Barjavel's L'Enchanteur (extracts in free translation)

MERLIN

Thousand of years ago, there was an Enchanter whose name was Merlin.
He was young and handsome, he had mischievous bright eyes, a slight mocking smile, fines hands, the grace of a dancer, the nonchalance of a cat, the vivacity of a swallow. Ages could pass without altering him. He had the eternal youth of the forests.
He possesed powers, and would use them only for good, or whar he thought was good, but sometimes would make a mistake, for though he was no ordinary human being, human he still was.
For men, he was the friend, the one who comforts, who shares joys and pains and who gives his hep without counting. And the one who never betrays.
For women, he was sheer dream. Those who loved blond hair would meet him with gold and sun in his hair, and those who prefered dark hairs would see him with colors of night or dusk. They were not in love with him, that was impossible, he was too handsome, untouchable, he was like an angel. Only Vivian loved him, for his happiness, maybe for his demise, for both their happiness and demise, we cannot know, we are no Enchanters.
For all, he was the one who cannot be replaced, the one one would never want to see him leave, but who has to go, one day.
When he left the world of men, he left unmendable regrets behind him. We do not know who is the one we miss and endlessly wait for, but we all know for good that there is an empty space in our hearts.

MERLIN MEETS VIVIAN

The big white stag went out of a hawthorn bush without disturbing a single flower. Its hair was that of freshly fallen snow, and as he was passing through the clearing, his antlers balanced itself like the sail of a ship.

Merlin loved to take that appearence when he would travel in the forest. He stopped without a sound at the end of the path that lead to Eye Spring. The pool of water had been named this way because, during sunny days, one could see the reflection of the sky at the surface of the basin that the water had dug in the gravel and the sand. That eery reflection would then take the shape of one big blue eye in between lashes of mint and forget-me-not.

A blond and naked girl was bathing there. The stag could see her through the folliage. She was very young, 12, maybe 13. She was drawing the water that reached her knees with cupped hands and was slaphing herself. She was laughing in order not to shiver, she was letting out small exclamations, she was singing short lengths of lyricsless tunes. Sun rays were dancing on her short hair and on the small water beads that were rolling on her golden pink skin. Her breasts, which were still hesitant in their roundness, were getting hard under the provocation of cool water. When she was laughing, the brightness of her teeth was as white as the core of fresh almonds. Her long legs were not anymore the skinny stems of the young girl that grows, but not quite yet the shapely branches of the young woman. Exquisite outlines, promises which would be held, her light moving curves foreshadowed the perfection of the greatest masterpiece of all Creation: the body that God shaped with its own hands for the woman, using a piece of man.

The waterspring was laughing in tune with her, covering her feet with fresh sand, making bubbles pop between her toes. A golden green salamander which swimming near her ankles went out of the water and sticked its tongue out for her. A female blackbird, a dark as bark, landed at the top of her head and managed to sing as good the male of its kind. In the sun, in the water, her small hands were dancing like two flowers animated by the wind.

Deep inside the stag's flesh, merlin's heart was trembling. He knew he would never see her again the way she was right now, at this precise moment. Tomorrow... Later today... She would already be different. She had the tearing beauty of what changes so fast that one cannot grasp it again. Years later, in remembrance of this first meeting, Merlin created a flower which color and shape change hour after hour, and which only lives to see the day. It still blossoms in England. The English call it Yesterday: Yesterday... for its present is already the past.

The silence of the forest was only disturbed by the singing of birds, of the waterspring, of the young girl, of the leaves and branches that stretch in the tempered air. The roar of the battle that was going on in the plains of Carohaise did not reach this far. Merlin had left it when it turned at the advantage of the defenders of the small city, meaning that they did not need him anymore. His father's voice had warned him that Arthur was about to put himself in danger. It had resounded in his head in the middle of the fight, creaky, sardonic, as usual.

- Poor idiot son, it said, there you are, all busy assisting this young man against the Saines, the Romans and the Alamans, but the adversary waiting for him near the Eye is far more dangerous...

