Earth's Magic (8 page)

Before the council had quite concluded, Merlin slipped out to the courtyard. Dusk was falling. Above the roofs of Keswick and the fragrant wisps of cooking smoke, he could just see the spangle of the comet’s tail. It was a beautiful early spring evening, but he felt the burdens piling onto his shoulders as if they were solid things.

Suddenly the feeling became extra-solid as Sil landed on his shoulder after leaping from the roof above. Merlin staggered and snapped, “Aren’t you getting a bit large for that?” The dragonlets
had all noticeably grown even in this short time. They were now nearly as big as Rus.

“Learning to fly!” the silver dragon piped.

Smiling despite himself, Merlin reached up and scratched behind Sil’s tiny horns. “If your mother would drop by, maybe she could give you some pointers. And I wish she would come. We’ve got a job for her.”

“Want Mama? I call.”

With that, the little dragon raised its head and let out a piercing screech. Merlin clapped his hands to his ears. Seconds later the other baby dragons had scurried into the courtyard and were adding their screechings to the call. Curious people poured from the building and retreated almost immediately as the volume of sound rose.

After the calling finally ended, Merlin found himself crouched on the ground with his arms over his head. He tried to shake the ringing from his ears and got unsteadily to his feet. Sil had left his shoulder and was sitting with the other two, looking expectantly up into the western sky.

People were cautiously coming into the courtyard again. Arthur walked up to Merlin. “What was that incredible sound? My ears are throbbing.”

Merlin looked into the sky where the dragons had fixed their gaze. “I think that was you getting what you asked for.” He pointed to where a white speck, which at first had looked like the evening star, was drawing closer. Soon they could make out the shape of a glowing white dragon. Hastily the crowd moved back from the center of the courtyard as the great wings stirred up dust and the dragon settled among them.

“Mama! Mama! Mama!” came the cry from three small, scaly throats.

Blanche lowered her head and examined the three. “Nice-looking
chicks, all right. So, kids, you hooked up with this lot, did you?”

Her red eyes glared around at the people still crowded into the courtyard. At that, the three dragonlets split up, Goldie leaping onto Rus’s back, Sil scrambling onto Merlin’s shoulder, and Red onto Arthur’s.

Blanche snorted. “Well,
one
of you seems to have made a good attachment. So, babies, you needed me for something?”

Arthur forced himself to step forward. “Actually, madam, I have need of you.”

Settling comfortably onto her haunches, she said amicably, “Ah, Pendragon, how can I be of assistance?”

“It appears that there is a major battle looming. One that involves both our world here and the Otherworlds.”

She snorted out a sulfurous cloud. “Yes, I have heard. At least this time if the world gets destroyed, it won’t all be the doing of you humans. Not that this is a big improvement. Destroyed is destroyed.”

“We are hoping that we can prevent the world from being destroyed—with your help.”

“Hmm. Well, there’s nothing like becoming a mother to make one suddenly care about life going on. What do you have in mind?”

“I need to send a team of two as rapidly as possible to all of the shires allied with us. Their job will be to help in the battle preparations and to tell them when and where their forces need to assemble. The time may be too short to rely on horses, but no one is as swift as a dragon.”

“That last is certainly true, but you are asking me to carry people again? I rather thought I was through with that. Yet I suppose as long as your team doesn’t include that annoying, meddlesome teenage wizard of yours, I’m game.”

“It would be Welly and Takata.”

Takata boldly stepped forward, tossing back her long black braids and staring confidently at the large dragon. More hesitantly, Welly followed.

Blanche scrutinized them. “Humph. That young warrior I carried before certainly hasn’t gotten any lighter, and his girlfriend is a solid mass of
heavy
muscle.”

“But, Blanche,” Welly said nervously, “I know you’re awfully short of treasure, for a dragon, I mean. And I’m sure if you help, the King will be able to find some awfully nice stuff for you.”

Blanche shot an indignant gout of flame into the air. “I will
not
be bribed! True, I could use some real treasure. It is only my due as a respectable dragon. But I am not to be bought!” Smoke curled around her face, nearly hiding her thoughtful scowl. “Still, this promises to be an adventure, and dragons need those … as well as treasure. So, Pendragon, when do we leave?”

The King smiled in relief. “In a day or two. In the meantime, Merlin and others are trying to determine where the battle will be engaged.”

“Excellent,” the white dragon said, stretching her wings comfortably. “That will allow me time to give this brood some flying lessons. It’s obvious that you humans and that wretch of a mutie dog will be no good at that. No offense intended, Pen-dragon.”

“None taken.”

The next couple of days were spent in frenzied preparation for the army’s departure. Equipment and weapons were assembled, horses groomed, and last-minute training undertaken. Heather spent much of her time with the warhorses, soothing taut nerves and mentally readying them for the long travels and likely battle ahead. Many of these animals had traveled and fought with the
army before. Most were ones Arthur had been breeding to return to the larger variety known in pre-Devastation times. He hoped that with each new generation, their size would increase, and so far it had been. But their three-toed feet had apparently permanently mutated back to an even earlier prehistoric form. That didn’t seem to be a harmful mutation. Each toe ended in a stout hoof that didn’t need shoeing, and the horses’ stamina didn’t seem to be affected.

Welly and Takata were busy studying maps and the names of the various dukes and kings who ruled the scattered shires. They also carefully selected the weapons and equipment they needed to take with them, trying to keep the weight down. Not that Blanche couldn’t carry a great deal, but if asked to, she would complain constantly. They didn’t look forward to weeks of traveling with a crabby dragon. Welly was particularly conflicted about the impending trip. He was delighted at the prospect of spending so much time with Takata. But he also remembered his last journey on a dragon, when the height and speed had kept him terrified most of the time. True, he admitted, he was a little older now, but there are some fears you just don’t grow out of.

