Earth's Magic (20 page)

Horus clicked his beak impatiently. “Wear your new brooch, boy, and let’s be on our way.”

As Merlin hurried after the hawk man, he struggled to pin the silver dragon onto the collar of his cloak. Ruby eyes flashing, the miniature creature squirmed and hissed, “An insult! I’m going to complain!”

“Complain to whom?” Merlin whispered back. “This isn’t our Otherworld. We’ve got to play by the local rules.”

The passages they hurried through were lit only by Merlin’s glowing dragon pin and the body of the man in front of him. He tried to ignite a low purple glow along his staff, but harshly Horus called over his shoulder, “Not here. It will attract attention. And, anyway, little of your magic will work in these Otherworlds. Only your closest personal powers remain.”

Soon they settled into the same timeless trek that Merlin remembered from before in another such passage. In places, the route they followed was a narrow, dark tunnel only high enough for him to just miss scraping his head. Then it would open out into a hallway whose ceiling vaulted up out of sight, or dwindle
into a narrow ledge that hugged a cliff, or shrink to a thin bridge that spanned a chasm with unfathomable darkness dropping away below.

Occasionally too a gap opened in the walls, and he caught a brief glimpse of another world. Once he saw jagged, ice-rimmed mountains, while another scene was dark with thick forests. But he knew better than to do more than glance in and then hurry on.

At one gap in the wall, though, Horus stopped. “We’ll try a shortcut here. This isn’t my Otherworld, but I have connections here. We should be safe enough as long as you don’t stray from the path and stay close behind me.”

They stepped through the gap, and Merlin blinked against the sudden brilliance of the scene. When he could look around properly, he saw rolling green hills dotted with groves of trees and white-pillared buildings. As they hurried on, he studied the buildings. They looked familiar. Roman, he thought. When he had lived in Britain before, it had been just after the last of the Romans had abandoned that northern province of their once-vast empire. But here the buildings were not crumbing like the ones he had known, and their white marble columns and stairways shone with impossible grace and beauty.

It wasn’t just the architecture that confirmed this as the Roman Otherworld. Merlin soon recognized some of the creatures that he glimpsed lurking in the groves or cavorting around pools as ones he had seen crudely carved on old walls. Centaurs were there and little men running around on goat legs. A few of the horses nibbling on the lush grass had wings folded casually along their backs, and slim half-seen figures seemed to melt in and out of the trees.

As he raced along, trying to keep one eye on Horus and another on the scenery, Merlin felt a squirming on his collar.
“Hungry,” a tiny voice squeaked. “I may be little, but I’ve still got an empty stomach!”

Merlin had a small satchel of supplies tied to his belt, but he knew Sil wouldn’t be interested in the strips of dried meat. “Your empty stomach will just have to wait,” he said impatiently, and hurried on.

Wherever possible, Horus seemed to be leading them along the most concealing paths. After scurrying along a trail flanked by tall reeds, they ducked into an old orchard where gnarled trees were laden with sweet-smelling fruit. The aroma almost made Merlin dizzy as he pushed aside low-hanging branches. Suddenly his collar seemed to snag on something. He looked down and realized Sil had grabbed himself a plump pink fruit. The tiny creature made surprisingly loud slurping sounds as thick pink juice dribbled down his chin and onto the cloak. Merlin felt a flash of annoyance, that quickly turned to fear.

Almost immediately, the trees around them shook, the ground under them heaved in rolling waves, and thunder grumbled overhead.

Horus spun around and stared at the smashed pink fruit smeared on Merlin’s cloak. “Fool! Now we must run!”

Pelting after Horus, Merlin brushed off the clinging remains of the fruit and tried to wipe the sticky juice off on his trousers. The ground had quieted, but overhead swirling, dark clouds were now clotting into very solid shapes. Dark, angry faces and large fists predominated. A jagged lightning bolt suddenly jabbed into the ground to their right. Another nearly split the road ahead of them. And then the skies opened in a torrent of rain.

Merlin doubled his speed on pathways quickly turning to rivers of mud. He was nearly blinded by the rain but couldn’t slow down for fear of losing sight of Horus, who was sprinting
ahead. Then the rain became a solid curtain. It beat at him so hard, it nearly drove the breath from his body. He stumbled to a halt, unable to see which direction to go.

A hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him sideways. Suddenly he was falling, rolling over and over down a steep slope. A steep
dry
slope. Blinking, he looked about. His clothes were still sopping wet, but around him the grass was dry. Sun beat down from an unclouded blue sky. Beyond a rocky outcrop stretched a sea gleaming with what seemed an impossible color for water, an intense aquamarine.

“Had to duck in here,” Horus said, picking himself up and dusting off his kilt with ruffled dignity. “We’ll just nip in and nip out.
But don’t touch anything!”

Chagrined, Merlin scowled at Sil. The tiny dragon averted his gaze and wiped the remaining juice onto the cloak. Sighing, Merlin scurried to keep up. It seemed as if he’d been walking or running for hours or days. Yet his muscles didn’t exactly ache, and he didn’t feel exactly tired. Just numb. He felt like he was moving in a timeless dream. Sil obviously still felt hungry, but when he started whining again, Merlin just glowered until he grumbled into silence.

As they hurried along, Merlin saw three shaggy giants playing ball on a rocky headland. With clubs the size of tree trunks, they’d whack at a boulder and laugh thunderously if it happened to knock over one of their huge fellows. Merlin was so busy watching them, he failed to notice a gnarled tree root in his path and fell headlong on the rocky ground. The silver dragon pin squealed in alarm.

Merlin scrambled to his feet, but suddenly all three giants were looking their way. He saw that each one had only a single eye right in the middle of its shaggy forehead. With alarmingly large strides, the Cyclopes were soon upon them.

Horus beat at their legs using a scepter he’d pulled from his belt. It had little effect. One after another, the spells Merlin tried fizzled into purple mist as he danced and dodged around trying to avoid the smashing blows of the giants’ great clubs.

In all this jostling, the silver pin broke loose from his cloak. Soon the miniature dragon had alighted on the foot of one giant, dug in his claws, and, with angry puffs, set fire to the curly hair covering the big creature’s feet. The Cyclops yelped, dropped its club, and began howling and hopping around. In short order, Sil did the same to the other two.

“Run! This way!” Horus called urgently. Scooping up the silver dragon, Merlin set off again. Soon he followed Horus, diving through a screen of drooping willow branches. Abruptly, he found himself in the dark, rolling over and over on the dank, cold dirt of a passage.

Horus had pulled himself up and was leaning against a passage wall. “Enough of this,” he panted. “Now half the Otherworlds will know there’s an intruder here. We need speed now, not stealth!” With an angry twist of his body, he dwindled again into a hawk. “Your turn,” the bird rasped at Merlin.

Merlin groaned. He hated turning hawk. It was so exhausting, so alluring. But he had no choice. He tucked his staff into his belt, and in moments he too was a hawk, though smaller than the desert predator that was Horus. The dragon, now just a tiny silver speck among his feathers, was so small his squeak of protest went unnoticed.

Together, the two hawks flew down the corridor, soared over chasms, and careened through rock-pillared caves. They passed occasional openings to Otherworlds where, through his altered bird eyes, Merlin glimpsed great winged lions and stern-looking men with long, tightly curled beards. To catch their breaths, the two birds perched on a spindly tree near the entrance to a world
farther on. But a dark sandstorm, seemingly alive to their presence, soon swept down on them and buffeted them on their way.

At last, Merlin noticed that ahead of him, Horus’s wing beats began to slow. Suddenly the corridor passed between two towering statues and opened into a vast pillared hall. The wide, gleaming floor was tiled in patterns of flowers and reed-edged pools. Beyond the forest of pillars, blazing sunlight beat down on a golden landscape. Golden except where a wide, sparkling river rolled between fringes of lush green plants and gracefully waving palm trees.

“Home,” Horus croaked as he changed back into a hawk-headed man. Trembling, Merlin changed back as well.

Shaking his eyes back into human focus, Merlin looked around. The air was filled with a haze of incense, but through it he saw other figures standing or sitting in the huge hall, most also with animal heads and human bodies. They all looked inquiringly at the two new arrivals. Merlin tried not to stare at their part human, part animal shapes but couldn’t help thinking how much Heather would enjoy meeting them.

Horus walked across the colorful mosaic floor toward a dais with thrones that were occupied by a man and a woman, both totally human-shaped. Under his crown, the man had green-tinged skin and seemed to be largely wrapped in white linen bandages. But it was the woman beside him who arrested Merlin’s attention. The crown she wore rose in a crescent that glowed as silver as the moon itself and rippled light down her long black hair. Her skin was a dusky gold and her smile knowing and gentle. Instantly, Merlin sensed a kinship between her and the Lady of Avalon, now so far away.

