The Dark Chronicles Ch. 10

Part 10 - The Mist on the Lake

Artur returned to his sleeping chamber and bade Emmelyne leave. "I'll care for her now," he said, sitting on the bed and taking the hand of Miryamme his queen.

"Don't leave me, don't leave me. I don't want to be left alone. Is my doll looking, with no eyes, no eyes?"

"Sshhh, my queen," Artur calmed her, gently stroking her long golden hair. "Let me undress, and I'll warm you. You can hear my heart beat."

"Your heart beat, beat. Don't let it stop." Miryamme looked up at Artur, her eyes wide. Her hand clutched his. She sighed, a long shuddering sigh, then her breath settled and she relaxed her grip. She smiled her radiant smile and reached her arms out to him. Perhaps she sensed his tension, something beyond her own fears, for when he got into the bed her arms went around him, and he slept.

Miryamme held his head against her shoulder and brushed back the hair from his cheek. "He's mine tonight, you'll not have him," she whispered, and whispered it to his sister and his daughter, but couldn't deny them the power of their love. She resigned herself, finally, to sharing her man with the women who drove him, who gave him strength. She was small and afraid and loved him too, but didn't know the power that gave her.

In the morning she woke to a hard heat against her back and Artur's breath slow and steady by her ear, so she knew he still slept with his cock made hard by the morning's turn. She wriggled her bottom back against him, spreading wider her cheeks to feel his shaft against her hot core. She moved slowly, not wanting to wake him yet, but needing to feel his powerful body wrapping her in his arms.

She whispered to herself, "Safe, safe in my man's arms. He's strong and warm, doll, and when no-one's here, he's mine. Don't look." In the dim morning light she could see the shape of her doll on the shelf by the bed. She sighed, stretched, and carefully reached between her legs to place the shaft of Artur's cock against her sex, snuggling further back against him. Closing her thighs tight, she gripped his long shaft, pressing her own wetness slick along the heat. "Hmmm..." Miryamme moaned a low moan and closed her eyes.

She ran the palms of her hands up to her breasts and rubbed over her hard nipples, sending jolts down to her clitoris, "Oohh, that's lovely, my queen," as if she was some disembodied thing looking at herself, pale and small, slowly moving. The doll sat looking, but had no eyes.

Miryamme caressed herself, every now and then running her hand down her belly to her sex, fluttering light fingers over her nub and around the wetting head of Artur's prick. His breath caught and she stopped. A little smile spread on her face and she moved again. She smelt her own scent and Artur's rising musk. She licked her lips and began to move down the bed, slowly turning and pushing Artur onto his back. His breath caught again, but she'd learned to move so slowly that she didn't wake him, not yet.

She pulled the bed-covers back, exposing his chest and gut and his beautiful prick, straight and hard, all hers. She reached behind herself, finding another cloak on the bed and pulling it up around her body for warmth, then lay her head on Artur's belly, gazing at her prize. She placed one hand on his chest, sensing his breathing as she looked at him. Hers now, not dreaming, waking; hers.

Silent now, like a cat turns a corner, like a leaf falls on water, Miryamme moved down the bed to enclose the plum-coloured head of Artur's cock in her mouth. She held the heat of her mouth still upon him and took the stiff shaft in her hand. She felt a twitch and rewarded him with a slow swirl of her tongue and a tormenting long stroke of her hand. She shifted slightly to better accommodate his length, then lay there, the only movement the rise and shuddering fall of his breath, the pulse of her blood and the slow suck of her mouth.

As if in a trance she lay, Miryamme the queen, and suckled her man deep and slow. Artur slowly woke from three dreams and his queen was there in one of them. He opened his eyes to know where he was, then closed them again. He placed his hand on Miryamme's head and ran his fingers through her hair. She purred with slow pleasure and started to stroke back and forth, back and forth.

Artur ran his other hand down over her side to Miryamme's taut little ass. She moaned on his cock and moved her leg up so he could find her hot, virgin core and the tightness of her other place. He wet his finger with her slick and placed it against her tightest hole, but didn't push it in. She eased her body down instead and took his finger in her own time. Her eyes rolled back and she was impaled both ends, with a gentle hand on her head, a straight finger in her depths and a long cock between her lips.

Miryamme sucked on Artur's cock, her hands cupping his balls which were tight up against his body, and as she suckled she stroked. She felt his fingers comb through her hair as she twisted a hand around his shaft, and heard a low moan when she pressed his tight sacs up. She began to stroke faster, taking his cock to the back of her throat.

