Norton, Andre - Merlin' s mirror

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file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Merlin's%20Mirror.txt

•^^^^^^vM^wff^r^t^M'f^f^rf^^rf^r^f^^f^f^f^f^ffff^f^y

The beacon still called from deep within the rough-

walled fastness of the cave. Its message was fainter now.

Each planet year had put more strain upon this mecha-

nism, though its creators had attempted to make it ever-

lasting. They believed they had foreseen every eventuality.

They had—except the weakness within their own rule and

the nature of the world from which the beacon called.

Time had been swallowed, was gone, and still the beacon

kept to its task, while outside the cave nations had risen

and decayed, men themselves had changed and changed

again. Everything the makers of the beacon had known

was erased during those years, destroyed by the very ac-

tion of nature. Seas swept in upon the land, then retired,

the force of their waves taking whole cities and countries.

Mountains reared up, so that the shattered remains of

once-proud ports were lifted into the thin air of great

heights. Deserts crept in over green fields. A moon fell

from the sky and another took its place.

Still the beacon called and called, summoning those who

had vanished and left behind only legends, strange, time-

distorted tales. And now there was another period of cha-

otic darkness in the affairs of men. An empire had crashed

under its own unwieldy weight and the strain of years.

Barbarians ravaged, picking its carcass like vultures. Fire

and sword, death and the living death of slavery marched

across the land. And yet the beacon called.

Its heart-fires were dim now. From time to time the call

faltered, as a man in mortal danger might gasp for breath

between shouts for aid.

Then that call, so faint now, was finally heard far out in

space. A strange arrow of metal caught the impulse, and

deep in this ship's heart installations which had been silent

and unresponding for centuries were activated. The arrow

6 Andre Norton

altered course, using the beam of the call as a line to draw

itself down.

There was no living thing aboard that ship. It had been

devised with desperate hope by entities close to the extinc-

tion of all they held important, more important than their

own lives. They had sent six such arrows of life into the

void, their only desire being that at least one of the search-

ers might find a goal their records said existed. Then

they were overrun by their enemies.

Relay after relay clicked into life without a quiver of

fault as the arrow sped toward earth. It represented the

fruits of a thousand years of experimentation,'the highest

triumph of a race which had once traveled the starlanes

with the ease of men walking familiar paths on brown

earth. Made for one duty alone, it was now about to go

into the action for which it was programmed.

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It smoothly shifted into orbit about the planet and

prepared to descend in answer to the beacon call. As it

flashed across the sky men below watched its passage with

primitive awe. The knowledge which had once been theirs

was long since buried in myth.

Some cringed in skin tents as their shamans beat drums

and howled strange guttural chants. Others stared wide-

eyed and spoke of shooting stars which could be omens of

good or evil. It neared the mountain where the cave of

the beacon was hidden, then it broke apart.

The husk which had carried the so-precious cargo

through space opened and from it issued other objects.

They did not plunge instantly into the sea which was now

fast coming under the arrow; they spun away rather, as if

with volition of their own, winging for a mountainside.

They hovered for an instant or two in the air before

drifting easily to the ground. And if anyone in those

heights witnessed this, he did not speak of it again. These

particles were protected by a distortion of the fields of vis-

ibility. The makers had taken all precautions they could

foresee to protect their project.

Once on earth the jumble of objects produced append-

ages of their own and crawled steadily, with a mindless

need to unite with the failing power of the beacon. They

made their way into the cave.

In some places it was necessary to enlarge the passage-

way and that, too, had been foreplanned. But at length

they were all sheltered in the depths about the beacon,

MERLIN'S MIRROR 7

where they proceeded to go to work. Some of them cut

bases in the rock, settling themselves in with cable roots

from which they could never be' torn. Others rose from

the surface of the cave, hovering back and forth like great

mindless insects, except that they trailed coils of communi-

cating wire from one based installation to the next.

Within a space of time which they had no reason to

measure the net was complete; they were ready to begin

the work for which they had been programmed. If this

world had not been receptive there would have been no

beacon. Therefore, in the memory banks of the largest of

the based machines lay information that a systematic sam-

pling would bring into use.

