The Dark Chronicles Ch. 03

"Scalibur, I named it, Maer. It waits for a king. But first, we must yield it to the Goddess, to be gripped so tight and only given up to the right man, as proof for all who see."

Nymue looked to me. "It needs the two of us, Maer, a magicking between us, to make this work. My sickle moon is on me soon and I am strongest then. You know it." She smiled a little smile. "I know it too, dear heart, and all alike to conjure. We make it so."

Ah, I see it. Another conjure, and we to make a special place to bury a dagger deep. We make it so.

* * * *

Some several days later Nymue moved her travelling tent to a small level field aside a steep chasm of bare rock. We moved up to it, she and I, following a narrow path beside a slow trickling stream that was all new, still cutting clean soil. I remembered a rumour heard of a new spring risen in rocks, strange mists and birds out of season, and knew that Nymue had found a place where the Goddess lay close by, with caves all unusual all around.

A place of new natural power that suited her conjure, and mystery sufficient that the chaplet builders with their little stones all east west and their crisses and crosses and stagnant water, they would all keep away. That's always best, foolish priests the lot of them, best they stay away. They make me seem clever by comparison, even if I might look fine in their splendid robes.

No, even I could not put up with the nonsense that spills from their tongues. I might even start to believe it myself, then where would I be? Dribbling in my beard, most like. But I wander away from my purpose. I wonder it why? I'm forgetting to remember, or I'm membering to forget. I'm never sure which. Truth seeps from my brain like melting snow, her hair was so white, and sooner or later I'll forget all of it. Cursed rain, it blows again through the window and spots my page. How does it do that, when the sky is blue? Pale blue, Nymue's eyes, looking up at me.

Nymue looked up at me and asked, "Ready Maer, that we make it so?" She placed the tips of her fingers to my forehead, and I was blessed. "Come, we be ready this night."

"Nym Nymue," and the formality dried my tongue; all I wanted was her sweet name on it, Nymue, just her, just me. "The Goddess commands, we make it so. Let it begin, this gyre."

Was that a little look of longing on her face as she looked up at me, or just my wistfulness, wishing it so? Our duty to the land lost us our intimacy, priests to a higher calling with too much ceremony. Yet ceremony must, for powerful things to be.

Nymue threw seeds and a powder upon the burning logs, and the air sizzled and crackled with a soporific and tangent smell, blue smoke rising and swirling lazily around. Her whiteness flickered in and out of the lowering dusk as she slowly circled round me. I stood central to the tent, unmoving so yet stirring, the base of my gut filling warmly. An image of an earlier rise flashed into my mind, a dark black shadow and black treacle in that voice, and two seductions were upon me. Both to rise me, the blackness and the white, and I the grey between. Ah fuck, they would both be the death of me.

"Yeay, Maerlyn, you respond too quick. I not the only one?" Nymue knew it, my seduction came too easy as I wanted it so. Yet she continued her circling weave; my corruption inevitable then, and I bring the consequence. But our conjure must be done regardless, else all everything lost.

"You make my work harder, Maer Maerlyn, too many women here, yet the work is a two sexed thing. Concentrate on one, at least, if that bring your essence." Her voice hardened against me and her eyes flashed warning. "Choose, my fool, don't unravel it now."

Nymue was right, yet she was challenged in mine own head. Inevitable then, the black Morgayne in the pit of it through me.

"You falter, Maer. Too much, too many." She stopped her movement around me. "But I too serious too."

Nymue looked upon me with a different look, and a softening in her eyes. "Mayhaps the bigger conjure wait." She came up to me and placed her little hand on my chest, against my heart. Her hand was warm; and she pressed her fingers to the cloth, like does a cat on wool, one two three. "Let me try a smaller spell, and gentler be." Nymue turned and found another bag. A different balm, and sweeter, rose from the fire; and the seeds made a smaller poppling on the flame. "Come to me, sweet wizard. The land can wait another moment, yeay?"

She was friendly to me. There was a small bed behind another dropping cloth, and Nymue took me to it, her hand reaching behind and I took it as she led. Oh Nymue.

She was slow and calm now, and deliberately undid hooks and belts and straps from mine garments, and they dropped one by one in heaps on the floor, her hands folding each thing as if putting it away. I too did the same with her clothes, and soon her shift and white gown were gone. We were both older than before, and our bodies lived in and comfortable. Nymue smiled to me, and the feet of crows were beside her eyes, and creased with a small laugh.

