The Perilous Order Read online

  The Perilous

  Order:

  Warriors of the

  Round Table

  N E W E N G L I S H L I B R A R Y

  H o d d e r & Stoughton

  Forsaken by our dreams, naked but for our stories, with

  only the stars for food, the four directions for shelter, and

  the spirit of all that we love our only companion, we live

  as warriors of a perilous order, champions of kindness,

  who batde for virtue in the ruthless war of survival.

  W h a t H a s G o n e B e f o r e

  The Dragon and the Unicom began this series with the story of

  King Armor's parents, Uther Pendragon and Ygrane, queen

  of the Celts. By the end of the fifth century A D , Britain, the

  furthermost frontier of the Roman Empire, had become almost

  wholly isolated from the few centers of commerce that remained

  in Europe. The collapse of Rome in AD 410 left Britain without

  a central government, and the island quickly fragmented into

  scores of miniature kingdoms ruled by local warlords. With

  the magical assistance of Merlin, a demon given human form

  and converted to Christianity by Saint Optima, Ygrane allied

  her Celtic chieftains with the British army of Uther Pendragon.

  They united the many rivalrous domains of Britain and repelled

  the ferocious invaders from the foreign lands surrounding the

  island kingdom. Their fateful alliance endured only briefly,

  however, for the arrangement of love and war brokered by

  Merlin required the blood sacrifice of the king, as prescribed

  by ancient law. In return for Uther Pendragon's soul, the

  Celtic gods released their most fierce warrior, Cuchulain, to

  be born again through Ygrane as Uther's son, Aquila Regalis

  Thor — Arthor.

  Arthor followed fifteen-year-old Arthor on his journey from

  White Thorn, where he grew up in the hills of Cymru, to

  the third five-year festival at Camelot, the city-fortress whose

  construction Merlin supervised. Arthor, believing himself a

  rape-child sired by a Saxon invader on an anonymous peasant

  woman, allowed Kyner, a Christian chieftain, to train him as a

  warrior of unalloyed ferocity. Arthor lived with the certainty

  that his destiny was death, for his enemies in battle and ultimately

  for himself in defense of his masters. Rankling at the subservient

  position fate had imposed upon him, he planned to avoid

  Camelot and further servitude by seeking a new and personal

  destiny for himself. But the intervention of Merlin diverted

  the youth into the hollow hills — the magical domain of the

  Daoine Sid, the Celtic gods. There, Arthor learned humility

  and largeness of heart and proved himself worthy of returning

  to Camelot and drawing the sword-in-the-stone, Excalibur,

  emblem and agency of his true destiny as high king of Britain.

  The Perilous Order concerns King Arthor's first year as

  monarch. Though in his inmost heart he had always believed

  himself worthy of greatness, the authority of high king of Britain

  is a far more demanding reckoning than he had ever imagined.

  Trained to give himself entire to the horror of war, to defend

  against the ferocity of invading Wolf Warriors, the young king

  must yet learn to rule a kingdom at hazard using more than mere

  force. With Merlin's help, he draws to himself the capable men

  and women who will, for a time, by courage, moral strength,

  and magic establish a perilous order, a fragile league of pagan and

  Christian defenders, whose glory will forestall the b'edarkening

  of the age and resurrect the derelict hope of Britain.

  C h a r a c t e r s

  Aidan — clan chief, master of the Spiral Castle, the natural

  fastness in the highlands of Caledonia.

  Annum - t h e Other World, Celtic realm of the supernatural,

  used in this series oftentimes to identify the radiant beings who

  emerged with the fiery origins of Creation: cf. Fire Lords.

  Arthor — Aquila Regalis Thor, Royal Eagle of Thor, son of

  Uther Pendragon, deceased high king of Britain, and Ygrane,

  queen of the Celts.

  Azael - demon; former cohort of Lailoken.

  Bedevere — one-armed steward to King Arthor.

  Bors Bona — British warlord and commander of the Parisi.

  Cei — son of Kyner; step-brother of Arthor.

  Cruithni — king of the Picts.

  Cupetianus - spokesman for the fisherfolk of Neptune's

  Toes.

  Dagonet — dwarf vagabond and gleeman of King Arthor's

  court.

  Daoine Sid - the pale people, the elves and faeries relegated

  to dwell underground in the hollow hills since their overthrow

  by the Fauni and the north gods.

  Dwellers in the House of Fog — demons; once radiant, these

  masculine beings despair of finding their way back to the

  source of infinite energy from which they entered the cold

  and dark of spacetime with the Big Bang; they doffed the

  burning light of their prior forms, trying to adapt to the frigid,

  near-lightless vacuum where they find themselves; they rail

  against Creation and do all in their power to disassemble the

  conglomerates of matter, believing all structure, especially

  organic life, a mockery of their luminous lives before their

  miserable exile.

  Eufrasia — daughter of Aidan.

  Fauni - the gods of the Greeks and Romans.

  Fire Lords — angels; the radiant masculine beings expelled

  from the compact dimensions of Creation's origin at the Big

  Bang; they cherish the hope of returning whence they have

  come and, cleaving to the burning scraps of their fiery origin,

  have devoted themselves to furthering the assemblages of matter

  to attain greater awareness, including fostering the knowledge

  of science by mortals.

