The King's Wizard Read Online Free PDF

Vortigern’s prisoner, and so I’ll stay. But why are
you
here, Nimue?”
    “I’m a hostage,” Nimue told him. She smiled wryly. “Vortigern wants to make sure my father doesn’t join Prince Uther. The
     cage is bigger, but other than that there’s not much difference between us.”
    “What difference there is, I’m grateful for,” Merlin told her softly. She was more beautiful than he’d remembered, the lovely
     young girl having ripened into a desirable woman. He could almost be grateful to Vortigern for having brought them together
     again. “It seems I said the wrong thing when I told him Uther would defeat him.”
    “Oh, I hope you’re right!” Nimue said, lowering her voice even further. “If he comes soon, I think there is hope for both
     of us.”
    Merlin wanted to ask what she meant, but a sudden sound behind her made Nimue rise to her feet. “I must go,” she told him
     hurriedly. “I’ll come again.”
    * * *
    Merlin lost count of the passing days, but Nimue visited frequently, growing bolder as her visits went unnoticed.
    Without Nimue Merlin would have died. She brought him food in secret, but though the winter nights were icy, and frost had
     begun to form upon the walls of his cell, she dared not bring him blankets, or anything his jailers would find. Merlin shivered
     without cloak or covers to warm him, but a worse torture than the cold was the imprisonment. Merlin was a creature of the
     wild open spaces. The man-made walls seemed to loom inward, crushing the life from his body, until he began to wonder if Vortigern
     had simply forgotten him, leaving him to die here alone.
    Other than Nimue, Merlin’s only companion came from his visions; as he grew weaker, he drifted in and out of dreams, seeing
     jumbled meaningless images of events yet to be.
    “Merlin!” Nimue’s urgent whisper roused him.
    He blinked, gazing upward toward the light. His body felt heavy, as though it were turning to stone in sympathy with the walls.
    “Merlin!” she called again.
    He wanted to tell her he heard her, but when he tried to speak, no words would come. He raised a hand weakly, and realized
     he could move no more than that. His visions always told him he would not die here, but lately he was coming to doubt them.
     And if he died here, had Mab won? Or had he?
    “Merlin, what’s wrong?” Nimue’s voice was filled with unshed tears. “What has he done to you?”
    “Nothing.” Speech was an enormous effort, but somehow he managed it. “I just need… space to breathe. These four walls are
     suffocating me, Nimue.” He looked up toward the window he could no longer reach.
    “I won’t allow that.” Nimue’s voice held a hardness he’d never heard before. “The king is back. I’m going to demand that he
     release you.”
    “Nimue!” Fear for her did what fear for himself could not—but by the time Merlin had gotten to his feet, Nimue was gone.
    It felt good to be at war again, the king decided. Vortigern was far more cheerful than he meant to let his captains know
     as he called them together in Pendragon’s Great Hall for a council of war. When the two armies clashed next spring, the slaughter
     would be glorious. Uther had taken Winchester, and the Celts and Picts of the North were rising for him, but Vortigern held
     the South and the West. The Anglos, the Saxons, and the Cornish would fight for the crown like demons, and the Welsh archers
     could put an arrow through the heart of a sparrow on the wing. Vortigern had nothing to fear. He had a trained army and years
     of experience. It would not be that hard to defeat a callow youth in his first battle, and in the process Vortigern thought
     he’d be able to get rid of a number of troublesome political enemies on his own side as well.
    But in order to win his war, he first had to inspire his captains.
    “Now…” Vortigern said, leaning forward on his throne.
    At that moment there was a commotion outside the Great Hall. Suddenly