The King's Wizard Read online

  It was a popular mortal fantasy, and exploiting it was Frik’s chief stock in trade. But the sort of magic Morgan wanted to do—the big, flashy, powerful illusions—could not be done by those of mortal blood.

  Still, they never stopped asking and trying, and believing anyone who said they could if only they worked at it hard enough.

  “Will you teach me how to do that?” Morgan demanded excitedly … just as they all did, down through the centuries.

  “I certainly shall,” Frik lied, “if you do something for me. Your new baby brother will be born soon—how terribly exciting, don’t you think?” Frik added confidingly.

  “He’s not my weal brother,” Morgan said coldly. “The man who made him wasn’t my weal father.”

  Frik was momentarily taken aback. In his limited experience, all mortals loved babies, noisy disgusting tiresome things that they were. But somehow Morgan was different.

  “Well. I mean, that’s clever, Morgan. You’ll make a wonderful pupil for the fantastic things I can teach you.” Such as not to trust strange gnomes, but that’s one mortals never get the hang of, isn’t it?

  “What do you want me to do?” Morgan asked eagerly. Glowing with excitement and the effect of Frik’s praises, she was almost pretty, despite her disfigurement.

  Frik produced the black gem that Mab had given him.

  “Just put this stone in the baby’s crib,” he said, offering little Morgan Queen Mab’s dark crystal.

  It was Mab’s gift to the baby Arthur. He had only to touch it for Mab’s gift to flow into him. As he grew, it would first appear to be maturity and integrity, but what it would really be was stubbornness and the unwillingness to change his mind. For the rest of his life, Arthur would always do the first thing he thought of, not the best thing, and he would never set aside the first idea he had for a better one. Such a gift could not harm a humble farmer, but it could destroy a king, and Mab knew that Merlin meant Igraine’s baby to be king.

  Morgan took the stone. Frik smiled and bowed to her.

  “Wait!” Morgan said. “What shall I call you?”

  The gnome bowed, a handsome blond cavalier. “Dear lady, you may call me anything you like. My name is Frik, and I am at your service.”

  And then he vanished.

  He would not return for more than sixteen years.

  Merlin, waiting on the cliffs above the shore, heard the baby’s first wailing cry. In his mind he heard the midwife’s triumphant shout: It’s a boy!

  “Arthur is born!” Merlin cried in triumph. “At last! A good man—a good king!”

  “You’re easily fooled, Merlin. …”

  Queen Mab appeared upon a spire of rock a few yards away. A deep chasm, through which the sea hissed and foamed, separated her from Merlin. She was a terrifying archaic figure dressed in black and silver, her long black hair and filmy black robes streaming out behind her like scraps of ocean mist. Her eyes were wild dark pools and her mouth was a dark red scar in her pale stricken face.

  “Uther fooled you when he killed Cornwall!” Mab cawed. “Now his child is damned!”

  Mab gestured, and suddenly the clouds began to race by unnaturally fast. The sky darkened and the wind began to howl as the Queen of the Old Ways showed Merlin the power that was still hers to wield … power greater than his own.

  “The boy is mine!” Merlin shouted defiantly.

  “He’ll be his father’s son!” Mab gloated. “Because of him, the chaos of blood will go on and on and out of it the people will come back to me!”

  The storm she had raised tore at Merlin’s robes, threatening to pluck him from the cliff and hurl him into the sea below. The ocean threw itself at the rocks like a maddened predator, its spray breaking over both figures, until it took all of Merlin’s strength simply to stand where he was.

  “I’ll see you fade into nothing!” Merlin shouted into the sky. He stared into the fairy queen’s eyes. See my determination, Mab. See my strength. I have made many mistakes, but I will never surrender to your evil—and neither will Arthur!

  “Poor Merlin,” Mab crooned in mock sympathy. “Wrong again. I’m winning. …”

  And with her words still echoing in his ears, Mab was gone. The wind dropped, the foaming sea slowly became calm. The clouds overhead broke apart to reveal the pale sky of a midsummer evening. It was just sunset, and a full pale moon was rising in the east, shedding its creamy golden light over the peaceful Cornish landscape.

