Root and Branch Shall Change

by Andre Norton

 

1st Published ~ Merlin (1999) Edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Published by DAW, PB, 0-886-77841-7, No.1130, $6.99, 320pg ~ cover by John Howe

 

Last Printing in English ~ Tales from High Hallack vol. 3 (2014) Published by Premier Digital Publishing, DM & TP, 1-624-67189-6, $22.95, 450pg ~ cover by Kib Prestridge

 

Bibliography Page - Root and Branch Shall Change

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THE character of Merlin is a very complicated one, entwined in such a weaving of various legends that the searcher can find many Merlins, each alike in some manner of power, yet unlike in the use of it. In one of the sage 's guises, he uttered dire prophecies of the wild wrath of both elements and stars, foretelling that, in the future, the earth would exact from humankind payment for its befouling.

With Arthur, Merlin failed, and we are given several reasons for that failure. In some accounts, it is hinted that he was too impatient in striving to bring about what was necessary to achieve ends foreseen along One future path, and thus his power turned against him.

Was Nimue’, his disciple and comfort, in truth a traitoress and one who chose a dark path? We cannot be sure of the wisdom of accepting such a direct answer as legend has presented. Certainly, though, she was the woman with whom Merlin could share his dreams and desires, and the mage---in all accounts---stood alone until her coming.

Yes, they list---the seekers-of-legends---a number of Merlins, sometimes sundered by centuries of lime. Perhaps, then, the prophecies uttered by one of these wizards of the past may also lie ahead. We are told that Arthur was, and is, The Once and Future King; surely, then, Merlin is the Once and Future Master of Powers.

Thus there might come a time when such a tale as this could shape itself into reality.

 

How fares a survivor whose world has collapsed, leaving no firm refuge or retreat?

First came the dreams---wisps of action in which I was caught, but which I could not understand. Yet, in a way, such visions were better than waking; and with each dreaming, reality also became stronger. I awoke to find myself talking to the air about me, not only arguing with one I could not see upon awaking, but repeating strange words and phrases. Strange, yes, and yet---once they had had a strong meaning.

After a space, when I awoke from one of the dreams, I could not put a clear name even to myself. I was no longer Ninan Tregarn, once teacher to the young in a dull gray city where the debris which humans had made cluttered the breast of the long-suffering earth. You see, I would tell myself unhappily, you now stand apart, having left the company of your own kind.

The visions had begun even before the breaking of the peace of the world. True, men had troubled their own peace for generations, but now earth and sky, sea and stars left their appointed patterns and changed, sweeping away most of the humans who had failed.

The meteor showers, the tumult of the oceans, those dark shadows across the moon, the fatal plagues--- HE had foretold them in his time.

His time! But Time folds upon itself when Nature strives to throw away a past. Could there begin anew anything---anything?

It was cold, and it had hailed, battering my half-starved body. The ragged blanket I drew around me now as a shawl was heavy with damp. Only a small spark of defiance had kept me moving the past few days.

But, for the first time, my need was clear. I was no longer Ninan---no, I was again that other who had once gathered to her all she could hungrily grasp. Then there had been a parting, and thereafter ill repute had been cast upon me. Through the centuries, I was remembered as a traitor, a woman who had brought about the death of the only one who had ever tutored and---yes---cherished her.

However, Time was not finished with either of us, nor was the earth ready to take us into itself, to part flesh from bone, from---soul? Spirit was a gift, a loan from Her who rode the heavens at this hour, and it was surely She who sent me stumbling on my way.

That new-old part of me, which was growing stronger with every breath I drew, was my guide now. My head was no longer bowed; instead, I listened, perceiving something not heard as sound but rather felt as an inner trembling of the body.

The forest my budding other self remembered---that was long gone, swallowed up by the lava-tide of relentless human expansion. Nonetheless, as I moved ahead, trees rose about me, tenuous shadows of themselves at first, then strong, sturdy growths, complete. And that trembling within grew ever stronger, urging me on.

Suddenly I no longer moved alone, for there came another, well-shrouded in a tattered robe. Memory stirred. In the days just behind me, some had arisen who had, in-their anger and fear, sought stern gods, turning fiercely against all who did not believe as they had come to do. This man was one of their Speakers. His face was as gaunt as if the flesh had already departed from the sharp bones, and it seemed to me that his eyes were mere pits of fire in a skull.

He raised his hand high, pointing toward me, and I could see that his taloned fingers held a curved carving like unto the bowl of a bell; this object he also swung, yet there was no clapper within its throat. Nonetheless, I knew that the unheard sound which had drawn me hither issued from that tongueless bell.

"Well do you ring! Wait you upon an answer?" I asked, realizing as I did so that I spoke a language long dead to men, yet to me strongly alive.

"No answer," the ringer grated a harsh reply. "Get you hence, woman of ill fortune, betrayer, thief of power never meant to be given to any female!"

Suddenly it seemed that he spoke in jest, for the way of his imagined god had never held any truth for me. I found laughter I had not known for many days upon my lips as I moved determinedly toward him.