"Maerlyn," she said softly, and my name fell from her lips, just me. "My lovely man, come to my breast and lie." Nymue was slight beside me, her breasts still firm as when she was younger. Perhaps a lower curve, maybe softer than before. She was older now, yet I was older too and my memory all distracted. But I felt young and forgot about mine age. My prick rose and pressed against her, and Nymue pushed her hip back against it. My fingers wandered to her lips, and she took my other hand in hers, turning it and placing my palm against her breast. Her nipple hardened under my rub. My cock bounced and again she pushed nicely back.

"Dost my olding body stir you, heart, and make you moan." She teased, my evidence beside her stiff and hard, no question needed but the answer given.

"Always, Nymue. I become a doltish boy and want to wrap you small, all up."

"Let's be slow and gentle then. We must make bigger magick later, and will need our breath and circling trance." Nymue turned and nestled her haunches back to my groin. She reached between her legs and placed my cock up between them. Not moving, Nymue held me there, my heat flowing into her body. "But now, just us. The Goddess can wait a few moments more."

So we lay, content and still. My mind pondered the white Nymue and marvelled that she loved me. We never say it, never did, yet something moved between us that was just a woman and a man. I can think no other reason, unless her back was cold and my belly hot, and she wanted warmth. Even that's enough, sometimes.

Nymue may have been the strongest priestess, but she was a woman too. "Don't say it, Maerlyn. I know it." Her low whisper was soft, barely heard. A woman, yet a priestess too, she reads my mind. Perhaps that's what women do, regardless. I'll never properly understand it.

A wash of light rain and a wind blew against the tent, and Nymue stirred. "I am summonsed," she whispered. "I am begun."

She moved away and pushed me to my back, and my cock lay hard against my belly. Nymue climbed on to me and rested the wet cleft of her cunt along my shaft, and slid. The dark annoint of her blood left a trail along me, and she slipped and squirmed. Clenching tight onto me, my prick between her thighs, she arched up her back and lifted her arms straight above her head, as if reaching for the sky. The wall of the tent rattled, and a tension went through her body, all rigid. Nymue's nipples jutted hard. It was not just my heat on her sex that did it, she was responding now to spirits and rifts in the air.

She brought her arms back down and supported the little light weight of her against my chest, her palms against my nipples and her fingers all outspread. Nymue crouched above me like some animal, white and pure all along me, a pure snow fox or a white wolf. Her features grew pale and Nymue glimmered with a white light as she channelled energy down from the sky and into us both. My cock hardened like iron with the rich magick of it, and a seep of my spirit beaded from the tiny lips on my head. Nymue tipped that tiny clear bead to the end of her finger and touched it to her lips, and she was serious now.

Reaching to her own cleft, she twisted her little red nub and an ecstasy shuddered through her. Our ceremony was upon us, our sex magick tightening and throbbing in the air. Nymue shimmered above me, flickering in and out of focus, her voice a low growl from the back of her throat. Small moans rose up and I could not say if they were hers or mine.

"Unh, huh, huh." Regular and deep, we began to breath in and out each other's breath, as we clung and twisted on the bed. Writhing like snakes, we twisted and curved around each other, our arms wrapping around our bodies and gripping so tight. Our heat grew up around us, yet my cock never slid in and her cunt never opened around me, but we rubbed and twisted and grew red. My shaft thick and hard, Nymue's cunt wet and slick, yet we could not fuck into each other, no matter how we wanted it. Our sex and lust just a channel for the Goddess to enter our world through her mage and witch.

"Soonest, Maer, soon." Nymue frantically scrabbled on the floor for our purpose. She rolled away from me and crawled like a lusting cat, her red sex clefted up high before mine eyes, oh fuck to suck upon it and taste her blood. She crawled on the floor and found the leather bundle with the sword all in it. Nymue's musky scent was in my nose and on my lips and I licked her and sucked between her legs and she pushed back against me, all opening up. Wet, so wet, yet duty to be done. My cock beat, and I was huge and hard, all a fuck ready to happen, but not into her, not her.

"Nym Nymue, get it, quick." Our ceremony meant our names and titles, servants for the land, but still my tongue inside her cunt! The metal taste of her blood tangled my lips and my cock stretched hard to reach her. Nymue twisted away and quickly unravelled the pink leather sheath from the dagger Scalibur. She stood, and took the dagger's handle into her two hands. I lay panting on the floor beneath, my cock thick and red, veins threaded around the shaft, my balls ridden high and tight.

