Yesterday's Magic (8 page)

U
NDERGROUND

D
ust swirled around them in choking clouds. Clutching his staff, Merlin staggered to his feet, surprised that various parts of him weren’t shattered. The dragon’s sudden weight must have broken through the roof of some underground cave.

As the dust settled, Merlin saw reddish lights some distance to his left. They weren’t bright but were enough to hint at the figures holding them. It was hard to tell, but they looked human—mostly.

He needed a great deal more light. At a word, his staff radiated an intense purple. It cast a violet glow on the white mound beside him. The dragon’s head was raised as she stared at the distant row of lights. A rumbling vibrated through her, not a purr—a growl.

“Is everyone all right?” Welly’s voice rose from the far side of the dragon.

“I’m fine,” Merlin answered, keeping his eyes on the distant shadowy figures. “Troll?”

“Troll not hurt. Scared. This trip, Troll always scared. Not like lights.” Skittishly he drew his knife.

Blanche rose to her feet still growling while Merlin walked around her to join the others. He and Welly drew their swords as the figures holding the lights began slowly walking their way.

“Hold!” a voice called across the echoey cavern. “Intruders, declare yourselves.”

The dragon’s growling grew in volume, but Merlin put a hand on her flank. “Wait,” he said quietly. “Whoever these people are, they don’t feel dark—not as dark as the things we met outside. Maybe they know something that can help us get to Heather.”

He raised his voice. “We are travelers from a distant country. Our enemies are outside, not here. If you wish us to leave, we will.”

The speaker leading the others was much nearer now. He was thin, palely purple, and had long white hair. They were all armed with swords. “No leaving now. We must take you to Baba.”

He made a quick gesture and two figures stepped to one side. They manipulated some mechanism in the semi-darkness, and suddenly a cranking and grating shook the cavern. Dust and pebbles rained down on them. Looking up, they saw a black panel sliding across the opening, cutting them off from the grayer night sky.

Blanche shifted uneasily, and Merlin cautioned her again. “Wait. Like you said, we were sitting ducks up there. It might be useful to learn where we are and who this Baba person is.

“Baba is your leader, then?” Merlin asked loudly.

“She is.”

“She? Does she go by any other name? Morgan, perhaps?”

The advancing man spat on the ground. “The foreign witch? Do not insult us.”

“Ah. Then we will do you no harm if you do none to us. We will meet with your leader.”

“You are our prisoners, not our guests—until Baba says otherwise.”

“Should we go with them?” Welly whispered to Merlin.

The wizard turned to their other companion. “What do you say, Troll? You’re more familiar with the denizens of the current Otherworlds. What do you feel about these fellows?”

Troll wrung his long hands. “Some local muties, some from Otherworlds, some both. But not
bad
bad. Not like Morgan.”

Merlin nodded. “That’s what I feel too. Let’s meet this Baba person.”

Sheathing their swords, he and Welly stepped forward. Troll skulked along in their shadows, sticking his knife back into his sash. Blanche rose to follow.

“You three, yes,” the white-haired man said. “But not that…animal.”

“Watch it, grub,” Blanche said, her words wreathed in smoke. “Treat me with respect, or I treat you like dinner.”

“She’s one of our party,” Merlin told the startled-looking man. “Where we go, she goes—if she fits.”

The man and the others backed away. “We’ll see what Baba has to say. Come, then.” He hurried ahead of them down a high wide hallway. The other light holders walked even faster.

Striding along with more confidence than he felt, Merlin studied the walls and ceiling. Smooth surfaces that must have been white once were now grimy and splotched with mold. Pre-Devastation architecture, he guessed. At regular intervals on the ceiling were contraptions that he supposed must once have been light fixtures. They were dark now. That made him want to look more closely at the lights their guides—or guards—were carrying.

He squinted ahead. The men, though armed, were clearly not anxious to be close to the intruders. The more Merlin focused on their red-tinged lights, the less he liked them. They looked a lot like glowing human skulls.