  Could Mab be right? The question tormented Merlin. He was no longer sure of the purity of his own intentions, nor did he still believe that he could look into men’s hearts with any degree of accuracy. He had thought Uther would be Britain’s savior, only to find that Uther was a venal, fallible, greedy man. What if he were wrong about Arthur’s future as well?

  No. My visions never lie. Arthur will be the king Britain needs. There is no darkness in him. But I must keep him safe until he is a man.

  Merlin had told Uther that there would be a child from his night spent with Igraine, and though Uther had sworn to give him up, Merlin did not trust the vow the king had made that the child would be Merlin’s to raise. He and Uther had parted enemies, and enemies they would remain. Now Merlin must hide young Arthur to keep him safe from the taint of the king’s evil.

  Merlin turned and walked down from the cliff. Toward Tintagel, to claim Uther’s promise.

  Silent and invisible as a wraith, Merlin passed into the castle. Everyone was celebrating the birth of a fine healthy boy; Merlin saw kegs of ale being rolled into the forecourt so that all the castlefolk could drink a health to the newborn child. Few of them knew that Uther had ever even been here, let alone suspected that Uther was the father of Igraine’s child. Merlin was content to have it so until the time came to make Arthur king, but that day would never come unless Merlin took the child now.

  Merlin crossed the courtyard and entered the tower keep where Igraine’s rooms lay. No one saw that he was there. Merlin did not wish them to see him, and he was, after all, a wizard.

  Morgan le Fay sat silently in a corner of the nursery, holding the black crystal Frik had given her in her small hands, thinking of the day when she would be the beautiful and adored liege-lady of Tintagel and the name of Morgan le Fay would be feared throughout the land. Frik would teach her all the magic in the universe and everything would be wonderful.

  Morgan sat so still that Brisen didn’t see her when she came in to put the new baby in his crib. Brisen had been Morgan’s nurse when she was a baby, and now she was his. That was one more thing her half-brother had stolen from her.

  Morgan looked down at the black stone in her hands. Perhaps if she put it in his cradle the stone would hurt her brother. Frik hadn’t said, and Morgan didn’t really care. When Brisen was gone, she tiptoed over to the cradle and looked in.

  Her new brother looked like any other baby: red and wrinkled and smelly, wrapped in a blue blanket. Morgan quickly tucked the dark crystal under the blanket against the baby’s body and stepped back, but nothing happened. Perhaps it would take a while.

  She reached down and took the blanket out of the cradle. It smelled faintly of her mother’s perfume, and Morgan wrapped it around herself as the baby fussed. Then she retreated to a corner to wait for something to happen.

  Merlin opened the door to the nursery. The light from the nursery windows fell upon the cradle, where baby Arthur lay sleeping, uncovered to the air. Merlin quickly bent over the cradle and picked up the baby, tucking him into a fold of his feathered cloak. He did not notice as a small black stone fell from a fold of Arthur’s swaddling-clothes.

  As unnoticed as he had come, the wizard left Tintagel, carrying the child who was the hope of Britain with him. Behind him the runestone, its power expended, lay in the cradle.

  * * *

  Silent and invisible, Queen Mab watched Merlin go, carrying the baby in his arms. It didn’t matter what Merlin did with his little Arthur now. She had already set her mark on the baby, and was
confident that he would not become the good man that Merlin hoped for. Besides—Mab glanced toward Morgan, who stood staring after Merlin with a mixed expression of hope and shock—she had more than one string to her bow. Uther, Morgan, Igraine: all of them were her puppets, and in the end, they would give her Britain.

  But now, there was one last loose end to tidy up.

  Igraine awoke suddenly. She was alone in her bedroom. The windows at the far end of the room stood open, and the red sunset light shone through them. She reached for her baby, but he was not beside her in the bed.

  She sat up painfully, reaching for her shawl. Brisen must have put the baby in his cradle in the nursery, but Igraine wanted to see her son. If she could hold him in her arms, she would not feel quite so lost. Since Gorlois’s murder, the baby had been the one spark of light in Igraine’s life, even though Igraine knew that he was Uther’s child and not her husband’s. She needed to touch him, to reassure herself of his existence.

