The landlord's eyes were akindle, but he spoke skeptically. “Let's see this great treasure, then.”
Earl was prepared with a ruby already in his palm. He opened his hand and tipped the jewel onto the table. With a deft flick of a finger, he spun it like a top on the well-worn tabletop. The facets caught and spun off the firelight in kaleidoscopic flames.
Catching his breath, the innkeeper slammed a palm down on his prey. He held it up to his eye, examined it carefully, and bit it. Then he bobbed his head at Earl and smiled ingratiatingly. “You shall have the best, young sirs and mistress. The very best.” And he bustled off to the kitchen.
“That was fun,” Earl said in a low voice as they took a table close to the fire. “I didn't have the gall to do that sort of thing the last time I was fourteen.”
The meal lived up to the promise. They were served fresh milk and a large pie with both meat and mushrooms in it. At the school on a high day, they might have one or the other, but never both. There was a side dish of fried onions, and the host even brought out a dessert—biscuits with a dollop of rare gooseberry preserves.
Welly and Heather agreed they'd never tasted anything so delicious as this last. Earl knew that he had, but since it was some two thousand years earlier, it hardly mattered.
After the meal, the landlord took them upstairs to their room. It was clean and cheery, warmed by the brick chimney from the common room below. At least half of the windowpanes overlooking the street were of real glass. A small rag rug lay on the plank floor, and the two beds were piled with reasonably fresh ticking and abundant blankets. It was clearly the best room in the house, reserved for travelers of consequence.
Earl dismissed the landlord, conveying that the room was acceptable but certainly no more than their due. Then, as soon as the man left the room, Earl set about defending it. It would clearly need defending. Here were three obviously wealthy children traveling unescorted and apparently unarmed.
Since the swordsmanship of two of the three was untried, Earl decided on a magic defense. If he could make it work, that would at least eliminate the need for setting watch.
A door guardian would be sufficient, he decided, since the windows were reasonably inaccessible. After opening the door and checking to make sure the hall was empty, he tried conjuring a guardian snake to coil about the door handle. What he produced, however, was a vase of daffodils. Heather exclaimed that these were really lovely, but Earl wasn't pleased. The next attempt converted the daffodils into an ostrich, which, though alarmingly large, was not suitably aggressive. Then in rapid succession they went through a tennis racket, a guinea pig, and a potato pancake. Earl was on the verge of hysteria when the next apparition proved to be a dozen large centipedes. He gratefully accepted these and set them about the doorknob and threshold with accompanying protective charms.
The effect, though not as impressive as the five-foot cobra he had aimed for, was nonetheless successful— judging by the yowls and retreating footsteps that disturbed them in the middle of the night.
In the morning, Earl spoke the dismissing formula, and the three children watched their wriggling guardians puff into nothing.
Before heading down to breakfast, Welly said, “Earl, I think I should send some sort of message to my parents. They'll worry when they hear I've left Llandoylan. Even if I can't explain what I'm doing, I can let them know I'm all right.”
Earl frowned. “Of course you should, and I should have suggested it. I guess there's not much responsible adult left in me. We can get pen and paper from the landlord, and he can send the letter with the next traveler north. Heather, why don't you write your family, too?”
She snorted. “Those people don't need me. The one thing better than not having me home is not having me anywhere. But I'll write, even if only to make them feel guilty because they weren't worried.”
After leaving the inn, they exchanged an emerald for food and a sack of coins. Earl considered using other gems to buy horses, but neither of the others had ever ridden a horse. And although the shaggy three-toed beasts were considerably lower to the ground than the ones Earl had known, they were also a great deal feistier. So rather than risk broken necks, they continued on foot.
At the edge of town, where an ancient stone pillar guarded the crossroads, they stopped to consider their route. So far, traveling by road hadn't seemed any freer from danger, either natural or supernatural, than traveling cross-country. So they decided to strike off straight southwest.
