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by A. A. Attanasio

  only with diminutions of his body-light, which is his portion of magic. And he needs all the magic he can muster now.

  The infant Arthor, still swaddled in his mother's

  brocaded silk wrappings, lies slumbering. While inside Tintagel, Merlinus speaks sleep to him and spirits him out of the castle through a little-used passage that descends narrowly within the interior of the cliff. No one sees them emerge from a seacave that the tide hides twice each day.

  Only gulls observe the sorcerer's flight among the

  incessant black rocks and exploding breakers. Robe

  flapping like a dark flame, Merlinus hurries past tide pools and crescent dunes. The sea's wild vapors shred around him as he hugs the baby to his breast. He climbs limestone shelves that lead into the forest. At an elm knocked down by lightning, he stops and lays the sleeping infant in a hollow the owls made.

  "Rest now, my king," he whispers. "When you wake, I will have found milk for you. For now, rest a while longer.

  Rest on the dark brink of that deeper sleep out of which you have ascended. There will be time enough for waking to this world. Time enough—and terribly more."

  Merlinus remembers the Nine Queens and the

  angels' plan for Arthor. He is to serve as history's witness, awake for centuries. He is to be the first of his people's spirit-fathers.

  But only if he survives! Merlinus' voice rises in him with precautionary intensity. Quickly, he silences himself, and his worry for this child's welfare throbs and glows in him like metal alive with fire. This is the raw stuff, the hot desire, from which he knows he must shape a weapon as sturdy as a shield, as precise as a sword.

  With this pulsing dread, Merlinus plans to do so

  much for Arthor that he cannot hold it all in his mind at once. He breathes as the unicorn taught him, letting his thoughts spool away, unraveling into the energy flow of the

  universe. His perceptiveness calms and broadens like a river.

  The grass rustles with the fetal stirrings of a storm two days away. Rains gather out of the air and out of the roaring off the sea and the furze of the bog water and all the mossy places of the forest. Rains gather like tiny thoughts. They swirl together with boundless intent,

  gathering force to swarm into the British Isles. Dragging chains of lightning, the storm will come and none can stop it.

  This is the mind of God, he thinks, feeling the weather pouring into itself, coiling its might.

  All dread passes from him. A greater intelligence will pull together all his plans for Arthor as surely as the tempest pulls together its pieces. The angels have a plan for this child. Arthor must serve the northern race in the archaic errand: He must guide his people by dreams alone.

  That difficult hope remains years away, a lifetime

  distant. For now, the sky rambles clear, and a melody of birdsong crosses the woods amidst splashes of sunlight.

  Before the rains, there is milk to think of for the baby—and a place must be found where the child can safely hide from evil and grow strong on love.

  Love! The word sounds strange. Optima's

  meticulous love stirs far back in his mind, behind memories of mournful Ygrane, whose love he carries with her

  motherless child. Love—

  And Uther dead for love.

  The sorcerer must concentrate on his breathing

  again, to steady himself. He can hardly believe he is here among the wild cherry and rhododendron—with the king, the hope of the Britons.

  Optima's prophecy spills around him into the

  actuality of this moment. Old oaks hold his attention. A white butterfly, delicate as a soul, hovers a moment over heather bells, then flutters away into sun shafts and their aftermath of shadows.

  He never imagined it would be like this, in a sunny

  wood above seacliffs. He thought he would serve the king that Optima prophesied in a palace, not a wilderness.

  He reaches upward with his will for the portal above

  his eyes—the sixth gate, the threshold to prophecy. He wants to open his strong eye and peek ahead, just a little way, to find a worthy wet nurse for Arthor.

  Instead, he opens his mortal eyes, and the moist

  sun shines in dew spangles among grassy tufts and spider nests. Lady's-smock and celandine mix their fragrances with the spindrift whispers of the sea.

  Arthor stirs, and the sorcerer hushes him with a

  gentle spell. The child needs milk. That is all the future Merlin needs to know. Proudly he gathers the infant in the crook of one arm; then, swatting aside the underbrush with his staff, he strides through the forest's smoldering darkness.

