Tomorrow's Magic

by Pamela F. Service

  “I'm all right,” Earl said shakily. “I just need some rest. I can't handle this sort of thing so well anymore. I'm not as old as I used to be, you know.”

  They helped him over to their camp. The makeshift tent had burned, but most of their other equipment was only scorched.

  Earl sank into the blankets they pulled out for him, and in moments he was asleep. Wrapping themselves in their own blankets, Welly and Heather lay down at the base of the wall. Their minds buzzed with sounds and images, but they were too tired to talk or sort anything out. They felt no need to set watch. There was not the slightest whiff of menace left in the air. Exhausted, they drifted into the night's numbing calm.

  ON MAGIC'S SHORE

  Heather's dreams faded into morning mist. She remained curled in her blanket, eyes closed, trying to remember where in their long trek they had camped the night before. She remembered, and her eyes flew open.

  The sun was already well up. From beside her, where Welly had bedded down, came the sound of slow, steady breathing. Then she heard another sound and stiffened. Somewhere to her left there was a quiet snuffling.

  Images swirled back of the nightmare creatures that had swarmed here the night before. She slipped a hand from her blankets and poked Welly. He snorted and rolled over.

  “Hush,” she whispered. “There's something over there.”

  His bleary eyes peered from the blankets, and a plump hand crept out, fumbled for his glasses, and thrust them on his face. Slowly they both sat up and looked toward the center of the ruined hill fort. What they saw was definitely a mutant, but not the sort to inspire fear.

  In the weak morning light, its thick coat glowed a snowy white. Its face and long legs were slender, like a deer's, but it was as shaggy as a wild goat, and its tail was long and horselike. Its two horns were separate for only a short distance. Then they became entwined and for several inches twisted together into a single point.

  Heather glanced toward Earl's place and saw that he, too, was awake and watching the creature. A bemused smile lit his face.

  The animal continued browsing at the grass, which the battle's heat had cleared of snow. Gradually it moved away. Cocking its ears, it suddenly raised its head and looked toward them, its large eyes soft and luminous. The animal and children watched each other for a moment; then it turned and, with a graceful bound, leaped over the bank and was gone.

  Earl sighed and sat up. “Mythical or extinct, they seem to have made a comeback. And look at this.” Cautiously he fingered some thorny brambles where, in the dark of the night, they had spread their blankets. Nestled among pointed leaves were several tiny pink buds.

  “Wild roses,” he said softly. “Remember the inn, the Rose and Unicorn? And I thought they were both hopelessly things of the past!” He laughed and climbed out of his blankets. “Maybe there's hope for this battered world yet!”

  Over breakfast of bread and cheese, Earl said to the others, “Before I folded up last night, I should have thanked you. Wizard or not, without rear guard, I wouldn't have made it. It was a ghastly thing for you to be subjected to. But … I needed you there.”

  Heather smiled. “Can't say I'd volunteer for that sort of duty every night. But I guess we make a good team.”

  “We do indeed.”

  Welly, blushing with pleasure, cleared his throat. “So where to now, Captain?”

  In answer, Earl stood up, and they followed him to the fort's south rim. He pointed over the earthen bank to the ocean and both coasts, the new and old. “We're headed there somewhere.”

  Heather stared at the ocean excitedly. Then she frowned. “Do you think Morgan will leave us alone that long?”

  Earl nodded. “She called in reinforcements last night and failed. I suspect she'll bide her time now and watch where we're going. When we're close enough to learn that ourselves, we may hear from her again.”

  They descended the south side of the hill, where the night's battle was less evident than on the eastern slope. But even so, the grass still smoldered in black patches, and the air smelled heavily of burning and death. They skirted twisted, half-burned bodies. Brief, quickly averted glances showed hideous inhuman forms, made more hideous by death. Furtive scavengers already skulked over the hillside.

  The starkness of the battlefield brought a new vision of the battle itself. Then it had been too quick, too appalling and fantastic to be totally believable. Now the reality sank in. They walked largely in silence for the rest of the morning.

