by T.A. Barron
Mud and peat sprayed in all directions. Even before all the clumps had fallen back into the bog, Basilgarrad arrived, hovering in the air just above the troll’s head. He arched his back and curled his tail, preparing to strike a final blow to the red eye. He started to swing—
Slam! Rhita Gawr’s enormous fist smashed into his chest. The dragon tumbled from the sky, rolling across the swamp. Finally, he skidded to a stop, covered in ooze and debris.
Basilgarrad, sprawled on his back, shook the heavy mud from his wings. He started to roll over so he could take to the air again. At that instant, a gigantic hand clamped down on one wing, pinning it to the ground.
Rhita Gawr’s eye blazed with fury, just above the dragon. Hunched on all fours, the troll slid closer. His hand never moved from Basilgarrad’s wing, and even the dragon’s newfound strength wasn’t enough to budge under so much weight.
“This time,” vowed the troll, “you will die.” Rivers of saliva ran over his lips and splattered the ground. “Most painfully!”
Desperately, Basilgarrad struggled to free himself. He slammed his tail, rocking the swamp. He twisted and tugged. But nothing worked. He couldn’t escape!
Evil eye aglow, Rhita Gawr raised his other hand high into the air. Up and down his arm, immense muscles tensed as he closed his hand into a deadly fist. He started to bring it down—when a powerful gust of air, as forceful as twenty gales combined, suddenly blew his whole arm backward.
The gust expanded, sweeping through the Haunted Marsh. It moved so swiftly, with such great force, that it blew aside the heavy fumes that had for so long shrouded the swamp. In the time it took Basilgarrad to blink in astonishment, the entire marsh opened to the full light of the stars.
“Treachery!” roared Rhita Gawr, rearing backward. His lone eye squinted as he tried to adjust to this sudden burst of brightness. All around him, meanwhile, the marsh ghouls squealed in fright, dropped any prey they had been clutching, and scattered with the howling wind.
Basilgarrad seized the opportunity to escape. He wriggled free from the troll’s hand, flipped over, and leaped high into the air. Before the half-blinded troll knew what was happening, the dragon had soared into position. Just as Rhita Gawr stopped squinting, Basilgarrad uncoiled his tail and slammed it down with all his strength into the evil eye.
“Aaaiiieeeee!” shrieked the troll. Then, with a moan, he fell over into the bog with a bone-crunching thud. Merlin and Krystallus, who were standing nearby, leaped out of the way— barely avoiding being crushed beneath a huge, limp hand. Like a hillside of utter darkness, the body lay motionless.
The troll’s eye, open to the sky, swiftly lost its red glow. In the very last instant before it extinguished, a thin, snakelike ribbon of darkness slithered out from its edge. The serpentine form slid along the ground, dodging the fetid pools, racing toward the place where the cord’s last remaining sparks dangled down from the sky.
Merlin, picking himself up from the muck, was the first to see the dark snake. “Stop it!” he shouted, pointing with his staff. “Don’t let it escape!”
Basilgarrad swerved in midair and flew after it. But before he could try to snatch it with his claws, the snake reached the rope of black sparks. It leaped onto the sizzling line and shot upward, zipping toward the empty gash on high.
Merlin swung his fist through the air. “Ogres’ entrails!” he cursed. “Now we’re sure to hear from Rhita Gawr again someday.”
Krystallus stepped over to his father, clomping through the muck. He draped a mud-splattered arm across the elder’s equally muddy shoulders. “Not for a very long time. By then, it might be your descendant—a grandchild, perhaps—who will have to deal with the situation.”
The wizard stiffened in surprise and his eyes opened to their widest. “Grandchild?” he asked. “Really?”
Krystallus, almost grinning, shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?”
Meanwhile, Basilgarrad swooped low, gliding across the Marsh. His sensitive nostrils delighted in the smell of fresh air that now moved through this forsaken bog. No longer was the air choked by nothing but rancid pools and decaying flesh. Now, the wind carried many other aromas—the dry desert dunes, the hint of faraway forests, even the taste of mountain glaciers.
