Garth ran up the hill, and the two looked down the dark opening.
“Well,” the woman said finally, “that's one solution. And perhaps it's the best, considering everything.” She straightened up and turned away from the shaft. “Still, I could have used him.”
“If you could have controlled him,” Garth added.
She flashed him an angry look, shaking the tousled black hair from her face. “I could have controlled him— as long as his memory was gone. But still, if he ever got that back … Oh, well, none of it matters now. It's over. Finally over.”
“What about the body?”
“It's safe enough down there. But with him, I should perform some laying rites to be sure.”
“Now?”
“No. In this case, the dark of the moon would be best.”
“That's the night after tomorrow.”
“Good. We can wait in town until then.”
The two began walking along the ridge toward the road when the woman stopped and turned. Throwing back her head, she thrust her arms into the sky and laughed. “All this time! All this time, and at long last, I'm finally rid of him!”
Inside the ruined house, the two watchers sat frozen for long minutes after the others disappeared. Then, shaking, they stepped out of the house and walked slowly up the slope. At the top, they knelt in the churned-up snow and peered into the gaping shaft.
“Oh, gods,” Heather whispered. “I can't believe it.”
After a moment, Welly said dully, “We ought to bury him, you know.”
“Yes, I don't know what awful things that woman was planning, but we can't let her have him. Let's go down there now.”
“There're some candles in … in his pack.” Welly couldn't bring himself to say the name. How was it possible his friend was dead?
In the deepening twilight, Welly walked down the slope to the house, returning minutes later with two candles. Lighting them with flint and steel, he gave one to Heather. Together they explored the top of the shaft.
“I think there's a way down here,” Heather said after a minute. “It's sort of slumped, and there're old timbers and machinery. We should be able to scramble down.”
“It sounded like he fell a long way,” Welly commented. “But let's go.”
With much sliding and scraping, the two worked their way down, clinging to cold lengths of rusty cables that coiled down the wall of the ancient shaft. The feeble glow of their candles did little to light the monstrous shapes and cavernous holes looming everywhere around them. Dully Heather wondered about goblins and trolls but kept climbing down and down.
Finally, below them, they saw the body. It lay sprawled on a mound of snow and dirt, its dead eyes staring at the patch of sky far above.
Heather's sob echoed through the shaft.
AWAKENING
Heather and Welly dropped the last few feet to the floor of the shaft, walked toward the body, then froze. The head turned toward them. Slowly Earl sat up, a calm smile spreading over his face. “Children!” he said.
“Children, indeed!” Heather snapped after a dumbfounded pause. “As if it weren't childish to scare us like that?”
They ran to him. “Why aren't you dead?” she asked.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“No, I mean … You know what I mean!” She couldn't decide whether to hit him or hug him.
“I fell partway and got caught in those rotten ropes and things.” He pointed up to where the faint candlelight suggested a tangle of shapes. “Knocked my breath out, but it broke the fall. Then something gave way, and I dropped down here. I hit my head and blacked out.” An already purpling bruise on his right temple proved the last point.
“Oh,” she said, sorry again, “does it hurt?”
“No. I mean yes, it hurts, but that's not important. What is important is that when I woke up, I remembered!”
“Remembered what?”
“Everything!”
“You mean, like who you are?” Welly asked excitedly.
“Yes, everything!” He threw back his head and laughed, a great upwelling of joy and relief. The peals echoed and re-echoed through underground passages.
He stopped and groaned, pressing a hand to his head. “You really shouldn't laugh after cracking your head.”
“So,” Heather said, sympathy vying with impatience, “you know why that Maureen woman was after you?”
Earl's smile faded. “Yes, all too well. And I also know how lucky we've been to escape her. Afterward, did she say anything about her plans?”
“Yes, she did,” Welly said. “They're going to come back and perform some rites over you.”
Earl laughed flatly. “She would. Very thorough. But when? When are they coming? ”
“It was the night after tomorrow night, wasn't it?” Welly said.
Heather nodded. “That's right. She wanted to do whatever it was at the dark of the moon, and that creepy Garth fellow said it was in two nights.”
“Good. Then we've a little time. She won't be happy when she finds I'm not here. So by then I'd better be as far away as possible.”
He stood up, suddenly swaying. Welly caught him. “Steady, now. You think you can climb out of here?”
Earl stared up the dark shaft. “Probably. But we don't have to. There's an easier way.”
“How do you know?”
“I know a lot of things now.”
“So are you going to tell us about them?” Heather asked, exasperated.
“When we're out of here. It'll take a lot of telling.” He stood a moment, as though listening to the darkness. Then he turned to his left. “This way.”
He strode off into the gloom, and with candles flickering, the two hurried after him.
Earl led them into a low passageway. In places, the earth was still held by ancient timbers, but in others, soil and rockfall nearly filled the passage. Several times Heather was on the verge of protesting, but whenever their way seemed blocked, Earl considered a moment, then found some gap that just let them through. At one point, the passage divided into two. One way sloped down to the right; the other climbed steeply to the left. Earl stood, eyes closed, then chose the less promising right-hand route. Heather bit her tongue and wondered if they could find their way back again. She thought about the mythical Minotaur and wished she had a ball of yarn.
