The King's Wizard (21 page)

Merlin and Arthur had set out for Winchester at first light. Arthur was very quiet on the journey, thinking of what it meant
to be king. Merlin knew that the battle was far from over; though Excalibur conferred the true kingship, the race of men was
as foolish, stubborn, and petty-minded as ever.

When they reached the cathedral, Merlin began to suspect his estimate might have been too charitable. The sound of shouting
voices could be heard even through the door. Arthur glanced uneasily at Merlin.

“These are the men you must rule,” Merlin said as he opened the door.

The sounds of shouting and inarticulate anger rolled over the two men like an ocean wave. There was no way for them to be
heard over it.

Merlin drew his fingers across his lips and then cast the gesture out into the room. At once there was silence. The men continued
to shout, but there was no sound. As they realized what had happened, they slowly fell silent, staring at each other in wonder.

Merlin led Arthur into the middle of the room.

“That’s better, isn’t it, my lords?” he said ostentatiously. “Now you can listen instead of fighting. It should be a novel
experience for most of you.” With a flick of his left hand, Merlin returned their voices to
them. “Uther had a son. I give you Arthur, true King of Britain.”

There was a moment of silence as they stared at Merlin, then most of the nobles burst out laughing, discovering by this that
they could speak again. As the laughter died, Lord Lot spoke.

“Uther had no son. Everyone knows that.”

Arthur’s cool blue gaze swept the room, stopping where the body of King Uther—his father—lolled from the dais. Ignoring them
all, he went to the bier, gently lifting his father’s body in his arms and arranging it decently once more upon the scarlet
pall.

“He did.” Sir Boris looked stricken, as if he spoke in spite of himself. “Uther did have a son. When Uther conquered Tintagel,
he took the Lady Igraine. A son was born. It’s true. I was there.”

“Arthur?” Sir Hector spoke wonderingly, reaching out his hand to the boy he had raised from infancy. “Is Uther’s son?”

“If he is, let him draw Excalibur from the stone,” Gawain said with simple practicality.

“I already have!” Arthur announced proudly. He drew Excalibur and flourished it, and once more Merlin heard the high, sweet
song of the sword.

Gawain looked stunned as he gazed upon a sight he had plainly never expected to see. “Well, prove it!” he said, nearly stammering.
“Prove that this is Excalibur!”

Without a word, Arthur swung the sword about his head in a great arc. The crowd flinched back, though the sword came nowhere
near them. No living man
was Arthur’s target. Instead, Excalibur sliced the flames from two of the nearest branches of candles.

But the magic did not end there. The flames, still in two perfect rings, floated up to the ceiling, slowly dissolving as they
rose. All those assembled watched the spectacle in stunned silence. Slowly, Gawain went to his knees, as much out of shock
as in reverence.

“You do have Excalibur and you are Uther’s son. I acknowledge you as my liege-lord and King,” Sir Boris said dogmatically.
With grave ponderousness, the elderly knight walked to Arthur’s side and knelt to do him homage.

“And so do I,” Sir Hector said. Kneeling, he kissed the hand of the king who had been his foster son.

“He has the sword,” Lord Leodegrance said simply, kneeling and bowing his head to Arthur. “Accept him, Lot … Arthur is king.”

“Never,” Lord Lot bellowed. “I’ll not bend my knee to a boy—nor will my son!” He turned to go.

“I can speak for myself, Father,” Gawain said sharply. “He has Excalibur. He is the king.”

Lord Lot froze where he stood, staring at his son.

“Gawain! You’d go against your own father?”

“If the cause is just,” Gawain said evenly.

“And if it’s not—and you’re wrong?” Lord Lot demanded.

“Then you will have to kill me in battle,” Gawain said softly. “I am the king’s man, Father.” Slowly Gawain knelt again among
the others.

“So be it!” Lord Lot said coldly.

“Shame on you!” someone cried.

“My Lords, hard as it may be for you, think for a moment,” Merlin said coaxingly. “We have all seen too many wars.”

