Tomorrow's Magic

by Pamela F. Service

  “Arthur, what good would that cruelty have done? You, a mortal, were brought here close to death. Their desire was to see you healed, to have you rest as you deserved, and to wait.”

  “Yes, wait. But for what? Merlin, by some alchemy I'll never understand, you were locked away waiting to be freed. Then, as soon as you were, or remembered that you were, you came looking for me. So, this time of waiting is over. But why? What good can I do? One former king, in a world infinitely more wrong than any we knew.”

  “That world needs you, Arthur.”

  “Needs me! That's what you said before. But I was young then, truly young. It was exciting, exhilarating. I was to be King! But, Merlin, I know what that all means now. I've gone through it once. Certainly there was pride and beauty and satisfaction, but there was also pain, failure, and loss. Being king isn't being revered and leading troops to glory; it's taking on other people's pains and problems, being responsible for their lives and happiness and sacrificing your own. Merlin, I loved and was betrayed! I built and saw what I built destroyed! Are you asking me to go through all that again?”

  “Arthur, do you really want me to answer that? ”

  “Yes! I mean, no. Oh, you infuriating old man! You're going to lecture me. I know exactly what you're going to say. And I don't want to hear it!” He yanked a fern out of the dark soil and tore it to shreds.

  His companion sat down on a stone and turned his attention to the splendid view across the gorge.

  After several minutes, Arthur threw the remains of the fern over the edge. “Your problem, Merlin, is that you haven't the decency to be wrong now and again.”

  “Oh, I've had my moments.”

  “But this isn't one of them, is it?” Arthur dropped heavily onto a mossy bank. “You and the folk of Avalon say I'm needed there. I don't understand that now any more than I did before. If it's true, it also seems I can't avoid it any more than before. But you can't blame me for wanting to! This time, after all, I know what I'm in for.”

  The people of Avalon prepared the four mortals for their departure. New warm clothes were made and spread in readiness under the trees. The hooded fur cloaks seemed alien in this world of perpetual summer.

  Earl set about giving Arthur a crash course in the culture of the strange new world he was entering. On the question of language, however, the teacher despaired, and at last complained to the Lady.

  “Arthur can talk easily with everyone here but can't seem to grasp that Avalon has its own laws. Out there the language has changed. If he tried to converse in his native tongue, he'd be unintelligible. And, Lady, I know from experience that Arthur's a dunce with languages. He's a fine leader, a great warrior, and many other things. But if I try to teach him a new language, we'll be here another two thousand years!”

  She laughed. “It's not that we don't love our guests, but it looks as if I'd better make him a gift of language and spare you the tutoring.”

  “Bless you, Lady. For me, that gift is beyond price!”

  There were other gifts as well. Arthur's mighty sword was reforged and returned to him. But although offered more elegant alternatives, Earl preferred his small hawk-headed sword and the pine staff from the banks of the Tamar. This last, he said, was tied to the world in which it must function.

  Welly and Heather also chose to keep their swords from the ancient Eldritch wreck. But sheaths were made for them of soft pale leather worked with designs of twining vines and interlocking spirals.

  At last came the eve of their departure. The four travelers sat in the meadow where the three had passed their first night. The Lady was with them, along with others of their new friends. In the center of the meadow, a fire blazed, not for warmth and light but as a symbol of fellowship and belonging that spanned time and worlds.

  The Lady looked across the fireglow at the four and saw that all followed their own thoughts. But the young boy and girl seemed particularly troubled.

  “Heather, there is something you want, isn't there?”

  “Yes, there is.” She stopped twisting her braid and looked up. “There were many things I wanted that don't seem important now. And what I wanted most, I never realized—just to be needed.”

  The other smiled with understanding. “But, Lady,” Heather continued, “Avalon is so beautiful. I'm afraid when we go, we'll forget it, like some dream. Our world is different. It is mine and I can accept it, but to carry a small candle of memory would make it easier.”

  The Lady nodded. “The contrast will be painful. It might be best for you if it did fade. But yes, you may keep it. Like a good dream, let it stay in the back of your mind, to be called on when needed.”

