The Magician of Hoad

by Margaret Mahy

  The marshal edged his horse beside the King’s. They sat side by side for a minute as the King spoke to both the Hero and his challenger, speaking, Heriot knew, in the language of the past, giving both combatants the blessing of Hoad. Then the King wheeled, retreating in a leisurely fashion. At the watchtower by the main gate he dismounted, climbed the stair, and seated himself, staring across the arena at the challengers. The marshal didn’t speak until the King raised his long hand, giving permission for a declaration. Then the marshal’s voice boomed out into the arena. All the same, Dysart doubted whether those in the topmost benches would be able to make out what he was saying. The words, set free, rang clearly around the lower forms, but as they flew higher they seemed to fade and become eternal elements of the arena air.

  “Aligning ourselves with the great history of Hoad,” the marshal was once more declaring, “following the tradition of King and Hero, we gather here in the arena of Cassio’s Island to witness the fulfillment of a challenge issued to the Hero. Lord Carlyon has accepted the challenge of Cayley Silence. They meet in the presence of the Hero’s twin—his double in power, the King of Hoad—to fight to the death. This is no common confrontation. We citizens of Hoad are assembled here to witness a sacrifice… a sacrifice that will be absorbed by our land, feeding into its hidden power. We are here to immerse ourselves in the limitless mystery of our beloved country. We are here to observe the enigma of Hoad, the rebirth of the Hero—the birth of one Hero burning upward from the death of another.”

  The marshal stepped back, retreating to stand under the watchtower by the gate. Cayley and Carlyon faced each other. Overhead the sun was inching down a little, and Cayley shone like a woman of silver.

  Then, at last, the great gong sounded, and before its first echoes had died away Carlyon had leaped into combat. His sword rose and fell ferociously, but Cayley was already spinning away from the blow. Carlyon turned, parried, struck again, but once again she was gone, diving in with her own sword, not to deliver any fatal blow but to cut at his left arm. Amazingly it seemed (for the battle was hardly begun), Carlyon began to bleed. However, he was quick in his own way and was already diving in to strike at her again. She caught his sword on her sword, which sagged under the sheer strength of his blow, as Carlyon whipped out of range, swinging himself away so that, once again, drops of his blood spun away through the air. It suddenly seemed to Heriot that he would never remember Carlyon without remembering those tiny scarlet splashes in the air around him. Cayley began shouting at him. Many people in the arena could hear what that wounded voice was saying.

  “You killed them all,” she shouted. “You killed every man, woman, and child in Senlac, just to get me and my brother.” Carlyon was in at her again, but Cayley had anticipated his next blow. She was already dancing out of reach, then standing briefly back, pointing her sword and laughing at him. “Some Hero!” she cried, as she dived in at him. But Carlyon defended himself almost casually as she struck in under his guard, dashing her blade aside. And suddenly they were truly fighting—striking and defending, striking and defending—the Hero’s blows falling more heavily, Cayley spinning in and out of reach. People in the arena leaned forward, gasping as it seemed some blow must smack home. There was yet another engagement of blades that slid along each other in a steely dance.

  “See! I’ve got your skill!” she yelled. “You passed it on to the wrong one.” It seemed their two faces were only inches apart. And now Cayley said something to the Hero. What she said this time was inaudible, but even from the King’s watchtower, even from the stands where Heriot, Dysart, and Linnet sat side by side, even from the benches that rose above up around them, anyone could see something had altered and was continuing to alter. Carlyon leaped back, staring at her incredulously. Cayley stood still, smiling over at him. Then he thrust in at her, but thrust rather incoherently this time. His sword rose, slashing at her again and, quickly, once again. Again and, quickly, once again, she swung out beyond it only to slide in and farther in, though she was moving, of necessity, too quickly to make any truly aimed blow herself. All she could do was defend herself and mime a few distracting blows.

  But Carlyon was being betrayed by his own wild impetus—less skilled and more incoherent than his usual judged movements. He stumbled and fell, then sprawled helplessly at Cayley’s feet. Her sword was immediately at his throat, and he braced himself, not even daring to strike back at her.

