Ultimate Magic (20 page)

He listened, trying to hear the slightest stirring of life. Beneath her scales, if Aylah was right, Marnya’s heart might yet be pulsing—just as his own heart now pulsed with hope.

He heard absolutely nothing.

Reaching over with his wing, he pressed its tip on her back and pushed hard. Her limp body rocked, squelching in the mud. Again he lowered his ear and listened. Again he heard nothing.

He tried another push. Then another. And then another.

Still no response. Over in the rushes, Ganta sighed and turned away.

Basilgarrad’s snout drooped, so that his nose touched Marnya’s. “I have no more magic,” he said quietly, his voice so soft it might have belonged to a purring cat. “I gave it all away, every bit, for Avalon.”

His huge eyes blinked, brushing away the mist that blurred his vision. “But if I had any magic left, even if it was the only thing that kept me alive, I would give it to you.”

For a long moment, he stayed there, as motionless as Marnya. Then he slowly lifted his head, which felt heavier than ever before. Aylah had been wrong—and, foolish beast that he was, he’d allowed himself to believe her! He snorted with dismay. He should have known, by now, having seen so many losses and borne so much suffering, that a wish alone could not change what was real.

Yet he had, for a moment, hoped it could. With all his heart.

Glancing one last time at Marnya, he turned slowly aside. That was when he noticed, for the first time, Ganta. Their eyes met, one pair much smaller but glowing no less intensely; one pair larger in both size and experience.

“So . . . sorry,” said Ganta glumly. He ground his tiny teeth together, then added, “At least you won the battle.”

Basilgarrad peered down at him, unblinking. “And lost,” he said with sadness, “the one person I most wanted to win it for.”

A slight sound, more subtle than the rustle of a sparrow’s wings, stirred the air. Instantly, the great dragon stiffened, from the tips of his ears down to the enormous knob of his tail. For he knew that sound.

The flutter of a dragon’s eyelashes.

He turned instantly to Marnya, just in time to see her sapphire eyes open and look into his own. Held by that gaze, neither of them moved for several seconds. At last, she drew a halting breath. Awkwardly, she tried to shift her outstretched flippers and released a pained groan. Her right flipper seemed glued to the mud, unable to move.

Suddenly aware of what was happening, Ganta shrieked in surprise. He spun around in a circle, slapped himself with his wings, then breathed a spurt of orange flames.

Basilgarrad, meanwhile, stayed completely focused on Marnya. “Don’t try to move,” he counseled, still staring at her as if he’d never seen anything so marvelous. “I’ll take care of you.”

“You already have.” Marnya slowly lifted her head. She started to say something else—when she caught sight of the mountainous corpse of the troll, sprawled on the Marsh. Her nostrils flared angrily.

“Yes,” declared Basilgarrad, answering her unspoken question. “He’s dead.”

Her gaze, once more, met his. “You did it,” she said breathily. “You saved Avalon!”

Slowly, he shook his massive head. “No, my love.
We
did it. All of us—every creature in our world who cared enough to help.” His rumbling voice lowered. “No one person alone could have done it.”

She smiled, understanding fully.

“Hoooooeeeee!” shouted Ganta. Raising his head to the wide open sky, he breathed another flicker of fire. Then, spying Merlin and Krystallus striding toward them across the bog, he jubilantly cried, “She’s alive! Marnya’s alive!”

When Krystallus shot his father a questioning glance, Merlin replied, “Basil’s lady. A most courageous dragon. And, I should add, a good bit prettier than her father, Bendegeit.”

“Bendegeit?” Krystallus shook his mane astonished. “A water dragon? Here? But how?”

“She flew, of course,” answered the wizard nonchalantly.

“Why do you look so surprised? This is, after all, Avalon.”

Krystallus immediately broke into a run toward the dragons, almost losing his boots in the sticky muck. Merlin, clutching his staff, hobbled as fast as he could behind. His resident owl, though, couldn’t wait. With a triumphant screech, Euclid burst out of the wizard’s tangled beard and climbed into the sky.

As Basilgarrad and Marnya watched, their heads leaning against each other, the owl flew in a frenzy of geometric patterns. Euclid’s path made a square, a trio of circles, then a jagged row of pinnacle-topped triangles. Then, with a loud clack of his beak, he launched into a maze of interlocking octagons.

“Something tells me he’s happy,” said the green dragon dryly.