Plus one more thing. The wind that brought all those new aromas—the same wind that had blown so fiercely, allowing Basilgarrad to escape death—also carried another smell. The sweet aroma of cinnamon.
“Thank you, Aylah.” Basilgarrad spread his wings to their widest, floating on the softest breeze he’d ever known. “I have missed you.”
Currents swirled around him, filling the air with the smell of cinnamon. “You are hhhwelcome, my little hhhwanderer.”
The dragon’s eyes brightened, glowing like emeralds. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been called that name.”
“Ahhh, yes,” the wind sister replied, gently buffeting his wings. “But you hhhwill alhhhways be that to me, as long as the hhhwinds may blohhhw.”
“You heard my call, and that is a gift.” He glanced down at the swamp, where Marnya’s lifeless body lay amidst the dead stalks of grass. “I only wish,” he said with a sigh, “that every friendship could last as long as ours.”
Aylah swept over his snout, a river of air that flowed across his scales. “And nohhhw, my little hhhwanderer, I have one more gift for you.”
“What?” he asked, still gazing with longing at Marnya.
“Somehhhwhere dohhhwn there, softer than the softest hhhwind . . .” She swept closer, caressing the hair that lined his ears. “I hear a heartbeat. Ahhh, yes, the heartbeat of a hhhwater dragon.”
27: PATTERNS
Whether it’s cause for sorrow or joy, the turns you least expect are the ones you most remember.
A heartbeat?” roared Basilgarrad, his voice booming across the sky. “You hear a heartbeat?”
“Ahhh, yes,” answered Aylah, sweeping through the gap of his missing tooth, which made the sound of a long, airy whistle. “Hhhwhy don’t you try to hear it yourself?”
The great green dragon needed no encouragement. He had already whirled in the air, flapped his wings with all his might, and dived toward Marnya. She lay amid a cluster of dead marsh grass, as still as one of the faded brown stalks.
Basilgarrad landed, sliding through the muck and pools of the swamp. Foul-smelling ooze sprayed his snout, his ears, and even his eyes. But he barely noticed. Could she . . . ? he wondered. Could she really be alive?
He stopped within a claw’s length of her body. Quickly, he crept closer, oblivious to Ganta, who sat in the rushes nearby. The young dragon, whose orange scales were thickly crusted with mud, watched solemnly as Basilgarrad lowered his head and placed an ear against her back.
He listened, trying to hear the slightest stirring of life. Beneath her scales, if Aylah was right, Marnya’s heart might yet be pulsing—just as his own heart now pulsed with hope.
He heard absolutely nothing.
Reaching over with his wing, he pressed its tip on her back and pushed hard. Her limp body rocked, squelching in the mud. Again he lowered his ear and listened. Again he heard nothing.
He tried another push. Then another. And then another.
Still no response. Over in the rushes, Ganta sighed and turned away.
Basilgarrad’s snout drooped, so that his nose touched Marnya’s. “I have no more magic,” he said quietly, his voice so soft it might have belonged to a purring cat. “I gave it all away, every bit, for Avalon.”
His huge eyes blinked, brushing away the mist that blurred his vision. “But if I had any magic left, even if it was the only thing that kept me alive, I would give it to you.”
For a long moment, he stayed there, as motionless as Marnya. Then he slowly lifted his head, which felt heavier than ever before. Aylah had been wrong—and, foolish beast that he was, he’d allowed himself to believe her! He snorted with dismay. He should have known, by now, having seen so many losses and borne so much suffer
ing, that a wish alone could not change what was real.
Yet he had, for a moment, hoped it could. With all his heart.
Glancing one last time at Marnya, he turned slowly aside. That was when he noticed, for the first time, Ganta. Their eyes met, one pair much smaller but glowing no less intensely; one pair larger in both size and experience.
“So . . . sorry,” said Ganta glumly. He ground his tiny teeth together, then added, “At least you won the battle.”
Basilgarrad peered down at him, unblinking. “And lost,” he said with sadness, “the one person I most wanted to win it for.”
A slight sound, more subtle than the rustle of a sparrow’s wings, stirred the air. Instantly, the great dragon stiffened, from the tips of his ears down to the enormous knob of his tail. For he knew that sound.
