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by A. A. Attanasio

  He holds it to the windy light of the moors, and its

  sugary glass gleams like metal. "And this demon—

  Ethiops—what will become of this peril?"

  "The charm will repel the demon. The true danger comes from the Y Mamau. My talismans can ward their

  spells but not their arrows and blades." She holds the stare of her guardian and friend. "Be wary, Falon. I want you again at my side—with or without my daughter. Understand me, younger brother."

  "I understand you, older sister." He bows and covers

  her in his red-gold locks, touching his lips to her brow.

  Then he is away.

  Ygrane stands apart from her escort of fiana, her robes tangling with wind as she watches Falon ride into the gray distances of gorse. The moon, a watery ghost, floats in the day sky. Spider threads of ice clouds shine across horizons of mountains.

  All that lightness does not diminish her dread that

  she will never see him again.

  *

  The first political meeting around the Wheel-Table

  convenes a fortnight later, with the arrival of the six most powerful warlords on the island. To the cheers of the Christian populace, the three Roman commanders arrive with all the panoply of the Empire—eagle standards,

  glittering phalanxes of bronze-armored militia, and a boisterous parade of trumpets and drums bleating as

  proudly as if Rome had never fallen.

  The sternly disciplined men, vigilant from a lifetime of battles, move with fearsome purpose. Their beardless faces, eyes hard as their jaws, have witnessed every

  atrocity of war, and many display scars from their savage triumphs.

  The leaders wear ancient breastplates, 'parade-

  armor' made from decorative plaques of gold and silver engraved with the heads of emperors of yore, some

  centuries old. Uther and Merlinus know these men from last winter's furious march across the countryside with Ambrosius: Bors Bona from Lindum, famous for sparing no one, not even children, in the barbarian villages he

  destroys; Severus Syrax, the magister militum of Londinium; and, the local authority, the duke of the Saxon Coast, Marcus Dumnoni.

  The brutal faces of these warlords, as boot-jawed

  and sullen-eyed as their troops, bear pitiless, remote expressions hardened by generations of hostility. With military rigor, they array their men in parade formation across the slate-paved courtyard of Tintagel and salute Uther.

  The king graciously greets them on foot, wearing the

  purple, wide-sleeved dalmatic of an imperator, chief

  general of the Republic. The mighty sword Lightning he clenches naked in his hand. Bishop Riochatus stands

  behind him, blessing the alliance. It appears a magnificent show to the populace. Looking closer, Merlinus reads no devotion for the king in the warlords' countenances, only begrudging, grim loyalty.

  The Celtic chiefs, for their part, arrive silently, with neither escorts nor fanfare, and are virtually ignored by the public. They are tall men, all three with large, traditional mustaches and broad, bare shoulders so admired by their culture.

  Lot of the North Isles, brindle-maned with a silver

  mustache, comes in buckskin trousers and shirtless, his thick chest crisscrossed by the straps of his shield and sword, which he carries on his back. He is an old-fashioned Celt, and many of Ygrane's fiana hail from his coastal islands.

  Quite his opposite, red-haired Kyner of the Hills has brought his horse with him and wears an eclectic array of armor—Roman shoulder-plates of hammered brass, Gaelic kilt, Iberian leather thong boots, and a curved Bulgar saber, the renowned Short-Life. As a Christian, he displays a large scarlet cross on his oval shield.

  Last is Urien of the Coast. His pale blond hair falls to the fur belt of his wolfskin trousers. He bears no arms at all. Under his ruddy brown cloak, his broad chest and muscular back are nakedly unprotected. All that he wears above the waist is a gold torque, symbol of his thrall to the divine Mother.

  Merlinus accompanies Ygrane to meet her three

  warlords at the cove harbor, where the barge from

  Maridunum delivers them. They bluster about her like

  brothers reunited with a younger sister. Laughter and full-throated songs resound off the seacliffs as they reminisce and entertain each other on the coast road that leads to the bastion.

