Merlin: The Old Magic - Part 1

Book 1: Merlin

by James Mallory

Genres: Fantasy

Synopsis

A TIMELESS EPIC, A NEW CLASSIC FOR ALL AGES -- MERLIN "Once upon a time...no, no, that's not the way to start. You'll think this is a fairy tale. And it isn't". In the terrible years of tyrants and invaders, England's surviving pagans cry out for help to their deity -- and Mab, Queen of the Faery realms, creates for them a champion. Merlin. Half human, half Magic; raised in the love of his foster mother, Ambrosia, trained in sorcery by the gnome Frick, destined by Mab to lead England back to the Old Ways. But Mab, once beloved, has grown selfish and cruel, so Merlin turns against her. And their war of magic will change the world.

Release date: May 30, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 288

Sample

She rode the winds of the upper air in search of a very special man. She did not remember how long it was since she had traveled
this way, for her kind did not reckon the passing of Time in the way that mortal men did. Seasons spun over the face of the
earth like shooting stars, but she paid little attention to their passing. She was the stuff of stars, not seasons, and the
Old Magic ran in her veins, hot and pure and old. She was Mab, Queen of the Old Ways.


But the Old Ways were dying.

It had started so insignificantly that even she could not put her finger on exactly when the first challenge to her power
had come. Perhaps when the first Christian had come from Rome to preach his pernicious doctrine to the people of her land.
She had been strong then, and arrogant in her power, and what could the insignificant doings of Men matter to her as she listened
to the crystal music of the stars in their courses? The land would take them in and its magic would change them as it had
so many others.


But the land had not changed the Christians. They had changed the land. When they began to lay waste to her people, cutting
down the sacred groves and toppling the standing stones that marked her temples and sacred places of power, she had lashed
out at them in a hundred furious battles, but it was already too late to win the battle. These Christians were not content
for their strange god to live in harmony with the other Powers of Britain. They demanded that those Powers be cast down and
banished forever—and Mab’s kind could not live without human belief.


War came to a land that had never known it. As the gentle spirits of field and wood were destroyed by cold iron and holy water,
the people no longer lived in harmony with the land. Weeds grew among the scanty crops that had once grown lushly at the behest
of a Priestesses of the Old Ways. Trees that had once borne abundant fruit withered. Famine spread throughout the land, for
man and beast alike, and now humankind labored with incessant toil to bring crops from the soil, and turned in even greater
numbers to the priests of the New Religion for the certainty and security they could offer.


And as they did, Mab’s people—the folk of Fairy—died. When human folk forgot them, they dwindled away into nothingness. She
must save them, somehow. She must destroy the Christians and the Christian king who persecuted her people.


She needed allies, tools. …

The mead-hall was lit by flickering torches whose smoke spiralled up to the age-darkened rafters of the Great Hall and the
carven dragon-heads there. The sightless wooden eyes gazed down on the feasting Saxons below as if hungry to join in their
merriment.


The walls were hung with the painted round shields of the Saxon war-band, the bright designs and snarling faces looking down
on the tables full of feasting men. Their enemies called them pirates; they called themselves warriors—landless men and younger
sons who had no patrimony save a sword-blade and no skills save those of war. And so they sailed and raided all up and down
the Frisian coast, seeking the gold and glory that could take the place of a homeland.


The war-leader looked out over his followers and wondered why he could not share in their merry-making. He was a young man,
Saxon-fair and muscled like a young bull. He wore a great wolf-skin cloak, and gold glittered about his brow and upon his
brawny arms, a mark of success in countless previous attacks. The raid they celebrated here tonight had gone well; they’d
sacked a village a few days’ sail down the coast and came away well-laden with gold and glory and few men lost. Now their
leader hosted a great feast for them, with bards to make a song of his prowess and valor in the battle. And by so much his
glory increased.


But it wasn’t enough. Gold was spent and glory faded. His eyes were the pale wintry blue of northern ice, and he looked out
over the merriment of his companions with increasing restlessness. Only land was eternal, and you could not load land aboard
a ship and sail away with it …


“But you could still take it,” a voice whispered in his ear.

