The first of the pack came within leaping distance, but now they faltered, their stares fixed, then wondering. If his own powers worked they saw no man, rather a dark figure bearing stag horns on his raised head—a figure which displayed no fear of their goddess-frenzy because the Homed Hunter was himself of the earth, the sky, the land about them.
The leader of the pack snarled, a tall woman with pendulous breasts who wore about her loins a thong supporting the disk of the full moon. Twice she started to reach for him with her long-nailed fingers, crooked to claw the flesh from his bones, but she still did not strike. Her following hung farther back, glancing uneasily from their priestess to Merlin.
He raised his wand, though the star things had no power against such as these. Yet with that in his hand his confidence was greater. Now he spoke:
“You do not hunt me, women of the Goddess.” He did not make that a question but a statement. “You may call the earth to answer you, to take the seed into it, to conceive, to bear the fruits of full harvest But I command that which roams about the earth. Behold—“
With the wand he pointed to his left. There stood snarling the great Dire Wolf, a hound such as no living man had ever seen. And to the right he pointed, so that there crouched a giant cat with long fangs, and it hissed even as the wolf growled.
The women behind the priestess started back. But she stood her ground, and her teeth showed in a snarl as open as that of the cat’s.
“Hunter,” she spat, “do not try to oppose the Mother!” “I am not a hunter,” Merlin replied, “I am the Hunter. The Mother knows me for I, too, am of her breed. I am no Spring King to share her bed for but a season. Look upon me. Priestess! I am of the wild kind and, as in the kind, so does my wrath rise! You serve your Mother—I do not bow knee at any shrine of hers. Thus between us lies a balance of power, each equal with the other. Is this thing not so?”
Very reluctantly the priestess inclined her head. But she did not surrender her fury.
“We hunt when the Mother is threatened,” she stated.
“Do I threaten her then, Priestess?”
For the first time she looked uncertain. “Perhaps—per haps you are not the one we seek.”
“Yet it is to me you have brought your pack,” he countered. “I mean your lady no wrong, for both she and I serve the powers of earth life. Seek your man elsewhere, Priestess.”
She stared straight at him, puzzlement on her broad face. Then she backed away, her women scattering behind her. Merlin watched them go. He had no doubt that Nimue had somehow been at the bottom of this abortive attack. Had the Lady of the Lake brought back one of the oldest beliefs of all to cement new numbers of devoted followers to her?
The women were gone and once more he could hear their bare feet thudding against the earth around the bushes. Plainly they were indeed casting about for another trail. He hoped no wayfarer was abroad in this wasteland tonight for he was sure that, once balked of what they thought was their prey, they would take an added vengeance on any they found.
Was this how the Star Lords of his half kin first presented themselves to men, taking on some illusion of an earth god? He could almost believe that he had only followed a pattern of contact devised very long ago. Simple men needed symbols to tie themselves to their belief in the great Power which was beyond any man’s description. And there had been many forms of gods walking this earth. An ancient Sky Lord might have assumed the form of one—that would be the easiest way to make men listen, to direct them into new ways of living and thought.
Merlin had already relinquished the illusion with which he had clothed himself this night. Now he set out through the moon-and-shadow-checkered land to follow the old road, to be away from this place as soon as possible, drawing on the dregs of his strength to keep walking.
It was three days before Merlin saw the high rise of Camelot’s hill before him. He was very tired and hungry, though he had broken his fast at a shepherd’s hut that morning. The man had little news, except a rumor that the High King ailed and kept to his chamber. So Arthur still played his role. But when Merlin came nearer to Camelot he saw a party of horsemen spurring down the slope at a pace that suggested some need for haste. When they had gone. Merlin made what speed he could up to the outer wall of half earth, half stone.
There were twice as many guards at the entrance, and within a bustle of men were preparing to march. The first sentry swung his spear up crosswise, barring Merlin’s passage.
“Stand!” the man commanded.
“You know me,” Merlin countered. “Why do you this, fellow?”
“By Lord Cei’s orders, none is to enter—“
“Then send a message to Lord Cei,” Merlin returned. “I am not one to be kept waiting thus.”
The man seemed undecided and there was a shadow of hostility on his face. However, one of his fellows did go off, and Merlin settled his shoulders against the firm wall to wait with what patience he could summon. He was eager to know what had happened. That Cei gave the orders here—that either meant Arthur still played his role or— Merlin tried to list the factors which might have gone wrong with their plan.
The messenger was already returning. “You are to come to Lord Cei,” he told Merlin shortly, using no courtesy in that command. Nor did Merlin ask anything of the fellow who stalked by his side through the enclosure.
All the signs were of war. Saxons? Had there been some unlooked-for invasion during his absence? He kept his ears open but he could gather little from the shouted orders and general talk of the men.
Then he mounted the inner stairs of the palace to a balcony room where Cei stood by the outer window frowning out at the ramparts. He turned quickly at Merlin’s coming and his scowl did not lighten.
“Arthur?” Merlin made a question of that name.
Cei’s scowl deepened. “How near you are to traitor, bard,” he said menacingly, “I do not yet know. When I learn …” He held out a hand between (hem and slowly ^led his fingers into a hard fist. “H I find it to be as I suspect, so shall I take your throat and crush the life out of you—slowly!”
“It would save time,” Merlin pointed out, “if you would tell me what has happened. When I left the King was playing ill for purposes of his own—“
Cei showed his teeth wolfishly in what was far from any smile.
“So he told me. But look upon him now, healer. And it you can indeed heal, then do so speedily!”
Nimuel Merlin nearly said the name out loud. Perhaps he and Arthur had been defeated in trying to keep her from her stronghold. Poison was a handy weapon and Nimue knew her herbs well—those which were baneful, too—as he had sniffed in the tower room.
He had already turned again to the door. “I will see him now.”
If Cei had tried to stop him he would have struck the w younger man down, for Merlin carried an icy fear which s armed him doubly. If Arthur died … !
So once more he came into the King’s chamber. Bleheris rose from where he had crouched by the bed. He too, turned a bleak face in Merlin’s direction. But all Merlin had eyes for was the man on the bed.
Arthur’s face was not flushed by any pseudo-fever this time. Rather it wore a sunken look and the skin seemed gray; it might almost have been a dead man lying there. Merlin went to work instantly, all his healer instincts aroused.
The King’s body was chill, too chill. Merlin called for stones to be heated and wrapped, put about him as he lay. Next he used his sixth sense, and that recoiled immediately. Though the fell symptoms he saw might well come from some ailment of the body, it was surely the evil of some possessive hold which kept the King prisoner.
Cei watched and now he demanded: “What is it? Yesterday when the Lady Nimue departed he was well and able once again. This morning—“ He flung out his hands, his face twisted with pain. Though Cei seldom showed his feelings outwardly Merlin knew that the tie between him and his foster brother ran deep and clear. “Then that nithling, that stinking traitor—“