Yesterday's Magic (16 page)

Troll strutted happily after them, pleased with the way the forest warriors looked at him almost with awe.

The path they all followed between the enormous trees was narrow, and the dragons grumbled. But in pushing their way through, they discovered how fine the tall rough trunks were for scratching their backs and itchy sides, and after several pleasant stops, they had to hurry to catch up.

The trail led up the valley, with the river gurgling steadily on their right. Night was coming on, and the fog-enshrouded forest grew dark and damp. Ahead, through the massive pillars of tree trunks, they occasionally caught a red glow. The volcano that during the day showed itself with a column of smoke at dusk glowed like an ember.

Walking beside Muweena, Merlin asked about it.

“Fire Mountain,” the old woman replied. “She is what gives us life. Long ago, when fire rained on the world, destroying most life, the Earth was angered that humans should be so careless of creation. She shook violently in her anger, and her skin ripped open, pouring out her flaming blood. But then she grew sorry that her anger had caused more suffering, so this valley was created, where the warmth of her blood bubbling near the surface could keep back the cold and sustain life.”

The old woman laughed. “That’s the story, anyway, and in its way, it tells the truth. So much in this land was destroyed by fire or cold or disease. Here bombs triggered earthquakes and they loosed volcanoes, and though that brought more destruction, it also saved a small scrap of life. This is now one of the few places left where the Otherworld is willing to touch ours.”

Merlin nodded. “And the Raven, Wolf, and Bear spirits come from there. Is it their story, about evil coming from over the sea?”

The baby in her arms tugged at Muweena’s braids as she answered. “It is an old story, told here and in the Otherworld for many years. But I can feel its truth, just as I feel old, old powers surging back into this world. I have some writings here from the times before. But I am also this tribe’s Medicine Woman and can feel the even earlier truths.”

Now baby Kiwilah was flailing her arms, making it clear she wanted to be carried by Heather, not her grandmother. Merlin smiled as the transfer was made, and the baby immediately began playing with Heather’s braids. “Your grandbaby has inherited the Power, then?”

Muweena laughed. “She could mind-speak from the moment of birth, and what a lot she has had to say! I will be glad now that she is speaking aloud so my head will hurt less. Your companion, Heather, has the same Power?”

“Yes, as have several others we have met. All young ones, though not as young as your Kiwilah.”

“And despite your looks,” the woman chuckled, eyeing Merlin, “I can tell you are a great deal older. Yes, the world is changing, and a new generation may help with that. Kiwilah will no doubt succeed me as Medicine Woman. My other granddaughter speaks easily with spirits, but it is her other skill she prefers—the warrior’s skill. In the end, I pray it is the power to speak and not to kill that will rule the day.”

“Which is your other granddaughter?”

“That wildcat Takata, whom your own young warrior has fallen in with.”

Merlin smiled. “Welly would be pleased to know that he is seen as a warrior. It wasn’t always so.”

“One often does not see oneself as others do. Ah, here is the lodge. I fear your large winged friends need to stay outside, but we’ll bring them food.”

Huge trees circled a clearing where the shapes of several long plank houses were visible in the dusk. In front of the largest house stood several tall poles carved into the stylized shapes of animals standing on top of one another. Several women came out of the main house carrying torches, and by their light, the entire party, minus the dragons, was led inside. A fire burned in a long stone hearth in the center of the lodge, its smoke lazily coiling its way toward a hole in the plank roof.

Heather smelled wood smoke and marveled that any place still could have enough wood to build houses with it and even to burn. But then, this valley felt special, not just from the volcanic warmth but from the faint current of Otherworld power she sensed tingling in the air.

Down, please,
Kiwilah’s voice sounded in her head.

Gladly. Just don’t squawk in my head anymore. Words only.

She put the baby down to toddle unsteadily on her chubby legs toward several women with other babies sitting by the fire. When Merlin took her hand, Heather smiled up at him. She had never thought of herself as very maternal, but little Kiwilah was fun, as long as there was no magnified mental squalling.

The party of four travelers took up seats by the fire pit, and several of the warriors who had fought with them did as well. Welly managed to find a seat beside Takata. Heather smiled at this but pretended she hadn’t noticed.

More people kept coming into the lodge and finding places to sit by the fire or along the walls. The three Spirit Folk stood in the shadows at the end of the long room where the roof was highest. Finally Muweena stood up. All talking stopped as she raised a hand. “We welcome travelers from distant lands. They are not the enemy foretold, but they may herald that enemy. So now we must talk and learn—and of course feast, as is proper to welcome guests.”

