The apparition opened one gigantic bloodshot eye and stared at Merlin. “Who dares wake me?” a voice as deep as the earth rumbled.
Uther’s horse gave a squeal of fright and bolted, pitching the king to the ground. Sir Rupert, who had seen stranger things, stood his ground placidly.
“I am Merlin.” He had not realized that the power of Excalibur would be enough to wake the Mountain King, but if it were, the sword was definitely too powerful to leave in the hands of a weak king like Uther. “And this is Excalibur,” he said, gesturing toward the sword. Clasped in the Mountain King’s fist, it seemed to glow with a fierce silver light.
“How did you get it?” the Mountain King asked in his slow deliberate way. His voice was so deep that each time he spoke the whole earth shook. Pebbles showered down around Merlin and Uther.
“A gift from the Lady of the Lake,” Merlin said.
The Mountain King seemed to ponder for a moment. “She’s been a friend of mine since … since before the dawn of Time. And if I can remember that, it means I’m an old man.” The Mountain King gave his rumbling laugh, his vast body shaking, and more showers of stone rained down his rocky face.
“I ask you to hold Excalibur for me till a good man comes to take it from you,” Merlin said boldly.
“A good man—then I will be holding it forever, or even longer,” the Mountain King said amiably. The rock upon which Merlin stood became a fist again, and the fingers of the stony fist closed tightly around the blade. As they did, the semblance of humanity vanished from the face of the cliff. Even Excalibur’s great power was not enough to keep the Mountain King awake in the modern world. In moments, he had returned to his immemorial slumbers and the world was silent once more.
And Excalibur was beyond Uther’s reach forever.
Uther stared at the cliff, only now beginning to fully realize what had happened. Merlin had not destroyed Excalibur with his spell, but for Uther the outcome was much as if he had: the sword was buried to its hilt in a boulder, and Uther was no closer to possessing Igraine than he had been before.
“You tricked me, Merlin!” Uther cried angrily. He staggered up the rock toward Merlin, disheveled, crown askew, looking cross and rumpled and unkingly.
“Come, come, Uther. I’m a wizard, that’s my business,” Merlin said chidingly. He smiled mockingly—he could afford to, now that Excalibur was safe once more. Free at last, Merlin turned away from the king and began walking toward Sir Rupert. “The sword is yours, if you can take it,” he called back cheerily.
But that was not something Uther would be able to do, for he was selfish and greedy, and now that Merlin had bespelled it, the sword could only be drawn by a good man. Perhaps the Mountain King had been right, and the sword would be here forever.
Merlin reached Sir Rupert and swung himself into the saddle; a simple spell made the two of them as invisible to mortal eyes as the wind.
At the top of the rock, Uther began tugging at the hilt of Excalibur frantically. When he stopped to look around, he was alone.
“Merlin!” Uther cried furiously. “Where are you, Merlin?”
But there was no answer as, unseen by the king, Merlin rode swiftly away from the sword in the stone.
When Merlin at last reached Avalon Abbey, the Father Abbot was able to give him good news: during his absence, the Lady Nimue had continued to recover, and was now strong enough to leave her bed and walk in the Abbey gardens.
“And news has reached us that Vortigern the Tyrant is dead, and there is a good Christian king upon the throne!” the Father Abbot added.
“A Christian king, certainly—but good? Perhaps someday he will learn to be,” Merlin answered. “But I fear I bring bad news for Nimue,” he added. The battle in which Uther had gained his crown was less than ten days past, and its full details had not yet reached cloistered settlements like Avalon.
“Lord Ardent,” the Father Abbot guessed.
“Is dead,” Merlin finished. “It will be best if I tell her at once. Where is she?”
“I believe she is at the Grail Chapel—or what was once the Grail Chapel, before the Grail was lost to us,” the Father Abbot amended sadly. He pointed in its direction, and Merlin walked away.
