Yesterday's Magic (15 page)

As they mounted up, Merlin was still worrying about exactly what they’d discover. If North America had been as badly devastated as he feared, it would be a long bleak trip eastward back to Britain. And then there’d be another ocean to cross. Could they even make it? Yet Heather said she’d heard several voices from the Americas. Maybe they’d find enough life to sustain themselves.

Maybe—if they could escape the evil that was pursuing them. As they rose again into the air, he looked fearfully over his shoulder. The sky behind them was an innocent pale blue. Yet he could feel the black threat beyond it. Shuddering, he looked forward again. In the distance, he thought he saw the faint outline of land stretching from the end of the land bridge toward the south. He couldn’t sense what lay there. Newness, certainly. And perhaps hope.

F
OREST

A
nother few hours brought them to the coast. After landing on a snow-flecked beach, they pooled what faint sense they had of a desired direction and decided to fly south along the coast until they found either a cluster of humanity or an Otherworld entrance. But flying on until sunset, they found nothing. To their left, the continent stretched under a bleak glacial shroud. Ahead of them, the white fringe of surf beat on rocky barren beaches. Above, the sun was just a pale wraith in the shrouded sky.

They stopped at one beach for the night, huddling among rocks to escape the battering winds from cold ocean and colder land. Food for the dragons was scarce until, in frustration, Blanche blasted a shallow bay with flame and a few fish and odd creatures floated to the surface.

The following days and nights were much the same except that their vague sense of a goal grew stronger and urged them on in the same direction. Then, as they rose into another dawn, a faint column of smoke on the horizon drew their attention. With more confidence, they headed down the coast toward it.

In patches now the snow cover vanished to be replaced by bare rock, waving dune grass, or short wind-twisted trees. Riding behind Heather, Welly squinted through his glasses at the rising thread of smoke. “It seems to be coming out of the top of that mountain. Do you think it’s a volcano?”

“Could be. It does sort of look like volcano pictures in books. And I sense there’s more life over there. Makes sense, I guess. The area around volcanoes ought to be warmer.”

She looked across at Merlin, whose black dragon was flying alongside theirs. The wind and steady flapping of dragon wings made conversation difficult. But he grinned and nodded, pointing toward the smoking mountain.

“Do you hear any voices from up ahead?” Welly asked Heather.

She shook her head. “I heard a squawk in the night almost like a baby crying. But I think it was probably some noisy seabird.”

They continued flying south. Beneath them, snow had vanished from the shore. Jutting from the sand were fingers of dark rock smoothed by eons beneath the sea before the waters had drawn back, leaving them bare and exposed.

The smoking mountain loomed closer now. It was set back from the coast at the head of a long valley bounded by steep ridges. Shrouded sunlight glinted off coils of a river that wound down the valley toward the sea. Partly hiding the river and climbing up the valley sides was a carpet of dark green. Trees. Heather and Welly gasped at the same time. More trees than they had ever seen in one place. Heather kept staring, sure she hadn’t seen anything as beautiful since leaving Avalon.

The river fanned out into several braids as it cut through sand dunes and spread in muddy fingers into the gray-green ocean. Both dragons circled tightly together over the delta. Wisps of fog were slowly rolling in from the sea but hadn’t softened the dark tree-filled chasm.

“Doesn’t feel totally right,” Hei Se called.

“No, it doesn’t,” Blanche answered. “Feels hostile.”

“Foreign.”

“Very.”

“Okay, I agree,” Merlin interjected. “It feels hostile, very foreign, and layered with fear. But it also feels like a human and Otherworld link. For all we know, it could be the only place on this continent where we can get any help. We need provisions and directions at least. What do you sense, Heather?”

Heather started to answer, then abruptly clamped two hands to her head. “Only thing I sense is an unhappy squawking baby. Not much help there.”

Merlin shrugged. “All right. Let’s land at the mouth of the river valley—well back from the waves but before the trees get too dense. Then we can explore.”

Welly was glad when the dragons broke their close spiraling formation. It was making him airsick. But the thought of landing in hostile foreign territory was not comforting.

