The End of Magic

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The End of Magic Page 5

by James Mallory


  She had no choice. As a drowning swimmer reaches for air, Guinevere turned and took Lancelot in her arms.

  In her Sanctum Sanctorum in the Land of Magic, deep in the heart of the earth, Mab sat upon her dark throne gazing into the magic mirror she held in her hand. Its border and handle were a braid of intertwined serpents, and its silver back was a Gorgon’s head with diamond eyes.

  Even though it meant that she had to be without Mordred, sometimes she could not resist retreating to her subterranean palace to be among her own kind, for Mab was not as fond of the human world as Frik was. Frik was a fool, always playing his gnomish games and parading his ridiculous disguises! One might almost think he’d grown fond of Morgan le Fay, he spent so much time fawning upon her.

  Mab did not waste her time with such childishness. Everything she did was for a purpose. Only Mordred was important… Mordred, and the destruction of Camelot.

  And she was here to take another step toward that destruction tonight.

  Mab gazed into the mirror that she held. It was a potent tool of illusion, and sometimes of more than that, for tonight the truth would be crueler than Mab’s most subtle illusion.

  She made a small gesture, and the image in the mirror flickered. It no longer showed Mab’s reflection, but the Queen’s bed in the Royal Bedchamber in Camelot. On the bed, Guinevere and Lancelot lay as entwined as the serpents of Mab’s mirror.

  “Now to be sure that the one this will hurt most will see it…” Mab crooned to herself.

  In Joyous Gard, a place both miles and years away from Britain and Camelot, Elaine of Astolat sat before her mirror, brushing out her hair before going to bed. Her bedroom mirror was one such as Morgan or Guinevere could only dream of, a large square sheet of silvered glass that cast a reflection both sharp and true.

  Elaine was lonely, though her pride in her husband never faltered. It had been many years since Lancelot had sailed away with the wizard Merlin. Little Galahad had grown so much that his father would not recognize him. Soon he would be ready to assume the mantle of knighthood.

  Elaine dreaded the day when Galahad, too, would leave her to seek out a life of danger and adventure. Why couldn’t he be content at Joyous Gard? Why couldn’t Lancelot have been content to stay here, with her?

  Elaine shook her head sadly, sighing with downcast eyes as she unhooked her heavy necklace. She knew it was Lancelot’s nature to seek adventure, and Joyous Gard was a peaceful place, unworthy of his great warrior skills. She could not deny what he was, or deny him the right to do what he did best.

  Looking down at her jewels, Elaine did not see Mab’s image fill her mirror. Mab’s black-painted eyes inspected Lancelot’s lovely wife with birdlike malice, but when Elaine looked up again, Mab was gone, retreating with inhuman speed.

  Another image filled Elaine’s mirror now. She stared in horror.

  “I don’t believe it,” she whispered brokenly. She glanced quickly around to make sure that Galahad had not come into the room in the last few seconds, then looked back at the mirror, tears of outrage welling up in her eyes. Her own grief gagged her, making a hard lump in her throat.

  “Lancelot would never…, ” she protested, as if her words could be a shield.

  But she did believe it. Elaine’s own father had been a great sorcerer, and she had some small magics of her own. Instinctively she reached out with them, and to her desolation they told her what her heart already knew: that this was a true vision. What she saw in the mirror was truly happening, just as she saw it.

  Suddenly unable to bear the sight a moment longer, Elaine flung her shawl up over the mirror to blot out the spectacle of the radiant lovers. She did not know who the woman was. It did not matter. She knew the sight of her own husband. Lancelot had betrayed her. He had forgotten her as she waited patiently here in her lonely tower, and found someone new to love. As if she, Elaine, had never existed, had never loved him, had never borne him a son.

  It isn’t true! It isn’t! How could Lancelot, so careful always to do only what was right, betray her so?

  As if compelled, Elaine pulled the scarf away from the mirror again, shuddering with tears, hoping the scene would be gone.

  But it wasn’t. She could see them both so clearly, could almost imagine that it was she in Lancelot’s arms and not this wanton stranger. She could almost hear the tender words of love they exchanged, Lancelot and his unknown love.

