CHAPTER 36
THE FORGE OF SUFFERING
Merlin paused at the bellows and yelled, “Is the Stone breaking?”
“No,” Natalenya answered. “Nothing seems to hurt it.”
Again the hammer clanged against the Stone. Merlin’s father backed away from the smoking forge and sucked in cleaner air.
Off in the distance, thunder roared and shook the smithy.
“They’re coming,” Dybris yelled.
With a loud boom, the doors cracked.
“Use the sword!” Merlin’s father called as he slammed the hammer into the Stone, causing flames to shoot upward from the coals.
“Too late to —”
This time the blow from the battering ram snapped the bar in two, and the doors burst inward. Chunks of wood flew across the room as the workbenches overturned.
Merlin released the bellows and drew his dirk. As he moved forward, he squeezed Natalenya’s trembling hand. “Pray.” I’ll need it.
But she was already whispering for help.
As the dust settled, a huge shadow moved into the doorway, blocking the blur of torchlight before shoving the workbench aside with a mighty thrust.
Dybris swooshed his sword and yelled as a club hurtled down. The monk clunked to the ground just as Merlin’s father jumped into the gap.
“Have at you, brute!”
There was a clash as the sword bit into the club. Merlin stepped closer, trying to keep track of the dodging shape of his father and the lumbering form of the giant.
“Stay still, gwer!” the Eirish voice boomed through the smithy. “I’ll bash yar head just like the monk’s.”
“Not while I’m —”
The giant’s long leg shot out and kicked Merlin’s father, who collapsed to the dirt. The warrior then yanked him up and threw him across the room over the blazing forge. Owain landed on top of the bellows with a crack.
Merlin took his chance. He dove forward with the point of his blade and jabbed it into the giant’s side, biting deeply.
The man bellowed in rage and slapped Merlin down with his meaty hand.
Merlin rolled and stood again with his dirk ready.
But the intruder was gone.
“The bard stabbed me!” he shouted as he ran off into the darkness.
The light of the room dimmed as the druidow continued their dark chanting. Thunder echoed on the western wind, and the Stone began to hum. At first the noise tickled Merlin’s ears like a fly, but soon it grew to the sound of a great beating of wings.
He covered his ears as a violent wave of freezing air blasted at him from the Stone. Merlin bit back a cry as the skin on his face dried and cracked, and his hands blistered in the burning frost. The Stone blasted another icy wind, and this time, like raking claws, it drew blood from his skin.
He could faintly hear Natalenya’s voice, but the exact words were caught by the howling din.
Merlin tried to rouse himself by walking, but his legs felt as if they were trapped in heavy snowdrifts. He lifted his arms a little and discovered they too had numbed beyond feeling. His lungs deadened, and a heavy sleep crept upon him. With detachment he felt his dirk drop from his fingers and clang upon the frozen dirt at his feet. He strove to think, but his muddled thoughts drifted away like snowflakes.
The chanting grew louder outside. Soon the footfalls of a man echoed through the doorway, and a dark shadow filled the expanse.
“O blind one, is that you?”
Merlin turned toward the silhouette. Who is speaking?
“I’m … here,” Merlin said. “May I … help you?”
“Yes, yes. I have arrived to claim that which is my own from the smithy.”
The smithy? Is that where I am? “The shop’s here. Tas … can assist you. Do you need something … forged?”
Laughter filled the room. Mocking. Poisonous. “No, no. I am not here for the services of your father. I am here to slit your throats and throw your bloated bodies onto the heap of this wasted Christian age.”
“Who … are you?”
More laughter. “Do you not know? The Stone has indeed frosted your thoughts! Allow me to introduce myself.” And the man stepped forward so the light from the forge danced across the whitened grave of his face. “I am Mórganthu mab Mórfryn. I hold the sword that slew my only son, Anviv, and if I have heard rightly, you and your father are responsible for its making.”
Mórganthu lifted the gleaming blade to strike.
Merlin tried to move, run, block the blow, but his limbs hadn’t thawed enough. He could only watch helplessly as the sword flashed down.
With a great yell, Merlin’s father jumped in the way. And despite Owain’s attempt to parry the blow, Mórganthu’s blade struck, biting deeply into the slope between Owain’s shoulder and neck. He cried out but did not fall.