After fifty feet, the down-sloping passage leveled, then slanted up steeply. The candlelight glinted off curtains of ice clinging to the walls. Underfoot, the ground had the hard crunch of frozen mud. The air was heavy and deathly cold, but it moved faintly, flickering their candles as they continued to climb.
Earl had been walking ahead of them, almost beyond the circle of light. But now they came up to him, at what appeared to be a total blockage of the tunnel.
“Now what?” Welly asked. “Turn back?”
“No, there's space up there,” Earl said, pointing upward. He began hauling himself up the pile of timber and rock. The two younger children looked at each other. Heather shrugged and followed Earl.
Welly felt queasy and whimpery. He hated tight, closed-in places. But as Heather's legs disappeared into a dark opening, he knew he hated being left alone more. In panic, he scrambled up to where the passage shrank to scarcely a foot high. Flat on his belly, he pulled himself along with hands and knees.
His candle brushed against a mud wall and snuffed out. Heather's body ahead of him blocked most of her light. He could feel the tons of earth above, waiting to shift and crush the life out of him. He wanted to scream! But noise might loosen the dirt. When he stopped moving, the sense of weight was unbearable. Clammy with sweat, he kept crawling, following Heather's ever receding feet.
Suddenly the feet were gone. Cautiously he stuck out a hand. Nothing but air, fresh cold air. Ahead, the tunnel widened and rimmed a patch of lesser darkness. They had come to another entrance.
Hands reached up and helped him down over a tumble of rock. Heather relit Welly's candle from hers and
turned to Earl. “I hate to nag, but while you're explaining everything, you will tell us how you happened to know that simple little route?”
“I'll try,” he said. “First let's find someplace to rest. Then you do deserve some explanations.”
Not far from this entrance, they found a crude stone shed. Seeing nothing better, they checked the dark recesses for lurking animals and crawled inside. Blowing out the candles, they sat huddled together in the darkness, the doorway a gray patch in front of them.
“Well?” Heather said after a minute.
“I'm not stalling,” Earl said. “I'm just not sure how to begin. You may find this a little hard to take in.”
“Earl Bedwas, Master of Suspense!” she said sarcastically. “For goodness sakes, will you tell us?”
“All right, let's start this way. Do either of you know anything about Arthur Pendragon?”
“Arthur Pendragon?” Heather thought a moment. “You mean King Arthur? What can that …?”
“Just tell me, either of you, what you know about him.”
They were silent. Then Welly said, “Well, he was a king in Britain who ruled after the Romans left. I think he's supposed to have united a bunch of little kingdoms and fought against whoever was invading at the time. The Saxons, maybe?”
“Good. Anything else?”
Heather spoke up. “I read a book full of tales of King Arthur a few years ago. It was pretty good, but I didn't like it as well as Robin Hood. The writing was too hard.”
“What was it about?” Earl prompted. “Who were the main characters?”
“Well, there was Arthur, of course, very noble and all. And there was his queen, Guenevere. She had an affair with one of the knights and caused a lot of trouble. Lancelot, I think it was. And there were a bunch of other knights, too, having adventures and going on quests. I forget all their names.”
“Anyone else?”
“Well, there was some witch who kept messing things up. She had a funny name.”
“Morgan.”
“Yeah, that's right, Morgan.”
“Any other main characters?”
“Hmm. Oh, yes, there was an old wizard named Merlin.”
“And what became of him in the end?”
“I don't remember, really. Oh, yes. Didn't he get bewitched by some other lady and shut up in a cave or something?”
“Yes, that's about it.”
After a long pause, Heather asked, “So why the folklore lesson?”
“The thing is,” Earl said slowly, “I've only been Earl Bedwas for seven years. For a long time before that, I was Merlin.”
The two sputtered wordlessly.
“Don't ask any questions. Let me try to get this out first.”
They fell into silence, and he began. “I was born about two thousand years ago. I won't go into the details of my life. Let's just say that it was recognized I had a good deal of power. I spent years studying magic and gradually gained some skill in it. Eventually I became adviser to King Uther.”
Earl stopped and looked at Heather. “It's funny. I read those same stories, maybe five years ago, and they were just stories to me. Now it's as though there are two people inside me, seeing things from two different places. One of me sees those stories as interesting folktales, and the other sees them as garbled accounts of events I lived through.
“But still, the core of the stories is fairly accurate, though a lot of garbage has been added. King Uther did have a son, Arthur. For political and magical reasons, he was very important and in great danger. I took him away and saw to his upbringing in secret. When he was old enough, he was revealed as heir and King.
“But there were those opposed to what Arthur and I were working for. Some of the British kings were jealous; and, of course, the Saxons didn't want Britain united. And then there was Morgan.”
Heather blurted out, “The witch!”
“Heather,” he said severely, “witch is not the right word. Magic was more present in the world then. It comes in waves, I believe, throughout human history. Then we were at the end of a strong phase. Even common people had a little magic—skills and sensitivities that tapped into magical forces. Some of these might be called witches. But the term is not right for Morgan. She was a magician, a sorceress of great power. Such power often runs in families, and we were distantly related. Though,” he added with vehemence, “she is not my aunt!”
