“It is done,” he answered the mirror voice tonelessly.
“Rest, and wait,” chimed the voice in return. And at once it seemed to Myrddin that he was freed from some compulsion he had not even been aware of carrying. He blinked and stretched like one who had awakened from a long sleep filled with dreams. Then he turned and edged out of the chamber of the mirror, filling his lungs with the fresh air of the mountain winds.
He did not return to the ruined clan house. Instead he fashioned a small hut, partly of stone, partly of branches. The high point of summer came and he busied himself with the matter of food and stores for the winter. He found herbs and growing things which he could harvest; and he hunted a wild cow, perhaps lost from the ravaging of the clan house, killed it and smoked the meat
When the ravens gathered to pick the hide he had flung over a bush, a wild cat and her kitten moved in to dispute their ownership by feline hissing and growls. The ravens screamed their battle cries in return, greedy for all they could get. Myrddin watched the engagement until the hide was picked clean of all remnants of flesh. Then he scraped and worked it as best he could. Thereafter he left the offal of any animals he took in hunting for his feathered and furred neighbors.
It was a strange life, far removed even from the comforts the clan house provided. He grew lean and spare, taller, darker of skin where the sun burned him. There came the day when he used the newly honed edge of his belt knife to shave down off his lip and chin, at the same time hacking away his hair so it grew no longer than his earlobes.
His tunic and breeches were too small so he fashioned new breeches, awkwardly, from the crudely tanned hide, using the thicker portions to make sandals. He tore the sleeves from his tunic and wore it loosely around the upper part of his body.
Now the short summer was drawing to a close. He must prepare for the cold months. Though he hated the task, he climbed each morning after sunrise to a point from which he could look down at the clan house. He was too far aloft to see much of the ruin and desolation which had taken the domain of Nyren, but he made sure that the signal he had asked of Uther was not set
Almost reluctantly he also made visits to the mirror, but there were few times when (he voice spoke to him and some of the questions he asked went unanswered. At last he was driven to chanting as he worked, fixing in his mind the lore from past learning sessions and exercising a voice he had little use for.
One day he found one of the raven kind with its foot trapped in a twist of briar, croaking its terror to the world. Freeing the creature in spite of its frenzied pecks, some of which drew blood, he found its foot broken and tended the bird as he would the victim of man’s blood lust.
When at last the raven mended, the bird seemed unwilling to depart wholly to the wild. It would often fly to a perch near the log Myrddin had drawn up at the door of his hut and which he used for a work place, weaving baskets from osiers brought from a mountain lake, grinding some half-wild grain from a weed-run field.
Myrddin named the raven Vran and was surprised at the creature’s response to his own tentative offers of food and his attempts to echo the bird’s harsh cries. After a while, when he appeared from out of the hut in the morning, Vran would wing to him, darting down to perch on his shoulder and cackle in softer tones, as if in some unknown speech, into the boy’s ear.
That winter was harsh and Myrddin, on the days of the worst storm winds, withdrew into the cave of the mirror. He had to pry and pick away at the crevice to force the doorway, his shoulders had grown so squared, his height increased. Vran disappeared, seeking out some shelter of his kind, and the boy missed his company.
He did not approach the mirror, for he felt a certain constraint now, as if this were not the time when he was to use the installation from the stars. In fact some of the lights across the cubes no longer appeared. He wondered, almost with a stab of panic, if they would ever work again, or if the mirror was growing old after a fashion, its power waning.
The days were no longer marked by any numbering of time. Myrddin had tried to keep a calendar of stones as he had by Lugaid’s hut; but after a storm had dislodged a score of them and he could not remember their exact number, he did not attempt to renew them. There were days when he ate only one light meal and drowsed away the rest of the hours in a lethargy which was not normal.
At least no one troubled the peace of the mountain. In all the time since his return he had seen no human being. Nor had his special sense warned him that he was being watched, as it had when Nimue had stalked him.
He wondered where she was and what she might be doing. The uneasiness of that wondering aroused him to the thought that perhaps he might be well engaged in trying to track her, just as she had tracked him. But when he at last asked that of the voice of the mirror, the answer came quick and emphatic:
“Do not approach any who serve those Others, for they will lead you to battle and the time for that is not yet.”
Myrddin was about to turn away from the question bench when the voice spoke again:
“The time is nigh now for your second task. Listen well. There must be a child born, even as you were born, one of our blood, unflawed. But all men must believe that he is of the High King’s begetting. When you are asked to aid Uther in this matter, you shall use the powers given you. Let the King believe that he lies with the woman of his choice and enjoys her favors for a night. Let the woman believe that she entertains her lord. But within her chamber you must open the window and leave her alone.
“Thereafter, when the child is born, you must take him, telling the King that he will be in danger, for there are those who want their ruler to have no true heir. And you must hide the child carefully, as a fosterling, with a lord to the north, one Ector. Let that one believe that you have fathered the babe. For he is one who knows of the Old Race and you shall give to him the sign of recognition. In his veins, though much thinned by time and many generations, is a portion of our blood and like will greet like.
“Be ready when the King’s messenger comes, that you may do this thing. For this child shall be the hope of your land, and our hope also. Only when a king of our kin reigns here in peace will the bonds be strong enough to bring about our return.”
“When shall this happen?” Myrddin dared to ask.
“With the coming of spring. Use now your powers of illusion, work with them day after day, until you can use them as easily as a well-trained warrior can wield his sword. For such are your weapons and only by them can you fashion what we must have.”
So Myrddin woke from the dreamy acceptance of passing days, one so like another that he could not have said that was yesterday, this is today, this tomorrow. And he flexed his powers as a fighter flexes his muscles before a contest
He created his illusions on the nearby hillside, making them as lifelike as he could. One day he had a dark and foreboding forest around the entrance to the cave. The next he banished the darkness to lay down a fair meadow in which the flowers of early summer swayed beneath the caress of the wind. Then he fashioned people. Nyren walked there, his war cloak swept back, the chain mail rings of bronze sewn on his leather jerkin, shining brightly. He smiled as he came, raising his hand in friendly salute.
The struggle to hold such an image so that it did not appear as a shadow but as a living thing was the hardest task Myrddin had yet to learn. It tired him more than had his ordeal of raising the King Stone in the Western Isle. But the more he used that power, the more his strength grew, the more solid and lifelike became his illusions. Yet he could not be sure that he could hold them as well for others as he was able to do for himself.