The King’s men, he believed, would be more open in their seeking, if Uther had changed his mind. No, this was more subtle, like being pursued by a shadow, a cloud, something he could not seize on nor confront, but which was there. And he knew only one who could command such a shadow—Nimue.
There could be, he speculated, some way in which each use of his powers might be made known, wherever Nimue hid to weave her spells. And, because he had no inkling of the depth of her knowledge, a prudent man would assess her skill at maximum in order to go prepared. So his haunted feeling as he rode north meant that she had now learned of Arthur.
His first fear lay with the child. If, when he himself traveled forth from Ector’s land, that sensation of being watched vanished, then it must be the child who was in danger. Learning that, he himself would return immediately to make other plans, set up such protective barriers as he could. But, to his relief on that point, he went accompanied by the invisible watcher.
Now he searched the land around as he rode, set up certain mind-alarms of his own each night while he slept, lest he be ambushed unaware. Still there came no attack, only that continual foreboding feeling…
He thought he could perhaps throw it off when he reached the Place of the Sun, remembering that sense of renewed power which had flowed into him when he touched those tall-standing sentinels of a lost age. How strong was Nimue? So much depended on the answer to that question. And what moves had she been making over the years since their last meeting? For he was certain that she had not been idle.
So he came into the giant circle of standing stones and there dismounted and stood to watch dawn banished by the rising sun. He had been right: here he was free of surveillance for the first time. Yet he knew he must not allow Nimue to be baffled long; there was always the fear in his mind that she might backtrail—that she would strike at Arthur. Above all else, Arthur must endure!
Myrddin crossed the turf to the hut Lugaid had built. He urgently wanted the advice the Druid might give him, the feeling of one comrade on his side if a strange battle was to be enjoined. But even before he reached the crude building he saw that its roof of branches was broken, that it no longer was the home place of any man.
“Lugaid!” He could not choke back his own dispairing cry, though the name seemed to ring far too loudly in the air. The hide curtain was gone from the doorway, so he could look into the cramped single room. No one had been here for a long time.
A little forlornly he stooped and went in, kicking at the powdery ash which had been a fire. The bronze cooking pot, the wooden bowls and spoons were gone. There was nothing left to say when or where the Druid had left. At least Myrddin could read no sign of violence—Lugaid had not fallen prey to any roving war band or slinking outlaws such as might visit this deserted place.
Slowly the youth returned to the King Stone, setting his hands palm-down on its rough surface. This was indeed a thing of power! Within him he could feel his own energy and will rising to blend with the emanation from the stone.
That confidence which had ebbed when he found Lugaid gone came back to him.
There were things he could do here, certain forces he could evoke, which he thought would make Arthur secure, remove from his own journey that watching presence. And those he did, using word and thought, a certain rhythm beat on the rock face with the blade of his belt knife. He felt the answer from the stones, the gathering of what was like an invisible war band. And he marshaled that force, aimed it—released it like an arrow from a bow toward the north and Ector’s small valley.
Then he was tired, drained. He dropped down in the grass, his shoulders against the King Stone, his eyes on the sky where clouds whiter than the whitest linen sailed slowly and impressively to affairs outside the understanding of man. Beyond the clouds, beyond the higher sky, lay other worlds, many more than a man might count. Life inhabitated those distant worlds—though the mirror had shown him little of that and only fleetingly. Yet, if the Sky People returned, their ships would be bridges to those worlds. Would he have the courage to voyage outward, seeking another sun? He did not know, though the idea excited him. How long would the waiting continue?
Men thought in years, in seasons; the Star Lords in centuries. Man’s life was short. How long was that of a Star Lord? Perhaps three, four, a hundred times that of man? At the moment he felt all man, awed, a little afraid of those who would come to his summoning if he could fulfill everything the voice of the mirror asked of him.
Myrddin slipped into a half-sleep as his pony cropped the new-springing grass around the stones. In that sleep his imagination woke and showed him even stranger things than the mirror had ever hinted at. Yet there was nothing threatening in those sights, unearthly as they were. He only felt wonder and delight.
Cities—such cities!—with shining towers of rainbow glass reached high into skies that were not the blue of the earth he knew. And some others were set under the restless waves of seas, sharp pinnacles, as red as the precious coral he had seen shown by merchants from the southern lands. Yes, he could imagine the cities, but he could not “ring to life the people who had built them. Perhaps man could only see life equal to his own image. That was the fatal shortness of man’s sight.
The sun passed behind one of the clouds; more were gathering. Myrddin was roused by a wind with a sharp promise of rain and storm. He caught at the reins of the pony, started back to the hut which had been Lugaid’s. He sheltered there that night while wild winds raged across the land. Twice he cowered as lightning struck with explosive force against the King Stone, as if that rock drew the full fury of what lashed across the sky.
He had weathered such storms before, but it seemed to him that he had never faced one with such fury wrapped within it. He plugged his ears with his fingers, closed his eyes—still he could not escape either sight nor sound. There was a strange odor in the air… This was the force men could never hope to control, now gone mad and striving to wipe the earth clean of life.
In spite of his fear Myrddin was also gripped by a wild exultation which made him wish to run out into that chaos, leap and shout, abandon all to become a part of the fury, free himself from restraint, of his mind’s control.
But in the morning there was nothing to show the passing of such force. Not until he had ridden outward from the circle did he see trees overthrown, their roots pointing accusingly like crooked fingers at the sky from which their deathblows had come. In Myrddin there was a new kind of peace. The storm might have drawn with its disappearance all his unease, his fears. He still had some of the freedom which had grown in him during those dark hours.
His sense of being spied on was also gone with the storm. Yet he took no chances and approached the cave only after some days of travel by a circuitous route, using the caution he had always maintained. This time Vran did not greet him, even though he whistled for the raven and laid out an offering on the ground. In fact he became aware, as he watched and listened, that there was an odd silence over the slope. There were no other birds. Even the wind had ceased to blow here.
He listened not only with his ears, but also with that mental sense. The very absence of any life was in itself a warning. And he could guess what might have happened; he had been too sure he had thrown off that questing. The mind so engaged had not wasted time trying to trail him, instead it had come straight here!
Nimue!
He stripped saddle and bridle from the pony and turned the animal loose, trying to conceal any outward sign that he was conscious of what might soon face him here. He decided, after several quick glances in that direction that the crevice entrance to the cave was undisturbed. Stones he had piled there to hide the opening had not been moved. It was the sword which lay at the back of his mind now. He was sure it would be impossible to transport any of the space things from here—they were all too large to be drawn through the crevice. How they had entered into the mountain he never knew; perhaps they had been left there through the centuries.