance.

  "I swear I will take back what is mine!" Saladin whispered.

  You’re sure to try, Merlin thought sadly as he watched him go.

  He heard the footfalls of the servants die away as the steward led them out of the hall. He was alone now with the still body of the young man whom all called High King of Britain. But to Merlin he was still Arthur, the young red-haired boy who had pulled the sword out of the ancient Stone, the warrior who had dreamed of a world order of peace. Arthur, now and forever.

  He took the metal cup from the pouch. Even the cold water from the well had become warm in the perfect circle of its hollow. This he touched to Arthur’s lips. Then softly, gently, he wrapped the king’s blue hands around the sphere and held them there.

  Before his eyes the raw, gaping wounds closed. The color returned to Arthur’s ashen face. And then the eyes opened, blue and eager as a child’s.

  “What are you doing with me, Merlin? He asked, his smile twinkling.

  "I am giving you your legacy," the wizard said. But his words were so quiet that he doubted if Arthur heard him.

  He slipped the metal cup into the folds of his sleeve. Even Arthur could not have this knowledge yet. Let him celebrate his life first. Let him hear the stories of the old sorcerer and his battle against the evil Saracen knight. Let him be comfortable with being king before learning that he must be king forever.

  "Call in your knights, my lord," he said, bowing. "They will wish to see you."

  His ears were filled with the soft rustle of his gown as he left the king alone in the vast chamber.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The wind whipped Saladin like an icy lash. He had not noticed the cold at first, when the soldiers carried him outside the castle. He had been half-drowned then, and besides, he had expected the British barbarians to kill him in short order. But they had only dumped him halfway down the high hill where Camelot stood and then kicked him so that he rolled unceremoniously to the bottom.

  He gathered up his sodden robes and, looking over his shoulder like a thief at the taunting soldiers, made a run for the road. That was when he felt the wind.

  It was December. He had not ventured out of the castle since the day he had made the dreadful mistake of saving Merlin's life. Now, shivering violently, his clothes stiffening around him, he felt nothing but regret for his folly.

  Whatever had possessed him to use the cup? On a wizard, no less, a reader of minds, a man closer to the king than anyone on earth, whose ambitions for Arthur were clear? Of course Merlin would take the cup. Combined with his own powers (had he really created an invisible, moving wall?), the sorcerer might well own the cup for all eternity.

  White flakes began to swirl with the wind. One of them landed on Saladin's eyelash, where it remained, frozen, until he brushed it away. Snow. He had never seen snow before, except as an occasional dessert at lavish dinner parties in Rome. It swept against his face, melting against his numb flesh, blinding him so that he could barely make out the road ahead of him.

  The road to where, he wondered bitterly. He had no place to go, and no possessions. The things he had brought with him from Rome had been left in the castle. He no longer even had a horse to ride. The great black stallion was quartered in the king's stables now.

  He cried out in rage. The sound, muffled by the snow, died quickly. Soon he was enveloped in silence again.

  He had not walked a mile when he became certain he would die. His fingers were too stiff to move. His belly ached from the cold. His hair had frozen into hard tufts. There was no way to make a fire without flint, and the flint was buried beneath the snow. He wondered what would happen to a body left in the snow. It would become stiff as wood, most likely. The cold might preserve it against rot. How ironic, he thought, that his body should be kept perfect by the very thing that killed it.

  It would not be long. He might last until nightfall. But the darkness would bring his death. It was not the easy death he had imagined, growing old in Rome amidst the company of his peers. But then, what did it matter how one died?

  He stumbled and fell. His face struck the hard surface of the road. Blood stained the snow.

  He heard a sound, high and piercing. Had he screamed? No. He would have known. He wasn't so far gone, he thought shakily, that he no longer recognized his own sounds of anguish. But he had heard something. A wild dog, perhaps. A winter crow. As he picked himself up, he saw something coming toward him through the snow.

  It was a boy, very small and strangely dressed, with a ragged cloak blowing behind him in the wind. Saladin stopped in his tracks, watching. It was not until the figure was quite close that he realized it was not a boy at all, but the wild-haired woman he had met in the forest during his first night in Britain. A deerskin was wrapped around her shoulders. This she removed and gave to Saladin. He took it without a word and followed her back the way she had come.

  The journey did not last an hour, but it seemed like an eternity. After a while the woman propped herself against Saladin for warmth and wrapped his long arm around her to keep him from falling. She was wearing crude pouch-like shoes made of squirrel skins, he noticed. Unable to thin
k or look ahead, he watched her feet move through the snow.

  In time, the feet stopped before a wooden doorway. Numbly Saladin looked up. The woman was smiling, nodding. Putting her shoulder to the door, she swung it open and helped Saladin inside.

  There were bodies on the floor, and pools of blood, still red. It was the last thing Saladin saw before sinking into unconsciousness.

  He did not know how long he had slept, but he suspected it had been some time since he'd entered the house. It was broad daylight, and the snow outside had vanished. He was in a warm room with high ceilings. The bed upon which he was lying was exquisitely comfortable, with a mattress of feathers. Beyond it was a fireplace with three small burning logs; in front of the fireplace was a stool with his clothes draped over it.

  He sat up, dizzy, remembering the bodies. They had been lying on the floor, hacked to pieces as if by an axe. The blood had still been shiny. But they were gone now. It must have been a dream of some kind, a delusion of the cold . . .

  Then he saw the strangest vision of all. The urchin who had brought him here walked into the room. She was dressed in a toga that trailed on the floor behind her. Around her neck was a string of colored porcelain beads. Aside from the ludicrous finery, she was the same dirty-faced, wild-haired creature he had met in the woods. She still wore the fur bags on her feet.

  Not noticing him, she went first to his clothes and shook them out.

  "I've nothing to rob," he croaked.

  She looked up in delight, tossing his things on the floor and running up to embrace him.

  "Get away," he muttered, slapping her hands.

  She did not seem to mind his irritation. Instead, she beckoned to the doorway. When Saladin failed to respond, she tore off his covers.

  He was completely naked. He lunged to cover himself, but she only giggled. Bounding off the bed, she picked up his robes and handed them to him.

  "Eat?" she asked. She made the motions of eating, but he had understood the word from his few lessons with Merlin.