H Warner Munn Merlin's Ring

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Let me go to Huon, my Lady Queen. I would remind him that all friends meet in Heaven. It may
comfort him in his misery.
It would add to it now. He knows they will never meet again. We have none of those inconveniences
men call souls. We were given, instead, lives far longer than other living things, even yours, so lengthened
by Merlin s magic. Yet those lives can come to an end, by accident or in bat-tie. We have had our wars
and we have our enemies, as you know.
Who would wish to live those long lives crippled, maimed, or ugly? Better far to pass into the foam of
the sea as the mer-people do, or into the rosy clouds of the dome - above where we find our peaceful
forgetfulness.
We have no fear of the gods of men. We have seen them come in their arrogance and stay while men
believed in them and offered sacrifices and we have seen them perish as beggars, when that belief no
longer nourished them. We fear little, except the touch of iron and that we cannot withstand.
Now, Sir Hawk, it is time for you to leave us. You are close to your destination. Here, where you stand
on the edge of the blight, if you look toward its center you will discern the sword you seek. You can see
its metal blazing high if you look. Go to it bravely now. It will not harm you, for you are man and man is
master of the world, for yet a little while.
She kissed him and let him go and others came up, Lady Titania with her prince and many another lord
and lady of Elveron, whose faces had even in this short while- grown familiar to their guest.
Lastly came Huon, who gripped his hand tightly.
I will not say farewell, for although all leave for your Alatav I shall stay and it may be that we shall meet
another day. I shall always remember the words of comfort and praise with which you smoothed my
comrade s passing. It may be, in some dark hour of yours, that I can be of service to you. If such there
be, I shall surely Jtnow, and I will come to you wherever you may be, and stand at your side. A
Perchance there may be a time when we may dine and share a drink together and see pretty faces about
us who will find us good to look upon. That will be the hour in which to speak of the Elveron that has
passed and so for a moment cause it to live again in glory as I saw it burgeon and you have seen it in its
fading. Remember ine, comrade, in those days of twilight that are to come.
I shall not forget you. I have had friends in several places, but none I feel more drawn to than those I
have made here in a single day and night.
Huon s smile was quizzical, but he said nothing. He took off Ms green cap with its long scarlet feather
and bowed with the same ironical languidness as he had shown when first they met.
He waved Gwalchmai on his journey, with a long sweep of his arm.
Gwalchmai took a step over the border, into the gray desolation. A chorus of voices followed him,
bidding him farewell. He turned to wave.
Now that he had come within the influence of the spell Excalibur cast over Elveron, by the blight of its
steel, he had an eery sensation. It seemed that there was a wavering before his eyes as there had been a
few times before, but this tune it was strong and growing stronger.
The voices were thin and piping. He could understand the words, but the sounds were farther away. He
waved and they waved back. They seemed in size no larger than children. The warhorses were like
ponies to him.
He shook his head to clear it and walked on. Now he could see the crisp, cold, blue outline of the sword
ahead of him. At first it was a monstrous thing, fit for a Titan s hand. This must have been a trick of
perspective, he thought, for as he drew closer it dwindled, and although it was still huge, a veil of dimness
lay cast upon it, crinkled and veined with seams and lines of dark shadow.
Behind it he could see another dark line, the boundary of the amorphous blot that marked the country
held by the dwergar.
Above it hung the menacing black cloud that surrounded it like filthy smoke. For an instant only, it swirled
and coalesced and hardened into a Shape. He thought he saw a sneering, malignant Face a dark gaze
of hatred bent upon him from burning eyes.
It was gone it was again a cloud and under it in his direction, upon the ground, a horde was marching
out toward him, or it might be toward the elven lands.
This time the dwergar were attacking in force.
As they came, the dome of light was dimming before the spread of the unclean cloud.
He looked back. He could hardly see his friends they had grown so small. It came to him, then, that it
was he who had grown iugely away from them. He was a man again and the stature of a man had come
upon him as he neared the proximity of the sword. The steel had worked its magic up-on him as well,
and this change in size had brought about a bitter parting.
The earth beneath his feet was of normal color again. The forest of giant trees was once more grass and
flowers, as it had always been to men. The castle he had ridden from so gaily to the hunt was gone, with
all its pinnacles and stout walls, its spires and pennons so defiant in the wind.
In its place was a cairn of rough fieldstone. Beyond it lay the barrow of Getain, the Sea-King,
grass-grown and lonely, and desolately above it wheeled the mewing gulls. This is what eyes saw when
they were not the eyes of the fay.
He had come only a few short steps from the cairn, as man yet in Elveron he had ridden many miles.
He looked down and thought he saw a movement near his feet. He knelt carefully and scrutinized the
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