Yesterday's Magic (17 page)

The darkness had risen from the beach like a cloud of flies startled from a corpse. The cloud pulsed, tightened, and slowly began moving their way. She called a warning. Seated behind her, Welly and Takata turned and stared. On the black dragon flying at their side, the others turned as well. Merlin looked worried, Troll terrified, but Muweena only grinned.

They flew on over the forest until the great trees thinned. Below them, now the ground looked black and crusty. Steam rose in ragged puffs from clefts in the rock, and here and there, mud bubbled and popped in gray pools. The bare slope of the volcano was drawing nearer.

Studying it now, Heather could see that there were in fact several peaks. Smoke rose from all of them, but the uppermost glowed a sullen red. The air smelled sulfurous and thick. Turning again, Heather saw that the dark cloud was still pursuing them. Even in the muted daylight, its edges flickered with lightning.

At a shouted order from Muweena, the black dragon dropped lower. Blanche followed through air flecked with gray ash. They dropped lower and lower until they circled for a landing on a flat plateau between two of the volcanoes’ lesser peaks. Above the noise of the pursuing storm, the Medicine Woman yelled for them to dismount. Soon the five humans and one troll were huddled between the encircling wall of two dragons. They all looked skyward, feeling horribly exposed.

The black cloud rolled nearer, and again shapes could be half seen in its roiling mass. Welly looked at it and tried to swallow his fear. He turned to Takata, who stood beside him, spear ready. Gruffly he said, “I guess it’s better that we die here and draw them away from your people.”

She shook her head. “Our warriors will be sorry to miss this battle.” Then she grinned. “But
I
am here, their wildcat warrior. You’ve nothing to fear.”

Welly laughed grimly and unsheathed his sword. “Right. A ferocious warrior, and modest too. How can we lose?”

The cloud descending above them rolled with thunder. Over it, a single sharp voice cut like a bolt of lightning. “Merlin! Die now, finally die! You and your plans are at last ended. My world begins today!”

Defiantly Merlin raised his staff toward the green figure glowing amid the cloud. But Muweena grabbed his arm. “Wait!”

Angrily he looked at her. “Wait for what? This ends now.”

Before she could answer, the earth they stood on gave a tremendous shake. All were knocked from their feet. The dragons bellowed, but the noise was drowned by the great rumbling rising from the mountain. The ground kept convulsing. Jagged cracks snaked over the rock. The frightened group clung to the heaving ground, but their attention was drawn upward.

The tallest peak was no longer simply smoking. Its summit had split open. A fierce red glow lit the underside of the descending cloud. Then, with a violent shudder, the mountain belched fire. Flames and molten rock spewed upward.

The darkness flinched back, but too late. Flames scorched the edges, then spread with hungry fury into the mass. Below, the dragons cowered and the others threw arms over their heads. But the bellows of the Earth and the screams of its victims could not be shut out.

The horror in earth and sky felt like it would never end.

J
OURNEY

S
lowly silence descended—as did a cloud of gray and drifting ash. The earth ceased to shudder. Coughing and gasping, the survivors sat up. A clean breeze from the sea steadily blew the ash eastward, and slowly their vision cleared. The top of the mountain, wider now, still glowed red. A throbbing river of lava flowed down the far side, but already it seemed to slow and cool. The sky was clear.

“Are they gone?” Heather whispered. “Really gone?”

“Gone?” Merlin said, then coughed, trying to clear his throat of ash and the dregs of dying fear. “Perhaps not totally. Evil is not easily extinguished, and Morgan has survived much. But her army and its strength—at the moment, both seem quite gone.” Then he turned to Muweena, who was still crouched at his side. “And we have you to thank.”

A grin etched even more wrinkles across the old woman’s face, but she shook her head. “We have the Earth to thank, and all of our power to call on it. The Earth can only put up with so much suffering before it strikes back, you know.”

“Well, I do now,” Merlin laughed as he stood up, “and am grateful.”

She nodded and stood as well. Removing her basketry cap, she shook off the ash before settling it back onto her head. “I must return to the village now. There are other healers among us, but I fear there will be enough wounds to heal for us all. And there will be dead to bury.”

“We can help with the healing,” Heather said.

“No. Your way lies elsewhere now. And this is the time for you to go.”

Merlin looked to the east. Under the silvered sun, the volcanic plain merged into snow-covered wilderness. “Flying eastward to the ocean and over that to Britain. A long journey. We would happily postpone it if we could be of help to you here.”

“No, no!” the old woman insisted. “There is another way, but you must take it
now.
The Fire Mountain is more than just our protector. It is our opening to the Otherworld. Right now the opening has widened. It may admit friends, even those with different Otherworlds.”

Merlin looked at the mountain, still oozing lava down one side. The heat could be felt even where they stood. “It would be a privilege to visit your Otherworld. But our home lies on the other side of this globe. It is there we must return.”

