The King's Wizard

by James Mallory

  “For both of us,” Mab pointed out. She gestured, and Frik scampered away. It wouldn’t do for the real Sir Egbert to appear while her gnomish servant was impersonating him.

  “The girl dies,” Vortigern agreed.

  “Let Merlin watch …” Mab hissed.

  Merlin slept, in a sleep too profound for even dreams to reach him. Dimly he could hear the shouts of fleeing soldiers, and the clatter of horses’ hooves on the stone as their riders made their escape. But a closer sound penetrated the veils of sleep, a rhythmic sorrowful sound whose source Merlin thought he should know. Eventually its riddle forced him awake to the sound of weeping.

  “Merlin!” Nimue screamed his name as she saw him move.

  Slowly Merlin puzzled out his surroundings. It was just before dawn, and he was tied to a tree at the bottom of a deep gorge cut through the bones of the earth. He could not remember when he’d fallen asleep, or imagine how it was that he’d come here. He had passed this place with Lailoken several weeks ago, on his way to meet Vortigern. This place was near the site where Vortigern had sought to construct his ill-omened tower.

  The ground around him was littered with bones, some charred to black, some grey-white with the weathering of passing years. A few yards away an iron stake, thick as a man’s arm, was bedded deep into the rock—and Nimue was bound to the stake, her fine gown muddy and torn.

  Just as the first rays of dawn touched the valley floor, Merlin heard a rasping sound coming from behind him, a sound as if a chain-mail shirt were being dragged over the rock. Suddenly he smelled a faint musky stench, recognizing its source with a flash of horror.

  Dragon. Draco Magnus Maleficarum, the Great Dragon of the North—and Vortigern was offering Nimue to it. The creature was used to receiving offerings here, just outside its lair. In moments Nimue would be dead.

  No! He could not bear the thought of seeing her die. But to save her would take magic.

  Magic he had sworn not to use.

  There must be another way! Even as his thoughts tumbled wildly, he struggled like a madman to free himself.

  He could not break his oath.

  He could not let Nimue die.

  The unbearable choice paralyzed his brain as his body struggled instinctively. In moments he was rewarded by a loosening of the soil about the roots of the tree.

  He could see the dragon now as it slithered along the ground toward its prey. Its thick leathery hide was green and yellow, almost the color of the lichen-covered boulders here in the valley. It stopped, seeing Nimue, and reared up on the hindmost pair of several sets of legs. Wings like pleated parchment fans snapped out from its sides, giving the dragon the terrifying aspect of a monstrous insect. It whipped back its long narrow head and roared.

  Nimue screamed, and at that instant Merlin would have been willing to perform any feat of magic to save her. He would break his oath—dishonor his mother’s memory—anything! But the crowning irony was still to come. Merlin was as powerless as any mortal. For all his training on the Land Under Hill, Merlin was only a Hand-Wizard—one whose magic was invoked through gestures of the hands and fingers—and his hands were bound.

  Nimue screamed once more, in an agony of helpless terror, and Merlin struggled harder against his bonds. Suddenly the roots of the tree to which Merlin was lashed came loose. Merlin staggered forward, unbalanced by the weight and length of the trunk still bound to him. His magic forgotten, all he could think of was placing himself between Nimue and the dragon. He bent forward, and the crown of the tree lashed the rearing dragon across the face, startling it. Caught off balance, the dragon dropped back to all sixes again, lashing its long serpentine neck back and forth and belching a great gout of flame at its tormentor.

  Merlin fell back, his shoulders aching with the strain of holding the tree, and once more the Great Dragon lurched toward Nimue. But the moment’s struggle had been enough to allow Merlin to free his hands. Now he could fight.

  Tears gathered in his eyes, and in that instant Merlin seemed to hear Mab’s mocking laughter ringing faintly in his ears. He had been a fool to think that Mab would confine her attacks to him alone. Once again she had reached out to warp his life, bringing harm to those Merlin loved.

  And it was all happening so fast. If there were more time, would he see another way out of the trap? Would he be willing to sacrifice Nimue to his pride?

  Never. That was Mab’s way.