The two dragons banked and glided in over the foaming breakers and the braided river mouth. The water-course came together just before it emerged from the trees, and there the dragons settled onto the grass-held dunes. Stiffly the travelers climbed off their dragons, then stood in silence staring up the river valley.

Welly was the first to speak. “Those are
some
trees. I’ve never…I mean, they’re
enormous
!”

Slowly the four walked forward. The stunted trees Heather and Welly had seen seldom were taller than twice their own height. Merlin had known tall pre-Devastation trees, but nothing like these.

Troll summed it up for them. “Trees
big
! Even in Faerie, never see trees like these.”

As they walked under the giants, they were engulfed in silence and thin veils of fog. Drooping ferns carpeted the forest floor. The trees’ red-brown bark was shaggy and deeply furrowed. On the largest trees, the trunks rose straight and unbroken to great heights before branches emerged, weighed with feathery dark green needles. The treetops were nearly lost to sight as they swayed in and out of swirling fog.

The silence was profound. Even the tumbling river seemed hushed. Suddenly Merlin stiffened. Clutching his Eldritch sword, he whispered, “We aren’t alone.”

A voice rang out from the forest gloom. “The storied invaders! Attack!”

Figures charged from the shadows of tree trunks and ferns. Most were as dark red as the trees, with long black hair and eyes that held no welcome. They were armed. Spears and swords glinted in the fog-dimmed light. With a raucous cry from high up among the trees, a creature leaped down to join the attackers. Ten feet tall, its human-seeming arms and legs were covered in shiny black feathers. Its eyes gleamed like coals, and its beak of a mouth snapped open.

“Destroy them!”

The four travelers hastily stood back to back, pulling out their own swords. Slowly the forest folk moved in. Then horrendous roaring from the beach turned all attention there as two dragons charged to the attack.

In a mad chaotic flurry, the tall feathered figure and two others like him in gray fur and brown leaped toward the dragons, chanting and drawing power from the air. Ropes of light coiled, solidified, and flung themselves at the dragons. In moments, the beasts were totally ensnared and thrown helplessly on their sides. Then, with a collective howl, the forest people threw themselves at the four travelers.

Welly found himself facing a girl his own age. She grinned like a wild beast and lunged forward with her stone-tipped spear. Welly beat it aside with his sword, then tried to jab at her, but she sidestepped and lunged at him again. The metal sword cracked her spear shaft in two, but she grabbed the bladed half and slashed at him, cutting a long rent in his jacket. Spinning around, he jabbed at her with his now-longer blade. She twisted aside, quickly backing out of range. Welly leaped forward and took another massive swipe at her.

Suddenly he felt his feet sliding from under him. A mossy bank gave way. He tumbled down as the girl standing above him laughed. Flailing at the crumbling earth, Welly caught a root and slashed upward with his sword, cutting the turf from under her feet. The root snapped, and the two tumbled downward through moss, dirt, and ferns.

The others were equally engaged. Troll gibbered and danced among the attackers, just avoiding their blades and poking at some with his own. When too many enemy crowded around, he let out a piercing troll shriek that clearly frightened them more than his weapon. Heather furiously beat two attackers back with her Eldritch blade. Desperately she wished she could focus enough to work some useful magic. She didn’t know if she really wanted to hurt these people, but she certainly didn’t want to let them hurt
her.

Merlin had used his sword to fend off several attackers, but now the beings in feathers and fur surrounded him, and he wielded his staff in a flurry of purple energy. But they had power of their own. He could feel its strength and its strangeness. He wasn’t sure how long he could hold the three of them off.

The sounds of battle were suddenly sliced through by an ear-piercing squawk. Then a woman’s voice rang out. “Stop! My grandchild speaks!”

Abruptly the attackers lowered their weapons and stepped back. The defenders blinked in bewilderment, then joined the others looking to where an old woman stood on a mossy knoll. Her braided gray hair was crowned by a basketwork hat, and she held up a baby in both hands. The child looked at them with wide dark eyes, then burbled into laughing words. “Friends! Friends come!”

Heather clutched at her head as she felt a high voice burst inside.
Good friend. Want help?

Yes,
she thought back.
Thank you.

