Yesterday's Magic (10 page)

Welly tried to scream, but it only came out as a muffled gargle. Through the slime encasing his head, he heard other screams and thumps. He hoped to hear the saving sound of a sword cutting through this horrid slick cocoon. Nothing.

The gluey coating was hardening now; he could barely twitch a muscle. Then, through his blinded eyes, he thought he saw the light level rise. The temperature certainly did. The hardened mucus all over his body started to heat up. It bubbled like soup, then began to drip away.

Gasping, Welly staggered to his feet. Merlin, himself half engulfed in slime, was shooting heat from the tip of his staff. The large blob near his feet quivered and heaved. Troll burst forth. “Yuck, yuck, yuck! Troll hate slugs! Not even good eat. Yuck! Oh! Hot slug juice! Ouch, ouch!”

“Sorry,” Merlin said as he boiled away the last of the slime encasing his own legs. “There wasn’t time for delicate temperature control.”

Just then Welly felt a drop of slime fall on his head and slither down his cheek. He looked up. “There’re more on the ceiling!”

Half a dozen glistening slugs, each a yard long, stared back at them with their wiggling eyestalks. “Run!” Merlin cried as he raised his staff and sprayed the ceiling with searing purple heat. Six shriveled yellow husks dropped to the floor. The light showed other glistening forms lurking in the shadows. Merlin turned and raced after the others.

Troll was now clinging to Welly like a backpack. They passed several hardened translucent lumps that looked like giant spiders were entombed inside. They also saw a scattering of empty yellow skins lying about like popped and wizened balloons.

“Looks like we stumbled into a major slug-versus-spider war,” Merlin said as they continued up what had now become a steep ramp.

Welly shook his head. “I suppose we shouldn’t pick sides, but if there’s anything I hate worse than spiders, it’s gross things like slugs. Especially giant mutant ones.”

Still clinging to Welly’s back, Troll shivered agreement. “Yuck!”

Finally the ramp reached another floor. A wider corridor continued to slant upward, but more gradually, following a slow spiral. Through the outside wall, occasional slits let in pale gray light. The other side of the corridor was made up of small cell-like rooms, empty except for chains, bones, and a few heaps of rotting foul-smelling stuff they didn’t want to examine. They hurried forward.

“I don’t understand,” Merlin whispered. “We made enough noise down there to wake the dead—literally. Where are the guards, the denizens of this castle?”

“It’s daytime now,” Welly suggested. “Like Baba said, maybe they don’t get about in the day.”

“Something does,” Troll squeaked, peering over Welly’s shoulder. His big ears twitched. “Something with claws running this way.”

After a moment, the others heard it too—large clawed feet charging down the sloping corridor toward them. By now they had passed the last of the cells and were in a wide empty hallway. Weak dusky light through a narrow window showed something small streaking their way and something much larger following. The pursuer looked like a cross between a giant cat and a magnified lizard. And it looked hungry. The object of its hunger pelted toward them and, without stopping, leaped on Merlin and scrambled to his shoulder.

Thrown off balance, Merlin couldn’t fend off the pursuer. Lunging forward, Welly jabbed at it with his sword, raking a thin red scratch across the creature’s side. Hissing, the beast swerved aside and crouched, preparing to leap on Welly.

Steadier now, Merlin slashed forward with his staff. The creature’s tail caught fire, and with a howl, it turned and raced back up the corridor.

Awkwardly Merlin turned his head and looked into the face of the animal on his shoulder. A pale gray rat. It squeaked and chittered at him, but Merlin shook his head. “I don’t speak animal. Heather does, not me.”

“Troll do too.” With that, Troll climbed down from Welly’s back and leaped onto Merlin’s. He thrust his face toward the rat, which cringed back against Merlin’s neck. Then the little creature began squeaking and chittering again. A couple times Troll answered back. Finally Troll jumped down and squatted on the floor.

“Heather gone.”

Merlin went cold. “Gone? How?”

“Rat friend of Heather. Hours ago, very bad woman, must be Morgan, take Heather away. They get on very very bad beast and fly off. Direction just south of where sun rise.”

Merlin frowned with confusion. “But…but I feel Heather here. Above us, in this building.”

Troll nodded. “That trick. Morgan snip bit of Heather’s hair—put it in funny blue flame. Not burn, just floats in air.”

“A decoy spell!” Merlin spat. “I should have known. It gave off enough of Heather’s essence to make me feel she was here. If I’d only probed…”

“Never mind, Earl,” Welly said. “Morgan deceives everyone. Did the rat say any more, Troll?”

“Say Heather not want us to follow. Too dangerous.”

“As if
dangerous
weren’t part of this whole picture,” Welly muttered. “Anything else?”

Troll grinned. “Rat say
she
hope we do follow. Heather nice person.”

