Tomorrow's Magic

by Pamela F. Service

  After many long, gray days, the vanguard finally climbed a low rise and saw, in a glinting bend of the River Dee, the ancient walled town of Chester. The besieging army from Manchester clustered like ants outside the wall. But warned of the North's coming, they were already redeploying their forces.

  Margaret and Arthur consulted briefly with their generals, and word was given to fan out along a low ridge. Turning her eyes from the deployment, Heather glanced to where Merlin sat, hunched dejectedly on his horse. Appalled at how ill he looked, she spurred her horse over to him.

  “Earl, I don't want to disturb you, but you really don't look well. Maybe you should just stay back here. They probably won't need magic in this one.”

  He shuddered and glanced at her as if suddenly coming awake. “It's wrong! Every step we take and every road I see is wrong. They lead in huge circles. We ride past ruins on our way to war. There'll be little wars, then bigger wars, until we build cities of our own and blast them into ruins to crawl past once more. There must be somewhere to turn aside, but I can't see it!”

  He cried that last with such despair that those nearby sketched hand signs against evil and moved away. “Earl,” Heather said, “if you think we're going to lose this battle …”

  “No! No, it's two separate things. Both connected, though … somehow. But I can't see either very well, the long-term doom or the short-term battles. With the battle at the Wall, I was just fumbling in the dark. It seemed to work, but it led us here. And what will happen today? Who will die, and where will it lead us? A wizard worth the name should be able to tell. But without the new magic or even the use of my old tools, how can I?

  “And then there's the big battle, the one with Morgan. It's coming; it lies before us as surely as tomorrow's dawn. But what is she planning? What is her strength? Have we any hope of defeating her? It we don't, then all my brooding about mankind's future is just empty thought. The future she'll bring can only be one of servitude, torture, and evil. Better that the Devastation had wiped the human race out entirely and cleansed this planet than leave us to drown like that.”

  Merlin's head hung over his horse's bowed neck. Then he began shaking with silent laughter. “I'm sorry, Heather. I really do sound like a demented old wizard. To answer the question that I think you asked somewhere back there: No, I won't sit it out. I may be useless as a prophet, but I can still wield a sword.”

  Heather had understood only part of his words, but the suffering behind them was clear. She almost wished that he was plain Earl Bedwas again. If magic and its responsibilities could eat at a person, a person she cared for, like some terrible disease, then how could anyone want it?

  Suddenly horns blared. Movement erupted around her, and Heather instantly lost sight of any military tactics. She concentrated on keeping astride her horse as it pounded over the plain, on watching where her crazy dog was getting to, and on keeping close to the King's standard. She hoped that as long as she thought of mechanical things, she'd forget to be afraid. She was wrong.

  Nearby, Welly employed his own and, he discovered, largely useless device for ignoring fear. He watched patterns unfold from mental plans to the actual battlefield. The King's and Queen's guards had pulled up on a rise, while below, the front line formed into a shield-protected wedge to drive through the Manchester line. The cavalry was taking positions on the flanks, waiting to trap the enemy in tightening pincers, while the mounted troops around their leaders fidgeted in anticipation of their own final drive through the center.

  Suddenly, right around them, all became noise and chaos. Nothing was as it should be. Welly and Heather craned their necks to the right, looking for the cause of the turmoil. Then it was all too clear.

  A troop fresh from Manchester had come upon the battle and attacked the Northern forces from the rear. Like a spear, they were driving toward the banners of the two war leaders. Their plan was simple and obvious: kill or capture those two, and the Northern attack would crumble.

  The sudden disturbance shocked Merlin out of his lethargy. With grim determination, he pulled out his own gleaming Eldritch sword and sent power flickering along its blade so that it slashed with strength far beyond his own. But the enemy seemed everywhere. No sooner had one fallen than another took its place.