As they proceeded down the corridor, faces peered out of doors on either side. Some were pale, but not pre-Devastation pale. They were almost translucent, like creatures living under rocks. Merlin realized that the reason the white-haired man looked slightly purple was that his blood vessels were showing through his skin. Did these people live underground all the time? And what sort of place was this, anyway? Impatiently he filed these questions and tried to keep track of their route as they turned from one corridor into another and another. Their footsteps echoed dully through the dim maze.

Finally they rounded a corner and found the light holders clumped around a closed door. It was larger than the other doors they’d passed, and instead of a dirty white surface it was brightly painted. A vibrant red background was covered with multicolored flowers, animals, and birds.

The white-haired man knocked timidly. In a flurry, the painted figures on the door rearranged themselves. A crabby-looking chicken seemed to open its beak and squawk, “What?”

“O great Baba, the mighty and esteemed Yaga. As directed, the intruders on the hangar hatch have been apprehended. They claim to be from ‘a distant country,’ wherever that is. We bring them here for your questioning.”

A painted duck pushed the chicken aside and glared into the hallway. Finally it quacked, “Ah, two humans and a troll. Interesting. Aha! And a dragon.
Very
interesting.”

The chicken pecked at the duck, shouldering it aside, and squawked, “Right. Send the three smaller ones in. Madam Dragon, I fear you are too large for my office. I’ll have someone bring you a bowl of munchies. Will fried bats do?”

Blanche grunted at the talking door. “In large quantities, yes.”

“Done,” the duck quacked. “Door, open! Kitchen staff, bring the bats!”

The door flung itself open, and the light carriers bowed the three travelers in. Merlin looked back at Blanche, who seemed content to sit down and await the promised goodies. Then he stepped through the door.

It was a large office, though not dragon-sized, and very cluttered. Shelves, chairs, and tables were piled with books, dolls, wood carvings, glasses, and teapots. In one corner stood a high wooden tub with a wooden pole sticking out of it. It looked to Merlin like an enormous mortar and pestle, though he couldn’t imagine who could use such a huge thing for grinding. A number of chickens and ducks wandered through the room, and several cats draped themselves over pieces of furniture. In the center of the space crouched a huge wooden desk, equally cluttered, and behind it sat someone small.

Stepping forward, they saw it was a little old lady. Very little and very old. A bright flowered scarf tied around her head barely contained her riotous gray hair. Her face seemed entirely made up of wrinkles except where a long nose protruded from the middle and bent down, almost meeting the upturned chin. Two beady black eyes watched the three as they approached.

“Well, well,” she cackled, “nice of you to drop in.”

This was all getting too confusing for Welly, and being confused made him angry. “We didn’t exactly drop in by accident, did we? We landed in some sort of trap.”

The woman shrugged. “Not really. You and that great heavy dragon thumped down like invaders on our hangar door. Of course we caught you! And if our lookouts hadn’t reported that you were fighting the castle folk, we probably would have considered you enemies and killed you on the spot.”

“Or tried to,” Welly said meaningfully, placing a hand on his sword hilt.

Baba chortled. “Oh, of course, that was before we knew we had such a formidable warrior in our midst. Give it a break, kid.”

Then she turned her beady eyes on Merlin. “But
you
are a different matter. Foreign travelers, you say? Where from?”

“Britain,” Merlin answered simply.

“Right. I’ve heard of some interesting goings-on there. Oh, wait. The meddling witch who moved into the castle is British too, isn’t she? Friend of yours?”

Troll jumped up from where he’d been cowering behind Merlin. “No way! She nasty nasty witch! She stole Nice Lady, and we got to rescue her!”

“Hush,” Welly whispered urgently. “How do we know whose side this old hag’s on?”

Overhearing, Baba laughed. “Right, kid. Never trust nobody that nobody sent. So why should I trust
you
?”

Troll hopped up and down impatiently. “Because we got to rescue Heather. Get her and Merlin back to Arthur before Morgan does more nasties. That why!”