The young warlord straightened in his chair and turned sharply toward the sound of the voice. What he saw made his eyes widen.

A woman stood beside his chair, but a woman like no other woman he had ever seen. Her skin was white as moonmilk, and her
long black hair was as dark as raven’s wings. It was twisted and braided and studded with jewels, but enough of it fell free
to coil about her shoulders like glittering black snakes. Her face was painted into a harsh mask, her eyes rimmed with black
that made their translucent fire glitter like moonlight on the ice. She wore a trailing black gown that made the young warlord
think of smoke and shadows and the dark and powerful undertow that could claim men and ships and drag them to the bottom of
the sea in an instant.


“Who are you?” he asked, but in his heart he already knew. His people called her kind svartaelfin—the dark folk of Fairy. This one must be their Queen, so rich and powerful did she look.


“One who can give you what you desire,” she answered. She put a hand on his arm, and at her touch he felt a mingling of alarm
and desire that excited him. He had never felt such an emotion before, save in the heat of battle.


“And what do I desire?” he asked, turning toward her and looking over his shoulder to see who noticed. All were occupied at
their drinking. No one saw her but him, he was sure of it now.


“Land. Power. A Kingdom. A name that will live forever.” Her voice was like the surf hissing over the rocks.

“All men desire that,” the warlord said. He was beginning to be irritated as well as wary, and his temper was not good at
the best of times. “Where are these lands?”


“West of here,” the woman said. She pointed in the direction of the sea. “The are undefended and ripe for the taking, groaning
beneath the tyranny of a Christian king.”


“Britain?” The young warlord was astonished. “Britain is a Roman province; Constant rules there as their puppet, and if he should cry
for help, the Legions will come to his aid. They’ll slaughter my men by sheer force of numbers.”


“Rome will send no more Legions to Britain,” the woman answered. Her eyes glittered like those of a hunting cat. “The Empire
is fallen—now is the time for new men to carve out new empires. And I will help you.”


Rome fallen? But the Roman Peace had lasted for as long as the Saxons could remember, the Roman Legions keeping them from
raiding the soft fat villages of Brittany, Armorica, and Gaul—all Roman provinces—but protecting Britain most of all, for
the Romans valued the tin trade that flourished there.


His eyes narrowed as he studied his eldritch companion. Most men would fear her, but he was not most men. He had known from
the cradle that he was different, that he was born to rule.


Now he would.

“And your price for this aid, Lady?” he asked levelly.

Her face twisted into a mask of hate. “Kill the King! Kill Constant and every Christian in the land and I will help you rule
in his place,” Mab hissed. “You will have power and rich lands beyond imagining. You are Pagan, and I do not care who rules
there so long as the people return to the Old Ways.”


“Killing Christians. I can do that. I’m pretty good at it, actually,” he said with satisfaction.

Let her think he served her, until he had his kingdom. He bowed down to no power on earth or beneath it—he cared not what
gods or spirits existed or didn’t so long as he ruled.


Prince Vortigern smiled.

The road to Anoeth was long and twisted. Only the dead travelled it easily. It was a land of grey mist and the blackened stumps
of stark, twisted trees that reached out of the mist like hands from the grave. Even Mab felt its chill, and she shivered
as she groped her way among the standing stones that marked the path. This was not her own kingdom—this was the land of Death
and Winter, ruled over by its own dark king, Idath.


Once they had been lovers, for Idath, grim and terrifying as he seemed to the souls he harvested, was as necessary to the
Old Ways as Mab herself. When the Wheel of the Year turned, spinning the seasons from summer to winter, Idath was there to
take up the weak who fell to Winter’s cruel sharpness. Without death and change, there could be no light and life.


But death must balance life, not overwhelm it. The war that had raged over Britain since Vortigern landed had sown death in
its wake as a farmer sowed seed, until the land was awash in blood. King Constant was old and crafty, and his priests filled
his armies with the terror of Hell and the death which has no rebirth. They fought like maddened wolves for their King, but
Vortigern had allies in the Danelaw, and with their help he had slowly pushed the royal armies back across the face of Britain,
but at a terrible cost to both sides in lives.


