Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

After a time, above my own whimpers and cries, I heard Carthac moan, a quavering, disembodied sound of torment that soon swelled into a scream. Once he had begun, he could not stop. Thrusting aside my own pain in the urgency of my need to see him, I pushed myself up with difficulty, pressing my back against the wall, and peered towards the awful sounds. The smoke had begun to clear, and he came into view through its drifting skeins, staggering about at the far end of the long, empty building, close by the open doors, his hands clutched over his head as he bumped into walls and every obstacle that lay about him. He fell down and struggled to his feet again, screaming and screaming. We were alone in the longhouse, two crippled men, and no one came back to see what was afflicting him.

Slowly, and painfully, but gathering strength and resolve with every movement, I made my way forward, shambling in my nakedness, not taking my eyes from him for a moment. He fell to his knees again, and I saw Ambrose's skystone sword lying on the ground before him. Renewed resolve flared up in me and, barely aware of my burns now, or of any weakness, I walked forward and picked it up with my right hand, "then, cradling my wrist in my burned left hand, I swung the long blade high and struck off his deformed head with one blow that took all of my strength and left me sprawled across his corpse.

I found my brother's head later. It lay lodged in a corner of the building's walls, barely damaged by the fire. I picked it up and sat with it in my arms as I wept for him, remembering all I had loved in him. I felt as though my heart would burst apart with the pain of it, a deep, anguished, all consuming torment that eclipsed all other pains. And presently I found I was weeping for Tressa, too, and for Dedalus and all the friends and loved ones I had ever lost.

And as I wept and mourned my loves in the abandoned darkness of that ruined place, a hailstorm of Pendragon arrows swept down from the hillside above and killed every remaining thing that moved in the valley beyond the stone walls that surrounded me.

Not everyone who was in the longhouse that day died. Many' fled before the Pendragon attack began, in terror of Merlyn the Sorcerer, whose wicked and unholy infamy as a practitioner of the blackest arts soon spread throughout the entire land of Britain. For even though Carthac had killed Merlyn, beheaded him, and borne the severed head back to his camp, when the head was cast into the fire, flames had erupted thunderously amidst a welter of sparks and breath killing smoke, and from the heart of the inferno Merlyn had emerged, springing whole and alive to slay their champion.

The following day, when the armies of Camulod rode into Carthac's valley, they took prisoners away with them, and those prisoners told everyone who would listen, long afterwards when they had overcome their initial fear they had been witnesses to all of it; they had been present when Merlyn the Sorcerer came back to life.

EIGHTEEN

"Merlyn? Is that you?"

I smiled and turned to see a tall form step between me and one of the flickering torches ringing the interior of the great amphitheatre. The distant shape moved back, then started to approach again, now carrying the torch that had been guttering against the wall. I remained where I was, unmoving, as the ring of his footsteps echoed in the emptiness of the high walled space. Then the voice called out again.

"It must be you, I know, because no one else would ever dare to be here in the very dead of night, at the mercy of my ever vigilant guards. And besides, whenever I see darkness moving inside darkness, I know it can only be my cousin Cay."

Arthur Pendragon looked magnificent, striding forward across the marbled floor. The high crest of his helmet made him appear even taller and more impressive than he was, and his long, heavy cloak swirled behind him. He looked, I thought, almost as magnificent as he had on that morning, nigh on two full years earlier, when he had led his troopers into Carthac's valley and found me, huddling, naked in the longhouse. When last I had seen him, prior to that day, he had been still a boy, large and strong limbed and greatly admirable, aglow with the kind of fairness of face and form that turned women's heads, and men's too, but yet a boy in truth. That morning, when he rode into my life again, the metamorphosis had been achieved, and he approached me as a man—a hardened veteran and a seasoned warrior, Legate Commander, though he came unaware of it, of the Forces of Camulod.

On this night, he bore himself with the easy self assurance of a successful and victorious army commander. It thrilled me to see him wearing the armour of lustrous, shaped and layered, highly polished black bull's hide that had once been mine and before that had been my father's. All three of Us were large men, tall and broad shouldered. The armour, made expressly for my father when he was at the peak of his powers, was studded with solid, beaten silver rosettes; it was the ceremonial armour of a Roman commander of horse from the days of Flavius Stilicho who, as regent of Rome's Empire in the west, had brought the methods and cavalry techniques of Alexander the, Great back into use. Arthur filled it to perfection.

Now, as my young cousin drew close to me, he reached up with his free hand and pulled off the heavy helmet of glazed and toughened leather surmounted by a finger length high crest of stiff horsehair, in alternating tufts of black and white, packed into a beaten silver basket. His face was shining as he flashed his white toothed smile, and he came directly to me, embracing me with the arm that held his helmet while holding the flaming torch well clear. I hugged him briefly, my heart swelling with pride, then pushed him gently away. He cocked his head sideways, humour dancing in his great, yellow, gold flecked eyes.

"What?" he demanded, his voice bantering. "What is it?

You look as though you've been caught doing something of which the good Bishop Enos might not approve." He looked about him then, holding the torch at arm's length above his head, his eyes flicking over and away from the altar that stood close by. "What are you doing here in the sanctuary? I thought that, once the consecration had been made and the altar set in place, only God's servants could come into this area."

I shook my head, forming my features into an expression of rueful regret. "Are you suggesting that I am not one of God's servants, Arthur?"

He was unabashed. "Well, my cousin Cay is, I know that. On the other hand, Merlyn the Sorcerer? That, some might doubt."

I grinned, feeling a scar tug at the left side of my mouth, twisting my smile into a grimace. "Then they would be in error. I am here on Bishop Enos's own business, doing what he would do himself, were he not conferring with his pious brethren. Why are you here?"

"I've been inspecting the guard, keeping them on their toes. It inspires them with joy, and something akin to awe, to know that their Commander never seems to sleep. I learned that from you, you may recall. Have you finished here? Then come and walk with me a while. It's a glorious night."

We walked together back down the way he had come. He replaced the flaming torch in its sconce, then placed his helmet back on his head and nodded to the guard who stood nearby, as rigid as a column of rock. I sensed, rather than saw, the way the man flinched from me without betraying any sign of movement. "I would have expected clouds, had anyone asked me," Arthur suggested. "At least until the day after tomorrow."

Today had been the first of the three days of Eastertide, the day all Christian folk had come to think of as Good Friday, and we had been present at the ceremonies for the remembrance of the Crucifixion of the Christ. Two days hence would see the coming of Easter, and the Resurrection of the Flesh. Belief in that Mystery, I reflected with a rueful, private smile, explained the guard's religious fear of me a moment earlier.