Merlin spent the days trying to determine where and when the King’s forces should assemble. He used what divination spells he could, but still he had no clue, and he wasn’t at all confident that Troll would be able to find the answer either. In the past, he had managed his best divination by looking into water, sometimes in his silver Bowl of Seeing, sometimes merely in a puddle. But when he tried that now, all he managed to see was his own silvered reflection or the mud at the bottom of a pool.

On the night before departure, he was dining with the King and others but paying little attention to their conversation. He was staring into his potato soup, hoping desperately to see the
answer floating among the vegetables, when suddenly Troll burst into the room.

The little fellow ran forward and bowed so deeply to Arthur that his head thonked against the floor.

“Mighty King, news! Troll, Royal Emissary, return. Folk in Avalon say will help. Dark parts of Faerie may not or help other side. Troll talk to Lady. She say they help us in battle.”

The King sighed in relief. “That is great news, Troll.” He glanced at Merlin. “Did she say when or where this battle is to occur?”

Troll turned toward Merlin and stared with extra-wide eyes. “She say Merlin decide.”

Abruptly Merlin stood up.
“Decide?
It’s up to
me?”

Troll scrunched his eyes closed in concentration. “Lady say this battle of two worlds. Great Wizard only person of two worlds. He must choose. Battle be where he choose.”

Merlin felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Perhaps the most cataclysmic battle of all times, and where and when it would happen was up to him—not just to discover but to decide!

He looked at the people around him, but the room seemed to be filled with fog—a fog of their expectations and his fear. Silently he turned and left the room.

D
ISCOVERIES

M
erlin stormed out of the manor and into the darkened streets. He ignored Heather’s voice calling behind him. He didn’t want her understanding just now. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to think.

Think? What was there to think? Somehow he was expected to determine not only where this battle
would
take place but where it
should
. He had to choose. Was there any place in Britain where the advantage would be on Arthur’s side? No, that wasn’t the way to approach this. Creatures like Morgan and her allies could appear anywhere, could sully anything. Then was there some “cosmically right” place for this battle to happen, someplace that only he, being half Eldritch and half mortal, could determine?

He walked on and on, his staff angrily jabbing the ground with every step. These and other thoughts bounced fruitlessly around in his head. He lost track of where he was and didn’t care. Somewhere on the snow-spattered barren fells, somewhere climbing mountains and crossing valleys. The battle could take place here or there or anywhere. How was he to know?

For one brief moment, he was suddenly aware of his surroundings. He was on the crest of a rocky, windswept hill when
suddenly the ground gave way. In a shower of dirt and rock, he was falling. Falling into darkness.

When he opened his eyes again, he sensed a long time had passed. He saw only darkness. And then eyes. Two large, pale eyes. The eyes were atop a small, thin body, so white it was almost translucent. And it glowed. It was that faint light, and the light from other bodies slowly gathering around, that allowed him to see at all.

“Who … what are you?” he croaked, dust clogging his throat.

“What are we?” the first creature spat. “You know us. You ‘normal’ humans see us, though you choose not to.”

“Muties?”

“Your term, not ours. Some of us use it; some do not. We are
survivors
. Our ancestors fought horrible death and overcame it. But to those whose ancestors had it easier, we are ugly,
deformed, outcast!”

Merlin cringed against this wave of hostility. It wasn’t
his
fault. His ancestors hadn’t even known the Devastation. Still, he’d been brought again into this world, and he’d accepted it. Perhaps he was at fault for this shunning behavior as much as anyone, he realized heavily.

“But surely there are differences,” he said, trying to rationalize. “You speak and think very well, but others … don’t. Some mut—survivors … are more like animals now.”

“So, is it their fault? Should they be punished for it? You ‘normals’ are so arrogant. You think you are so much better than your ancestors because you survived without their technology. But you haven’t abandoned their thinking—the thinking that nearly destroyed the world. You pride yourself that you are mastering magic again, but beware. If you do not burrow down and
grab hold of its roots, magic will master you—as technology once did.”

Merlin was shaken. What this person said had the weight of truth about it but also the reek of arrogance. He was feeling angry now as well as guilty.

“You talk about arrogance, but aren’t you the same? You live down here obviously in some kind of working society. You are intelligent, you think things through—then why don’t you assert yourselves? If you demanded your place, there are many who would give it to you.”

“And many who would not. And there would be more war, hatred, and death. No, our world here suits us now, and we’ve grown to suit it. Besides, we are closer here to the essentials. To the root of things. To the Earth. That’s what you, even those who profess a touch of magic, have lost.”

Merlin couldn’t tell if this comment was pointed at him or people in general. “Do you know … who I am?”

The glowing man sniffed. “We’ve seen you around the court of that king.”

“I am one who ‘professes a touch of magic.’”

“Then use it to get out of here if you can,” the man taunted. “Some of the others here suggested we eat you. But that would only confirm your thought that we are ‘animals.’ Live or die as you will. We don’t care.”

The luminous people started shuffling away into dark tunnels. Dizzily, Merlin stood up. “Wait. There is another war coming. Don’t you care who wins?”

The leader turned back. “Perhaps we do, perhaps not. War means change, and change can be good. We will see.”

Merlin was left alone in the dark, total dark. He could get out of there, of course. He could conjure light and eventually find a way. But instead, he tried to force his anger and
impatience aside. Sitting again on the cold, dank floor of the passage, he thought. Get in touch with the roots of magic, the man had said. The Earth. Was this what he needed to hear? Was this his real way out?