The King's Wizard

He shouted, weaving a spell out of hand and voice together.

The long-dormant waterfall burst from the cliff above. The water sparkled in the sun as it sprayed down, dousing the dragon
and turning the earth beneath its feet to mud. As the beast wallowed through the mire, trying to reach firmer ground, Merlin
gestured again, and a thousand green tendrils burst up out of the ground beneath the dragon’s feet. The shoots swarmed over
its haunches, dragging it back toward the ground …

A
LSO BY
J
AMES
M
ALLORY

Merlin Part 1: The Old Magic

Published by

WARNER BOOKS

H
ALLMARK
E
NTERTAINMENT
P
RESENTS

S
AM
N
EILL
H
ELENA
B
ONHAM
C
ARTER
J
OHN
G
IELGUD
R
UTGER
H
AUER

J
AMES
E
ARL
J
ONES
M
IRANDA
R
ICHARDSON

I
SABELLA
R
OSSELLINI
M
ARTIN
S
HORT

“M
ERLIN
”

L
EGEND
A
DVISOR
L
OREN
B
OOTHBY

M
USIC BY
T
REVOR
J
ONES

C
REATURE
E
FFECTS BY
J
IM
H
ENSON’S
C
REATURE
S
HOP

E
XECUTIVE
P
RODUCER
R
OBERT
H
ALMI
, S
R
.

P
RODUCED BY
D
YSON
L
OVELL

T
ELEPLAY BY
D
AVID
S
TEVENS AND
P
ETER
B
ARNES

S
TORY BY
E
DWARD
K
HMARA

D
IRECTED BY
S
TEVE
B
ARRON

O
RIGINAL
S
OUNDTRACK
A
VAILABLE ON
V
ARÉSE
S
ARABANDE
C
OMPACT
D
ISCS

Copyright

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright © 1999 by Hallmark Entertainment, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may
quote brief passages in a review.

Aspect ® is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

Warner Books, Inc.

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: May 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-60791-9

For Betsy, Jane, Jaime, Fiona, and Russ,

for all their help and support,

and for MJ, for the usual.

Contents

MERLIN DID NOT HESITATE AGAIN.

ALSO BY JAMES MALLORY

COPYRIGHT

PREVIOUSLY, IN MERLINE: THE OLD MAGIC

CHAPTER ONE - THE THRONE OF THE GREENWOOD

CHAPTER TWO - THE THRONE OF TRUCE

CHAPTER THREE - THE THRONE OF BATTLE

CHAPTER FOUR - THE THRONE OF PRIDE

CHAPTER FIVE - THE THRONE OF BETRAYAL

CHAPTER SIX - THE THRONE OF REBIRTH

CHAPTER SEVEN - THE THRONE OF FACE

CHAPTER EIGHT - THE THRONE OF LOVE

CHAPTER NINE - THE THRONE OF CHIVALRY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A TIMELESS EPIC, A NEW CLASSIC FOR ALL AGES—MERLIN

M
ab, Queen of the Old Ways, desperately seeks a champion to preserve her people from destruction and destroy the New Religion:
Christianity. At first she chooses Vortigern the Saxon, but when Vortigern takes the throne, Mab discovers that he cares for
nothing but himself, and the devastation becomes even worse.

Enraged, Mab vows that she will create a champion for Britain who cannot betray her, one who will be both wizard and king:
Merlin. But Mab’s powers have grown too weak for her to do all she wishes, and she is forced to implant the spark of Merlin’s
life in the young novice Elissa, one of the Guardians of the Grail at Avalon Abbey.

Elissa’s pregnancy causes her to be cast out of Avalon, and Merlin is born in Barnstable Forest, under the watchful eye of
Ambrosia, who was once a
priestess of the Old Ways. When Mab comes to claim the child for her own, Ambrosia demands that Mab leave young Merlin for
her to raise, hoping to teach him human love to balance Mab’s thoughtless cruelty.

Mab agrees, but says that on the day Merlin first uses his magic he must come to her to be tutored in the Ancient Arts.

Merlin grows to manhood among the forest creatures unaware of his true heritage, but when he rescues the Princess Nimue using
magic, Mab sends for him. Still unaware of Mab’s plans for him, Merlin journeys to the Land of Magic, where he is instructed
in the Old Ways by Queen Mab and her gnomish servant Frik.

But the destiny Mab sees for him is one that Merlin is increasingly reluctant to accept, and when Mab’s sister, the Lady of
the Lake, tells him that Ambrosia has fallen ill, Merlin hurries home to her.

Mab, fearing Merlin’s untimely departure will deprive her of the champion she needs to restore the Old Ways, reaches Ambrosia
before Merlin does, demanding that Ambrosia send Merlin back to her. When Ambrosia refuses to tell Merlin to do anything but
follow his own heart, Mab lashes out in anger, leaving Ambrosia dying. Merlin, stumbling over the body of his foster mother,
realizes Mab is evil. He tries to fight Mab, but fails to defeat her because he has not yet mastered the highest levels of
magic to become a Thought-Wizard. Merlin swears he will never be what Mab wants him to be, and vows he will never again use
his magic except to defeat her.

Mab, feeling that Merlin’s capitulation is only a matter of time, abandons him to his solitary life in the forest, waiting
for the day she can use Vortigern to make Merlin break his rash oath.…

H
is name was Merlin, and he was the child of the Queen of Air and Darkness and a mortal maiden. His human mother Elissa had
died when he was born, and he had grown up happy and free in the deep forest under the care of his foster mother Ambrosia… until the day that the Queen of the Old Ways, Queen Mab, had taken him to learn the arts of magic in her land under the
hill.

To become a wizard.

At the time it had seemed like such a simple thing to become a wizard, passing through the three stages of magic to become
a Wizard of Pure Thought, but Merlin had quickly realized that things weren’t simple at all. He’d come to perceive that Mab
saw him as nothing more than a pawn in her plan to restore the Old Ways to a Britain increasingly falling beneath the spell
of Christianity—and that Mab saw no difference
between Good and Evil, so long as she got her own way.

Perhaps it came from being half-human, but Merlin
did
see a difference between Good and Evil. Under his foster mother’s guidance, Merlin had chosen the ways of the Good, and that
simple choice had set him and Mab upon opposing paths. He would do anything to keep from becoming her tool for changing the
world from what it was to something it could no longer be.

Inevitably the day had come when Merlin had fought against his magical mentor.

“I’ll never forgive you—never!” Merlin shouted. He held his foster mother’s body in his arms
.

“I’m sorry about your mother and Ambrosia, but they were casualties of war,” Mab said insincerely. “I’m fighting to save my
people from extinction.”

But to fight this war, Mab had sacrificed everything that made life worth living
.

“I don’t care if you die and disappear,” Merlin said furiously. Mab had killed Ambrosia out of spite—and to reclaim Merlin’s
loyalty. He knew that in her total heartlessness, the Queen of the Old Ways would try any trick, take any hostage. …

“I will, unless I fight and win!” Mab assured him seriously. “That was why you were created.” To be Mab’s tool against the
New Religion, to bring pain and suffering to thousands just like Ambrosia
.