Daughter of Fire (51 page)

“Go with him,” a gentle voice pleaded. He turned and saw a woman standing at the edge of the clearing. She was beautiful, with soft green eyes and fiery red-gold hair that flowed past her shoulders.

Rorke need not know her name to know who she was. The resemblance was there in the angles of her face, softened now with age, but nonetheless beautiful. In ancient legends she was known as the Lady of the Lake.

“Please,” she begged. “He has waited so long for you and his heart is heavy. But he will not beg. You must go freely because of what lies in your heart.”

Rorke glanced to the footpath. Merlin had not looked back, but continued a slow, steady climb.

“I will find her, dear lady,” he vowed.

She nodded. “You must, for you are our only hope.”

He turned and followed Merlin up the path into the hills.

It was an easy climb and not far, but all the while Rorke worried about the passage of time. It was not the same here, he knew that, for Vivian had spoken of spending a day and night with Merlin when it seemed she had been gone no more than an hour.

But how much time had passed in the catacombs of the fortress? Was she still alive?

Yes! the answer came from his heart, for he would not believe otherwise.

He followed Merlin to a niche that had been cut into the top of the hill. Within the niche was a chamber made of white stone that seemed to be some sort of observatory, with a portion of the roof open to the sky. One entire wall opened out onto the valley below. It seemed a place above the earth, as if it might somehow touch both the mortal and immortal worlds.

“Do not be impatient,” Merlin spoke, sensing his thoughts. “There is something I must show you.” He moved to the back of the chamber and touched the wall low at one corner. It opened, the stones separating and moving back on themselves to reveal an inner chamber. Merlin beckoned for him to follow.

In the center of the inner chamber was a small pool of water. Though the chamber was dark except for the light that spilled through the entrance, the pool glowed with a shimmering of light as though from within.

“Tell me what you see.”

“What game is this?”

“Tis no game, warrior.”

“A test then?” His patience was worn thin.

Merlin nodded. “A test of the ancient ones. For only a warrior who is true of heart may stand at the water’s edge and see beneath its surface to the treasure that lies within.”

“I did not come seeking treasures, old man.”

“You came to save my daughter. Is she not worth dying for?”

“Aye, she is.”

“Then look into the water and tell me what you see, for only a warrior true of heart will see the warrior’s treasure.”

Rorke turned and peered into the water. It was pale and shimmering, milky white, and impossible to see anything. Then, as if a hand had passed through the water, sweeping aside the cloudiness, the water cleared. And at the bottom of the shimmering depths he saw a magnificent sword.

Merlin watched him. “You have seen the sword. You are a warrior of true heart, and wisdom. Such a warrior must have a blade that is also of true heart. Take the sword from the water.”

When he looked at Merlin with uncertainty, the sorcerer explained, “You have always had the power, for it is in the blue stone. The crystal is from the hilt of the sword—Excalibur.”

At the name, the water of the pool began to tremble and churn. Rorke’s fingers closed over the stone that Vivian had given him and he immediately felt the warmth of it, the fire in its shimmering blue depths that burned with the power of the Light. Then he looked to the pool. The sword slowly began to rise from the water.

It was a magnificent sword—a king’s sword.  Excalibur.

Now Rorke knew who the warrior was who had challenged him in the clearing.

“Aye,” Merlin acknowledged, sensing his thoughts. “Arthur. An image summoned from the past.”

The sword lifted clear of the churning water, turned slowly and then moved toward him. When it reached him, it hovered, suspended in air as if held by invisible hands.

“Take it,” Merlin told him. “For only with the sword of Light can you hope to free her.”

Rorke reached out and the sword moved of its own accord, the hilt slipping into his hand as if it had been precisely shaped to it. Merlin slowly walked toward him.

“The crystal.”

Rorke nodded, reluctant to part with this last connection to Vivian. The sorcerer removed the blue crystal from about his neck, then placed it in the hilt of the sword. As the sword had fit his hand, the stone slipped into place as if it had but waited to return.

