‘Nimue,’ I said at one point, ‘will bring the Gods back?’
‘That is why she has taken my mind, Derfel,’ Merlin said.
‘Will she succeed?’
‘A good question! An excellent question. A question I ask myself constantly.’ He sat and hugged his bony knees. ‘I lacked the nerve, didn’t I? I betrayed myself. But Nimue won’t. She will go to the bitter end, Derfel.’
‘But will she succeed?’
‘I would like to have a cat,’ he said after a while. ‘I do miss cats.’
‘Tell me about the summoning.’
‘You know it all already!’ he said indignantly. ‘Nimue will find Excalibur, she will fetch poor Gwydre, and the rites will be done properly. Here, on the mountain. But will the Gods come? That is the question, isn’t it? You worship Mithras, don’t you?’
‘I do, Lord.’
‘And what do you know of Mithras?’
‘The God of soldiers,’ I said, ‘born in a cave. He is the God of the sun.’
Merlin laughed. ‘You know so little! He is the God of oaths. Did you know that? Or do you know the grades of Mithraism? How many grades do you have?’ I hesitated, unwilling to reveal the secrets of the mysteries. ‘Don’t be absurd, Derfel!’ Merlin said, his voice as sane as it had ever been in all his life.
‘How many? Two? Three?’
‘Two, Lord.’
‘So you’ve forgotten the other five! What are your two?’
‘Soldier and Father.’
‘‘ Miles and Pater, they should be called. And once there were also Leo, Corax, Perses, Nymphus and Heliodromus. How little you know of your miserable God, but then, your worship is a mere shadow worship. Do you climb the seven-runged ladder?’
‘No, Lord.’
‘Do you drink the wine and bread?’
‘That is the Christian way, Lord,’ I protested.
‘The Christian way! What halfwits you all are! Mithras’s mother was a virgin, shepherds and wise men came to see her newborn child, and Mithras himself grew to become a healer and a teacher. He had twelve disciples, and on the eve of his death he gave them a final supper of bread and wine. He was buried in a rock tomb and rose again, and he did all this long before the Christians nailed their God to a tree. You let the Christians steal your God’s clothes, Derfel!’
I gazed at him. ‘Is this true?’ I asked him.
‘It is true, Derfel,’ Merlin said, and raised his ravaged face to the crude bars. ‘You worship a shadow God. He is going, you see, just as our Gods are going. They all go, Derfel, they go into the void. Look!’
He pointed up into the clouded sky. ‘The Gods come and the Gods go, Derfel, and I no longer know if they hear us or see us. They pass by on the great wheel of heaven and now it is the Christian God who rules, and He will rule for a while, but the wheel will also take Him into the void and mankind will once again shiver in the dark and look for new Gods. And they will find them, for the Gods come and they go, Derfel, they go and they come.’
‘But Nimue will turn the wheel back?’ I asked.
‘Perhaps she will,’ Merlin said sadly, ‘and I would like that, Derfel. I would like to have my eyes back, and my youth, and my joy.’ He rested his forehead on the bars. ‘I will not help you break the enchantment,’ he said softly, so softly I almost did not hear him. ‘I love Ceinwyn, but if Ceinwyn must suffer for the Gods, then she is doing a noble thing.’
‘Lord,’ I began to plead.
‘No!’ He shouted so loudly that in the encampment behind us some dogs howled in reply. ‘No,’ he said more quietly. ‘I compromised once and I will not compromise again, for what was the price of compromise? Suffering! But if Nimue can perform the rites, then all our suffering will be done. Soon be done. The Gods will return, Ceinwyn will dance and I shall see.’
He slept for a while and I slept too, but after a time he woke me by putting a claw-like hand through the bars and seizing my arm. ‘Are the guards asleep?’ he asked me.
‘I think so, Lord.’
‘Then look for the silver mist,’ he whispered to me.
I thought for a heartbeat he had slipped back into madness. ‘Lord?’ I asked him.
‘I sometimes think,’ he said, and his voice was quite sane, ‘that there is only so much magic left on the earth. It fades like the Gods fade. But I did not give Nimue everything, Derfel. She thinks I did, but I saved one last enchantment. And I have worked it for you and for Arthur, for you two I loved above all men. If Nimue fails, Derfel, then look for Caddwg. You remember Caddwg?’
Caddwg was the boatman who had rescued us from Ynys Trebes so many years before, and the man who had hunted Merlin’s piddocks. ‘I remember Caddwg,’ I said.
‘He lives at Camlann now,’ Merlin said in a whisper. ‘Look for him, Derfel, and seek the silver mist. Remember that. If Nimue fails and horror comes, then take Arthur to Camlann, find Caddwg and look for the silver mist. It is the last enchantment. My last gift to those who were my friends.’ His fingers tightened on my arm. ‘Promise me you will seek it?’
‘I shall, Lord,’ I promised him.
He seemed relieved. He sat for a time, clutching my arm, then sighed. ‘I wish I could come with you. But I can’t.’
‘You can, Lord,’ I said.
‘Don’t be absurd, Derfel. I am to stay here and Nimue will use me one last time. I might be old, blind, half mad and nearly dead, but there is still power in me. She wants it.’ He uttered a horrid little whimper.
‘I cannot even weep any longer,’ he said, ‘and there are times when all I wish to do is weep. But in the silver mist, Derfel, in that silver mist, you will find no weeping and no time, just joy.’
He slept again, and when he woke it was dawn and Olwen had come for me. I stroked Merlin’s hair, but he was gone into the madness again. He yapped like a dog, and Olwen laughed to hear it. I wished there had been something I could give him, some small thing to give him comfort, but I had nothing. So I left him, and took his last gift with me even though I did not understand what it was; the last enchantment. Olwen did not take me back by the same path that had brought me to Nimue’s encampment, but instead led me down a steep combe, and then into a dark wood where a stream tumbled between rocks. It had begun to rain and our path was treacherous, but Olwen danced ahead of me in her damp cloak. ‘I like the rain!’ she called out to me once.
‘I thought you liked the sun,’ I said sourly.
‘I like both, Lord,’ she said. She was her usual merry self, but I scarcely listened to most of what she said. I was thinking of Ceinwyn, and of Merlin, and of Gwydre and Excalibur. I was thinking that I was in a trap, and I saw no way out. Must I choose between Ceinwyn and Gwydre? Olwen must have guessed what I was thinking because she came and slipped her arm through mine. ‘Your troubles will soon be over, Lord,’ she said comfortingly.
I took my arm away. ‘They are just beginning,’ I said bitterly.
‘But Gwydre won’t stay dead!’ she said encouragingly. ‘He will lie in the Cauldron, and the Cauldron gives life.’ She believed, but I did not. I still believed in the Gods, but I no longer believed we could bend them to our will. Arthur, I thought, had been right. It is to ourselves we must look, not to the Gods. They have their own amusements, and if we are not their toys, then we should be glad. Olwen stopped beside a pool under the trees. ‘There are beavers here,’ she said, staring at the rain-pitted water, and when I said nothing she looked up and smiled. ‘If you keep walking down the stream, Lord, you will come to a track. Follow it down the hill and you will find a road.’