  *

  As the ruby radiance within the Earth, the Dragon

  feeds. A corpulent bliss possesses it, for it has absorbed the squandered energies of demons, a god, an immortal, and a unicorn, as well as thousands of tiny souls harvested by the Sid. The downdraft of energy fans the creature's hot, iron heart, and its dream-singing flares brighter.

  It sings with thoughts that, until now, have been

  more fugitive than deer. All things will grow in the direction of light. Light means life.

  With vivid eyes, its empowered mind sees more

  sharply into its world and notices clearly for the first time the numerous shavings, peelings, ribbons of tusk that the unicorn has sent. They lie tangled in the marl of stardust that sifts through cracks in its shell. They are iridescent slivers far too small to be noticed before, let alone handled and manipulated.

  With its new clarity, the Dragon gathers the

  filaments from the dust and examines them. Seen up

  close, the wafers of bone reveal their secrets to the beast's stronger mind.

  They are maps.

  In three dimensions, they show the Dragon its other

  selves, the scattered cells of its cosmic body. They show the Dragon whole.

  *

  Since confronting Morgeu in her wolf pelts on the

  battlefield outside Londinium, Merlinus has detected

  nothing more of that demon-worshiper, that spiteful and dangerous weapon of the Furor's. Nor has he seen the

  Furor himself. Or Ethiops. The witch-queen's charm flung the demon out of her daughter but did not break his power.

  Ethiops and the Furor will show themselves and with

  cruelties that Lailoken can very well imagine—though, naturally, these dark powers will not act until they are lethally sure of success.

  The child of Uther Pendragon and the Celtic queen

  must die. The Furor, with his one mad eye of prophecy, can see the warrior soul of this infant and the many deaths

  and setbacks he can inflict on the war god's minions.

  And Morgeu, with her iron conviction that Merlinus

  slew her father so that Ygrane could copulate with her dream lover, surely hates this issue with a terrible passion.

  Ethiops, too, eager to liberate Lailoken from his

  imprisoning gutsack, will try to slay this baby, if only to break Merlin's spirit and his mortal hold on life.

  Never before has the wizard lived so vigilantly. From the day Uther Pendragon gave his soul to the elk-king, Merlinus has carried a profound burden. If he fails—if this child is maimed or killed—that calamity will cancel the enormous sacrifice of his king and queen. The destiny his mother revealed to him, the hope that his God wove into time, will collapse to emptiness. Into the very emptiness in which he lost his God at the beginning of time. The very void that first inspired his demon rage.

  For the hope of heaven, Merlinus dares not fail.

  Thus, he lives with extreme caution. He avoids the strong eye, because that separates him from his body and his infant charge. Consequently, he must rely exclusively on the brails of his heart to reach into the world around him, feeling for his enemies.

  On the walk through the forest to the village, he

  talks to the baby, to reassure him. "All shall be well, child.r />
  Fear not. I have been in far worse straits than this, and each time there has been help—for we are not alone, you and I. There are the Fire Lords. They shall look after us.

  And the unicorn. Oh, yes, child, the unicorn. Though it lies wounded, it is a being of light. It shall return to us and offer its help.

  "I must tell you directly—in this our first

  conversation—that I should not be here now serving you except for the unicorn. It made a way for me in the world at a time when I was quite young, only a year older than you, Arthor. The Furor had touched me with his spear-tip, and he drove madness into my brain. For a long time after that, I wandered the forests of Cos, insane, babbling.

  "Crazed and disheveled, I lurched through dark

  corridors among the great trees. I shuffled wraithlike into the loneliest wolf haunts, leaving shreds of clothing, hair, and flesh among thorny tangles, and calling out in an aweful voice to the palpitating shadows, indignation at murder, hunger and the world's fury! And still, the dead stayed dead and the barbarians went on killing.