  Foederatus — an alliance of the north tribes, the Angles, Frisians,

  Jutes, Picts, Saxons, and Scotii, determined to conquer Britain.

  Furor, the — the one-eyed chieftain among the gods of

  the north tribes, possessed of the trance power to see the

  future; he devoted himself to fending off the terrible destiny of

  Apocalypse that he believed the Fire Lords inspired in humanity

  by teaching mortals the secrets of writing and of numbers, the

  globe-threatening dangers of science.

  Gareth - youngest son of Morgeu and Lot.

  Gawain — eldest son of Morgeu and Lot.

  God — the mysterious and singular female being Who

  emerged with the energies of Creation at the Big Bang and

  Who was followed from that hyperdimensional reality of infinite

  energy by numerous masculine beings enamored of Her -

  demons and angels.

  Gorthyn — self-proclaimed king of the Belgae; commander

  of that realm's brigands.

  Guthlac — fierce wayfarer of the Picts, leader of a warband

  that infiltrated the Spiral Castle.

  Hjuki — Lawspeaker for King Wesc.

  Keeper of the Dusk Apples - goddess of the north tribes

  responsible for collecting the rare golden fruit used to make

  the ritual wine that the gods imbibe; mistress of the Furor.

  Kyner - Christian Celt and chieftain of the clans of Cymru;

  father of Cei and stepfather of Arthor.

  Lailoken - the demon who, in the guise of an incubus,

  attempted to seduce Saint Optima, a devout Christian nun; he

  was taken into her womb and birthed as an old man who aged

  backward; endowed with the supernatural powers of a demon

  in mortal form, he learned love from his mother and became

  converted to Christianity.

  Lord Monkey — familiar of Dagonet.

  Lot — Celtic chieftain of the northern clans of Britain;

  husband of Morgeu the Fey; father of Gawain and Gareth.

  Marcus — Christian warlord and duke of the Dumnonii.

  Merlin - the mortal name of the demon Lailoken.

  Mordred - incest-child born of Arthor and Morgeu.

  Morgeu - daughter of Ygrane, queen of the Celts, and

  Gorlois, duke of the Dumnonii killed in battle on the fields

  of Londinium; her sobriquet, the Fey, the Doomed, came to

  her from the Picts during her time of self-exile in Caledonia,

  where she practiced black magic; half-sister of Arthor, she

  seduced him by enchantment in an attempt to exact revenge

  on Merlin, whom she held responsible for her father's death;

  wife of Lot and mother by him of Gawain and Gareth.

  Nynyve - the Lady of the Lake, the youngest of the Nine

  Queens; once mortal queens, made supernatural residents of

 
Avalon by the Fire Lords, they represent the ninety thousand

  years of human history ruled over by queens.

  Platorius — count and Christian commander of the Atrebates.

  Rex Mundi — Lord of the World; the magical assemblage

  amalgamated by Merlin to include himself, the demon Azael,

  a Fire Lord, Dagonet, and Lord Monkey.

  Selwa — seductive assassin of the Syrax family; niece of

  Severus Syrax.

  Severus Syrax — magister militum of Londinium, trade factor

  in Britain of the Syrax family, an international mercantile

  conglomerate.

  Skuld - of the three Wyrd Sisters, the Norns, the youngest

  and possessed of the ability to scry the future.

  Someone Knows the Truth — the elk-headed god of the Daoine

  Sid, master of the hollow hills and the Happy Woods, where

  the souls of the Celtic dead bide their time before reincarnating

  upon Middle Earth in forms human and otherwise.

  Terpillius - vampyre procured by blood magic and induced

  into the service of Morgeu the Fey.

  Urd - the Wyrd Sister crone of the Norns endowed with

  the power to reveal the past.

  Urien — Celtic chieftain of the Durotriges.

  Verthandi - of the Norns, the loveliest Wyrd Sister, gifted

  with penetrating vision of all that is.

  Wesc — king of the Saxons, leader of the Foederatus,

  ambitious for peace and enthralled with the writing of sacred

  poetry, resident of Britain in the province of the Cantii.

  Wolf Warriors — elite Saxon fighting forces devoted to

  the Furor and dedicated to dying in battle for the glory of

  their god.

  Yggdrasil — the World Tree, the Storm Tree, the Cosmic

  Tree, the magnetic field of the planet; its upper branches,

  reaching far above the atmosphere, serve as home for the

  dominant gods; its trunk penetrates Middle Earth, the planetary

  surface where mortals dwell; and its roots coil deep into the

  molten interior of the globe, where the world-vast Dragon, a

  chthonic magnetic sentience, slumbers.

  Ygrane - former queen of the Celts, mother of Morgeu (by

  Gorlois) and Arthor (by Uther Pendragon), abbess of Tintagel

  Abbey and Mother Superior of the Holy Order of the Graal.

  S U M M E R :

  A Spiral Castle in the

  Dolorous Wood

  Arthor Draws the Sword

  The sword came away so easily from the stone that Arthor

  could only stand there startled, with the gold hilt in his

  trembling hand and the silver blade flashing with sunlight.

