A Guile of Dragons (2 page)

T
he Two Powers hated everything, each other most of all. When Torlan said, “Yes,” Zahkaar said, “No,” and when Torlan said, “I meant no, ha ha ha,” Zahkaar said, “I meant yes,” and did not laugh. It made their conversations tedious, but they were not aware of it: tedium was not something they could experience.

The Two Powers pervaded the universe; so it was written in the holy books of the Anhikh sorcerer-priests. Those-who-know, the fratricidal fraternity of magical adepts, gave them a more local habitation, in the accursed forest of Tychar, Laent's dark-blue poisonous heart.

This is the history of the universe, according to the Anhikh religion of the Two Powers. In the beginning, there was nothing. Then one of the Two Powers came into being (some say it was Torlan, the power of Fate; some say it was Zahkaar, the power of Chaos—wars have been fought over this important issue). Its being naturally summoned its anti-being into existence, and they began to struggle. Time and the universe and everything in it is a consequence of that struggle. In the end, one of the Powers will vanquish the other, and time and the universe and everything in it will be swept away in that unending victory.

Those-who-know do not generally believe this. But there was no denying the existence of the Two Powers, nor their dreadful if ill-defined abilities, and sorcerers of every stripe of opinion generally gave them a wide berth. “Being an atheist is no protection,” as Guelph the Many-Minded remarked on his scaffold, “if a god decides to believe in you.”

Today, on the first day of the new year, the two gods had decided to believe in someone.

“Ambrosius,” said Torlan, the power of Fate.

“Ambrosius,” disagreed Zahkaar, the power of Chaos.

“We hate him,” Torlan said.

“Hate,” agreed Zahkaar reluctantly, then added, “I hated him first.”

“Liar. Liar.”

“You're the liar.”

“All my decrees are true and eternal.”

“True and eternal
lies.
”

So the long day wore on. They enjoyed, insofar as they could enjoy anything, when they could disagree about something they agreed on. It made the inevitable cooperation less repugnant to their natures.

But the new quarrel, added to their endless ancient quarrel, did not stop them from executing the resolution arising from their clashing wills. They both hated Ambrosius. He would suffer for inspiring them to agree on anything.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

Conversations in Broceliande

W
orlds away, in another time (because we travel through time as well as space when we traverse the Sea of Worlds), Nimue Viviana was also thinking about an Ambrosius. More precisely, she had learned that she was pregnant by Merlin Ambrosius, and she was just deciding to expose the child as soon as it was born.

The decision was a painful business, but only the first of many. She still had to face the crisis of the disaster: tell Merlin she was pregnant, face his fury, and be driven away like a thieving servant.

That was the way things were. She knew it well enough. Merlin was a mysterious figure in young King Arthur's court, but he was (as she had found) a man like other men. He had chosen her as his mistress, but she was not anywhere near his rank, just a Coranian peasant whose parents were dead. When a man picks a mistress like that, as Nimue had observed, he does it so that he can dispose of her when she becomes inconvenient. And there could be nothing more inconvenient than a pregnant mistress. If he were a peasant, he would leave her. As a noble, he could make her leave him.

Thinking this way, she felt she was waking from a dream. They had been happy; they had loved each other. But those were just feelings; they would vanish like mist at the squalling rise of an unwanted son. (By certain arts she had determined that the child was a boy.) She must anticipate this and act now, against her feelings. It was the sensible thing. Merlin, above all others, would understand that.

She'd met the stranger Earno a little more than a week ago. She was out riding in the forest Broceliande and passed by a tall man in a red cloak, standing in a clearing, watching her. She should have known better than to stop. But he called her by name as she passed, and spoke to her in the secret speech. She rode on at first, but then drew rein at the clearing's edge. In the end, she went back to him.

And when she returned to Merlin that night she said nothing of the stranger.

Earno knew so much! That, in the end, was what counted with Nimue. Hungers of the body could be fed, satiated, soothed, but this hunger of the mind never rested content. She reveled in it, hated it, served it. Her hunger for knowledge was what attracted Merlin to her, so he said. Her continuing delight in learning was one reason their affair had been so harmonious. He had taught her much—too much, or not enough. For the thing was over, she was still hungry, and who could she go to now? Mistress Aldwyn who grew poisons among the hedges? Or some semiliterate bishop? Or Sir Kay, who counted the bushels of flour in the kitchens of Camelot and never got the same number twice? There was no one. No one but Merlin. And now: Earno.

So she asked Earno, when it was obvious what he had in mind, “Will you teach me, as Merlin has taught me?”

Earno answered slowly. He was as tall as Merlin, but heavier in build and in mind. He was balding and his beard was a reddish gray. Everything about him suggested slow care and deliberateness. No one could have been more different from the quicksilvery Merlin. He acknowledged as much, saying, “There is no one like Merlin Ambrosius. In my country, which is also his, he is called the master of all makers. He is a great seer also and walks in spirit through the future and the past.”

Nimue shrugged restlessly. She hadn't come to Earno to hear him sing Merlin's praises.