Nymue slowed, and caressed the handle of the dagger up between her legs, the blade pointing down towards my centre. Her eyes went black, and with an unblinking gaze Nymue slowly pushed the handle of the dagger up into her, fucking this symbol of a man deep into her cunt and holding it there. Fuck, the dagger of a king instead of my cock, and my sacrifice made. Nymue thrust the handle shaft into herself and moaned a long moan, oh fuck, not me.

She clenched it there within her cunt, then carefully lowered herself over me so the sharp point of the sword just touched the plum red head of my cock. Nymue paused above me, and spread open wide the lips of her cunt, the shafting dagger prick up in her, and shewed me the bright red tip of her pleasure. With a single twirl of her pale fingers, Nymue teased up herself with a long cry, her bird beginning to take wing. The tip of the sword was a sharp point right on the centre of my shaft. With a curious twitch, the sword tip flickered and drew up a bead of my blood. I felt nothing, no pain, just saw the blood of it.

With a sensuous slide Nymue slid the dagger from her body, and presented it to me, the slick of her cunt and blood and sweet honey juice all over it. "Take it, Maer Maerlyn, quick, to the rock."

I took the dagger, and tall and naked, my risen cock ahead of me, I walked to the rock. I was man, and in my hand was the symbol of men, all male, thrust up and hard. Beside me, all wet and open, was woman, white woman, the land's highest witch and servant, a good priestess, spread wide.

Our ceremony begun, our ceremony ending, Nym Nymue and I, Maer Maerlyn, stood before the rock in the glade of the Goddess. We took the dagger into our four hands, and found a cleft in the rock, and pressed it there, and pressed it there, and fucked it on home in the joy we never had, this woman, this man, she and me. From around the tight cleft the dagger made, clear water from a rising spring began to flow, as the Goddess received into herself this symbolic thing, this future king.

Nymue and I fell to our knees, my erection gone and my cock all soft, her breasts sagged and soft, our bodies drained. Above our heads the dagger was bedded into the rock, held by the Goddess, held tight. Our job done and our bodies surrendered, Nymue and I, Maerlyn, feeling ancient and old, turned from that place. Holding each other for comfort and to keep ourselves moving, we crept back to the tent.

Nymue threw some calming seeds to the fire, and we fell upon the bed. I lay curled all behind her, her small pale body in front of me, my hands held tight in hers. Covered in warm pelts of fur we soon both lapsed into animal dreams, twitching then dropping like cats. We slept, dead gone, all done.

* * * *

On the morrow we stirred, and with a final conjure Nymue hid away her tent from eyes that see, a fine mist constantly in front of them. Yet we could sit and watch, seeing all that might pass in front of us, and observe the rock. At first there was small curiosity, but slowly over several days a greater word spread and was connected to earlier rumours, and a right procession of lords and pretenders wandered up the valley to see. None figured it, and not a single soul touched the shaft of the dagger. The obvious was understood then, a sacred place and the dagger somewhat special, awaiting a momentous thing.

I would wander down regular to the wider field and be seen by the princes all there and the various assembled kings, and my name was not connected to the mystery. Which meant I could play it to my own dice if I wanted, if I chose. Yet Nym Nymue had a final dramatic touch in mind which would make any subterfuge or artifice unnecessary.

"Just wait, Maer, your impatience is not a virtuous thing. When news comes of the death of Uther, even the most wooden brained fool will understand it all." She stirred her fire with a short stick. "And bow down, as is appropriate."

I looked at Nymue, my eyebrow raised in a wry question, for I am her favourite fool yet she compares others to me? "I be insulted by you, witch, that you compare the sawdust in my brain to the dull thoughts of ordinary men."

She laughed and her eyes sparkled. "You jest, Maerlyn. You know it as well as I, there is only one who can pull the dagger from its place, and we put him there, so be it." Nymue patterned the stick into a circle, and embers glowed brightly. "Does the boy have a clue, Maerlyn?"

"I cannot say it, Nym. The Lord Lot is no fool, he guessed Artur was a cuckoo in his nest, but he remains discrete always." I pondered the nature of the youth and his natural command. "Artur always places his ears ahead of his mouth, and uses the brain between them well, I think."

"Your opposite then, heart?" Nymue laughed again, oh I love her delicate tease.

