Legacy: Arthurian Saga (160 page)

"Of course you have sent to
him?"

"Bedwyr sent a rider before we left
Camelot. There are more men out there now. It's getting too dark to
find her, but if she's been lying unconscious, and comes round,
maybe they'll hear her calling. What else can we do? Bedwyr's got
men down there now with dragnets. Some of those pools are deep, and
there are currents in that river to the west..." He left it there.
His rather stupid blue eyes stared at me, as if begging me to do a
miracle. "After I took my toss he sent me back to you. Merlin, will
you come with me now, and show us where to look for the
Queen?"

I looked down at my hands, then at the
fire, dying now to small flames that licked round a greying log. I
had not put my powers to the test since Badon. And how long before
that since I had dared to call on the least of them? Nor flames,
nor dream, nor even the glimmer of Sight in the crystal or the
water-drops: I would not importune God for the smallest breath of
the great wind. If he came to me, he came. It was for him to choose
the time, and for me to go with it.

"Or even just tell me, now?" Cei's
voice cracked, imploring.

Time was, I thought, when I would only
have had to look at the fire, like this, to lift a hand, like
this...

The small flames hissed, and leaped a
foot high, wrapping the grey log with glazing scarves of light, and
throwing out a heat that seared the skin. Sparks jumped, stung,
with the old welcome, quickening pain. The light, the fire, the
whole living world flowed upward, bright and dark, flame and smoke
and trembling vision, carrying me with it.

A sound from Cei flicked my attention
back to him. He was on his feet, backed away from the blaze.
Through the ruddy light pouring over him I saw that he had gone
pale. There was sweat on his face. He said hoarsely: "Merlin
--"

He was already fading, drowned in
flame and darkness. I heard myself say: "Go. Get my horse ready.
And wait for me."

I did not hear him go. I was already
far from the firelit room, borne on the cool and blazing river that
dropped me, light as a leaf loosened by the wind, in the darkness
at the gates of the Otherworld.

The caves went on and on forever,
their roofs lost in darkness, their walls lit with some strange
subaqueous glow that outlined every ridge and boss of rock. From
arches of stone hung stalactites, like moss from ancient trees, and
pillars of rock rose from the stone floor to meet them. Water fell
somewhere, echoing, and the swimming light rippled, reflecting
it.

Then, distant and small, a light
showed; the shape of a pillared doorway, formal and handsome.
Beyond it something -- someone -- moved. In the moment when I
wanted to go forward and see I was there without effort, a leaf on
the wind, a ghost in a stormy night.

The door was the gateway to a great
hall lighted as if for a feast. Whatever I had seen moving was no
longer there; merely the great spaces of blazing light, the colored
pavement of a king's hall, the pillars gilded, the torches held in
dragon-stands of gold. Golden seats I saw, ranged round the
gleaming walls, and silver tables. On one of these lay a
chessboard, of silver, dark and light, with pieces of silver gilt
standing, as if half through an interrupted game. In the center of
the vast floor stood a great chair of ivory. In front of this was a
golden chessboard, and on it a dozen or so gold chessmen, and one
half-finished, lying with a rod of gold and a file where someone
had been working to carve them.

I knew then that this was no true
vision, but a dream of the legendary hall of Llud-Nuatha, King of
the Otherworld. To this palace had they all come, the heroes of
song and story. Here the sword had lain, and here the grail and the
lance might one day be dreamed of and lifted. Here Macsen had seen
his princess, the girl whom in the world above he had married, and
on whom he had begotten the line of rulers whose latest scion was
Arthur.

Like a dream at morning, it had gone.
But the great caves were still there, and in them, now, a throne
with a dark king seated, and by him a queen, half-visible in
shadows. Somewhere a thrush was singing, and I saw her turn her
head, and heard her sigh.

Then through it all I knew that I,
Merlin, this time of all the times, did not want to see the truth.
Knowing it already, perhaps, beneath the level of conscious
thought, I had built for myself the Palace of Llud, the hall of Dis
and his prisoned Persephone. Behind them both lay the truth, and,
as I was the god's servant and Arthur's, I had to find it. I looked
again.