  Merlin did not hesitate again. In this moment he had discovered what the most important thing in his world was.

  Nimue.

  “Malence llanertal toderis Segninore!” he shouted, weaving a spell out of hand and voice together.

  The long-dormant waterfall that had so plagued Vortigern’s fortress burst from the cliff above. The water sparkled in the sun as it sprayed down, dousing the dragon and turning the earth beneath its feet to mud. As the beast wallowed through the mire, trying to reach firmer ground, Merlin gestured again, and a thousand green tendrils burst up out of the ground beneath the dragon’s feet. The shoots swarmed over its haunches, dragging it back toward the ground.

  Draco bugled its fury as it struggled, and the ground beneath its haunches began to open and subside, dragging the creature deeper. The creature could have ripped any single one of the vines free, but not all of them—they covered its body like a living net, tightening as they pulled the dragon into the earth.

  Nimue—Nimue! Merlin’s mind raced ahead of the moment. His loss—his self-betrayal—was too new for him to really feel it. All he knew in this moment was that he was sick of the fight, of his own emptiness. He would take Nimue—together they could flee beyond the vengeance of Vortigern or Mab. At least they could salvage their love from the ruins of this day.

  But the Great Dragon had lived since before the dawn of man, and it would not go to its defeat quietly. As its body sank beneath the surface of the earth it gathered its power for one last defiant act. It bellowed a great jet of flame directly toward the wizard whose magic had destroyed it—and at Nimue, still chained to the stake just beyond.

  Desperately, Merlin raised his shield of magic, his fingers working frantically. But the oath he had broken exacted its vengeance now. Too many years had gone by since Merlin had practiced his wizard’s arts, and the power that should have come to him with long years of discipline was not there. His shield buckled under the force of the blast of dragonflame, and Merlin fell to his knees, stunned.

  With a last mournful howl, the Great Dragon was gone. Dazed, Merlin staggered to his feet. Something was burning.

  Nimue.

  Merlin ran toward the iron stake. Nimue sagged in her chains, the left side of her face, of her gown, charred, the exposed skin crisp and bleeding.

  At Merlin’s touch the iron chains whipped away, and Merlin could cradle her in his arms. The fine silk of her gown turned to ash in his hands.

  It had all been for nothing. His sacrifice, the loss of all he believed in. He had given up everything he was, and had still lost everything. Nimue was dying, and magic could not save her.

  And when she died, there would be nothing left in all the world that mattered to him. Mab’s plotting would have taken the lives of the three women who had loved him.

  There must be someone who would help them—some place where Nimue could be healed!

  Avalon. Nimue had been raised there, and it was a place that Vortigern’s wars had never invaded. She would be safe there. If he could get her there.

  Merlin found Nimue’s cloak lying on the ground a few feet away and gently wrapped her in it.

  But the Isle of Avalon was many leagues from here, in the uttermost west. The dragon’s gorge was miles from any habitation. Merlin had no horse. By the time he could carry Nimue to Avalon Abbey on foot she would be dead.

  Merlin clenched his fists in fury. He would not accept that. There must be a way! His magic must find him one.

  Half-forgotten scraps of wizardly learning came back to him as if the past were only yesterday. Th
ere were still forces he could call upon, and an ally given to him not by Mab, but by her antithesis, Idath, the Winter King.

  “Sir Rupert!” Merlin shouted.

  There was a moment of stillness, and Merlin feared that his magic had failed him at the moment he needed it most. Then he heard a sound of hooves striking stone, and a sturdy grey horse with a dark mane and tail—fully saddled and bridled—cantered down the valley.

  “Sir Rupert, old friend!” Merlin cried. The flood of relief he felt at the sight of Sir Rupert was nearly overpowering. “Help me!” He scrambled to his feet, Nimue in his arms. Even in the anguish of the moment, Merlin felt as if a long-dormant part of himself was wakening into life once more, and he did not know whether to exult or grieve.

  *I will do all I can,* the horse answered, bowing its head.