  By midafternoon, they'd sighted a small village and decided to stop for supplies. Veering west, they picked up a rutted track, which led to the small town square. On every side, stone houses huddled together under heavy turf roofs, and in the center rose a time-battered stone cross. Around it several merchants had set up booths, which were doing a livelier business in gossip than in trade. The sight of children traveling alone with coins for provisions caused only minor comment, for interest was centered on events the locals had witnessed the night before.

  Lights had been seen in the northern sky, and outlying farmers near the tor reported weird happenings. Reports of flying monsters were generally discounted. But persistent sightings of other strange creatures throughout the area could not be dismissed, particularly when accompanied by the bloody slaughter of sheep, cattle, and, in one case, a shepherd.

  When it was learned that the three young strangers had come from the north, all attention swiveled to them.

  “So, lad,” a leather worker asked Earl, “what did you see? I'd say you're lucky to have passed through that country alive, judging by what I've heard.”

  The others in the crowd muttered in agreement and waited for the boy's reply.

  “Well, we … er … didn't see all that much worth talking about. We were camped and slept most of the night, I guess. There were lights by the tor, but then there was a storm, so it could have been lightning or something.”

  “Didn't you see any strange beasts?” a woman asked incredulously. “Why, my Sam, he saw two this morning!”

  Earl squirmed, recalling the dregs of Morgan's forces spreading in panic over the plains. “Yes, there were creatures, very evil-looking things. I think you'd all be wise to stay close to home the next few days and pen up your livestock.”

  This set off debate over the merits of taking some action, and the three children tried to slip away. But they were riveted by the comments of one gray-bearded farmer.

  “If you ask me, it smacks of magic,” he said, nodding. “Strong magical doings were going on at the tor last night; count on it. The days of magic are returning to this world. Blast me if they aren't.”

  “What makes you think that, old man?” Earl asked quietly.

  “Why, it makes sense, don't it? There used to be magic in the old, old days, didn't there? Stories say so, before people learned how to do all that nonsense with science. Well, science took over but did no good in the end, did it? What's going to work now? What's going to hold this old world together except magic, I'd like to know. Makes sense, that does.”

  “Oh, come on, Jeth,” joshed one of the younger men. “You'll be giving these kids worse nightmares than they'll have had already. You're always going on about magic and portents. You'd think we were living in some fairytale age.”

  “Well, maybe we are,” the old man muttered as he shuffled away, shaking his head, “or soon will be. Maybe indeed.”

  With refilled packs, the three children slipped out of the village, leaving it to its rumors and speculations. Welly and Heather walked with lifted spirits. Strangers confirming what they'd seen made them feel more comfortably normal. Earl was silent, thinking about old Jeth and his faith in magic and portents. He suspected the old man sensed a truth. The cycles of this world were changing. A time of magic was beginning again.

  That evening they stopped at a farmhouse. The family had been reluctant to open the door, with all the rumors of strange creatures abroad. But when they saw it was only children, they willingly offered th
eir barn. They might have offered a place by their fire, had the children tried looking pathetic. But none of the three felt up to socializing.

  In the morning, the fresh salt tang of the air spoke of the sea. Before long, they crossed the broken pavement of the old coast road and stood on bluffs overlooking what had once been a narrow wave-washed beach.

  Now a sandy rock-strewn plain stretched out and down toward a distant expanse of water. Overhead, a rare seagull cried shrilly and sailed seaward. Heather tingled with excitement, and even Welly was impressed with the size and power of the ocean, viewed at a safe distance.

  To the east, the cliffs curved out in a long arm that eventually reached and jutted into the receded waters. Head tilted, Earl stood surveying this and the rest of the scene: the flat, dark horizon, the white fringe of breakers along the now-distant beach, the wrinkled gray surface of the sea dotted with occasional rocks and islands.

  He sighed with mingled satisfaction and sadness. “It's a new landscape for me, but I think I know where we're going now.”