“And so we will!” Merlin said. “Troll, thank the rat and ask her if there’s anything we can do for her.”

From where he sat, Troll chittered, and from Merlin’s shoulder, the rat chittered back.

“Food nice,” Troll translated.

Chuckling, Merlin gently lifted the rat from his shoulder, put her on the floor near a comfortable-looking hole, and fumbled in a sack tied to his belt. “Baba gave me these before we left. I hope rats like dried mushrooms.”

He placed some by the rat’s twitching nose. Instantly she gobbled them up. Merlin nodded and put down the whole bag. With a parting squeak, the rat dragged the bag into the hole and disappeared.

“Where to now?” Welly asked. “Back to the dragon?”

“Not much choice. Which means, of course, back through slime-spewing slugs and clinging spiderwebs.”

“Or not!” Troll cried. He’d clambered up the wall and was looking out the little slit of a window. “Dragon out there!”

“What?” Merlin rushed to the window. The large white dragon, with shallow thrusts of her wings, was hovering just outside.

“Numb ears!” she shouted at them. “Troops of guards are after you. Their tromping woke me up. Dragon hearing’s honed against treasure thieves.”

“I don’t…,” Welly started to say just as flapping footsteps were indeed heard. From the far end of the corridor, the singed cat-lizard led a troop of gangly hairless near-humans. Whether muties or Otherworlders, Welly couldn’t tell, but their swords and axes made that unimportant. More and more kept coming.

“Stand back,” Merlin ordered wearily, and raised his staff.

“No,
you
idiots stand back!” Blanche bellowed from outside. In moments, there was a shivering crash and the wall buckled. Another crash, and stones fell away, leaving a ragged gap in the wall. The advancing soldiers blinked against the dust and flood of gray light. Squinting through it himself, Merlin saw the white back of the dragon rising and falling just outside.

“So jump already!” Blanche yelled.

Gripping his staff, Merlin did. He landed with a thump and began sliding off before his desperate fingers grasped a scale and he hauled himself up. Trembling, Welly followed, Merlin’s hand catching him before he slid far. Troll hesitated—until he heard the clicking tread of the cat-lizard. Then, squealing, he launched himself into space, landing squarely on top of Welly.

Before they’d scarcely settled, the dragon veered away from the castle wall. “How did you get out here?” Merlin called over the rushing wind.

“Left another hole in the wall below,” she answered. “Well, that’s what ruins are good for—ruining. Where to now?”

“Southeast. To a girl who doesn’t want to be rescued and really hopes that she will be.”

“She’s not the only one who hopes that,” Welly added.

“No, indeed,” Merlin said, mentally adding a small gray rat to that list. “No, indeed.”

T
EMPLE

H
eather was curled up in tear-stained sleep when Morgan swooped down on her in the middle of the night. “Mourning period’s over. Time to go.”

Heather glared up at her through red, darkly circled eyes. Hearing that boy’s voice in her mind last night after watching the battle beyond the tower had lightened her heart—but not her hatred of Morgan. “Your scouts…?”

“Found nothing. And I was
so
looking forward to dragon steaks. The wretched underground dwellers must have hauled off the bodies. But just in case…”

Swiftly Morgan brought up a knife and sliced off the tip of one of Heather’s frazzled braids. Muttering, the sorceress wove her fingers around it until the strands were enmeshed in a globe of blue light. With a flick, she set it bobbing in the air.

“I doubt there’s anyone to pursue us now, but precautions never hurt.”

“I’m not bait anymore?”

“I’ve got other uses for you now, my dear, and frankly, more important business to attend to. Get moving. The timing is finally right.”

She yanked Heather to her feet and dragged her toward the doorway.

“Wait!” Heather cried. Twisting out of her grasp, Heather dropped back to the mattress and fumbled for her boots. She shot a glance to the base of the wall and saw the rat’s whiskered face peeking out.

Find Earl. Tell him…. Try to tell him….

I know,
came the silent reply.
Hear your thoughts. I tell him. Be safe.

With her boots only half on, Heather was dragged to her feet and out the door. Once the sound of footsteps disappeared, the rat scurried from her hole and climbed a wall to sit on the broad windowsill, watching to see what direction her friend would be taken.

When they climbed out onto a flat-topped tower, Heather shrank back. Morgan’s mount waited there. The reddish mane that surrounded its beaked face seemed tipped with flame. The creature shifted uneasily on slender legs, pawing the stones with clawed feet. Its split tail switched like an angry cat’s, and the folded wings seemed to hunch impatiently along its sides.

“Choose,” Morgan commanded. “Ride behind me or travel as you did here, in a black cocoon.” She gestured to the right, and Heather saw several wizened figures holding a cloud of darkness. She recognized the stifling smell.

“I’ll ride,” Heather managed to say.