Not far from the crossroads, they knew they were being followed. Two men were strolling over the open country, parallel with them and keeping pace, although their longer legs could soon have put them well ahead.
Earl figured that one, at least, had visited them during the night; his hand was newly bandaged. Concluding that they might already be wavering in their intent, Earl turned and whipped out his sword. The two men consulted hastily. With casual menace, Earl moved toward them, his bearing suggesting he knew how to handle his sword far better than his age implied. The men turned, and a retreating walk soon broke into a run.
Smiling, Earl rejoined the others and stuck his sword back in his belt.
“Can you really use that thing?” Welly asked in awe.
“Riding with Kings Uther and Arthur, even a bookish wizard learned how to use a sword.” He noticed Heather still looked doubtful. “Besides, I wasn't a doddering old man all the time, you know!”
The hillside soon led them onto the moor. With only a light snow cover and the ground frozen hard as stone, they made good time. Their first two days proved uneventful except for occasional glimpses of wildlife: albino deer, birds, and several feral cats.
On the third day, a stiff wind drove at them from the west. By afternoon, it carried a fine dry snow, which sifted into their clothes and rustled over the ground like sand.
Toward evening, they saw through the gusts of snow a cluster of tall stones off to their left. Welly suggested they shelter there, but Earl insisted such places were dangerous, though he didn't elaborate. So they passed the stones by, and looking back, Heather admitted that their stark shapes alone on the moor were vaguely unsettling.
They spent a cold, uncomfortable night huddled against a rocky bank. By morning, the snow had changed to large wet flakes and was falling much faster. Eating a quick breakfast, they hurried on, hoping that movement would warm them. The wind blew with rising force. Snow swirled thickly in the air and piled the ground in deep foot-clogging drifts. Around noon, they stumbled upon a cluster of stone ruins, and Earl suggested they hole up there and wait out the storm.
The ruins were a group of circular stone huts set partway into the ground. Their domed roofs were largely gone, and in some the walls were broken away, leaving nothing but round rubble-filled depressions. The whole site breathed an aura of great age.
When they had crawled into a hut more intact than most, Heather said to Earl, “I thought you warned us to stay away from ancient stone places.”
“It was the circles and tombs I meant, the sacred sites. The ancients who built those dealt in powers we'd best avoid. But this was just a farm village.”
Next day the storm was worse. It howled and shrieked outside their refuge, curtaining the air with white. Earl told stories of old kings and warriors and workers of magic. After a while, he wondered if he told them to entertain the others or to comfort himself. Maybe Morgan was right. Maybe he was still tied to the old, dead world and had no place in this.
Angrily he shoved the thought aside. Long storms always depressed him. He brought out his wooden flute and played lively warming tunes.
The next day, the storm subsided around noon, but temperatures dropped rapidly. Cold cut through their heavy clothes like keen-edged knives.
Earl had been struggling for several days to regain control over fire. He still wasn't able to start one from scratch. At times nothing happened, and at others he produced alternatives that were quite alarming. But once Welly had kindling started with fl
int and steel, Earl could now sustain it without further fuel. It was a small triumph, though, and a frustrating contrast to his former skills. Dejectedly he wondered if his power would ever be realigned with this world.
The following day proved even colder than the last. Every minute outside left skin tingling and painful for hours. Deep breaths drew needles of ice into their lungs.
The incredible cold, however, drove the almost perpetual murkiness from the atmosphere. Through the open roof, they saw above them a clear, icy blue. Heather kept leaning back against the stone wall and gazing up. A wonderful shade for eyes, she thought. Far better than the muddy shade of her own.
Much of that day Earl seemed lost in thought, apparently not cheerful thought. Heather took up the task of entertaining by telling stories she had absorbed in her constant reading.
One was an ancient tale, How the Elephant Got His Trunk. None of the three had ever seen an elephant, and they weren't certain if it was mythical or merely extinct. Earl doubted the scientific validity of that method for altering a species' nose. But the story brought him out of his gloom.
