Tomorrow's Magic

by Pamela F. Service

  Earl stood up, shouldered his pack, and said loudly, “If everyone's ready, let's go.”

  Welly was down by the river, stuffing his pack with bits of driftwood for future fires. He hurried back to join them, and the three walked off toward the road, followed from behind by a pair of beady eyes. At Heather's sleeping place by the dead fire lay a carrot and the end of a sausage.

  That day was like the one before, except that as the morning passed, Earl began feeling more and more uneasy. He kept glancing to either side and behind them but saw nothing. Heather felt it, too, though nothing seemed to be following or watching them. But the feeling grew.

  Once Earl noticed a pair of birds circling high in the cloud-layered sky. At one time he would have thought nothing of it, but in this world, birds were not common. He kept a wary eye on the winged shapes floating silently overhead.

  The ground began sloping up as the channel road rose slowly toward the former shore of Devon. In midafternoon, they stopped to rest, sharing a handful of roasted barley. Heather leaned wearily against a rock. She'd been walking so long that her legs felt as if they were still swinging and pumping ahead. She wondered dully if they'd ever finish walking.

  As she mechanically chewed her barley, her interest was caught by a thin gray line at the edge of the west-sweeping plain.

  “What's that?” she asked Earl. “Clouds?”

  He squinted into the west. “No, it's the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean.”

  “Oh, I do hope we get a chance to see it closer sometime.”

  Just then, Welly called from where he'd been exploring ice-clogged pools on the other side of the road. “Hey, come look what I've found!”

  The two pushed themselves off from the rocks and, crossing the road, scrambled down the far bank. There, half-encased in mud and ice, were the rusted remains of an ancient device.

  Welly kicked at one pitted silvery strip. “I think it's an automobile, one of those mechanical carts.”

  Earl poked around, studying the parts. “You may be right. But how did it get out here? This was underwater when those things ran.”

  “Yeah, I was wondering that,” Welly replied. “Maybe it fell off a ferryboat.”

  “Or maybe,” Heather suggested, “after the Devastation, when all the fuel was gone, people hitched horses to it and used it as a cart, until it got stuck out here.”

  Earl straightened up. “Maybe. But we'll never know. Let's be on our way.”

  They turned back to the road, but stopped short. Leaning calmly against the rocks where they'd just rested were Morgan and Garth.

  “Earl, dear,” the woman said, “I'm so glad you weren't hurt by that nasty fall at the mines.”

  “Cut the charm, Morgan,” Earl said flatly as he climbed back to the road. “We both know who we are, so you needn't waste your sympathy.”

  “Ah,” she said, smiling slyly at her companion. “We thought you might be remembering when we heard about highwaymen running into a skinny kid who threw fire.”

  Heather gasped. She hadn't thought of that giving them away. The sound shifted Morgan's attention to her, and for a moment the woman stared at her with thoughtful green eyes.

  “Well, Morgan,” Earl said, drawing back her gaze, “if all you wanted was to renew old acquaintances, you've done that. I can't say that even after two thousand years it's been a pleasure. But with any luck, maybe we can avoid meeting again for another couple millennia.”

  “Dear Merlin, always your same charming self. I can't see how I've gotten along without you all this time.”

  “Try, because I'll give you another chance.” He tried to move past her, but she stepped in his way.

  “Blast it, Merlin, let's call a truce. Don't you see? The world's changed! All the causes and people you fought for are dead. Come with me now, and we can start afresh. We can remake this world the way we want it.”

  “Any world you made wouldn't be worth living in. No, Morgan, I'm through with that. You buried me away from my first life and destroyed everything I built. Now I don't want any more building. I just want someplace I can be left alone.”

  “Where are you going, then?”

  “I don't know. This world hasn't much left in it. But I'll find someplace.” He motioned to Heather and Welly, and the three pushed past the woman and her silent companion.

  “You'll regret not joining me, Merlin!” she called after him.

  “I've regretted many things having to do with you, Morgan,” he said without turning around, “but never that.”