  In the center of it all, Queen Margaret, her hair flying about her like flame, cast her spear at one foeman, then drew her sword. Beside her, Arthur's great sword swung through the air, sun glinting off its ancient blade. It slashed down into an attacker, spraying the air with blood. He raised his sword again when suddenly the gray stallion rose, screaming, onto his hind feet, a deep gash from a war ax streaming blood down his neck. The horse pawed the air, then tumbled over, throwing the King to the ground. Dazed, Arthur struggled to his knees as a bloody axe cleaved the air toward him. The axman's face, snarling in victory, suddenly contorted as the Queen's sword drove deep between his ribs.

  Warrior and axe thudded to the bloodied earth, and Arthur staggered to his feet beside Margaret's horse. She reached down, and he swung onto the saddle behind her.

  Several horse-lengths away, Merlin watched this scene with horror as he automatically fought off attackers with his own sword. Now he wrenched himself away and plunged through the skirmishing warriors to defend his King.

  But Arthur and Margaret were doing a capable job of defending themselves, each wielding a sword on a different side of the great red horse. Suddenly Merlin heard an odd cry behind him, high like a young bird's. He spun around to see John Wesley clutching the King's banner, his face blank with surprise as he looked down at the quivering spear shaft protruding from his chest. Slowly his hands slid down the pole, and the boy toppled sideways off his horse.

  “No!” Merlin roared. From the tip of his sword, he shot a bolt of flame that incinerated the spearman. Before the ashes had drifted to the ground, Merlin was off his horse and holding the dead boy in his arms.

  Welly, fighting nearby, had heard Merlin's shout and turned to see the Dragon standard waver and slide downward along the now-riderless horse. Driving his own horse toward it, Welly reached out and grabbed the pole. Awkwardly he wielded his sword with one hand while clutching the standard with the other.

  Battle tides surged back and forth over plain and hill. Below, the Northern wedge finally broke through the Manchester line and scattered the besieging forces. When they saw their main army routed, the reinforcements wavered, then called a retreat. Northerners cheered their departure, vengefully pursuing stragglers.

  When relative calm had returned to the battlefield, Heather looked down at her sword to see it red and sticky. Sick horror rose in her throat, and she hastily dismounted to wipe the blade on the grass. Distrusting her wobbly legs, she mounted again and looked over the battlefield.

  On a hillside littered with dead and dying, she saw Merlin's black horse riderless and alone. Fear sliced through her like a spear. She spurred her horse to a gallop. As she neared, Welly, having turned in the standard, rode up as well.

  Heather felt faint with relief when she saw Merlin kneeling, apparently unharmed, but her joy shriveled at the sight of what he held in his arms. She and Welly dismounted.

  “He died,” their friend whispered. “He was nine years old, and he died.”

  “He died nobly,” Welly said, his own voice strained and tearful.

  “Oh, yes, nobly!” Merlin laughed bitterly. “That makes it all right, then. He died nobly clutching the standard of the King. And you nobly saved it from being trampled in his blood, and Kyle the harper will compose a ballad about how noble we all were and how tragically and nobly the crippled boy from Devon died, and we'll all feel sad and somehow better about it.” The bitterness in his voice was as sharp as a sword.

  Angry now, Welly snapped, “And I suppose you'd rather I'd let the standard fall? ”

  “No! No, I'd rather you'd never had to save it. I'd rather this whole bloody waste had never happened!”

  “But, Earl,” Welly objected, “you sai
d we had to unify the country and face Morgan.…”

  “I know. And we do. That is right. But something is wrong, too, very wrong. If only I could see what!” He laid the limp form gently on the ground. “If I could have seen this battle, if I could have seen the relief column from Manchester, then this boy wouldn't be lying here now. If I could see further, we'd know what we faced with Morgan; or further still, and maybe I could keep us from plunging down that same long, deadly road. But I can't. I can't see any of it!”

  Hesitantly, Heather placed a hand on his shoulder, tears streaming down her own face. “Earl, we loved John Wesley, too. But this isn't your fault. None of it is. You're doing the best you can.”

  He reached up and grabbed her hand. “No. I am not doing that. That's one thing I do know.”

