Tomorrow's Magic

by Pamela F. Service

  Day after day he spent by the bowl, trying to drag the vision closer, to shake it into focus. He scarcely ate or slept, and when Heather brought him meals, she often found the last one untouched.

  Sometimes Heather would simply sit with the wizard, though he seldom pulled himself away from the elusive vision to note her presence. She was surprised at how content she was simply to be near him, to sit on the turf bank watching the wind silver the grass or watching the cloud shadows chase each other across the land below.

  One afternoon, as she left in an effort to find Merlin some tempting food, Kyle came up to her. They hadn't spoken a great deal since her return. He had been busy with his music and the attentions of young ladies of the camp. But now he stepped deliberately in her path.

  “Heather, I don't like to meddle. But you're too good a person to sink into some dark, useless sort of life. Why don't you leave the wizard to his brooding and join the rest of us?”

  Her frown deepened. “Kyle, a while back you were telling me I had to choose. Well, I suppose I have chosen. I know where I belong, or at least with whom I belong. Now please let me be!”

  She stomped away, anger smoldering. But in one thing she knew Kyle was right. She might be less torn by indecision now, but she was rather useless. Welly, when not with the cook's assistant, was spending his time training new recruits. Even Troll was busy with the growing troops out of Faerie. Earl, she felt, did need her, but she really wasn't being of much use to him.

  Wandering dejectedly back to her campsite, she decided there was still one way she could help him. Reaching into her pack, she pulled out the amulet. Despite an occasional itch to use it, she hadn't put it on since Glastonbury. Slipping the chain around her neck, she knelt down on her blanket. She might not understand or fully trust its powers, but she had to try something. If only she could figure out how to channel it.

  But it was difficult. The power of the amulet was of a cold and alien sort, nothing like the animal-tied magic that came so easily to her. Clearly it was closer to Earl's high magic, so if she could just use it, surely she could be of some help to him.

  Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, fear blasted through her. She wanted to help Earl, and he was indeed in terrible danger. Bathed in sweat, she gazed at the shiny black surface of the amulet. It sank away like a dark tunnel. She fell through it, and pictures rushed past her. Massive rocks in a sunlit circle, their patterns ancient and meaningful. Mounded earth over the cold and decay of a stone tomb. The pictures were clear and precise and reeked of threat. Threat that only she could save him from.

  Welly, walking by to fetch his sharpening stone, noticed Heather crouched on her bedroll, shaking as if in a fever.

  “Heather?” He walked over and knelt beside her. “Heather, what is it? Are you all right?”

  He noticed the amulet and her frozen gaze. Covering its riveting blackness with a plump hand, he shook her shoulder. “Heather, come out of it!”

  She fell back with a cry. Looking wildly at him, she slowly realized who he was. “Oh, Welly, I've got to help him!”

  “Help who? And what is this?” He raised his hand from the black stone.

  “It's a magic amulet.” She no longer felt a need to hide it, not from Welly. “My mother gave it to me; it's an old family piece. It showed me … Welly, Earl's in terrible danger, and I have to go right away and save him from it!”

  “Earl is sitting by the north wall brooding over that bowl of his. He's not in any danger.”

  “Not now, but soon. If I leave now and go where I've seen, I can still save him from it.”

  “Why don't you just go to Earl now and tell him about it?”

  “No!” She closed her fist possessively around the amulet. “Then he'd want to see and go there, too, and that would be the greatest danger.”

  “I don't see that.”

  “But I do! I see it. And I'm going right now.” She stood up and fastened her sword to her belt.

  “You can't go alone.”

  “I'll have Rus.”

  “Don't be crazy; that's not enough!” He looked after her as she strode off to the horse corral, her dog padding behind her. “Aren't you even going to tell someone or leave a note?”

  “No time.”

  Furiously he pulled off his glasses and started to polish them on his shirt. Jamming them back on his face, Welly ran to catch up with her.

  “You coming, too?” she asked matter-of-factly.

  “I have to. Earl would turn me into a swamp rat if anything happened to you. But this whole thing is crazy, and you know it.”

