by Ben Bova
With a tired smile, Arthur said, “I’m not interested in glory, my young friend. I’m interested in power.”
It was clear that Lancelot did not understand, but I thought I did. The Angles would huddle behind their defensive earthworks and stay in their villages, the cream of their manhood killed. It would be a long time before they ventured out again to raid Celtic farms and settlements. Arthur would use that time to draw new recruits to his army, to march north and defeat the Jutes there, to drive the Scots back behind Hadrian’s Wall and secure the northern kingdoms.
He would win great power for Ambrosius Aurelianus, making the old man a true High King among the Celts. And perhaps, I thought, Arthur himself would in the end become the High King. He was certainly showing that he understood the workings of power.
Aten wanted him dead, but it seemed to me that Arthur was actually on his way to uniting the fractious Celts. Maybe he would one day truly drive the barbarian invaders out of Britain. I vowed anew to help him all I could.
Then I thought of Lancelot, so eager for glory. Aten had meant for Lancelot to lead Arthur to his death in the battle. Instead, Lancelot had saved Arthur’s life. I felt glad about that.
Yet I thought I heard, in the far recesses of my mind, Aten’s cynical laughter. Lancelot will still be the agent of Arthur’s death, the Golden One seemed to be saying. Wait and see. Wait and see.
CHAPTER SIX
Bernicia
1
Arthur wasted no time marching northward.
He and his knights had fought all summer long, battling the invading barbarians in a bitter campaign that had started far to the south and now had brought us to the border of the Scottish lands. The aging Ambrosius Aurelianus, who styled himself High King of all the Celts, remained in his fine castle at Cadbury, ready to move against the Saxons dwelling on Britain’s southern shore if they tried to push inland.
“It’s the wrong time of year for campaigning,” Sir Bors groused, peering up at the gray sky as we rode slowly along the old Roman road. “We should be heading back south.”
“Aye,” Sir Gawain agreed. “It’s cold up here. And there are too few wenches.”
Arthur shook his head stubbornly. “We’ll turn back once we’ve driven the Picts and Scots back behind Hadrian’s Wall.”
There had been too few knights for Arthur to drive the barbarians entirely out of southern Britain. But he crushed their military power, annihilated the flower of their fighting manhood. Thoroughly cowed, they retreated to their fortified villages along the coast, but they would not be bringing fire and sword to the Celtic villages farther inland. Not until a new generation of boys grew to fighting age.
Meantime the wild and fearsome Scots and Picts had swarmed across the unguarded length of Hadrian’s Wall to spread death and terror through the northern lands. Now we rode against them. They had thought the old crumbling wall was meant to keep them out of Britain’s northern reaches. Arthur intended to show them that the Wall had other uses.
It was a terrible day, raining hard. Once we turned off the Roman road the ground beneath our horses’ hooves was a sea of cloying, slippery mud. At last we found the enemy, half naked in the cold pelting rain, a huge mass of barbarians drawing themselves into a ragged battle line once they saw us approaching.
Sir Bors wanted to wait until the rain stopped and the field dried, but Arthur feared that the barbarians would escape across the Wall by then. So we charged through the rain and mud into the wild, disorganized mass of frenzied barbarians. Soon the mud was churned into an ocean of blood.
I rode behind Arthur, his faithful squire, protecting his back. He divided the knights into two divisions, one headed by Bors, the other by himself. We charged from opposite directions, catching the freezing, rain-soaked barbarian warriors between us. They fought bravely at first, but no man on foot can stand up to the charge of knights protected by chain mail, shield, and helmet, driving home an iron-tipped lance with all the power of a mighty steed at full gallop behind it.
As Arthur had planned, the Wall became a trap. Pinned against it, the barbarians could not flee when Arthur’s knights rode down on them.
They crumbled after that first charge. The battle became a melee, with enemy warriors scrambling madly up the overgrown old stones of the Wall, made slippery by the incessant rain, slicker still by their own blood.
