Merlin and the Land of Mists: Book Two: The Minotaur Read online

  Merlin

  and the Land of Mists

  by

  P.J Cormack

  Book Two

  The Minotaur

  P.J CORMACK

  Best-selling author of

  “Excalibur, the Seeking for the Sword”

  A Spellbinding New Series

  “MERLIN AND THE LAND OF MISTS”

  Book One THE DARK LORD

  Book Two THE MINOTAUR

  Book Three GALAHAD

  Book Four THE DRUIDS

  Book Five HERNE THE HUNTER

  Book Six END GAME

  Copyright © 2014 P.J Cormack

  KINDLE Edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored, in any form or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  PublishNation, London

  www.publishnation.co.uk

  DEDICATION

  For David and Karen

  Author’s Note

  ‘The Land of Mists’ was the Druidic name for that

  part of the United Kingdom now known as Wales.

  “When Evil stands at Camelot’s Gates.

  Then will come he of the Old Magic,

  In a time before the Raising of the Sword

  By the Old Magic will Evil fall.”

  The Unicorn, the Dragon, the Raven and the Undead

  Will face those Evils that all Camelot dreads.

  By the Power of the Raven Boy and the Power of the land,

  Shall all be protected and all Evil withstand.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  CASTLE DESPAIR

  THE GREAT HALL

  The being was huge and certainly not human. It had two arms, two legs and a head but that was where all similarity to mankind ended. It ran with rivulets of fire and it was dark red with armoured scales that covered the whole of its grotesque body. It was the Dark Lord and he was most definitely not pleased, in fact he was in one towering rage.

  The Dark Lord’s fortress was the aptly named Castle Despair for this was not a place for ordinary mortals. The fortress had risen out of the ground as a tree grows but very much faster and very much larger. There had been the earth-tearing sound of granite sliding over granite as it formed itself in a place that it had never been before and it had grown so tall that it seemed to blot out the sun.

  The Dark Lord had sought to overrun Camelot and Avalon and he had been thwarted. Thwarted by an eleven year old boy, but this was no ordinary boy for he was Merlin, also called the Raven Boy, and he was the son of a god. His father was Mithras Invictus, Mithras the Unconquered, Mithras the Bull Slayer and he was the greatest of the Elder gods. The greatest and the cruellest for Mithras Invictus was a god whose altars ran with blood and it was not always bull’s blood. Merlin’s mother was the Princess Ailidh, daughter of King Math ap Gwynned. It was from her that Merlin had inherited his great love for Avalon and a gentleness that, to some extent, counterbalanced the powers that he had inherited from his great father.

  The Dark Lord had believed that all the Old Magic had left Avalon and that it would be ‘easy pickings’ and he could not have been more wrong. The Old Magic was there in Merlin and Merlin was quite prepared to die for Camelot. The Dark Lord had enslaved a dragon and bought a mercenary and he had sent these against the young enchanter but all to no avail. Using the Old Magic Merlin had freed the dragon, whose Spell Name was Draago, from the Dark Lord’s enslavement and the boy had become its Dragon Master. Not only had the Dark Lord lost control of the dragon but it had turned against him and had sworn to always fight for Camelot against the Forces of the Dark. The dragon was the last of the Dragon Kind who had been a most noble and revered race and there would be no breaking of its oath by Draago.

  The mercenary had been a completely different kettle of fish for the Dark Lord had not bound him by enchantment but by gold. The man’s name was Archer and he had killed more men than he could remember and he had never failed. Never failed until he had come up against the Raven Boy. Merlin had used the Old Magic but not to kill Archer. The boy had simply stopped the well-aimed arrow in mid-flight, an arrow that had been destined to kill him. Merlin had sought no retribution but told the bleak faced mercenary that he gave everyone one chance but only one chance. The boy enchanter had warned the assassin that if he ever tried to attack him again then he would be blasted across the Abyss and out of Time. Archer had not needed a second chance. For all the men that he had assassinated he had never killed a woman or child. Archer, like Draago, had turned away from the Dark Lord and sworn that he too would fight for Avalon and Camelot should he be so called upon.