  “Merlin has taken the baby,” Mab crooned in her ear. “He has hidden him away. You will never see him again.”

  Igraine looked around wildly, but she could not see the source of the whispering voice. Perhaps she had only imagined it.

  “It was Merlin …” Mab said again.

  Merlin! It was Uther’s foul Pagan wizard who was the cause of all Igraine’s unhappiness. He had tricked her into adultery with his sorcery and destroyed her husband. Igraine crept from her bed, pulling her shawl about her thin shoulders.

  Once she had been a beautiful woman, but the last year’s happenings had not been kind to the young duchess. The first streaks of grey had appeared in her dark hair, and her sunken eyes burned feverishly bright. If Uther saw her now, would he be tempted into profane lust by the sight of her?

  Igraine laughed soundlessly at the thought, knowing the answer. She had sinned, however unknowingly, and God had taken her comeliness from her in punishment. But he would not punish her child, her perfect, beautiful child. …

  “Merlin has taken him …” whispered the voice.

  Afraid now, Igraine ran down the hall to the nursery and threw open the door. The cradle was empty except for a small black rock.

  “My baby!” Igraine cried. She did not see Morgan standing in the shadows.

  “He’s gone,” Mab hissed. “You know that, don’t you? Merlin has taken him, just as he took everything else: your husband, your reputation, and now your son. You’re lost, you’re alone, you have nothing left to live for, do you …?”

  With a wild despairing cry, Igraine fled the nursery.

  * * *

  Cornwall’s duchess stood on the parapet of Tintagel’s highest tower. In the twilight she could see a lone rider on a grey horse riding away down the causeway far below. Merlin.

  “He has taken the only thing you have left, hasn’t he?” Mab said. She stood on the air a few feet away, and held out her hand to Igraine. “You have to stop him. Come to me. …”

  “Mother, wait!” Morgan cried. She ran after her mother, but Igraine did not hear her. Morgan reached the top of the stairs leading to the tower. She saw her mother and a strange woman whom she did not know—a glittering, magical woman who stood on thin air as if it were stone. As Morgan watched in horror, Igraine stepped out to join the stranger, but the air did not hold her up as it did the other woman. Igraine screamed in terror as she fell and Morgan covered her eyes, shuddering in horror as the sound stopped.

  When Morgan looked again, the strange woman who had stood on the air was gone. She ran to the edge of the tower and looked down. Far below, she could see Igraine’s lifeless body tangled upon the rocks.

  I am all alone, now, Morgan le Fay thought. I am the mistress of Tintagel. No one else is left.

  Yvain the Fox was not a stupid man. It had been easy enough to infiltrate Tintagel disguised as a visiting priest. The duchess had been delighted to have a holy man available to baptize her child when it was born. Taking the child would be easy—a sleeping potion in the nurse’s ale, and Yvain could slip from the castle with the baby and no one would be the wiser.

  And so, when Igraine had gone into labor, he had been prepared to wait patiently for his chance. When the birth of a fine boy had been announced, Yvain had drunk the child’s health along with the rest of the castle. But before another hour had passed, Tintagel’s lady had leaped to her death from the highest tower, and the child she had borne was nowhere to be found.

  Uther, Yvain was sure, would not welcome this news. And rather than return to Pendragon to tell it to him, Yvain thought he would travel.

  To Ireland, perhaps. Or France. Or even Rome … somewhere far, far away from Uther and Britain.

  As Merlin rode away from the castle he heard a faint wild scream cut through the dusk behind him. Turning, he saw a white figure fall wailing from the highest tower of the castle onto the rocks below.

  Igraine.

  The sudden horrible realization of what he had done was like a knife in his heart. Blinded by altruism, he had thought only of Arthur, of Britain. He had never thought of Igraine, of what it would mean to her to mysteriously lose the child.

  What can one more death matter among so many? Merlin thought bleakly. But he knew the truth: every death mattered. And he had caused so many. …

  But it ends here, Merlin thought with desperate hope. All the blood, all the pain, all the betrayal. Arthur will be free of it, and of the Old Ways. Nothing of them will touch him, nothing!