As Merlin traversed the Abbey grounds, he was struck by the beauty he had been unable to notice when he had been caught up in his fear for Nimue’s life. The winter ice had turned the old stone buildings into fantastic structures of silver and crystal, and the faint dusting of snow made the buildings look as if they were made of lace. My mother lived here, prayed here. Elissa must have walked these very paths, seen these sights.
Merlin did not often think of his mother, killed in the act of giving birth to him. But she had been a postulant here at Avalon, one of the keepers of the Grail, until the night when Mab had used her, ruthlessly, as the vehicle by which she might bring Merlin into the world to be her champion.
Though Merlin did not think it had been Mab’s doing, the Grail had vanished at that same moment, and the small community here, ruled by fear and urged on by Brother Giraldus, had focused on Elissa as the cause of their bereavement, and banished her from Avalon. If Ambrosia had not been with her, Elissa would surely have died then, and not months later in childbirth.
What would these good monks and nuns do, if they knew I was the son of the woman they wronged so sorely? Merlin wondered. But it was fear that ruled them in that hour; they have been as kind to me—a Pagan wizard—as they should have been to her, and so, in some way, their debt to her is paid. …
He reached the Grail Chapel, and hesitated outside the door. Once it had been the holiest place in all of Britain—when it had held the Grail. Had some force swept the Grail away in the same spirit that Merlin had entombed Excalibur, to keep it from becoming a tool of evil?
First the Grail, now Excalibur. Must all things of goodness and power be hidden away from men to preserve them from misuse? It was a bleak thought, unworthy of this place of hope and rebirth. Despite the fact that their treasure was gone, the religious of Avalon still kept vigil here, and made this chapel the departing-place for all their searches for the Grail. And in their searching, they had spread the message of a gentle and merciful god throughout Britain.
Through the open door, Merlin could see two of the Healing Sisters in their grey and white habits standing before the now-empty altar. Between them a third woman knelt, praying. Though she was so heavily veiled that nothing of her face or body could be seen, Merlin knew instantly that it was Nimue. As he hesitated in the doorway, unsure of what to do, she rose from her prayers, turned, and saw him.
The first gesture she made was to touch her veil, assuring herself that it still concealed her scars. Then she walked slowly toward him, holding out her hands. But Merlin could see that they trembled, for all that she tried to hide their shaking.
“So Vortigern is dead,” Nimue said, reading the news in his face. Her hands were warm in his winter-chilled ones. “And Uther is our king.”
“Yes,” Merlin said. He remembered the hopes Nimue had held for Uther’s reign, and what the bitter reality was. “I was there, and … I’m sorry I can’t bring you better news.”
Nimue hung her head. He could see her face dimly through the veiling. “My father defected to Uther, didn’t he? He fought against Vortigern.”
“Yes,” Merlin said. He put an arm around her and led her out of the Chapel. The two Healing Sisters followed behind.
The wind flattened the veil against her face as Nimue stepped outside. She clutched at it desperately to keep it from being torn away. Merlin pretended not to see the gesture, but his heart ached for what she had become.
“Lord Ardent fought for what he thought was right. I saw your father die bravely,” Merlin said, once they reached the cloister walk. It was sheltered from the January storms, and long icicles dangled from the roofpeak, glittering in the sun.
“It doesn’t matter to me how he died,” Nimue said in a ragged voice. “I only know I weep for hi
m.”
“I killed Vortigern,” Merlin added.
Nimue stopped and turned toward him. He had the sense that she was studying him, perhaps seeing more than he wanted anyone to see. “You say that almost sadly, Merlin,” she said.
“No.” Merlin’s voice was hard. “Not after what he did to you. But when a brave man dies—even one like Vortigern—it leaves a gap.” And one that Uther’s unlikely to fill, with his selfishness and greed.
He took her arm and they continued along the walk. The sound of their feet made loud scuffling sounds against the paving, the sound magnified by all the stone around them. If the center of the cloister walk had not been open to the sky, Merlin would have felt uncomfortably enclosed.
“And Queen Mab?” Nimue asked perceptively.