  “Where?” the others asked together.

  Earl glanced uneasily around and shook his head. “Let's just go there.”

  They searched several minutes for a way down the cliffs, at last finding traces of a path used of old by picnickers and bathers. Once on the ancient beach, Heather and Welly were soon running over the sand, leaping rocks and exclaiming over the occasional weathered shell.

  Earl walked more quietly. Nostalgia and regret blew at him like the salt wind. Both whipped his eyes with tears. That descendants of his people should smash their civilization was perhaps their own affair. But that they should maim even its ageless oceans, that seemed a great deal to forgive.

  Only a thin veil of snow covered the sand; the sea breezes swept most of it back against the cliffs. The air was cold and tangy with the scent of ocean.

  As they neared the new shoreline, Heather was delighted with the rolling gray-green waters and the luminous curl of the breakers before they crashed into foam and surged up the sand. Welly, recalling Morgan's frightful illusion, was more reserved.

  While the two younger children played keep-away with the farthest-reaching waves, Earl set about gathering flotsam from the beach. After half an hour, he'd made a pile of driftwood, seaweed, a few bird feathers, and the jagged neck of an ancient bottle. He looked at his collection with dissatisfaction and called to the others.

  “Hey, you two, come and help me or this'll take all day. The oceans don't wash up as much junk as they used to. Less wood to drift, I guess. There're not even many shells.”

  The two trotted back over the wave-smoothed sand, faces flushed and damp with spray. “Well, give us a clue,” Welly said. “What are you up to?”

  “I'm going to build a boat,” he said simply. “If I ever get enough materials.”

  The others looked quizzically at the odds and ends piled at his feet. “With that?” Heather asked.

  “To start with, yes. If we can get enough natural materials, I'll cement them together into the right form.”

  The three spread out over the beach, collecting things. Earl had said to take anything, so Welly and Heather, scouting together, picked up slimy shreds of seaweed, a few shells, water-smoothed stones, and an occasional piece of wood, tossed and worn by the waves into bone-smooth whiteness.

  In a shallow cove a quarter mile up the beach, they made a discovery. The bleached skeleton of some large sea animal had been washed high up on the beach. Scavengers had removed every vestige of meat, and the bones had finally tired and fallen away from each other. But most still remained scattered about the sand. When they called Earl, he was excited. Gathering up an armload of broad, flat rib bones, he returned with them to his growing pile of junk.

  At last he determined they had enough. The others sat on gritty, sand-dusted rocks as he spread his finds over the ground. At first there seemed no order in his work, but finally they made out the rough shape of a boat, its gunwales defined by curving rib bones. Inside these, he arranged the other things, fitting them together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle until as little space as possible showed between them. The rocks he discarded, saying they had “too many sinking instincts to overcome.”

  At last Earl stood back and, head tilted, surveyed his work with satisfaction. Welly was less impressed. “If you think I'm going out to sea in that, you're dead wrong,” he announced flatly.

  Earl shot him a look of scorn. “This is just the first step, ye of little faith. Now we'll see about binding it together.”

  He dropped to his knees in the sand. Leaning over his strange creation, he began passing his hands smoothly over the individual pieces, all the while muttering words in interweaving singsong. As his hands passed for the third or fourth time over some items, these seemed to blur, their edges to spread and blend into the objects around them.

  Gradually the whole became a solid sheet, a flat boat-shaped cutout of splotchy gray. Then Earl changed the rhythm of his chant and began moving quickly around the edges, working them with his hands, pulling them up like a potter molding clay.

  Finally a boat rested before them on the sand, fifteen feet long, the shape and color of a fish. Its prow was high and gracefully upturned. Its stern, though broader, also rose above the tapered sides. Down its length ran a knife-edged keel.

  Despite their doubts, the two children were impressed. Welly slid off his rock and walked over to Earl's creation. He touched it cautiously, as though expecting it to bite or fall apart. When it did neither, he stroked its smooth sides and even kicked it reservedly.