  The wind froze the tears to her cheeks as Heather looked down at Earl's ashen face and the sad dead boy beside him on the grass. This world, she thought, was harsh enough without the demands of magic. That was an added curse, one no one should have to bear.

  The siege of Chester was broken. Duke Geoffrey rode forth from his city to thank the liberating army and its leaders. He invited them to enter as victorious allies on the morrow. The remainder of that day and evening were spent tending to the dead and wounded.

  The battlefield was strewn with the bodies of soldiers and horses. They were gathered up, friend and foe alike, and placed in a large, freshly dug grave. A great stone was erected on the raw heaped-up earth, but no writing was placed upon it. The pain was still too fresh to have distilled into words.

  The following morning, Duke Geoffrey rode out again and presented to Arthur a rare throwback, a tall white warhorse, to replace the horse fallen in battle. Those who knew Arthur knew he'd feel nothing could replace his gray. But the King accepted the gift; it was a magnificent animal.

  A dawn drizzle had given way to pale sunshine. To the throb of drums and the peal of pipes, the victorious army marched toward the city they had saved. First, under Lion and Dragon banners, rode Queen Margaret, a blaze of red, and King Arthur, hair and sword gleaming gold. Their great horses pranced and tossed their heads. Behind them came their warriors, battered weapons and armor hastily polished and flashing in the sun. People who had poured out of the city for the first time in weeks cheered wildly and strained for a glimpse of their deliverers.

  As the host neared the city, Duke Geoffrey proudly pointed out how Chester had strengthened its defenses by pulling down structures that had sprawled beyond its medieval wall. People lined that wall now, cheering, waving, and throwing down bits of cloth and anything bright. Chants of “Arthur” and “Margaret” filled the air as the two rode under the gate. The streets were crowded with jubilant people who stood amid a crazy mixture of buildings: medieval half-timber, Georgian stone, and twentieth-century concrete, all patched with rubble for modern utility.

  Triumphantly they rode on, finally clattering into the Duke's ancient castle, built into the city's south wall. Soldiers found welcome and lodging among celebrating townsfolk, but the King and Queen and their closest followers were lodged in the castle. That night they dined as royally as the town's scanty provisions, augmented just that day, would permit.

  It was a noisy feast, noisy with the relief people feel after having lived through a victorious battle. In a smoky, torchlit hall, dancers whirled while Kyle and other musicians played pipe, harp, and drum. Heroic events of the previous day were already elaborating into legend.

  Seated apart at one corner of the King's table, Merlin alone seemed immune to the jollity. Silently he picked at the food before him or stared desolately into his cup of ale. The cup was a simple unadorned one, beaten from some salvaged metal. With the noise and torch smoke swirling around him, he stared unheeding into the cup's brown depths.

  Foamy bubbles and shapes were there. Shapes of warriors marching toward a city, a walled city by a river, besieged by enemies. The warriors spread out to attack, and as they did so, an unguessed-at enemy drove toward them like a spear, taking them by surprise. Surprise as the troops rallied around their King and Queen. Surprise on the face of a young boy clutching at a banner, dying with a spear thrust through his chest.

  Merlin clenched his hand around the cup. It felt wider now, polished silver carved with intricate designs. In its depths, the boy's face still held surprise, eternal dying surprise. But there should have been no surprise! He should have known. He should have known!

  Leaping up, Merlin hurled the cup across the room. In sudden silence, everyone turned toward him. Slowly his vision cleared, and he looked down the table at the King. “Arthur, help me!”

  “Tell me how.”

  In the crowded, breathless room, there might have been only these two.

  “Arthur, I must know what happened to my things after … I disappeared.”

  “After Nimue took you from Caerleon?”

  “Yes.”

  The King sat back and stared, unseeing, across the room, stared back through centuries into another life. “We didn't know what had happened to you,” he said slowly. “They said Nimue had enchanted you, had entombed you in some mountain. But we didn't know where. If you'd been dead somewhere, we would have buried your things with you. But … what are you thinking about in particular? ”

  “My silver bowl.”

  “The carved one that hung at your belt?”