One of the hovering fliers swung to the entrance of the

cave, sped outside. There was no moon that night; clouds

hung heavy in the sky. The flying thing was not much

larger than an eagle, and its distort had gone into action

when it had emerged in the open. Now it began to scout

in ever-widening circles, the photoeye it carried sending a

stream of reports back to the cave.

There was a dusting of snow on the heights and the

winds were sharp and cold, though the flying thing noted

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temperature only as another fact to be transmitted.

The fire in the center of the clan house was high. From

the balcony which circled the sleeping family rooms, Brig-

itta could look down at the men gathered below on bench-

es. The mingled smell of stable, cow byre, woodsmoke,

food and drink was as thick as the smoke. Yet there was a

solid, secure feeling when the clan house was closed at

night against the outer dark, when the hum of voices

flowed from chamber to chamber on the upper floor.

Brigitta shivered and drew her cloak closer about her

shoulders. This was Samain, the time between one year

and the next. Now the doors between this world and the

Dark could open, and demons could caper through or

crawl malevolently to attack man. There was safety here

by the cheer of fire, in the voices she could hear, the snort

of one of the horses stabled in the outermost circle of

stalls below. She picked up the tankard she had set on the

bench beside her and sipped at the barley ale it contained,

making a little face at its bitter taste but relishing the

warmth within her when she swallowed.

There were other women on the balcony benches, but

8 Andre Norton

none shared hers. Brigitta was the chief's daughter and so

took honor here. When the flames flickered they caught

the gold bracelet on her arm, the wide plaque necklace of

amber and bronze lying on her breast. Her red-brown hair

flowed free, nearly touching the floor behind her as she

sat, its color contrasting pleasantly with the strong blue of

her cloak, the embroidered length of the saffron yellow

robe beneath.

She was arrayed for a feast, yet this was no true. feast.

She bitterly resented the news which had drawn the men to

council and left the women to watch and yawn, gossip a

little. It was even stale gossip, for they had been together

for so long now that there was nothing new to say about

each other or events.

Brigitta moved restlessly. War—war with the Winged

Hats—that was all a man could think about. There was

little betrothing or marrying nowadays. And she was

growing older with every moon. Yet her father had not

singled out any lord for her. There was gossip behind

hands about that also, as. well she knew. If they had not

already, in time they would give her some flaw of tongue

or mind which would turn possible suitors from the door.

War. Brigitta gritted her teeth and the look with which

she regarded the company below had little kindness in it.

Man thought of fighting first and always. What^did it mat-

ter if the invaders crept along valleys miles away? What

difference should it make to the people of Nyren, safe in

their upland fortress? And now this babbling about the

evils wrought by the High King. She drank again.

So he had put aside his wife to wed the daughter of the

Saxon overlord.... Brigitta wondered what the new queen

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looked like. Vortigen was old; he had grown sons who

would be quick to raise sword for their shamed mother. A

messenger had brought the news that they were summon-

ing near and far kin to that very effort now. But the Sax-

ons would form a shield wall for the new queen, too. It

was all war! She could not remember back to a time when

there was not the clang of weapons about the clan house.

She need only raise her head a little to see the line of

weather-cleaned skulls set along the roof eaves above, the

spoils of wars and past raids.

She did not think that Nyren would have much sympa-

thy for the High King. Ten days ago another messengei

had ridden in to be received with a far warmer welcome: a

MERLIN'S MIRROR 9

lean, dark man with cleanly shaved face, wearing the

breastplate and helmet of the Emperor's men. The Em-

peror was long gone, though it was said that emperors still

ruled overseas. But the Imperial Eagles had been lost

from this land since her father was young,

It seemed that at least one leader still believed in the

Emperor. The dark man had come from him to ask Ny-

ren's men for his war banner, just as the messenger who

had spoiled the feast tonight. That one had had a strange,

tongue-twisting name, after the style of the Romans. Brig-

itta said it aloud now, proud that she knew enough of the

old speech to say it properly.

