Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen (10 page)

“All I can say, Henry,” he said to the man sitting by his side, “is thank the good Lord that the sorceress is on our side and not agin us. I’d hate to face her and that ferocious wolf by her side on a bad day. My trusty shafts would splinter on the hardness of their venom.”

His companion, Henry Howard, shuddered and waved his arm to encompass the early evening gloom around the camp.

“And there’s hundreds more of the slavering beasts out there. I could hear them howling and whining all last night. Be the same tonight, I expect. Pity them that get in our way in Wessex. Time we get them in our sights those beasts would have torn them to pieces. I just hope that she can control them and keep them facing the enemy.”

“They say she can turn a man to dust with nothing more than a look. That’s powerful witchcraft, Henry.”

They both crossed themselves.

“Who is the enemy in Wessex, Caleb?” Henry asked.

“Anybody that gets in the way, I suppose. I was talking to one of the cavalry section leaders last night, and he said there wasn’t much opposition expected. Some local lords and their loyal bands, that sort of thing. The king is so confident that he has sent for his wife and daughter. Should be easy, bit of target practice for the old Christian avenger here, eh?”

He patted the smooth wood of the long bow by his side. “Just so long as they haven’t got one of them sorcerers as well,” Henry said

“Nah, there’s only one and she’s on our side,” said Caleb Bonner dismissively.

“Thanks be to the Lord,” intoned Henry Howard.

The ancients didn’t like overtly descriptive scenes of death and suffering. They wanted all such manifestations to be clothed in ethereal beauty and other worldliness, dressed in flowing robes and borne along on clouds of gossamer supported by flights of angelic cherubs and accompanied by haunting horns and soft-plucked lyres. That’s why they cloaked the souls of the cowerers in an eternal mist
-
it fitted their sense of propriety and place. A pretty prison.

They made a crucial mistake in failing to understand that once a cowerer is dead there is simply no reason to cower anymore, for what is death if it isn’t the ultimate confrontation of all one’s worst fears? And having so died, the fear has been confronted at its nadir
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overcome, abolished.

And the only restraint left is that of the sarcophagal mists.

Twilight sat with his two accompanying pica on the soft peat floor just outside Merlin’s stockaded compound. Horn, a male with unusual pale blue wing-feather streaking, was showing him how they constructed their fifteen-hundred-twig nest, while Leela, his lifelong female companion, busied herself by collecting suitable twigs. Using a small bush, Horn showed Twilight how to cement the outer framework of the spherical, domed-roofed nest with its side entrance hole by using soft layers of mud, before weaving in the rest of the twigs required. As he wove the twigs patiently into the structure, he explained how, in normal circumstances, they would build the nest high in the dense part of a thorn bush in order to make it, and the valuable eggs and chicks it would hold, as inaccessible as possible to predators. With the outer shell complete, the two birds changed places, and Horn began to bring in small pieces of soft moss and discarded feathers for Leela to arrange inside as soft bedding.

All day they busied themselves as Twilight watched, until finally the nest was complete. Both of them sat snugly inside as the boy gazed through the entrance into the dark interior. All he could see were the pale blue streaks of Horn’s wing feathers and the sparkle from their four bright brown eyes.

“Having constructed a snug home for the season,” cackled Leela joyfully from inside the nest, “we would begin the next phase of our annual ritual.”

“What is that?” asked Twilight innocently.

There was a slight pause from within before Horn’s slightly embarrassed reply.

“The … er … process for the formation of the eggs.”

“How many eggs do you lay?” asked the boy, his young mind not quite up to the nuance of pica copulation.

“Let me see now,” said Leela coquettishly. “Last season it was four, the season before five, and the one before that four again …”

“How long have you been together?” interrupted the boy.

“Fifteen years, liege-lord.” There was undoubted pride in the low-register timbre of Horn’s voice. “Fifteen years and sixty-three fledglings reared.” He puffed out his neck feathers and shook his unique, pale blue streaked wings in a show of paternal self-satisfaction.