Following Horus to the dais, Merlin bowed to the obviously royal couple. Briskly, Horus made introductions. “Mother Isis, Father Osiris, this is the person I was compelled to escort here,
though I fear his presence has not gone unnoticed.” He shot an accusing glare at Merlin and his silver brooch. “It seemed almost that there were dark things watching for us in the Otherworlds.”

Merlin blushed, but Isis smiled at him. “There are dark things stirring everywhere. I fear the crisis we have long dreaded is upon us. And you, young man, your name is Merlin, I understand. Another hawk. And you are carrying the key?”

Merlin nodded, feeling there was no point in hiding his mission here. “I am, but I am not certain where I need to take it, where I need to go from here. All I know for sure is that I need to be in Africa, probably eastern Africa?”

Osiris stirred on his throne, fidgeting with his bandages. “We’ll have to pass the boy on to Apedemek. His realm goes a lot deeper into Africa than ours. Though I find it insufferably annoying that he keeps reminding us that his mortal world is still inhabited while ours is only a molten sheet of glass.”

Isis patted his bandaged hand. “That’s hardly our fault, dear. Humans and their foolish pride and politics did that. Besides, Apedemek’s mortals aren’t exactly living in luxury, scrabbling as they are around their desert hills.”

Gracefully she stood up. “But come, before we send you farther south, we must offer some rest and refreshment. You seem quite worn out, and that silver creature on your shoulder looks decidedly uncomfortable.”

Merlin looked down and saw his silver dragon brooch squirming frantically. Quickly he unpinned it. He had scarcely placed it on the floor when Horus snapped a command and the horse-sized silver dragon blossomed into shape, forcing them all to jump back.

“Thanks,” Sil said, rattling his scales with a vigorous shaking. “Did someone mention food?”

Osiris clapped his hands, and servants slid from behind
pillars carrying low tables, bright floor pillows, and tray after tray of enticing-smelling food. Others poured juice and wine into crystal goblets and placed these on the tables as well. While the hosts and guests seated themselves, girls in filmy gowns sat down nearby and began to play on pipes and harps. Others danced while shaking sweet metallic rattles in their hands.

Hopping eagerly forward, Sil had been first at the tables and soon buried his muzzle in a bowl of yellow and green fruit. Hastily, Merlin apologized. “He’s still a baby, really. We’re not
all
barbarians in the North.”

Isis laughed and passed Merlin a plate of cakes dripping with nuts and honey. “I’m sure not. But tell us what you can about your mission. All we have sensed is that it may prove a turning point in this impending battle.” She smiled at his anxious expression. “And don’t worry that you’ll be taking too much time if you do so. There are things we all need to know, and, anyway, time passes differently in our world. It will hardly count in yours.”

Merlin bit into the cake, then had to force his thoughts onto something other than the exquisite taste. “I wish I understood more about the mission myself. I am searching for the beginnings, I know. Back in those beginnings, it seems that the roots of the mortal and immortal worlds are deeply intertwined. But I don’t fully understand how that is.”

“Roots,” Osiris said as he unpeeled a bluish fruit. “The roots of it all are deep in the Earth. The Earth since creation has been permeated with power, and that power brought about life. But it wasn’t until humans arose that life had any need to
know
and to
believe.”

Merlin tried not to look as dense as he felt. He was relieved when Isis took over. “The mortal and immortal worlds gave birth to each other, really. Humans sensed the power all around them.
They needed to
know
what it was, so they
believed
in things—in the power of water, of wind, of fire. That’s how it all began. Belief coalesced into the spirits of springs, trees, rocks, and weather. It took form in the strength of the sun and the serenity of the moon. Knowledge, belief, and creation were all in balance. But humans are never content with what they have, are they?”

Merlin knew that the answer to that was all too obvious. He kept quiet as Isis continued. “They wanted to know more, so they believed more. Soon simple nature spirits were believed into being gods. Three rocks piled into a simple shrine were added on to until they became imposing temples.” Gesturing at the animal-headed people in the hall, she said, “That’s how we all began, really, as spirits of some local patch of earth; some unusual rock outcrop; some clear, bubbling spring. I myself was just a grotto sprite where people from a nearby village brought offerings of flowers so I’d help make them happy and loved.”