  Kyner lifts the queen to the saddle of his sturdy

  warhorse and leads the beast by the bit, recalling when, in the forested hills of his kingdom, he first met Ygrane, a spindly, lanky-haired seven-year-old sniffling sadly for her village. The Druids had whisked her to his court—a timber fortress, more like a lumber-walled corral compared to the stone parapets and spires of Tintagel, yet she quailed before the splendor of its bear hide curtains and staghead trophies. Everyone laughs, the queen as well, though with a sadder shade of memory.

  Merlinus keeps to the background, next to the

  grooms and attendants. Each of the warlords, Celtic and Roman alike, makes a point of acknowledging him. Only then, on that blue, wind-broomed November day, does the demon visitor begin to understand how formidable a

  reputation his character has acquired. All know he is the royal wizard, famous for promoting the Aurelianus brothers to nobility and for fending off Morgeu's demons at the royal wedding.

  The bishop, who still enjoys the benefit of the wizard's spell and has no recollection of demons at the royal wedding, believes Merlinus' influence wholly political and pays him only cursory heed. Merlinus is grateful for that, because they are seated together on the settle at the back wall of the counsel room. They face the Wheel-Table and the open porch above the gorge cliffs and the

  smashing sea. To the other side of Merlinus, the supreme Druid Dun Mane sits. Together, the three attend as spiritual witnesses to the first war council of the alliance.

  Ten high-back chairs, ornately carved with dragons

  and unicorns, encircle the table. Their dark wood hulks reflect in the polished surface like rocks in a pond. Four chairs display the queen's beast, four the king's, and two have both.

  The sword Lightning lies naked on the table, its

  point directed at an empty chair carved with dragon and unicorn standing back to back, claws and hooves

  rampant—the place of the enemy—the Seat Perilous. The Sacred Seat facing the hilt, where the two creatures meet in merging contours, belongs to God the Protector.

  Uther sits to the right of the Seat Perilous, close to the foe, and Ygrane sits opposite, by the silver-gold hilt.

  Severus Syrax, looking urbane in green silk robe

  and oriental topknot, opens the proceedings by protesting this arrangement. "Why does a woman—even a queen—sit here at a table of warlords? Unless she intends to follow us into battle, she should excuse herself."

  "At his request, I am here," the queen replies, and motions toward the empty chair beside her. Looking across the edge of his staff, Merlinus barely discerns one of the pale people sitting in the Sacred Seat. Squinting, the wizard recognizes Prince Bright Night's dimpled profile.

  Merlinus nudges Dun Mane and invites him to peek along the length of his staff. The Druid's horsey face shivers at the sight of the elf prince.

  "Be assured," the queen says, "I have no intention to sit at council and plan war. The Daoine Sid require me to attend—to make their contributions known."

  The Romans snort and pass clenched, skeptical

  looks. "Are we to believe," Severus asks, sable eyes narrowing, "that you represent the counsel of ... elves?

  That you are assigning the Sacred Seat to your heathen religion? That place belongs to God, not elves."

  "The elf-folk serve God." The queen meets the mocking incredulity of the Romans with haughty

  indifference. "And I serve them."

  Uther puts his hands on the table and glances left

  and right. "This is an alliance with the Celts. We must ma
ke

  allowance for their ways."

  "And our ways?" Severus inquires, a muscle twisting on the right side of his jaw that makes the thin black flames of his beard writhe. "Have we Christians become such lackeys of these hill people that we must honor their pagan gods? Did we learn nothing from Vortigern about alliances with pagans?"

  "You were Vortigern's staunch ally!" Kyner protests, and Urien and Lot rise from their chairs, fists clenched. The queen reaches out and touches each of them, whispering them back into their seats.

  "I opened the gates of Londinium for your brother,"

  Severus appeals to the king. "Tell them, Uther. I have as much right at this table as any—and I say we restrict our company to men of flesh and blood."

  "An alliance requires respect," Uther says firmly, leaning forward to engage the ire in his lieutenant's swarthy face. A permanent crease between Severus's arched

  eyebrows makes him seem to scowl even when placid. "As Christians, we will treat them with the respect we expect in return."