Moments later, they were soaring over the broken battlements of the half-ruined castle. No lights showed as its dark crouched shape dropped away into the night. Heather hated having to touch Morgan, let alone clutch her around the waist. But it was that or plummet into the mountainous darkness.

The wings beside them beat a steady rhythm, but cold and fear kept Heather fully awake. Finally she wrestled up enough courage to ask, “Where are we going?”

After a long silence, Morgan answered. “I have business with an old…acquaintance of mine. You see, while your precious Merlin was stagnating in that mountain, I was free. The old world offered a lot of scope for one with my interests. I traveled quite a bit, met a number of most interesting characters. When the Devastation came, that world changed, and I admit to not traveling as widely. After all, there’s not nearly as much of the world worth visiting. But on the whole, most changes I’ve seen have been very much to my liking.”

Morgan
would
find a blasted world to her liking,
Heather thought angrily. But she decided this might be the time to ask a long-nagging question. “I know how Earl…Merlin kept alive in that mountain, cycles of reversed aging or something. But what about you? You’re not immortal.”

The laugh in front of her was high and cruel as a bird of prey’s. “Not exactly. But close enough—now. There are types of magic that your prim and proper former lover wouldn’t touch. But they are very powerful. The types of magic I might just share—if you join with me. Think of it, Heather. Think what you could do with many lifetimes.”

Heather did think, and shivered. She’d rather have one lifetime with Earl than many with the likes of Morgan. Remembering now what Earl had once said about Morgan, she shivered even deeper. Morgan had prolonged her life by having dealings with death. Heather didn’t know quite what that meant, but it sounded deeply wrong.

For days and nights, they flew on, stopping for brief periods to let the beast rest. Heather sometimes slept where she rode, feeling now some sort of magical strap holding her on. Mostly she looked down at the land passing below. Mountainous and snow-covered, some of it. A few huddled villages, a far greater number of ruined cities. Other stretches were just blasted glassy plains or cindery craters in the ground. Between these, though, she spied patches of green, even occasional scatterings of what looked like flowers. This part of the world seemed to be slowly recovering, just like Britain was. But in her present circumstances, even that didn’t cheer her very much.

They rose higher now so as to clear rows of ice-encased mountains that glinted like giant crystals. From things Morgan had said and her own hazy memories of geography classes, Heather figured these must be the Himalayas. And beyond them, she thought, was India. All exotic-sounding places she’d hardly believed in, let alone thought to see. She certainly hadn’t wanted to see them like this, as a captive heading to an unknown and probably horrid future.

Slowly they dropped lower again. The ground below was rocky and still mountainous. Scraggly vegetation spread over it, choking what now appeared to be a vast complex of ruined stone buildings. Gliding lower, they landed gently at the foot of a cliff pockmarked with caves.

The bands around her loosened, and stiffly Heather dismounted. The cloak of warmth they had ridden with dissolved as well, and she shivered in the cold. Looking around, she saw only ruins. But once, those buildings must have been gorgeous, she realized. Intricately carved stone was piled into towers and walls, pinnacles and buttresses. All were now strangled by thick gray vines, vines that sprouted only a few sickly green leaves.

She glanced back at the cliff and noticed that some of the caves were half closed by recent-looking walls of rubble. From behind them, a few dark heads peered out. Suddenly words tickled her mind.

You here? With an evil one?

Heather recognized the frightened distant voice she’d heard in her mind nights ago! But now it didn’t feel distant.
Not by choice,
she thought back.
Can you help me?

Frightened.
Silence. Silence broken by Morgan ordering her to follow.

Heather did, stumbling into the gloom as ruins rose around her. To keep both fear and hope at bay, she studied the stone. Every inch was carved. Now worn by weather and time, only a few shapes were recognizable. Animals, birds, flowers, and some things that might have been humans—except for the hideous heads or the unusual number of arms. Surely these ruins were very old, older than muties anyway. Had Morgan brought her to another gate to Otherworlds? Or were these very ancient temples to mythical gods? Or both?

Morgan’s nails gripped her shoulder and shook Heather back to attention. “We’re here,” she snapped. “Be silent now. Do as I do.”

Had she detected a note of fear in Morgan’s voice? Heather wondered. What were they facing that could frighten Morgan Le Fay?

They passed between two carved doorposts into a large dimly lit room. Sickly sweet smoke clouded the air. Through it she saw flickering flames in hanging pierced metal lamps. More intricate carvings covered these stone walls, but Heather’s attention was drawn to the living figures. On both sides, they clustered. Most were small, bent, and dark. A few seemed human. Others were muties, but some could never have mutated that way. Even muties never sprouted horns, or saber-like fangs, or heads that clearly belonged on animals.