Blood spattered Merlin’s face, and he winced. “Father,” he called, but his voice felt weak and his lungs hurt.
Owain raised his own blade again and thrust at Mórganthu, who warded off the blow and stepped back.
Merlin sought to force his legs to move toward his father, but it was as if gravel grated his bones.
Wheezing in anguish, Owain beat off blow after blow from Mórganthu as their blades clanged together, but each parry showed his diminishing strength.
Mórganthu lunged, and when the blade missed its mark, the arch druid yelled, “Die! Die, my enemy!”
With great concentration, Merlin began to move forward.
“Merlin, here’s your blade!” Natalenya’s voice shook with fear. One of her warm hands rested on his neck, and the other pressed the dirk handle into his thawing hand.
“Your father’s bleeding —”
“Get back … behind the forge.”
“What can I do?”
“Stay safe and … ask God to strengthen us!”
Merlin dragged his feet forward, his dirk ready.
His father pushed Mórganthu into a workbench, and tools clacked to the dirt. Yet in a flash Mórganthu sliced his blade down again, and his father howled in pain.
Merlin tried to run, but he stumbled on his still-numb feet. As he fell, he saw a red flash from the pommel of Uther’s sword. Reaching toward it, he grabbed hold of Mórganthu’s wrist as he plunged to the man’s feet, almost pulling the druid down with him.
“Let go, you lout!” Mórganthu scratched at Merlin’s scarred face with his free hand, leaving new gouges.
But Merlin raised his dirk and, in one swift stroke, severed Mórganthu’s hand.
Uther’s sword fell to the ground, and Mórganthu stood in utter shock as a flood of crimson poured forth. He then began to scream, the shrill tones filling every nook of the room. Finally, shoving the stub of his arm under his tunic, he ran from the smithy.
As his wails faded, the room suddenly lit with a fierce blue light. Merlin climbed to his knees just as flames from the Stone shot high into the air.
Natalenya shouted.
Merlin sheathed his dirk and fetched Uther’s sword, prying off the sharp-nailed fingers of Mórganthu’s hand. This was the sword his father had made. The sword with which Merlin had killed the wolf. His blade until the day he could surrender it to Arthur. He rose to his feet and attempted to reach Natalenya beyond the forge, but the blaze blocked his way.
“Natalenya!”
“Merlin, help!”
The blue inferno of the Stone rose above him now, and the thatch roof caught fire.
“Get out through the window,” he yelled. “It’s behind you!”
“I can’t,” she screamed. “There are iron bars, and I can’t pull them out.”
Coils of sapphire flame hunted for Natalenya, who cowered, coughing.
Merlin felt for his father’s hammer on the anvil’s stump and hefted it to his chest together with the sword. “O God, help me!” he cried as he dove at the flaming Stone. The exposed parts of his arms and face reddened, and his clothing began to char. The flames licked against his face, and his hair smoldered. Above him a torrent of thunder shook the smithy’s walls.
None of his father’s tools had destroyed the Stone, but he had to save Natalenya. He jabbed the point of the sword against the Stone and pounded on the bronze-forged hilt with the hammer. But the blade couldn’t pierce the pockmarked surface.
Evil laughter swirled around Merlin as he hammered harder.
Natalenya called across the rift of flames, but he couldn’t make out her words.
With every blow the pain increased in the hand holding the sword. The skin curled, and his shrieking fingers caused the sword to shake to the side. It would have dropped to the floor, except Natalenya, standing now, reached through the flames, clenched his hand, and raised the sword up again.
Cries escaped her mouth, and her hand flinched in pain.
Merlin struck a ringing blow with the hammer, and lightning burst from the Stone. Merlin’s whole body wrenched forward into its searing tendrils.
The smithy darkened, and Merlin felt himself falling. But there was no floor.
Natalenya, Dybris, his father, the flames, the Stone, the smithy — all disappeared as he tumbled through a whispering murk.
Into a place of distant echoes he fell, finally striking the ground hard with his left shoulder. He wanted to open his eyes to see the blur of his surroundings, but he needed to rest until the throbbing in his bones subsided. He felt his hands to see how burnt they were and was surprised to find them well.
