The wand warned him of force inside the pillar, such a flow of force that he dared not test it. However, the reaction was far less when he pointed the off-world gem in the direction of the crown on the bench. And those wires that wedded crown to pillar looked very fragile.
Merlin drew a deep breath. Even if he awoke here such a force as would sweep him into death, defeating Nimue and those behind her would be worth such an ending. He had obeyed the orders laid on him—the beacon was set to bring in those of his kin; Arthur knew what they would have of him—so what matter if he died now, as long as he took with him Nimue’s greatest tool?
Slowly, with caution and all the skill he could bring to the task. Merlin slid (he tip of the wand along the surface of the bench until it lay directly under, but not touching, the wires that led up to the pillar. Then, just as he had used the knife blade to compel the King Stone to his will, now he began tapping with the metal-encased gem. And in a low voice he chanted. Tap—chant—tap—
He made no move to touch the crown, but bent his will on its anchorage. Slowly the crown itself lifted from the surface of the bench. It rose by jerks, as if it were a sentient thing fighting against his control. But still it rose. Now it was higher than Merlin’s head as he stood there, and the wires to the pillar were pulled taut as harp strings.
Merlin did not hesitate. Tap—chant—tap—
He sensed that beyond the reach of his own mind there were things gathering, prowling unseen, moving on a level not open to the eyes of man. But he would not give heed to those things, concentrating his whole will on what he would do.
The crown tugged fiercely at the wires that held it, bobbing down to strain upward again with a quick snap. Still those thread-like filaments held. But Merlin persevered.
There was a sharp ringing sound. One of the wires had at last broken, trailing back against the pillar limply. The crown, freer now on one side than the other, made desperate swoops and soars to win loose in answer to Merlin’s command.
Another snap. It was held now by a single thread only.
Merlin did not allow any feeling of triumph to slow his invocation. The crown dipped low like a tethered bird, nearly flying into Merlin’s face as if it resented what he would make it do and was now minded to attack. He did not flinch but his tapping grew stronger and he raised his voice a fraction, uttering a single loud ringing word of command.
The crown flew from him as if to escape whatever fate he laid upon it, rising in a whirl of motion overhead, and the last wire parted. Now all virtue went out of the crown; it fell to lie at Merlin’s feet and he deliberately set his boot on it, crushing its fragile weaving into a mass of broken wire. Raising the tangle by the tip of his wand, being careful not to touch it with his bare hand, he carried it before him as he went.
The last of the installations he did not understand was another pillar, but this had no crown, no wires, no surface break, not even any flashing lights along its front. He could make nothing of it … And those presences he sensed when he had attacked the crown were growing more restive.
He did not know them, could only feel that in some way they were akin to the watchers in the forest. His own inner force had been badly eroded by his destruction of the crown so it seemed better to meet out in the open any attack which might be aimed at him now—not facing it. Nimue’s own fortress where the unseen attackers might be able to draw upon energies he could not locate. In spite of Nimue’s usurpation of this section of the forest. Merlin had some strengths which the earth itself would feed and nurture.
He ran through the doorway, out of that well-lighted room. When he reached the break in the causeway he turned and hurled the wreckage of the crown far out into the lake, where the glittering water swallowed it. It would have been better to bury it in the earth—for this water had been englamoured by his enemy—but Merlin now needed his hands free for what might come.
What did happen surprised him so much that he nearly lost control for a startled moment. He had been dreading the return across those slippery stones. Not only did he know that he was already under a silent attack which sucked at his control and his inner powers, but he feared that Nimue’s forest servants had been alerted. Caught on those slimed rocks he would be easy meat
However, when he turned to look in the direction of the land, he glimpsed something that was not the false sheen of the water, but was suspended above it like a nearly invisible link between the two broken portions of the causeway. If water itself could form a bridge. Merlin believed, it would look so.
Dare he trust it? This might be a subtle trap. He thought he had the way of testing that. Leaning forward a little. Merlin stretched out his wand to touch what ha could hardly see at all. The stone-metal point thudded down against a surface which was very real indeed.
Thus, tapping gingerly before him with the tip of the rod as he went. Merlin stepped onto the invisible bridge, forcing himself not to see with his eyes but with his mind, to know that he had footing even if it appeared to be only empty air.
16.
He gained no confidence during that crossing, even though his wand continued to report that steady footing formed the bridge. Only when he was down again on that other length of stone he could see as well as feel did Merlin give a great sigh of relief. Yet this was no time to relax his guard.
Facing the trees in the dark wood through which the trace of that very ancient road ran, he stiffened. They were alert at last, those eerie guardians Nimue had set to patrol her boundaries, and they were closing the path before him. There remained the way he had taken in, the stream. With the memory of the serpent still paramount in his mind, though, descending again into any water fed by this lake was a task which needed firm willing.
Merlin dropped down into the deeper runnel, his wand in hand, feeling the slight swing of that which, added to his extra sense, would be his warning of any imminent attack. The water here was not as clear as it had been farther down the stream and, as he walked, slipping and sliding across a very uneven footing, clouds of silt rose to make it more murky.
He was well down that water road, near the turn where it became a more honest and natural stream, when his wand turned sharply in his hand. At the same moment a strong warning of his sense of Power brought him half around.
He expected to see a monster, perhaps the same monster he had beguiled in the lake. Not—not a woman standing as if her sandals were set on the surface of the water, which had now become a firm flooring at her command.
She smiled lingeringly. As he had first seen her on that night he held the barrow sword, so did Merlin see Nimue now. She made no attempt to conceal her slim white body, which was all woman’s curves; she even shook back her cloak of hair to display herself more wantonly. She was bare save for a girdle of stones as milky white as her skin, two wide armlets of the same and a neck chain which held a single stone carved into the sickle of a new moon, hanging between the proud upsurge of her breasts.
She shook her head in the mock playfulness one might use toward a child who had done ill but did not understand.
“Merlin—“ His name came like the sighing of the wind, yet he noted sharply that her lips had not shaped it And with that small hint of what she might be, he lifted the wand and struck—even as if he handled a spear in battle.
That point fashioned of metal and gem pierced between her breasts just below the moon pendant. There was a flurry in the air, then nothingness. Illusion!
But the fact that the illusion had called his name was highly disturbing. Nimue must have suspected that he would come or else she would not have fashioned such an apparition. Or did she know from afar of his invasion, from Camelot itself?