  She looked at Welly. “And this will be for you as well. But do I sense you need something more?”

  He blushed and stared down at his hands. “Well, I guess I understand things better, too. I know what I can do, and maybe something of what should be done. But … oh, it's nothing grand. It's stupid and selfish.… But I still wish I had good eyes and didn't need glasses.”

  She placed a soft hand on his. “I suppose some sorts of magic could do that, but it's really not our way. We don't wish to a make a person other than he is or change what he has made of himself. We can heal a wound or sickness. But, Welly, your eyes are neither. They are part of what makes you. Can you understand that at all?”

  Welly smiled weakly. “I guess so.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the face. “But you needn't be downcast.” She laughed. “Perhaps there are a few things we can do. For one thing, I suspect the prescription could be improved. And perhaps a charm to keep you from breaking or losing the things?”

  He nodded and saw with surprise that the circles of glass before his eyes were clearer than before, focusing everything in sharp detail. And they rested on his head with a strange new security. He looked up with a confident smile.

  Talk in the meadow merged with sleep, ending in the radiance of Avalon's predawn glow. After a final meal, the four, wearing their new warm clothing, hoisted fresh packs on their backs. The Lady alone led them up a pine-clad hill. The ground was carpeted with needles and the air scented with their spice.

  Near the crest of the hill, the Lady halted and kissed each lightly on the forehead. They took one last look at her and the beautiful land behind. Then, with Arthur in the lead, they stepped between two tall pines into utter darkness. The scent of warm pine lingered for a moment, then was gone.

  This time Welly and Heather walked confidently through the blackness. Their steps echoed as from high-vaulted walls, and cold began seeping out of the stone around them. At last a patch of gray appeared ahead. They stepped out of an ancient tomb, snow resting quietly in the spirals carved into its fallen stones.

  The light was cold and the sky a blank gray. Below them, a new landscape stretched bleak and treeless. Wind whipped over the snow, hurling dry, icy flakes into their faces.

  The contrast with what they had left was stark, but to Welly and Heather the air carried a tang of home.

  After a long silence, Arthur turned to Earl. “Do you know where we are?” he asked tautly.

  “Someplace in Britain. But the Lady didn't say exactly where this gate would lead.”

  “And the time of year? ”

  “Time passes differently in the two worlds. But from what she said, I'd guess April.”

  “April,” Arthur repeated. “April in Britain! How can this have happened? There should be trees budding; there should be daffodils and new green grass. We should hear cuckoos in the woods and see larks soaring in the sky—a clear blue sky!”

  His face was pained as he looked at his friend. “Merlin, can we really do anything? Is there anything here worth fighting for? ”

  “There are people left here. People and the glimmer of hope they hold.”

  He was silent for a moment, then continued. “Arthur, you said you'd been through it before. You didn't relish coming back, because you knew what you were in for. But maybe
, because we do know what we're in for, we can do better this time. We know our mistakes and the ones made after us. Maybe we can see the danger signals. Maybe we can set things on the right road so this doesn't happen again.”

  Arthur smiled grimly. “Maybe so. But it's rather an uphill road.”

  “Yes, it is,” Merlin replied. Then his dark eyes flashed with a smile, and he spread his arms exultantly. “But look what you have to start with! A wise old adolescent wizard and two seasoned young campaigners, dropouts from the best school in Wales! What quest ever began in better company?”

  Young Arthur Pendragon threw back his head and laughed. The sound rang like a bell over the silent landscape. “Now, that's a quest I want to be a part of! Let's be on our way!”

  Four cloaked figures walked down the hillside as the snow about them turned a soft, fragile pink. In the eastern sky, the veiled sun rose on a new day.

  TOMORROW'S MAGIC

  Nearly three years have passed, bringing Britain more change than it has seen since the Devastation. Slowly the climate has warmed, slowly the power of magic has grown.

  In Britain's Southeast, dark forces have gathered behind the sorceress Morgan. In the Northwest, a young-seeming warrior calling himself Arthur Pendragon has won himself supporters, allies—and enemies. Three young people—Earl Bedwas, Heather McKenna, and Wellington Jones—are at the heart of his new court.