  Severus flexes to reply, and Kyner's dark voice

  booms in gruff Latin, "I am Christian. I have read the Holy Book. 'There were giants in the earth in those days.'

  Dragons. Unicorns. 'Have you searched the breadth of the earth and walked the depth?'"

  Before scornful Severus can respond, the bishop

  stamps his crozier sharply on the flagstone and stands with a flap of his scarlet robes. '"Where does the light dwell?

  And as for darkness, where is the place thereof?' So God asks Job in the Holy Book. From the very chapter in the scripture you quote, Lord Kyner." He nods to the Chief of the Hills, then levels a cold stare at the Romans. "You at this round table are the light. Darkness encroaches with the northern hordes. They kill us for our land, and Celtic bards are thrown into common graves with martyred

  Christians. We must not fight ourselves. We are the only hope of Britain."

  Severus sits back smugly. The hope of Britain—

  elves! He crosses his arms and wags his topknot. "Then, let us begin with the counsel of elves."

  Riochatus sits, and the queen speaks, "What lies ahead is what we make for ourselves with the sword. That is the same truth for the Northmen. Their first prince is murder. They believe it better to kill and steal than to build.

  Murder holds the hilt of their sacred sword. The name of their god is Furor." She passes a tight, knowing look to the Romans and to Kyner. "Who better to hold our sword against them than the Daoine Sid, who are the spirit of

  these woods we are fighting to defend?"

  "Why not Jesus?" Kyner asks. "He is our savior."

  "Jesus is the Prince of Peace," Ygrane says. "We cannot pit him against the prince of murder."

  Riochatus, Uther, Severus, and Dun Mane begin

  talking at once, and Kyner's large voice encompasses

  them, '"I came not to send peace but a sword.'"

  This time, Dun Mane bangs his Druid's wand for

  silence, bowing his large head so far under his white hood that only a shadow seems to speak. "The Celts recognize Yesu—All Heal—and we accept him as savior. Let there be no further dispute. The Sacred Seat belongs to Yesu!'

  The Christians nod with murmurous appeasement,

  and Uther leads the discussion into strategies for a spring offensive.

  Merlinus holds himself apart from these debates. He

  already knows what perfections of war lie ahead in the darkness. His attention goes to the sword. It shines with astral fire—with the table's reflection of seashine and sky depths. It holds the light of the original world, before the shells of darkness enclosed creation in matter. The eight people and their watery reflections that surround the blade are part of a sadder prophecy.

  Merlinus ignores the people and peers into the

  swordgleam. Wonder shoots through him. Across aeonian time, God saturates all creation. Her light shines through the shadows of reality. Ygrane is correct. What lies ahead for these shadow-people, mortals and elf-folk alike, will be made by the sword—this sword, Lightning, the enemy's

  own weapon, redeemed to save the people it has been

  created to destroy. Very like the wizard himself.

  Looking deeper into its metallic depths, Merlinus

  realizes then that it is the sword he must serve, not the shadows around the sword. The churlish warlords, the

  bishop's proud robes, the Druids' cowled darkness—and the queen and the king, as well—even the wispy light of Prince Bright Night in the Sacred Seat, are but ghosts.

  Merlinus himself is a ghost. Only the sword, only the symbol, is living.

  *

  The meeting of the warlords lasts seventeen days,

  during which Merlinus spends his time either sitting on the brink of the seacliff or picking his way along the guano-bleached footpaths, through clouds of shrieking gulls. He tries not to think about what the people on the porched terrace are planning. He feels sick with foreboding. The atmosphere is filled only with omens of bloodlust and war.

  Again and again, he calls for the unicorn. He wants to feel once more the wholeness and promise of its

  presence. Just to know that it is still there. A way out of a bad dream. But when it does not come, he finally accepts that he must remain alone. The king and queen have each other, and their unborn child. The warlords have their war.

  No one at the round table needs Merlinus, and the

  wizard drifts off and mingles with servants in the citadel and fisherfolk in the coast towns, doing the good deeds his mother's memory requires.

