Merlin had no idea what safeguards surrounded Nimue’s hold. He doubted that they were the ordinary ones of high walls with men to defend them. His own cave possessed a distort which would make any invader not of the Old Blood uneasy and blind. And if anyone did persist, there was a device within which would bar the way. Merlin had not the least doubt chat Nimue’s place in turn had its own invisible guardians.
The defense of his own refuge, however, had not been proof against Nimue. Therefore, reason argued, hers should not be beyond his powers to solve.
By nightfall Merlin reached the edge of the wood which men called Nimue’s first defense. There the old road curled around its edge as if, even in the dawn days of this land, men believed something uncanny lay in that forest.
Merlin drew back under a wide bush, not lighting any fire, munching instead a small portion of bread wrapped around a bit of cheese, drinking sparingly from his water bottle. He sent out those invisible scouts which served his mind, reaching farther and farther when these scouts reported nothing but nature in the trees’ shadow. At last Merlin broke that concentration and set his mental scouts on guard while he dozed in light sleep—he would not dare surrender to any depth of unconsciousness.
It was at the rise of a nearly full moon that he felt a stir which was not of any person, nor animal within the forest. This was the force that he recognized only too well, for it he could draw on it himself. Whatever sentinels served Nimue were now at their posts.
Merlin made no attempt to identify the nature of those beings, or lesser powers. He had no wish to alert them to his own presence by any touch of mind. What he did now, with care and all the skill he could summon, was locate each and mark where it was stationed.
Perhaps Nimue depended on some form of visual distortion by day and terrifying illusions by night, which would be a natural enough defense against most men. Finally he marked a slash a little to the west of him where a stream wandered through. It was not deep but of some width.
There was his door. For he knew, as true men did not, that water, flowing water, was a nonconductor of distorts and illusions. From this truth was born the ancient belief that certain evil forces might be stopped if the pursued were to cross running water.
He had his gate for the morrow, and now he knew where all the enemy sentinels near him kept their posts. Leaving his own thread of awareness on guard, Merlin lapsed once more into slumber.
The dawn light came and he crawled from the embrace of the bush. Once more he ate a little of his food, then set off westward until, before the sun had more than sent a warning of color into the sky, he reached the stream. A series of fording stones were set where the old road dipped to meet it. Merlin made no use of these, but waded out into the center of the running water as equidistant as he could get from each wooded bank.
He waded through knee-high water so clear he could see the stones below, the darting forms of water-dwellers. Before him he held as a balance the rod tipped with the two star gifts. This remained level until he was well into the forest itself, the trees arching above the wash of the water to form a tunnel of dusky green.
Every one of Merlin’s searching senses was alert. He picked up the flickers of small lives which were part of this world, but no trace of those things which had been set to prowl the night Suddenly the rod turned of its own accord in his grip, swinging in an arc to transpose itself end for end. The gem pointed ahead and slightly to the east. His alien gifts had served him well, pointing a direct path to Nimue’s hold. Still he did not leave the water; he would stay with it as long as the stream ran in the same direction he wished.
The gem-point of his wand was slowly being pushed backward, until the wand once more formed a level bar. He had reached the place opposite the hold. A little ahead of him the stream made a right-handed curve also, so sharp a one Merlin did not think it had been designed by nature. Then, catching sight of some very ancient and moss-grown rocks squared and fitted together, he knew that his guess was right.
The path of the water here was much narrower, as if being forced through a sluice. It also had far more of a current rising up his body, resisting his advance, while the rush of its outflow had swept away sand and grit so that his boots supped on stones set to line the way. Now prudence dictated that he move closer to one of the banks where he could grasp overhanging bushes and vines and so work his way along without risking a fall.
Merlin’s advance was slow, yet he was not tempted to crawl out of the water which to him was a promise of cover, small as it might be. Now he could see the sun once more ahead, dancing on an expanse of water much greater than the outlet up which he pulled himself. Moments later he stood, sucking a thorn-torn thumb, looking out on Nimue’s domain.
She was indeed Lady of the Lake. On an island to which clung only a ragged bush or two—all that could find root-room among the rocks—was a tower of stone so dark as to make one believe that the very passing of time itself had overlain it with a sable cloak.
In the lower story there were no windows, but, above that, narrow slits gave what must be very limited light to the interior. The stones themselves were not cut and mortared into place after the Roman fashion, rather they were the roughly surfaced rocks which were like those of the Place of the Sun, though fitted with such a cunning hand, allowing for all their natural oddities of shape, that they formed a most solid building.
From the tower, well to his right, there ran a causeway of the same rocks. It was broken in the middle and Merlin guessed that the dwellers in the tower—whoever or whatever they might be—had some way of temporarily bridging the gap, so that drawing away the bridge gave them protection.
The water of the lake itself was odd, giving off a shimmer of light which Merlin knew was part of a strong illusion. Doubtless to anyone not versed in the use of such things, the whole lake and the tower might be shielded in an impenetrable mist, just as tales reported was so.
He studied the tower, seeing no sign of life about it. As it now stood it could be a long-deserted ruin. Yet in his hand the wand quivered and fought against his hold. If he loosed it he believed it would be drawn across the water to a strong power source. Now it was his task to span that gap with more than his wand—his whole body.
To his left, however the quiver of the water’s surface grew more pronounced. Merlin had a sudden warning. He splashed up onto the bank, watching warily that agitation of the lake. Out of the water reared a monstrous head, jaws agape and dripping, showing fangs as sharp as any. sword point.
15.
This was no illusion. The monster beast was real, though not of any breed he had seen. Merlin recalled some of the information taught by the mirror, that there Were many worlds coexistent with this earth, and the walls between them sometimes thinned. By chance, or by some swift loosing of force, a life-form from one might well be drawn into another; hence the tales men told about loathy worms and dragons slain by courageous human heroes.
Trespasser in this world though the water thing might be, it was not the less dangerous for being transplanted. And Merlin did not doubt that the lake-dweller was part of Nimue’s defenses.
The thing moved shoreward with disconcerting speed, its dagger-jawed head held well above the surface of the lake, an ominous hiss puffing with foul breath from its mouth. Merlin twirled the wand in his hand, spinning it with nearly the same force he had used when beating the blades on the stones.
The creature’s eyes, set far back within pits of the narrow, scaled skull, no longer stared unblinkingly at Merlin. They were held instead in fascination by the whirl of the wand. He knew a small relief: the thing was not too alien to answer to controls he had perfected long ago among the woods creatures.