Merlin's Mirror Read Free

Then he glanced hastily right and left. He might have feared that his involuntary sound had betrayed him in some manner, but the rest of the company was intent on Nyren and the uninvited guest. Lugaid drew back a little, his eyes closed, a look of deep concentration on his bearded face.
    Planet time meant nothing to the installations. The flying things reported, memory banks sorted, classified, worked to feed information to the more sophisticated final judge of the project. A decision was made, twice tested. Then the most delicate and complicated portion of the space-carried equipment was prepared.
    Once more one of the fliers spiraled out. It made a wider swing, its distort on full. The farthest reach of that swing carried it across another spur of rock reaching skyward. The beacon which had summoned the installation out of space and time had died. Only now, deep within other rocks beneath, another signal woke to life. Undetected by the flier, it began to pulsate, its wavelength sweeping higher and higher as its energy built and roared to full power.
    Outward into the high heavens sped a new beam, climbing starward. It would take a long time, perhaps years for that warning to be caught by those who patrolled there. But it could not be quenched. Ancient battles might begin, lesser in force now than of old, because both adversaries were depleted to a thousandth, a millionth of the power they once possessed. Time and exhaustion had not, however, wearied their resolve. They were as implacable as ever. Though now they must face each other with new and lesser strength, yet they would do it.
    The flier wheeled, coasted through a fierce wind, fluttered along within its grasp as a leaf might. Yet it was not powerless; it had a task it must do and nothing man or nature could devise in this time could prevent it from accomplishing that act.

    Brigitta slept heavily, yet it seemed to her that in truth she waked. The wooden wall of the kin house was no longer about her. She stood instead on a path she knew well, the one which led to the spring of prophecy where the goddess might bless with eternal good fortune someone who flung an offering. Nor was this the dread night of Samain with its dark, veiled hunters waiting to ensnare man-kind. About her now was the green freshness of first spring, of Beltaine when the fires would burn high and maids and men would leap over their flames hand and hand, united in worship of those forces which increased rather than diminished the tribes.
    There was a golden light about her that did not come from the sun overhead. It made a spear point which reached to her sandaled feet, though the source remained hidden by bushes just leafing with the spring. The glow leaped up from that triangle of light into her heart, so she laughed joyfully and began to run through the brilliance, a great excitement filling her. Never had she felt so free, so alive, so entirely happy as in this moment.
    Then she saw him as he moved out of the green and stood waiting for her. This, her heart knew at once, was the face she had so long searched for among the visitors to the clan house, or in those few times when she had traveled abroad. This was the one meant by the Great Mother to give her full happiness.
    He was all light, clothed with radiance and warmth. She reached him and that warmth and light encased them both in a private place which was theirs alone. No one else in the world might ever find or share it. She was a part of him and he was a part of her, and so they became one in a way Brigitta could find no words to explain.
    The world about them was golden, and it sang as if all the true-toned birds in the woodlands raised their sweetest notes at once to blend. She was lost in the warmth, the song and in him until there was no Brigitta left, only another one who was fulfilled as a field sown with grain is fulfilled, ready to bring forth an abundant harvest.
    In the clan house Lugaid edged back into the shadows. His body