Myrddin thought of the clan house as he had seen it last. That was the fruit of war. That was the way of brute man, Ae way to which his people were condemned unless there was the promised change. He had no choice, being who and what he was, except to carry the orders and the burden laid on him by the voice of the mirror.
“I must do what I must do,” he said heavily. “And if this waiting is a part of it, then I must endure it. But I have also been warned.” He wondered if be could find his tongue free to mention that other to Lugaid, since so much of the mirror’s knowledge was locked within his silence. “There is”—he discovered that he could continue—“another abroad whose mission is to defeat what I would do.”
“One of the Dark Ones,” Lugaid agreed. Myrddin was surprised. How much did the Druid know of that?
He saw Lugaid smile. “Ah, it is true that here”—he tapped his forehead with one finger—“I have the lore of old. Those who would be of our number must study the lore for twenty years. Never can it be put in writing after the manner of the Romans, but rather kept from one generation to the next by memory alone. Aye, there are the Dark Ones who in the Sky times brought full measure of trouble upon our world. That they, too, have their servants—what could be more believable? So there is a Dark One sent to defeat you. Do you know the manner of the enemy so you can be warned?”
“She is a girl.” Without closing his eyes Myrddin had a sudden vision of Nimue standing on the mountainside, her fine hair lifted playfully by the wind, her gaze as intent as when the mirror had first shown her to him. “I know only that her name is Nimue, though of what clan or tribe or where she may be …” He shook his head.
“Nimue—a name of Power, for it was one given in the old days to a water goddess. I shall remember.”
They ate in silence, each occupied with his own thoughts, and just as silently they lay down to sleep. Yet Myrddin felt a companionship which he had lacked before and a sense of well-being he had seldom known, except perhaps in the cave of the mirror. Nor did he dream.
As the sun broke on the next day they were back at their search. This time Myrddin went with more eagerness. Lugaid’s belief in what he was doing seemed to be catching. And if patience was what he himself must cultivate, then the sooner he was about that, the better.
The sun was hot overhead as they climbed a ringmound slightly larger than its neighbors. And that sun was reflected in small glitters, for the metal bit had begun to swing, moving ever faster. Lugaid laughed.
“Did I not promise that like would greet like? Here is given proof, boy!” He stamped the heel of his sandal on the turf which roofed the mound. “Beneath this lies what we seek.”
He tucked the fragment into its hidden pocket and hurried back to the hut, returning with a bronze ax. “Since we lack a proper spade,” he said, “this must serve, this and that knife of yours.”
With a strength which belied his appearance of age, Lugaid straightaway cut into the root-bound turf. It was hard work, and they took turns at using the ax and scraping away the loosened soil with knife and large bowl. By sundown they had reached a length of massive stone which must roof in the grave space. Lugaid was clearing along that, seeking the end where they might find an opening.
The sun had gone; twilight was creeping in. Lugaid stood within the trench they had cut.
“Light! A torch! For we cannot leave this to the night!”
Myrddin straightened, his earth-stained dagger in his hand. He tossed aside another bowl of earth. Inwardly he knew that the Druid was right—they must not leave the opened barrow during the night—though the human part of him shrank from invading a place of the dead during the hours of darkness.
Yet he laid aside his clumsy tools and hurried back across the end of the blue stone circle, dodging among the megaliths until he reached the hut. The fire, well covered, still had its coals alive. The boy thrust two torches into the embers, then swung them around his head, letting the air feed their flames into life.
One in each hand, he hastened back intent only on reaching the barrow. But his concentration was suddenly broken by a sensation of alarm. Though he looked from right to left and back again, he saw no movement among the stones whose shadows were beginning to reach like groping fingers over the earth. This wariness might only be because of what they were going to do. He went more slowly, however, and, as he went, he kept careful look around him.
Once more at the digging, he drove the pointed ends of the torches into the earth. By their flickering he could see that Lugaid had not been idle during his absence, for the end of the stone block had been reached, and now the Druid was cutting his way down deeper to reveal whatever door might once have existed.
There was another stone set there, smaller but upright, and it yielded to their combined leverage with the ax, though the tool’s metal broke into two pieces as the stone moved. Myrddin squatted down, his smaller body better fitted to the opening. Lugaid grasped the nearer of the torches and brought the fire closer to give him light.
There were things within: jars, a brace of spears and something wrapped in a covering which puffed into dust when the air reached it. But Myrddin did not want to look at that. Instead he searched for the gleam of metal, and the fire suddenly revealed it.
With infinite care the boy thrust his arm in the opening and groped until his fingers closed on something cold and solid. He drew it toward him, bringing a sword out into the light of the torches.
The blade could only be of the same alloy as that scrap Lugaid treasured. Unpitted by time, straight and smooth as if it had been forged within a year, it answered the flames with a rippling of rainbow light. The hilt was wound around with wire and a great dull jewel crowned the pommel. Carefully Myrddin passed it to the Druid and then began pushing back the sealing rock with frantic haste.
“We must hide this,” he panted. “Out there”—he did not turn his head above the trench they had tunneled— “from out there, we are watched!”
He heard the hiss of Lugaid’s breath.
“Then take you this, boy, and go! Leave me the light. I shall close the barrow. But this must not be risked!”
He held out the sword and Myrddin took it once more, wishing he had his cloak to wrap that length of blade, for it seemed to gather light from the torches and reflect it again like some kind of lamp.
Holding the weapon tight against him, he ran down the side of the barrow, heading for the hut. And the knowledge that one watched among the stones was so clear that he expected, every step of his flight, to have a challenge hurled at him.
It could be some wandering tribesman, even a scout from a far-roving party of Saxons. And what he carried now, had they caught clear sight of it, would be booty enough to bring them down upon him. Yet he inwardly believed mat the watcher was not any ordinary enemy.
He had left the door curtain looped up when he had gone for the torches. And that fire he had stirred to life was still flickering, making a well-marked oblong to guide him.
Myrddin was within ten paces of the doorway when a figure separated itself deliberately from one of the standing stones and ran fleetly toward him. The boy swung around to face that apparition. The hilt of the sword fitted into his hand as if the weapon had been forged for him alone. Its blade was far longer than the swords the Romans used, which he had seen among Ambrosius’ host, more slender than those of any tribal making.
As he swung the sword before him the length gleamed, seemed to drip light and color. With it in his hand, Myrddin at long last knew what it meant to be a warrior, the fierce excitement that could grip a man with battle hunger. He did not realize he had bared his teeth, that he uttered a low cry.
But if he was prepared to blood the sword he had taken from the dead, he did not cut down that shadow unheedingly. For she stood within the full light of the doorway. And he knew her.