“That will take longer,” Merlin said slowly. Her words reminded him that his task was not over. Uther would not be the shield against Mab that Merlin had hoped for. She would find some way to twist this king, too, to her vile ends. “But I’ll do it in the end, I swear.”
Once more Nimue stopped and looked at him. “Don’t do it for my sake, Merlin. To spend your life on revenge is a waste.”
Very gently Merlin put his arms around her, and cradled her head against his chest. It isn’t revenge I seek, but justice—for Elissa, for Ambrosia, for you. Perhaps Mab was a loving mother to her followers once, but those days are long past. She lives only for power, now. She must be stopped.
* * *
A few hours later Merlin sat with Nimue, keeping her company in her small chamber as they talked of old times. It was not really as dark and grim as he remembered it from the days of her illness; the lime-washed walls were painted in blue and rose with a delicate band of decoration separating the colors. Large windows, their shutters thrown open for the light, looked out over the sea. The room was pleasant and airy, much like the one she had occupied at Pendragon. But there the Princess Nimue had been a prisoner. Here, she was free.
All at once a vast longing to simply leave took strong possession of Merlin. The world was wider than Britain—he and Nimue could leave all this barbarity behind—Mab’s war, Uther’s pettiness—his magic could make Nimue whole again so that she would be willing to leave her seclusion. It would only be an illusion, but no one who saw her would know that, and it would mean so much to her. They could be free, just the two of them, alone together in the wide world. …
“Take off your veil,” he said suddenly.
Though Nimue had shed the heavy cloak and veil she had worn outdoors, her face was still concealed by a long moss-green scarf that was wrapped concealingly about her head and throat.
“I’m not ready for you to see me,” she said, recoiling in fear at his suggestion.
“Let me be the judge of that,” Merlin answered, reaching out. Gently he unwound the scarf from about her face and neck, laying it over her shoulders. The pale winter sunlight streaming in through the window shone directly on Nimue’s skin. The left half of her face, from the cheekbone to the throat, had been scarred by the Great Dragon’s flame. The skin was greyish, shiny, and ridged, like a pool of dirty candle wax. It pulled down the side of her mouth and thickened and coarsened the skin of her throat, making it hang in wattles of scar tissue.
“I’m a monster,” Nimue said bitterly.
Merlin didn’t answer. He summoned up his power as Frik once had taught him, casting it over Nimue as a fisherman would cast his nets over the ocean. This scarred creature was a false Nimue, and he would restore the true one. He reached out his power. …
Nimue caught her breath in desperate hope. She knew what Merlin was attempting. He could cloak her scars in illusion with his magic, give her back at least the seeming of wholeness.
In the weeks Merlin had been gone, Nimue had struggled to heal that part of herself, to become the woman she had once been. Through prayer, through meditation, through the healing powers of Nature she had sought herself, only to be defeated. She could not reach out to remake herself unmarred. And so long as her inner self matched the outer, she could not give Merlin the gift of wholeness he deserved. She would not be his match, his mate.
But she burned with shame each time someone flinched away from the sight of her, and with a greedy, unworthy part of herself, she yearned for Merlin’s illusion, though it would cure the body alone and not the spirit. Let her pretend to be what she was not—in this one moment of longing, she would give up all she was, all that she hoped to be, for simple vanity.
But nothing happened. The scars remained.
Nimue watched, desperation making her heart hammer, as Merlin tried again, and again, weaving his Hand-Wizardry, his fingers fluttering in a cage about her face.
It wasn’t going to work. The disappointment was as sharp as the relief she felt, as if in this moment she stepped back from the edge of a yawning chasm toward safety.
But inside herself, Nimue wept. How bitter it was to know her beauty meant so much to her! She had even been willing to risk her immortal soul, to accept the taint of the Pagan magic she so feared to restore it. The New Religion taught that magic was a trick that always tainted the recipient. To be given gifts God did not mean them to have corrupted the soul … or, worse, blinded it to its weaknesses, allowing them to intensify and grow. She could not recover her wholeness by pretending she was whole already—but oh! when Merlin had failed to grant her the gift she dared not accept, the disappointment had been almost more than she could bear.
