A Guile of Dragons (3 page)

“This says nothing.” Desperation gave her words an edge. Soon Merlin and all he knew would be beyond her reach. “When you were young, you found Bleys to teach you. Now you must teach me.”

He laughed. “I've taught you much already. If I make you always aware of what you have left to learn . . . Well, in part that's because I don't want your hunger to disappear.”

“That could never happen.”

“It does, though. I've seen it happen to so many of those-who-know. It's easy to get tired, to say, ‘I know all I need,' or ‘—all that is important' or even ‘—all there is to know.' It is difficult to sustain the hunger for knowledge.”

“That's just an excuse. I've heard others before.”

“No, believe me, Nimue Viviana. Nothing that I know will I deny to you forever. But if I gave it all at once, you could not receive it.”

“Teach me, then. Tell me something worth knowing.”

“Impatience. All right. I'll tell you about this mysterious tower you've found.”

“You will?” For a moment she was simply afraid. Merlin was Merlin! Who could tell what he knew, or how he knew it?

“Yes,” he said, unaware of her distress. “From your description, it's a relic of your ancestors, the Coranian exiles. Exiles, that is, from my country, the Wardlands. In the last stages of their decadence, they conquered Ireland and they nearly conquered Britain.”

“What stopped them?” asked Nimue, more at ease now (or at least less frightened).

“I did. I had uses for these islands; I still do. But as to your tower: it will have a cave underneath it, I expect, which you did not find. Within this will be a grave and a treasury. Yes, if it hasn't been broken into, it might be interesting.”

“You knew the Coranians well?” Nimue asked. Earno had spoken of them also, but she wanted to know more. She always wanted to know more.

“In a way,” Merlin replied. “Hereabouts, and elsewhere, too, they talk about the Coranians as if they were a different breed of humankind. But they weren't, really—just some people with . . . with a common idea. An idea with certain merits, I've come to realize. Someday I'll bring you to the Northhold of the Wardlands. There you can still see the graves of the Corain, the high kings of the Coranians.”

“Are they so impressive?” Nimue wondered.

“In a way. At night.” There was an odd tone in his voice—pride mixed with shame or grief.

They were nearly at the tower; it loomed over the nearby trees.

“Who is Earno?” The question, so often on her mind, was out of her mouth before she was aware of it. But she decided, belatedly, that it was only fair that Merlin have a warning, however oblique, of his imminent danger.

But Merlin was serenely, stupidly unflappable. “Have I mentioned him to you? That seems odd. He's a vocate, a member of the Graith of Guardians. He killed a dragon once—his chief claim to fame.”

“Many knights have done as much.” Despite her words, Nimue was impressed.
Imagine old Earno with a mailcoat and a longsword!
she thought, and smiled.

“So they say,” Merlin agreed dryly. “But this was no sickly Scandinavian hole-dweller. Kellander Rukh was his name, full master of a guile of dragons. To defeat such an enemy is something to boast about, and to give him credit, Earno never does. Not really. Earno was a man to watch at one time, but he missed his chance somehow. Not a player, just a piece; he follows Lernaion's faction on the Graith. He has some cause to dislike me.”

“Then you're in danger from him.”

Merlin stopped walking and took her hands. “No. He had some suspicions, but Lernaion reined him in. I am perfectly safe.”

“But the Third Summoner—suppose—”

“Be at peace.
I
am the Third Summoner. There. Now you know something worth knowing.” He squeezed her hands once more, let them go and walked into the green shadows at the base of the tower.

Nimue followed silently. There was nothing more to say. And if there were, she would not.

The tower spiraled, hornlike, above the green-gold tops of the nearby trees. It was set on a gray rock carven with strange letters. There were no stairs ascending the sheer rock, but Merlin wasn't concerned.

“‘Venhadhur,'” he read. “A king's name. The epitaph is mere bombast. He must have been very late, a semibarbarian petty king of mixed Coranian ancestry. Otherwise he would have been buried near the Hill of Storms in the Northhold.”

“You taught me to read the secret speech, but I can't read this.”

“Yes, yes. It's a Firbolgi script, if I'm not mistaken. But I beg you to remember, my dear, it is not ‘the secret speech,' nor ‘Coranian.' It is the language of the Wardlands—Wardic, some call it. Aha. Look at this, now.”

He had made one of the carven words recede, revealing a small lever.

“This is very clever workmanship,” he said, “but it won't last. Look at the cracks in that tower! Much of the foundation is based on spells that are now fading. In a century, no one will know this tower was ever here. The Coranian makers could have learned something from their enemies, the dwarves.”

He pulled the lever and stood back. Part of the stone split open and moved aside, revealing a curved stairway that led deep under the rock.

“That's strange,” Merlin remarked. “No treasury; no coffin. There is something on that bottom step, however. Wait here; I'll just go see what it is.”

She had no intention of going down. This was the very moment of betrayal, and she didn't want to be near him when he discovered it.

“It's a summoner's cloak,” he called up to her, “the long white mantle of office. How odd.” He bent down to examine the cloak. His own cloak, which he kept wrapped over his shoulders to conceal the crook in them, fell away. He ignored that. Gingerly, almost as if he could not help himself, he reached down to touch the white cloak.

Abruptly the white cloak rose of its own accord and fell about Merlin in tightening folds. He began to cry out some words, perhaps some sort of counterspell. She might have gone to him then, in spite of everything, but Earno was at her side, holding her arm in an unbreakable grip.

The stone began to grate shut over the stairwell. Soon the rock was a single piece again, and Merlin had disappeared underneath it.

She turned on Earno, venting on him the shame and rage she felt for herself. “Liar! You said he wouldn't be harmed!”