“Maureen! You mean she …?”
“Let me finish, or you'll never make any sense of this. Morgan had her own plans, and they involved gaining control of events by playing sides against each other and keeping Britain disunited. Every step of the way, she tried to thwart Arthur and me. And eventually she won, at least partially.
“For years, Morgan had been preparing an attack on me. Nimue.” He paused for a minute. “Even after two thousand years, it still hurts.” Sighing, he continued. “It was subtly done. Morgan knew my weaknesses. I didn't realize that Nimue was one of Morgan's creatures. Eventually I shared with her enough of my secrets that they turned my power against me. She and Morgan trapped me in a mountain and bound it about with enough spells to last as long as the mountain did. Which, of course, was the flaw. They didn't expect the mountain to be half-blown away a mere two thousand years in the future.”
“But, Earl,” Welly interrupted, “Merlin was an old man, and you're fourteen!”
“You've noticed!” Earl laughed. “But think about it. Magicians are mortal human beings, powerful, yes, but not gods. Even with all my powers—and I still had command of most, except those to break Morgan's spells—even with all that, I still aged. Eventually I would die. The path of magic I'd chosen gave me no command over death. That's where evil magic gets most of its strength: it has dealings with death. I imagine that's how Morgan has weathered these years; she's somehow suspended death.
“But in any case, I didn't have that recourse. I did, however, have some power over time. And locked away all those years, I learned to slow it down, or at least slow its effects on life. And then I discovered how to reverse it. When I grew so old that death must be near, I reversed the flow and gradually grew younger. I grew younger until I reached the age when if I went much further, I wouldn't have the skill to stop. Then I reversed it again and gradually aged.
“By the time the mountain was blown open, I had worked through several cycles. I'd gone through a turning not long before and was on my way up again. The explosion tore open the mountain and shattered Morgan's spells. But it also dealt me enough of a blow to completely bury my memory. It left me a helpless seven-year-old, with no idea of who I was.”
“And the language?” Welly asked.
“That was just normal fifth-century British. I was always good at languages, so I learned modern English quickly. And since the older language had no memories to stick to, it just slipped away. I remember it now.”
“Oh, and your name!” Heather exclaimed. “I bet you tried to say Merlin, and all the masters caught was the ‘erl’ sound.”
“Probably. I'm pretty hazy about those early days.”
“Earl … Merlin,” Welly began.
“Earl Bedwas has been a good name these seven years. Let's stick to that for a while. But before you ask me any questions, let me ask you one. Do you believe me?”
They were silent a moment. Then Heather ventured, “Well, believing things is never a problem for me. But really accepting them is something a little different.”
Earl chuckled. “If someone had told me this story a few days ago, I'd have had trouble deciding if this latest fall had jogged his memory or addled his wits. But there were clues, I realize now.
“When I lost my memory, I lost all of it, including how to control magic. The power was still there, but untapped except in stress or danger. Then it came out instinctively. And that scared me. I knew some things happened differently with me than with other kids, but I tried denying it to myself. That time in the snow, though, was the worst. I used the magic instinctively
to escape and almost died not knowing how to reverse it. Afterward, I didn't understand what had happened, and it frightened me—a lot.”
Welly frowned in thought. “You mean like when you hid behind the door from the monitor?”
“Yes. I tried to tell myself, and you, that he just didn't look carefully. But in fact, I'd wished myself invisible so intensely that I'd become so. It's all a matter of manipulating the forces around you and the other person's mind. And I did it automatically.”
“And the fell-dogs and fighting with Nigel?” Heather said excitedly.
“The fell-dogs, yes. There was more in my howling than just noise, though I didn't know it. There was command. But I don't think much magic slipped into my fighting. We were taught to fight well when I was a kid—the first time.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Welly asked.
“I don't know. This has all come back so suddenly, I need to do some thinking. But in any case, I have to get away from here, and soon, before Morgan returns. Do you two think you can still slip back to the school and get some provisions for me?”
“You can't just make food, now that you've got your magic back? ” Welly asked hopefully.
“Nothing nutritious. I sustained myself in that mountain only through a web of spells and almost complete inactivity. But magicians are just people. Normally we've got to eat just like anyone else.”
“Pity,” Welly said. “I was sort of hoping you could spread out a banquet here. Sure, of course we'll go back. I think there's still enough night left.”
Heather agreed, and soon the two were climbing the hill, past the ominous mine shaft and onto the road. For a while, they walked in silence; then Welly asked, “Do you believe him?”
“Yes, even if that makes me sound as crazy as he does. Remember how that Maureen or Morgan or whoever was talking tonight? All about power and how important he was and how she needed to use him? I thought maybe he was some sort of lost heir, and she wanted to be the power behind the throne or something. But really, this makes much more sense—especially if you remember all the strange things he's done; the ones he's mentioned, and the way he got us out of that awful mine.”
Tomorrow's Magic Page 8