"Indeed. I may teach priests their foolishness yet." I paused, and thought about that. "No, they are excellent at it without tutelage, they do not need me."

"You need to tolerate them, Maer. They spread through the land, even if we do not like it." She stirred her stick in the fire once more, and of a sudden, an ember spat. Nymue brushed it from her leg.

"Ha. The spitting fire reminds me of the bargain I made with my mother and Nyn Nyneve, when I set out to learn the way of the witch." She poked the embers once again. "Give me a year, Mother, I said." Nymue looked up at me. "It's been many years, Maerlyn. I grow tired. I need to go from here, once this is done."

"Go, Nymue? Where to go, and do you leave me?" This was the first that I heard her mission done. I am a dullard, I had thought it just begun.

"Yeay, Maerlyn. I have conjured up a future, but once it begins to run, it runs on alone. I cannot see it beyond the next king crowned. Beyond that, too much is set in motion for me to command or steer." She sat silent for a long while, slowly turning her stick in the fire back and forth, back and forth. Another ember spat. "I will go back to the Isle of Glas and greet my mother again, and the Sisters."

I did not know what to make of it. She never did answer my question's second part, and mayhaps never will. So I dabble on alone. My quill shakes, and I curse the rain again, a spotting on my page. I thought I had pulled the shutters shut. The damn wind, it keeps blowing them open. My head hurts. I didn't think it would end like this, a slow ache. Or is it my heart? Beat, beat, I'll go mad if I listen, go mad if I don't.

I'm not good at waiting, my fingers start to itch.

The itch didn't get so far as a scratch. Some days later we heard up from the distant field a carry on of trumpets and warnings made, all manner of horses moving in steady troops. I went down and found Lot, for his advice.

"It's pen Dragen, Maer. News has come, he is dead." Lot looked about the field, and pointed to the Lady Ygraine's tent. "See, his pennant flies half down and reversed. Ygraine wears black. Her veil hides her tears."

So, the wheel turned.

I looked to Lot. "Send Artur to his mother, who still remains queen, that she may find solace in her son returned." I scratched my beard, thoughtfully. "There needs be theatre first, before those assembled here see proof of the new king. Ygraine can set the time, as it suits her mood, and send him up the valley, best dressed."

I returned up the valley myself, and saw Nymue's charm on the water. Blood red it flowed, down from the rift in the rock, down the stream until it cut through the field. All it took was a whisper from behind a bush, "See, the blood of the Dragen flows, to mark the death of the king." And rumour flowed down the valley with the stream, and soon enough a number of princes and pretenders made their way to the dagger and tried pull it from the rock. Of course none succeeded, and merely got their boots wet.

"How long the pretence, Nymue, before the young king walks by?"

"Oh, let the failures fail some more, that they understand their eventual place in the court of the king. A little obedience hurt none, Maer." Nymue looked at me, and was that a brow quietly raised?

"Obedience, Nym? From me?" I laughed. "Now there's a doubtful thing."

"I know it, Maer. Maybe one day." She gently touched my arm. "Maybe one day."

Was it a portent, or just a woman speaking? I never could tell the difference.

"But look, who comes?"

A big man, solid like the trunk of a tree and tall, taller than most men, stood in the glade and looked upon the rock and the knife fixed firm. De Grance, a Breton prince, keen to claim a kingdom. Ah yes, a big man, all strength and sinews. And politick too, wise with it, or so he mostly thought. His fail would be worth to witness and would suit the plot well. Lesser kinglets and princedoms would see his poor work and line up behind him in order, like unto chickens, and know their place.

"He is a big man, Nymue. Some sport before the final act, it seems." I was already thinking of the second place, and whether De Grance might fit it, with reluctant grace perhaps. Like Lot, a good ally, and a little daughter too. A handy thing when making courts, to have a dowry prize all growing up and pretty. Boys become men and look about themselves for comfort and a wife. Little arrangements, all lovely like flowers, can oft suit a table nicely. But I get ahead of myself. We haven't made the king, not yet.

De Grance moved silently around the soft grassed place, a muddied path worn to the face of the rock where the dagger's hilt stood proud. The bloodened water flow around around its shaft and stained the stone, running in strands to the stream through the grass. He studied the place, and saw our mist to one side and his small court behind, a taggle of men and messengers fast of foot. He didn't know they would sit and save their feet, with nothing but a slow walk back.