“He hasn't been,” the stocky red-bearded man replied patiently, deliberately. “Give me a moment and we'll speak with him.”

He took a piece of silvered glass and a diamond stylus from a pocket in his cloak. He scraped a few symbols on the mirror and muttered some words latent with power. She could feel the spell activate, and the mirror went dark. Somehow, although there was no light in the glass, she could see Merlin in the darkness, struggling with his bonds in the underground chamber.

“Merlin!” Earno called through the glass.

Merlin's swaddled form grew still. “It is Earno, isn't it?” he replied, his voice rising through the glass with an odd echoing ring.

“Yes.”

“This trap has been ingeniously prepared.”

“I only had to change the cell slightly. It
was
a Coranian tomb at one time.”

“And now it is mine. Ironic.”

“On the contrary. I suggest you induce a withdrawal trance until I return with the Two Summoners. It may take some months, as time runs here, to navigate the Sea of Worlds.”

“And if I choose to starve, or die of thirst, instead?”

“Then the partisans of the Ambrosii will mourn, and a terrible danger will have been removed from the Wardlands.”

“Earno! Listen. The Wardlands are in danger. That's why we need unity. The realm will need to use all its . . . resources with . . . with efficiency—”

“Merlin,” Earno interrupted, “when I was a child my rhetor made me spend a full day justifying the notion of setting a monarch over the Wardlands.”

“And?”

“I liked my arguments. But I didn't convince my rhetor or myself. Don't flatter yourself that
you
will.”

“I am impressed, Earno. I'm sorry now I mocked you.”

“No doubt you are. That woman is here.”

“I don't wish to speak to her.”

“You should. You will not have another chance for some months.”

“Ah. Of course. She will provide your evidence that I have broken the First Decree.”

“Yes.”

“But . . . I don't understand. Why did she agree? Can you tell me . . . How did you
know
she would agree?”

Fear and pain vibrated in Merlin's glassy voice. Nimue had never heard him speak that way before. She took the mirror from Earno and, ignoring him, told Merlin everything: about her pregnancy, and her fear, and Earno's promises. They talked a long time, till the sun was westering and a red light filtered through the green trees. Finally, she found herself saying, “But I never promised to testify against you. And I will not.”

After a long pause, Merlin responded, “I can't say it doesn't matter. But, of all people, I should understand. This is not the end, not for such as you and me. So.” Another pause. Then, “As to testifying, they will place you on the Witness Stone. It will place you in rapport with the assembled Graith. The questions you are asked will raise memories the Graith can read. Don't resist. It's dangerous and will do no good.”

The concern in his glassy fragile voice wounded Nimue deeply with love and anger. “But we must fight them!” she cried fiercely.

Merlin laughed—it sounded as if it hurt him, and it surely hurt her. “Nimue . . . I think we will. With all our strength and sight. At another time. But now you should go. Go away!”

She handed the mirror to Earno and turned away while he broke the glass and the spell.

“We'll take your horses to the coast,” he said presently. “I have a ship waiting there.”

They turned their back on the tower and walked in silence for a while, as shadows rose around them.

“What has he done that is so terrible?” she asked, finally.

“Many things. But it amounts to one thing: he has conspired to rule the Wardlands. That is not permitted.”

“Your king forbids it, I suppose. How did he get
his
power?”

“There is no king—save One.”

She guessed this was some sort of religious statement and changed her approach. “Your governors, then. This Graith he spoke of.”

“The Graith are not governors. We simply defend the border.”

“Well . . .”

“I can't explain,” he said impatiently. “People govern themselves in the Wardlands. No one is permitted to have unrestricted power over anyone else. There is no governor, no class of rulers, as you have in the unguarded lands.”

“I can't believe that. It must be chaos.”

“This Europe of yours, this is chaos.”

“Not Britain.”

“Britain is closer to chaos than you might think. The Britain you know is a creation of Merlin Ambrosius. He distorted the history of your world with a power focus I found myself unable to influence, or even fully comprehend. Sages from New Moorhope may be needed to counter-inscribe it. Once that is done, history will begin to resume its natural shape.”

“Arthur's kingdom will last. It's been foretold.”

“Maybe. Maybe so. But the French knights have had more than one quarrel with Arthur's relatives that Merlin had to smooth over. Then there are the Saxons and, for that matter, the Grail cult. Merlin tried to suppress it, but he never quite succeeded. Possibly it was an inevitable side effect of the focus, or there may have been other powers in play—”

“What does any of this matter to your Graith of Guardians? Your Wardlands are far away, across the sea, you said.”

“Across the Sea of Worlds,” he said, correcting her. “Yes, it is far away, worlds away. But Merlin was creating an alliance of warriors and seers that the Graith might have been unable to defeat. Now you understand, I suppose.”

“Is he so evil for this? Will you put him to death? He said—”

“His motives don't matter. His actions threaten the realm I swore to protect. I don't judge; I defend.”

“So you will kill him.”

“No. If the Graith finds he has broken the First Decree—and they will—he will be sent into exile. He must leave the Wardlands and never return.”

They didn't speak again until they had almost reached the horses. Then Nimue turned to Earno and said, “What did he mean when he said, ‘I'm sorry I mocked you'?”

Earno Dragonkiller shook his head and did not answer.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

The Sea of Worlds

N
imue tried to escape from Earno fifteen times on the ride from Broceliande to the coast. Each time she failed. Earno didn't seem to resent it; he explained he had been a ship's officer for many decades and he was used to chasing down men who had jumped ship. He wasn't ill-tempered, but he was relentless. The next day they reached the stony pink shores of Bretagne where his ship was waiting, and the reluctant Nimue was still in tow.