He sat up, opened his eyes, and discovered that everything around him was in perfect focus. At his side lay the sword, and he found comfort in gripping its handle. Glances around revealed he had fallen into a massive cavern of dark rock where dim lights floated. Were they torches held by the druidow, or something else entirely? Beyond the lights, on the far side of the cavern, plumes of smoke wafted from a large hole in the wall.
A faint, moaning voice rippled across the chamber. Soon a chorus of other voices joined. Wailing filled the cavern, and Merlin stopped up his ears to the dirgelike cries. One of the lights hovered closer, revealing itself to be a large, headless body, white and ghostlike. Its bones cracked and shook, and its arms carried Natalenya’s limp body.
Merlin bounded to his feet. “Set her down!”
Lifting his sword, he tried to stab the headless creature, but it ignored his futile thrusts and glided over to the center of the cavern.
A granite pillar covered with a blue cloth — the same as in his previous vision — ascended from the ground, and the specter draped Natalenya upon it. Her pale form lay where the drinking horns had once stood. Her disheveled locks hung down upon her bloodstained and tattered dress.
Burning bile filled Merlin’s throat, and he sprinted forward. “Natalenya!”
More headless phantoms appeared, and each one bore a dark chain. Merlin swung his sword at them as they passed.
One spun around and lashed him across the mouth with its sharp shackles.
He fell to his knees licking blood.
The dead creatures sped to Natalenya. They anchored the chains to the granite table and fettered them around her wrists and ankles.
Merlin lurched upward and ran at the table, shouting and scattering the phantoms. He tried to slide the chains off Natalenya but found they bit cruelly into her skin. He struck a chain five times with his sword, but the links only bent.
Blue light poured from a giant hole in the cavern wall, and the smoke thickened. An ear-splitting roar shook the ceiling until stones and stalactites crashed to the floor.
With rocks pelting down, Merlin whipped his cloak and arms over the woman he loved.
Then he saw the dragons.
Two enormous winged dragons crept from the hole and slid toward him — one red and the other white, their goatlike horns curving away from the sides of their heads behind fanged jaws. Considering their massive size, their arms and legs were small, but the ends of each held a set of dagger-sharp claws. Their muscles rippled in spectacular power as they slithered toward what he now realized was an altar.
Toward Natalenya.
Merlin’s chest squeezed tightly on his heart, and he could no longer take a breath.
The red dragon was much smaller than the white, though faster. Thick, jagged scales covered its body, and from its mouth blazed a purple flame. Even at a distance, the heat smote Merlin, and sweat ran down his forehead, stinging his eyes.
The dragon slid closer and snatched one of the specters from the air. With black liquid dripping from its fangs, the dragon crushed it into a pile of shattered bones.
Merlin jumped between the dragon and Natalenya, holding out his trembling sword. He tried to yell at the beast, but the words choked in his throat.
The dragon noticed neither him nor his puny sword as its dark and silver-gold eyes gazed upon the altar and its chained prey.
Closer and closer it approached, crushing rocks as it came. And farther back, the head of the white dragon reared up, surveying the scene.
Overwhelmed with fear, Merlin felt blood drain from his face, and his arms were like dead branches tied at his sides. An angel appeared before him in a blinding white robe. His voice was strong yet no more than a whisper in the great cavern.
“STRIKE EVIL, MERLIN!”
Then the angel faded from sight.
Merlin gulped, furrowed his brow and, embracing his own death, bounded at the creature. When he came within striking distance he tried to jab it in the snout.
Cla-rack!
The sword only glanced off its scales.
But the dragon reared up and studied him with narrowed pupils.
“WHO … ART … THOU?” it questioned as a long forked tongue flickered through its teeth.
“I am Merlin, servant of the High King of the Britons, and you shall not have her!”
“HIGH … KING?” It laughed, and its snorting roar shook the cavern. “THIS NIGHT … WE FEASTED ON HIS BLOOD … AND WE WILL GORGE … ON THINE AS WELL!”
The white dragon slithered forward, now alongside the red. Behind them, a movement caught Merlin’s gaze. A woman climbed out through the cavern hole and hobbled toward them. At first he thought she was Mônda, but while Mônda had black hair, this woman’s tresses waved reddish gray over her rags. A cruel thrall ring lay bound upon her neck, and a long chain fettered her to the wall of the cave. Scabbed gouges covered her body, and her hands were broken and smashed. The woman’s eyes gazed vacantly, yet as she lifted her oval face to behold him, tiny sparks of forgotten hope and wonder were kindled.