She heard a long sigh from her man and knew he was close, waking hard in the morning with a woman's mouth around his prick and a hot hand gripping him. "Ahh, you make me, my gentle queen," and with three soft pulses he spilled his seed into her mouth and she swallowed it down. With a small shudder of her own, Miryamme came too.

"Don't look, doll, don't look," she whispered to herself. "His juice all mine, all mine, all swallowed down. It's mine. Not theirs, not theirs." She giggled. "All swallowed down, his cream, and I'm just like a cat, a naughty little cat."

They lay still for many minutes, his softening cock wet against Miryamme's cheek. She reached out onto the bed and found his hand, lacing her fingers through his. Nothing moved, and the air was still around them.

Suddenly, Miryamme sat up and looked down on her man, her king. "Be careful, my love, there's bad blood stirring, I can feel it." She looked around the room, a momentary glimpse of sanity in her eyes. "I don't like him, your son who is never my son. He pretended to like me, but I saw his eyes, his eyes. Be careful, my king, I don't like your blood. He lies."

And just as quickly, she smiled her radiant smile and her lucidity vanished. Miryamme rested her head upon Artur's shoulder and felt his slow steady heart. "Beat, beat," she whispered. "Beat, beat."

* * * *

I was there.

When Artur the king made a fire and blood ceremony with his sister and daughter, to conjure strength for battle, then rode on to war, I was there.

Morgayne rode up from Tyntangel with fifty men from her command, arriving on a dark night when the moon was low and the rooks moaned and croaked, or was it the trees they nested in? She summonsed the news of her son and wasn't surprised. "A foul child in truth, I've no care for him. He sucked on my tit like a fox and now he skulks away like one. Which direction?"

"East, lady, last seen riding east."

"East then circle back, he'll return this way, I'm sure."

She looked at me with her slow moving eyes and that treacherous smile on her lips, waiting for me to trip over something. "But you, heart? How you?"

A stupid stumbling man, I tripped on my own words and mine own feet every time I saw her, and my chest itched, her noose around my neck coiled tight. I would not cut myself free, even if I was a walking hanging man. "Astonishingly well, lady, considering..."

"Considering what, heart? Not my presence, surely not?"

I wasn't at all sure, but then, with Morgayne I was rarely sure of anything except the way my ankle twinges still when it's cold. Ah look, snow's falling, scratch, scritch. Softly, softly, falling snow, softly, softly.

She laughed, a low sound that might have been a sigh, it might have been a growl; or was that me, howling at the moon and scratching at the door to get in? Then, of a sudden, her mood shifted quick.

"These boats, they come more often?"

"Regular, lady, dropping men and supplies. 'Tis a slow invasion. They build up camps, all obvious, about ten miles in from the shore. They march on the fosse ways, straight on, and cluster there. Yet leaderless all. There is no banner risen; none seen yet, anyway."

"Their king not come then, all a standing on his boat?"

"Not yet, lady. 'Tis curious strange, but he waits."

"He's coward filth, Mother. I would slit his throat, if I found it."

Morgayne turned at the voice of her daughter. "Ah, Lilith. No sweetness then, no honey?"

"Never, Mother. Not these men in their boats, all coming to take our land. My father's land, your brother's kingdom. We fight them with all the power the Goddess gives us. We fight the filth, wherever it be."

Morgayne studied her daughter, recognising the high passion in her veins and marvelling at the way she controlled it. She saw her own strength and guile in the young woman's eyes, together with the naked courage of Artur, Lilith's father, Morgayne's brother, lover both.

"What hex you summon, to assist?"

"Water and rain, Mother; we bathe in water before battle and coil around us the mud and the snake. We become rock and earth, and rise amidst them." Fury glittered in Lilith's eyes, and from the other side of the room I saw it.

"And Nym Nymue, what does she to assist? The high priestess, what is she in all this?"

I saw Morgayne's fast intelligence gathering up the records of rune and rock, to better know what magick to set behind Artur in his next fight.

"She does not see me, Mother, I'm hid from her eyes." And Lilith told her mother the story she'd told me, following the white woman through the marsh and down to Nymue's shore and the lady's blindness there, the big horse sensed but Lilith not.

Morgayne sat, not moving and silent, until the tale was told, all done, Lilith's future all hid but Mordant all known. Betrayal known, but not the man betrayed.

"What make you of this, Maer? Nymue not knowing of the girl, unable to see my daughter in her smoke and behind her mirrors, yet servant of the Goddess too?"

