Through eons of earth ages, I existed in my elemental wandering: without breath, without sight, without sense, a pure spirit pulled along by the slow circulation of Annwn's unseen ocean. Bereft of all volition, I moved where the currents moved me. I became light and tenuous as a single thought, possessing only a thought's ineluctable freedom.
In this way was Myrddin Emrys reduced and undone: I became nothing – less than nothing. Trackless was my journey, unknown and unbeheld by any save God alone. Outward and inward, drifting over broken vistas of the Underworld and my own arid soul – the two were one and the same to me. The darkness of the pit was my inner darkness, its emptiness my own. I was a ripple on the crest of a secret wave. I was a fleeting disturbance in the hidden deep.
I was nothing.
The silence of the tomb engulfed me – a stifling, suffocating quietude, solid as granite and as heavy. I shouted my name aloud in defiance, but my voice could not penetrate that dense oppression and the word fell at my feet like a bird, dead, from the sky. I felt the mass of this deadweight silence on my skin, as if I were immersed in an ocean of fire-thickened pitch.
I wandered I know not where, creeping with utmost care over a rough stone floor that slanted away from me, descending with every step, down and down and down into a darkness immense and greedy.
Occasionally, I passed a fissure where I glimpsed the dim flicker of lurid flames crackling up from a deep-chambered cell below. At one such crevice I felt the hot blast of vented gas – like the belch of a fire-throated dragon. The heat gust washed over me in a great hissing gasp. My eyes stung and nostrils burned with the acrid, sulphurous stink.
Tears streamed from my eyes; my nose ran and my breath came in racking gulps. Choking, gagging, I stumbled on, bowed by the rack in my lungs and the pain in my eyes, each step a cry of defiance. Gradually I came to feel the presence of another with me in the gallery, walking but a short distance ahead as it seemed to me. I say that I became aware of this presence, for I think the stranger had been with me from the first step, but I had been too absorbed in my own misery to perceive her.
Yes, I knew, as one knows in a dream, that a female presence went before me, leading me along the death-dark corridor, matching my steps with hers – stopping when I stopped, moving when I moved.
Once I stumbled and fell down on hands and knees. I heard the footsteps continue a little way ahead of me. 'Wait!' I shouted, lest I be left alone once more.
My voice struck the rock surface like the flat of a hand. But the steps ahead halted and then turned back. They came towards me. I heard the soft footfall return – closer, until the woman stood directly over me. Though I could not see her, I knew she was near.
'Please,' I said, 'wait but a little. Do not leave me here alone.'
I expected no reply from my phantom companion. Nevertheless, my plea was answered. 'Then get you up, Merlin,' the woman commanded sternly. 'Or I will leave you.'
That voice… I knew it!
'Ganieda! Is it you?'
The footsteps started away again. 'Wait! Please, wait!' I shouted, scrambling to my feet once more. 'Do not leave me, Ganieda!'
'I have never left you, my soul,' she answered, her voice echoing back to me from somewhere ahead. 'And I never will leave you. But you must hurry.'
I raised myself and lurched onward, desperate now. I must catch her! Dragging myself along, striking the solid jutting stone walls now and again with hands and arms and elbows… however fast I moved, she remained that many paces ahead of me; I could not gain so much as half a pace on my beloved guide.
I ran, growing breathless in the pursuit. My chest heaved with the effort, but I did not slacken my pace. Just when I thought I must faint, I felt cool, fresh air on my face and perceived a lightening of the darkness ahead – a slight but discernible greying of the all-pervading shadow in which I moved.
A dim, grey pall like false dawn hung over the room into which I stumbled. No more than a dozen paces ahead of me stood my beloved Ganieda. She appeared as she had on our wedding day: dressed in a fine white linen mantle with a golden bell on each and every tassel of her hem, her black hair brushed to shining and braided with silver threads, and on her fair brow a circlet of spring flowers. Folded over one shoulder, she wore a cloak of imperial purple and sky-blue check of the northern tribes, the folds fastened with a splendid golden brooch; gold bracelets and bands graced her slender wrists and arms, and white leather sandals held her feet.
All this I beheld with ease, for a light radiated from her, dim and diffuse, but distinct-as if her clothing glowed with a will-o'-the-wisp light. She gazed at me intently, her face at once severe and lovely, her hands clasped before her.
'Ganieda, you are -' I began, moving towards her.
She threw out a hand to halt me. 'Come no nearer!' she said harshly, then added in a softer tone, 'It is not permitted, best beloved.'
'Then why have you come? If we are not to be together -'
'Torment me not, beloved,' she said, and oh, I thought my heart would break. 'We will be together – that I promise you – but not yet, my soul, not yet. You must endure yet a little longer. Are you willing?'
'I am – if by enduring I may secure the promise you have given.'
'Then hear me, my husband. Believe me when I tell you that Britain will fall to the invader's sword. Through rapine and slaughter the land will be lost and the people destroyed. Kings shall die unmourned, princes shall go to their graves unmarked, and warriors curse the day of their birth. The holy altars of Prydein will be baptized in the blood of her saints and flames destroy all they touch.'
'This is more bitter to me than my own death,' I replied mournfully. 'These are not words to steady a faltering heart.'
'My darling,' she said in a voice of utter compassion, 'you above all men must know that where great danger threatens, there hope abides. Faith ever erects her tent in the shadow of travail.' Ganieda smiled, shaking her head slowly. 'Is darkness stronger than light? Is not even the frailest good more powerful by far than the most eminent evil?'
She spread her hands and I saw, all around her, the forms of warriors – scores of warriors, hundreds of them, and each one arrayed for battle: shield over shoulder, strong hands gripping sword hilt and spear. They lay still, their eyes closed.
'Tell me, Ganieda, are they dead or do they sleep?'
'They live,' she said. 'As long as men love courage and honour, they remain alive.'
'Then why do they sleep?'
'They await the battlehorn to call them forth,' she explained.
'Only tell me where it is and I shall sound it,' I replied. 'Britain has need of such men.'
'Yes,' she agreed readily, 'and so shall she ever need them. But these' – she made a circling motion with her hand-'their time is not yet. Be assured, you will know when it comes.'
'Am I to see this tribulation?'
Ganieda turned sorrowful eyes upon me. 'Yes, heart of my heart, you will live. For it is you alone who must summon the warriors to their mighty work. And it is you who must lead them.' She paused, letting her gaze linger on the forms of the warriors around her. 'I show you this so you will know without doubt that you go not alone into the evil day. Your sword brothers go with you, Merlin. They only await your call.'
I looked upon the warriors once again, and I saw among them faces that I knew: Cai was there, yes, and Bedwyr, and Gwenhwyvar, Llenlleawg and Gwalcmai, Gwalchavad, Bors and Ban and Cador, Meurig and Aedd. There were others as well, the brave dead of previous battles: Pelleas, Custennin, Gwendolau, Baram, Elphin and Gwyddno Garanhir, Maelwys, Pendaran Gleddyvrudd – men of hard purpose, fearless, right-loving warriors who shrank before nothing, valiant heroes all.