  Heather felt eyes boring into her back as they walked up the road. But when, at the crest of the hill, she stole a backward glance, the two figures were gone.

  “Do you think she believes you?” Heather whispered when they felt safe. “That you're looking for someplace to be a hermit, I mean.”

  “Probably not. It buys us some time, maybe. But I expect we'll be hearing from her again.”

  Welly whistled. “I'd rather not, thank you. I've never met a creepier lady.”

  “Not many people have,” Earl said, “and lived.”

  They continued along the road. The west wind was stronger now, knifing into them with cold and damp. Stormlike, the gray line in the west was moving closer.

  An icy wind steadily picked up force, stinging their faces. The three travelers pulled their hoods tight and staggered on against the gusts. Overhead, dark gray clouds streaked against the lighter sky. In the west, the gray band was much closer. Heather stared at it as they hurried along. From above came the thin cry of a seagull.

  Suddenly Heather stopped. Her voice quavered. “Earl, I don't think those are storm clouds. Look at it. That's water!”

  The others stopped and stared. The gray line was no longer a distant smear. It was solid and drawing nearer: a great gray wall with flecks of white at its top.

  “It's the ocean!” Welly yelled. “The whole ocean pouring back! Run!”

  He and Heather bolted off the road, running east as fast as their legs would go. Earl stared at the approaching horror, then leaped after them. “Wait!” he called. “Don't run!”

  Wind ripped his words away. The two kept up their panicky flight. He increased his speed, pounding his long legs over the uneven ground. Finally he was up with Welly. Lunging, Earl grabbed his arm. Dragging him along, he tackled Heather.

  They all rolled together on the ground. Looking up, they saw the towering wall of water sweeping down upon them, pouring over them. Water was all around, green and deep, pressing down on their lungs. Weird undersea shapes swept past.

  I'm dying, Welly thought. I can't breathe! Beside him, Heather was flopping about, gasping helplessly like a landed fish.

  Earl knelt between them, his dark hair streaming about him like seaweed. He grabbed them both roughly by the shoulders. “You can breathe!” he yelled. “It's just illusion. There's no water, just air. Breathe! Don't think you're dying, or you will.”

  Welly stared up at him, eyes wide with fear. Earl thumped his friend's chest. “Breathe! It's air! There's no water. Breathe air!”

  Welly gave up and took a deep breath. He wanted Earl to be right. He wanted air in his lungs. And there was. He could breathe, although deep green water lay around and above him.

  Earl was working on Heather now, hitting her on the back, urging her to breathe. Gradually she stopped writhing and began to take quick, shallow breaths. Sitting up, she looked wonderingly about her.

  “We can breathe underwater?”

  Earl replied firmly, “No, it's just illusion. There is no water.”

  “Are you sure?” Welly said, ducking as a twenty-foot-long finned snake sailed serenely overhead. Smaller fish darted about in the glimmering water. Beside them, on the sandy ocean floor, feathery plants waved in the currents, and shelled creatures scrambled over slimy rocks.

  “Look!” Heather said, jumping up, her fear almost forgotten. “A ship!”

  They looked up to the light-shimmering surface. A storm raged silently there, and a gr
eat ship tossed about on the waves. As they watched, the prow dipped under, and the whole ship upended and began a slow, deathly dive. The delicate shape was all grace and beauty as it spun downward. A few figures swirled from its decks and were carried off by the currents.

  “That ship!” Earl yelled. “An Eldritch ship. Quick, run to it!”

  He bounded off over the sea bottom, and the other two ran after him, dodging fish and clusters of barnacle-encrusted rocks. As Welly leaped over it, a many-armed sack recoiled and loosed an inky black cloud.

  The beautiful ship hung nearly above them. Heather screamed to Earl to keep out from under it, as in eerie silence it settled to the ocean floor. Great clouds of green-gold silt welled up into the water, swirling around them, blinding them and dissolving at last into the wind and the weak afternoon sunlight.

  Welly and Heather stumbled to their knees in what had been a cluster of sea anemones. The snow was cold and dry under their hands as they crouched, gasping and shaking their heads. They looked at each other. Their clothes weren't even wet. No seaweed dripped from their hair.