Arthur wielded Excalibur, stroking to the right and left, slashing the life from every warrior he could reach. Lancelot was at his left hand, his own sword a blur of swift death. I stayed on Arthur’s right, alert for treachery.
The battle ended at last; Arthur was barely touched during the fighting. The blood-soaked mud was littered with the bodies of the dead.
“The crows will feast tomorrow,” Bors said grimly.
“And the wolves tonight,” added Sir Kay, limping from a slash in his right leg as he led his panting, lathered horse away from the carnage.
Night fell and the knights huddled around fitful campfires, sheltering beneath the flat-sided tents erected by their churls. But repose was not for me. I followed a summons implanted in my mind and headed off to the distant graveyard.
Like an automaton, like a puppet pulled by invisible strings, I walked through the pelting, freezing rain. The night was black and cold. I reached the scant shelter of a crumbling archway, its ancient stones dripping and slimy with green moss. Icy mist rose from the graveyard beyond the arch like ghostly spirits rising from the dead. It was easy to see how the people of this era believed in their supernatural terrors. Ignorance and superstition always go hand in hand.
I was soaked to the skin, despite the heavy woolen cloak I had draped over my tunic and chain mail. My body automatically clamped down my peripheral blood vessels, to keep as much body heat within me as possible.
The rain was turning into sleet. Back south where Ambrosius ruled as High King in Cadbury castle it was harvest time with bright golden days and a smiling orange full moon. Here along Hadrian’s Wall it was almost winter; snow was on the way. Arthur’s long campaign against the barbarians was grinding to a halt.
I waited in the freezing rain beneath the dripping stones of the ancient archway. I half expected Aten or one of the other Creators to rise out of the mists in the graveyard. Instead, I saw the cloaked and hooded figure of a monk making his way around the perimeter of the cemetery, head bent and shoulders stooped against the pelting rain.
He carried a lantern that flickered fitfully against the miserable night. Once he reached me, he lifted it high enough to see my face.
“You are Orion?” he asked, in a voice thick with age and rheumy congestion.
“I am,” I said. “And you?”
“I am but a humble messenger sent to fetch you. Follow me.”
Coughing fitfully, he led me around the edge of the graveyard, not daring to cut through it toward his destination. Dark bare trees stood along the muddy path, their empty arms clacking fitfully against the cloud-covered sky. At last we reached a small dome made of stones. A monk’s desolate cell, I realized. A place built for solitary prayer and penitence. A place, I thought, for hunger and pneumonia. Through the rain-soaked darkness I could hear waves crashing against a craggy cliff. The sea was not far off.
I had to duck low to get through the cell’s entrance, and once inside I could stand straight only in the center of the cramped little dome. It was a relief to get out of the rain, although the stones of the cell’s interior were slimy with mold and dripping water. The beehive-shaped cell was empty. In the dim light of the monk’s lamp I could see that there was no chair, no hearth, not even a blanket to sleep upon. Nothing but a few tufts of straw thrown on the muddy ground.
“Wait here,” wheezed the monk.
Before I could reply or ask a question, he stepped outside into the icy rain and disappeared in the darkness.
“Orion.”
I turned to see Merlin. The old wizard stood before me in a circle of light, his dark robe reaching to the ground
, his ash-white hair neatly combed and tied back, his long beard trim and clean, rather than in its usual knotted filthy state. He had stayed behind at Cadbury castle, many weeks’ travel from this place; yet he was here.
“My lord Merlin,” I said, as befitted a squire addressing his master’s mentor, a man reputed to be a mighty wizard.
He smiled wanly. “No need for obsequies, Orion. We can speak frankly to one another.”
“As you wish,” I said cautiously.
He gazed at me for a long, silent moment, those piercing eyes beneath the shaggy brows inspecting me like X-ray lasers.
“You are one of Aten’s creatures, obviously.”
“And which of the Creators are you?” I countered.
“Why are you resisting Aten’s commands?”