The Medicine Woman chuckled. “For all your great age and wisdom, it seems there are things you do not know, young man. The Otherworlds are connected. The pathways are seldom used and dangerous without a guide. But it is possible to travel from one to another.”

“Troll know that!” Troll piped up. “Mama always say never go near paths. Too dangerous. Get lost.”

“And she was right,” Muweena said. “But you have all helped us here and helped the world, I think. If asked properly, spirit guides could show you the way.”

“And how do we ask properly?” Heather said.

“You take someone with you who knows the entrance-way and how to speak to spirits. Takata, for example.”

Startled, Welly looked at the warrior girl standing beside him. She smiled, then lowered her eyes in mock shyness. “I would be honored, Grandmother. It sounds as if, in the land these people come from, they can use warriors even more than we do here.”

“And we would be honored to have you with us, Takata,” Merlin said. “But is the way wide enough for dragons?”

A voice rumbled from above. Hei Se arched his head down toward them. “Otherworld spaces accommodate Otherworld creatures. Size is of no concern. Blanche can travel with you. But I fear I must return to my own land.”

“Sweetie, must you?” Blanche wailed.

“It is my land. In time, life will return to it, and I must prepare.”

“Won’t you even come for a visit?” Blanche asked coyly. “When the little ones are hatched, perhaps?”

Heather gasped. “Blanche, you’re expecting?”

The dragon huffed a sooty cloud. “How do you think dragons come about? Not everything in this world is done with magic, you know.”

Merlin smiled and nodded to the dragons. “Depends on how you define
magic.
Congratulations, you two. Perhaps when her brood hatches, Blanche can take them on a world tour to visit their papa. Somehow this world doesn’t seem as dauntingly large as it once did.”

“And perhaps, in time, the thin net you and others are weaving can bind it closer yet,” Muweena said. “But come, you beautiful black creature. If you will carry me back to my village, we will send you off with a feast to carry you across your ocean. The way time passes for you, it will be a mere nothing before you see your beloved again.”

With a deep humming song, the black dragon reached his neck across the clustered people and wrapped it around Blanche’s long white one. For a moment, the two hummed together a tune so deep and old it seemed to sink into the rock. Then he pulled away, and the Medicine Woman scrambled onto his back. With a few mighty wing beats, the black dragon soared into the sky.

“Keep in touch,” Muweena called to those on the ground. “Little Kiwilah will be listening for you.”

They watched as the black shape grew smaller until it was a tiny speck over the valley and the forest of dark green it guarded. Blanche’s keening song followed it, then lapsed into empty silence.

Takata’s voice was husky when she spoke. “I’ll miss her and my people. So, your world had better be good, or I won’t stay and lend you my warrior skills.”

“Or your modesty,” Welly added.

She cuffed him, then turned to the others and cried, “All right, follow me. That opening won’t just hang there while we get sentimental.”

She led them to the edge of the plateau. A few rocks and masses of pebbles loosened by the earthquake still slid down the slope, but, deftly sliding with them, Takata headed down at a breakneck pace. Blanche, after a last longing look to the west, glided down and met them at the bottom.

A jagged crevasse, hidden by the overhanging cliff, lay before them. Glowing heat and the smell of sulfur gushed from it. When the others hesitated, Takata taunted, “You can face hordes of evil but are afraid of Mother Earth’s indigestion? Come on!”

They followed her lead into the opening and scrabbled down a pile of jagged boulders, warm to the touch. Tunnels branched off in several directions, but heat and a fiery glow spilled from all of them. Striding ahead, Takata ignored the tunnels and climbed up a pile of tumbled rock into a dark cool cleft. The opening widened, the air blurred, and what had looked like stalactites on the rock walls now seemed to be long tangled roots.

“Climb,” Takata ordered. Surprisingly, foot-and hand-holds were easily found and the party climbed. In the rear, Blanche wedged her way up but found that each time the passage seemed tight, it eased away from her, just allowing her to pass with wings tightly folded.

Roots gave way to shelves of fungus sprouting like steps up the inside of a great hollowed tree. They seemed to climb forever, but when their legs were quivering almost too badly to work, they reached a great knothole in the side of the tree. Light poured through. One by one, they crawled out. They were still in a cave, but through an opening, they could see a colorful world beyond. The light was clear, clearer than any light in their own dust-clouded world.

Takata looked out the opening and sighed. But she did not lead them through. Instead she turned to a furred figure that had been sitting on a boulder, unnoticed by the rest. She spoke to it in a language none of the others knew—spoke and sang and spoke again. Then she turned to them.

“I’ve never gone beyond this point, but Mole Spirit will guide us through the passages. Try not to touch the walls—there are hazards there. And
do not
step into any of the Otherworlds you see, tempting as they may seem. The passageways, he says, are more or less neutral, but the Otherworlds themselves do not tolerate intrusions.”