Another story was The Hound of the Baskervilles. Partway through, however, Heather realized that their setting gave this tale an uncomfortable reality, and she would have stopped if her listeners hadn't demanded to hear how it came out. They were particularly delighted when the great detective, Sherlock Holmes, hid in a neolithic stone hut on the windswept moors. But her vivid account of the chilling climax left them all listening for the sound of distant howling.
After several uncomfortable minutes, they submerged themselves in Heather's verbatim recitation of the tale in which “Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Almost Catch a Woozle.” The resultant mood was more comfortable.
That night the sky remained clear. For the first time in their lives, Welly and Heather saw a whole sky filled with stars, unobscured by the lingering dust pall of the Devastation. There were more stars than they'd ever imagined. They glinted like chips of ice, crystalline and brittle, set in a bowl of deepest black. Heather thought that this one sight made up for all the hardships and dangers. She could hardly sleep for the beauty spangled overhead.
By morning, the high clouds had returned again, curtaining the sky. The air seemed less bitter. Eagerly the three shouldered their packs and emerged from the ruins, looking about them at the snow-covered world. It seemed criminal to plow into the sweeping drifts and mar the untouched whiteness that spread to every horizon. The fallen flakes, when they did step into them, were distinct and feathery and squeaked underfoot.
Going was slow, and not entirely because of the deep snow. Free from days of confinement, the three were bursting with exuberance. Heather and Earl took to diving into the deepest drifts and cavorting about like ancient sea animals. After carefully tucking his glasses away, Welly joined them. It felt very good.
They hadn't gone many miles from the huts when darkness confined them again, this time to an old stone sheep pen. Temperatures continued to rise through the night, and by morning they were in a midwinter thaw.
The snow became sloppy and less pleasant to walk through. Its wetness soaked their boots and trousers. As the vast fields of snow began melting, mists rose across the moors. That night they were cold, wet, and miserable, and by morning the mists had coalesced into a real fog.
Dank whiteness closed around them. Sky and ground became one. Only Earl's sense of their goal kept them moving in a straight line. At times the wind blew at the fog, tearing it aside for glimpses of bleak, silent landscape. Then formless vapors rolled around them again, deadening all sight and sound.
They trudged on, Earl in the lead, followed by Welly and then Heather. As she forced herself along, Heather tried to keep her mind as blank as the view around her. Otherwise she thought about being cold, wet, and miserable. It was totally expected when a bank of slush sucked at a sodden boot and pulled it off. She groaned and sank into the snow to probe about with chilled fingers until she pulled her boot free. Tugging it back on, she dragged off her wet gloves and fumbled stupidly over the laces. At last she stood up and resumed her march.
But now she couldn't see the other two, not even a glimpse of a retreating back. She wasn't even sure in which direction she should look for them. Panic pricked her stupor, and she cursed herself for not having called out when she stopped.
She called now, but the sound seemed dull and muted, swallowed up in the fog. She tried again, louder, and thought she heard an answering call. Stumbling off in the direction it seemed to have come from, she called again. There might have been another answer, if it wasn't the wind, but it came more from the left. She shifted direction and labored on.
Her heart leaped. She must have been right. Through the shredding fog, she caught sight of a shape, no, two shapes in the mists ahead. She hurried forward, sobbing in relief.
The fog closed, then swirled away again, and the shapes were nearer. Only there were more than two. She slowed down and stopped. They were stones, tall standing stones, jutting from the ground like malformed teeth. Wisps of fog whipped around them, making them vanish and reappear as though part of a dance.
She wanted to turn and run in the other direction, but she didn't know which other direction was right. At least these stones were solid, and if she stayed here, she'd be at some fixed point. If she called, maybe the others could find her.
Hesitantly she passed between two of the looming gray shapes. She could see now that they were ranged roughly in a circle. Some were tall and erect, while a few tilted at crazy angles, and others lay half-buried in the earth.