The Speaker wore a mask of sheer horror now, as though his features in their warpings and wrinkles pictured all the evils his beliefs held that womankind had brought upon the world. "Begone---into darkness, begone!" he spat. Fearsome the man might be, but he was only a final adversary, worn out by centuries of waiting. Knowing what must be done, I put forth my hand and snatched the bell from his grasp.

It was as if I had plunged fingers and palm into a cold that ate. Then the ice became fire, as violent in its burning as the meteors which the death-days had spilled upon the earth. Still, I held to the bowl; and for the first time I dared to summon, from those memories that had only recently regranted me the ancient tongue, a lilting song of Power. Once I had been taught to guard so, and now I stood, battle-engaged, once more.

The one who faced me gave a sharp cry, spittle bursting from between the stretch of his thin lips. He strove hard, and the pressure of his will was nearly enough to silence my own call for strength. Tearing through the air with his claw-fingers, striving to regain what he had lost, he tottered forward as though about to throw himself full upon me and snuff out my life with the weight of his body.

But what he had held was now mine. I raised the bell high, and it moved smoothly and well. As before, no sound for the ear issued from its empty half-round, yet that trembling which reached into the body grew and grew.

He whom I had so confronted---false priest of a human-created god---began to darken, seeming to draw upon shadows in an attempt to rebuild himself. Such, however, was not to be his fate, for darkness instead swallowed him and he was gone.

A glow brightened within the walls of the enringing trees, as though the orb that is Her own hung there now, and the silent song of the bell drew me on until I came to the foot of a jumble of rock such as could be found in many places since the shaking of the earth some seasons past.

Once, I well remembered, a proud rise of stone had stood there---a haven-fortress which he whom I now sought had made his place of peace and study. Within had been stored and safeguarded ancient slabs of stone patterned over with symbols of power; books so great and weighty as to need both hands to shift them; flasks; coffers. And I had known them, too, drawing knowledge and skills from that which they held.

Now only a shapeless mass of rubble was to be seen; however, I would not accept that I had been brought here only to confront a sterile and futile ending. At first I thought to lay aside the bell and strive to remove the pile of rock piece by piece, using my hands. Then I noticed that, when I fronted the heap directly, the tremors I felt inside my body seemed also to resound in some fashion within its substance. Shivering free from their resting places, the stones rolled down the mound by the force of no touch save the call of the tongueless bell.

By the moon's silvery light, near the crest of the hillock so swiftly dislodging itself, a dark spot could now be seen---an opening made larger by the fall of every rock. In a few moments I faced a door, and then the stones ceased to tremble and tumble.

It was small, that entryway, and I had to stoop to enter. Before me was only all-swallowing darkness, but, taking one cautious step after another, I went forward.

The radiance of the forest-filtered moon seemed to rest fingers of light upon my shoulders and to make clear what lay before me. I saw shelves deep-carven into the walls of what had once been a cave and, upon those, the heaped remains of weapons of his kind, long since come to dust. All that lived now was the knowledge which was a part of me and which had been summoned from the past.

Against the far wall lay what seemed part of a great log. I stood gazing at the vast trunk, and tears filled my eyes once more, even as they had nearly overcome me when I had last paused in that spot to take a silent farewell.

I had come so far to do what must now be done, yet somehow I could not make the final gesture. Here---even in this very place---I had stood, tricking my love for his own sake, in the hope of saving him by defeating Time itself.

Time ... yes, that had passed, and I had been caught up in a chain of many lives. I was a seeress, a dreaded woman Of strange knowledge, whose body had been given to the fire by those who had feared her. Then, as the Old Beliefs had failed, so I, too, had faded, losing those abilities. I had toiled in fields, and---equally a slave---in the machine-filled pens of later ages. And never had love warmed me, for I had betrayed it, seeking in my pride to master death. Despite all such strivings, I had died, more often than I had any wish to remember---and lived again, in each new form

withdrawing farther from that which I had been.

Yet I had been brought here and my memory reawakened; and that She had some use for me I was certain. Had I not come across a starved and dying land, living on what roots I could find, and pushing forward always against great weariness to crouch now in this place of sorrow?

Now I put aside the bell, for this spell I would break was one of my own setting in the long ago. Leaning forward and placing my hands flat on that seeming length of log, I called up the binding as it had been laid. For even as the ensorcellment was wrought, so it must be rescinded word by word, gesture by gesture---a thing which I alone could do. I began with great care, lest my tongue twist and give some fatally-wrong accent to a word. Gradually, with increasing confidence, I ordered the phrases, remembering the swing of the chant, the proper movement of the hands. Thus, and thus, and thus---

I had stepped out of time as humankind knew it. My body swaying to the rhythm of the incantation. I became only a voice, fueled by what was left of my strength. As was required in such a casting, I now closed my eyes upon that which lay before me; rather, I built and held to a mind-picture of what it was needful to bring forth by my wreaking here.