  After a fortnight of planning, arguing, sharing meals and battle stories, the warlords agree to take the fight to the enemy. All of them promise a full-out effort in the spring. A war party ten times the size of the battle forces Ambrosius commanded will roll the Wheel-Table from

  Tintagel in the west to Londinium in the east.

  The united armies of Celts and Britons intend to fan

  out across the country on either side of the table. Using bird messengers, drums, and smoke signals to coordinate, they will flush out all invaders and drive them from the midlands.

  The first winter squall chops the sea and howls off

  the cliffs, stripping the forests of their last leaves. While the tempest rages, the council debates objectives: purge the land by killing the pagan tribes, as Bors Bona urges, or terrorize them with selective acts of savage butchery, as Lot suggests?

  Severus, risking the wrath of the others, actually

  offers to negotiate with the pagans. The power of the Syrax family in Londinium depends upon the goodwill of

  barbarian settlements in Gaul, who control trade routes to the south. Severus has experience negotiating with the tribes and shamelessly pays gold for peace. The others shout him down.

  No resolution is reached—no objective other than to

  roll the Wheel-Table to Londinium. Spurred by winter, the warlords hurry back to their own kingdoms, and a week later, a blizzard transforms the rocky landscape into a garden of the moon.

  *

  Christmas day, the bells of Tintagel chapel ring out

  at dawn. The sky looks like washed blood above the white lace of the forest. The king and queen summon Merlinus to the eastern terrace portico, where the round table has been moved, to spend the holy day with them.

  Round table. That is what everyone has taken to calling it, though the wizard stubbornly prefers Wheel-

  Table. Sea mist pebbles the tabletop, and servants expertly clean it with swipes of white antelope skin.

  The royal couple and the wizard sit at the table

  beside braziers shaped like goblins that burn rare woods and waft fumes of fragrant warmth. They pray, talk about the baby growing inside Ygrane, and watch the unicorn frisk in and out of the forest in sparkling flurries and sprays of ice crystal.

  Shouts of alarm from the rampart sentinels

  announce intruders. A file of black-hooded wandere
rs in white robes emerges from out of the frosted woods. The somber figures move in slow procession through the

  pristine snow to the bastion.

  Nine cenobites descend from the hills in an evenly

  spaced ritual line. When they approach the eastern gate, they pull back their hoods and reveal that they are women with long, colorful tresses, chestnut, platinum, sable, storm gray, and several shades of sunlight.

  Merlinus' heart thuds loudly. These are the Nine

  Queens dressed as cenobites! The eldest, the silver

  falconess Rna, carries a candescent goblet of gold laced with chrome—the Graal.

  Merlinus runs to greet them in the palace courtyard,

  and they ignore him, their eyes humbly lowered. He follows them into the main hall, where they genuflect before the king and the queen.

  "We are the Sisters of Arimathea," Rna announces.

  "Eremites, reclusive worshipers of the Holy Mother. For four hundred years, our order has preserved the secret shrine of Yoseph of Arimathea, where we pray incessantly for peace and world redemption."

  "Welcome, sisters." The king greets the holy sisters with a fragile expression. He beckons them toward the eastern terrace, where daylight glares off marble.

  "Our vows of strict solitude continue in suspense only for the time we need to present you with this jorum,"

  Rna replies, and passes the silver and gold chalice to the woman behind, who passes it on.

  "Jorum?" Ygrane looks to Myrddin for a translation.

  "Joram in the Bible 'brought with him vessels of silver,' " Merlinus quotes.

  This is no household jorum found in the mud-brick

  dwellings of Judea. It is a gold-skirled mirror shaped as an elegant goblet. In the reflecting surface, the nine women wear black veils.

  The wizard rubs his eyes. The nine Sisters of

  Arimathea, standing humbly in the dawnlight, reveal none of the supernatural traits Merlinus sees in their reflections.

  Except for their black hoods and mantles and white robes

  embroidered with green Celtic crosses, they appear as ordinary women made seraphically beautiful by serenity and prayer.

  The youngest appears seventeen, the eldest eighty.