It doesn't occur to Arthur to wonder why it is he does not have a mother until he is some six years old.
He is walking along the shore in the shadow of Mynydd Tân, looking for cockles in the sand and watching the selkies play and sunbathe on the rocks, when he notices there's a family further down the beach, a woman and two younger children. From the bucket she carries and the small rakes they have, they're doing the same as him. He knows what a mother is, of course. However, he's never wondered why he doesn't have one, largely because it doesn't concern him. He cannot miss what he has never had, after all. Still, a part of him wonders why it is he seems to lack what so many others have.
It doesn't occur to him to ask the question until Nimueh comes to collect him for his lessons. She never comes to their cavern; he always goes to her or waits for her on the beach, though she doesn't like being seen by other people. Despite the sunny warmth, she wears a long red cloak with the hood up, sitting on a stony outcropping waiting for him. "Hello, Nimueh," he says, climbing up to sit beside her.
"Little prince," she greets in return. One hand drifts over until it rests atop his head, and she turns her head towards him. Under the faint shadow of her hood, her pink-pearl eyes drift at a point near his ear. "Are you ready for your lessons?"
Arthur plucks at a frayed spot in his trouser leg, frowning a little.
Her brows lift at his silence. "Yes?"
"Are you my mother?" he asks. She's the only woman he is ever around; it's reasonable to think so.
She gazes down at him with her clouded-over gaze, and a strange look passes across her face, fleeting as the passing shadow of a flying bird. "No. I am not," she replies at last, and her voice sounds raspier as well.
"Do I have one?"
"You do, but that is a question for your uncle to answer," she answers again before can ask if she knows who his mother is, then. A small smile curls over her lips, but she still looks sad to him. She withdraws her hand and stands up, reaching up to resettle her hood as the salty breeze snatches at it, walking up the beach.
Arthur sighs and slides off the rock, understanding the unspoken summons when he hears it, and follows her. He knows it is never wise to irritate the priestess, so he keeps his silence through his lessons. Today, she is teaching him about shapeshifters. Selkies, wereanimals, skinchangers, learning how to tell the difference between them in their different forms. Such are the lessons he receives from her—the ways of the Old Religion, the creatures who live by it, its laws and workings.
When he's learnt enough to satisfy her, she escorts him back to Uncle Tristan directly, as she always does. There is a creek near their cave. She never crosses it, though its only calf-deep at the shallowest point where he crosses. Uncle is waiting on the other side with a brace of ptarmigan slung over one shoulder. Arthur means to ask again about his mother with them both there, but Nimueh turns herself into a bird and flies away. Frowning, he rolls up his trouser legs and wades across to where Uncle waits for him.
"Have you annoyed the priestess again today?" he asks, deeply amused.
"No," Arthur grumbles. "I asked her about my mother."
Uncle's face changes, getting that same sad, shadowy look Nimueh had, and he sighs deeply. One of his big, rough hands comes to rest on the back of Arthur's neck, gently smoothing down his hair. "You're old enough. If you really want to know, cub, I'll tell you. Come on." They finish their walk back to the cave in silence. Once there, Uncle gestures for him to sit and goes about making supper for them; Arthur tries not to fidget, waiting, knowing that if he asks again, he'll be told about the value of patience. After he's handed his share of ptarmigan, Uncle sits down beside him. "Your mother was my sister. I loved her more than anyone."
He knows that, but he doesn't say anything, eating his supper obediently.
"You're very much like her. Fair and sweet, but with her edges, too. What is it you want to know so badly, hm?"
Arthur pauses, thinking. He doesn't know how many questions Uncle will answer tonight; sometimes he stops talking for no reason. Chewing his last bite of ptarmigan slowly, he licks the grease off his fingertips and asks, "Where is she? Why am I not with her?" He knows animals stay with their mothers when they're young. He's seen fawns with does, kits with vixens, cubs with sows. People aren't so different from beasts, so it stands that he should be with her.
