Earth's Magic (11 page)

“Not likely. Animals have too much independence, and, anyway, a two-thousand-year-old stag or badger might draw attention.”

“So it’s likely to be something that can’t get around on its own or be noticed. Like a rock.”

Merlin groaned. “And Wales does have rather a lot of rocks. Still, we can look on the bright side. It might be a really big rock that suddenly avalanches into our path.”

When Heather had finished laughing, Merlin said, “Actually, you do have a lot more power than just animal magic. You haven’t said much lately about what you hear in your mind from elsewhere in the world.”

“That’s because it’s mostly the same, just getting worse. Everywhere there’s growing worry about what is coming. Spirits and powers, both good and bad, are making themselves known. And muties in every country seem to be more apparent too, though they aren’t all the same and they’re taking different sides. Everywhere, though, there seems to be a feeling that major battles are looming.”

After a moment’s thought, Heather continued. “Some of what they’re telling me is really interesting. The kid I used to call Jaguar Boy, his name is Temesqua. He says that spirits he’d only heard about in legends are suddenly appearing for real. The Jaguars are the scariest, but at least they seem to be on our side. Some horrid-sounding swamp things are not. Badrack in Mongolia says that the mountain spirits are all stirring and are very
troubled. What Patma tells me about things in India is very confusing. It seems that every deity and spirit there, good and bad, is rather frightening-looking, with an unusual number of arms. I’m having trouble keeping them all straight from Patma’s descriptions, but the bad ones seem to go in more for tusks and horns as well, and they’re stirring up a lot of trouble.”

“How many voices are you in touch with?”

“About a dozen, though now and then I reach new ones. All are apparently my age or younger. I guess this is something that’s just come on with this generation. And those I’m in touch with all have other contacts that I’m not linked to directly. But everywhere things are about the same—troubled and stirring.”

They had just arrived at a crossroads, and the horses, lacking direction, had stopped.

“Where to now?” Heather asked.

Merlin shrugged hopelessly. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Maybe. But think about it. The Lady said you could tell
me
and no one else about this side quest of yours. There must be a reason. Why don’t I work with the horses in a new way, try to get them to understand something of what we’re looking for? It’d mean you opening yourself to them, though. I mean deep. They’d have to get a feel for who and what you are, your ancestry. Horses are very conscious of that sort of thing. They can sense a distant cousin three fields away.”

Merlin chuckled.

“What’s funny? It might help.”

“No, I was just remembering old what’s-his-name, our science teacher back at Llandoylan School, how he used to drone on and on about DNA, as if there were any hope of studying that sort of thing these days. So what you’re wanting these horses to do is test for my spiritual DNA?”

“Something like that, I suppose.”

“Worth a try.”

He got off his mare and walked to stand before both horses. At Heather’s instruction, he put a hand on both of the horses’ foreheads. Then she crawled between them and put an arm around both of their necks. They stood that way for a long time. After a while, Merlin stopped feeling foolish and had to admit he had an odd tingling sensation all over his body, like tiny bubbles were bursting in his blood. Then it was gone.

“Well,” Heather said, “we’ve done what we can. And it may have made some difference.”

They got on their horses and then saw the two dragons and one dog sitting on their haunches watching them with all four heads cocked in curiosity. “Come on,” Merlin grumbled. “Show’s over. So where to
now?”

Immediately, both horses took the road to the left and ambled along it. “Well, at least we’ve got a decision,” Heather said hopefully.

As they rode along, Merlin tried stretching out all his powers to sense as much as he could in the environment. It was a strain, but he was surprised to find that after his experience with the underground people and delving into the earth, some of it came more easily. One thing that staggered him was the age, the incredible age of things. The rocks and soil they were passing over felt vastly old.

He realized after an exhausting time that he had to pull back. If Arawn had changed someone into a rock or clod of earth, it would have been done only two thousand years ago, not two hundred thousand. The rock he might be looking for couldn’t feel that old.