  But Cayley paused and looked over at the King, then at Heriot. She smiled. She began to laugh. She laughed aloud into the air of the arena—laughed at the sprawling Hero of Hoad. It was possibly the only time laughter had been heard in that white shell.

  “I could kill him,” she yelled. “But I can’t be bothered.” She shook her head, then lifted her sword and half turned away, still laughing. “Some Hero!” she shouted. Heriot knew she also was laughing at herself and at her own deep ambition, just as much as she was laughing at the sprawling Hero. She was choosing to close the encounter with ridicule.

  Carlyon rolled out and away, before swooping clumsily to his feet once more. His face was twisted with fury. It was as if her laughter had inflicted an injury more profound than anything he had ever suffered—a wound that must be paid for or it would immediately become mortal.

  The crowd yelled. Cayley turned. The long blow it seemed Carlyon was about to make was feigned, and, as Cayley altered her course, he slipped in yet again, to engage at close quarters. Seeing what was about to happen, Cayley shifted her flow but could not entirely avoid the blow that fell on her left wrist, severing her left hand. A cry went up all around the arena. Carlyon now flung his arms wide in triumph, so confident now he didn’t even step back, flinging his sword for a final blow. But Cayley spun yet again, first away and then in toward him, so that they were almost touching. Within a second she had swung her handless arm in an arc across Carlyon’s face so that her leaping blood filled his eyes. Carlyon staggered to the left, flinging up his own left arm in a wild effort to put distance between them and to wipe his eyes clear, but as he did this, Cayley, thrusting that handless arm up into his face, also delivered a blow with the sword she still clasped in her right hand. In! Straight into him almost to the hilt. In and then down. Carlyon staggered away from her and dropped his sword, clapping his hands to his stomach in a curious echo of the way Luce had once done. Cayley jumped back, dropping her sword in order to grasp her own wrist.

  Suddenly the crowd was standing and shouting. Suddenly there were people bearing down on the combatants, as Carlyon slowly toppled forward. He was kneeling now, kneeling before Cayley, who hesitated, then squatted down in front of him, still trying to suppress the flow of her blood. Her lips moved. She was saying something to Carlyon as he toppled sideways and lay there, twitching and convulsing.

  “What on earth could she be saying?” Linnet exclaimed, staring down into the arena with horror.

  “Something like, ‘Good-bye Daddy!’” Heriot said. “Civil of her, really. He was never much of a father.”

  CAYLEY’S STORY

  And in due course they wound their way back to Diamond once more. They took their places yet again in the throne room of Guard-on-the-Rock. Yet again the King took his traditional place, restoring himself to his throne. But now it was Dysart sitting beside him in the smaller throne that had always been Betony’s place… new heir to Diamond… heir to all that lay beyond Diamond… heir, at last, to Hoad. The chair seemed to open generously, just as if it had been waiting eagerly to embrace him, but though he had dreamed of sitting in that chair for so long, Dysart didn’t look altogether at home. Heriot moved like a battered shadow to sit behind the King’s throne, the true Magician of Hoad… the only one. The Lords of the counties were assembled, the Master of Hagen among them, Linnet beside him, smiling just a little ironically at Dysart, looking over at Heriot and then back around the golden room as if she were seeing it for the first time. Guards stood at the doors, but though they were alert men, they also had a certain eas
e, as if some battle had been won and they were able to relax even as they kept their traditional watch over the King.

  The trumpets sounded yet again. A cushioned chair was wheeled into the room and placed in front of the throne. Cayley, the street rat of Diamond, looked back out of the chair at the King. Her injured arm, bound and rebound, was strapped across her chest, and two court doctors stood beside her. She was as pale as milk, but her eyes were wide and sharp.

  “It seems we celebrate a new Hero,” the King said.

  “Not me,” Cayley replied, and there was a startled—an uneasy—ripple, not so much of voices as of movement in the great room.

  The King looked at her severely. “You are too modest,” he said. “There is a first time for everything in a history like ours. I, at least, am prepared to consider a female Hero.”

