The blow sent the small nosferatu sprawling across the flagstones. One of the Highlanders bent down and, grasping Morbius by the collar, hauled him to his feet, and maybe the judgment of his lord, but while he was nursing the pains in his head and hip, he, too, was blessed with a saving distraction.
Taliesin ripped the membrane.
Fingers split the sticky elastic film, and a seemingly human right hand thrust itself free, glistening wetly in the concentration of light. The body inside the glutinous sac summoned up a mighty heave, and an entire arm and shoulder burst free. Fenrior looked quickly to Callowglass. “Bring the lasers up to power.”
“They a’ready are, m’ lord.”
“What would I do without you?”
“Sometimes I wonder.”
The Urshu’s left hand had now reached around and tugged at the hole created by the right arm and shoulder. Ducking and butting it pushed its head loose. The membrane, once breached, seem to tear more and more easily. Marieko had heard the word
lasers
, but hadn’t understood what Fenrior meant. The Urshu was now up on its knees clawing the membrane down over its chest. Fenrior gestured to Gallowglass. “Fire on my signal, but not before.”
Gallowglass. “Aye. I hear ye.”
Enlightenment dawned on Marieko, and it was immediately followed by an intense anger. Fenrior intended to use lasers to destroy the Urshu, presumably if he decided it was dangerous or unmanageable. The idea of casually cutting up so unique a being on nothing more than some antiquated feudal lord’s order struck her as so fundamentally ignorant and immoral. “You fool, you can’t kill him!”
Marieko had little or no idea what she intended to do when she launched herself at Fenrior. She only knew she had to stop him from killing the Merlin. That Goneril was able to block her was probably her salvation. As she staggered to one side, Fenrior spun round. “You dare to call me a fool deep inside my own castle?”
Marieko leaned on a pillar and pushed herself upright. Fenrior loomed over her, but she could only point at Taliesin. “Just look at it! It’s beautiful! He’s more than all of us put together.”
“Fahg alsi hudi ilanit ilani ill-ia. Salalu kallatum rabuti, Tezcatilpoca-he?
”
Renquist stood stunned at the silent center of chaos. He had become the eye of the storm. On his left, Fenrior and Marieko wrestled and screamed at each other. Gallowglass stood at the laser controls ready to slice the Urshu into superanimate fillets, while on his right, the Merlin spoke demandingly to him in a language he couldn’t understand.
“Salalu kallatum rabuti, Tezcatilpoca-he? Tezcatilpoca-he?”
Only he
could
understand it! He was hearing a mutilated version of the Old Speech, more complicated, a larger vocabulary, more intricate verb and sentence structures. He knew in an instant what it was. The nosferatu Old Speech was the military form, tailored to the Original Beings. Taliesin was speaking the version of the Urshu. Most probably the purist form of the language the Nephilim had imposed on their creations. Feeling uncomfortably like an unversed hick, Renquist attempted to reply. No, the Merlin had not woken among the followers of Tezcatilpoca, but perhaps their distant descendants.
“Mensushu kalatum alsi adani-ia rabuti, Tezcatilpoca
.
Nee habbi nabbut sallalkm.”
He hoped from the Merlin’s response to glean how much had been retained and how much had been lost in the translation. Unfortunately, at the same time, Fenrior had hurled Marieko to the ground, and was simultaneously signaling to Gallowglass at the controls of the lasers. Renquist’s only option was to scream. “Don’t fire! I can handle this! Whatever you do, don’t fire!”
Fenrior ignored him. “Are you ready, Gallowglass?”
“Aye.”
“NO!”
Renquist’s shout was enough to stay Gallowglass’s hand despite the orders of his laird, but Taliesin speaking immediately afterwards, in perfectly modulated English,
also had its effect. “Don’t kill me yet, Lord Fenrior. Believe me, there is much I can teach you.”