  Avalon Abbey lay far west from the lair of the Great Dragon, but Sir Rupert had been sired by a stallion of the Wild Hunt, and it was only minutes before he brought Merlin and his precious burden to the coast. The Isle of Avalon stood serenely, reflected in the still water of the ocean, for the tide was in and it was completely cut off from the land. But Sir Rupert did not even slow down; Idath’s gift to Merlin galloped across the water as surefootedly as he had galloped across the land. In moments Merlin had reached the gates of Avalon Abbey.

  Once upon a time long ago, Joseph of Arimathea had brought the Christians’ most precious treasure to this place: the Holy Grail. Now, Merlin brought Nimue—his most precious treasure.

  A group of the monks and nuns who lived there had gathered to watch his arrival. When they saw Merlin’s burden, the Healing Sisters clustered around his horse gently taking Nimue from him, and wrapping her in a thick wool blanket they had brought. Among them was the cowled figure of the Father Abbot, ruler of Avalon.

  “Help her, Father!” Merlin implored.

  “We help all who come to us,” the Father Abbot said kindly. Behind him, the nuns gently carried Nimue away.

  The autumn day was dark and cloudy, and rain threatened. Mab has made me break my vow. Merlin numbly waited in the Abbey gardens to hear the Healing Sisters’ verdict. Someone had brought him a cloak, and he wrapped it closely around him, although he was too tormented by his thoughts to feel the cold. How could I—could we—have come to this? Oh, Nimue, I have brought you nothing but pain!

  The stones of the cloister gave no reply, and the slow hours passed in silence. There were walls all around him, but the roof of the garden was open to the sky, and so he was not too uncomfortable. Slowly his sorrow gave way to a certain interest in his surroundings. This was the first time in all his life that Merlin had been in a Christian place, and despite himself he was curious about those people whom Mab considered her deadliest enemies. Ambrosia had once told him that his mother had come from here, so in a sense Avalon was as much a part of Merlin’s being as the Land of Magic.

  He stood in the middle of an herb garden. All around him grew many plants with which he was familiar for their healing properties, and more which he did not know, brought to the Abbey by its fellowship across the sea. He knew that Avalon was famous for its apples as well. Despite their religious devotion, the lives of the monks and nuns here could not be so very different from those of the simple farmers and herders Merlin knew best.

  The scrape of a sandal on stone warned him that someone approached. Merlin got to his feet and saw the Father Abbot approaching from the direction of the hospital.

  “She’s very badly wounded,” the cleric said as he faced Merlin. “The sisters are doing all they can, but you must pray with us.” He gestured toward the chapel that lay at the heart of Avalon.

  “Why should I pray to your god if he’s going to take her from me?” Merlin demanded bitterly.

  “This isn’t God’s work,” the Father Abbot answered quietly.

  “No,” Merlin said consideringly. “You’re right. It isn’t.” Nimue’s injury was Mab’s doing, not God’s.

  He felt the old man look at him curiously. “Do you know who did it, then?”

  “Oh yes, I know …” Merlin said quietly.

  Ardent was loyal—Vortigern would have had no other reason to sacrifice Nimue to the Great Dragon without Mab’s meddling, of that Merlin was sure. And without magic, the king’s soldiers would never have been able to deliver Merlin to the dragon’s cave while Merlin lay unconscious.

  Suddenly he felt as if the stone walls of the Abbey were closing in on him, crushing him just as the walls of Vortigern’s dungeon had. He brushed past the old priest and fled, running for the open air.

  * * *

  The sea air did nothing to calm Merlin’s anger at what Mab had done. He’d hoped to foil her plans by simply not allowing himself to be used, but she would not let him go. She’d destroyed his life.

  As now he would destroy her. He was no longer a child. He was a man, and he would use her own weapons against her.

  “Mab!” he shouted, raising his arms to the storm-clouded sky. “Mab—do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Merlin.”

  An unnatural wind rushed toward him from the land, and Merlin could feel the tingling of sorcerous power over his skin. The clouds above the island boiled as if in the grip of an oncoming storm, and suddenly Merlin could see Mab’s face in their shapes.

  In that moment he truly understood for the first time why the Christians hated the Old Ways. What right did Mab have to meddle in his life? No right but her power. Her power was what gave her the right. In this world, in this time, absolute power was absolute freedom … to persecute.