The sound of water, and a thrush
singing. A dim room, but not lofty, or furnished with silver and
gold; a curtained room, well lighted, where a man and a woman sat
at a little inlaid table and played at chess. She seemed to be
winning. I saw him frown, and the tense set of his shoulders as he
hunched over the board, considering his move. She was laughing. He
lifted his hand, hesitating, but withdrew it again and sat awhile,
quite still. She said something, and he glanced aside, then turned
to adjust the wick of one of the lamps near him. As he looked away
from the board, her hand stole out and she moved a piece, neat as a
thief in the market-place. When he looked back she was sitting,
demure, hands in lap. He looked, stared, then laughed aloud and
moved. His knight scooped her queen from the board. She looked
surprised, and threw up her hands, pretty as a picture, then began
to set the chessmen afresh. But he, suddenly all impatience, sprang
to his feet and, reaching across the board, took her hands in his
own and pulled her toward him. Between them the board fell over,
and the chessmen spilled to the floor. I saw the white queen roll
near his foot, with the red king over her. The white king lay
apart, tumbled face downward. He looked down, laughed again, and
said something in her ear. His arms closed round her. Her robe
scattered the chessmen, and his foot came down on the white king.
The ivory smashed, splintering.

With it the vision splintered, broke
in shadow that wisped, greying, back into lamplight, and the last
glimmer from the dying fire.

I got stiffly to my feet. Horses were
stamping outside, and somewhere in the garth a thrush was singing.
I took my cloak from its hook and wrapped it round me. I went out.
Cei was fidgeting by the horses, biting his nails. He hurried to
meet me.

"You know?"

"A little. She is alive, and
unhurt."

"Ah! Christ be thanked for this!
Where, then?"

"I don't know yet, but I shall. A
moment, Cei. Did you find the merlin?"

"What?" blankly.

"The Queen's falcon. The merlin she
flew and followed into the forest."

"Not a sign. Why? Would it have
helped?"

"I hardly know. Just a question. Now
take me to Bedwyr."

3

Mercifully, Cei asked no more
questions, being fully occupied with his horse as we slithered and
bounded, alternately, over the difficult ground. Though, in spite
of the rain, there was still sufficient light to see the way, it
was not easy to pick a quick and safe route across the tract of
water-logged land that was the shortest way between Applegarth and
the forest where the Queen had vanished.

For the last part of the way we were
guided by distant torchlight, and men's voices, magnified and
distorted by water and wind. We found Bedwyr up to the thighs in
water three or four paces out from the bank of a deep, still runnel
edged with gnarled alders and the stumps of ancient oaks, some cut
long ago for timber, and others blasted with time and storm, and
growing again in the welter of smashed branches.

Near one of these the men were
gathered. Torches had been tied to the dead boughs, and two other
men with torches were out beside Bedwyr in the stream, lighting the
work of dragging. On the bank, a short way along from the oak
stump, lay a pile of sodden debris running with water, which
glinted in the torchlight. Each time, one could guess, the nets
would come up heavily weighted from the bottom, and each time all
the men present would strain forward under the torchlight to see,
with dread, if the net held the drowned body of the
Queen.

One such load had just been tipped out
as Cei and I approached, our horses slithering to a thankful stop
on the very brink of the water. Bedwyr had not seen us. I heard his
voice, rough with fatigue, as he showed the net-men where next to
sink the drags. But the men on the bank called out, and he turned,
then, seizing a torch from the man beside him, came splashing
toward us.

"Cei?" He was too far gone with worry
and exhaustion to see me there. "Did you see him? What did he say?
Wait, I'll be with you in a moment." He turned to shout over his
shoulder: "Carry on, there!"

"No need," I said. "Stop the work,
Bedwyr. The Queen is safe."

