“You’ve shown they can die. That matters. You’ve broken the myth, and that’s why they hunt you the way they do. They know your power even if you don’t.”
“But I can’t teach you magic. I don’t know any. Mostly, the voices come to me uninvited.”
A low whistle drew their attention. Far ahead on the trail, the Faun held up a speckled polecat with an arrow through its neck. Morgan mimed applause as the Faun proudly slung the dead animal over his shoulders.
NINETEEN
MERLIN WAS HALF CARRIED AND half dragged by a mob of shrieking lepers into the cold and windswept ruins of the Valley of Maron, home to a Roman outpost that was now a sanctuary for the lawless, the abandoned, and the wretched. The marble skeletons of ancient temples stood as mute witnesses to the Fall of Man, embodied here in the valley. The Roman laws and codices had been reduced to ash over centuries of rampant barbarism. There were now only two kinds of men: the cruel and the afraid.
Which am I? he wondered.
A little of both, he decided.
The Leper King, on the other hand, was uniformly cruel and ruled the Valley of Maron as a criminal empire. By embracing the shunned and the forsaken, he had built a loyal army of spies, thieves, and assassins that reached from England to the Northern Monasteries and to the Viking strongholds of southern France. His private host was known as the Afflicted, and they were a force truly to be feared, acolytes who willingly offered their bodies to the leprosy as payment to the gods of dark magic in return for the Witch Sight. The cost to face and form was often uniquely gruesome.
A mob of lepers formed out of the mists, led by a crone who wore a cow skull over her ruined face: Kalek, the Leper King’s closest adviser. Merlin knew her by reputation. She lifted her right hand, a mottled stump but for a single, bony finger, and pointed at Merlin.
“You smell like a woman.” Her voice was low and gruff; an obstruction in her throat made her difficult to understand.
“That makes one of us,” Merlin answered. Scented oils were a must in the Valley of Maron, and Merlin made no apologies. “Will Rugen see me?”
“His Majesty,” Kalek corrected him.
“Of course.” Merlin bowed his head slightly. “Will His Majesty, the Leper King, grant his old friend Merlin an audience?” He smiled, and Kalek just stared back at him through her skull helm with a hateful bloodshot eye. Then, with a disgusted wave, the mob dragged Merlin deeper into the valley.
The Leper King had feathered his nest in a cave hewn out of the mountain wall by early Romans, once a part of a larger temple, now crumbled. One simply needed to follow the sloppy mounds of stolen treasure, heaping chests, gems, candlesticks, and torn tapestries that littered the cracked and faded tiles leading into the cave. Skin lanterns gave the cave a sleepy glow. The Leper King’s broad shadow fell across the walls.
Merlin was thrown onto the ground like a sack of grain, and the lepers retreated like phantoms into the darkness.
“I can walk, you know,” Merlin said, climbing to his feet and trying to swipe some of the filth from his robes.
There was a heavy breath as the Leper King shuffled with the slow lope of a great ape between the smoky lanterns to his wide bed of piled carpets. His heavy, misshapen head, tucked under a deep cowl, sat atop colossal shoulders. Rugen was nine feet high and weighed over a thousand pounds, a testament to the giant blood flowing in his veins.
“Merlin, my dear old friend, isn’t this a pleasant surprise.” Rugen’s voice was low thunder.
A leper girl, barely fourteen, her hands bloody with sores, offered Merlin a cup of thick wine, which he accepted as a courtesy.
The Leper King settled himself onto his carpets with effort. “I’m mortified by the rudeness of my ministers. Please accept my deepest apologies. That is no way to treat a man of your importance, an adviser to King Uther, no less.”
It hardly took a wizard to detect the glee beneath Rugen’s sanctimony.
“A trifle. Think nothing of it. I’m getting too easily roused in my old age. I blame the travel. The road does not agree with me anymore.”
“Nonsense, you look well. Healthy! But there’s no denying the world belongs to the young, eh?” Rugen’s hot breath puffed in the cold, damp air of the cave. He squeezed his enormous hands into rough, fingerless mittens. Like the other Afflicted, the king was missing several digits on each hand. “Drink, Merlin. This wine is my new favorite. That royal nose of yours might detect hints of cherry and Arabic spices.”
“You are a man of culture, as always.” Merlin smiled.
“And yet your lips are still dry.”
“Just letting it breathe.”
Rugen’s mouth twitched beneath his draping cowl. “This is an honor, a man of your station soiling those fine slippers to walk among the wretched and the unwashed. We are unworthy.”
“I have come here to apologize.” Merlin spread his hands.
“Really? What possibly for?” Rugen wore an innocent smile.
“I will be the first to admit, my leadership of the Shadow Lords has been wanting of late.”
“No, no, you’re too hard on yourself,” Rugen said, playing along.
“But I am here to set things right. To pay my respects, to—”
“You embarrass us, Merlin. How can something offend us that does not exist? The Shadow Lords have cast you out. You are a human spy and for years stole our secrets and fed them to an illegitimate king. You are long dead to us. And all besides, the myth of Merlin, it turns out, is entirely that: a myth.” Rugen’s enormous fingers played with a string on his carpet as he spoke. “After all, the rumors are you’ve lost your magic.”
“Is that what the Shadow Lords will be under your rulership? A knitting circle of idle gossips? Are you even capable of a mature negotiation? Have you no interest at all in what I have to offer?”
“I’ve lost the taste for your honeyed lies.”
“I can endorse your leadership,” Merlin said.
“Can you indeed?” Rugen smirked.
“The Shadow Lords have grown lazy and contented while a darkness has gathered in the south. If we are truly to guide the destinies of men, then we must reclaim our power. Now, I own my part in placing my hopes in the hearts of humankind. And I am here to set it right. Like me, you watch the skies. You have seen the omens. The Sword of Power has once again revealed itself. All the kings in Christendom are determined it go to them. I am determined it find its way to you.”
“To me?” the Leper King growled. “Not to Uther Pendragon? The monarch to whom you have sworn your allegiance?”
Merlin’s tone saddened. “Uther is merely warming the throne for a true king.”
The walls of the cave shook with the Leper King’s breathy laugh. “Such loyalty. Is this a question of his lineage? His temperament? Or because he’s cast you out as well?”
Merlin looked down at his boots. “It’s not that entirely—”
“Just some,” Rugen chuckled, “a touch. A smidge, eh? Just admit it, Merlin. You’re a drunk and a fool, not fit to serve even a bastard king like Uther.”
“It is true I am no longer welcome in Uther’s court.”