I was cold, wet, tired from the long day’s fighting, weary of being Aten’s pawn. This wizened old man, so shriveled and frail I could snap his spine like a dry twig, was toying with me and I resented it.
“Aten hasn’t told you?” I asked. “Why don’t you look into my mind and find out for yourself?”
He shook his head. “Aten has built blocks into your mind. Limitations. Do you recall when you first met Arthur?”
“At Amesbury fort, last spring,” I said.
Again he shook his head. “No. Years before that. Arthur was merely a lad then.”
I tried to remember. I could feel my face wrinkling into a frown of concentration.
“Do you remember Grendel and the cave where you found Excalibur?”
“Anya,” I said, as the memory of her matchless beauty surfaced in my consciousness. “She is the Lady of the Lake; she gave Excalibur to Arthur.”
“But you remember nothing of Grendel and Heorot?”
“Not much,” I admitted.
“You see? Aten has blocked your mind. He allows you to know only enough to accomplish your mission.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“One of the Creators, as you guessed.”
“Which one?”
He tugged at his beard for a moment, then smiled in a scornful, mocking way. “Do you really want to know, Orion?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Very well.”
The light bathing him intensified, brightened until it was almost too dazzling to look at. It turned red, slowly at first, but then its color deepened, redder than fire, redder than hot molten rubies fresh from the Earth’s fiery core. I felt its heat radiating against me, burning me, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut.
“Don’t be afraid, Orion. You may look upon me now.”
We were no longer in the monk’s cold, dank cell. We stood in a long columned hall, thick stone pillars so tall their tops were lost in shadow. Torches burned in sconces between the pillars, throwing baleful ruby light across the hard polished stone floor. Before me stood a man in the full splendor of youthful adulthood, magnificently garbed in a sculpted uniform of gleaming jet-black armor inlaid with intricate traceries of blood red. His hair and beard were dark, his eyes even darker, blazing like chips of onyx in the flickering light of the torches.
“You may call me Hades,” he said.
Hades. The Creators took pleasure in appearing to mere mortals as gods and goddesses. The Creator who commanded me styled himself Aten, an ancient sun god. To the classical Greeks he was Apollo, to the Incas he was Inti, to the Persians of Zoroaster’s time he called himself Ormazd, the god of light.
How many wars through the long millennia had been started by their petty jealousies and rivalries? How many millions of humans had been sacrificed to their obsessions and hates?
This one styled himself Hades. In Greek mythology Hades was the brother of Zeus, lord of the underworld. Death was his domain.
“Where is Anya?” I asked.
“Far from here,” said Hades, his face grown serious. “Aten knows that she opposes his desires concerning Arthur and he has stirred a disruption of the worldlines that she is striving to repair.”
“She saved my life when Morganna was ready to kill me,” I remembered.
“She won’t be able to help you when next you meet the bewitching Morganna.”
“Morganna seeks Arthur’s destruction,” I said.
Hades nodded solemnly. “She supports Aten in this. Anya and a few of the other Creators oppose them.”
“And you?”
Hades smiled again, a coldly calculating smile. “I haven’t decided which way I will go. As Merlin, I have helped young Arthur. He could become a powerful force in human history. He just might be able to make Britain into a peaceful, prosperous island, a haven of civilization in a world darkened by the collapse of Rome. But I doubt that he ever will. His time may already be past.”
“Aten wants Arthur out of the way so that the barbarians can engulf Britain,” I said. “He wants to see a barbarian empire covering all of the Old World, from Hibernia to the islands of Japan, all of them worshipping him.”
“There is much to be said for such a plan,” Hades said slowly. “It will bring about a millennium or so of disruption, but—”
“A thousand years of ignorance and war, of disease and death,” I said.
“What’s a thousand years?” he quipped, shrugging.
“What’s a few tens of millions of lives?” I retorted sarcastically.
“Orion, you bleed too much for these mortals.”
“I will not let Aten murder Arthur.”
His dark brows knit. “Bold talk for a creature. If Aten wills it, you will do whatever he wants.”