  “No more Heroes,” said Cayley. “At least not Heroes in that named way. It’s not just Carlyon I wanted to kill, but that old idea, because it all but smashed me back when I was a child. See, Lord King, I’ve got this story to tell, and the Magician has been teaching me to speak proper—properly, that is,” she added, sending a mocking look at Heriot, standing in his usual place behind the King’s throne. This time the ripple was not simply a movement, but a sound as well, for people not only shifted but whispered to one another.

  “I was born in Senlac,” Cayley said, almost as if that would make her entire story clear. She closed her eyes.

  The King looked anxiously at her pale face. “Lady Cayley,” he said. “Would you like to rest before you release your story?”

  Cayley’s eyes opened. “That’s a good word. ‘Release’ is good,” she said. “Now that story’s got a sort of end I want to turn it out into the world. It’s my tale, and I want to tell it now. Lord Carlyon came to Senlac, and he met my mother. Well, no doubt they fell in love, but she was one of those polite, careful ones, and so they married—well, she wouldn’t do it with him unless they were married—and they lived there a little while, being happy and all that, until Lord Carlyon grew tired of Senlac. Off he went, off and away, cutting back to Diamond. He was very young in those days, but there were still wars and he was called on. He did well over the next two years, didn’t he? You know more about that than I do. And suddenly he knew he might challenge Link and actually become the Hero. But you see, he was secretly married, and the Hero mustn’t marry, must he? That’s the ancient rule. And suppose he won his way to be Hero and was able to move into all that glory—a seat beside the King and an island all his own, all that grandeur—and then it turned out, after all, that he was married?

  “But then he thought of an answer. He’d lived in Senlac, and he knew Senlac was one of those mixed towns, only partly loyal to Hoad. Just at the right moment there was a bit of trouble there, and he rode in with his men and killed nearly everyone in the place, destroying all the records, too. If ever anyone did mention he might have been married, there would be no proof. He did away with the lot, but not my mother, who was the one he wanted most. She wasn’t there at the time. And what he didn’t know was that he’d left her expecting a child—children. There was me and my brother. We were twins. And we both looked like our father… particularly my brother. She was so happy about that.”

  She fell silent, closing her eyes.

  “Lord Carlyon came back to Diamond to live a Hero’s life before he became Hero,” said another voice. It was Heriot speaking. “Before he came to the arena and killed Link in front of you all. How you people need your sacrifices.”

  “Birth, love, and death,” the King said. “They underlie all human life.”

  Cayley had closed her eyes; now she opened them and smiled at Heriot. “See!” she said. “The King says so, which makes it true. So over there, on Cassio’s Island, was Lord Carlyon, my dear daddy, Hero of Hoad. And over in the ruins of Senlac there was my mother and her children, not knowing what had happened. Not knowing who had made it happen. She was one of those simple people, my mother, and she walked backward and forward through those ruins, weeping and waiting, weeping and waiting. And we waited with her, my brother and I, that is. I can just remember it, in broken bits. I wasn’t so old—three years, maybe just four. Anyhow, Carlyon didn’t come. She waited longer. Still no sign. And at last she packed up a few things and made for Cassio’s Island. She thought the Hero would take one look at her and at his dear children—particularly his son—and then he would take us in and treasure us, even if we were secret treasures.

  “It wasn’t an easy journey, all that way, walking, begging, and then limping and straggling on again. But we got there at last and walked—well, straggled, like I say—out along that causeway. On and on. My mother lost her nerve a bit as she came onto Cassio’s Island. I think she suddenly worried that two unexpected children might be a bit too much, even for a Hero. There’s a limit to heroism, isn’t there? I didn’t have the glory of being a son, so she pushed me in the grass by the side of the path, telling me to hide until she came back, and took my brother into the city, because having a son is impressive to a man, isn’t it?”

  Heriot closed his eyes, remembering… remembering all those years ago, when he had strolled up to the place where the gate without a wall was making its strange declaration. He remembered the flattened grass and the curious horror that had overcome him. And then he remembered walking back toward the haven of his own farm and the wave of alteration that had swept over him, reaching into his head and twisting whatever it found there.