And the voice had fallen silent, amidst loud laughings of iron.

Merlin had teleported himself in the forest straight away in order to see who was that unknown adversary who was about to rise itself before young King Arthur.

Discovering this miraculous child, Merlin understood that this trap was for no one else but himself, and that it was from far the worst trap his father had ever tricked him with. Merlin had literally thrown himself entirely into it, and he already began to wonder if he could ever get free from it.

His father was the Devil.

Merlin was a creature of God, serving the lord in every way, but he was the spawn of the Devil, who wanted nothing dearer than to have his son back under his control. Lucifer would use any occasion to try and make Merlin stumble. And when they did not come naturally, he would create them.

He did not create that girl though, but simply weaved the fate of her meeting with Merlin, and with Arthur without a doubt. The Enchanter wanted to know who she was, and he immediatly knew. Her name was Vivian, and she was the daughter of a gantleman, barely landless, but of the highest lineage, for he was descending from Diane the faery, owner of this forest. In Vivian's veins, in the bright freshness of her innocence, the blood of the Old Forest Queen who had disappeared from the world of men, was flowing. Same thing for her powers. If this child of magic would get interested in Arthur, the latter would be already damned for the Grail...

Merlin had taken Arthur's destiny at hand even before his birth. He wanted him to become the best Knight alive, worthy of finding the Grail, which absence was causing the many troubles of humankind. He was helping Arthur hard as he could. It did not consist in suppressing every obstacle before him, but rather the contrary. Merlin would create new ones, harder to overcome, forcing Arthur into growing up fast. The boy was brave, clear-minded, joyful, full of friendship, has would fight with no hate, with the strength of a Spanish bull, and had never found he master in single combat yet. That day, he just killed Romans leader Poncus Anthony, having pierced him through with his lance, half of it sticking out in the dead man's back. Then, with the help of his sword, he had cut a bloody path towards Duke Frolle, leader of the Alamans, who, abandonned by his fleeing men, had ordered his horse to retreat and flee the from the battlefield.

Arthur was about to be 17, in 3 days... He had risen on the throne of Logres at the age of 16. he had vainquished the most skillful and strong of knights, beaten the fiercest of warlords. The time had come to lead him towards The Adventure. Merlin only saw one way to prevent the Devil and Vivian from making the young King stumble.

[Arthur has won the battle and defeated the Duke of Frolle, but he is wounded and unconscious in the forest]

Vivian was lying on the grass next to the spring, to dry in the sun, and she had fallen fast in dee slumber, like a little child. In order not to wake her, the stag had ceased breathing and pacing on the gravel. In a gesture of modesty, Vivian, as she closed her eyes, had placed her right hand at the bottom of her belly, and her other arm across her chest. But her arms had slid on the side during her nap, and only intention and grace were remaining from her original double gesture.

Merlin, delighted, made daisies blossom from the nipples of her small breasts, lied a branch of mint on her eyes, a plum on her lips, and on the minuscule pinkish grin of her sex, he had set a slumbering robin.

He stared at her for a few moments, then he smiles and undressed her of this fantasy. She needed no artifice. She was even more perfect than the flower or the bird, and similar to them regarding the innocence of nudity. Because she was the one who would probably change his destiny, Merlin thanked God to have made her so beautiful among al the beauties of His Creation.

he was about to grant her with a dream of joy, one of those that, once awake, make you feel life light and savory, when he heard, coming from the thicknes of the forest, the heavy steps of the horse that was carrying Arthur coming closer.

Then, the stag turned into a wall of silence. he did not need Vivian to get scared and flee. She had to face that test, and Arthur with her, and Merlin with them. Very gently, he exhaled slumber from her body.

She stretched, yawned, laughed with content, then she got up in a start, letting a cry out. In complete silence, a fantastic apparition was slowly materializing from the bushes: a tall red horse carrying a knight with golden and bloody hair, who wasfrimly holding a sword in each hand, blades turned towards the sky.