The old woman lowered the child, cradling it protectively in her arms. “Kiwilah has spoken for the first time. She was born with the Power. Listen to her!”

The tall being with the black feathers stepped forward. “But, Muweena, the stories have long spoken of danger coming to us on hostile wings over the water. You yourself and we Spirit Folk have felt it nearing. Surely these are the enemies foretold.”

Squawking piercingly, baby Kiwilah wiggled in her grandmother’s arms until the woman put her down. Then, giggling, the baby crawled down the mossy slope, got unsteadily to her feet, and toddled toward Heather. “Friend!” she burbled, and threw chubby arms around Heather’s legs.

Shaking her head, the old woman clambered down the bank as well. “Yes, Raven, the enemy are coming. But these are not the ones.” She stopped in front of Merlin and looked him in the eye. “Who are you, then, you with enough power to fend off three of our Spirit Folk?”

Merlin bowed to the three and then to her. “Their power is indeed very great. We are four travelers and our dragon companions seeking only to find our way home. But I fear that there are indeed evil forces pursuing us. Perhaps it is they whom you expect.”

The woman nodded. “Perhaps. The stories say, ‘Beware the day when evil beings on fearsome wings come from over the sea. They seek vengeance and power and would destroy much.’ Is that the sort of thing that pursues you now?”

“It is,” Merlin said. “And vengeance, power, and silence is what they are seeking from us. I am sorry if we have brought this evil on you as well.”

“Are they close at your heels?”

Merlin looked west, to where dense fog now hid the sea. “I do not think they are close. But they are coming.”

“Then there is time to talk and learn things of each other. But you said there are four of you. Have we slain the fourth?”

“No,” a girl’s voice called from a thicket of ferns. “I tried, but as everyone seems to have made a truce, he is safe now.”

Welly and the warrior girl, both covered in moss and dirt, stepped out of the ferns. “Hey,” he objected. “I broke her spear.
She’s
the one who is lucky for the truce.”

Several people laughed, their weapons now lowered. One woman called, “This one with the eye shields must be a fearsome warrior indeed to have held off Takata. She’s a wildcat.”

As others laughed, Merlin asked Muweena, “Could you release our dragons now? I am amazed that any rope could hold them.”

The feathered man snapped his beak and strode toward the angrily twitching bound dragons. “Foreign fool, these aren’t ordinary ropes. Only Otherworld power could hold Otherworld beasts.”

“Watch who you call a beast, birdbrain,” Blanche hissed through bound jaws.

The three Spirit Folk—Raven, Bear, and Wolf—stood around the dragons, chanting and weaving their hands into a snare of patterns. Like smoke, the ropes dissolved. In one fluid move, Hei Se reared up and drew in a gigantic breath.

Merlin raised his staff. “Stop! We’ve made a truce. Their attack was a misunderstanding.”

Hei Se snorted, sending a gust of wind that swirled sand and dust into the air. Beside him, Blanche crouched, flames from her nostrils curling a few ferns into ash.

“
I
have signed no truce,” the black dragon growled. “This blow to dragon honor is crushing. Payment must be made.”

“Payment in the form of a large meaty meal might be acceptable, though,” Blanche added.

“Yes, yes, that could be arranged,” Muweena said, hobbling up to the group. She was again holding Kiwilah, who looked at the two dragons with wide eyes.

“Doggies!” the baby cried happily.

Hei Se snarled. “Doggies, is it? Well, babies
do
make good appetizers.”

Roughly Blanche shoved him aside and with a toothy smile gazed down at the baby. “Hush, oaf,” she told Hei Se. “Even baby humans are cute. Aren’t you, cutey-poo?” The dragon blew tiny sparks out of her mouth, and Kiwilah laughed and clapped.

“Well, if my granddaughter approves of you, you must be all right,” Muweena said. “Now let us go to the lodge. There is much to talk about and, I think, some feasting to do.”

Welly looked around uneasily at the warriors, who moments earlier had been ready to kill them. But he did like the idea of feasting. Then he noticed Takata was limping and decided he’d better offer her his arm. After all, he had been the one who had knocked her into that hole. At first she refused, but when she took a step and nearly fell, she shrugged and took his arm.