Uncle sighs deeply. "She is dead, and she died a very long way from here."
"She's gone?" Arthur echoes in dismay. It doesn't quite grieve him, as he hasn't known anything of her before now, but it is disheartening to hear.
Uncle smiles a little at that, the corner of his mouth curling up. "Come here." He picks Arthur up and carries him outside. Tilting his head back, he points upwards at the night sky. "You see those stars there? That bright one? You know what that is, don't you?"
"Polaris," Arthur replies, pleased to know the answer but confused as to what this has to do with his mother.
"Yes. Do you know your constellations yet? Do you know what those stars are?" he asks, and Arthur shakes his head. "Well, those are your stars, cub. That's the Little Bear. And those ones there next to it? That's Mother Bear. She gave Little Bear the brightest star in all the sky so no matter what, no matter how dark it was, she could always find him. There's your mother. And as long as those stars are there, she's here. She'll always find you."
"When I die, will I go up to my stars, too? Like Mother did?" Arthur asks.
Uncle Tristan nods. "Of course. But that won't be for a long, long time. You're going to be old and grey and toothless before you go there," he chuckles, poking at Arthur's belly and ribs, making him squirm and giggle.
"Can we stay out here?"
"Aye, if you'd like."
As Uncle brings out their blankets, another question occurs to him. He knows that his hair is the same colour as Uncle Tristan's, he's seen strands of it when the tangles get combed out too roughly, or when it gets long enough to hang in his eyes, but they have no mirror, and the creek isn't still enough to hold a reflection. "What colour are my eyes?"
Uncle turns to look at him with his dark gaze and smiles. "Blue, little bear. Blue as hyacinths grow."
They sleep outside the cave that night, bundled up in a nest of blankets, and Arthur gazes at the shape of Mother Bear until sleep tugs too firmly to keep his eyes open. It isn't until he's sliding towards sleep that it occurs to him that the tales stop short.
He has no idea who his father is.
When the morning comes bright and clear, Uncle promises to teach him how to catch trout with his bare hands, and Arthur forgets the question for a long time.
As he grows older, Uncle Tristan teaches him many things, different from his lessons with Nimueh. He learns to catch fish, not only with his hands but with a line and hook. He learns to gather greens and roots. He learns which mushrooms and berries are poisonous and which are good to eat. He learns to read weather signs and track game. Uncle teaches him to use weapons, first a simple sling, but then with a bow and even a short spear. Eventually, he will begin learn to use the steel longsword that has been in the back of their cavern as long as his memories stand.
Twice a week, constant as the dawn, he goes to Nimueh and learns from her as well. He has no great talent for magic in his own right, but he still learns simple charms, to light a fire and purify water, how to kindle a lightstone and clean a wound. He learns to read glyphs and runes, to recognise different patterns of spell-weaving and unravel them. She not only tells him the ways of the Old Religion, but great tales, too. Stories of days long gone, of heroes and villains, great exploits and betrayals. How the Tiberian empire came to Alba, bringing stone roads and foreign sickness and a new faith that scorned the ways of the Old Religion, called its followers unholy. He wonders what Alba is like now. He's never seen the mainland, but he knows that it is no longer a place for magic, that the followers of the Old Religion have been hunted down and cast out, fleeing to the safety of the island, eternally shrouded by magic and under the aegis of the dragons.
The summer of his tenth year is the year of the Dragonlords' conclave and his first pilgrimage to Mynydd Tân.
It is the single most exciting thing to happen to him in his young life. He's never been further away from their cave than the beach, and now they will be crossing the entire island to Mynydd Tân. The mountain of fire can be seen from every part of the island, even from the cliffs, the very peak of it still visible. The hollow mountain has long been the nesting place of dragons, as well as the home of the Dragonlords. Even though sorcerers of all ilk live on the island itself, only the Dragonlords themselves live inside Mynydd Tân. The idea of seeing so many people makes Arthur's belly tighten up in a mix of excitement and nervousness. They live a solitary life; there is Arthur, Uncle Tristan, and Nimueh. Other people are passing murmurs in the darkness, distant figures on the beach.