  In a final attempt to destroy Camelot and kill its king, Uther Pendragon, the Dark Lord had raised four Blood Riders from the very depths of the Underworld. These were men who were now demons. In their time upon the Earth they had been mighty kings that had conquered all who had stood before them and they had overrun the whole of the known world. They had been mighty in stature but now they were withered, desiccated demons, for absolute power corrupts absolutely and this was all that was left of the handsome and powerful warrior-kings that they had once been. They rode steeds that were no more than skeletons but these horses ran with rivulets of fire for they had been created by the Dark Lord from the very essence of his being. They, like the Blood Riders that rode them, could not be killed for they were already long dead. The Blood Riders had devastated the villages that lay around Avalon’s borders. Hurling down their fire-bolts they had burnt the settlements out of existence and slain every man, woman and child who had lived so happily there. The bodies had been left as twisted and charred remains, it was an atrocity that Merlin had sworn that he would neither forgive nor forget. The boy had avowed that one day he would see that these villagers would be fully avenged against the Dark Lord.

  Having freed Draago from the Dark Lord’s enchantment Merlin had become the dragon’s Dragon Rider and the two of them had swooped down from the sky onto the Blood Riders who had been intent on destroying Camelot and killing all who lived there.

  King Uther Pendragon, his Knight Commander Sir Lauriston du Lac and the High Mage, Galapas, had stood shoulder to shoulder with the Knights of Camelot but they all had known that they were powerless against theses demons of the Dark Magic who were the Blood Riders.

  It was then that Merlin and his dragon had struck. It had not been an easy battle for these were demons of great power and Dark Enchantment but finally Merlin had stood tall on the dragon’s back and called forth the Spell of Destruction.

  “Avaunt ye, beanishe foules spirites.

  Meum vitalum descendere acqui.

  Mei en Mithrathe banishe unt muerte avaunt ye.

  Avaunt spirites unt muertes!”

  There was only one being other than Merlin, in the whole of Creation who could have raised that god-driven enchantment and that was Mithras Invictus himself, Merlin’s father and the greatest of the Elder gods.

  The effect of the spell had been instantaneous. A force had hit the Blood Riders so that they were sent spinning and whirling out of Time and across the Abyss from which there is no return. There they would be feasted on by the demons that lived outside the Realms of Creation. It would be a torment worse than Hell itself a
nd it would be never-ending. It was, Merlin had decided, a fitting end to the demons of the Dark Magic who had so wantonly killed the men, women and children of Avalon.

  All these memories were now passing through the mind of the Dark Lord. For all his powers he could not understand the Old Magic of the Raven Boy. Mithras Invictus had shielded Merlin’s birth from all the Dark Powers and also from the other Elder gods so that the Dark Lord had no inkling that Merlin was god-born. All that demon knew was that somehow the Raven Boy had defeated him at every turn and it twisted like a knife in him.

  Now the Dark Lord had, as Merlin had predicted he would, come back to attack Avalon once more. The fire-consuming entity of the Dark Magic knew that before he could destroy everything that was in Avalon and Camelot he must kill the Raven Boy. The Dark Lord had learnt enough from his first attacks on King Uther Pendragon’s kingdom to know that it only had one protection against the enchantment of the Dark Forces and that was this Raven Boy. Once the boy was dead then the Dark Lord’s forces would sweep over Camelot and Avalon burning everything and everyone that stood in its path. The Dark Lord had sworn that he would turn Avalon into a wasteland and a wasteland where nothing would ever grow or thrive until the End of Time itself.

  Feeling his anger growing the Dark Lord lifted a globe. It was a midnight dark sphere that the Dark Lord had used his enchantment to create. It ran with the full power of the Dark Magic and the huge fiery being that was the Dark Lord could use it to scry events that were happening at great distances away. The demon could also use it to see into the Past but not the Future for seeing into the Future could only be done by the Elder gods and then only in the most exceptional of circumstances.