She wanted to grab her dress which was lying on the grass three feet away and to flee from that scary ghost, who was even more frightening had he not been a ghost, but she also wanted to stay, in order to see more of it. Her curiosity was stronger than her fear, and both emotions mixed together petrified her after she had, out of proper etiquette, positionned her self in a stance of modesty.

A red fog was filling the eyes of the young king. In the middle of this red fog, he was gazing at a celectial creature, standing still, looking back at him.

Was it really an angel, or a demon who had taken the shape of it? Arthur held Marmiadoise between his teeth, grabbed Excalibur by the blade and held the guard before him, in the shape of a cross, towards the apparition. The creature did not disappear. She even seemed reassured, and smiled.

The horse bent its head to drink from the water. What was left of consciousness in Arthur vanished. he slid on his mount's neck and fell at Vivian's feet in a smash of iron. His head plunged in the water and remained there.

Vivian understood that if he was not already dead, he was going to drown himself. She grabbed one of his hands, and, as she pulled with of her strength, her small heels digging in the ground, she managed to take his face out of the spring. Then, she got dressed in haste and ran towards he father's castlein order to get help.

Arthur had been wounded at the beginning of the battle from a lance which had pierced through the mails of his coat, got in his flesh, slid on a rib and opened a large though not too deep wound. It did not prevent him from fighting, but it was bleeding again now, and the young king was losing his fresh blood from the head and from the side. He needed help fast.

Merlin decided to stop Vivian, for he knew that she could be a greater obstacle for Arthur and his quest for the Gail than the mountains of Saines, which peaks could scrape Saint Peter's feet at the Pearly Gate.

He could not turn him away from her, since she was a necessary stop in his path, but he could still try to turn her away from him, prevent her from falling in love with him purely out of this maternal sense of pity most women, even the youngest, feel when they take care of the wounded males whose weakness had foresaken them to their soft hands. So that this was not to happen, and she did not insist in stay in his life, so that Arthur could forget a meaningless episode, he needed the girl's heart to be already filled with some other interest when she would bent towards Arthur again, still lying on the ground. That is why Merlin decided to reveal himself to her as neither King Arthur, nor anybody else had ever seen him before. Except for his mother. With his true face. As he really was.

Vivian was running, running, lighter than a mountain goat. The path was made of short grass, pierced here and there by the white eyes of daisies and the yellow flowers from the wild lettuce people in Great Britain call "dandelion", and those from Loire "pissenlit". And suddenly, she was standing before a blue tree. In reality, its color was green. But that specific green was blue. And this tree was standing on the side if the path, at the crossroads of Mules Path, at the very spot where the tuft of broom that was growing here evn before Vivian was born should have been. The very same tuft which was blossoming for eight days now. By the way, Vivian was still smelling its perfume. The smell of the broom was still there, but the brrom itself was not any more. In its place, this unknown tree which was as high as the roof of her father's castle was erect.

Holding himself against the tree trunk with carelessness, a young man, dressed as a prince, was looking at her with kindness, smiling at her surprise.

- Don't be afraid, Vivian, he said.

His voice was deep and soft and seemed to caress the heart. She protested.

- I am not afraid!...

She was far too curious to be afraid. And her father was a lord, even though of small lands. She had been raised in the easiness of manners, and the company of the forest, of the spring, of the bords and flowers had already taught her that the world was full of unexpected wonders.

She gently bowed as she pinched she pinched the sides of her small milk colored linen dress, out of politeness, and she asked as she straighted back up:

- What is the name of this marvellous tree?

- It is a cedar tree, Merlin said. I mde it come from the oriental lands where it was growing in order to show it to you, so that you know from now on, that when you see it somewhere, I am not far from it.

- How did it come? And how could it be somewhere else, since it is standing here?

- Like that, said Merlin.

He lifted his left hand and made a sign to the tree with his little finger. And suddenly, the cedar tree was on the other side of the path, the shiny broom being back into place.

Vivian, delighted, clapped her hands.

- Ho! You are the Enchenter! she said.

- Yes, said Merlin.