She stood waiting, calling from time to time. But the feeble sound didn't seem to reach beyond the stones. A numbing chill slowly spread up her spine. Something, she felt, was behind her. It was not her friends.
Clamminess, like a hand, clutched her shoulder. She tried to scream, but her throat was frozen. Her legs couldn't move. They were pillars of stone like those around her. Weakly she fought against heavy gray thoughts. The thoughts solidified around her, encasing her in their hardness. She would stand here in the cold forever. Millennia would come and go, stars would wheel overhead. She would be untouched, unchanging stone.
REFUGE
Heather stood immobile, blank eyes staring blindly into time and space. At some meaningless point, she saw a flicker of movement. It was passing, insignificant. There were sounds, too. Words, perhaps. But what did they mean to her?
They came again, incessantly, beating on her. “Move,” they said. “Move out of the circle.”
Move? How could she move? Her legs were solid pillars of rock. The words were foolishness. But they came again, chipping at her solidity. And slowly her legs did move. They lifted and came ponderously down again. Closer to the edge of the circle. Yes, perhaps the voice was right. Perhaps she should move out of the circle.
The voice beat at her brain, thawing it. Warming blood pulsed through her body. The cold gripped tightly at her shoulder, tugging. But steadily she moved against it, cracking its hold. Another tottering step and another. She fell forward between stones, free of the circle.
Dazed, she rolled over in the snow. Earl and Welly stood over her just outside the stone ring, their swords drawn.
“Now!” Earl yelled, and both of them plunged their blades into a roiling column of smoke that hovered just beyond the gap she'd fallen through.
The blades met no resistance, but the shapeless form suddenly writhed and folded in on itself. A hollow, whispering sound, and the shape swirled away to the other side of the circle. It thinned and vanished on a gust of wind.
Returning swords to their belts, Earl and Welly helped Heather to her feet.
“Talk, sympathize, scold, whatever you want,” she said weakly, “but let's do it away from here!”
The fog was lifting now, all over the moor. With the two boys supporting Heather, they moved as fast as they could until the stone circle was hidden behind a ridge. Then gratefully they settled onto a rock—once Earl had satisfied
himself that it was a perfectly natural and neutral rock.
After a long silence, Heather whispered, “That was the most evil thing I've ever imagined.”
Earl squeezed her arm. “Foul, maybe, but not really evil. Stonewraiths aren't good or evil. They have their own rules. But they are very, very possessive.”
Heather groaned.
For the rest of that day, they were propelled by that horror behind. They caught sight of several other standing stones and a huge stone table, which Earl said had been a Bronze Age tomb. These they earnestly avoided. The night was spent in the open, huddled around a magically sustained fire.
Just before morning, it began raining. It rained on and off all day. Their clothes, though designed for cold and damp, were finally overtaxed. Now the children were constantly wet and chilled.
As the afternoon wore on, temperatures dropped slightly, turning the rain to sleet. Liquid ice poured out of the sky, solidifying as it hit. Soon the ground was covered with ice and was treacherously slippery. Finally they took cover under a rocky outcrop where a skeletal bush gave the weak illusion of shelter. The icefall continued through the night, twice almost dousing the fire. Toward dawn, it tapered off.
The sun rose on a new world. Everything was glazed with ice. As far as they could see, the moor glinted and reflected back the light of the sun like a rippled mirror. The bare branches overhead glistened like sun-touched jewels.
This beauty, however, was flawed. Walking was like stepping on wet glass. They could scarcely put one foot in front of the other without falling.
They hadn't gone far from the night's camp when Welly lost his footing at the top of a hill. He catapulted onto his back and, arms and legs flailing, shot down the slope. He reached the bottom and began yelling. Heather and Earl, fearing he was hurt, sat down and deliberately slid down the hill after him.
Tomorrow's Magic Page 12