"Why are we going to Mynydd Tân?" Arthur asks
Uncle Tristan flicks an acorn at him. "Because I have said we are going. The conclave begins in a sennight, so we need make good pace. Finish packing."
Obediently, he goes back to the hearth, kneeling amidst his belongings. Arthur rolls up his blanket tightly, fastening it to his knapsack. "What is a conclave, anyways? Why hasn't there been one before?"
"It is only held every ten years. The last was held before your birth. Finished? Good. On your feet."
They are days travelling. Nimueh doesn't accompany them, so it is only himself and Uncle, and he gets another lesson—the háligweorc roads, pathways of land held in trust for all who lived on the island. No one could bar another's passage nor offer violence on háligweorcland. Still, it doesn't escape his notice that Uncle has his longsword rolled up in his bedroll.
Mynydd Tân looms ever closer.
They have indeed made good pace, for they arrive a day early, the forests thinning out as they approach the foot of the mountain, the ground too stony for anything to take root. Arthur has to tilt his head almost all the way back to see the peak of the mountain far above them, wreathed in pale veils of cloud and smoke. His heart rabbits with exhilaration. Uncle Tristan's brow furrows.
It's then he sees the Dragonlords up close for the first time. They're at the foot of the mountain, tending to their dragons. They all wear brightly coloured clothes, embroidered with intricate patterns, cut and fastened in strange ways. The men wear their hair longer, half-bound in a myriad of braids. And some of them have brightly-coloured patterns on their faces, too, red and blue and black, dots and stripes and spirals.
"That's one I've never understood," Uncle remarks as they walk closer. "No matter how gifted I am with blade or bow, I certainly wouldn't let someone put it on my face."
"What d'you mean?"
Uncle Tristan gives him an amused look and laughs in that way adults do when children ask questions they think are silly. "They mark up their pretty faces to show their skills, cub, though in what, I can't fathom."
Arthur gapes at him, floored. He'd assumed that was simply how they looked, just like how birds and beasts had their markings. People have them too, like the white stripe in Uncle Tristan's hair. Arthur has a mark, too, a purple-red splotch on his thigh like a little bruise that never faded. But they hadn't been born with their marks, they'd earned them.
"How do they do it?" he asks, stunned. "Magic?"
"Nay. Likely ink and needle, like any other," Uncle replies with a chortle, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "Let's go."
He doesn't see how they are meant to get inside Mynydd Tân at all until they get closer; a deep crevasse in the mountainside is actually a cleverly hidden opening, invisible until they're nearly inside it. There's a Dragonlord standing guard there, leaning against the stone wall. Arthur swallows hard and resists the urge to edge behind Uncle Tristan. The man has twin rows of small black dots running across his brow, and a bright red stripe running from his hairline down to the bridge of his nose. There's something uncanny about him, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the bones of his face. His gaze turns down to Arthur, an amused glint in his eyes. "Be welcome, little one." Looking up, he arches a brow at Uncle. "You, however…"
"He stays with me." One large, rough hand closes around Arthur's shoulder.
The Dragonlord huffs a laugh. "Very well. But you may carry no steel into Mynydd Tân."
Uncle Tristan pulls his sword from his bedroll and holds it out to the other man. "I expect that back," he says. He makes to walk past the Dragonlord into the mountain, hand on Arthur's shoulder pushing him forward.
"Your bow, du Bois."
At that, Uncle chortles and pulls an arrow from the quiver, holding it up. "Flint, not steel," he replies. Holding Arthur by the shoulder, he continues into the hollow mountain. The tunnel is narrow for a ways in, but then, all at once, it opens up, and they stand in the heart of the mountain itself.