The flutter of a dragon’s eyelashes.
He turned instantly to Marnya, just in time to see her sapphire eyes open and look into his own. Held by that gaze, neither of them moved for several seconds. At last, she drew a halting breath. Awkwardly, she tried to shift her outstretched flippers and released a pained groan. Her right flipper seemed glued to the mud, unable to move.
Suddenly aware of what was happening, Ganta shrieked in surprise. He spun around in a circle, slapped himself with his wings, then breathed a spurt of orange flames.
Basilgarrad, meanwhile, stayed completely focused on Marnya. “Don’t try to move,” he counseled, still staring at her as if he’d never seen anything so marvelous. “I’ll take care of you.”
“You already have.” Marnya slowly lifted her head. She started to say something else—when she caught sight of the mountainous corpse of the troll, sprawled on the Marsh. Her nostrils flared angrily.
“Yes,” declared Basilgarrad, answering her unspoken question. “He’s dead.”
Her gaze, once more, met his. “You did it,” she said breathily. “You saved Avalon!”
Slowly, he shook his massive head. “No, my love. We did it. All of us—every creature in our world who cared enough to help.” His rumbling voice lowered. “No one person alone could have done it.”
She smiled, understanding fully.
“Hoooooeeeee!” shouted Ganta. Raising his head to the wide open sky, he breathed another flicker of fire. Then, spying Merlin and Krystallus striding toward them across the bog, he jubilantly cried, “She’s alive! Marnya’s alive!”
When Krystallus shot his father a questioning glance, Merlin replied, “Basil’s lady. A most courageous dragon. And, I should add, a good bit prettier than her father, Bendegeit.”
“Bendegeit?” Krystallus shook his mane astonished. “A water dragon? Here? But how?”
“She flew, of course,” answered the wizard nonchalantly.
“Why do you look so surprised? This is, after all, Avalon.”
Krystallus immediately broke into a run toward the dragons, almost losing his boots in the sticky muck. Merlin, clutching his staff, hobbled as fast as he could behind. His resident owl, though, couldn’t wait. With a triumphant screech, Euclid burst out of the wizard’s tangled beard and climbed into the sky.
As Basilgarrad and Marnya watched, their heads leaning against each other, the owl flew in a frenzy of geometric patterns. Euclid’s path made a square, a trio of circles, then a jagged row of pinnacle-topped triangles. Then, with a loud clack of his beak, he launched into a maze of interlocking octagons.
“Something tells me he’s happy,” said the green dragon dryly.
Marnya’s ears swiveled playfully. “Why, I wonder?”
While Euclid drew his designs upon the sky, Krystallus arrived. The whole of his face seemed to beam as he strode up to the dragons. Placing his hand on Basilgarrad’s claw, he stared at Marnya in amazement. To no one in particular, he muttered, “This is, after all, Avalon.”
Basilgarrad raised his head and gave Marnya a wink. “I think he’s happy, too.”
“As am I,” said Merlin, puffing as he joined them. “As am I.”
The wizard peered up into the huge green eye of Basilgarrad. Very happy, indeed, he said telepathically. For you, my old friend . . . and for us all.
“About what?” replied the dragon, trying his best to sound casual.
“Oh,” answered Merlin with a twinkle, “nothing, really. Just Euclid there.” He pointed the top of his staff toward the owl, who was making his most complex pattern yet. “You see, I’ve never known him to do anything so intricate. Look there! I think it’s a dodecahedron.”
“Really?” asked Basilgarrad, crinkling his brow in doubt.
“It looks to me more like a wild-eyed old wizard.”
Ganta laughed, spurting fire. Krystallus laughed, too, even as he gave his father a nudge. And so did Merlin, chuckling mirthfully. Marnya joined in, though she never took her eyes off Basilgarrad.
No one, though, laughed harder than the great green dragon himself. His voice carried across the Marsh, borne on the swirling wind that filled the air with the scent of cinnamon.
28: THREE GIFTS
You are expecting something wise, pithy, and dragonlike? Well, sorry to say, I’m all out of wisdom—if I ever had any. All I have now . . . is gratitude.