  Immediately, he tried to return it to the black rock in whose

  cleft it had stood undisturbed and immovable for so long. But

  the rock would not hold the blade anymore. The sword slid

  from his grip and would have clattered across the anvil-shaped

  stone and fallen to the ground had he not quickly seized

  it again.

  The hilt of gold felt pretematurally shaped to his palm and

  fingers, and the blade swung lightly through the air, a natural

  extension of his arm. From farther down the hill, on the slopes of

  Mons Caliburnus, a small crowd uttered cries and shouts to see the

  sword drawn so readily from the stone. They were the swordsmiths

  and their patrons, the merchants and warriors who had come to

  Camelot for the third of the five-year festivals to commemorate

  the setting of this sword in the stone by the wizard Merlin.

  Only moments before, Arthor had attempted to purchase

  a sword from them for his brother Cei, who had damaged his

  weapon on the dangerous trek from White Thorn, their home

  in Cymru. The swordsmiths had mocked him, a ragged servant

  with no coin and nothing of worth to barter. He had shuffled

  uphill dejectedly, kicking at the hawkweed and dandelions in

  the yellow clover. He would not even have tried his hand at the

  sword — except that he had remembered seeing this marvelous

  weapon once before.

  Just days ago, on his journey to Camelot, Arthor had been

  diverted into the hollow hills, the realm of the pale people of

  Celtic lore known as the Daoine Sid. Those Celtic gods were

  more real than mere lore — he knew that now — but that

  knowing sorely troubled his Christian mind. In the hollow

  hills, he had seen marvels that rocked the very foundations of

  his faith: Faeries had deceived him and vampyrical lamia had

  nearly torn him to pieces; Bright Night, prince of the elves,

  had conversed with him; and, worst of all, he had confronted

  the vehement god that the north tribes called the Furor and

  had stared terrified into his one mad eye. The Furor would

  have slain him on the spot but for Merlin, who at the last

  moment appeared to wield this wonderful sword and fend off

  the rageful god. Thus, Arthor had escaped with his life intact -

  and with his wits nearly shattered.

  This was that sword, he realized as the sundering truth

  staggered him and he leaned back against the black stone. Was

  it a dream? he queried his frightened soul. Is — this — a dream?

  The loud voices now clamoring from below assured him he

  was awake. And the sunlight smashing off the clear blade hurt his

  eyes and branded his brain with the precise shape of the sword

  that he remembered from his trespass of the underworld. How

  can this be?

  From below, the swordsmiths and warriors came running,

  yelling at him, 'Boy! Boy! Put that sword down!'

  He moved quickly to obey. But, again, the stone would not

  receive the sword. He turned and lifted the blade in a hapless

  shrug to show that he had tried and failed.

  Merlin and Arthor

  The scowling crowd edged closer, then stopped their shouting

  all at once. Arthor thought for an instant that the beauty of the

  sword had silenced them. Suddenly, a dark voice opened from

  behind him, and he jumped and nearly dropped the blade.

  'The sword is drawn!'

  Merlin rose from the cliffside of Mons Caliburnus as if

  hoisted by invisible wings. His midnight-blue robes furled in

  the river breeze, and his wide-brimmed hat, its conical top bent

  askew, cast a dark shadow over his long face.

  'The sword is drawn! Bend your knees before your king!'

  'But he is a boy!' one of the warriors shouted, even as most

  in the small crowd genuflected reflexively before the imposing

  presence of the wizard.

  'This is no mere boy.' Merlin stode to Arthor's side and

  placed his long arm across the lad's shoulders. Garbed in a

  hempen sack-shirt, with his short hair stiff as a hedgehog's

  and his pale rosy-cheeked face slack-jawed with awe, Arthor

  indeed appeared a callow youth. 'This young man is Aquila

  Regalis Thor — high king of all Britain. Kneel before him or

  be banished!'

  The command in Merlin's vibrant voice brought everyone

  to their knees. Arthor, startled speechless, turned to look at the

  wizard. This close, he could see the subtle crimson stitching of

  astrological sigils and alchemic devices in the blue fabric. And

  within the shadow cast by the wide-brimmed hat, he beheld a

  strong, aged profile, pale and pocked as if carved from stone.

  'Say nothing,' the wizard whispered to him. 'Hold the sword

  high and march downhill to your palfrey. Slowly. Remember —

  you are king. Carry yourself with regal bearing.'

  Arthor complied, though his heart stammered in his chest

  and his mind blurred with questions and doubts. All eyes trained

  on him stared in wonder and befuddlement. None dared speak,

  except for one swordsmith's apprentice, a boy no older than the

  king himself, who cried out meekly, 'Long live King Arthor!'

  The sound of his name married to the title king cramped his

  heart tighter in his chest, nearly squeezing all his breath out of

  him with astonishment. And if he could have, he would have

  blessed that smith's apprentice for not mocking him.

  Merlin led the way down the hillside to Arthor's palfrey

  that still held the youth's dented shield on its saddle peg. The