Marnya’s ears swiveled playfully. “Why, I wonder?”

While Euclid drew his designs upon the sky, Krystallus arrived. The whole of his face seemed to beam as he strode up to the dragons. Placing his hand on Basilgarrad’s claw, he stared at Marnya in amazement. To no one in particular, he muttered, “This is, after all, Avalon.”

Basilgarrad raised his head and gave Marnya a wink. “I think he’s happy, too.”

“As am I,” said Merlin, puffing as he joined them. “As am I.”

The wizard peered up into the huge green eye of Basilgarrad.
Very happy, indeed
, he said telepathically.
For you, my old friend . . . and for us all.

“About what?” replied the dragon, trying his best to sound casual.

“Oh,” answered Merlin with a twinkle, “nothing, really. Just Euclid there.” He pointed the top of his staff toward the owl, who was making his most complex pattern yet. “You see, I’ve never known him to do anything so intricate. Look there! I think it’s a dodecahedron.”

“Really?” asked Basilgarrad, crinkling his brow in doubt.

“It looks to me more like a wild-eyed old wizard.”

Ganta laughed, spurting fire. Krystallus laughed, too, even as he gave his father a nudge. And so did Merlin, chuckling mirthfully. Marnya joined in, though she never took her eyes off Basilgarrad.

No one, though, laughed harder than the great green dragon himself. His voice carried across the Marsh, borne on the swirling wind that filled the air with the scent of cinnamon.

28:
T
HREE
G
IFTS

You are expecting something wise, pithy, and dragonlike? Well, sorry to say, I’m all out of wisdom—if I ever had any. All I have now . . . is gratitude.

I have something for you.”

Merlin nodded at his son, emphasizing the point. He ran a hand through the tangled gray hair of his beard, taking care to avoid the spot where Euclid was currently napping. “A gift. Actually, three gifts.”

Krystallus, who was seated across from him on a rough boulder of rose quartz, cocked his head in surprise. He peered at the elder wizard—a man he’d known since birth, but whom, it seemed, he’d truly met only recently. “What sort of gifts?”

Merlin didn’t reply. He merely nestled himself deeper into the gap between two burly roots at the base of an ancient beech tree. The tree’s trunk tilted at a perfect angle to allow him to rest his back; a low branch draped in an ideal position for him to hang his hat and also prop his staff. Beech leaves, hanging near his head, trembled in the breeze, as if they were eagerly fanning his face. In every way, the tree seemed to be welcoming this particular guest. In fact, if Krystallus hadn’t known better, he would have been sure that those massive roots had lifted and curled when his father sat down, just to shape themselves into a more comfortable seat.

“Oh, nothing special,” answered Merlin at last, with a wave of his hand. “Just a few small trinkets to remember me by, since I’m leaving soon for Earth.”

Krystallus started. “You are? Again?”

“Looks that way,” said the wizard in a casual tone. “It seems that whole Camelot idea is proving a bit more complicated than my young friend Arthur had imagined. Time to look in on him.”

The younger man nodded, swishing his white locks against his shoulders. “So how long do you expect to be gone?”

Merlin’s brow wrinkled. “A good while,” he said slowly. “Perhaps . . . forever.”

Drawing a deep breath, Krystallus leaned back on the boulder. “I see.”

“You seem a bit . . .” Merlin paused, clearing his throat.

“Disappointed.”

“Well, I was just starting to get used to having you around.”

“I see,” replied his father, twirling a few hairs on his beard.

“That brings me back to those gifts.”

“Nothing special, you said.”

“Right. Although one of them . . . is a map.” The wizard’s dark eyes gleamed. “A rather unusual map.”

Despite his disappointment, Krystallus leaned forward on the boulder, suddenly curious. Aside from Serella, he loved nothing better than a new map. For him, it was much more than a piece of paper that described a possible journey. It was, in truth, a kind of journey itself—a way to bring a whole new place, maybe even a magical place, to life.

“So,” pressed Krystallus, “what is this map you mentioned?”

“Right now, it’s just a scrap.”

“What?”

“A scrap.” Merlin reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out a small shred of paper, singed by fire around its edges. “But you know,” he said softly, “it could become something more. Just as,” he added with a quick glance at his son, “a small scrap of relationship, torn and burned by time, can become something more.”