Rage welled up in Merlin. This should not be!
For the sake of the chained woman’s freedom, as well as Natalenya’s life, he thrust his sword before him and called out, “In the name of the Christ, I command you, serpents. Go back to your vile hole and set these women free!”
The red dragon turned to look at the hag and snarled, “THE OLD SERVANT’S … TIME IS DEAD … AND WE WILL SWALLOW HER. THE YOUNG ONE … SHALL TAKE HER PLACE.”
“By the power of the living God, you shall have neither!”
The white dragon clicked its claws together as black liquid dripped from its teeth. “WE ARE HELL AND DEATH … NONE SHALL DENY US!” It inhaled deeply, bright-green fire licking from its nostrils as air rushed in.
Merlin lunged sideways just as the dragon spewed forth a torrent of emerald flame. The back of Merlin’s hair became singed, and his cloak caught fire. Whipping the burning material off, he lunged at the white dragon, whose underside was exposed.
Merlin jabbed with all his strength, but the blade clacked uselessly against the white scales, jarring his shoulders so hard that his teeth cracked together.
The creature roared in anger and raked its claws across Merlin’s chest, sending him skidding across the cavern floor. Pain took his breath away, and before he could stand, the dragon was upon him.
Its white lips curled back. Its gaping jaws struck down.
Merlin yelled even as he lashed out with his blade. The sword bit deep into the soft flesh above the teeth, and the beast recoiled as a six-inch, bloody fang fell smoking to the ground.
The white dragon screamed and thrashed away, hitting its head on the rock wall and shaking the entire cave.
Merlin stood just as the red dragon’s tail snapped forward and slammed him prone to the ground.
Still holding his sword, he tried to rise to his knees, but his vision tilted and he fell over, dizzy.
The red dragon’s maw clamped down on his legs and stomach.
Merlin cried out as he was lifted high into the air, his chest, arms, and head hanging from the creature’s mouth. But before the teeth could sink into his flesh, he gripped the sword with both hands and chopped at the eye of the dragon, who lowered its lid and began shaking and ripping Merlin’s body.
In a last, desperate attempt, Merlin pried the point of the blade inside the eyelid and thrust it deep into the socket.
Roaring, the beast arched its back and let go of Merlin, who held on to the sword and attempted to drive it yet farther into the eye, even as he was whipped like a mere plaything. He lost his grip on the sword and fell against the side of the granite altar where Natalenya lay.
The red dragon crashed to the ground. Howling, it scratched at the blade with its claws, pried it out, and flung it away, along with a gory, glowing mass that was once its eye.
Snorting purple flame, the beast convulsed and clawed the ground.
Merlin’s blood poured from his wounds as he staggered to his feet. Natalenya moaned beside him, and he turned to her and took hold of her hand.
Then his eyes failed and the cavern disappeared.
My hands … like searing fire.
Merlin opened his eyes and saw the haze of white-blue fire engulfing him. In his right hand, he felt the dead weight of the hammer, and in his left he held the handle of the sword — point down upon the Stone — with Natalenya’s flinching fingers wrapped around his.
The smithy! The Stone!
With the pain fierce beyond imagining, Merlin raised the hammer and struck the hilt of the sword again with all his strength. Twice more, until the blade pierced and inched into the Stone. A great rumbling filled the room even as the fire swirled back inside, bringing relief to his burning skin.
He smashed the hammer down four times more, and the sword thrust through and out the bottom. A furious wind blew, roaring away from the Stone as if all the storms that had ever blown upon the moor had been hoarded inside and released in an instant.
Merlin tried to hold on to the blade’s hilt, but the wind blew him backward and across the room. The hammer dropped from his fingers, and he fell hard against the broken doors of the smithy.
His head ached, and he gripped the splintered bar of the doors as the pain intensified. Merlin shut his eyes tightly. Even so, stars swirled and danced, blazing such bright and painful arcs that soon the pure light of the sun seemed to fill him.
