Golden Tide (Song of the Aura, Book Four) (27 page)

“Arthur.”
A voice whispered through the night like a breath of wind. No answer.

“Arthur.”
It breathed through the forests, across the fields, under the mountains, and right to Camelot's doors. No answer.

“Arthur.”
A barely perceptible shiver ran through the walls and towers, keeps and steeples of the great city. No answer.

“Arthur.”
The King of Caledonia woke with a start, the voice calling his name through the halls of time.

“Arthur.”
He sat up slowly, feeling for Gwen and knowing she was beside him, asleep. Quietly, he slipped out of bed and dressed, all the while that whispering windy call driving him to wakefulness.

“Arthur.”
Slipping in and out of the nightly shadows, he made his way to the topmost tower of the palace: Merlin's observatory. Slowly and sleepily he made his way past all of the wizard's jumbled artifacts and books. There was a door in the opposite wall that would lead him to a balcony that looked out over the whole sleeping city.

“Arthur.”
Not sure what to expect, he opened the door and stepped out into the cool night air. He was searching for someone, anyone, but there was no one there. Who was calling?

“Arthur.”
The king whirled and faced the wizard who had suddenly appeared. There was silence for a long time. Then-

“Danger, my King. Your rule is failing, your knights are in disarray.”
Arthur tensed as the specter of his old friend spoke. “Merlin,” the king whispered, “Can it truly be you?”

“Danger. Your rule is at an end. Beware of Mordred.”
Merlin's face suddenly shifted, wavered, and blew away in the wind, his body following.

“Beware.”
The wind whipped and roared around the king like a living thing.

Mordred is coming.
Arthur cursed and grasped at the ghostly apparition, but the wizard was gone. In his place was a tall youth with long black hair. His white face was marred by what may have been a scar or a tattoo. His eyes shone with otherworldly light.

Doom.
Expressionless, the stranger blocked Arthur's lunge and gave him a violent shove that sent the king over the edge of the parapet. There was a roaring wind, and Arthur was engulfed in a wet, grey mist that stopped his fall and blocked his vision. Sounds of battle sounded like thunder around him, and the king felt a sharp pain in his side. He put his hand to his body and took it away bloodied. And all around that horrible screaming wind-

-Arthur woke up standing alone in a cold, desolate chamber, long abandoned. The king gritted his teeth. Of course. Merlin had been missing for years. He had somehow walked in his sleep all the way to the wizard's old and long since abandoned rooms. It had all been a dream. He turned to leave the lonely room- and stumbled on something he could not see. Hand outstretched, the king attempted to halt his fall by grasping at the door handle. Slipping to his knees, the Roman monarch cursed the dark and pulled himself back up.

Mordred
. The name had been violently burned into the expensive wood of the observatory door. The black marks spread out in spidery lettering like a bleeding wound: Merlin's last prophecy. Underneath the name was a series of scorches and scratches that Arthur had never noticed there before. It was writing, Latin maybe, but in the shadows he couldn't tell what it said.

Lurching out into the darkened hall, the king made for his room once more…