  She smiled grimly and picked out a tall, fast horse for herself.

  A few minutes later, Heather and Welly, with Rus at their side, rode out of the south gate and along the ancient trackway that ran over the crest of the downs. Shortly afterward, a gray shape slid from the ditch that encircled the fort and glided from shadow to concealing shadow until it reached the campsite of Merlin the Wizard. From folds of misty clothing, it pulled a scrap of folded parchment and pinned it to the bedroll. Then, like a puff of acrid smoke, it slipped away.

  Hunched by his bowl near the north wall, Merlin sighed and sagged back with fatigue. Again, visions had danced and jibbered at him just out of reach, leaving him with only a sense of dread and a vague compulsion for the southeast. Shuddering, he looked up to see Arthur standing over him.

  “Merlin, I've been standing here talking to you for five minutes. You've been somewhere else entirely, and by the looks of you, somewhere you're better off away from.”

  Merlin sighed wearily. “Yes, but somehow I've got to make this work. There's danger out there, terrible danger, and maybe a solution. Morgan has some dreadful plan. I can feel it. But this Bowl of Seeing is the only way I know to see it.”

  “Maybe, old friend, but don't kill yourself in the process.”

  The King squatted down beside him. “And I'll tell you something else—less mystic, perhaps, but also important. We need water. Those two springs on the hillside aren't enough any longer for this horde. When the old Celts used this place as a fort, they must have had a well. Can you find it for us?”

  Arthur stood up, pulling Merlin shakily to his feet. “Come on. Put your wizardry to some down-to-earth use and find us some water.”

  His friend laughed ruefully. “You're right. Maybe I should give up on prophecy and concentrate on removing warts and divining water. Then at least I'd be of some use.”

  He looked about, really seeing the fort for the first time in days. It bustled with soldiers and horses, and the turf ramparts were steadily rising. He turned his thoughts to wells. “I'd better use my staff; wood has an affinity for water.”

  “I'll send someone for it. You still look a little tottery. Heather says you haven't been eating enough.” The King waved a beckoning arm at Kyle, who was walking by, talking with a Scottish piper.

  “Kyle, would you trot over to Merlin's campsite and bring us his staff? Don't look so alarmed; it won't turn into a snake. Will it, Merlin?”

  “Not if I don't ask it to.”

  Despite this assurance, Kyle could think of a good many errands he'd rather be sent on. Near the King's tent, he found the spot where the wizard had stashed his things. Among rolled-up blankets, a saddlebag, and several cooking pots lay the slender staff. Its wood was pale and smooth except where it knotted into a clawlike root at the top.

  Gingerly Kyle reached for it, then saw the note pinned to the bedroll. On the outside, “Earl” was written in Heather's distinctive round script. Kyle picked up the staff, which felt reassuringly woodlike, then unpinned the note, deciding he'd take that to the wizard as well.

  He returned to where Merlin and Arthur had been joined by several of the King's engineers. Merlin took the staff with a nod of thanks, while one engineer was saying, “It really ought to be within the banks, but we haven't found any stones or depressions.”

  Merlin stood still, closed his eyes a moment, then slowly began walking toward the southwe
st. The others followed at a distance.

  Kyle stayed behind, watching. He hadn't had a chance to give Merlin the note. Well, he would when they'd found the water. But now he wished he'd taken no part in this sending of notes between the two. He had to admit that the wizard was a good enough fellow, but his kind shouldn't get mixed up with regular people. And despite Heather's few tricks, Kyle felt she belonged in the normal world.

  He wondered what message she had sent. Making some assignation, perhaps? Or asking about some mystic formula? Maybe Merlin was having her act as his agent with those outlandish things lurking about south of the fort.

  Curiosity vied with courtesy. The note wasn't sealed. He'd take a quick look.

  “Dear Earl,” the note began. That very familiarity annoyed him. He read on. “I want you to know that I am leaving with Welly. The time has come for me to make a choice. Welly is of my world in a way you can never be. Your world is right for you, but it frightens me. I want a simple, normal life somewhere, and I am going off to find it. Please don't follow us. This way is better.” Signed, “Heather.”