  The globe cleared and the Dark Lord could see, as he had wished, over the whole of Avalon and Camelot although, even here, parts were obscured from the Dark Lord’s sight and that was something that he also could not understand. Nothing should be hidden from a being such as him for he was no minor demon or Lesser god. He had risen by the Power of the Dark from the very Mists of Time itself. He had breached the Underworld that was Hell and none had been able to stop him. So what was it, he mused, that hid part of Avalon from his sight? He would very much like to have an answer to that particular question.

  The vision that the Dark Lord saw in the globe was not to his liking. In spite of the attack on it by his Blood Riders Avalon was now a peaceful land once more. The villagers had buried their dead and were building new houses and enclosures inside the circle of the altars of Mithras Invictus that gave protection to Avalon. Even Camelot Castle, the centre of the Blood Riders’ final attack, was gleaming in the morning light. The new stone on its towers and walls looked crisp and solid for Camelot had many excellent masons and they had set about immediately repairing the damage that had been done by the Dark Magic before its defeat at the hands of the dragon named Draago and its Dragon Rider.

  There in the Great Throne Room the huge being that was the Demon of the Dark saw King Uther Pendragon and his Knight Commander, Sir Lauriston du Lac. The Dark Lord scryed that they were talking with Camelot’s High Mage, Galapas, who no doubt was taking all the credit for saving Avalon. The fire-driven demon didn’t know who had turned the dragon against him and driven his Blood Riders out of Time and Existence but one thing that he did know was that it definitely hadn’t been the High Mage of Camelot.

  Whatever it was that had confronted the Blood Riders had been of the Old Magic and that wasn’t Galapas. As far as the Dark Lord knew there had only been one being of the Old Magic remaining in Avalon and that was Elder god, Mithras Invictus. But Mithras Invictus had lost interest in Avalon and the Dark Lord was certain that it hadn’t been the Elder god that had blasted the Blood Riders out of existence. Then he saw a fourth being that he had not seen before. She was dark and unbelievably pretty and had a face that shone with kindness. It was, the Dark Lord realised, Camelot’s queen.

  In the short time that the Dark Lord had been absent from Avalon King Uther Pendragon had taken a wife. It stuck like a dagger in the demon’s throat that Uther Pendragon should feel so safe from the attacks of the Dark Forces that he would make this, undoubtedly very beautiful woman, his queen. She would be the first to die, the Dark Lord decided, and King Uther Pendragon would know true grief as he mourned the death of his newly-wed queen.

  Then the Dark Lord saw a vision that caused the rivulets of fire that ran around his huge body to flare up even more in anger and once more the demon stood huge as a Being of Fire. In the sphere he saw what he recognised to be the Great Stones of Avalon and in its centre stood the Raven Boy. The boy was flanked by a huge unicorn and a raven that was no ordinary raven for it was as big as an eagle.

  Flames licked from the Dark Lord so that it seemed that he would burn his own Great Hall to the ground. Then he spoke with a voice that carried all the threat and hatred of a Demonic Being from the Underworld.

  “Still you are here, Raven Boy,” the Dark Lord roared, “Still your very existence haunts me. How was it that you were able to avoid my Blood Riders and bring the dragon Draago to your side? Why was Archer, who has never before failed, persuaded to let you live? I will find the answers to these questions, Raven Boy and then, like all my enemies you will die. Who are you Raven Boy?”

  The Dark Lord’s final words thundered around Castle Despair’s walls, echoing back many times in a cacophony of distorted sound. The Dark Lord now ran with so much fire that it was as if he was one huge, towering humanoid shaped flame. Without another word the Dark Lord of the Dark Magic stormed across his Great Hall and every step that he took left a footprint that ran with fire. As he slammed the Great Hall’s doors behind him fire sprang up and licked around the door frame and handle.