  “Well,” he admitted, “it feels real enough, and it looks like a boat. But it has one problem.”

  Earl frowned at his handiwork. “What?”

  “It is a boat! I won't go floating out on all that water in any kind of boat, least of all one that's held together by words!”

  “Welly, this is very trustworthy stuff. Magic-blended objects are stronger than illusions. They don't have to be tended all the time like creating-spells.”

  “Maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of water out there, and I can't swim!”

  “There's really not much water to cross. We haven't far to go now.” Earl lowered his voice. “We're heading for that rock.”

  “Which, the big island?”

  “No, the cluster of rocks to its left, the far one.”

  “And you're sure we have to go there?” Welly pressed.

  “ I have to go there. I'm sure the key to entering Avalon is there. You can stay behind, of course, but it will leave you unprotected, and Morgan may still be about.”

  Welly jumped slightly and looked suspiciously back at the cliffs and long, empty stretch of beach.

  Heather spoke up. “Welly, I can't swim either, at least not much. But who knows what Earl's going to find once he gets there or what he'll have to do. He may need us. We've stuck together so far. I don't want to miss what happens next.”

  Welly kicked the sand at his feet. “Well, I don't either. I'm coming, of course. It's just that I signed on to be a soldier, not a sailor. Water's not trustworthy.”

  The tide was rising closer to the completed boat. They loaded in their packs and the three paddles that Earl had fashioned, two from larger pieces of driftwood and one from his own staff. Then, with Earl on one side and Welly and Heather on the other, they lifted the boat, finding it surprisingly light, and ran down to the in-rolling waves.

  When knee-deep in the cold, foamy water, Earl ordered them to jump in, Heather in front, Welly in the middle. Earl himself took the steering position at the stern. Quickly they grabbed up paddles and dug into the foam. Pulled by undertow and pushed by incoming surges, they moved out swiftly, their propulsion magically enhanced. They needed it, Welly figured, as with fear-widened eyes, he watched great breakers bearing down upon them.

  Earl watched these, too, with keen appraisal. Edging the boat up toward the line of water where the crests broke, at the right second, he yelle
d, “Paddle like mad!” Paddles flashed, and they shot over the next breaker while it was still rising, before it could tumble down in a foamy crash.

  They were not long clear of the breakers when the wind hit. Where minutes before it had been only a salty breeze, it now hammered at them steadily, rising almost to a gale.

  With Earl's special help, they moved on, but they were definitely slowed. The swells rising and falling under them became mountainous.

  Welly's round face was as pale as his dusky skin allowed. To keep from screaming, he clamped his teeth and concentrated on the rhythmic swing of the paddles. Were warriors always this afraid? he wondered. Yet they do frightful things anyway. But then, so did he. Was that bravery? The thought made him grin—briefly.

  Only by occasionally looking away from their goal could they tell they were moving closer to the jagged wave-splashed rocks. They saw these now from a different angle than on the beach. Heather was intrigued by their bizarre shapes and watched them steadily. “Hey,” she called, her words whipped back by the wind, “look at that fantastic rock on the left. It has a hole in it!”

  The others noticed it, too. Among the sky-thrusting fingers of rock rose one with a large irregular hole through it, worn by ages of swirling currents when it had lain just under the ocean's surface.

  But now Earl's attention was drawn to something beyond the rocks. A thin gray fringe appeared along the horizon and slowly grew. He said nothing but suggested everyone paddle harder.

  In a few minutes, Heather noticed it, too. “What's that out there, Earl? Is there a storm coming?”

  “Don't think so; it's too low. Just keep paddling.”

  They watched it silently as with aching muscles, they rhythmically dug into the dark water.

  Finally Welly said, “It's a big wave, isn't it? A whole line of water.”

  Heather's throat went dry. “It's an illusion, like the last one.”

  “Afraid not,” Earl answered grimly. “She's been busy out there making a real tidal wave this time. Morgan may lack imagination, but she's good at dealing with elements.”