“Well, at last someone’s coming out with useful information,” Baba cackled. “I’ve heard something about you lot—from my Otherworld connections. It’s not everybody who’d mess with that Le Fay woman. Down here, we try lying low when she’s in residence. I’ve worked too many centuries trying to keep this ragtag lot going to let that gadabout foreign witch with dreams of grandeur mess with us.

“But you, boy, I know you now.” Jumping up, she skipped around the desk and pointed a knobby finger at Merlin. She wasn’t much taller than Troll, but with her layers of fringed shawls and flowered skirts she was twice as wide. “The age thing fooled me at first—and that feeble little beard. We’ve heard about you and that Arthur fellow even in our Otherworld—and we’re a pretty provincial lot.”

Merlin tried to respond but couldn’t break into her flow of chatter.

“Ah, now this girl you’re after…I bet that’s the same one little Ivan came running to me about. He’s got this new talent coming. Mind speaker. Wave of the future, that is. He’s not much good at it yet. No focus. But he said there’s another of his kind nearby, held prisoner or something, and I bet it’s your girl.”

Merlin felt a thrill of hope and watched impatiently as the woman hopped about like an excited flea, the fringe on her shawls whipping around. She continued, “So now we better help you. Can’t let Miss Rule the World get hold of that talent, can we? And as the saying goes, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Always worked for me.”

Reaching down, she grabbed a chicken, whispered in its ear, and flung it fluttering toward the door. Momentarily it vanished and a cackling chicken voice was heard outside ordering someone to go fetch Ivan and bring him to the dining hall.

“Come on,” Baba said, bustling to the door before anyone else could get a word in. “Got to feed guests—and do some plotting and planning while we’re at it.” Merlin frowned but followed. He didn’t want to take the time to play grateful guest, but obviously this person knew things that might help.

Outside in the hall, the painted chicken and duck were still squabbling on the door. Baba gave them a slap and gestured to Blanche, who was just licking the last bat out of a large tureen. “Come along too, deary. I’m sure that just whetted your appetite.” With that, she bustled down the corridor, followed by the visitors and several guards clutching glowing skulls.

After a few paces, Baba fell back to walk beside Blanche. “A real British dragon—what an honor to meet you, ma’am. We have a preference for firebirds in my neck of the Otherworlds, but dragons always piqued my fancy. China had its share too, you know, but that place got hit even worse in the Devastation, and most of its Otherworld folk cleared right out.”

As they hurried along, Welly slipped up to Merlin and whispered, “Is the old lady crazy or what?”

“Or what,” Merlin answered. “I think she’s a big-time supernatural sort. If only Heather were here. She read a lot more about other countries and their legends than I bothered with.”

“I wish she were here too,” Welly agreed. “But if she were, we wouldn’t be. I mean…”

Before Welly could sort this out, Baba scuttled up to join them. “Quite a stroke of luck it was, finding this place after the Devastation. I nearly ran off myself, like most of our Otherworld types, when this world got so crazy. But there were survivors. We weren’t as lucky as you British lot. Only one of your cities got hit, I’m told. But even here, not everybody died in the blasts or the chaos afterward. So I stayed behind with a little ragtag band of survivors, hoping to find a place where the radiation wouldn’t kill or mutate them too bad. And we found this place.”

“What is it?” Welly managed to slip in.

“A big underground bunker. A city almost. Apparently some government and military big shots built this hideout in the mountains in case war broke out. But I don’t think most of them got to use it. They were killed right out, or maybe from the radiation or the plagues. But they’d stocked the place with food and books and bunches of gadgets, most of which don’t work anymore. And I introduced some touches of my own.”

“Like glowy skulls?” Troll offered.

“Always worked for me,” she chuckled. “Used to set them on poles around my house. Discouraged unwanted visitors. But the magic here is not all mine. There’re new magics popping up all the time helping us deal with stuff. Maybe someday soon we’ll move back onto the surface. The folks living here now can handle a lot of radiation—even developed some useful mutations. But after generations underground, they’re looking kind of sickly.”