Here are the first few pages of The Nature of Things - the story of Myrddin Emrys - the Merlin Chronicles Volume 1.
The book itself will be available soon. Well, soonish.
All the best,
Rhuddem
1
The boy who talked to water
Meinir
listened to her son’s voice chattering as he splashed along the side of the
brook. She let his words flow through her without trying to understand what he
was saying. He seemed to be using a language of his own, as he often did, and
the brook, when answering him, used a language that she didn’t understand at
all. It was the tone of his voice that she
listened to.
Her
father Bleys, walking beside her on the rough path through the wood, said, ‘He
doesn’t sound as sad as he did this morning.’
‘No.
Whatever Grym Bywyd Dwr is saying to him, I think he’s feeling better.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m feeling hungry, tired, footsore, angry… and relieved that the
three of us are alive.’
‘And grieving,’ he said quietly.
‘And grieving.’ She suppressed a sigh.
She looked at her son as he
threw himself into the water, laughing, and emerged, his hair and clothes
streaming. She shivered in sympathy but he didn’t care about the cold. He never
did. He didn’t care about his clothes
either and he was barefoot so she wasn’t worried about him ruining his shoes.
They were tied to her belt.
Still
laughing he scrambled ashore and shouted something over his shoulder as he ran
towards her and his grandfather. By the
time he reached them his clothing and hair were dry. ‘Grym Bywyd Dwr says it’s not far now,’ he
said, grabbing his grandfather’s hand and swinging it as he fell into step with
them.
‘Well,
that’s certainly good to hear,’ Meinir smiled.
‘Will we be there by dinner time?’
‘Probably
not,’ Myrddin said. ‘I think we should eat something now.’
Meinir
laughed. ‘I’m sure you do.’
Bleys
said, ‘You’re a clever lad. I think you’re right. Do you think your mother has
something in her pack for us?’
Meinir
looked down at her son’s hopeful face, his blue eyes sparkling with the
mischief that was almost always there, though not so much in the last
month. She ruffled his thick black hair
and said, ‘Oh, maybe there’s a crumb or two left.’
‘I’ll
fetch water!’ he shouted and ran back to the brook.
‘Myrddin!’
she called after him. He stopped and
turned. She held up the scoop she had attached to her belt by his shoes and he
came running back. She suspected he had
been about to fetch the water back in the form of a big bubble the way he had
done back home and it worried her. He
had to learn. He had to learn now. He
took the scoop from her hand and dashed off to the brook again.
Bleys
sat down on a fallen log with a deep sigh of satisfaction and stretched his
legs. ‘Don’t worry too much, Meinir,’ he
said. ‘He’s learning.’
‘We
can’t make mistakes,’ she said grimly.
‘No, we
can’t. But we hadn’t made any mistakes
before and the chieftain still found Morken. It’s because we made no mistakes
that you and Myrddin weren’t discovered. And survived.’
She sat
down next to him and started opening her pack.
‘You’re right.’ She looked at the
boy walking carefully back towards them with the full scoop. She was in fact
proud of him that he was doing it without using any magic. She knew he wanted
to. ‘Thank you,’ she said, receiving the scoop from him. She drank then passed
it to her father.
She took
out the last of the bread, goat cheese and dried wild apples from last year. It would be good to come to the village. Their weeks of travelling had depleted all of
their supplies and most of their strength. Even Myrddin, with all of his
childish energy, was thin and tired more often than she liked to see.
She held
her face up to the afternoon sun. It was warm and pleasant after the harsh
winds and cold spring rain of yesterday.
‘So how
much farther is it?’ Bleys asked his grandson.
‘I don’t
know exactly,’ the boy said. ‘Do you want me to ask her?’
‘No,
that’s all right. We’ll just get started
in a moment.’ He took Myrddin’s hand, pulled him in between his knees and
rested his chin on the boy’s head. Myrddin leaned back against his grandfather
comfortably. Meinir’s heart warmed at the sight. It had been a terrible time
recently but there was much to be happy about.
But then
Myrddin started moving his hand around and small swirls of dust rose from the
path and twisted into the shapes of birds.
Pride in her son’s skills was immediately crushed by fear and she
reached her hand out to cover his. He
looked at her, startled, and then turned away, ashamed.
‘I’m
sorry, Meinir,’ he whispered.
‘I know
you are,’ she said quietly as her father’s arms tightened around him
comfortingly. ‘But you know how
important it is to remember.’
‘I thought
it was all right when it’s just us,’ Myrddin said, almost inaudibly.