  The Dark Lord made a vow to himself that one day and one day in the not too distant future he would see this Raven Boy burning in the flames of Hell itself.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE GREAT STONES OF AVALON

  The boy, the unicorn and the raven stood at the centre of the Great Stones of Avalon. They stood in the area known as Dragon’s Teeth which was the name given to the ancient stones that stood there and which appeared to be detached from the Circle of the Great Stones. It would have been an unusual trio at the best of time but this was even more so for it was Merlin, son of the god Mithras Invictus, Stormrider, King of the Unicorns and Kraak, King of the Raven Kind who had returned to the very place where Merlin had freed the dragon, Draago, from the Dark Lord’s enchantment.

  It had been Kraak, King of the Ravens Kind, who had flown high into the fortress of the Dark Lord that was known as Castle Despair. There, at great risk to his life, Kraak had learnt the dragon’s Spell Name, which in turn had allowed the Raven Boy, which was the ravens’ special name for Merlin, to break the Dark Magic and release Draago the dragon from its enchantment.

  Many men, women and children had died in the Dark Lord’s onslaught and Merlin was determined that such destruction would never occur again in Camelot and Avalon. It seemed a tall order for an eleven year old boy to undertake but Merlin was anything but an ordinary boy. He was the son of Mithras Invictus, Mithras the Unconquered, Mithras the Bull Slayer to give the god just some of the names that he was known by. Mithras Invictus was a god who relished in the blood of the sacrifices of bulls and he was the strongest and most blood-thirsty of the Elder gods. It would not have boded well for Camelot if Merlin had been born with the bloodlust of his father in him.

  The arrival of the Dark Lord and his unleashing of Archer, Draago and finally the Blood Riders had happened too quickly for Merlin to call upon Stormrider and his Unicorns. Stormrider was, like Merlin and Draago, of the Old Magic and it was only the Old Magic that could protect Avalon and Camelot from the Dark Lord and his Dark Magic. Once Mithras’ altars had stood as a barrier around Avalon that could not be broken but King Uther Pendragon, the king of Camelot had not encouraged the worship of the Elder god and so the altars had been left to decay and the Circle of Protection was broken.


  Mithras had now lost patience with Avalon and spent very little time there which left it open to attack by the Dark Lord and the Forces of the Dark. Now Merlin had Stormrider and his unicorns in Avalon he felt even more confident that he could hold back the Dark Magic when the next attack came.

  Stormrider was an impressive sight, he was not white like most unicorns but was a dazzling gold with a horn of twisted silver and gold that was far sharper than any sword or lance could ever be. He had a silver mane and tail and strikingly blue eyes that, like Draago’s, could see the wind as befitted the King of the Unicorns.

  It was Merlin who had spoken first to welcome the golden unicorn.

  “Greetings Stormrider, it is good to see you again.”

  Stormrider towered over Merlin. All the animals of the Old Magic were large and Stormrider was nearly twice the size of an ordinary horse and the golden unicorn was a seriously impressive sight. Even so the King of the Unicorns bowed his head for Merlin was god-born.

  “Greeting to you as well, Raven Boy,” Stormrider had a deep, melodious voice that could rise high with fury when he and his unicorns were called into battle. “The unicorns thank you for driving the Dark Lord from Avalon. We are only sorry that we were not here to assist you.”

  “I know you would have come to Avalon’s aid if I could have got a message to you but everything seemed to happen too quickly,” Merlin told him.

  “Many were slaughtered by the Blood Riders,” Stormrider said and there was a deep sorrow in his voice as both he and his unicorns had always had a deep love for Avalon and its inhabitants.

  A shadow seemed to pass over Merlin’s face and his eyes narrowed which always was a danger sign, “A great many died,” Merlin agreed, “And much of Camelot has had to be rebuilt. One day I will revenge Camelot’s dead on the Dark Lord. I will neither forget nor forgive the wanton slaughter that he brought to so many innocent people here.” For a moment Merlin looked the image of his father and both Kraak and Stormrider felt an icy shiver run down their spines.