The Merlin stood upright, naked, superior, and proud. He was slim, slight, beautiful, idealized and golden, and Renquist realized to his amazement that what he was seeing was an idealized version of the young David Bowie. Where could the Merlin access not only a memory but a highly romanticized memory of a performer of the 1970s? It made no sense, and apparently made no sense to the others in the room, except he could see some of the Highlanders were fighting down a primitive fear. That the Urshu was speaking English completed the puzzle for Renquist. The Merlin had swallowed Columbine Dashwood whole. He had her language centers, her memory, and for all Renquist knew, a huge amount of extraneous nonsense. Taliesin had used Columbine to power himself up, and this also may well have meant the Merlin had treated himself to a major inoculation of the imprecise, the greedy, the shallow, and the pragmatically devious. The David Bowie figure gave it all away. It was one of the outward appearances Columbine favored in her young human playthings, and Taliesin could only have taken it directly from whatever might be left of her.
The Merlin must have somehow sensed from Renquist or one of the others that he had chosen the wrong disguise. What might be appealing to the last shards of Columbine Dashwood’s taste and personality would hardly pass as plausible with Renquist, Fenrior, Marieko, or the Highlanders. The gold tarnished to a more realistic aura. The body broadened and the look quickly became less than narcissistically perfect, character built quickly in the face, until it was aged, wise, all-knowing, and yet infinitely compassionate. The hair grew long and white and cascaded down the Urshu’s back. Bushy eyebrows formed as a thatch above tired eyes that had seen it all, and the hands grew larger and more capable. All in all, the Urshu had redesigned and transformed himself into
something very close to what he’d been previously: the Merlin of lay and legend, folklore and the classics, Tennyson, Malory, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. With this one initial error, however, he had demonstrated, at least to Renquist, the surface had very little to do with what lay beneath.
Taliesin’s conversion to his more traditionally accepted outward appearance also brought an infusion of calm to the room. The Highlander’s released Morbius, Goneril lowered her sword, Marieko crawled to a safe distance from Fenrior and got back to her feet. Fenrior himself turned and faced the Merlin. “You are Taliesin the Merlin?”
“I was once.”
“I am Fenrior of Fenrior.”
“That much I already know.”
Renquist felt it was time to interpose a question, and also that he should formulate the question in a way that told the others something of the nature of the being with which they were now dealing. “You have read our memories already?”
The Merlin stared at Renquist, smiling indulgently, but at the same time, Renquist could feel himself being assessed as a potential adversary. “Only that of Columbine Dashwood.”
“Are you aware you totally destroyed her? You reduced her to ash.”
The Merlin looked mildly regretful. “That was unfortunate.”
Marieko was unwilling to let the Merlin off so lightly. “Unfortunate? Did you hear what Victor said? You destroyed her. You destroyed her immortality.”
The Merlin tried for a little more sincerity in his regret. “I wasn’t aware I was dealing with the more than mortal. As I said, that was unfortunate. But there must always be at least one sentient being sacrificed each time I wake. It’s an unavoidable dictate of my survival. The kindling spark that empowers me has to be taken from
another. You people … what do you call yourselves? You nosferatu? You should fully comprehend that kind of need.”
The Highlanders and technicians had now mostly recovered from the shock that had started with the rising of the Urshu and culminated in the wasting of Columbine. They didn’t, however, return to their posts, but continued to stand and stare at the principal players. Only Gallowglass still manned the bank of lasers that were Fenrior’s fail safe. “D’ ye still wan’ me t’ use these m’ lord?”
Fenrior quickly shook his head. As far as Renquist could tell, the laird had done a complete about-face in his attitude to the Merlin, and now only acted anxious to please. “No, Gallowglass. You can power down. For now, Taliesin the Merlin is the guest of Fenrior and will be extended all the formal courtesies.”
The Merlin gestured to his total state of undress. “Perhaps the formal courtesies should start with giving me something to wear. I know we come into this world naked, but I feel at something of a disadvantage.”