Happy chatter broke out again, and soon women and children brought in wooden platters heaped with slabs of smoked reddish fish. There were also berries, small hard fruit, and fried balls of nutty dough.

As the eating went on, Merlin told the Medicine Woman about their travels and the view of the world he’d formed along the way. In the end, she nodded and said, “I understand what you mean about seeing unjoined pieces of a big picture. And I think what you guessed is right. That woman who first stole your friend now realizes more is at stake. She and her allies will do much to shatter any picture you and the others like your Heather and my Kiwilah might help create.”

For a time, she sat in silence, staring into the swirling smoke. Then she smiled and looked back at Merlin. “So our job, young old man, is to stop them.”

When everyone had eaten their fill, an elderly man brought out a long wooden flute and began to play. The notes were clear and high and soared through the smoky room as if they sought to burst out and rise to the towering trees. Several drums joined in, and Heather couldn’t help feeling how different these were from the drums of Kali’s temple. There the rhythm had been of fear and throbbing hate. Here it seemed to be the steady heartbeat of the ancient forest.

After a time, Merlin asked if he might try the flute, and soon his magicked music filled the hall with the lilting rhythms and flickering images of ancient Britain. Younger people got up and danced, and despite her injured leg, Takata let Welly pull her into the light steps of a jig. Even the tall Spirit Folk swayed to the power-filled foreign music.

As the music died, people gradually went out to their own houses. The guests were given animal skins to wrap up in and shown sleeping places along the wall. But before they were settled to sleep, Raven walked stiffly up to Merlin and bent close to his ear.

“We sense the truth of your story, but it only heightens our fear of what is coming. Will you know when the enemy is near?”

“I believe so, but they will try to cloak themselves, some no doubt using powers with which I am unfamiliar.”

The raven head nodded. “Then we will set watchers. Shark will patrol the sea, and Gull will send his flocks into the air above. I have called for more help from our Otherworld. But the forces you hint at are fearsome.”

Merlin frowned, looking at his sleeping friends and hosts. “They are. They take pleasure in destruction.”

The Raven croaked, “Then we must seek to create—which is always harder. Rest now. There may be little enough time for that.”

B
ATTLE

I
t was a strange, oddly beautiful time of waiting. The air felt heavy with power, as if a storm was coming. But for the next few days, the western horizon remained clear. The fog thinned to show a faintly blue sky. Watery sun sent golden shafts of light through the trees, splattering the ferns underneath with moving patches of softly glowing green.

The three Spirit Folk took most of the men and women to a nearby clearing and trained them further in warrior skills. Welly eagerly joined them, somehow always managing to do his training near Takata. Troll, to his surprise, acquired several younger warriors to be his special training partners. They were impressed to meet someone from another Otherworld and gave him a name that translated as Small but Feisty Spirit Warrior. This pleased Troll enormously, and he kept chanting it over to himself.

Heather occasionally joined the training, hoping and failing to work off her rising restlessness. More often, she stayed near Muweena and Merlin, though she tried not to get swept into their deep discussions of magic. Instead she tried to focus on the beautiful trees, the fun of playing with baby Kiwilah, and the quiet pleasure of simply being near Earl again.

She also worked on her mind-talking, trying to deliberately contact some of her voices rather than letting them just randomly fall into her mind. It worked better with some than with others. Badrack reported that the evil storm had been dispersed by the Mountain but that his grandfather feared it was reassembling and becoming even stronger. It was harder to reach Padma, but at least Heather picked up the feeling that Padma’s people had not been blamed for Heather’s escape. The strength of young Ivan’s sending faded in and out, but he did say that Baba was talking more and more about their moving eventually to the surface. The jaguar boy had had mixed feelings about having just been presented with a new baby sister, and the African priestess in training was excited about a proposed trip to trade with a distant village.

Merlin was pleased to learn about Heather’s progress and what it promised for the future. But their immediate future filled him with doubt and uncertainty. Despite enjoying his discussions of magic with the Medicine Woman, he kept fighting a nagging certainty that their little party should move on.

“And where to?” Muweena asked after he’d suggested that again. “There is practically nowhere to go on this continent unless you like blasted ruins, plains of melted glass, or icy winds that howl with ghosts. Better that you stay here awhile.”

“But we are bringing danger upon you. We appreciate your warriors’ training and the willingness of your Spirit Folk to call on Otherworld aid. But this little haven of life is beautiful. It seems to stand for everything that those who are after us hate. I fear what that hate could do to you.”

