Cador shook his head to clear it. ‘Are you … are you Merlin?’
‘Very handsome. Not so bright. That took you an awfully long time.’ He held out a hand; his fingers ended with long yellow nails thick and curled as a crow’s talons. ‘Do we have a deal?’
‘Help now and help later.’
‘Yes, a good deal.’ Merlin wiggled his fingers.
Cador considered. ‘Can you tell my future?’
Merlin let his shoulders slump. The light in his eyes dimmed. ‘I could. But that is a terrible idea. Every fool wants to know their future and then, once they know it, they go on and try to change it. Well! Do you want to know? Or do you just want what you want?’
Cador scratched his nose once more. ‘I suppose I want what I want.’
‘Haw! Honest! And what do you want?’
‘Well, for myself, glory on the battlefield. A beautiful wife. Land – for, being a younger son, I have only a small holding of my own. And children.’ He paused. ‘But a true knight shouldn’t ask for himself. He should think of his king …’ Cador thought of King Evan for a moment. On second thoughts, King Evan did seem fine … ‘Or at least of other people. So, perhaps I could ask you to help my children. That’s my bargain – your aid, as you’ve offered, on two occasions, now and later, and that you will also be of help to my offspring.’ Cador finished with a flourish, proud of himself for thinking so thoroughly.
Merlin scratched at his stomach. ‘Mmmm. You want a lot. But you ask so nicely. Your offspring, eh? Help them?’ Skrtch, skrtch, he ran his long nails across his flesh. ‘Very well. On my honour as a wizard. I will do so. And enjoy it very much.’
Cador reached out and gripped Merlin’s hand. The wizard’s fingers clamped around his own, so tightly Cador could not pull away. Merlin stared into Cador’s eyes and once again, the young knight saw his reflection there, or, rather, his non-reflection. He could move neither his hand nor his gaze, but was utterly transfixed. His mind swirled in a flux of colours, and he felt himself grow dizzy, as if he was falling.
‘I can tell,’ the enchanter said, his voice clearer now, not the grating of a crow, but the mellow richness of a powerful man, ‘that you do want to know your future. You want a true prophecy of Merlin. So you shall have what you want: you will have One who will be Two. Your hand will cleave them and my hand will join them.’ Merlin released his grip, his voice returned to its disarming scratchiness and its hacking laugh. ‘Go on now. Haw! Isn’t there a dragon you ought to be battling?’
‘It’s a wyvern,’ Cador said, taking a staggering step, then steadying himself against an oak’s trunk.
‘Only an idiot would mistake a dragon for a wyvern. You need only to study its scales; if you see silver interlapped with green, it is a dragon. Only a fool would think otherwise. You had better get moving, young man.’
Reminded of his duty and suddenly aware of how long away he’d been from his king, Cador scarcely paused to say ‘thank you’ before vaulting onto his mount and sinking his spurs into Sleek’s sides. Off the horse leapt, back towards King Evan, back towards the wyvern or dragon or what-have-you. Away from the grove and the wizard.
It was only when the grove had disappeared that the strangeness of it all settled over him. He’d never heard of King Keredic. Or a place called Elmet. Had the old man played a trick on him?
He’d heard it said, never trust any wizard. And now that he was clear of the grove, the stories he’d heard about the old enchanter swam through his mind. King Evan was, after all, Arthur’s descendent, and bards loved to visit Winchester and tell tales of the Round Table or the story of how Merlin, racked with guilt over Arthur’s death, lost his mind, fled from court, and seduced a young woman, who imprisoned him in a tower. Or something like that. Cador was missing a few details. Truth be told, he felt a bit dizzy and now, in addition to worry about the dragon and his king, he worried that he oughtn’t to have tried to bargain with a wizard.
So addled was poor Cador by his time in the clearing that he lost the trail he’d been following and was forced to turn back, looking in vain for any mark of blood or sign of his earlier passage. But it was as if the forest had sprouted new, unbroken twigs, and let fall new, unblemished leaves. He drew Sleek to a halt and considered sounding his horn or crying out for help. In undergrowth this thick, the king’s camp could be twenty feet away and he wouldn’t know it. But to summon help because he was lost? Disgraceful. He’d never hear the end of it. He nudged Sleek to a walk and gave the horse his head, leaning forward to rub the creature’s ears – this horse could always find the way home. He settled into thoughts of Merlin.
And that was how he rode for over an hour, the sun now far past its zenith, and so he would have continued to ride had the scent not arrested him (more accurately, it arrested his horse, but I’ll give Cador some credit. As soon as the horse stopped, Cador noticed the scent). The scent. It reminded him of the rotting disease that once overtook the flocks that grazed near Winchester. The peasants had been forced to throw the many half-decayed sheep onto a massive pyre. There was that self-same acrid smell now, the stinging of burnt hair, and also the smell of utter putrescence (I doubt he knew that word, but I trust you, listener, to appreciate my use of it). He held a scented kerchief to his nose – for no knight as winsome as Cador is ever without a scented kerchief – and listened.
Quiet. A snapping sound, like that of a clumsy man making his way through the woods – but magnified. Snap. Snap. He squeezed Sleek’s sides with his knees, urging the horse forward. Ahead, the forest thinned and Cador rode to the last row of trees, their trunks wreathed with ropes of mistletoe. Below, a bowl-like depression opened, its sides and bottom charred soil, devoid of vegetative growth beyond a few stumps that were blackened with soot or rot. Opposite his position, halfway up the far side of the valley, a dark hole gaped. The opening was surrounded by a tumble of grey stones coated with lichen the colour of verdigris and a smattering of white sticks, sun-bleached dead wood.
Again, the snapping sound bounced across the empty space, and something white shot out of the hole before tumbling to rest by the pile of … not sticks. Not dead wood. But bones. A large pile of bones.
May the Good Lord have mercy.
The dragon’s lair. Cador breathed slowly. If he was very, very careful, he could walk around this lair and proceed to put a safe distance between himself and this dragon. Not that he was fleeing, no, a knight would never flee. He simply needed to return quickly to the king to give him this valuable information about the dragon’s location. He pushed back his fair hair and settled his helm; the metal squeezed against his temples, a reassuring pressure. Then he pulled on his gauntlets and with some difficulty (curse the dragon for taking their squires!) he strapped his shield to his arm, wishing he was wearing full plates of armour and not just this leather and mail, which now seemed rather piddling.
Sleek sensed his fear and stepped lightly, not breaking the slightest twig. Below, snap, snap, another bone shot out. Don’t look, he told himself. But he couldn’t help it. He let his shield drop a few inches and squinted through the visor of his helm. From amid the pile of rocks, a green snout appeared, blunt and ugly as a snake’s head. Massive. The head alone was as big as Cador’s torso. From this distance, only the length of a village green, he could see two nostrils, flat and sinister, and, worse, the mouth below, where now a tongue – grey but streaked red with blood and forked – darted out. It occurred to Cador with a panicked lurch that perhaps the dragon could smell him … and know he was there. Not a pleasant thought. He raised his shield once more, his other hand resting on the pommel of his sword, and squeezed Sleek’s sides with his knees.