"'Tis true. I have seen Nym Nymue and talked upon it. Nym is scared, she cannot see Lilith unless she look with clear eyes in bright sun and never turn away." I paused. "She cannot see Lilith's future, streaming back. Your daughter is hidden."

Morgayne remained still, her eyes closed and her fingers a slow weave through the air, all a trancing herself, all still.

"Lilith's like me then. Nymue didn't see me, either, yet look what we made, despite her." She whispered as if to herself, deep in thought. She opened her dark eyes and looked with pride upon Lilith. "My daughter, unpredicted and unpredictable. Like me, by the Goddess, Nymue did not see me. What power does this give you, daughter mine, that you can move unseen?"

And I remembered Lilith's caul, all washed away by Emmelyne's hands, and I shivered. It was involuntary, a cold chill and mine ankle ached.

Morgayne felt it too, she knew me too well. "Heart, what is it, that walks over your grave whilst you lie in it, asleeping?"

"It's nothing, lady, just cold and mine ankle does itch."

Her slow eyes refused my lie, and her eyebrow she raised and she laughed her low laugh. "Maer, don't fool it. You know something, I can tell. Don't hide."

"Yeay, Maerlyn, don't hide from us." Lilith stood and came toward me, her half snakes writhing naked as she coiled before me, her long braided hair falling to her waist. "You took me from my mother's belly and your hands were the first to hold me, to hold my tiny hands."

She placed those hands upon my cheeks and looked at me straight, her father's still blue eyes before me. "Tell us, Maerlyn, what it is you know, don't hide it."

"True, Maer." Morgayne's low voice was in my ear, her hand upon my arm. "It's the end of days, I feel it. If there's some truth we do not know, tell us now. We might need it."

So I told the tale of Lilith's birth, quick, no lies. I could no longer trade the secret and didn't know what to do with it, so I gave it to women who did. Lilith's caul, now told.

"'Tis no wonder you are so well hid, my daughter, if you were born shrouded and the knowledge kept secret all these years." Morgayne turned to me. "Cunning true, Maer, I grant you that. Well kept indeed, but given up sensible now."

"Come, Lilith. We must decide what to do with this truth, how to use it."

* * * *

Artur instructed that great pyres be made on the tops of the highest hills, far to the east and the west, the north and the south, and the highest pyre of all he constructed at Camlann, full three men high. It was constructed of dry tree branches coated with pitch and tar, so when it was lit, it would flame to the top of the sky and summon the king's allegiances and sovereign armies, and call men to the reign in its peril.

The fires from the east would warn of massed ships sailing from over the northern sea. Riders on fast horses would report from spies and creeping men to provide intelligence and warnings of armies on the move. And when the Camlann fire was lit, the king would ride to war.

A great timber stage was built an arrow's flight from the pyre, with a great wooden pole in the centre of it, plunging deep into a cavern where a spring gushed warm water, bubbling and steaming from the rock. Morgayne the Red knew this place, blessed by the Goddess, just as Nym Nymue, years before, found a like place to crown the king.

Back then, Morgayne crawled like a spider down the rock and caused Artur to spill his seed on the land, which shook and trembled as the dragen crawled upon it. She took my seed too, and was less generous with it, or more, depending on my memory, depending on my mood.

But now, this was no dragen summoned by five waves breaking, this threat was from the minds of men, far worse.

Winter deepened, and Artur waited.

I played too many games of gammon and always lost my dice, shaken in a cup. "Two ones again, heart, two ones?" Ha. She smiled at me, her favourite fool. But at least she looked and found the spilled dice on the floor. I really should not drop them, but these crooked fingers....

Far to the east, the first fire was lit, and the next and the next, and still Artur waited.

Finally, word came.

* * * *

"Bring the man food, get him warm before he tell." Artur commanded, and Emmelyne ran to the kitchen. "Get his horse to Rednock, to curry it down and quick."

Lancilet smiled, and left to do the king's bidding, the horse's bridle in his hand.

Artur summonsed round his best parly, his best captains, to hear the rider's tale. Lot sat by the window, old now but still sensible, and his three sons the king's best commanders. De Grance was there from Breton, arriving on his ship with a kiss for his daughter and a truce for Morgayne.

Morgayne sat in the nook next the fire, all cloaked, her slow hands all still as she listened. Lilith her daughter paced restlessly like a cat with five kittens, and wanted to ride straight away. Why I was there no-one told me, or if they did, I didn't listen. I don't hear myself dribble at the best of times, so why start now? Miaow, miaow, little kitten.