  "When by chance I crashed out of the forest,

  sometimes I found black ladders of smoke climbing to the sky from some thorp or villa put to the torch by the Furor, and I thought I could hear the mournful singing of the slain as their spirits climbed the rungs higher and higher—and

  not to heaven, as ignorant mortals believed. I well knew that no heaven awaited these souls above the sky's blue.

  Up there exists only eternal night and the cold of the void.

  The spirits climbed not to heaven but to the same oblivion that belonged to squashed spiders and skinned animals.

  "In winter, I wrapped myself in the hide of dead beasts. I struck fire in dead logs with flint rock and stared and stared into the bleeding sores of the flames, into the ticking lives of the embers, counting their bright moments as they scabbed over with darkness and returned to the cold.

  "I ate only dead things. Often, the poisons of

  putrescence left me writhing in agony on the forest floor.

  Sometimes, faces like grinning dogs gazed from the sky, peering down at me through chinks of the forest canopy.

  My old cronies—the demons.

  "They cackled with delight at my suffering. ’Poor Lailoken—' they mocked. 'Are you happy now, brother—

  now that you have found God? How is the Great Lady, by the way? Has She spoken with you lately? Give Her our very highest regards when you see Her, yes? And be sure to tell Her not to forget us. We also are looking for Her. We want to be our own fathers, too—the same as you, dear friend. Yes, it looks so righteous and satisfying what you're doing, Lailoken, crawling around on the forest floor with grubs and worms, vomiting up your insides, eating dead things, spouting such wisdom, doing good for all mankind!'

  "Cursed by the Furor, I blundered through the

  forests of Cos year after year, growing younger and wilder.

  The seasons sought their contraries, and time flowed.

  "On occasion, I found myself on the high meadow

  where Optima had brought me into this mortal life. The hovel where she had lived had been dismantled by the

  seasons, and only a dodder mound remained of her hearth of rude stones.

  "I looked in vain for the altar of smooth green river-stones, swept away in some muddy torrent of spring. The stand of copper beeches remained. I knelt at my mother's grave in autumn fog and knee-deep snow and under the

  flowering wings of the beeches: Each time that my aimless rovings brought me to her grave, I knelt and my madness cleared briefly enough for me to pray, Great Mother, Optima was Yours to take away—and now there is no freedom such as hers. Take me away, too. This is a world of death—and there is no sadder prophecy.

  "Naturally, God never answered my prayers, for I lived. Despite the hammerings of winter and the wretched abuse of my madness, I lived.

  "Once, however, with a purple night riding tall in the

  saddle of the new moon, I looked up from my prayer to see the unicorn standing upon her grave. The long-maned

  beast raised its noble head before my wild gaze, and its nostrils flared. It did not flee.

  "I stood and held out a quavery bruised hand. At my touch, the unicorn's electricity hummed in me, and upon my brain the blossoms of heaven opened. Their fragrance healed my madness. I jolted to my senses, and twilight clanged around me with the vibrant clarity of a struck bell.

  "All raging suddenly seemed absurd. My madness

  had wasted energy that the world badly needed. That was the Furor's triumph—denying the world what good I might do. It felt so easy to put that craziness aside.

  "I dropped to the ground and sat back on my elbows in the wet grass, gazing up at pink-lit clouds and the silence of winter. Silence—for the first time in years! I guffawed incredulously. 'You broke the Furor's curse! In God's name—how?'

  "The unicorn has been answering me ever since. In its healing presence, I not only gained freedom from

  madness, I calmed down enough to learn about my human body. I discovered the seven internal gates that regulate the flow of energy from the Earth, through the body, to the sky. With the unicorn's quiet help, I learned for myself how to open those gates.

  "Ah, but what do you, a baby, know about gates of power? Well, you will learn, as did I. And if you open even the first, you shall be a great man. Of course, for me, a demon, the first gate offered no challenge, because it is the portal of the genitals, the passage to a hell of hunger, fear, hate, and war—a hell that can dissolve into the light and the good and the truth and the love of one woman, one lovely woman, that loveliest of all women whom men call their soul.