  Welly began laughing, and Heather joined him, taking in great beautiful lungfuls of air. When the two finally quieted and dried their eyes, they looked up to see Earl standing above them, a relieved smile on his face.

  “Quite an illusion, wasn't it?” he said.

  Welly sat up. “I can hardly believe it wasn't real. I mean, it was all there. Did you see any of it?”

  Earl sat down beside them. “Oh, yes, I saw it. But if you're trained, there are ways to tell illusion from reality. It was a beautiful job, though, technically superb. She must have been perfecting her talent all these years, because she never used to be as good as that.”

  “Could it really have killed us?” Welly asked. “Even if it was just an illusion?”

  Earl nodded. “If a person's mind believes he's dying, then often he dies.”

  Heather frowned. “But if Morgan knew it wouldn't fool you, why did she try? Just to show off?”

  “Well, there may have been some of that. But basically, it wasn't aimed at me, I'm afraid. It was aimed at you.”

  The two looked startled. “But she doesn't even know us,” Welly protested.

  “No, but she's quite astute. She recognized that you two are important to me, so she tried to hurt me through you.”

  “Oh, that's fine,” Heather said dryly. “Then we needn't take it personally that she tried to kill us.” She stood up and was brushing snow off her knees when something occurred to her. “Does she know about your … your little problem with magic?”

  Earl shook his head. “I don't think so. If she did, she'd have gone at me directly by now.” He scowled at his boots. “I suspect she's stayed in the world all these years and moved right along with its shifting magical forces. She may not even know that they have shifted. And right now, her ignorance may be our best defense.”

  Welly stood up and readjusted his pack. “Well, I certainly hope she doesn't try another trick like that. It's incredible that it was all fake. The ship and everything.”

  “In a way,” Earl said, “that part wasn't fake. That's where she went a little overboard, if you'll excuse the pun, in her obsession for accuracy.”

  “What do you mean?” Welly asked.

  “Well, the first part, the returning sea, was all her creation. But the undersea part—I don't think she made that up. Such a complete illusion needs background detail, and Morgan probably hasn't spent enough time on ocean floors to store up all those images. What she did was call up images from the past. She clearly reached far, far back. You can tell by the sea serpent and the ship.”

  “Yes,” Heather said, looking around them suddenly. “Why were you so anxious to reach that ship?”

  “Because it was an Eldritch ship. And since those were real images, that ship once actually sank here.”

  “But so what?” Welly said. “I mean, who are these Eldritch? ”

  “You probably know the term elf better. But they aren't pixies sitting in flowers! They're one of the races of Faerie. When our two worlds were closer, many Eldritch lived in this one. Even later, there was coming and going between them. My own family has Eldritch blood in it.

  “I tried to see where the ship sank because I want to find the wreck. Come on. I threw my pack on the spot just before the illusion faded.”

  The two followed him to where the pack lay on a patch of snow-covered ground, indistinguishable from anything around it. Welly kicked at the snow. “Why exactly do we want to find this old wreck?”

  Earl squatted down and spread his hands over the ground. “Because there are certain Eldritch things that would be useful to us now. Many of the materials they used are not affected by age.”

  He shifted his search to another spot. The others watched as their friend crawled over a large area of ground, face tense, the fingers of both hands spread like questing spiders.

  Finally he grunted with satisfaction. “Here, this may be something.” He stood up and kicked at the ground. “Wish I could use magic, but I'd probably melt everything. We'll have to dig.”

  He pried a rock from the ground and began gouging into the half-frozen earth. Heather and Welly did the same.

  Welly was thinking they'd been digging forever when his rock struck something hard enough to send shocks up his arm. He poked and scraped at it until a metallic gleam showed through the dirt. The others joined him, and soon they'd unearthed the object he'd found and others stacked under it.

  “Swords!” Welly breathed.

  “That's what I hoped for. The Eldritch made wonderful swords with their own enchantments forged right into them.”

  “Magic swords?” Heather whispered.

