“There is no need of fear.”
Myrddin was suddenly aware that a voice spoke, had been speaking while he crouched, eyes covered, struck dumb for the first time in his life by real terror.
He strove to fight his fear, though he did not yet drop his hands to see who spoke. But the very fact that he heard lessened his first terror, for surely no firedrake nor ghoul would use’the tongue of man!
“There is no need of fear,” the same words repeated. The boy drew a deep breath and, summoning the full force of his courage, he dropped his hands.
There was so much to be seen, and the objects were so alien to all his experience, that wonder overcame the last of his fear. For here was no scaled monster, no evil creature. Instead, under the light stood burnished squares and cylinders for which his native language had no names. There was also a kind of life which he could sense, though it was not the life of fleshed creatures, but of another species altogether.
The cavern seemed very large to him, and it was very full of the objects. Some flashed small colored lights along the surfaces facing him. Others were blank, yet they all possessed that alien life.
Myrddin still could not see who had spoken to him and he was too cautious to venture far into the crowded chamber. Now he moistened his lips with tongue tip and answered with all the boldness he could summon, his voice sounding shrill in that chamber.
“I am not afraid!” Which was in part a lie, but in part only, for the fascination of this place was far outweighing, with every moment he lingered, his first wariness.
He expected to see someone step into view around the bulk of those huge square or round pillars. But, as the moments passed, no one came. Again he spoke, now a little displeased that there had been no real answer.
“I am Myrddin, of the clan of Nyren.” He took two more steps into the rock-walled place. “Who are you?”
The lights spun in broken patterns, the things about him never ceased their humming. But no voice replied to his demand.
Now he saw that facing him, near the far end of the aisle formed by the ranks of the blocks and cylinders, there was a kind of shimmer uniting two of the blocks and forming a glistening wall. As his eyes centered on that, the shimmer died away and he could see some sort of form, one no bigger than himself, in it.
Determined to meet the stranger, Myrddin moved forward quickly, paying no heed now to the blocks flanking his way, intent only on what grew ever stronger in the mirror-like surface. He had never seen his own reflection so bright and sharply clear, for the mirrors of the clan house were either of polished bronze in a size so small one held them in the hand, reflecting perhaps only one’s face, or the distorting surface of a well polished shield. But this was entirely different and he had to stretch forth his hand, see the reflected boy do likewise, before he was convinced (hat it was only a mirror. The novelty of seeing the whole of himself interested him at first.
His dark hair, so neatly parted and combed by Julia that morning, was now in a tangled dark mass about his shoulders, with bits of stick and leaf caught in it, left when he had battered his way through the bushes. His small face was very brown and he had dark brows which met in a bar across his nose. Beneath them his eyes were startling green.
The tunic which Julia had enlivened with a chaining of red thread about neck and cuffs was torn and mud-bespattered, and his long breeches of green and white checked woolen stuff were tucked into ankle-high laced boots. Down the breast of his tunic dangled his one ornament, the claw of an eagle fastened to a red cord, and there was a streak of dried mud on his chin, a briar scratch on his cheek. Though his clothing was warm and of good quality of cloth, Julia’s own weaving, he did not go as splendid as a chief’s grandson might. In fact only the good knife sheathed at his leather thong of a belt suggested that he was more than huntsman or spearman’s son.
Myrrdin raised his hands now, brushing back his tumble of hair. This, he decided, was a place where one should come with some pride. Perhaps whoever had spoken thought him, at second glance, to be a person of such little account that there was no need to answer—
“You are”—startling him once more, that voice rang out without warning—“awaited. Merlin.”
Merlin? They—he—it who stayed here wanted someone called Merlin. Myrddin’s fear woke up again. What would happen when they—he—it found there was a mistake? Again he drew a deep breath and faced the mirror stoutly, mainly because somehow seeing himself on its surface gave him a small measure of confidence.
“You, you are wrong,” he forced his voice out loudly. “I am Myrddin of the House of Nyren.”
Stiffly he awaited some reprisal. He fully expected to be hurled out on the mountainside again, at the least. And somehow he longed deeply to remain where he was, to learn what this place might be and most of all who spoke to him, calling him by that strange name.
“You are Merlin,” the voice replied firmly. “You are he for whom all has been prepared. Rest your body, son, and see what you are and learn.”
From one of the squares—that to his right—there swung out a solid bar. Myrddin felt it gingerly. It was wide enough to accommodate his small bottom and seemed solid enough to support his weight. Also, he thought there was no use arguing with the voice. It was far too authoritative in its statement
Warily he seated himself on the bar facing the mirror. Oddly enough, though its surface appeared so solid, it seemed to yield a little under his slight weight, accommodating itself to form the most comfortable seat he had ever known. The reflection of Myrddin in the mirror flashed into nothingness. Before he had time to feel any alarm at this seeming erasure of himself there was another image there. And Myrddin’s education began.
At first there was an odd inhibition placed on Myrddin so that he could not share his very strange adventure with anyone, even Lugaid, whom of all the clan he thought might understand. But there was no barrier on his thoughts or memories. And sometimes he was so excited by what he had learned from the mirror that back at the clan house he went about in a kind of daze.
Lugaid, who might have suspected a little, was at that time absent, acting as messenger between Nyren and certain other chiefs and petty kings, trying to hammer into being an alliance which would hold, even among hereditary enemies, until after this season’s raids on the Saxon encroachers. For Ambrosius did not often have the forces to take the field boldly against the Winged Hats and Vortigen’s traitorous followers; he had, rather, to employ other means of whittling down their strength, mainly swift punitive raids across the unrecognized border lands.
Thus Myrddin was enabled, during the years which followed, to slip away to the cave often and there lose himself for long hours with the mirror. He did not at first grasp much of what he was shown. He was too young, too limited in experience. But the mirror’s succession of scenes, while not repetitious in detail, did repeat over and over certain facts until they became as much a part of the boy’s memory as incidents of his daily life had always been.
Myrddin tentatively began to put into practice what he learned. He discovered that the information imparted through and by the mirror had practical use. And young as he was, for short times he was able to influence the boys nearly old enough to take weapons in the war bands. He learned early that apparently no one else could see the crevice in the mountainside through which he was able to enter the place of the mirror, though he had no knowledge of distorters in action.
In addition to the fact that he could thus vanish without a trace, he could also implant in the minds of any companions he might have on the hillside during hunts, or herding, the idea that he had been with them throughout the day, even though he had been spending those same hours in the chamber of the mirror.
As eager as he might have been to use this talent for his own end, however, there had been planted with the knowledge of how to use it a kind of safeguard blockage which, when he tried twice to make Julia see what was not there, prevented him from achieving his goal. Thus he learned that his new weapon-tool was not to be used for any light purpose, but mainly to cover his time of schooling.