When he woke it was to find a flickering of light about him and for a moment or two he thought he was back in the place of the mirror and those colored squares of radiance which snapped on and off across the squares now faced him. When he opened his eyes fully and pulled himself up on the bench, however, he saw that a pine knot had been thrust into a ring high on the wall. A man stood under that torch, eyes resting directly on Myrddin.
And the boy knew a sudden lift of heart. Such a robe of white he had never seen worn except by Lugaid on high feast days, though this lacked that spiral of gold on the breast which Lugaid’s had borne. Yet if he was of the bardic brotherhood, then indeed he could be hailed as friend. And Myrddin knew the words which could claim protection. He was about to repeat the sentence Lugaid had long ago—or so it seemed to the boy—drilled into him, when the other spoke:
“Son of a demon,. son of no man living, I order that you use not any devilish wiles. Be warned that there has been laid upon you the greater and the lesser obedience, those bonds of spirit which you cannot break.”
As he spoke, his words following a kind of chant, he pointed to Myrddin with a staff, white in part, the rest a rusty red as if it had been dyed with blood.
It was as if the boy’s nose was suddenly filled with a vile scent. Myrddin shook his head to try to escape the unseen cloud which surrounded this man who was certainly not of Lugaid’s kind. At the same time he realized that all the fear he had felt before was nothing to what he experienced now. For this was not only a threat to his body, but rather also to what he was. And he began to repeat, not the words of greeting which had been on his lips, but rather others which Lugaid had also taught him.
He saw the strange Druid’s eyes widen. The staff lashed across the air between them as the other might beat a man down; the wind of its passing touched Myrddin’s dust-grimed face. Yet the gesture was only empty menace, as well he realized. And with that realization the boy’s control began to regain command over his fear.
“What do you want of me?” Myrddin purposefully did not add any address of courtesy to that demand. This stranger might wear a robe like Lugaid’s, but Myrddin’s inner sense denied that he was of the breed of Lugaid.
The other had stilled his wand, though its reddened tip pointed straight at the boy as if it were a spear set for the final death thrust.
“You are the one of the foretelling, being born of no father, thus ordained for the High King’s purpose. For we who speak with the Powers have learned that never shall his fortress stand until its mortar be slaked with the blood of a youth who has no father kin.”
Deep within Myrddin there was a stir, a half memory. There was something—perhaps he had learned it from the mirror and then forgotten. He could not always remember everything he had been shown in the hidden cave once he had left. Instead, some parts of his knowledge seemed to sink so deeply into his mind that they lay hidden there until a chance word, some glimpse of a familiar object brought them to the surface.
This was shown! Not his death, of that he was sure, and his conviction on that point gave him confidence. But he had been brought here, not only by the will of the High King, but for another reason also, one which marched with the tasks he still only dimly suspected lay before him.
If the Druid expected him to cringe, to show fear, then his was the disappointment. For Myrddin, secure in his inner knowledge, faced him chin up and unshaken.
“What Powers do you speak for?” Again he deliberately omitted any title of respect. “Perhaps in these days your voices come not from the Sky Ones, but rather from the desires of men.”
The other’s breath rasped; his eyes strove to catch and hold Myrddin’s in one of those compelling strokes of command such as would make the boy will-less, ready to obey any order laid on him. And Myrddin, summoning all he had learned for the protection of his own secrets, gazed as steadily back.
“What do you know of the Sky Ones?” this stranger asked in a voice which had lost something of its arrogance and now held a note of unease.
“What do you?” Myrddin countered.
“That this is forbidden for any not of the Mysteries to speak of.” The stranger’s face flushed with anger. “What have you spied upon, demon-bred?”
“Could I be a spy and yet know this?” Deliberately Myrddin spoke the words of recognition Lugaid had taught him so long ago.
But to his surprise the other laughed with harsh relief.
“Those are worthless now. We listen to a new Power. You cannot claim kin, being what you are and already meat for the High King’s use. Better you be truly dead so you cannot corrupt any foolish ones with your prattling of forgotten things. Enter.” He tamed his head a fraction, though not enough to take his eyes from Myrddin, as if he feared that the boy might indeed be more of an equal opponent than he now seemed. “Enter and take him!”
The man wearing the old armor pushed past the Druid, giving him a respectfully wide berth. And Myrddin made no struggle as his hands were once more lashed behind him, as he was pushed toward the door.
The Druid had turned and gone out, but he awaited them bathed in a sunlight which made Myrddin blink, unable as he was to raise a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. More of the guard closed about them, and beyond that row of armed men the boy saw clanspeople and Saxons watching him with a kind of avid greediness which made him sick inside.
The same evil which had flowed like a stench from the Druid hung about this whole company. It was meant to feed on a man’s fears, overwhelm his courage, so he would go without struggle to whatever death waited for him.
Yet, much as the boy inwardly shrank from that assault of emotion, he walked firmly, without any wavering, his head up and his control unbreached.
The road they followed climbed a hill toward the piles of stones Vortigen had commanded his fortress be fashioned from. As they went, Myrddin looked from right to left, not now searching the faces of those gathered to see the sacrifice, but rather because he was aware, as if his sight could indeed pierce through the earth, of what lay underground.
They came to a halt before a leveled stone which had been draped with a covering of elaborately embroidered cloaks. And on that improvised throne sat the High King—claiming a title no mountain man would grant him.
Myrddin saw a man he thought close to his grandfather’s age, but there was no nobility, no pride, in these features, puffed as they were by too much drink. Vordgen’s eyes were never still, but flitted ever from face to face as if he expected treachery with each breath be drew. And his hands played with the hilt of his sword, though by the soft appearance of his body, the swelling paunch about which the belt of that sword had trouble meeting, he was no warrior now.
Behind him stood a woman, graceful, much younger, with the red-gold crown of a queen in a band about her head, resting on hair as yellow as ripe grain. Her robe of red was so overlaid with stitchery of gold that she glittered as hard as any metal figure in the sun. And in spite of her beauty of face there was in her the hardness of worked gold, not the softness of flesh.
There was no timidity nor unease in her, but she looked with boldness where she would, a faint smile carved on her lips, never warming her arrogant eyes. And when those eyes rested on the boy they glinted with what he correctly read as cruel anticipation.
“This is the boy?” Vortigen demanded. “It is proved, he is the son of no man?”
“Lord King,” the Druid answered, “it has been so proved, out of the mouth of she who bore him. For one of the Power questioned her and she could not lie. On Samain Night he was conceived through the power of some wandering ghost or demon—“
“Lord King!” Myrddin raised his voice and found that at this moment it was not shrill; rather it sounded assured and steady even in his own ears. “Why have your men of Power lied to you?”