Once he managed to pull his senses closer in time, the age of human activity struck him with equal strength. Its traces were
everywhere. Where people had lived, where they’d died, where they had farmed generation after generation. And intermingled with it all were different centers of power, some overlapping for centuries. All around were smaller versions of what he had sensed on Salisbury Plain. Places that people over the centuries had repeatedly recognized as sacred. A shrine to some prehistoric forest spirit might be covered over by a Bronze Age burial mound and that topped by a Christian chapel. A sacred well had offerings dropped into it from earliest times to last week.

By the end of the first day, his mind was so overloaded that he practically fell off his horse at their camp and was too tired to do more than nibble at their provisions.

The next day, Heather suggested he try her approach, which was to reach out to living animals and sense if in their minds or their ancestral memory they detected any entrapped beings nearby. Merlin was less adept at this than she, but at least it was not as painful as his previous efforts, and he marveled at how many living things he could sense about him when he tried. Insects and worms crawling in the soil, things scurrying through the grass and scrubby bushes, creatures he seldom saw or even heard. But when he did sense them, he wasn’t as good at communicating with them as Heather was.

Instead, he found himself slipping again into thoughts about how many more creatures would have been here before the Devastation or to visions of the forests and flowers that had once clothed these now barren hills. He didn’t know if the upwelling sense of loss that would hit him then came from the Earth or from within himself. But it would obliterate everything else he sensed until he had to give up and try to scrub his mind by just staring blankly for a while into the gray sky.

Meanwhile, the dragons and dog romped on, seemingly oblivious to his and Heather’s mental struggles, and the horses
kept moving on taking whatever fork in a road they chose. Sometimes they would stop eagerly at one place or another, but it would turn out to be only a patch of particularly tasty grass or a good drinking spot.

One afternoon, as they trotted fruitlessly down another ancient farm lane, Merlin said in exasperation, “I just don’t know if this can work. I’m picking up nothing useful myself, and if we keep following these horses’ lead, we’ll just end up in some wealthy baron’s luxuriously appointed stable.”

Heather sighed. “I’m starting to think that too. And actually, my mother and stepfather don’t live far from here, but I wouldn’t wish any horse friend of mine in their care.”

Merlin shot her a crooked smile. “Oh, and I suppose you want to visit them.”

“Ha! After the way that last visit went? With you drugged in the dungeon and my dear mother giving me a supposed heirloom that nearly destroyed us? I hope at least she learned her lesson and stopped having any dealings with Morgan. Welly’s lucky that his parents are proud of him now that he’s made a military success of himself. But as far as I’m concerned, it’d be better if my mother and my dreadful stepfather never even thought of me again.”

Merlin felt he should argue about the importance of retaining family ties, but having met Heather’s family, he could see her point.

For hours the leaden sky seemed to be dropping lower and lower. Now they were riding through gray mist that finally solidified into rain. Merlin cast water-repellant spells over the horses and riders. Sometimes Rus trotted close enough to be shielded by Heather’s spell, but often the lure of some enticing smell sent him shooting off into the rain-dripping shrubs. The dragons hardly seemed to notice the rain and were soon surrounded by
faint clouds of steam where cold raindrops hissed against fire-heated dragon skin.

After they’d spent several hours plodding through the rain, their road had turned into a muddy rut. The horses’ hooves slid about, and it was increasingly hard to see through the curtains of water that were darkening in the growing twilight. At another crossroads, the horses began veering to the right, but Merlin pulled his mare to a halt.

“That building set back from the road,” he said, pointing to a whitewashed structure barely visible through the rain. “There’s a sign in front of it. Looks like an inn. I suggest we forget camping and spend the night there.”

Heather looked delighted but then glanced back at the two dragons playing happily in a particularly large mud puddle farther behind them. “All of us?”

Frowning a moment, Merlin looked around to check that no one was in sight. Then he called back, “Sil and Goldie, why don’t you two find your own private camp for the night somewhere near here. We’ll be staying in this building, but you two need to keep close enough to act as guards in case any enemies are about.”