"Ambrosius Aurelianus." She added the equally strange

title he held, for he did not claim any kingdom, Dux Bri-

tanniae. Lugaid had said it meant Leader of Britain in the

other tongue. It was a lot for a man to claim when half

the land was filled with Vortigen's new kin, the Winged

Hats from overseas.

Her father had been schooled at Aquae Sulis in the old

days when the Emperor Maximus had ruled not only Brit-

ain, but half the lands overseas. He remembered how it

was when there was peace and one only had to fear the

Scotti raids or trouble along the border. So he was one

who had inclined to the Roman, one of those Vortigen

had hunted out of the cities because the High King feared

their influence.

Thus Nyren had returned to the clanship of his fathers,

had drawn around him those of kin blood. Perhaps he had

only been waiting ... Brigitta sipped her ale again. Her

father was one who kept his own counsel, even among the

kin.

She studied him now where he sat in the high seat of

the clan house. Though he wore the dress of the hills it

was in more somber colors than that of the men around

him. His tunic of fine linen had been worked by her own

hands with a pattern copied from an old vase, a wreathing

of leaves in threads of gilt and green. His trousers were of

dark red, his cloak of the same shade. Only the wide

torque of gold about his throat, the two brand-bracelets on

his wrists and the seal ring on his forefinger, equaled in

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splendor the ornaments of his fellows,

Yet he held authority among them, and no man enter-

ing the clan house and setting eyes on Nyren need ask

who was chief in this place. Brigitta felt the swell of pride

10 Andre Norton

as she watched him now, displaying not a flicker of emo-

tion as he listened with surface courtesy to the words'of

the High King's messenger, who was leaning forward,

plainly ill at ease as he tried to impress this small chief, as

the High King might rate Nyren.

But the influence of the lord of this clan reached

beyond the walls of his kin house and many among the

hills listened closely to any words of his. For his wisdom

was great and he was a wily and successful raider and war

leader. He might have called himself king, after the fash-

ion of others hereabouts, but he did not choose to do so.

Brigitta stirred again impatiently. She wished that her

father might speedily send the High King's man about his

business, that they might feast at their ease with no trou-

bling from the world outside on this night.

She could catch the roar of the wind above the sounds

of the court hall below. There was a storm, and a storm

on this night was unlucky. It might well carry the hosts of

the Dark to wreak their evil will on men.

Now she looked for Lugaid where he sat near her fa-

ther. He had the old knowledge and he had set up the

spirit protections about them this night. Though his un-

shaved beard was white, his lean body was not stooped,

nor did he have the signs of age about him. His white

robe was bright in the firelight and one thin hand stroked

his beard absentmindedly as he, too, listened to Vortigen's

man.

The Romans had striven to stamp out the old knowl-

edge and while they were in power men such as Lugaid

had moved secretly, keeping to their own silences. Now

they were honored once more among the kin and their

words were listened to. Brigitta doubted that Lugaid

would favor the High King, for he and his kind held the

ancient mysteries of this land and they liked the Winged

Hats no better than they had the Romans.

The ale was strong and made her a little dizzy. She

shoved the tankard aside, her eyes now drowsily watching

the play of the flames on the great hearth below. In and

out they danced, swifter, more gracefully, wilder than any

maid could weave her way across the grass on Beltaine

Eve. In and out. . . . Now the wind was roaring so loud

she could hardly catch more than an echo of the murmur

from below.

MERLIN'S MIRROR 11

It was dull anyway. This feast which had promised so

much in the way of excitement had been spoiled by the

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file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Merlin's%20Mirror.tx\t1.•^^^^^^vM^wff^r^t^M'f^f^rf^^rf^r^f^^f^f^f^f^ffff^f^yThebeaconstillcalledfromdeepwithintherough-walledfastnessofthecave.Itsmessagewasfainternow.Eachplanetyearhadputmorestrainuponthismecha-nism,thoughitscreatorshadattemptedtom...

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