Now it ends, Mab told herself. Vortigern was camped outside the walls of London, and her allies would open the gates to him. Before another
dawn, the Christian rule in England would be over, washed away in blood.


But though Mab could see many things, the future was closed to her. For that she turned to Idath. His Cauldron of Rebirth
showed the future of all lives that were reborn from it. He would tell her the outcome of today’s battle.


The endless misty plain frustrated her, and she howled her displeasure—a wailing, terrifying cry that had slain grown men
on the battlefield. They had named her bean sidhé—the banshee—for it, and Morrigan, Lady of the Ravens, those birds who were the only victor on any battlefield. They had loved
her once.


The echoes of her cry died away in the mist, and Mab snarled with rage at her memories.

“There’s no need to shout,” Idath said mildly.

He was tall and gaunt, his whole being cloaked in shadows. Beneath the heavy antler-crowned bronze helmet he wore, his eyes
glowed a feral red. Yet he, just as she, was dwindling away through the force of the humans’ disbelief.


“Don’t play games with me,” Mab raged. “You know what I’ve come for.”

“You’ve come to know what will be,” Idath answered. “But are you sure that’s what you truly want? The future holds only sorrow,
for all things die.”


“Not us!” Mab answered quickly. “We shall live forever—for as long as the hearts of the people beat in tune with the Old Ways.”

“And if they are all dead?” Idath answered inexorably. His cloak billowed, and now Mab could see the glowing metal of the
Cauldron of Rebirth, souls rising from it like steam as they returned to the world; the dead who filled it being transformed
by Idath’s powerful magic. “You have made much work for me in these last years, with your Vortigern. His appetite for slaughter
is endless.”


“He was necessary,” Mab answered. “Constant and his Christians were destroying us. Vortigern is a Pagan. He will restore the
Old Ways once he rules England.”


“Are you truly certain of that, my love? Gaze into my cauldron and tell me what you see here.” Idath stepped back.

Almost reluctantly, Mab came forward and gazed down into the mists. The pearls that studded the lip of the cauldron glowed
like captive moons, turning the liquid within an eerie glowing emerald. The mist that boiled up from the cauldron’s depths
veiled the surface.


“I can’t see anything,” Mab complained.

“The future is always in motion,” Idath replied. “Wait a moment and it will settle … there.”

Mab gazed down, fascinated at the mirrored scene the cauldron contained. She saw the gates of Pendragon Castle forced open
by treachery, saw Vortigern’s troops swarm through the breech, slaughtering everyone they could reach as the red dragon banner
of King Constant was dragged down and trampled underfoot. She watched as the King, knowing his army was defeated, ordered
all his prisoners slain, and watched as Constant was slain in turn. The golden crown rolled across the floor, away from the
spreading pool of blood.


Vortigern picked it up, a slow smile of satisfaction spreading across his heavy Saxon features as he placed it upon his head.
He stepped up to the throne from which Constant had been dragged only moments before, and seated himself on it.


“Where is the boy?” Mab heard him ask.

“Your Grace, he has escaped to Normandy with Queen Lionors,” Kentigern told his brother. “He’s just a boy.” His voice shook
a little with fear as the new king frowned.


“Boys grow up to be trouble,” Vortigern rumbled. He seemed to recover his triumphal feelings of a moment before with an effort.
“But meanwhile, there’s work to do. Take as many knights as you need and ride through the kingdom. Slay everybody who isn’t
loyal to me and won’t pay my new taxes, Pagan or Christian. The Queen of the Old Ways thinks I will rule as her puppet to
bring back the Old Ways, but she’s wrong. From now on, the supreme power in the land is me—and only me.”


“Yes, Your Grace,” Kentigern said, bowing and nearly stumbling with the relief of leaving the royal presence alive.

“No!” Mab’s shriek of despair shattered the smooth surface of the cauldron, dissolving the image. “No! I gave him Britain so that
he would bring back the Old Ways! He has betrayed me! He has betrayed all of us!”


“He has been true to his own nature,” Idath said inexorably. “His symbol is the White Dragon, and the White Dragon cares for
nothing but battle.”


“He will serve me in the end,” Mab vowed through gritted teeth. “Whether he wills it or not. But the next champion I choose
will not be able to betray me, ever—this I swear!”