I have something for you.”
Merlin nodded at his son, emphasizing the point. He ran a hand through the tangled gray hair of his beard, taking care to avoid the spot where Euclid was currently napping. “A gift. Actually, three gifts.”
Krystallus, who was seated across from him on a rough boulder of rose quartz, cocked his head in surprise. He peered at the elder wizard—a man he’d known since birth, but whom, it seemed, he’d truly met only recently. “What sort of gifts?”
Merlin didn’t reply. He merely nestled himself deeper into the gap between two burly roots at the base of an ancient beech tree. The tree’s trunk tilted at a perfect angle to allow him to rest his back; a low branch draped in an ideal position for him to hang his hat and also prop his staff. Beech leaves, hanging near his head, trembled in the breeze, as if they were eagerly fanning his face. In every way, the tree seemed to be welcoming this particular guest. In fact, if Krystallus hadn’t known better, he would have been sure that those massive roots had lifted and curled when his father sat down, just to shape themselves into a more comfortable seat.
“Oh, nothing special,” answered Merlin at last, with a wave of his hand. “Just a few small trinkets to remember me by, since I’m leaving soon for Earth.”
Krystallus started. “You are? Again?”
“Looks that way,” said the wizard in a casual tone. “It seems that whole Camelot idea is proving a bit more complicated than my young friend Arthur had imagined. Time to look in on him.”
The younger man nodded, swishing his white locks against his shoulders. “So how long do you expect to be gone?”
Merlin’s brow wrinkled. “A good while,” he said slowly. “Perhaps . . . forever.”
Drawing a deep breath, Krystallus leaned back on the boulder. “I see.”
“You seem a bit . . .” Merlin paused, clearing his throat.
“Disappointed.”
“Well, I was just starting to get used to having you around.”
“I see,” replied his father, twirling a few hairs on his beard.
“That brings me back to those gifts.”
“Nothing special, you said.”
“Right. Although one of them . . . is a map.” The wizard’s dark eyes gleamed. “A rather unusual map.”
Despite his disappointment, Krystallus leaned forward on the boulder, suddenly curious. Aside from Serella, he loved nothing better than a new map. For him, it was much more than a piece of paper that described a possible journey. It was, in truth, a kind of journey itself—a way to bring a whole new place, maybe even a magical place, to life.
“So,” pressed Krystallus, “what is this map you mentioned?”
“Right now, it’s just a scrap.”
“What?”
“A scrap.” Merlin reached in
to a pocket of his robe and pulled out a small shred of paper, singed by fire around its edges. “But you know,” he said softly, “it could become something more. Just as,” he added with a quick glance at his son, “a small scrap of relationship, torn and burned by time, can become something more.”
Holding the scrap in the palm of his hand, he showed it to Krystallus. “Recognize it?”
The younger man left the boulder to come closer. He studied the charred fragment in the old man’s hand, all the while shaking his head. “All I see is part of what looks like an arrow. But there’s nothing—”
He caught himself. Bending lower, he gently touched the burned edge. “Is this what’s left of . . .”
“Yes,” answered Merlin. “The magical map you gave to Basil. And if he were here right now, instead of flying around somewhere with Marnya, he’d be a bit surprised. He saved this scrap, you see, to show me how much you had done—and sacrificed—to help Avalon. And he saw me toss it aside on the battlefield. But I don’t think he saw me pick it up again before we left.”
Shifting his gaze to meet his father’s, Krystallus asked, “Just why did you pick it up again?”
“Oh,” answered the wizard with a shrug, “I suppose I was feeling just a bit . . . sentimental. For maps, of course.”
Krystallus almost grinned. “Of course.”
“And now,” said Merlin, “let’s see what it can still do.”
“But it can only work once. I was told, quite clearly, that’s the rule.”
“Splendid! It’s much more fun to be the exception, not the rule.” With that, the wizard raised his other hand and held it just above the open palm. Concentrating his energy on the scrap, he intoned:
Arise, expand, be all you can be:
Egg into eagle,
Seed into tree.
Dreams make real, elements own—
Truth revealed,