  As if aware of Merlin’s inner turmoil, the baby woke and began to cry. Merlin tucked the cloak around him gently, and rode away from Tintagel—north, toward the Forest Sauvage.

  By the following morning Merlin had reached the Forest Sauvage where Sir Hector lived with his good lady Hermesent. Though they followed the New Religion, Sir Hector and his wife were not afraid of the Old Ways, for all who lived close to the land possessed an innate understanding of its powers. Sir Hector was a good-hearted man more interested in farming than in fighting, and Hermesent was a kindly woman who had long wanted a large family of her own, though they had only one child, Kay, a boy about three years old.

  Hermesent had found Merlin and nursed him back to health when Merlin had wandered the land, reckless with despair, in the months after Cornwall’s death. Merlin did not think she would turn away a foundling child.

  Or the wizard who brought it.

  The dogs began to bark as Sir Rupert approached the comfortable old manor house where Sir Hector and Hermesent lived. The horse threw up his head and stopped as the dogs galloped in circles around them, yelping like mad things. A few moments later Sir Hector came out to see what all the noise was about.

  “Merlin!” he said with pleasure. “Come in—come in—you know you are always welcome here.”

  Perhaps I am welcome here, Merlin thought as he dismounted, careful not to wake the sleeping baby, but there is nowhere else in all Britain where that will be true once Uther learns of this night’s work. He patted Sir Rupert on the shoulder and walked toward his host.

  “Eh?” Sir Hector said, noticing Merlin’s burden. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

  “A baby,” Merlin said. “He has no mother, and his father is a thoughtless and cruel man. I want him to grow up somewhere that he can be safe and loved.”

  As Sir Hector stared down at the child in astonishment, Lady Hermesent came out of the house. As if sensing help was near, Arthur awoke and began to cry hungrily.

  “It’s a baby,” Hermesent said in surprise, scooping Arthur from Merlin’s arms and folding back the blanket to inspect him. “Wet and hungry, poor mite.” She studied Merlin critically. “And how did you come to have a baby, Master Merlin?

  “Never mind,” she said, before he could answer. “I’m not sure I want to know. I’ll take care of him for you, never fear. No man ever born, wizard or not, ever knew the first thing about children. There, there, child. Don’t fret,” she said to the crying baby, turning away from the men and walking toward the house.
r />   “His name is Arthur,” Merlin called after her.

  “Arthur,” said Sir Hector. “Arthur. Well, well. A good name. And good lungs, as well,” he added, for the baby’s cries were still audible in the distance. “I’d say you’ve done a good day’s work to bring him here, Master Merlin.”

  “I suppose I have,” Merlin agreed, looking off toward the house. “I hope this won’t cause you any trouble. Or at least, not too much of it.”

  “Nonsense,” Sir Hector said, putting an arm around Merlin’s shoulders and leading him toward the house. “How much trouble can one boy be?”

  It would be several years before Arthur would need him again. Following his heart, Merlin rode south and west again, toward Avalon Abbey and Nimue. But along the way, he stopped to revisit an old familiar locale that lay only a few hours from Sir Hector’s manor house.

  The round hut nestled in the clearing in the center of Barnstable Forest seemed unchanged, as if he had stepped away from its door moments—not years—before. Leaving Sir Rupert to graze on the lush summer foliage, Merlin dismounted and walked inside.

  It was hard to believe that it had been less than two years since he last stood before this hearth. So many things had happened to him in that time, things both good and bad—Vortigern, Nimue, Uther. He had slain one king, and discovered that another was greedy and weak. He had found his lost love, only to have her taken from him again by Mab’s plotting. He had killed, betrayed, lied, murdered, stolen—and all for the king to come, the good king who would lead Britain out of the terrible darkness into which the reigns of three bad kings had plunged her.

  If he could. If anyone could.

  Shaking his head at his black thoughts, Merlin turned to examine the hut. All the food that had been stored here was gone, of course—stolen by mice and birds and squirrels—but his herbs and oils were safe in their sealed stone jars. He had lived here simply, and most of his simple possessions were intact—the bed, the stool, the table, the horn cups and wooden plates. An afternoon’s cleaning and Merlin could take up residence here once more.