I, Merlin, son of Ambrosius, whom men feared as prophet and visionary, had been in that night’s work no more than the god’s instrument. (Chapter 1)

I knew that the wine and bread, like the thrown coins, had been left as much as an offering to the god as to me; in the minds of the simple folk I had already become part of the legend of the hill, their god made flesh who came and went as quietly as the air, and brought with him the gifts of healing. (Chapter 3)

Where before she had seemed young and burning, a wild bird beating her wings against the wires of the cage, now she seemed to brood, wings clipped, gravid, a creature of the ground. (Chapter 7)

The name seem strange to me, but it came like an echo of something I had heard long before. (Chapter 9)

The mist was lifting, drawing back from a... (Chapter 11)