  “You destroyed everything I love!” he shouted at her. “My mother, Ambrosia—and now Nimue!”

  But if he had expected to see remorse on the face of the Queen of the Old Ways, Merlin was disappointed.

  “The end justifies the means,” Mab answered, and her voice was as inhuman and elemental as the roaring of the storm. “I did it for you. I want you to use the power in you. Rise up dear, dear Merlin, and be great!”

  He could not bear the note of gloating pride in her voice, as if Merlin were merely some possession to be used or discarded at her whim.

  “No, Mab!”

  The wind tore at his thin clothing, but his fury warmed him like a thick fur cloak. He’d been wrong to hide in his forest and deny his birthright. Mab would not fade away if he ignored her. She must be blotted out like the plague she was.

  “I’ll destroy you for what you’ve done to me!” he shouted.

  “You can’t, Merlin,” Mab said, almost sadly. “I’ll always be too strong.”

  He could feel her disappointment in the air around him. Had she truly believed that once he’d broken his vow and used his magic again he would come back to her?

  As Mab spoke, the sky flickered above Merlin, and the sea suddenly rushed toward him as though its force could overwhelm him. But Merlin was not afraid. Anger lent him a strength and focus he had never had before, and the desire to hurt Mab as she had hurt him burned in his heart as if it had been transfixed by a sword of ice.

  “I’ll find a way!” Merlin shouted, shaking his fist at the sea and sky. “I’ll find a way!”

  “Never …” the world around him seemed to whisper. “Not ever. …”

  It was the need for revenge that sustained Merlin through the harrowing days that followed. He would not join the monks at their endless praying, but he did find a small measure of peace among the Healing Sisters, who used the ancient power of the land in the service of humanity.

  Though the nuns also prayed to the One God whom the Romans had brought to Britain, Merlin sensed that they were a true link with the Old Ways that had gone before. He would have honored them for that alone, even if their dauntless fight to save his beloved Nimue had not already gained his deep admiration.

  Each day that Nimue survived was a small victory against the despotism of the Old Ways, but in Merlin’s heart, these victories were not enough. He wanted to win the war, to utterly defeat Mab … and her allies.

/>   For Merlin knew that she must have allies. Mab could not use the power of the Old Ways to kill—that was the ancient law. She could never have harmed Nimue directly. For that she had needed help.

  Vortigern.

  Without the king’s assistance, none of this could have happened. And if Mab had made a pact with Vortigern, she would work with all the power at her command to bring him victory … and to destroy his enemies.

  In his visions Merlin had seen Uther—the red dragon—triumph over Vortigern, but that had been before the king had gained the help of the Queen of the Old Ways. The future could be changed. One triumph did not guarantee victory. Mab would do her best to see to that.

  But for Nimue’s sake if not his own, Merlin would thwart her meddling, and see a Christian king set upon the throne of Britain.

  * * *

  Nimue drifted for a long time in a trackless half-world of suffering and fear. Pain blotted out all orderly thought, but over and over again she remembered the moment Vortigern’s guards had dragged her from her room, the moment when she realized that her father’s name and title could no longer protect her from anything the world might choose to do.

  She remembered the terror she had felt at the sight of the dragon—an unnatural creature, created out of the magic that ruled the Old Ways. Its flame had not killed her, but even now, she knew that what it had done to her was even worse.

  Nimue’s beauty had always served her as a protection from the worst of the danger the world could present, but now her beauty was gone, wiped out in an instant by a burst of sorcerous fire, and the eternity of terror when she had faced the dragon lived on and on, its memory scarring her soul as badly as the dragon flame had scarred her body.

  Try as she might, Nimue could not forget that the Old Ways had done this to her … and that Merlin was a part of them.

  No! she cried silently. I love him!

  But the love for Merlin that she had cherished in her secret heart for so many years had been permanently tainted. Nimue had always been fearless, and now her every conscious moment was consumed by fear. Each time she thought of Merlin the memory of the dragon returned—a creature the Christians taught was a symbol of the Devil—and each time it was harder to separate them: dragon and wizard, wizard and dragon. …