Heather shivered. Untrained or not, she had enough magic to sense the presence of Otherworlders, and of overwhelming power—power that seemed partly evil and partly something else, something deeper and older than evil.

“Morgan Le Fay and companion,” Morgan announced imperiously. “Take us to suitable rooms. Your mistress is expecting us.”

At this, a bent old man wearing a dark wraparound robe bowed and led them away. Heather followed Morgan closely, careful not to brush against anything. The ancient power around her felt thick and dark as soot. They climbed stone stairs that were worn in the center by generations of feet and padded along arched corridors. At every landing and corner, they passed guards whose swords looked only slightly more threatening than their grotesque horns and fangs. At last a wooden door was flung open and they entered a room that was more than “suitable.” The word that came to Heather’s mind was
sumptuous
.

Looking around, Morgan seemed to sigh with relief. “This will do,” she said haughtily to the stooped, wrinkled attendant. Bowing, he backed out of the room and closed the door.

Laughing, Morgan threw herself down on a divan. “One can never be quite sure with our hostess, but indeed, we do seem to be welcome. Timing is everything with her. Phases of the moon and such determine which side of her personality rules.”

Heather puzzled over that for a moment, then gave up and studied the room, trying not to like what she saw. That was difficult. A richly patterned rug carpeted the floor, and large soft-looking pillows were scattered about it. Brass filigree lamps hung from the ceiling, swaying in a breeze from an open grilled window and casting speckles of light around the colorful room. By a pair of divans, a low brass table held real glass bottles and goblets as well as several plates of tempting-smelling food. Tapestries hung on the walls except where arched openings suggested other rooms beyond.

Morgan leaned forward and examined the table. “Ah, honey cakes. There are few enough flowers and bees left to make honey. Kali does not stint herself—or her guests.”

Heather sat carefully on the other divan, feeling dirty, out of place, and uneasy in this room. “So Kali is the name of a woman you came here to meet?”

Morgan munched a honey cake and delicately licked her fingers. “Yes, but ‘woman’ is hardly the term. Kali is a Power, one of the strongest denizens of any Otherworld to maintain residence in this world. She is very, very old.”

“Older than you?”

Morgan laughed. “Oh, a great deal older, but we share some common interests.”

That didn’t sound hopeful to Heather. If this Kali person had much in common with Morgan, no help could be expected there.

Picking out a cluster of grapes, Morgan said, “Come, eat some of this food. I’m sure your pathetic ‘feasts’ with King Arthur had nothing to compare with these delicacies.” When Heather still hesitated, she snapped, “Don’t be such a suspicious fool. Why would I want to poison you now? We have plans.”

Finally Heather gave up and nibbled at some of the cakes and fruit. She hated to be disloyal to Arthur and Britain, but the food was amazingly good.

After Morgan had eaten her fill and drunk several glasses of juice, she pointed to one of the adjacent rooms. “There’s a bath in there. Go clean yourself and get rid of that disgusting wool rag you’re wearing. I’m sure new clothes are ready for us. And wash your nasty stringy hair. Remember, to some, the person you’re meeting tomorrow is a goddess.”

That was disturbing. Heather was getting used to dealing with magical persons and had even met the exquisitely wonderful Lady of Avalon. But an out-and-out goddess might be a very different matter.

Much of Heather’s uneasiness, though, slipped away when she went into the next room and lowered herself into the golden tub filled with warm scented water. When Heather finally pulled herself out, Morgan pointed to another room with thickly mattressed beds and flung her a soft white nightgown. Morgan went to take a bath of her own, but Heather fell asleep the moment her head touched the down-filled pillow.

The relaxing luxury of her night, however, was soon disturbed. Only darkness showed through the grilled window when itchiness in her mind prodded her awake.
I am sorry,
the voice said, the one she’d heard earlier.
I was frightened. We all are, always frightened. But you are special. I can hear you. I must not let you be hurt.

Where are you?

Nearby, in the caves. We all must work for Kali. Sometimes it is frightful work. But we are born to it. You are not. You must leave here, leave the dread temple. Leave before it is too late for you.

I want to leave. But how?

Silence.
I do not know. Are any coming to help you?

No,
Heather struggled to admit.
There should not be. I told them to not try to rescue me. It’s too dangerous for him…for them.

Again silence stretched in her mind.
Then I will try to help. But there is little I can do. Danger is everywhere.

This voice was gone. Heather tried to call it back, but the only noises in her head were her own thoughts. Not pleasant ones. She wished the voice had been more specific. What was the danger? Well, she could guess at it. Morgan clearly wanted her to join with her in some way, to teach her this new magic Heather supposedly had. Earl had told Heather that her magic was indeed a new type, dependent more on life—on the web that binds people together. And there was this strange mind-talking thing that was developing. She didn’t think Morgan knew about that—which was probably good.