Some of the nobles standing with Lord Lot wavered at Merlin’s words, but Lot himself was too outraged by Gawain’s defection
to think calmly.

“My mind’s made up! All with me, follow me!” he stormed from the room, followed by half a dozen other lords. The sound of
the door as it slammed behind them was the loudest sound Merlin had ever heard: the sound of his hopes for peace crashing
down into nothingness. Across Uther’s body he gazed at Arthur, and found that Arthur was staring back with the same emotion
in his eyes—despair.

T
intagel Keep stood as it always had, a solitary citadel upon the Cornish headlands. Within its walls, Morgan le Fay ruled
as sole overlord, as she had from the time when she was eight years old.

It was a lonely life. Since the day that Uther had taken the castle and Gorlois had died, there had been an aura of ill-luck
surrounding Tintagel’s walls like the grey sea-mist. When Igraine died and her newborn son vanished, the curse was complete.
No one went to Tintagel if they could avoid it.

Morgan told herself she didn’t mind, but it wasn’t true. She hated the loneliness, the isolation, the way her own servants—the
few that remained—turned away from the sight of her disfigured face. But there was no remedy for any of these things. No man
would willingly marry Cornwall’s cursed and ugly daughter.

If only her father had lived to defeat Uther! Gorlois
had been the true king of Britain, the rightful heir to the throne. Royal blood ran in Morgan’s veins; she should have been
a princess instead of a lonely and forgotten outcast.

But Uther had used Merlin’s magic and trickery to destroy Cornwall and take their lands for his own. And Gorlois’s forgotten
daughter had nothing.

So Morgan amused herself with toys and with reading the ancient books in the castle library. From those books, she had learned
to build something the old Romans had called a
kite
. When she carried it up to a stairway overlooking the sea, it took flight easily in the wind, and Morgan watched it soar,
free as she could never be.

“Hello, Morgan. My, how you’ve grown.”

Morgan turned around to see the oddest creature she could ever remember seeing. He was dressed all in close-fitting black.
His skin was pale, and he had goggling, yellow-green eyes. He wore a close-fitting cap that made his long pointed ears all
the more obvious, and stood in a half crouch, rubbing his hands together.

“Who’re you?” Morgan said belligerently. Whoever he was, she was certain he’d only come here to make fun of her. She knew
what she looked like—an ugly woman whom no one wanted, wearing a shabby, badly-made gown. Her hands clutched the kitestring
tightly.

“Don’t you remember me?” the stranger said. “I used to visit you when you were very young. …”

He turned around, and suddenly he was a tall blond man, too handsome to be real, in a flowing
white shirt. His long blond hair floated in the breeze and there was a laughing devil in his gaze.

“Fair lady!” he cried, saluting her.

There were several barrels on the landing that were in the process of being winched up into a tower from the landing stage
below. With a carefree laugh, he kicked the one still roped to the pulley over the side, and grabbed the other end of the
rope. As the barrel fell, it became a counterweight to raise him to the highest tower of Tintagel. Drawing his sword, the
swashbuckler capered back and forth, doing battle against imaginary foes while Morgan laughed for joy.

“I wemember you!” she cried. “I thought you were a dweam!”

“I’m real,” Frik said, bowing and smiling from his perch upon the wall.

“You lied to me,” Morgan said accusingly. She remembered the nights of heartbreak that had followed her mother’s death, when
she had wept, not for Igraine, but for the dashing, magical cavalier who had never returned to keep his promises to her. “You
told me you’d make me beautiful and you never did.”

Frik pranced down the stairs until he stood before her.

“Did I?” he asked. “Then I will. But first you must put away childish things.” With a flick of his rapier, he severed the
kite string. With a cry of dismay, Morgan watched it sail away, off into the endless blue.

“Why so sad?” Frik asked. “It’s only a toy.”

Morgan turned back. She flinched when she saw that Frik was holding out a mirror, then approached it, breathless with hope.