  "Healed by the unicorn, I learned about my mortal soul—my humanity. I constructed a humble yet effective tree house in the upland woods near the copper beeches where my mother lay buried. In the soft rains, I watched the unicorn when it visited the grave at twilight, and I worked hard on opening the other gates of my body. And all the while, I enjoyed the simple and astonishing beauty of spring in the forests of Cos.

  "The more I learned about the power centers in my flesh, the greater my influence in the world became. With the opening of the second gate, the gate below my navel, electric energy began to course in me, and I acquired again the voltaic strength to affect in minor ways the stirring of the wind and the movement of clouds. My demon powers began their return.

  "Then, with the opening of the third gate, under my sternum, that electrical power charged my muscles with inhuman strength. I could budge boulders and uproot

  trees—so long as I held that gate open. It closed once while hoisting a toppled oak, and the abrupt tug of gravity pulled my shoulders from their sockets. The pain knocked me senseless. Fortunately, the unicorn's magical touch repaired the torn tissue and ligaments in but a few days instead of the months it might have taken.

  "A year flowed past, and I was sad the spring day when I had to leave my mushroom-studded tree house to track down the unicorn. It refused to come to me, and when I approached, the beast retreated, leading me ever deeper into the western woods.

  "Day by day, the unicorn led me farther from Cos.

  To keep up, even just to find it in the riotous undergrowth of the primeval forest, I had to open my fourth gate, the power center of the heart.

  "In lines of feeling force, electric strength rayed out from that gate. I could feel deep into the world when it opened—and I was felt. Birds spartled through my shadow and settled on my shoulders. Butterflies haloed me. Flies, too, until I learned to focus the force bleeding into my surroundings.

  "After I studied how to direct the heartflow energies, I could feel my way to any creature in my vicinity. Any thing, also. The unicorn was fond of hiding in obscure places, like behind waterfalls and in hedges lively with bees, until I became proficient enough to spot it before getting stung or soaked.

  "I got good at tracking the elusive sun steed. I could feel its magnetic aura in my bosom,
filling my lungs with its heaven's scent. It led me west out of the dank, trackless woods into a riverland of shimmering metals and glass.

  "Mudflats and sandbars vibrant with herons, egrets, and geese streaked the dazzling horizon. Captured in a sorcerously inverted landscape, these waterfowl seemed massed like cloud strata in the sky blue of the smooth, unbroken river, while overhead, cumuli stood shoulder to shoulder, craggy as floating mountains.

  "That was the first I saw of Cymru. I paused and listened to the pulmonary sighing of the forest behind me, balancing its familiar, womblike closeness with the open and wrinkled brightness ahead.

  "The unicorn was leading me beyond myself into

  something grimly uncertain. But now I had come into my own, thanks to its guidance. I had opened four of my

  body's gates, and from them had issued potencies I had not possessed since my proud time as an incubus.

  "Then and there, at the threshold of a future without parallel or antecedent in my uncanny life, I determined that if the Furor should disapprove of my freedom and confront me again, he would face the wrath of a demon.

  "When at last we did meet on the battlefield outside Londinium, it was not my demon's wrath that thwarted the Furor. It was your mother. Blessed woman.

  "Woman, again, spared me, saved me for some

  greater good. This greater good, child—that I might live to know and serve you."

  The wizard's smiling face presses closer and

  disrupts the infant's drowsy spell so that it feels again its pangs of hunger and cries.

  "Oh my, hush, hush now!" Merlinus flusters, then mutters a sleep spell and hurries on his way through the smoky sunlight of the forest.

  *

  With a wet nurse from the village at his side to feed the infant, Merlinus carries Arthor north into the wild hills.

  This is dangerous work, because Morgeu and her Y

  Mamau once haunted these forests and may well again.

  His heartflow constantly circulates through the avenues of trees, and he senses nothing wicked on that journey at first. When a weight of cold descends through the summer trees, he recognizes the frigid touch of another's strong eye. Someone searches for him.