In that moment when Vortigern’s body vanished beneath the ice at the touch of Excalibur, Merlin had come to an invincible belief in the power of the magic he wielded—and now, even that betrayed him.
It did not work. His magic—the one thing he had always believed in, even when he had rejected it to take vengeance upon Mab—was not strong enough. He’d tried to heal Nimue … and failed.
He saw the look in Nimue’s eyes as she realized his spell was not working, and in that moment he would have done anything, made any alliance, to have the power to hide her scars. He would have served the Queen of the Old Ways herself.
That thought stopped him. Ally himself with Mab’s evil to make Nimue whole again? His hands dropped slowly to his lap as a chill dread enfolded him. Surely that could not be the price of her healing?
If it were, he would not pay it. Not even for the woman he loved more than he loved anything in the world could he serve Queen Mab. And because that was true, all he had done here today was raise Nimue’s hopes … and not been powerful enough to fulfill them.
“I can’t do it. Mab is too strong.”
At his words, Nimue got to her feet and walked toward the window. She stopped there, her back to him as she looked out, and carefully wound the veil around her face once more.
“Leave this place and come with me,” Merlin begged. Nimue’s scars did not matter to him—he loved her. Far from Britain, surely Mab would forget them both.
“I’m not ready to face the world,” Nimue said distantly. Her words had the dull finality of tolling bells.
“When will you be ready?” Merlin asked, not moving. If they stayed here at Avalon, Merlin knew that Queen Mab would seek out Nimue once more, and perhaps succeed in destroying her next time. He could not face that. She was too precious to him, more precious even than thoughts of revenge.
This was what Love was. Ambrosia had told him that Love was the strongest power, and he hadn’t understood her words until this moment. Stronger than good or evil, stronger than hate, Love swept everything before it in its blind intensity. No wonder Queen Mab feared the power of the human heart. Love truly conquered all.
Oh, dear Lord thank You for preserving me from this grievous fault! Nimue gasped inside herself. There was still a chance to become whole, at least in spirit—a chance that would have been lost to her if Merlin had succeeded in hiding her scars. This was something that could not be done for her. She must perform this transmutation herself.
“When will you be ready?” Merlin’s voice demand
ed of her.
“I don’t know,” Nimue said softly. And until I am whole, I am like a broken goblet; if you try to hold me, you will only wound yourself, my love. Keeping her voice even, Nimue gazed out toward the ocean and spoke. “Perhaps it would be better if you left Avalon, Merlin. I am … I think that I will study to become one of the holy women here. I can spend my life in prayer and healing.” My own and others. “God does not care what I look like—”
“Neither do I,” Merlin said. He crossed the room to her and put his hands upon her shoulders, as if his battle with Mab no longer meant anything to him.
But you must fight her, my love, you must. She hasdone so much evil, and you are the only defense we have. Other men would be tempted by her power, as Vortigern was, but you despise it. Oh, Merlin, Merlin—I cannot let you renounce this battle for my sake! It is precisely that thing which I fear most.
“God can find someone else,” Merlin said desperately. “Stay with me.”
“I must do what my heart commands me, Merlin,” Nimue answered faintly. She bowed her head. “And so must you.”
The news soon reached Avalon that King Uther had gone to war once more. He said that his vassal, the Duke of Cornwall, had defied him, but everyone in Britain knew the truth. Uther wanted Cornwall’s wife.
At first Merlin ignored the feckless king’s war. He was tied to Avalon by Nimue’s presence there. She’d told him to leave, but he was unable to obey, and no matter how far away he rode, he always ended up returning to Avalon … and Nimue.
Sometimes she refused to see him, but Merlin had made friends among the Healing Sisters and he was always able to get news of her. The months passed. Nimue studied and prayed and worked among those pious women, her scars always veiled, while Merlin alternated between hope and despair. His heart told him she loved him still—but what good was that love if they were always to be apart?
But sometimes she would let him come to her again. On those occasions they talked and laughed together almost as freely as they once had, though she would never again let him remove her veil.
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