Her heart sank when she saw her reflection—marred, bucktoothed, plain—but almost before she could register her disappointment
the image began to change, as if the morning mists were vanishing to reveal the beautiful golden face of the sun, and what
appeared was almost too dazzling to behold.

“I’m beautiful!” Morgan gasped. She snatched the mirror from Frik’s hand and inspected herself closely.

Everything had changed. Her straight mouse-brown hair was now piled high upon her head in a mass of auburn ringlets, her teeth
were even and white, and her
face
… her face was beautiful, her eyes perfect, her muddy, spotty skin a rich cream, her new beauty expertly enhanced with cosmetics.

“Very, very beautiful,” Frik agreed proudly. “I think clothes cut in the Roman style are the only gowns for a lady of fashion.”

Gone, too, Morgan realized, was the dowdy makeshift dress she had been wearing only a moment ago. In its place was a glorious
sky-blue gown trimmed in gold.

She was beautiful. More than that, she was perfect. He’d done all he’d promised, and more than she’d dared dream of asking
for.

“It’s wonderful,” Morgan whispered. “Now get me the thwone!” she demanded abruptly.

Frik looked regretful. “That’s beyond my powers,” he said. He put an arm about her shoulders, leading her back into the castle.
“But I do have one or two other little tricks that I’d be delighted to show you. …”

* * *

Humans, Frik mused, were very strange. Take Morgan, for example. He’d showed up after a particularly long absence to grant
a simply enormous number of her dearest wishes, and did she think to ask him why? Certainly not. She simply took all his gifts
and never asked what he might ask in payment.

It hadn’t taken Frik long to remember Morgan when Mab gave him the task of discrediting Arthur. With the power of the Old
Ways waning so disastrously, Frik had known he’d need a mortal ally. And Morgan had always been so ambitious. …

For hours the two of them wandered through Tintagel, transforming the castle from a barren hulk to the most opulent palace
Morgan could imagine. Frik filled rooms with exquisite furniture, closets with beautiful gowns, and chests with jewels. It
was all trickery, of course, but it
looked
real, and Frik suspected that Morgan didn’t care about anything beyond appearances.

Last of all, they reached the Great Hall. With a wave of his hand, Frik covered the walls with banners and the floors with
furs. He lit a crackling fire in the great fireplace at one end of the hall, and with a gesture covered the table with a rich
cloth, brilliant candles, and a lavish banquet served up on plates of pure gold—all stolen from others, as illusory food wasn’t
very tasty. For an encore, he created a throne at the far end of the table, a throne big enough for two. Seated beside his
creation, Frik exerted himself to the utmost to charm her. His plan was to lull any inconvenient mortal scruples she might
have, but Frik was already beginning to suspect that Morgan didn’t have any.

Still, the wine was good. And having someone
look at him adoringly made quite a welcome change from Her Majesty’s tantrums. Morgan hung upon his every word, delighted
to hear everything Frik could tell her about the Land of Magic and its enchanted inhabitants.

“I can tell you from personal experience: elves are so short, when it rains they’re the last to know,” Frik murmured confidingly.

Morgan gazed at him for a startled moment, then she got the joke and went off into gales of tipsy laughter.

“Stop enjoying yourself and get on with it!” a too-familiar voice hissed. Frik jumped, staring down at his winecup. Mab’s
face appeared as one of the four ornamental faces on the cup’s outer rim. The tiny golden face was contorted in an expression
of wrath. A moment later, it was gone.

Frik sighed inwardly. He always hated this part. If it was hard, it was a lot of work, and if it was easy, it was somehow
disappointing. Broodingly, the transformed gnome got to his feet and began to pace.

“I’ve been thinking, Morgan,” he said, as though it had just occurred to him. “There
might
be a way of giving you what you want. Your
son
could be king.”

“Well, how?” Morgan said blankly. Her speech impediment had been the last thing to fade, but now she possessed no more than
a charming lisp. “If Arthur defeats Lord Lot he’ll be king. And I can’t marry him.” Her voice held a faintly aggrieved tone
as she crossed the room to join him.