  “She found him all right,” Cayley was saying, “your great Hero. And he half welcomed her, and walked with her and my brother too—promising this and that, stopping to kiss her every now and then—back to the gate that’s there, just where the causeway runs onto Cassio’s Island. And there and then he killed my brother, my twin, and slashed his face away. I looked out from my hiding place. I saw him do it. I heard him tell her to get out and never come back again. He might have been a Hero, but he was in a panic, because what he had just won might be taken away from him. He told her that even if she did claim he’d married her there was no proof anymore, and no one would believe her. You don’t remember that much when you’re only three years old, but I remember my brother’s blood, and some of the words as well, like they was burned into me. He told her that if she ever came back to Cassio’s Island he’d kill her, too. He thought he’d killed his only child. He didn’t know he had another hidden there in the long grass by the gate, watching everything.”

  She paused, closing her eyes.

  Heriot cut in. “I was close by right after all this happened. That causeway—it’s close to my family farm. I somehow took on all the horror and grief when the boy was killed, and it was so powerful it shifted me in some way… shifted me toward being the Magician, I suppose, though at the time it was nothing but terrifying. And later I stood on a hilltop, watching the woman carrying her bleeding boy back down the causeway, with a second child trailing at her heels.”

  Cayley’s eyes sprang open. “You? That was you up there on the hilltop? I remember looking up and…” She burst out laughing. “We’ve been tied together all these years?” She looked back at the King. “My mother didn’t carry my brother much farther. He was too heavy. She did what she could, but in the end we covered him with leaves and grass and left him to rot away. And we walked on to Diamond, and then our troubles really began. Different troubles, that is. But I won’t tell you all that now.

  “After a bit my mother died, and I lived on the street, pretending to be a boy and practicing to be strong, until that Magician there noticed me, and somehow recognized something in me, and made me his helper… his wild boy. That’s a huge story, hours of telling in it. The thing is, as I grew into understanding who the Hero was, and what the idea of Hero was, I become determined to wipe him away… not only the man himself, but the whole idea of the Hero. I dreamed of the arena, but I’d have done it some other way… some cheating way… if I had had to. To be a finished person, it seemed I had to even things ou
t.

  “So, like I said, I worked to become strong, and more than strong. I worked to be quick! Spun! Danced! Because in times of peace a Hero slows up, doesn’t he? And grows older. That’s partly what he was afraid of… my father. Losing himself, drifting back into nothing. And as for me—well, that story I’ve just told, that story has been my cage almost all my life. And its beginning—the once-upon-a-time of it—was looking out from the side of the road and seeing my father, the Hero of Hoad, cut my twin brother’s throat.”

  She looked up at the man on the throne. “Your Hero— he’s what? He was nothing but dirt… made that way by the history of the idea of him… and now he’s dead too, and I’m not going to become Hero in his place. There’ll be lots of brave men in Hoad, no doubt, but maybe they’ll be brave on behalf of your peace… maybe they won’t secretly long to be that golden man riding into war and adored afterward. Maybe they won’t have to kill their children to be part of your world. Maybe you won’t have to be careful of them, like you had to be careful of my father. Maybe you can cut through that causeway and Cassio’s Island will float away out to sea.”

  She had finished her story. Silence rose up like a mystery into the room around them.

  “Maybe,” said the King at last. “Those who live will see.”

  PART SEVEN

  INTO THE WORLD

  HAPPY, BUT NOT AN ENDING

  That night Dysart did a marvelous thing. He could have climbed by inside passages and stairs through the Tower of the Swan, but instead he climbed up the outside wall of Guard-on-the-Rock, up and up again, on and on again, edging his toes and fingers into crevices in the stones. The whole city dropped away beneath him, and though he dared not look back over his shoulder, he could feel it out there, set out like some sort of a game below him… and after all, that’s what it was… a great game. At last he scrambled over Linnet’s little balcony. Her balcony door wasn’t locked, and just as she had once slid into his room, he slid into hers, half expecting to find her asleep.