“Have any of your young been born with the same pale blue wing feathers that you have, Horn?” asked Twilight.

“No, nor have we ever seen another pica with the same markings,” replied Horn somewhat proudly. “Perhaps my ancestors mated with a kingfisher or a blue jay.”

“Or a tiny blue-tit,” cackled Leela mischievously.

“Hush now,” chided Horn.

“Tell me about this fascination pica have for bright, shiny objects,” said Twilight as the two birds stepped out of the nest.

“It’s our birthright,” said Leela, stretching her wings and long tail feathers. “The nimbus that surrounds and defines us. Bright objects are our magnetic stars. They throw multifaceted shards of brilliance across our sight lines until we are powerless and cannot resist them. Then, having been drawn like moths to a flame, we cannot bear to be parted from it. We will try to take it back to our nest or hide it so we can gaze upon it daily. One of the greatest trials of my life was finding a large jewel on a forest path some years ago and being unable to lift it. I sat with it for days, locked in its thrall, until Horn, who had joined me and was, to a lesser extent, also in its grip, had the great strength finally to drag me away before I succumbed to hunger, thirst, or the unwelcome attentions of another animal. I did not go to that part of the forest for a long time for fear that it was still there and would paralyze me again. Then one day Horn told me it was gone and I could go there again.”

“It is something we must always guard against, for the enemies of the pica know this is our weakness and could seek to use it against us,” cackled Horn somberly.

“I will seek out some especially bright, harmless objects and place them here in this nest for safekeeping,” said Twilight cheerfully. “Then you or any of the other pica can gaze upon them whenever you please in safety. It will be our secret place.”

“Thank you, liege-lord,” said Leela, and raising their claws in a farewell salute, the pair flew to a nearby branch to maintain their vigil.

“Thank you for showing me how to build a nest,” Twilight shouted after them. “It will soon hold something special!”

He walked back inside the compound, and there found Merlin sitting on his favorite log muttering furiously to himself.

“Three Perpetual Harmonies, Three Saintly Lineages, Three Tribal Thrones, Three Unfortunate Concealments, Three Womb Burdens, Three Infernal Rivers, Three Fates, Three Furies, Three Graces, Three Acts of Destiny, Three Confusions, Three Heads of Cerberus, Three Myths of Mabon, Three Sons of Tros, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite - the Three Goddesses, Three Singers of Tales, Three Mortal Heroes, Three Choirs of the Styx. Always the three: terni, triple, tres, triens, trecenti, triennium, triangulus, triquetrus, triplex, trecentesimus, triceps, tricuspis, trident, triduum, triennia, trilibis, trivium. Three of this, three of that, and three of everything else. And now this! I am beset by the number three! Not one or two or four or even twenty-six … but three. I have become
homo trium literarum
, a man of threes, a slave to the triumvirate trinity of triplication. Where are the other great numbers in this vast store of mythology, fable, legend, and anecdote? Why has all their relevance sought sanctity in triplicity, and why were the originators mesmerized by this cursed number?”

Twilight watched the long magus grow more agitated as he wrestled in self-absorbed frustration over the hated multiple.

“But surely the most important figure is two,” the boy said gently. “You and I. Not three. And while it does not sound as important as some of those fine-sounding threes you have just mentioned, we two are here, now.”

Merlin gazed down at him for a long while, his face slowly softening into an indulgent smile. Reaching out, he ruffled the boy’s thick black hair, then looked toward the woven willow gates of his compound. “That is the very point, my feisty little liege-lord of the Devil Birds,” he said in a soft voice that spelled trouble. “My hawks tell me that we are about to become three, and the other one is very aggressive, extraordinarily dangerous, and closely guarded. We are about to make the acquaintance of a strange and powerful force that is certainly not bearing the olive branch of peace …”

He was interrupted by the haunting whine of a wolf outside the compound gates.