Holding the scrap in the palm of his hand, he showed it to Krystallus. “Recognize it?”

The younger man left the boulder to come closer. He studied the charred fragment in the old man’s hand, all the while shaking his head. “All I see is part of what looks like an arrow. But there’s nothing—”

He caught himself. Bending lower, he gently touched the burned edge. “Is this what’s left of . . .”

“Yes,” answered Merlin. “The magical map you gave to Basil. And if he were here right now, instead of flying around somewhere with Marnya, he’d be a bit surprised. He saved this scrap, you see, to show me how much you had done—and sacrificed—to help Avalon. And he saw me toss it aside on the battlefield. But I don’t think he saw me pick it up again before we left.”

Shifting his gaze to meet his father’s, Krystallus asked, “Just why did you pick it up again?”

“Oh,” answered the wizard with a shrug, “I suppose I was feeling just a bit . . . sentimental. For maps, of course.”

Krystallus almost grinned. “Of course.”

“And now,” said Merlin, “let’s see what it can still do.”

“But it can only work once. I was told, quite clearly, that’s the rule.”

“Splendid! It’s much more fun to be the exception, not the rule.” With that, the wizard raised his other hand and held it just above the open palm. Concentrating his energy on the scrap, he intoned:

Arise, expand, be all you can be:
Egg into eagle,
Seed into tree.
Dreams make real, elements own—
Truth revealed,
Flower full grown.

The small fragment trembled, as if it had been touched by the same breeze that was stirring the beech tree’s leaves. Yet this particular breeze seemed to swell steadily between Merlin’s hands. The scrap floated upward, bent, and started shaking. Soon, a rich golden mist emanated from its edges. The piece of paper started to stretch along one edge, then another. It continued to expand, growing swiftly, until at last it reached its original size. Then, all at once, the mist seeped back into the surface, sizzling ever so slightly.

Surveying the newly restored square of paper, Merlin nodded and withdrew his upper hand. Like Krystallus, he gazed in wonder at the blank sheet, knowing that it held marvelous magic. With a final tilt of his head, he issued a silent command, and the sheet instantly folded itself into one-eighth its size.

“There,” pronounced the wizard. “Your map.”

He handed it to Krystallus, who took it gladly. After holding it in his own palm for a few seconds, the explorer slid it into his tunic—the same pocket that also held his starward compass.

“Will it still work only once?” he asked, gently patting the pocket.

“Only once,” his father replied. “Unless, of course . . . we break the rules again.” He winked. “But however you use it—be sure to use it well.”

“That I will.” Krystallus clenched his jaw with determination. “This map will help me find a route up through the Great Tree—all the way to the stars.”

Merlin’s bushy brows lifted, like fluffy clouds rising up his forehead. “The stars? That’s a long way.”

“Yes, it is.” The explorer’s eyes seemed alight. “And I’m going to get there, as I’ve always dreamed.”

“You’re sure? It could be dangerous to climb that high, without a pair of wings as strong as Basil’s. Or a staff as powerful as this one.” He ran one finger along the shaft that was leaning against the branch. “I only ask out of concern for your safety, lad. As your . . .”

He paused, not because the next word was difficult to say. Or awkward in any way. No, he paused just because he wanted to say it with so much honesty and gratitude.

“Father.”

Krystallus smiled. “Thanks. But yes, I’m sure.” Seeing the old man’s uncertainty, he explained, “Look now, it’s already the Year of Avalon 694. And no one—except for you, of course—has ever ventured higher in the Tree than the root-realms. There’s so much more up there to explore!”

Merlin stroked his hairy chin. “Is this the time, though? Why now?”

“Why not? The long war is over. A new era has begun! You said so yourself, when we gathered for the peace treaty. Remember? You practically shouted, ‘This is a new age—when our Tree, our home, will be blessed by a marvelous ripening.’”

“I said that?” The elder gazed up into the beech leaves over his head. “Not bad, really.”

“Right,” agreed Krystallus. “Already, people are calling this the Age of Ripening. Even that secret enchantress, the Lady of the Lake, used that term when she wrote her letter to everyone in Avalon. She went on to call this ‘Merlin’s greatest gift—a time of great discoveries as well as great perils.’”

“Did she?” Merlin’s eyes seemed to dance with secrets.

“What a nice thing for her to say.” Then he added, perhaps a bit too gruffly, “Whoever she is.”