Arthur stares, gaping open-mouthed.
Though he knows that Mynydd Tân is called the hollow mountain, he hadn't truly believed it to be hollow. And yet it is. If he were to stand in the very middle of the walkway and look up, he would be able to see the sky out of the open mouth of the peak. He cannot believe how enormous it all is. Their little cave can barely be called a cave compared to this. Veins of gleaming silver and gold and copper thread through the walls and walkways, studs of precious stone glittering, lit all over by scraped out hollows filled with fist-sized lightstones.
"Oh, it's so pretty," he gasps out.
Uncle Tristan chuckles lowly. "Indeed it is."
"Where do we—?" he starts to ask, wondering where in this great stone warren they are meant to be, when a burst of bright laughter catches his attention. Arthur turns his head towards the sound, and to his surprise, a handful of children near his own age sprint past, laughing and shrieking in joy. And bounding along with them, a pair of small dragons, no bigger than foxes, leaping in and out between their legs with squeaking yelps. Arthur stares after them, a strange sense of yearning unfurling in his chest.
Uncle nudges him with one arm. "Go on," he urges.
"Can I?" Arthur asks uncertainly; he's never been encouraged to wander far from their cave, much less speak to others.
"Aye. We'll be here a few days. Go on. Have fun. I'll find you later."
Stepping away from Uncle, half-expecting to be called back, he starts in the direction the other children have gone, following the sound of laughing and yelping. The sounds echo strangely in the stone halls, however, and he can't seem to find them again.
Frowning, he stands in the middle of the hall, hearing the rebounding echo of laughter. A nudge against his ankle makes him look down in surprise, only to see one of the little dragons perched beside his feet, blinking up at him with big red eyes. Not a dragon then, but a wyvern. They make good guardians when trained young. "Hello," he says, holding out a hand. The wyvern pip snuffles at his fingers, then tucks its head beneath his palm for pets, squeaking.
He scratches around the velvety nubs of its horns, smiling as it squeaks and wriggles, tail thumping. Sitting back on its haunches, it digs baby-soft claws in his breeches and climbs up his leg. Wrapping his hands arounds its middle, he lifts the pip up and settles it in the crook of his arm, scratching down its neck to its wing joints, hearing it give a buzzing churr of pleasure.
"Zann! Zann, where'd you go? Here, Zann!" a boy's voice calls, growing closer, and then a young, gangly boy comes sprinting around the corner, almost falling over himself. "Oh, there you are! Zann, you keep running off, Father is going to make me put a lead on you," he says as he lopes over to Arthur, addressing the pip sternly; it only squeaks again and snuggles more firmly into Arthur's arms. "Thank you for finding him. He keeps going on his own."
"I don't mind," Arthur replies, laughing as Zann nudges his hand for continued petting, squirming impatiently against him. "Are you here for the conclave too?" he asks. The boy must be one of the Dragonlords if he's in charge of a wyvern pip, or at least the son of one. He looks like the man that had stood guard at the gate, bearing that same stamp of wilderness in him, something ancient and foreign.
"No, I live here. It's everyone else that's visiting." The boy gives him a gap-toothed smile. "Who are you kin to?"
Arthur shrugs. "I don't know. My uncle brought us here."
"Oh. Well, we could go look at the blood-trees later, if you'd like."
He shakes his head. Shifting his grip on Zann, he leans down to set the pip down on the floor, dusting his hands off on his breeches. "If we take Zann with us, can we go do something fun? I've never been in Mynydd Tân before."
The boy gives him another wide grin, scrunching up his eyes and nose with it. "Sure. Come on, I'll show you around. Zann, come."
As they start down another corridor, the pip bounding between their legs, Arthur holds out a hand towards the other boy. "I'm Arthur du Bois."
He grasps Arthur's hand, shaking it. "I'm Emrys Ambrosius, but you can call me Merlin."