  She could not bear it.

  Elaine of Astolat put her face in her hands and sobbed.

  It was a quiet evening at home in Tintagel Keep. Frik and Morgan le Fay were playing at cards—he always made sure that he lost, just to please her—and Mordred was lounging in a chair with his back to them, catching insects and slowly pulling them to pieces. He’d switched to insects after Morgan had complained about the mess he made with the mice, and Frik was just as glad. The squealing had been quite unnerving.

  But then, everything about Mordred was unnerving. The way he stared at you and didn’t blink, for example. Morgan assured him that Mordred was fond of him, but personally, Frik doubted it. He didn’t think Mordred was fond of anybody, except perhaps Mab. He was quite a little horror, that lad was. Queen Mab ought to be perfectly delighted with him.

  Thoughts of Mab always made Frik’s stomach hurt these days. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness, but there had used to be something more to her than petty spite—a dark majesty, the tragic queenliness of a monarch in exile.

  No more. That majesty had dwindled away during the years of her battle and her many defeats. Now Mab thought of nothing but small-minded revenge, catering shamelessly to Mordred as the instrument of it.

  Frik was just as glad she’d decided to be elsewhere this evening. When Mab was absent, he didn’t have to worry that some chance remark of Morgan’s would draw Mab’s wrath down upon her. Under the guise of studying his cards—all bad—Frik gazed at Morgan.

  She was as beautiful as the day he’d transformed her from her bucktoothed, squint-eyed, hopelessly plain self into a creature of loveliness; still as sweetly self-centered and oblivious as she had been when she demanded that he get her the crown of Britain. Mordred’s monstrousness couldn’t touch her, because Morgan simply didn’t see it. She paid little attention to anything outside of Frik and her own comfort, and since Frik was the source of that comfort, she adored him with uncomplicated single-mindedness. And Frik found that he adored her in return, his crabby old gnome’s heart growing and softening until sometimes Frik felt, well, quite human as a matter of fact.

  In fact, if not for Morgan, the last several years would have been quite unbearable, Frik thought. Unbearable, and lonely. He liked being a dashing golden swashbuckler. He liked being appreciated, for that matter. Appreciation wasn’t something you could expect from Mab, and certainly not from Mordred.

  “Gin!” Morgan crowed triumphantly, flinging down her cards. Frik smiled at her, shutting out Mordred’s tuneless humming as he vivisected his latest prey.

  “As always, my lady, you are more than a match for me,” Frik answered gallantly.

  At the moment he spoke, he felt a shiver in the air, the sharp electrical tang that indicated that Mab had just arrived from the Land of Magic.

  Frik froze, like a rabbit beneath the hungry gaze of a hawk. He could see Mab out of the corner of his eye, poised behind one of the great standing braziers that warmed the hall. The flames turned her skin to copper and her hair to blood. She gazed silently down into the fire as though she could see wonders there—or horrors.

  Frik made a mental note to ignore Mab as long as possible, but others were less circumspect. Mordred had tired of his games. Brushing the last of the flies from his hands, he got to his feet and went toward her.

  “Auntie, you look extraordinarily pleased with yourself. What have you done? Is it terrible?” Mordred asked hopefully. “Do tell. I’m sure it’s perfect.…”

  Mab smiled proudly. “I’ve made sure that Elaine knows Lancelot and Guinevere are lovers,�
�� she whispered smugly, confident of his praise.

  Mordred did not disappoint her. “How absolutely delicious,” he cooed.

  It was more than Frik could bear, to see her seeking approval from the monster she’d created. Bearing tales like a child out of school, she who once commanded the winds and the storms! “Isn’t that… rather unworthy of us?” he asked unthinkingly.

  In the sudden silence, Frik knew that he had gone too far.

  “Unworthy?” Mordred asked in astonishment. He turned to Morgan. “What does that mean, Mother?”

  Frik was frozen with terror, staring toward Mab. But oddly, in that moment of crisis, the gnome’s fear was not for himself. If Mab blasted him out of existence, who would protect Morgan from the others?