  LEGENDS RENEWED

  Heather missed the ball. She leaped, but it sailed over her, inches beyond her outstretched fingers. Her fleece-lined boots thumped back onto the sand, and, laughing, she turned and ran after it.

  Already the ball was rolling swiftly down the damp sand toward the ocean. It slammed against a half-buried stone, bounced into the air, and came down on a jumble of dark rocks that jutted out into the water.

  Heather's hood was back, and her thin, light brown braids streamed behind her in the cold breeze. They'd just bought that ball, dyed all red and blue, from a leather worker in Ravenglass. She wasn't about to let it get washed out to sea.

  Skidding to a halt at the rocks, she stepped onto them cautiously. At high tide they were mostly beneath the water, and even now, their water-smoothed surfaces were damp and slimy. Her boots scraped against crusted barnacles as she stepped around tide pools and slippery patches of green to make her way out to the ball.

  It had landed in a pool at the very edge of the rocks. Water surged and boomed in the deep crevasse beyond, while waves regularly slapped against the rock, filling the air with a fine salty spray. Heather licked the saltiness from her lips as she reached down and scooped the ball from the cold, clear pool. Holding it high like a torch, she turned back toward her friends on the distant beach, smiling and waving triumphantly.

  She could see the two standing side by side on the dry snow-flecked sand. The veiled sunlight glinted off Welly's glasses as he hopped up and down, waving. Beside him, Earl was also waving, looking tall and thin beside Welly's sturdy plumpness. Both were yelling, but Heather couldn't hear the words over the constant rumbling and crashing of the sea behind her.

  They were yelling and pointing; then both started running toward her. Clutching the ball, she began walking back. It was too late. An extra-large wave burst over the rocks, engulfing her in cold, wet foam. In the hammering surge of water, her feet slipped from the slimy rocks.

  Suddenly everything was dark, wet, and cold. In panic, she opened her eyes, then shut them against the stinging salt water. The darkness about her surged and eddied. She couldn't tell which was the way up, the way to air. But she needed to find it—now!

  Something pulled at her, but not the ocean. An arm pulling her upward. Welly's or Earl's. They'd gotten there quickly. Her head burst through into the air. Another head was bobbing beside hers. But even through the dripping hair plastered to her face, she could see that it was not one of her friends.

  It was a young blond man, and despite his own bedraggled appearance, he was grinning broadly. “Excuse the familiarity, miss, but you seemed to need a wee bit of help.”

  “You'll both be needing that,” came a voice from the rocks above them, “if you don't get out before the next big wave. Come on, Welly, let's haul them up.”

  The two boys soon dragged Heather and her rescuer onto the rocks. “Let's get back to the beach,” Earl said, wrapping his dry jacket around Heather while Welly offered his to the stranger. “I'll go start a fire.” Picking up his walking stick from the rocks, Earl hurried ahead. By the time the others reached him, he had a good fire going with a few pieces of driftwood.

  Heather huddled close to the flames, shivering from cold and from the fear that had suddenly caught up with her. She spoke to the stranger through chattering teeth. “I'm sorry you got soaked, but thanks for helping me. I could have been swept out to sea like … Oh, the ball! Our new ball, what happened to it?”

  Welly laughed. “Here,” he said, producing it from behind his back. “The wave carried it neatly onto the beach. You needn't have risked life and limb for it after all.”

  “Well, it's new,” she said defensively.

  Earl grinned, pushing black hair back from his pale, thin face. “And you, of course, are tattered and expendable, being all of fourteen years old.”

  She kicked a bare foot at him, but he dodged back and then joined the others squatting by the fire. “But as well as thanks,” he said, “perhaps we owe this gentleman some introductions. This damsel, formerly in distress, is Heather McKenna. He is Wellington Jones, and I am … Earl Bedwas.”

  Heather raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. Instead, she studied the newcomer. He was a man and bearded but didn't seem much older than Earl's apparent age of seventeen. His embroidered leather jacket and boots, now drying on the sand, had a slightly foreign look about them.