  Merlin nodded, and again the King thought. “I think I told Bedevere, my squire, to take care of all those things. I don't remember what happened to the bowl particularly. Since it was silver, I imagine it was treated as part of the royal treasury.”

  “And what would have happened to it?”

  “I don't know. It could have been kept in the storeroom at Caerleon or moved on to Camelot, or I suppose it could eventually have been given out as a reward to some loyal vassal or maybe even melted down for coinage. I really don't know, Merlin, but obviously it's important.”

  “Yes, it is.” He nodded at the King. “If you will excuse me, sire, I need to think.”

  Arthur nodded back, and Merlin left the room. The others in the room were silent in awe, as if a window had just opened onto an ancient mythical past.

  Looking around, Arthur sensed the mood. Sighing, he closed that window. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, to the concerns of our own time. Let us have a toast. A toast to Duke Geoffrey of Cheshire and his welcoming city and to Queen Margaret of Scotland and her most welcome sword.”

  The people in the room cheered and raised their cups. Their King was back.

  After the banquet, Heather was shown to the room she would share with several ladies of Cheshire's court. They were eager to know about Arthur, about the strange, frightening Merlin, and about beautiful Queen Margaret. Restlessly Heather chatted with them a while, but as soon as she could, she slipped a cape over her borrowed dressing gown and said she had to say good night to someone. Rus, told to remain behind, woefully obeyed.

  She found Merlin on the battlements. There was no mistaking his thin, gangly figure or the pale smudge of his face in the darkness. Above them, the moon, through the high dust, cast misty light on the Welsh mountains rolling darkly to the southwest.

  He turned as he heard her approach but said nothing.

  “Earl, what are you going to do?”

  “Go find it.”

  “The bowl? But Arthur said it might be anywhere or even melted down by now.”

  “I know. But I have to try. Without it, I'm of no use to him or anyone.”

  “That's silly. That trick with Margaret—”

  “Yes, but it was just that, a trick, and one that counted on luck. Yesterday, Arthur won without tricks, but the luck ran out for John Wesley, didn't it? I should have been able to foresee that.”

  “Earl, you couldn't—”

  “Heather, I could have. I've been so submerged in worry over the new magic and the far future that I've neglected the present, and that's our only sure link to the future. What happens if Arthur is defeated in ou
r next battle? What happens to the future then? At the stone circle, you had a vision. You saw a battlefield strewn with Arthur's warriors. When is that a possibility? Will it come after meeting Morgan? That is the big confrontation, and she knows it's coming as well as we do. She'll be planning for it—something diabolical, no doubt—and I want to know what. That Bowl of Seeing is the only way I know to find out. It may not work in this world; it may not even still exist. But I've got to try something!”

  “So where will you go? ” Heather asked after a moment.

  “To Caerleon first. Arthur moved his court around a good deal, but that was where we were when Nimue …”

  “I know. You don't have to talk about it.”

  “No, but oddly I want to. Tonight raked up all those memories. It's hard to believe a wise old wizard could have been so blind. But Morgan wanted me out of the way, and she had learned my weakness. All my years of magic had cut me off from simple human caring. I was bitterly lonely, and Nimue filled that loneliness. With Morgan's guidance, she learned enough of my secrets to trap me in my own enchantments.”

  He sighed quietly, then turned and looked at Heather. “I know what Kyle's been saying to you, Heather, and he's right. I haven't wanted to admit it. I'd hoped that this time my life could be different, that I could let myself be close to people. I was so happy when I thought that you and I could … share the working of magic. But it's no good. Having this power and letting it grow controls your life. It cuts you off. People come to fear or hate you. I have no right to lead you away from a normal life into that.”

  “Earl, you're not … it's just that … Oh, I don't know. I don't know what to think.”

  “Yes, you do. You know I'm right. You've been a good friend, and that's more than I should have hoped for. But I'm fooling myself to think there is any choice. This road I must go alone.”

  The silence stretched on and on. There was so much Heather wanted to say. Yet her mind churned with confused thoughts that she seemed powerless to mold into words.