Kingdom of the Grail Read Free

hidden away where he could not find it.
    â€œThen at last he conceived a plan. He found a woman, a meek vessel as he thought her. He summoned a demon, a prince of his master’s court, to lie with her and get a child on her. For he could not do this himself, much as he might wish to: that was another price of his deathlessness, to forsake all pleasure of woman’s body, and all hope of getting children. But the demon whom he summoned put on his face, his semblance of supernal beauty, and so seduced the woman.
    â€œIn the passing of time she bore a son, a child without a father, a strange inhuman creature whose every breath was magic.”
    â€œYou,” said Roland. “That was you.”
    â€œYes,” said Merlin. “I was that child, wrought by a sorcerer to seize the Grail. But he had underestimated my mother. She was a princess of Gwynedd, a redoubtablewoman even in her youth, and she was a Druid and the daughter of Druids. She raised me as she saw fit, and that was in the light; and when my creator came to claim me, I was already corrupted. My mother had warned me what to expect, and advised me to betray as little of myself as possible. Therefore I seemed a biddable young thing, and dull, so that the sorcerer decided in the end to leave me where I was—but aware of his presence, and ready to do as he bade me, whenever he should have need of me.
    â€œWhich in time he did. He used me to make a king as he had done so often before: to raise up Uther as king over Britain, and to seduce him with the lady of Cornwall, and thus to beget Arthur. Arthur was to be his puppet, his kingly servant.
    â€œBut I was my mother’s son, and from the very beginning I was Arthur’s man. I loved him, both the child he was and the king I foresaw. I swore a great oath before the gods, that I would keep him in the light, and never surrender him to the darkness.
    â€œSo did I betray my maker twice over. I was not the meek slave he had wrought me to be, nor was my Arthur the puppet king that he was to have been. We had defied him, and worse, succeeded—and made him our bitter enemy.
    â€œIt was he who sent the vision of the Grail into Arthur’s warband, and so broke the fellowship in its obsession with the quest. And it was he who seduced Nimue and set her to betray me; but she woke to the truth too late, and knew what she had done. She could not free me, but she could protect Arthur, and did, as much as she might. His kingdom fell, but his soul was saved; and his son, who was to have been the sorcerer’s puppet, was slain by Arthur’s own hand.
    â€œAs for the Grail, which was the cause of it all, it was indeed almost betrayed into the sorcerer’s hands. He found it in its hiding place in the kingdom of Montsalvat, in a fortress called Carbonek, protected by nine enchantresses and by a brotherhood of holy warriors ruled by a Druid king. The sorcerer corrupted the king’s son, maimed and nigh destroyed him. But when the Grail was all but in his grasp, one of Arthur’s own warband came bearing the power of the light, and so saved the princeand the fortress and the Grail. The sorcerer was cast down by the might of the Grail. His beauty was rent from him, and much of his strength. The Grail was saved. The light had conquered.
    â€œBut it was too late for me,” Merlin said, “or for Nimue, whom I still loved. Poor child, she was racked with guilt. She swore to guard me, and bound our daughter to it, too. I would not have permitted that, but she was careful to do it where I could not prevent her.
    â€œFor she was convinced that as greatly diminished as our old enemy was, he was not dead; and he would look for me, to destroy me if he could, for I had betrayed him in everything that I did. I had raised Arthur in the light, I had won over Nimue—and yes, I had taught that young warrior, too, the one called Parsifal, so that he came to Montsalvat and redeemed its