  “I'm Kyle, Kyle O'Mara. I'm a harper, just come this morning from Ireland.”

  “Ireland,” Heather and Welly said together, exchanging excited smiles. Foreign countries always sounded so glamorous, particularly since there were so few still inhabited— at least in Europe and North America.

  “Yes, I came to find and join your King Arthur.” He looked down, a blush spreading over his already dark face. “You'll be thinking I'm a romantic fool. But over in Ireland we've heard rumors about Arthur's return, about his setting out to unite all of Britain as it was before the Devastation. And … and, well, I thought maybe he could use a harper. Kings always did in the old tales.”

  The three young people smiled and nodded. “I'm sure he could,” Welly said. “But if you're headed to Keswick, what were you doing on this beach?”

  “Oh, well, I asked a man at the harbor how best to get to Arthur's town, and he said there was a small party from Keswick heading back there soon, and they'd gone off toward this beach. I was looking for them but didn't see anyone except you kids. You didn't notice them, did you?”

  After an awkward silence, Earl said, “Actually, it was probably us the man was talking about. We came from Keswick on business and were going to start back this afternoon, except we got a little diverted trying out the new ball.”

  Kyle's expression wavered between pleasure and skepticism. “Isn't it a little dangerous for, eh … young people to travel unescorted all that distance?”

  “Oh, no,” Welly answered. “Not really. Now that Arthur's united Cumbria, his patrols keep down the brigands and slavers. And the muties don't cause much trouble.”

  “Well, that's good to hear. And your, eh, business is all taken care of?”

  “Oh, I think so, isn't it, Earl?” Heather said as the older boy nodded in response.

  “Yes, we had some people to talk with, and we wanted to inspect the new port. There hasn't been a really good one here since before the Devastation, when the coasts were higher. But the Duke of Ravenglass made an alliance with Arthur last year and agreed to build up the port. What did you think of it?”

  “I was impressed, and there seems to be lots of other building going on.”

>   Earl nodded. “These Cumbrian dukedoms used to fight a lot among themselves. But now that Arthur's united them, there's time for building and for trade.” He stood up, brushing sand off his trousers. “Maybe we'd better get going. Are you dry enough?”

  Kyle felt his clothes. They were stiff with salt, but dry. “Yes, I am. That was a fine fire you built, and with very little fuel, too.”

  “Eh … yes, thanks. I have a … knack for that sort of thing. Have you a horse?”

  “No. I tried to find one but was told the King was assembling them all in Keswick, at least the tall ones. Why is that? ”

  Welly spoke up, feeling on safe ground with questions of military strategy. “He's building a cavalry. And he's choosing all the taller horses to breed with each other so we can start getting real warhorses again, like in the old days.”

  Heather reached for her boots, brushing off the dried sand. “We left our horses up by the dunes. Welly's and mine are probably too small, but there ought to be a little extra room on Earl's. His legs are so long he needs a really big horse.” She grinned impishly.

  Kyle stood up. “Well now, I would certainly appreciate your company, if I'd not be too much bother. It really is fortunate I fell in with you.”

  Welly chortled. “I thought it was Heather who did the falling in.”

  Kyle retrieved his bag and harp from where he'd dropped them on the beach, and together the four trudged through the sand up to where the horses were grazing on clumps of coarse coastal grass.

  Soon, with the young Irishman riding on the rump of Earl's black mare, they set off inland. At first the valley of the River Esk was wide enough for several farms. Beyond low stone walls, the hardy short-season grain had just been harvested. It was mid-August, and the first snows had already blown down from the ice-encased north.

  Then the fells crowded closer together, and the narrow road rose more steeply. The land, bare of all but coarse gray-green grass, was inhabited here only by dark-wooled sheep. Occasionally shepherds appeared, armed with fur wraps against the cold and spears against fell-dogs and muties. A chill wind buffeted the fells, and the early dusting of snow swirled into the air and snaked in wisps across the road. The bleak stillness was broken only by the sound of their own passage, the bleating of sheep, or the lonely call of some rare fell-land bird.