“Damn me! Will you look at that?” Without thinking, Destry had slammed on the brakes of the horse box. Both she and Julia were tossed forward, and from behind them, Dormandu protested angrily. The great Uzbek stallion had been cooped up for far too long and was building a head of wrathful steam. Right at that moment, though, her prized mount was not her first consideration. The loch on the far side of the Castle Fenrior seemed to be on fire from beneath. The valley was lit up with a submarine aurora glowing from the bottom of the loch; indistinct hallucinatory objects and shapeless hostile things swam around it, and in the middle of the bright but sluggish vortex was the unique emptiness left by the passing of a nosferatu. “I think something’s happened to Columbine. I can’t feel her anymore.”
Julia continued to stare at the psychic flares in the
depths of the loch. “I think we should leave the horse box right here.”
Destry bridled. “I’m not leaving Dormandu.”
“I didn’t say anything about leaving Dormandu. Just the horse box. I don’t want to drive up to the gates of Fenriòr with everyone inside alerted and waiting for us. We’ll go the rest of the way quietly and on foot.”
“We’re going on?”
Julia sighed. “Do we have any choice?”
Moving the horse box off the road, calming and then saddling Dormandu, and selecting essentials from their luggage that might be easily carried without making either themselves or the horse unwieldy beasts of burden consumed ten or fifteen minutes, and then Destry and Julia set off on what surely had to be the final leg of their journey. The narrow road zigzagged down the side of the glen leading to a village on the lakeshore before it turned into the causeway and bridge that would bring a traveler to the castle. Destry sniffed the air and used her deep vision. “Humans in the village?”
“We knew Fenrior maintained a reserve of humans. Did you think he kept them in hutches like tame rabbits?”
“Do you think they pose any kind of problem?”
Julia laughed. “Everything else we encounter seems to pose a problem, but logically they shouldn’t be a source of trouble. They should be accustomed to the nocturnal comings and goings of nosferatu. Unless, of course, Fenrior has trained them as watchdogs, the way some cultures use geese.”
Destry managed to smile ruefully. “But the only way to find out is to keep going and see what happens?”
“You said it, sweetheart.”
And so Destry and Julia continued on down the hill, two females leading a huge black horse.
“You say Arthur died in 539?”
“As the Christian priests calculated time.”
Gallowglass sniffed. “They still calculate i’ th’ same way. Th’ bastards ha’ a lock on th’ calendar, an’ tha’s not all, by a long sight.”
Taliesin looked shocked. “Christianity still survives?”
“It not only survives. It grows and prospers and becomes more blasphemously absurd year by year.”
The Merlin shook his head. “I never understood how Christianity managed to take and maintain such a hold. As a religion, it seemed so damned … nebulous.”
Renquist laughed. “Its strength has always been in its nebulousness. The Christians have been able to adapt to anything, most recently they began to use television to spread their poison. They’re also able to justify any atrocity in the name of their God, from the Crusades to the Inquisition and witch-burning, to the military-industrial complex and nuclear weapons. When a priest can bless an atom bomb, you know he’ll bless anything.”
Marieko felt the need to interject. “Of course, we are maybe not the most objective observers of the Christian religion. It is, after all, totally dedicated to our complete annihilation.”
Taliesin rolled his eyes as if it were all too much for him. “I have a great deal of history to learn.”
He was now comfortably dressed in a white kimono with gold trim, and Turkish slippers, and had started to look a little priestly himself. Dressing the Merlin had not been easy. He had refused a plaid to which he was not entitled. He appeared under the illusion that the whole world operated on the same principles as the Castle Fenrior, and plaids had a universal significance. He obviously knew nothing of golfers, grunge rockers, soccer hooligans, or horse blankets. The net result was that none of the Highlander’s clothing was acceptable. The Merlin was approximately the same height as Fenrior, but his broader chest and greater girth precluded very much borrowing from the lord’s extensive wardrobe. After some searching and assistance from the Lady Gethsemany, the kimono had been brought out, a gift from
some visiting Japanese undead, descendants of the Kenzu, Marieko suspected.