“I gave the crystal to my firstborn, to protect her when I sent her from this place. I always hoped that it might one day be returned when a warrior had need of it.” He wrapped his hands around Rorke’s, clasped over the handle.

“For five centuries the sword was thought to be lost. Vivian’s mother brought it to me, and I have kept it hidden since. It has the power of the Light—the power to see and know—but the true power lies in the man who wields it. Only with great wisdom and a true heart, can you truly see.”

“Tis said that Arthur was a great warrior,” Rorke replied.

“Arthur’s heart was filled with the bitterness of betrayal. That bitterness became a weapon that was turned against him. You must close your eyes and see with your true heart, warrior. Then you will be victorious.”

They returned to the clearing together. Ninian was waiting for them. Tears welled in her eyes as she saw the sword in Rorke’s hands. But she said nothing. It was not necessary. Everything she felt was there in her eyes.

“You must return now,” Merlin told him. “Time passes and the Darkness grows more powerful in its quest to destroy her.”

It was like dawn in the clearing as if no time had passed at all, and yet he sensed that much time had passed. Precious time.

Rorke crossed the clearing to the standing stone, shimmering faintly in the early morning light, and for the first time Merlin’s impenetrable facade waivered. He placed both hands on Rorke’s shoulders.

He felt the raw emotion in the strength of the older man’s grasp, saw it in fierceness of those eyes so like Vivian’s, and in the trembling as his lips as if there were more he would say.

“She will not die,” Rorke assured him and stepped to the stone portal. This time there was no pain, no ordeal of falling down a long, dark passage. That too, he realized, had been a test.

He felt no anger toward Merlin. He had only one thought as he stepped out into the snow-covered clearing of the forest at London, the legendary sword clasped in his hands.

Vivian.

Twenty-six

“I
feared you might not return,” Tarek greeted him, a look of concern etching his features. “Did you find what you sought?”

“Aye,” Rorke said.

“Then the legend is true?”

Rorke held the sword before him and Tarek’s eyes gleamed as blue as the stone in the hilt of the sword. But it was Meg who breathed the legendary name with a mixture of awe and disbelief, her hands sweeping down the length of the sword, for she and Poladouras had waited in the clearing in spite of the cold.

“Excalibur!” she whispered, running her fingers along the flat of the blade. “He has given you Arthur’s sword. I prayed that your heart was true, milord.”

“By the heavens,” Poladouras said almost with reverence. “I believed, by God, I have always believed, for her powers were undeniable. And the legend is carried in every Englishman’s heart. But to see the sword and to know it is real, it restores a man’s faith that there is more to this world than we can see. It gives hope.”

“He did not give it easily,” Rorke admitted. “Merlin is as cunning as his legend. I had to win the sword.”

“A contest?” Tarek exclaimed and his gaze traveled over his friend for signs of injury.

“Aye,” Rorke said softly. “I was forced to battle a king for the right to the sword. I pray that I am worthy of their trust.”

His gaze was as bleak as the leaded sky above. The portal had vanished with the dawn that was shrouded behind clouds like a portent of a great darkness that gathered.

“How much time has passed?” he asked with a new urgency as he slipped the sword into the leather sheath at his back.

“No more than moments,” Tarek assured him as they returned to their horses for the ride back to the fortress. The gates were once more secured by Rorke’s men with the count’s men imprisoned inside until William’s return.

There was no time to waste, nor could he wait for William to return, in spite of his promise. Vaulting from his horse, Rorke strode to the corner of the courtyard where ancient stones stood at the entrance to the catacombs once held by a Roman army. Perhaps, he thought, even Arthur and his men had dwelled within those ancient walls five hundred years before—before the Darkness betrayed a young king, before the Battle of Camlann where Arthur was mortally wounded, then carried off to a place called Avalon and the mythical sword with the power of the Light was plunged into the waters of a hidden pool.

Beside him, Tarek readied his own curved blade, securing a second one at his belt. Rorke laid a hand at his shoulder.

“This battle I must fight alone.”

“I have fought by your side since Antioch,” Tarek protested. “A life owed for a life saved. By all that is holy before your god and mine, I have the right.”