  Morgan frowned, thinking very hard about Mordred’s question before giving up. “Oh, I’ve forgotten! What does it mean?” she asked, turning toward Frik.

  “Yes, it is unworthy,” Mab said, ignoring Morgan and concentrating on Frik. If he had hoped that their centuries of association would count for anything with her, he was doomed to disappointment. Mab smiled at him, a faint, almost fond smile.

  “But I don’t like to be told, Frik.”

  She made no gesture, but suddenly Frik went flying backward to crash into the wall with bruising force. As he slid to the floor he heard Mordred chuckle with delight—the suffering of others could always make Mordred laugh.

  Morgan rushed over to Frik, crying his name. He forced himself to smile at her reassuringly, but his eyes were on Mab, awaiting his further punishment.

  But Frik had nothing more to fear from Mab tonight. The Queen of the Old Ways gazed dotingly at her protégé, while Mordred’s delighted laughter filled the Great Hall of Tintagel.

  All wizards lived in towers, so the folk belief ran, and Merlin was not unhappy to acquiesce to this view of his needs, as it had gained him a spacious room at the top of the highest tower of the castle, where he could look down on the rooftops and out over the walls. He spent as much time here as he did in his little hut outside the castle walls, for here, high in the sky, with the shutters open to the winds that tumbled through his tower, Merlin felt as though he were living among clouds, not stones. His beloved books filled the shelves, and his desk was filled with letters from correspondents in many lands, as well as copies of the dispatches sent to the Queen. These days, Merlin was the only one who read them, for the Queen had let the reins of government fall from her hands as she concentrated upon other matters.

  Like Lancelot.

  Lancelot and the Queen were lovers. For all Merlin’s watchful care, matters had trickled through his fingers like a handful of springwater, leaving Merlin in control of nothing. As the hours turned to days and then to weeks, and spring to summer’s heat, they made no secret of their liaison. Though they had once welcomed Lancelot with open arms, the people of Camelot did not love the Queen’s Champion now. If they did not resent Lancelot for his part in the Queen’s adultery, they resented him for his tacit assumption of Arthur’s rightful place. It seemed to them as if Lancelot wished to reign in Camelot, but the common people still loved their king, and daily hoped for his return.

  If he had any sense, Merlin reflected broodingly, he’d find where the boy had gotten to, and go and fetch Arthur back. It was the least he could do to mend matters after having been the one who brought Lancelot to Camelot in the first place.

  But as much as the adventure tempted him, he dared not leave Camelot.

  Mordred was coming. Merlin knew it. The winds told him. The trees, the hearthfire, the whole natural world reverberated with the foreknowledge of Mordred’s arrival. If not this year, then soon, very soon.…

  Merlin had hoped to have a natural lifetime to prepare, as Mordred grew from child to man, but it was not to be. He had forgotten that Morgan’s child grew with magical speed. Mordred would be a grown man seven years after his birth—in fact, he must be nearly grown even now. And once he had come into whatever dark power Mab intended to gift him with, he would be a formidable foe of all that was good.

  The very walls rebuked Merlin’s willful blindness. Here he’d sat, year after year, hoping for the best but unwilling to meddle magically in human lives the way his great enemy was so fond of doing, and now it had all come down to this. The Queen an adulteress, her Champion a joke, the King’s bastard son coming long before anyone expected that he would, Arthur lost somewhere in the lands to the East.

  All muddled, all gone awry, and no way for him to mend even those problems within reach. Guinevere would not see him. She’d made it clear that she wanted no wizard’s counsel, and Merlin could not find it in his heart to blame her. He’d brought her Lancelot, after all. Was it any wonder she no longer trusted him?

  Merlin left the castle, hoping a walk in the evening air would clear his thoughts. He made his way slowly through the town. Though many turned away from him, making the sign against ill-fortune and magic, there were as many more who greeted him cheerfully, glad of a link with the Old Ways. There were fewer of them this year than last, and soon there would be none at all. Mab’s power was waning as the people forgot her.

  Did she know it?

  Merlin was certain that she did. There was little that transpired in Britain that the Queen of the Old Ways did not know about these days. Being forgotten was her greatest fear. Merlin was sure she knew exactly how the tides of belief ran across the land. Who was winning. Who was losing.

