carvings. But the fire opal runestone wasn’t glowing, which meant

that the spirit entity within it was quiescent for the moment.

Well, at least that was something, Billy thought, as he went out

into the living room. His great-great-grandfather, some

twenty-seven times removed or something like that, he could never

remember exactly, was generally a royal pain in the ass, but Merlin

didn’t bother him half as much as Gorlois did. Gorlois was scary.

Merlin was with him constantly, sharing consciousness with him,

often preempting his own will, which caused a lot of arguments

between them, but Gorlois manifested himself very rarely. And

when he did, it wasn’t merely a manifestation of another

personality using Billy’s body. It was complete physical

transformation, entailing magic that was even more powerful than

Merlin’s. For as powerful as Merlin was, he was still part

human—a halfbreed. His father, Gorlois, was a full-blooded

Immortal, the last of the Old Ones and the sole surviving member

of the Council of the White.

At least, that was how Billy thought of him, though perhaps to

use the word “surviving” in his case wasn’t strictly accu-rate. Just

as Merlin had experienced mortal death in his battle with the Dark

Ones, so Gorlois had died when, as the Duke of Cornwall, he had

been slain by Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur.

Thinking that he was doing combat with nothing more than a mere

mortal, Gorlois had disdained to use his magic powers. In a rage, he

had been intent on killing Uther only with his sword. Only by the

time Gorlois discovered that Uther was magically warded and his

fighting skills enhanced by sorcery, it was far too late. Uther had

given him a mortal blow, and as he died, Gorlois had used his last

ounce of strength and will to insure the survival of his spirit. He

had projected his astral self into the fire opal runestone in his ring,

a ring that then passed to his daughter, the sorceress Morgan Le

Fay, becoming the source of much of her power. And, through her,

Gorlois had revenged himself upon his only son.

Merlin had used Uther to kill Gorlois so that he could avenge his

mortal mother, whom the immortal Gorlois had abandoned when

she began to age. And Gorlois had used his daughter by he second

mortal wife to even up the score. Now their descendant, Billy, was