“Aye, my friend,” Rorke acknowledged, “You have the right. I am asking you to set it aside this time.” He saw the refusal in his friend’s eyes.

“What I seek is not of this earth, my friend. I may well fail. I do not fear death, but I would not be the cause of yours. If I die, Stephen will have need of you.” He did not ask it for William, for no matter what passed from this day forward, William of Normandy’s future was already written. But he asked it for the young man who was like a brother to him, and whose fate was still unknown.

“I cannot forbid you to go.” He spoke what they both knew to be true. “But I ask it by the bond of our blood, shed on the same battlefields.”

“Do you believe the sword will protect you?” Tarek asked, needing to be reassured of the decision his friend made.

“I believe the Jehara will protect me, for she is my life.”

Tarek nodded. “For this you owe me a great favor, which I fully intend to ask upon your return, and which you cannot deny me.”

Rorke smiled. “Agreed.”

Poladouras stepped forward and laid a gentle hand at Rorke’s shoulder. “Take this,” he said, handing Rorke the crucifix. “I have great faith in it. It has a power of its own.” The monk’s voice wavered and his eyes glistened.

“Bring her back, and I will say the words over your union in this world or any of your choosing.”

Meg held back until everyone else had bid him farewell. He looked over at her, standing apart, her sightless eyes void of color except for that unsettling whiteness upon white. She was old and bent, her life spent in service to the powers of the Light, and her mistress.

“There is no magic I can give you, warrior,” she said with whispery voice, somehow sensing that he stood before her.

“I can only give you words and pray that you will remember them.” Then she repeated the prophecy of Vivian’s vision that long ago day at Amesbury.

“Beware the faith that has no heart, milord. And the sword that has no soul.”

Lastly, she reminded him, “The Darkness may take many forms. It will try to deceive you. You cannot rely on what you see or hear. As Merlin tested you, so shall the Darkness test you, for all is at stake.” She stepped closer then and laid her frail hand over his heart.

“Be of true heart, warrior. Believe in the power of the Light.” Then, she stepped back.

“I will bring her back, old woman.”

“See that you do.”

He could have sworn a faint smile played at one corner of the old woman’s mouth, revealing a hint of the beauty she had once possessed. He stepped to the entrance of the catacombs and pulled Excalibur from the leather sheath at his back.

Hear me, sweet daughter of fire. Know my thoughts, know what is in my heart, and know my love for you.

He heard no answering reply, nor had he expected one. For the gift was not with him. But she possessed the power to know his thoughts, and he sent them too her and prayed she still lived to hear them. Then, holding the sword in one hand and a torch in the other, he began the descent into the ancient ruins.

The urgency to reach her made him want to hasten his steps, but Meg’s words and his own warrior’s caution tempered that urgency.

Patience and care, he thought, making his way carefully down the timeworn steps.

The way was lit by torches that had been set into brackets by his men. He moved silently, his gaze moving ahead from one pool of light to the next, aware of the shifting shadows at the edge of his vision, and remembering Meg’s warning—that the Darkness might take any form.

Then he cleared his thoughts, steeling them to think of nothing that might betray him. For if Vivian could know his thoughts, so, too, could the Darkness. As Arthur had been betrayed, so might he be betrayed.

The moment he stepped into the chamber he knew Vivian had been here. He felt her presence—a lingering of warmth within the coldness of those stone walls. He closed his eyes and could feel it even more strongly, a memory of that same warmth that surrounded them as he joined his body with hers and felt himself completed in ways he could not have imagined as his flesh became one with hers.

Here in the muted shadows of the chamber, able to see only within the pool of light from the torch he held, his other senses grew stronger. He heard the subtle drip of water as it seeped from the ancient stones, felt the dampness of centuries in the air as it eddied and flowed across his skin on currents of air.

He slowly opened his eyes once more and searched for some means by which she had fled. He found it at the back wall of the chamber, where the wall had caved into another open space. Stone and debris blocked any escape, but he saw that she had passed that way, escaping through the stone in the faint, glowing traces of light that glistened at several places on the stones.