From then on, their lives seemed nothing but a series of tunnels in stone or snow or leafy mold. Shapes that might be snakes or worms or writhing roots poked from the passage walls, jabbing at them unexpectedly. Patches of glowing moss gave off a sickly bluish light. At times, the enclosing walls vanished and their path turned into a bridge—a thin ribbon of a bridge spanning dark deep chasms. Then tunnels began again. Time lost all meaning. Even the air around them quivered with unreality.

As they trudged ahead, numerous passages branched off, but their guide ignored them. Through occasional gaps in the walls, they glimpsed other places. Worlds of light and color and strange yet half-familiar creatures. They all felt the pull of these places, but also their strong lack of welcome.

At one gash in the rocky wall, Troll stopped his numbing trudge and peered in. He could see a mossy grotto where a spring bubbled up and poured a crystal clear stream over rocks that glistened in the sun. A meadow stretched from streamside to a wall of trees, and beyond it, tiers of mountains rose into the purple distance.

He took a few hesitant steps, feeling damp moss squelch between his toes. The tumbling water sang a luring tune. The air smelled sharply of pine, wood smoke, and roasting meat.

Another step, and another. A scaly white tail suddenly wrapped around him and yanked Troll back into the gloomy passage. “Dolt! Don’t you ever listen to warnings? I ought to leave you to be zapped by whatever guards that place, except that I pledged to get you
all
back safely.”

“But it troll-friendly place. Maybe have lady troll…”

“Oh, right. Or maybe a giant guardian lady ogre would bop you with her club. Otherworlds, particularly
other
Otherworlds, are dangerous places. March!”

They all continued marching. Then, after days or months or years, the Mole Spirit stopped scuttling ahead of them. He gestured in two directions. To their left was an opening screened with a cascade of spring-green willow branches. Through it, they glimpsed lush grass, a sun-sparkling stream, and creatures from their most ancient myths.

Together Heather and Welly gasped.

“Avalon,” Heather whispered. “We’ve been there.”

Beside her, Merlin sighed. “Yes, but it is not our time to go there again.” He gestured toward the right side of their passage. Two roughly worked stones guarded a dark entrance. The light that filtered through it was coldly gray.

The Mole Spirit nodded, then stepped forward and bowed to them all, launching into a squeaking song. Takata translated. “He prays that all of our worlds may grow together again, and he wishes us well in ours—now and for all time.”

With that, their spirit guide scuttled back the way they had come, leaving the others to look at the two entrances. Pushing her way through, Blanche stuck her head into the Avalon portal.

“My Otherworld,” she sighed. “Nearly all dragons are there now. I wouldn’t be alone there.”

Merlin put a hand on her scaly flank. “You are free to choose, dear Blanche. Your debt has been more than paid. But in our world, you would never be alone. You would have friends there, and you would be part of our story.”

The white dragon took one last long look at the glistening world beyond the willows. Then, shrugging her winged shoulders, she turned to the darker entrance.

“That’s the trouble with dragons. Curiosity. We hate not knowing how a story will end.”

The light they emerged into was cold and dim. A low afternoon sun shone as a clouded disk. The pale grass was coarse, and patches of snow huddled in shadows. Those shadows were cast by huge blocks of stone jutting from the earth in a broken circle. Spanning some of them were other stone blocks, making the semblance of giant empty doorways.

“Stonehenge,” Merlin whispered. “This was ancient even when I was here before. I should have guessed that one of the other doors to Faerie would still be here.”

Rising on her haunches, Blanche craned her neck, gazing beyond the stone circle. “Company’s coming.”

They all turned to look. In the distance, they saw a company of horsemen headed their way. Three banners fluttered among them. One Merlin recognized as the blue eagle banner of Salisbury. The others brought a cry of joy from his lips. The gold Dragon banner of Arthur Pendragon and the red Lion of Margaret, Queen of Scots.

The party was now galloping toward them, but in their lead loped a grotesque two-headed dog. Making a direct charge for Heather, it soon barreled her over, licking the girl frantically with both tongues. She struggled to pull a bag free from her belt and enticed Rus off by offering two handfuls of hard goat cheese. Both heads gobbled these up and snuffled for more.

The mounted party was not far behind. As soon as his white stallion skidded to a stop, Arthur was out of the saddle and hugging Merlin.

“Salisbury’s Druids insisted we come here today. They couldn’t say why. You obscure magic workers are infuriatingly alike. Oh, how I’ve missed you, old man!”

By now, the red-haired queen had joined them. “It’s been months! I’d almost given up hope. But they’re all back—and Heather too!” Bounding from her horse, she hugged the girl. “I was so worried for you!” She looked at Takata and added, “And you have brought somebody new, I see.”

Welly stepped forward. “This is Takata, Your Majesty. A fearsome warrior from the Americas.”