“Nevertheless,” Earno continued relentlessly, deliberately, “Merlin has not, I know, opened his mind to you fully. He has denied you knowledge of many things, especially regarding his homeland. I can guarantee an answer to every such question.”

She listened to all he proposed and agreed to nothing. The decision lay in her hands and she wanted it that way. He seemed to accept this. He also seemed to know she was pregnant, though she never told him. He left her alone in the woods, finally, to return to the man he had asked her to betray.

A week later, the decision was still in her hands, but it would not be much longer. Her body was changing, and Merlin was at last beginning to notice that. If he realized she was pregnant, she would miss her chance.

So that night she made the decision. She lit a blue lamp and set it in her window before she went to Merlin in his chambers. This was the sign Earno had asked for. The next morning she invited Merlin along on her daily ride into Broceliande, to investigate an ancient tower she said she had discovered in the woods. She was sure he would not refuse her, and he didn't.

As they rode under the eaves of the forest, Nimue had a sudden impulse to tell Merlin she was pregnant. The resolution was conceived in an instant, struggled to be born into action, and (evil omen—or was it?) died without seeing the light. She literally could not speak. It would be throwing her life away. Earno obviously felt no interest in her physically, but he had promised to look after her and teach her, and she thought she could count on that. Merlin was unknowable. With her future at stake, she needed something she could count on. When she found she could speak, she chose not to.

There was little chance of her being heard, anyway. Merlin was discussing his favorite topic. He never cared for digressions from it, unless he introduced them himself.

“Because power,” he was saying as they cantered along, “is what matters. That's what your local theologians tend to miss. To do good or evil one must first have the power to
do
.”

Tangled in her own thoughts, she didn't say anything to this, though she realized Merlin expected some answer. There was a slight rasp in his voice as he continued, “You can't imagine what it's like.”

“I've tried to,” she said at last. Would Earno kill Merlin? she wondered. He'd promised not to. If he did . . .

“You miss my point,” Merlin swept on, slightly mollified. “Imagination has its limits. This must be experienced. And you will experience it: the thrill of power over the lives and dreams of others. Dragons have a name for it in their language:
khûn tenadh
, the game of power. A master dragon plays the game to keep control of his guile of unruly followers. A man or woman can play the game on another level.”

“You say: a man
or
a woman.”

“Such as myself,” said Merlin, pleased. “Or yourself. Yes.”

Nimue was annoyed. Once she had believed these sly little hints of Merlin's; perhaps he himself believed in them still. But she had long ago noticed he found a way to keep the upper hand, and there was no reason to believe things would ever be different. Otherwise she would not have begun the game that (unknown to him) was in play.

“Someday,” Merlin continued, “when matters are settled, we may even have an heir.”

The dreamy wishful tone of his voice was more than she could bear. “‘May have'?” she said bitterly. “Surely it's just a matter of time?”
And less than you think,
she nearly added. For an old man, Merlin was relentless in bed, as hungry for her body as she was for his mind.

“Not altogether,” Merlin admitted. “Ages ago when my wife . . . died, I decided . . . I decided I did not want an heir. I would be the last of the Ambrosii. So I had a friend set an infertility spell on me, a very powerful one.”

“Could it have worn off?” Nimue wondered, and was appalled when she realized she'd said it aloud.

But Merlin simply smiled with a horrible smugness and said, “Virility and fertility are different, my dear. No, this spell will never
wear off
, as you say. It would take a good deal of trouble to undo, and someone else would have to cast the counterspell: a magician's attempt to reshape himself is almost always disastrous. I've lived without even the hope or desire of a child for so long. But now . . . Well, not
now
, obviously. But I begin to think that soon I may revisit that choice.”

Someone else would have to cast the counterspell. Nimue thought of Earno and his knowledge of her pregnancy that was too obvious to need stating. Her thoughts were bitter and almost moved her to speak. But he had said
not now, obviously.
She was pregnant
now.
Again, she didn't speak.

The woods became too dense for riding; they dismounted their horses and, leaving the reins tied to a branch, walked deeper into the woods and Merlin's doom.

“I know it may seem strange to you,” Merlin was saying, “but the game of power I am playing is different from Morgan's, or Arthur's, or Emperor Lucius'—that sad, bereft little man. All these—the king, his knights, the nations—are no more than a part of the chessboard, a few of the pieces. Some of the problems are here, but the opponent is elsewhere.”

“Who is your opponent?” she asked, guessing she knew.

Merlin smiled. He was always smiling, and whatever he said, he hid something unsaid behind that smile. “I play against my old master, the summoner Bleys, and against his rival and peer, the summoner Lernaion. And, I suppose, against the entire Graith of Guardians that they lead and guide. None of these is yet aware that the game is in progress, so it has been a little one-sided so far. Things will get a bit thicker presently.”

“What of the third summoner? You said once there were three.”

“There is a third, the Summoner of the Outer Lands.” Merlin's smile broadened. “You might say he is my ally.”

Nimue wasn't smiling. “I wish you'd explain it to me clearly. I don't want power. I just want to know.”

“That is how it begins, for such as you and me.”