  Astonished, Kyle stared at the note, quickly rereading it. So that was the choice she'd meant! He hadn't given her enough credit. It was a shame, though, that she'd have to leave them all, and for that he blamed the wizard. But Kyle guessed that Merlin would pay for it. Cold fish that he was, he seemed genuinely fond of Heather—of Welly, too. He might take this pretty hard.

  Kyle folded up the note and looked guiltily about. The wizard, King, and others were gathered around a spot near the southwest wall. The harper walked toward them.

  “Dig here,” Merlin was saying as Kyle approached. “There'll be stones two feet down where it was filled in. Another three feet, and you'll hit water.”

  The engineers looked doubtfully at one another. Merlin shook his head wearily. “It's there. Do you want me to do the digging, too?”

  The others smiled sheepishly, but Arthur said, “In this army we specialize. Wizards find water, and engineers dig for it. Come on, Merlin, I want you to get something to eat before you go back to glowering at that bowl.”

  As they walked off, the King's arm over the wizard's thin shoulders, Kyle stepped up. “Merlin, I found this note pinned to your blankets when I went for the staff.”

  Merlin flushed slightly when he saw the handwriting. “I'll be with you in a minute, Arthur. I want to tend to this first.”

  The King nodded and walked briskly away. Kyle had already left, almost wishing he'd torn the thing up. He didn't like to see people hurt, not even odd magical people.

  Merlin opened the parchment and read it. He felt as if he had stopped breathing. Each word cut him like ice. He tried to read it again, but his eyes blurred. Slowly he folded the note, slipping it into his shirt. Inside him, cold spread into numbness. Quietly he headed for the north gate and walked out into the gathering night.

  EMPTINESS AND PERIL

  Through that evening and into the night, Heather and Welly rode along the Ridgeway. When Welly wanted to stop, Heather urged them on, finally allowing a few brief hours of sleep before prodding them on again.

  Welly knew how attached Heather was to Earl and could understand her worry over some mysterious danger to him. But there was something odd about her now. When they had left Chester, spurred by her vision of the hawk and the snake, she had been worried but otherwise her usual self. Now, after whatever she had seen with the amulet, she seemed obsessed. Saying nothing, she kept her eyes intently on the road. Needing no map, she drove them along roads and over the countryside as if on the end of an invisible line.

  By midafternoon, the horses were staggering with weariness, and Welly urged that they stop. It wasn't like Heather, of all people, to be so inconsiderate of animals. Rus was so tired, Welly carried him for a while across his saddle. Heather's only response was, “Not now; we're almost there.”

  They were off the downs now, heading through fields of dry grass. Sheep bleated their annoyance and scattered out of their way. After a distance, a road they had joined cut through a wall-like mound of earth. As they passed through, Heather sighed, letting her weary horse stumble to a halt.

  “This is it. This is what I saw exactly.”

  Welly looked around. They seemed to have entered a huge earthen ring with a ditch running around the inside of the high bank. Inside that encircling ditch, the circle was repeated by a ring of massive upright stones. In places, the circle was incomplete, but one could see where it had once run.

  “Look at the size of those stones,” Welly marveled. Running off in both directions, the unworked boulders jutted out of the earth like gigantic decayed teeth. Even Welly could feel the awesomeness of the place. But the locals seemed undaunted. Not only were sheep grazing beside the stones, a small village nestled inside their circuit.

  Heather looked around as well, but with an air of scientific detachment, as if trying to read a pattern in the stones.

  “Ah, I think that's the way we want to go,” she said, pointing to the right.

  “No, it is not.” Welly was looking straight ahead at a rambling thatched building signed “The Red Lion.” “What we really want is a break at that inn.”

  “Wellington Jones! Here Earl is in mortal danger, and all you can think about is eating and drinking!”

  “That's not fair, Heather! I've gone with you all this way. The horses are exhausted. Even your crazy dog is tired out. It's nearly sunset. Why don't we stay here and head off to wherever else in the morning?”

