When at last they rode out of Camelot, Arthur half turned in the saddle to look back at the rise of the palace. When he faced around again his face was grave.
“I know not why,” he said to Merlin who rode at his left hand, “but it is as if the future lies hidden in clouds.
The sun now shines on us brightly, yet when I look back, a shadow gathers there.”
“Uncertainty,” answered Merlin, “cannot easily be thrown off. Perhaps you have learned too much, Lord King, in too short a time. But time can also be an enemy. There are many in this land who will not welcome any change, even the coming of a lasting peace.”
“That too, I am beginning to understand. My war band watches now wistfully for some warning beacon aflame. It is as if they wish back the days when we were always in the saddle, sore, weary, half-famished, and with the enemy before and behind us. Death rode with us, yet they dwell on those days when they sit at the feast board; they boast of slaying and of the planning of campaigns. Even I cannot still a quickening of the blood when my hand fits about the hilt of my sword. We were born in war, we lived by war and if war is gone … then we may feel purposeless and unneeded.”
Merlin laughed. “But there is more than war to occupy the hands and minds of men. Lord King. I grant you that only by struggle do we reach our highest feeling of accomplishment, but that need not be struggle against another of our kind. Wait and see. There is much we can do which in time will make the Great Nine Battles of Britain seem the play of thoughtless children.”
“Show me. Merlin, and you shall have my thanks. I think I was born for but one cause, to fight. And if I have not Saxons—and I shrink from thinking of any of my own rising against me—then give me a battlefield worthy of my ardor.”
Arthur inspected three of the old forts, and at each he detached a certain number of his men with orders that they were to examine the usefulness of the sites thoroughly, reporting at his return whether these could be repaired easily and once more put to service. Thus it was that when they reached the fourth and last fort, before Merlin knew they must strike into the mountain ways, Arthur’s company was much depleted.
There were no men of noble rank left in the shrunken band. The King had arbitrarily assigned all of them to overseeing the study of the other forts. The eight men who rode into the last section of tumbled wall and burnt out interior were, Merlin could see—appreciating Arthur’s astute selection—not the most curious nor resourceful, but rather those who wished no more than to take orders given by others, without any worry to themselves.
As they camped that night Arthur complained of an aching head. He ate very little of what Bleheris brought him and Merlin suggested that he go earlier to rest since it would seem he might have taken a touch of such a fever as accompanies a rheum.
Only to the Pict did the King tell the truth, that the chamber which had been hastily cleared and set aside for Arthur’s uses must be as well guarded as a treasure chest, for the King’s absence was to be kept a secret. And the small dark man bowed his head in promise.
There was no moon outside that night, but Merlin knew (hat his sense of direction would draw him to the cave, just as a migrating bird is drawn even across seas on the path it must travel with the seasons. And Arthur was no stranger to the ways of ambush and scouting, practicing now, to escape his own band, all the craft he had used against the enemy. So together they worked from shadow to shadow away from the ruins of the fort, seeking the high hills which lay beyond.
Merlin believed the King’s illness might be stretched to perhaps four days without the members of his escort growing restive and beginning to wonder why he was not seen, nor any messenger sent with news of his ailing. They were perhaps still a night’s journey away from the height of the mirror cave and the darkness would slow them. But, through the night, he heard a soft laugh from Arthur such as a boy might utter, trying some reckless exploit of his own.
“This is like the days of my boyhood,” he confided in a whisper as they reached the top of one ridge and lay belly-down to detect as best they could what might lie ahead, “Just so did Cei and I sometimes stray secretly afield by night. Though then we were not hunting what we hunt now. Merlin, if Cei is Ector’s son, then is he not also of the Old Race whom you mention with such reverence? Could he, too, be part of this secret of yours?”
“If it is so willed. I do not choose,” Merlin replied. That which is from the stars does so. But we must press on, Arthur, for there is yet a distance to go and the night is short enough.”
Not so short, however, that they reached the cave before a single streak of dawn swept across the sky, a sword blade to part night from day. And Merlin, more by touch than sight, worked at his improvised door, pulling loose those rocks he always tried to arrange as if they had once cascaded there from above. At last they were cleared, bestowed now also so that anyone who might stray into these higher ways would not see them piled too straightly.
Then Merlin took the fore and worked through into the cave of the mirror. He was greeted there, not by the dusk. but by a flashing of light, for all the squares had awakened, either during his absence or to herald his return. Arthur had greater difficulty in pushing his larger body through, but when he stood by Merlin, the rows of flashing lights, the dark burnished surface of the mirror before him, he said nothing. And Merlin, glancing sidewise, saw that the King was seemingly struck silent with awe. Indeed, there was nothing here which was of the world they knew.
“The mirror.” Merlin laid his hand gently on Arthur’s shoulder, drew him forward to face that tall-standing oblong of shining surface. As he did so he spoke formally:
“Here stands now Arthur, High King of Britain, who was fathered and born to the command of those we serve.”
They could see their reflections in the mirror, though these appeared to waver, perhaps because of the flickering of the lights. Then Merlin felt Arthur start as, out of the air above the mirror, came the voice in answer:
“The greeting of the kin to you, Arthur, who was, is and will be, though you remember not from age to age and thus are now blind to the past. This is one of the hours in which you face a choice and must act for the good of your people though, by the tricks of the enemy, you have come late to this meeting. Watch, Arthur, for of choices before you not only your destiny, but that of Britain will be wrought. Merlin, to Arthur alone shall this be given, so he shall see, while you remain blind.”
The bench slid forward as it had on Merlin’s first visit there long ago. Arthur seated himself as one in a trance. To Merlin there was no change in the mirror. He still saw only his own dark-browed, slow-aging face, Arthur’s own brightness of mien. But the King gave an exclamation and leaned forward a little, his eyes wide, his lips parted as if he were about to utter some cry of the same astonishment that was imprinted on his countenance.
Merlin stepped back. He had been late indeed in carrying out this, the last of his duties. But perhaps not too late. Maybe by her use of Modred, which had sent Arthur to him Nimue had weakened her own control over the future. Otherwise the King might never have been persuaded to believe him. Arthur, haunted by the shame Modred seemed to put upon him, had been so readied that Merlin could lead him here easily.
He watched the King, whose eyes were still so intent on the mirror, who sat so unmovingly, that he might have been fashioned of metal like the objects about him and not of flesh and blood. Shadows of expression crossed his countenance, now and then expressing alarm or resolution. Whatever Arthur was learning from the mirror was slowly changing the King even as Merlin watched.
He had come to the mirror a mighty war leader, triumphant in the success of all his maneuvers in the field. Now he was becoming a leader shaped in another pattern. Merlin’s own heart beat faster with excitement as he watched that metamorphosis. Nimue had failed!