  Earl chuckled. “Not quite. At least they're not guaranteed to slay dragons. But even ordinary Eldritch swords have certain built-in protections and ease of use. And from our experiences so far, I'd say we can use some good weapons.”

  Reverently he pulled six red-gold blades from the ragged hole. Brushing away the clinging dirt, he spread them on the snow. “Choose whichever feels right in your hand. They serve masters best if the match is right.”

  Heather ran her fingers over the smooth sunset-colored metal, and finally she pulled out a short, delicate blade, its hilt carved like a flower-entwined branch.

  Welly knew which he wanted immediately. He pulled out the sword with the pommel that ended in an arched horse's head, like the chess piece in his pocket. Earl's choice had a tapered crosspiece adorned with two hawk heads.

  With the point of his blade, Earl poked around in the empty hole. “Ah, I thought there was something more.”

  Under the spot where the lowest sword had lain, he brushed away some of the loose crumbly earth. For an instant, Heather thought she glimpsed a small bag of wonderfully embroidered cloth. But at Earl's touch, it vanished with a puff of dust. Scattered through the dirt, though, was a sparkle of colors, a dozen faceted jewels of different hues and sizes. Scooping them up, Earl held them in the light while the others gazed in wonder. They'd seldom seen real jewels, and these twinkled with a depth of color they'd scarcely imagined.

  “These might be useful,” Earl said as he fished his old coin bag out of his pocket. In a cascade of color, he poured the jewels into it, then returned the pouch to his coat. The three remaining swords he placed back in the hole and covered with dirt.

  “We'll leave these for any who need them. Eldritch hoards don't respond well to greed.”

  Returning to the road, Earl and Heather gave Welly a wide berth as he swung his sword in great sweeping arches over his head. “Just let that Morgan try again!” he yelled.

  “That sword won't be much use against her,” Earl cautioned. “Though she may well try again. As soon as she decides what I'm really about, she's bound to.”

  “Doesn't she have any other hobbies besides harassing you?” Heather asked.

  “Plenty, I imagine, and all unsavory. But as much as she hates me personally, I'm only s
econdary. If Arthur is brought back, it will definitely complicate her plans.”

  “Well, then,” Welly said, brandishing his sword in the air, “let's go complicate them!”

  MIST ON THE MOORS

  The road rose steeply to the old Devonshire shore. In the west, the sun slipped below the horizon. Above it hung the ghost of a new moon.

  Ahead, on a prominence, lights shone out from a small settlement that had once been a prosperous fishing village. Tired and hungry, the three trudged up the road past the old stone quay that now jutted uselessly into the dry night air.

  With relief, they stepped onto the cobbled streets. Above the door of a large whitewashed building, a lantern-lit sign swung in the evening breeze. “The Rose and Unicorn” was lettered neatly above a painting of the mythical beast entangled in a rosebush.

  “Roses and unicorns,” Earl sighed. “Both equally extinct.”

  He looked at his two companions a moment. “What do you say we spend tonight in an inn? One of the jewels should buy a warm meal and dry beds, which we deserve, I think, after our mental drenching.”

  Heather looked excitedly at the glowing windows. She'd never stayed in an inn, but it was the sort of thing people always did in adventures.

  The sign creaked merrily overhead as they stepped through the door. The customers sitting and talking at tables in the firelit common room automatically glanced their way, then continued staring. Even with their Eldritch blades concealed under their coats, they were an unusual sight. With brigands and slavers about, healthy, unmu-tated children did not travel the roads alone.

  Ignoring the stares and sudden silence, Earl strode over to where a stout aproned man was clearing trenchers from a table. The boy felt uncomfortably out of practice but attempted an authoritative manner.

  “My good man, we would like beds and a good meal for the night, and breakfast in the morning.”

  The landlord stopped his cleaning and looked Earl up and down. “Well, young master, you can have 'em, if you can pay for 'em.”

  Earl lowered his voice theatrically. “I have a jewel that is worth a good deal more than any room or board you could possibly provide. But as we can neither eat it nor sleep on it, we will give it in exchange for the very best you have.”