Collum is woken when a graybeard Saxon hunter accidentally steps on his hand in the forest camp. A skirmish breaks out as a Saxon hunting party stumbles upon the sleeping knights. Though wounded by a spear thrust to his mailed ribs, Collum kills the graybeard with his own knife and finishes off another Saxon shot by Dinadan. Scipio dispatches a third. The knights rout the unprepared Saxons, recognizing they were merely a hunting party but knowing more will now pursue them. Bedivere insists they press on toward the Lance.

Riding on through deep woods, Bedivere and Nimue confront Collum with a theory: that he might be Arthur's hidden child, the secret heir, given his sudden arrival, his looks, and Morgan le Fay's interest in him. Collum denies it forcefully, insisting he is just the dead fisherman's bastard, though Nimue warns that fathers cast long shadows sons often cannot escape.

The party detects sulfur and brimstone and arrives at a blasted, feverishly warm mound—Merlin's Hill, where Nimue imprisoned the wizard. Despite Nimue's protests, the knights persuade her to parley. Merlin's resonant voice rises from the earth, greeting them and probing for information. Bedivere reveals Arthur's death and the casting away of Excalibur. Merlin mocks the company as sidekicks rather than heroes, but offers temptations: a new hand for Bedivere, a secret desire for Dinadan, and a promise that he alone could reveal a new king as he did with Arthur, if they free him.

Constantine urges releasing Merlin, but Nimue refuses, calling him a monster who poisoned everything. Collum proposes a deceptive bargain: Merlin will provide a spell to transport them past the Saxon-infested lands to the north in exchange for the key to his prison. Merlin gives Nimue elaborate instructions involving a banded river stone, Greek words written in bloodless animal blood, birch embers, and a silver knife.

Once Merlin has delivered the spell, the knights walk away. Nimue reveals there is no key, no lock, no door—she will never release him. Enraged, Merlin roars that he is a devil's son born underground and will escape on his own. The mound erupts with red molten fissures, igniting trees, as the knights flee back to their horses with Merlin's furious cries echoing behind them.