“Greetings, long magus. I am Elelendise, resident veneficus from Deira in the north, former pupil of Mael, whom I placed under his mighty stone just over one year ago, liege-lord of the ravenously fierce northern wolf, and counselor to Penda, Saxon Christian King of Deira and Mercia.”

Merlin inclined his head in a slow gesture of acknowledgment at the greeting as Twilight stood dumbly at his side by the open gates of the compound. Elelendise, cloaked in white from top to toe, removed the hood from her head as she introduced herself and shook her waist-length fair hair free. Her beguiling beauty and the huge white wolf straining by her side commanded attention and took the boy’s breath away.

“You are welcome, veneficus Elelendise, to my humble compound. I am Merlin and this is Twilight, my tyro veneficus.” Merlin’s voice was low and couched in neutrality.

The wolf bared its fangs at the sound, snarled loudly, and crouched in barely suppressed fury as if about to spring at the high throat of the speaker.

“This is Lupa, my guardian. Please do not come too close to me for he is, as you can see, vehemently protective and will tear the throat out of anyone who so much as looks at me in a manner which he considers threatening - which is any look at all.”

Merlin smiled disarmingly. “You are indeed fortunate to have such a loyal guardian. Would that those in ligamen to myself could offer such robust protection.”

“Quite. You are the liege-lord of the Wessex small hawk known as the Merlin, and your boy,” she tossed her beautiful fair head disdainfully at Twilight, “has those capricious devil birds and bauble thieves, the pica, for his safety. Hardly a match for Lupa and his ferocious packs.” “Hardly indeed.” The long magus smiled. “But we have no reason to require such vigorous protection.”

“My pica are not bauble thieves!” exploded Twilight.

Elelendise murmured to the wolf, which had instantly turned its fang-dripping malevolence toward the boy.

“Have a care, tyro, even I cannot always control this mighty beast. The morals of your piedpoly pilferers are your concern. As for your need for protection, that depends upon the outcome of my mission.”

“You seem to know a great deal about us. Did I detect your presence in these parts about a year ago?” questioned Merlin, remembering the power source he had mistakenly thought was the boy passing nearby.

“You did. It was shortly after I had taken over from Mael. My prophecies told me that Wessex would play a major part in the casting of my future enchantments, so I came to look at its supposed mythical lands.”

“And have those prophecies now come to pass through the warmongering of your King Penda?” asked Merlin, still remaining studiedly neutral.

“If ridding these realms of the anti-Christ heathens that populate them is warmongering, then my king is a warmonger. I prefer to see him more in the light of the crusader,” Elelendise sneered again. “You, of all people, should understand the crusading conquest of a believed right.”

“You are referring to my time as counselor to King Arthur?”

“Then your exploits were more than legendary in pushing your king ever onward. Conflict after conflict littered his flashing blade. You broke the venefical mold of pacifism for all of us who would follow. You were by his side through many of his bloodiest campaigns, as I am now with Penda.”

“What if I was wrong?” Merlin sighed.

“My mentor, Mael, was a gentle veneficus, as you are now, who belonged to the old way of thinking. Many a night we sat around the winter fire discussing the matter. He would become incandescent with rage at what he saw as your illegitimate use of the enchantments to further Arthur’s bloody causes. He always sensed my aggression and its latent search for a champion and tried, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to head me away from it by using your bastardized, warlike counsel to Arthur as the very worst sort of venefical example. In a play upon your name he referred to you as the ‘wrong magus.’ Just because you have now turned away from war completely does not mean that you were wrong then. Perhaps war is the province of the young.” Elelendise looked at Merlin carefully, then pointed the slim index finger of her left hand at Twilight.

“Perhaps, old magus, you should leave the defense of Wessex, if defended it shall be, to the boy.”

“The wrong magus,” mused Merlin, ignoring her remark. “Your mentor, Mael, was a most wise and perceptive astounder. I regret that we did not meet. Why, I wonder, did he not make himself and his sagacious thoughts known to me during those times?”