  “Because that may be too late. Come on, it's not far now.”

  “That's what you said before. Isn't this the place you saw?”

  “I saw it, yes. But it's only the first part of the pattern. There's an avenue of stones that leads from here. We follow it to … to wherever it points.”

  “And where is that? ”

  “It's … a place. I don't know for sure. But I have to see the pattern before the light fades, or I might miss it.”

  “Oh, all right, all right. I'm just along as a trusty sword arm. But take it slowly, will you, for the horses at least?”

  As they rode by the Red Lion, Welly gazed longingly at the half-timbered building, looking cozy and welcoming under its thatch. Through a window, he glimpsed a snug little room with low-beamed ceilings and a large fireplace. Then he wrenched his eyes away toward the brooding stones, their shadows stretching long and cold in the late-afternoon sun.

  Soon they rode out of the circle. Before them marched an avenue of stones leading off to the southeast. Right again, Welly thought. Uncanny. He preferred it when Heather talked with horses and sheep, even fell-dogs.

  They followed the double row of stones over a rise and down into a swale. There the markers disappeared.

  “Well, where to now?” Welly asked grouchily.

  “Just follow this bearing as if the stones continued. We'll see it from the top of that rise.”

  Welly sighed wearily, but already Heather was urging her tired horse upward.

  A cold evening wind grated harshly against their faces. At the top of the rise, Welly looked about. To their right was an odd-looking conical hill. He figured that was peculiar enough to be their goal, but when he glanced back to Heather, she was looking straight ahead.

  “There it is. You see that bump? Right on the horizon, a long, low hump.”

  He looked where she was pointing. Barely discernible along a distant ridge was something resembling a raised scar.

  “That? ”

  “Come on.” Riding down into a valley, they passed through the tumbled ruins of a long-empty farmstead. After they had forded a small stream, their way began rising again. When the long mound appeared on the ridge above them, Heather halted her horse.

  “Let's walk from here.”

  Welly groaned. He was too tired to walk an inch. Then guiltily he patted his shaggy horse. The poor beast must feel the same, with far better reason. He slid from the saddle, fixed the reins to a stone post, and trudged up the hill
after Heather and Rus. Grass rustled in the cold breeze, and a lone bird called forlornly from the grayness overhead.

  Ahead of them, the western sky was stained red with sunset. Silhouetted against it, the long mound looked dark and ominous. As they drew closer, Welly could see several large stones looming up sharply at one end. The whole thing seemed extremely unwelcoming.

  Once they'd reached the mound, it was clear that the stones marked some sort of entrance.

  “Are we going in there?” Welly asked dubiously.

  “Of course.”

  “What sort of place is it?”

  “An old tomb, I think.”

  Welly shook his head. “No, Heather, we really don't want to go in there.”

  “It doesn't matter whether we want to or not, we have to.”

  Rus, however, clearly shared Welly's doubts. Sticking his one and a half tails between his legs, he flopped down by the farthest stone and whimpered.

  Ignoring him, Heather walked through a narrow gap in the stones into a small open courtyard. Then, bending down to clear the lintel, she stepped into the dark of the tomb itself. Very reluctantly Welly followed.

  Light filtered through ragged gaps where ceiling stones had fallen through, but it failed to penetrate the blackness of several chambers that branched off from the main passage. Welly was relieved when Heather passed these by.

  The passage itself was narrow and low. Its stone walls felt cold as death, and the chill air smelled of earth and damp decay. The mass of rock and soil above seemed to weigh heavily down on them. Despite the bone-numbing cold, Welly felt sweat break out all over him. He wanted fervently to be elsewhere. Abruptly the passage ended, much sooner than the length of the mound had suggested.

  The final chamber was small and round. On its earthen floor lay a large flat stone. A hole in the roof let in a thin mist of light. By it they saw a black lump on the stone.

  “There's nothing in here,” Welly said anxiously, feeling very much that there was something in there. “Let's go.”

  “No, wait. What is this?” Heather knelt down and examined the black thing. She reached out her hand, but then drew it back. “Why, it's a piece of charred wood.”