“While Eagles gorge, the Dragon sleeps,
When Ravens fly, the Lady weeps,
What hate has sown compassion reaps . . .”
As she heard the song Eilan felt her heart pierced by sorrow, and the vision blurred as tears filled her eyes.
When she could see again, she was standing beside the pool once more. But she was no longer alone. Mirrored in the water she saw a figure, and looking up she realized that it was a man wrapped in a spotted bull’s hide with a headdress framed by hawk’s wings and crowned by the antlers of a great stag. Her eyes widened, for this was a costume the Druids wore only for their most sacred ceremonies.
“Lord —” she gave him the salutation due his rank, “who are you?” For a moment he had reminded her of her grandfather, but she realized now that he was younger, despite the silver in his beard, and in his eyes shone a wisdom and power she had no more than glimpsed in any mortal man.
This is what Ardanos was meant to be! she thought then, like the great priestess she had glimpsed sometimes shining through Lhiannon in the rituals. This was the reality.
He smiled, and it seemed to her that the light brightened around them until the pool shone. “I have been in many shapes, and had many names. I have been the Hawk of the Sun, and the White Stallion, the Golden Stag, and the Black Boar. But here and now I am the Merlin of Britannia.”
Eilan swallowed. She had heard something of this in her studies, for the Merlin was a title that had been borne by the Arch-Druid in previous years. But the soul to whom it belonged did not take flesh in every generation, and it was said that only the greatest of the Druids met him in the Otherworld.
She licked her lips. “What do you want of me?”
“Daughter of the Holy Isle, will you serve your people, and your gods?”
“I serve the Lady of Life,” answered Eilan steadily. “And I would do Her will.”
“This is an hour of omen, when many paths may meet, but only with your consent, for the way that opens before you will require that you give everything, and if you follow it you will find scant understanding or reward.” He moved around the edge of the pool.
“And what do the omens say this hour is propitious for?” Close to, the reality of his presence was overpowering. Eilan was glad the old tales had taught her how to reply.
“It is propitious for the making of a priestess in the ancient way,” he said gently. “They have told you that a priestess must be physically a virgin, but it is not so. A priestess of the Goddess gives herself at her own time and season, and when the power has passed through her, resumes her sovereignty. She gives, but is never taken. She is the initiator who sanctifies the Sacred King, that he may bestow the blessing on his queen, and life may be renewed in the land.”
“And that is what you want of me?” Eilan realized that she was trembling. “How can I do it? I do not know how!”
“Not you, but the Goddess within you —” Eilan’s breath stopped as he smiled. “And it is my office to awaken Her.”
He released the hide, and as its stiff folds fell away she saw that he was naked, his body the image of the potent god. He smoothed the hair that curled away from her temples, and it seemed to her she would have fallen without the support of those strong hands. Then he bent to kiss her upon the brow.
Goddess! her spirit cried, and felt consciousness ignited by a white flame that surged downward as he kissed her lips, her
breasts, and knelt to bless her womb. In that moment she was aware of her own essence as she had never been before, and yet at the same time, all selfhood was subsumed in Another, and whether that Presence was a part of her or she of it, or Her, Eilan could not say. What she knew beyond question was that in a sense that surpassed even the comfort of Gaius’s arms around her, she was no longer alone.