Slowly she shook her head. “Do not be troubled. We are not without our strengths—our warriors, the Spirit Folk, who refuse to abandon their ancient people, and even the land itself. The magic of place is very strong. It is something you should study more. There is much power in this valley. It may help us if called upon.”

After a time, Muweena retired to an underground sweathouse to purify herself with steam and commune with the spirits. Merlin declined her invitation to do the same. When the Medicine Woman had left, he asked Heather to come sit with him on a large boulder overlooking the tumbling river.

“Muweena is fortunate,” he said once they had settled onto the mossy rock. “She has a calm certainty about her. Perhaps it comes from generations of linkage to this land and its spirits. Or perhaps she’s just not the sort of person to be troubled by doubts.”

Heather looked at Merlin and the dark brooding that often shadowed him. She wrapped an arm around his waist. “And you are, I know. But that’s just the way you are. You look at all the possibilities—which means you can never be
certain
of anything. But you still figure out the right thing to do in the end.”

“Do I? I don’t seem to have done a lot right lately. I put you in danger in the first place by bragging about you to Morgan, and then I became distracted and let you be kidnapped from under my nose. I failed to take you from Morgan when she was without the strength of allies, and I would have failed to save you from being sacrificed if you hadn’t used your own magic in time. And now I’ve only just realized the extent of the danger Morgan and her alliances pose to the world. Part of me wants to flee homeward as quickly as possible, but another part wants to take a stand here even though by doing so we endanger one of the few bright places left in the world.”

Heather snuggled closer and kissed him on his haggard cheek. “Earl, you keep telling me that magic is something I have to open myself to. If I think about it too hard and try to force it, nothing will happen. Life is like that too, isn’t it? You can try to plan and make good decisions, but in the end, you have to let it take you where it will.”

He looked at her and smiled his thin lopsided grin. “Here I am, a couple thousand years old, and you have to keep teaching me the basics.” He kissed her back. “Today life and magic
are
the same. So, what do you say we work together and try to whip up some magic defenses for this little island of life?”

Through that afternoon, into purple evening, the two sat on the rock weaving a web of light and power. Its strands enmeshed the towering trees and the winged and crawling lives around them. They stretched out over the dunes to the crashing waves and the life that surged beyond them and soared over them. The tendrils of power drew strength from every life and hope they touched within the web.

Until full darkness fell, the web was spun, the warriors trained, and the Medicine Woman spoke with the spirits. Then came a night of readiness and waiting.

With the dawn came the dark.

It began as a cloud along the western horizon. A cloud of darkness that the rising sun could not dispel. From the waters, whales and seals cried of its coming. From the sky, birds flocked in warning and terror. Among the trees, the village houses emptied. Everyone headed in near silence to the beach to watch the dread approach.

Merlin surveyed their small army as it assembled on the sand dunes that stretched between the forest and the crashing sea. Two dragons, four travelers, a few hundred native warriors, and now a dozen spirit animals, some representing beasts he had never seen except in books. He looked beyond them to the vastness of the enemy. Hopelessness threatened to choke him.

Relentlessly the darkness rolled toward them, veins of lightning flickering in its depths, a myriad horrid shapes half visible in its roiling mass. In its center, a winged beast and its rider glowed a putrid green.

“Morgan,” Merlin whispered as he stood beside Heather on a sandy knoll. “Kali seems to have recruited for her a whole new army—demons and spirits of the tormented dead. But I don’t see the Goddess herself here.”

Heather stared into the darkness but didn’t see the many-armed deity either. “Perhaps she doesn’t like to leave her temple. Morgan did say she’s very changeable, like the moon. Maybe she’s not in the killing mood herself just now.” Heather tried to sound light and confident, but her voice shook slightly.

“Her good friend Morgan can make up for that,” Merlin said drily. Then, feeling Heather shiver, he squeezed her hand. “But we’ll hold them off. We have to.”

Their web of power was scarcely visible in the morning light. Only a faint spangling caught the eye, like a billowing curtain of dust motes. But when the front of the dark cloud reached it, electric charges cracked and sizzled across the sky. Glowing darkness spread toward the barrier like a stain. It battered the shield until the sky throbbed with power. Waves of purple energy and green thrummed against each other until the air threatened to shatter with the sound.

Beyond their protective shield, the ocean churned in violent upheaval. But around the defenders, the air was still, and at their feet, placid waves lapped the sand.

As they struggled to maintain their defense, Heather felt it thinning in places. Fear began to bubble through her, but she fought it down, trying to replace it with numb determination, if not with hope.