The two dragons squealed excited agreement and scurried off on their important assignment. Rus whined undecidedly, looking up at Heather.
Better go with them
, she told him mentally,
and keep them from doing anything stupid. You’re the responsible adult with those two
. Both heads gave proud barks, and Rus dashed after the dragons.

As she and Merlin rode toward the inn, Heather confessed, “Actually, I think Rus would be better off out of sight too. He’s not as alarming as baby dragons, but lots of people are a little leery of muties, even if one is a friendly two-headed dog.”

“Right. And I’d better remove our rain-repellant spells so we
don’t come in from this deluge looking oddly dry. We’re likely to pick up more information if we’re just two ordinary nonmagic travelers.”

He dissolved the spell from around everything but their packs. The horses shivered, and both he and Heather gasped as the downpour hit them full force. In moments, they both looked and felt as soaked as if they’d ridden through the rain for hours. Smiling apologetically at Heather, Merlin dismounted and knocked loudly on the inn’s low door.

After a minute, the door cracked open and a dark-bearded face peered out. “Two very wet travelers,” Merlin said, “looking for meals and beds for the night.”

The door opened wider, and the man looked them over. Even though soaked, their well-made clothes bespoke travelers wealthy enough to pay handsomely. The man nodded. “We’re a small establishment and short on space, but can probably squeeze you in. Stable your horses in that barn over there. We’ve got a warm fire inside and a turnip stew almost ready.”

While Heather went into the inn, Merlin stabled the two horses and spent a few minutes rubbing them down and pouring a handful of mixed oats and hay into their feed boxes. The one other horse in the barn was far shorter and shaggier but nickered eagerly until Merlin gave him a handful of fodder as well. Then he joined Heather inside.

She was standing by a large stone fireplace, her heavy cape giving off a steaming cloud thick with the smell of wet wool. Three men and a woman were sitting at a table nearby where the innkeeper was just ladling out bowls of earthy-smelling stew. “Join us,” he said. “Your lady friend tells us you two are on your way to visit relatives near Brecon. Where you from, then?”

Merlin raised an amused eyebrow, since Heather’s family,
which they were definitely
not
visiting, lived near Brecon. But as the two of them took up seats on a rickety bench, he said, “We’re coming from Chester and had good traveling weather until today.”

“Chester, eh?” said a young ginger-haired man through a mouthful of stew. “That’s a fair piece. See any weird things on your travels?”

“Weird things?” Merlin asked cautiously.

“Dark things,” the innkeeper said as he joined them at the table. “We’ve had reports of shadowy creatures people say look like escapees from Hell. I figure it’s probably just some renegade muties, but there are also reports of missing sheep. Muties will sometimes do that all right, but a couple of shepherds are missing too, and that’s more serious.”

“I say we gather up the decent folk around here and exterminate the local muties,” growled the first man. “Should have done that a long time ago.”

“Shut your mouth, Dave,” the woman said suddenly. “You know perfectly well there’s muties and then there’s muties. Even the bad ones usually don’t go around killing people, and some muties are downright helpful. The Glendowers up in the hills have a pack of furry ones helping tend their sheep.”

Dave drowned his grumbles in a gulp of ale. A portly man who had been silent up to now shook his head and said, “It isn’t the muties that matter, if you ask me, it’s the dark things that have no place in this world. They started showing up even before that comet did or before the earth began shaking. There’s something bad brewing, that’s for sure.”

The woman snorted. “Of course there is! Haven’t you heard that the High King has sent out word for troops to gather for some big battle? I have two nephews who are all eager to go. They and some of their friends, boys and girls, are forming up a
local militia and heading off to Salisbury soon. What about you young people? You just came from Chester. Isn’t there talk of that there?”

Merlin glanced at Heather, then answered cautiously. “Yes, Arthur himself was in Chester. Troops from a number of shires are being readied for battle. And Salisbury … we hear, is where they are heading.”

“You saw King Arthur himself?” the innkeeper asked.

“And his Scottish queen?” the woman added excitedly. “And his old wizard and all the others we’ve been hearing about? Tell us everything!”