  What would she do?

  He didn’t know. Though he was a wizard, Merlin had little taste for magic at the best of times. When he had steeled himself to spy upon Mab with his magic, he’d had little luck. Tintagel was hidden from him behind a shroud of magical mist, and even Merlin could not see into the Land of Magic. He could only guess, from what he knew of Mab, that she would be plotting some elaborate revenge upon all who had disappointed her, and that Mordred must be a part of it.

  Despite his broodings, Merlin’s feet had brought him to the shore of the lake below Camelot. It was a perfect jewel, nearly as beautiful as the Lake of Magic itself. The River Astolat came from the far north to fill its deep basin, and from it drained three other rivers that nourished the whole of Britain with their waters. The lakeshore was a beautiful, peaceful setting, and the sight of it calmed Merlin.

  He told himself that the strength of his anxiety came as much from living within stone walls as from any action of the Queen’s. It was only the childish fear of imprisonment, first triggered when he’d journeyed to the subterranean Land of Magic as a boy, then intensified by his near-fatal captivity in Vortigern’s dungeons, that turned his thoughts and mood so dark. It was not too late to change the events he dreaded. The matter of the Queen’s lover could still be mended. He would send Lancelot home to Joyous Gard—to his wife—and in his absence the people would forgive their Queen. And once matters had been so settled and Camelot was at peace again, he would go in search of Arthur and bring him home. Let others search for the Grail. A king’s place was with his people, no matter what his heart told him. And with Arthur and Excalibur at Camelot, what real harm could Mordred do?

  Then Merlin could return to his beloved forest, away from the stone walls and roofs that so oppressed his spirit. Perhaps his aversion was linked in some way to his magic, but though Merlin would gladly cast off his magic, he would never be willing to give up his beloved wild places.

  They were still there, he told himself. He drew a deep breath, trying to draw strength from that knowledge. The great trees of Britain, the magnificent forests, could not be harmed by the petty intrigues of the Queen and court. They awaited him still. And he would rejoin them soon.

  Merlin felt the aura of gloom that had possessed him ever since the spring begin to lift, and as it did, far out across the water, Merlin saw a spark of light.

  It was dim at first. He was not sure what he saw. But as the sun set and the blue shadows lengthened across the water, the small sparks in the distance became more distinct. A boat.

>   It was a barge, really, carved of a dark silvery wood like none found anywhere in Britain. Torches burned within it, and Merlin could see the bulky shape of its cargo, but no human figure sitting or standing within it. The craft was redolent of magic, and without wanting to, Merlin suddenly knew where it had come from and what cargo it bore.

  And a moment ago, he had thought things would turn out all right.

  Merlin turned and ran toward the castle, toward the Queen’s chambers, as if in his flight he could outpace this new knowledge, could outrun both it and its dire tragic consequences. Breathless, he reached the doors of Guinevere’s rooms and flung them open.

  As he had known would be the case, there was no one in the room but the Queen and her Champion. The two of them stood close together, their heads bowed over their clasped hands, oblivious to anything outside themselves.

  “I warned you—but you wouldn’t listen!” Merlin cried in frustration and anger.

  The lovers looked up in surprise at his unruly entrance, but even now they did not move away from one another. It was as if it did not matter to them who saw them together.

  “What’s happened?” Lancelot said finally.

  “Did you think your reckless folly harmed no one?” Merlin said furiously. “Come and see the price another has paid for your actions, Sir Lancelot!”

  The Queen followed Lancelot and Merlin down to the shore of the twilit lake. The funeral barge had drifted closer to the shore. Its curled prow was painted gold, and the hull had been filled with flowers. In their midst, on a raised dais draped with rich fabrics, a woman lay as if asleep. She wore a golden tiara and was dressed in queenly robes. Lighted candles flickered at each side of her head, to light her way into the land of Death.

  “Elaine,” Lancelot whispered, as if he had only just remembered his wife’s existence.

  Merlin waded out into the shallows to intercept the ship, and Lancelot followed him. Between them they pulled it toward the shore, where it rested quietly in the reeds.

 

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