He was just below the bank. His face,
upturned in the torchlight, was swept with such a light of relief
and joy that one could have sworn the torches burned suddenly
brighter. "Merlin? Thank the gods for that! You found her,
then?"

Someone had led our horses back. All
around us now the men crowded, with eager questions. Someone put a
hand down to Bedwyr, who came leaping up the bank, and stood there
with the muddy water running off him.

"He had a vision." This was Cei,
bluntly. The men went quiet at that, staring, and the questions
died to an awed and uneasy muttering. But Bedwyr asked simply:
"Where is she?"

"I can't tell you that yet, I'm
afraid." I looked around me. To the left the muddy channel wound
deeper into the darkness of the forest, but westward, to the right,
a space of evening light could be seen through the trees where it
opened out into a marshy lake. "Why were you dragging here? I
understood the troopers didn't know where she fell."

"It's true they neither heard nor saw
it, and she must have fallen some time before they got on the track
of her mare again. But it looks very much as if the accident
happened here. The ground's got trampled over now, so you can't see
anything much, but there were signs of a fall, the horse shying,
probably, and then bursting away through these branches. Bring the
torch nearer, will you? There, Merlin, see? The marks on the boughs
and a shred of cloth that must have come from her cloak...There was
blood, too, smeared on one of the snags. But if you say she's
safe..." He put up a weary hand to push the hair from his eyes. It
left a streak of mud right down his cheek. He took no
notice.

"The blood must have been the mare's,"
said someone from behind me. "She was scratched about the
legs."

"Yes, that would be it," said Bedwyr.
"When we picked her up she was lame, and with a broken rein. Then
when we found the marks here on the bank and among the branches, I
thought I saw -- I was afraid I knew what had happened. I thought
the mare had shied and fallen, and thrown the Queen into the water.
It's deep here, right under the bank. I reckoned she might have
held on to the rein and tried to get the mare to pull her out, but
the rein broke, and then the mare bolted. Or else the rein got
caught on one of the snags, and it was only some time later that
the mare could break loose and bolt. But now...What did
happen?"

"That I can't tell you. What matters
now is to find her, and quickly. And for that, we must have King
Melwas' help. Is he here, or any of his people?"

"None of his men-at-arms, no. But we
fell in with three or four of the marsh-dwellers, good fellows, who
showed us some of the ways through the forest." He raised his
voice, turning. "The Mere men, are they here still?"

It seemed that they were. They came
forward, reluctant and over-awed, pushed by their companions. Two
men, smallish and broad-shouldered, bearded and unkempt, and with
them a stripling boy -- the son, I guessed, of the younger man. I
spoke to the elder.

"You come from Mere, in the Summer
Country?"

He nodded, his fingers twisting
nervously in front of him at a fold of his sodden tunic.

"It was good of you to help the High
King's men. You shall not be the losers by it, I promise you. Now,
you know who I am?" Another nod, more twisting of the hands. The
boy swallowed audibly. "Then don't be afraid, but answer my
questions if you can. Do you know where King Melwas is
now?"

"Not rightly, my lord, no." The man
spoke slowly, almost like one using a foreign language. These marsh
people are silent folk, and, when about their own business, use a
dialect peculiar to themselves. "But you'll not find him at his
palace on the Island, that I do know. Seen him away hunting, we
did, two days gone. 'Tis a thing he does, now and again, just him
and one of the lords, or maybe two."

"Hunting? In these
forests?"

"Nay, master, he went fowling. Just
himself, and one to row the boat."

"And you saw him go? Which
way?"

"Southwest again." The man pointed.
"Down there where the causeway runs into the marsh. The land's dry
in places thereabouts, and there be wild geese grazing in plenty.
There's a lodge he has, a main beyond, but he won't be there now.
It's empty since this winter past, and no servants in it. Besides,
the news came up the water this dawning that the young King was on
his way home from Caer Von with a score of sail, so he would be
putting in at the Island, maybe with the next tide. And our King
Melwas surely must be there to greet him?"