“No,” I insisted. “I’m not a robot or a puppet.”
“He’ll let you die, then. Very painfully. And you will not be revived.”
If I can’t be with Anya, I thought to myself, I might as well die forever.
“And he’ll send another creature to carry out his commands. You’ll suffer great pain and final oblivion—for nothing.”
“I will not assassinate Arthur,” I repeated stubbornly. “As long as I live, I will protect him.”
Hades stroked his beard thoughtfully, staring at me for a long, silent moment. “It will be interesting to see how long you can carry out your resolve. Aten will destroy you sooner or later, of course, but I wonder just how long you can get away with defying him.”
“You find this amusing?”
“Very,” he admitted casually. “You know, I came to this placetime and took on the guise of Merlin to help Arthur through his childhood. Aten wanted Arthur to succeed only far enough to force the barbarians to combine against him.”
“I understand that. Then Arthur is to be killed.”
“Thanks to you, Arthur is trouncing the barbarians, shattering their power. Aten wants him stopped. So does Morganna.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be murdered.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Hades mused. “Aten has been after me to join his side in this. But you … you and your ridiculous insistence on defying him … I wonder how far you can carry it out?”
“Help me, then,” I blurted. “With your help Arthur can make Britain a beacon of civilization.”
He laughed. “Aten would be furious.”
“What of it? Is he more powerful than you?”
His laughter cut off. “I’ll go this far, Orion. I will not help Aten. Neither will I join the other side. I will watch how far you can go. It will be an amusing game.”
That’s all that mortal misery and death meant to these Creators. We were a game to amuse them.
Then I recalled what he had said earlier. “Arthur will meet Morganna again?”
“Yes, and soon. You are on the edge of her domain now.”
“Bernicia.”
“Already she is laying her plans for him.”
“What plans?” I asked eagerly.
Instead of answering, Hades disappeared. The torch-lit columned hall vanished. I was back in the cold, dripping monk’s cell again. Alone.
2
“I dreamed of Merlin last night,”
Arthur told me when I met him the following morning.
I suppressed a smile and replied, “So did I, my lord.”
The rain had stopped at last. The clouds had cleared away. A pale northern sun shone out of a crisp blue sky. It wasn’t warm, but compared to the miserable weather of the past few days, it seemed like midsummer to us.
The long summer’s fighting had toughened Arthur, matured him. To the casual eye he was still a very young man in his early twenties, broad of shoulder and strongly muscled. His sandy light brown hair fell to his shoulders; his beard was neatly trimmed. His gold-flecked light brown eyes were clear and sparkling with energy.
We were breaking camp that morning. Arthur had decided to take his knights across Hadrian’s Wall into the land of the Scots, not so much to fight the tattered remains of their army as to show them that they had no refuge from his power. Ambrosius’ power, actually. Ambrosius, Arthur’s aging uncle, was the High King and Arthur his Dux Bellorum, fighting beneath his banner.
“It was a troubling dream,” he said as we walked slowly toward the makeshift corral where our horses awaited. Unfortunately, the wind was in our faces.
If the smell and the flies bothered Arthur, however, he gave no sign of it. He talked about his dream.
“It was very strange, Orion. Merlin appeared to me with a very lovely young girl at his side. An enchantress, it seemed to me.”
“Morganna?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, not her, thank God.” He crossed himself.
“Then who was she?”
“I don’t know. But she certainly seemed to have Merlin in her spell. He told me he was going away with her and I wouldn’t see him anymore.”
I could see that Arthur was clearly perplexed.
“You don’t think that Merlin would leave me, do you? He’s been like a father to me. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t there, helping me, showing me what I should do.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “you are old enough now to make your own decisions. Perhaps you no longer need Merlin.”
He looked alarmed at that thought. “I’ve sent a messenger to Cadbury castle. I want to make certain that Merlin is still there. That he’s all right. Perhaps this dream was a warning that he’s sick. He’s very old, you know.”