“Gracious Lady, thrice-crowned Queen, hear the prayers of those who worship you and come to our aid.” Ambrosia finished her
morning prayers in a hasty rush and got to her feet. Not that you’ll help, she added cynically. The hilltop shrine—no more than a tiny altar hidden at the end of a long passageway made up of bluestone
menhirs—was one of the few on the Downs that still remained undefiled. But even it had not escaped without injury, for at
the back wall was the carven stone image of Mab in her three aspects—Morrigan the Warrior, Titania the Maiden, and Melusine
the Mother—that had been marred by some angry and disappointed petitioner until only the Warrior aspect was still whole. The
Maiden and the Mother had been battered almost into invisibility, but between them Mab-Morrigan—Raven-lady, Sword-crowned,
Queen of Battles—looked down at Ambrosia with sightless, knowing eyes.


Ambrosia lingered, more from weariness than from any desire to commune with the Lady she still grudgingly served. On the crude
stone altar a bronze lamp shone down on the meager offerings—a barley-cake, some flowers, water from the sacred well. Little
enough to offer to the Queen of Air and Darkness, but her followers were starving.


“And it isn’t as though You’re going to come for them,” Ambrosia said with a sigh. Ambrosia had not seen Mab in the flesh
since she was a child first serving at the great shrine of Sarum, when Constant’s rule, though Christian, had not yet descended
into its later madness. In those days the followers of the Old Ways had been persecuted and driven from their holy places,
but they had not been hunted and slaughtered as Vortigern was doing now. It was scant consolation in these dark days to know
that the Christians suffered equally from the new King’s tyranny.


Ambrosia lifted the carved amber amulet that she wore about her neck and kissed it dutifully. Then she turned reluctantly
away from the altar, back to the world and her duties. There are times when I wonder if You ever cared for us at all, she thought. Ambrosia only had her mother’s tales of the golden time when the Old Ways reigned supreme, their magic setting
in motion the stars and the seasons. Now everything was darker, grimmer.


She stepped out into the daylight again, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. All around the shrine and its sacred
well there were crude shelters made of wicker and animal skins, where refugees from Vortigern’s endless pogroms took shelter.
Some of those hiding here were Christians, Ambrosia was almost certain of it, but in the old days the shrine of the Old Ways
had been open to anyone who sought refuge there, and Ambrosia intended to continue that custom.


“You look tired today, my dear,” Lailoken said. He was a Druid, and still wore the hooded white robe of his order and carried
the golden boline hung at his belt, but his oak-grove had been cut down long ago. Since that time he had been a wanderer among the courts of
those lords who clung to the Old Ways, but under Vortigern’s rule no one dared any longer to harbor a prophet and seer, lest
they be accused of plotting against the king.


“I’m always tired,” Ambrosia said crossly. “And hungry. But there’s no use grumbling about it. There are hungry mouths to
feed, and—”


She broke off, studying his lined and weathered face. “Lailoken, you look as if you’d been eating green apples. Have you had
a vision?”


“Yes, well … that is to say, I’m not quite sure.” The old Druid’s voice quivered, both with age and with the fear of his own
powers that had come with the years of secrecy and hiding. Once he had been a great prophet, able to see into the future and
advise men on what the fates held in store for them, but the years of persecution had taken their toll.


Ambrosia put a hand gently on his arm. “Oh, well, never mind it now. We’ll talk about it later over a nice cup of herbal tea,”
she said reassuringly. At least they still had the herbs for that.


But later never came, and in after years she wondered what Lailoken’s vision had been, and whether knowing it would have done
her any good at all.


The sun was overhead when the riders appeared upon the horizon. Ambrosia was standing beside the sacred well, overseeing the
filling of buckets and waterskins that would provide water for cooking and cleaning for all the camp’s inhabitants.


She squinted her eyes, peering into the distance, trying to see. Her heart sank as she counted the horsemen’s numbers. There
were too many of them to be anything but trouble. A trick of the wind stretched their banner smooth against the sky for a
moment, and on its dark surface Ambrosia could see the White Dragon.. . .