The light came together and formed the shape of a man — no, the angel — who stepped near the forge. and, with a shining bowl, poured crystalline water upon Natalenya. Walking to Merlin, he poured more water upon Merlin’s head and hands. He called forth words that shook the air. “BY THE WILL AND POWER OF THE LORD GOD, YOU ARE HEALED.”
The burnt skin on Merlin’s hands mended. He opened his eyes, and colors swirled and danced before him. Bright red and blue. Orange. Even green. The tints blended and separated, coursing past him until finally coming into focus. Clear and bright the world seemed at first, and even as his vision of the angel faded, his new eyesight remained.
For the first time in seven years, he could truly see in the waking world. There was neither blur nor haze nor confusing shadow. He touched his eyelids and cheeks and felt his same old scars, but the wounds upon the eyes themselves had been healed.
His joy and wonder faded as the dark scene before him appeared. The broken smithy. The fire consuming the timbers and thatch of the ceiling. Natalenya pulling herself up from the ground with shaking resilience. The Stone, dark and silent, with the High King’s sword thrust through.
Dybris lay near, groaning and gripping his head. And Merlin’s father! Four feet from Merlin, he lay deathly still in a green druid robe, with blood draining from a deep cleft at his neck.
The angry tongues of fire spread upward through the thatch, and while smoke began to fill the room, the heat threatened to burn Merlin’s newly healed skin.
“Natalenya!”
She looked at him in shock, her dress charred and soot-stained from their ordeal.
“Go to Dybris,” he said. “We need to get out!”
Merlin grabbed his father’s wrists and dragged him out the broken doors of the smithy. Natalenya was close behind as she tugged at the monk’s legs.
All around them lay the druidow and villagers, thrown down where they had stood, their torches snuffed but smoldering. For a moment Merlin feared that the destruction of the Stone had slain them, that he and his companions alone survived. But no, they were moaning, barely stirring. Lord, let them finally be free of the Stone’s enchantment.
The thunder-driven wind fed the roof’s crackling flames. His father coughed weakly, and Merlin pulled him into the garden just far enough from the smithy to be safe from the fire. Natalenya followed with Dybris.
Merlin ran his hand through his father’s red-slicked hair and pressed his ear to his father’s chest. “Stay with me, Tas.”
His father opened an eye. “Merlin … failed you again.”
“No, you saved me! And we destroyed the Stone —”
“We did … good.”
“We’ll have time now —”
“No.”
Tears streamed down Merlin’s face. “Tas!”
“Garth’s bagpipe … in the house … traded for it with the merchant … Needed his horse … reshod … It’s in a basket near the grain … Unfair Tregeagle forced it … to be sold. You —”
“No! You give it to Garth. You’ll get better!”
But Owain wasn’t looking at him anymore. His eyes viewed the stormy sky, and the deep lines of his face relaxed. “I see family … friends … kin … my clan … beckon from a feasting hall … high in the mountains.”
“Who? Who do you see?”
“My younger brother … he’s there. My mother, she stands so straight now. But” — his bloody brow furrowed — “Gwev’s not there.”
Merlin choked on a sob. “Mother’s not there?”
“No, but I go … my father so tall … strong … He holds for me the welcome cup.”
“Tas!”
“Love you … son.” With those last words, his eyes dulled, and Merlin felt his father’s heart flutter to a stop.
“Tas!” Merlin pounded the ground with his fists, and his whole body shook in great sobs. He lifted his father, now limp, and tried to sit him up. He listened at his father’s chest and raised his head only to have it fall back down into his cradling, shaking embrace.
Natalenya put her arms around Merlin, but her consolation was interrupted by the screaming of a woman who ran toward them. “O-wain!”
Mônda. Her hair was unkempt, and her sunken eyes were gripped with fear. Her left arm puffed out of her sleeve with a scabrous infection.
Merlin’s sister, Ganieda, wasn’t far behind. She stared in disbelief at the bloody scene of their father’s death.
Mônda kissed her dead husband’s cheek until her lips were covered in blood. “No, you are mine!” she cried. “You can’t die.” She clawed her broken fingernails through her hair, then standing, she shrieked and ran off into the darkness.
Ganieda grabbed Merlin’s sleeve and shook him. Her face contorted and her lips trembled. “You destroyed our family. I hate you. I will hate you forever!”
And she dashed away after her mother.