Merlin’s upraised staff shook with strain. Sweat trickled into his eyes as he stared into the tumultuous cloud. Darting in and out among the writhing demons, Morgan launched bolt after bolt of power, an evil green glow billowing about her like a cape. Under yet another blast of power, the shield seemed to buckle. But then it snapped back into throbbing shape. They could see, though not hear, Morgan’s snarl. Slowly the sorceress unclasped something from her belt. A long curved sword, its edge dripping with blood.

“Kali’s sword!” Heather gasped.

Brandishing the sword above her head, Morgan drew strands of glowing power into its blade. With a shriek, she slashed the sword downward. Blood-red light smashed into the sparkling shield. For a moment, the web held, then it shattered. Thousands of glittering fragments fell to the sand. For long seconds, silence hung over the world. Then came the storm.

Darkness surged forward. Wind battered the beach. Demons and ghouls tumbled free of the cloud, trailing black fear with them. The defending army cried its defiance. Chaos erupted in the sudden twilight. Bodies surged, spears and swords clashed, arrows flew, claws and fangs struck. The churning air filled with screams and with sprays of blood.

A squadron of horned and scaly demons headed straight for the knoll where Merlin and Heather stood back to back. They both drew out their Eldritch swords, and Merlin ignited them with power. The glowing blades hacked and scattered the attacking demons, but others kept coming.

Nearby, Troll and his band of followers defended another dune. An ancient troll war cry rang over the battlefield and was taken up by human throats around him. To Welly, fighting at Takata’s side, it sounded as bloodcurdling as the cries of the demons. But then his attention shifted as their small band of warriors was attacked from another side by pallid hollow-eyed creatures. Ghouls, he realized, the unquiet dead. How could you fight such things?

One answer came immediately as a blast of flame shriveled the creatures to ash. Blanche and Hei Se had positioned themselves on tumbled rocks that jutted into the sea. While Blanche sprayed fire, the black dragon battered the enemy with storm wind that blew clumps of them from the beach into the churning waves. Here and there about the embattled beach, Spirit Folk, yelling their own unearthly cries, hacked and clawed and wielded spears of magic.

For a moment, the attack on their knoll had lessened. Merlin looked into the storm-black sky. Morgan still hovered amid the cloud, content for the moment to watch her minions work.

And Merlin could not deny that though his forces were holding their own, Morgan’s way outnumbered them. In time, sword arms would fail, spears and arrows would be spent, and the dragons and spirits would tire. Morgan’s forces, on the beach and still waiting in the clouds, seemed endless.

Despair clawed at Merlin’s mind. This was
not
the place to make a final battle. The stakes were too high and their forces too unmatched. He should never have let this happen! Not here, not now. In his carelessness, had he failed the world? Had he failed Arthur—again?

Suddenly Muweena was at their side, shouting over the storm. “Come! You four and your dragons have done well. But you must flee now. Hurry!”

“Flee?” Merlin yelled back. “It’s too late for that. We can’t leave the others. We can’t retreat!”

“It’s not retreat. It is the only
way.
Come!”

When Merlin still hesitated, the old woman grabbed his arm. “Trust me. You may know this enemy, but I know this land.”

Scowling into the turmoil around them, he finally nodded. Resigned, Merlin clutched Heather’s hand.

Forcing herself into desperate focus, Heather mentally called the two dragons.
Come! Follow us now. No questions. There’s no time. Come!

Muweena and Merlin called to several fighting nearby. Confused and angry, Welly, Takata, and Troll withdrew from the battle. Hacking and blasting their way through the enemy, they finally gathered where sand met the trees. Muweena shouted over the deafening battle, “Quickly, everyone onto the dragons. Takata, you join them on one; I will ride the other. Then we fly east, low over the trees.”

“Why not through the forest?” Heather questioned. “Above the trees, we will be seen.”

“That is my hope,” she yelled back. “Now hurry!”

They scrambled onto scaly backs. A few mighty wing strokes brought them level with the giant treetops. “East!” Muweena shrieked. Her voice was barely a whisper against the tumult of battle below, but her arm pointed to where the pale sun disk had risen beyond the smoke-wreathed mountain.

They flew low and fast, skimming over feathery treetops. The uppermost branches lashed in the wind of battle behind them. As they passed, Heather peered down into the darkness below, wondering if even this storm could reach into the calm depths of the forest. Then a change came in the noise of battle. Tightening her grip on the white dragon scales, she twisted to look back.