The rider's message was simple. Fifty ships, more or less, three thousand men to the shore. Walking men, no horses.

"Ha, swift pickings," exclaimed Gawaine. "We'll ride down on them from the hills, no quarter."

Lilith touched the edge of her knife blade with her thumb and I saw blood, drop drip.

"Yet you not like this, lord. At the van of the second army... I dare not say it, lord."

Artur sat in his tall chair, legs stretched before the fire, his hand idly stroking a hound's head. He didn't turn, his voice didn't rise. "Just say it, tell it true, don't hide."

Drip, drop.

"At the van, sire, followed by a guard."

Drop, drip.

Artur's hand stroked the dog's head.

Drip.

"Your son, sire. Mordant, he rides with them."

Drop.

I've never heard a silence so loud. Even Krachoa was a whisper compared to this.

Drip.

Drop.

* * * *

I've always said, if you're going to do a ceremony, do it proper, worth doing. Powerful things, ceremonies, for stirring up the blood and rising up the fight in men. Even now, writing this down so no-one but me can forget it, 'twas worth doing.

In the evening, the sun glimmering down and throwing a red glow on distant trees, preparations were made on the platform. Leather straps nailed to the post, to tie a man there and connect him to the earth below, all bubbling hot and steaming.

I made unto the beacon, the pyre, a run of black-powder all running along the ground to the tar drenched base of the stack. The Chinee emperor had shown me the powder and taught me how to make it, those many years ago when the dragen waked, but I could never see a use for it, 'cept pretty flames and shooting stars. But here, 'twould save a man a run with a burning branch.

Lot and de Grance, as Artur's most trusted men, took him to a tent and made him ready.

Emmelyne went with Morgayne and Elayne went with Lilith.

'Twas a ceremonial thing, so I polished my beads and knotted a string or two, and remembered a few of my lines. Serious now, I'll tell it.

* * * *

Artur walked slowly across the crisp white snow, de Grance at his side and Lot too, and between them he walked. Cloaked in a long trailing fur made of wolf and stag, he walked tall to the base of the platform, then turned and gazed at the troops before him. Like him, they were all bare headed, standing in rows a hundred wide and five men deep, as silent as the snow they stood upon. Their breath showed in the air, silent and steady.

They looked on their king and commander as he mounted the steps and walked to the centre of the platform. At each corner, braziers were lit, flickering red and orange upon the snow, casting moving shadows on the faces of the men and all upon the ground.

Artur kneeled before the symbolic tree, bowing his head, reaching out to it. The land's wood stood straight and tall above his head, and Artur touched it with his fingertips, bringing them to his lips in a kiss. Gog Magog would be so tall. I'll carve him in the grass some day, a ways away from here.

The king stood and the cloak dropped down to his feet, revealing his fine naked body, oiled and shining gold. The flames flickered on the tight, strong muscles taut on his back, and in the flickering light the half snakes shifted and writhed, coiling around restless. The thick hang of his cock rested against his thigh. The air shimmered and turned in the flame. With a crack, an ember shot from the brazier and hissed itself black in the snow.

De Grance wrapped leather straps about Artur's wrists and stretched the king's arms over his head, strapping him to the pole. He was king, bound to the tree that grew from the land, and would defend it. His body glistened, and he was king.

His sister came, dressed in black, her black feathered cloak gliding stark across the snow. She moved between each of the rows of men, looking steadily into their eyes, seeking loyalty, seeing who blinked. No man flinched, none faltered, even though they dreaded her, the Black Morgayne with her long red hair, a blood drenched woman who remembered men who blinked.

She nodded, and the energy from five-hundred wanting men flowed into her, spiralling up her spine, surging up into her blood. Morgayne stretched her arms above her head and her body quivered with the sex magick streaming, streaming, conjuring up blood from the rock and the earth. Her cloak too dropped away and she was naked, gaunt and tall, her body pale and lean under the flickering light.

She circled slowly around the platform, her arms a slow weaving dance, and Artur's cock began to thicken and move. Morgayne climbed the steps and came closer, four shadows crossing and dancing at her feet. His cock thickened and she reached her slow hand out to his body, reaching for his flesh, then darting away. She circled around him, weaving her conjure, making her spell. The power of five-hundred men surged through Morgayne the king's sister, and the king drew it In from her, their breath streaming together. The king's rod grew stronger, straining for her, her touch, her dream, her song.