The flow of words slowed. I reached once more for the bell, and its weight seemed to draw my hand toward that tree-not-tree which had been shaped and set here to guard a most precious spirit. In answer to the bell's call, like the stones that had sealed the mouth of the cave, the illusion of bark covering began to slough away; and with the fall of each flake, a portion of my remaining inner power was lost, as well.

My last bespelling, this enchantment had once been. Now it was finished yet again, and I felt nearly as spent as I had with its making. The vibration from the bell died as I crouched down to see what I had uncovered, not truly sure that my will could be undone as it had been done. There was not now any threat from Morgause raised against him, such as had lent me strength beyond the might of mortals to send my teacher beyond her grasp. That jealous queen had had her day and place, as well as her hatred, which had been so strong it had led her to a murderous act. No, here there was only myself, and---

Light arose from the interior of the loglike coffin. The radiance blazed, and I held out my hands to it as one coming in from bitter cold would seek a beckoning fire.

I looked, and gave a little cry; then I stared fully down at what lay there. It had been majestic age I had sealed so against death in that far-off time; but---

---here lay a child. The hair, to be sure, was still silver, but the locks were vibrant with young life. The features likewise were as yet untroubled by time's passing. I had left an oldster, one who had lived longer in the world than many of his kin-blood; but it was certain that I now looked upon a youth of middle years.

Around the body was still wrapped the Master's cloak. Over its surface played rippling lines of color, each of which expressed the inner secret of some mystery not revealed to humankind unless such knowledge were hard fought for and the proper rites enacted.

On the quiet breast, the folds of that enshrouding garment had shifted aside. Lying there against the ivory of the skin was a length of substance I had never before seen. It was not the steel of a blade, nor any safe-ward I could understand. Nonetheless, though the thing had no place in my past, I knew what had to be done. Clutching the bellbowl tightly in my left hand, I reached out with my right and raised the object from its resting place.

I held a cylinder measurable by my forefinger yet thicker than that, a rod not smooth but rather deeply graven. I brought it closer to eye level. This was very ancient---so old that it reached far back beyond any memory I could summon. The carving showed a woman's lush figure, heavy-breasts and wide-hipped---a shape such as an artist might craft whose purpose was not to show the real but the ideal. Though I had seen its like only once, and that many lifetimes ago, I knew what lay in my hand.

This was the Great Goddess as the earliest of our race had known Her: the Earth Mother Herself in all her fertility and strength. Hardly conscious of what I did, I put the bell and this new-found clapper together. The sound which shouted forth was no longer mere vibration; now it smote the ears like the brazen clangor of a mighty gong.

The closed eyes of the child-man opened and stared up into mine, neither blue nor gray in color and fiery with life and barely-leashed power. It was true, then---he who lay here in such strange guise was, indeed, restored.

The just-wakened one raised himself slowly, drawing the overlarge cloak about his body.

"So . . ." His voice had not the piping lilt of the youth he seemed but rather a stronger tone. "Welcome, Nimue. 'Root and branch shall change places, and newness will

come to all things, as is rhe measure of the Power.' Greatly must the earth have altered since last we met here---so much indeed, that, as I forespoke, the place of the trees and the very land is changed.

"As once you learned from me, so now must I relearn from you. How fares this world into which you have drawn me?"

I did not answer him in words; instead, pictures passed through my mind of vast sufferings---evildoings and blood-letting by men and the uprising of nature itself against humankind. And he also, I knew, read my recent memories, viewing what I myself had seen and, beyond that, perceiving through me knowledge far wider and deeper than any I could offer him.

He shook his head when I was done. "Dark are the roads trodden by mortals, for a host of ills are shaken from the garments of those who travel there! The Great Mother cannot be denied forever.”

"Yet," I ventured to question, "what can any do, if the skies, seas, winds, and the earth itself rise in battle against us, as they have done?"

"We must make a beginning," he answered. "l shall draw from you in full all that lore I once freely gave. Thereafter---together---"

My master, now my pupil, hesitated only a moment; then his fingers reached out and touched the wrist of the hand with which I held the bell. A charge tingled through my flesh as though I had grounded lightning, and in that instant I, too, might have uttered a prophecy. Great, in truth, had he been, but it was in him to be greater still, and under Her tutelage he would become the mightiest of Her servants.

Pulling the cloak tighter about him, he rose up, freeing himself from the shell of the tree trunk. Again he put out his hand to clasp mine, and I understood that in partnership we were to bring new life to a ruined world.

Thus---Merlin and Nimue’ once more---we stepped forth into the open of that strange forest, and the ring of the bell was in rhythm with each purposeful step we took in company. Out of the shadows came a great gray wolf with whom my lord had once walked in harmony. From over our heads sounded the harsh cry of a raven, and ahead of us, waiting majestically, stood a horn-crowned stag, king of that woodland court to which Merlin had paid homage long ago.

And Time turned, even as the stars move in their appointed paths, and Hope was born anew' to light the Dark.

 

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