Excitedly the dog jumped about; then, smelling the ground, he suddenly shot off down the hill. Fur coat flying and sword banging against his leg, Merlin raced after him.
They ran over the grass, then cut to the right, following winding paths among a forest of trees. Merlin wanted to stop and look around, but more than that he wanted to see Heather. She hadn't written that note! She'd wanted to help him, not leave him! He paid no attention to the startled looks that swept them as they raced past.
Rus slowed when they came out into a lane. His long nails clicked on the unfamiliar pavement. Nose down, he moved steadily along. A startled yellow cat bristled at him from atop a wall, but the dog spared it only a passing snarl. The noise of traffic grew until they reached a large busy street.
Suddenly a distant wailing rose and filled the air. Rus sat back and howled with both throats, visible and invisible. Puzzled, Merlin looked about. Then he caught something of the fear and urgency swirling around them.
“Go on, Rus, find them. Hurry!”
The dog took off down the sidewalk and Merlin followed, dodging around rushing, panicky people. They crossed another street, and then he saw them. Standing like an island in a sea of chaos, Heather and Welly huddled together against a building, fear and hopelessness written on their faces.
Rushing madly toward them, Merlin grabbed Heather in his arms and kissed her on her chocolate-smeared mouth.
Welly looked on in happy surprise. “Well, it's about time you did that.” Suddenly he sobered. “But it's not the right time—the world's about to blow up!”
Merlin looked at him, confused.
“The Devastation!” the younger boy yelled over the noise of people and sirens. “Morgan sent us back to the day it began!”
“And this is London!” Heather added, clutching his arm.
Realization dawned on Merlin. “Of course, a way to really destroy me.” His look of horror slid into excitement. “But no … the crack in time. Her ‘army of the dead.’ From here, of course! The dead of the Devastation! The crack she created will still be open for them.”
Urgently he grabbed Heather's shoulders. “Heather, the new power, the new magic … If we can use it, we have a chance. Hurry, back to the tree! The opening must be there.”
“How?” Welly protested. “We don't know where—”
“Rus does. Follow him!”
Crazily the three pelted after the dog. Everyone else, intent on their own panic, ignored them. Sirens wailed on and on throughout the vast city. The park was nearly deserted as they ran, gasping, up the hill.
Suddenly Heather slowed. Looking up, she scanned the blue sky. A graceful white gull soared overhead.
“Earl! The vision I saw at the Keswick stone circle. I just realized … This is the City! Look, there's the bird!”
He turned back and grabbed her arm. “Of course, yes. Your vision.” He pulled her after him. “Then use it, Heather! Use the new power. Focus through that bird, the dog, the tree, through every living thing around.”
“But you … you haven't your staff.”
“But I have you!” His smile shone. “I'll focus through you and Welly … and through Arthur. Arthur back there needs us desperately. Now, quick, grab Welly's hand. Welly, hold Rus.”
They flung themselves against the rough bark of the tree. As Merlin chanted phrases beside her, Heather felt the touch of his love and his power, new and strong as she had never felt it before. Reaching into new depths of her own, she let her power rise through her, stretching out to the others, binding them in strength and need. Visions of their time, their King, and each other formed in their minds.
Suddenly around them the sirens stopped. All sound stopped. A blinding whiteness filled the world, and a searing heat. Its horrible power slammed behind theirs as they hurtled through time.
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
The army led by Arthur Pendragon was nearing its goal. It had not been an easy matter, arriving where they were. The order to abandon their strategic position had been hard for some of the allied leaders to accept, particularly on the word of a demented boy wizard brought by a scuffling one-eared troll.
But to Arthur's surprise, Margaret of the Scots had been Arthur's staunchest supporter. “If that skinny kid says we must do something,” the Queen had said, “and Arthur believes him, then we must do it. This King Arthur of ours has led us through a good many improbable situations already. I, for one, am ready to follow him to the ends of the earth.”
Arthur treasured that statement and what it reflected. In the end, the others had agreed with her. And now, shadowed by forces out of Faerie, they followed behind him toward the site of ancient London. But as they rode on, their route became more and more daunting.
At first there were the usual abandoned buildings. Then there were ruins that seemed to come from more than neglect, empty stone shells and buildings that lifted only twisted metal skeletons to the sky. Finally there were no ruins at all, only an empty glassy plain. Ghosts of snow twisted and whispered dryly across its surface.
Londinium, Arthur thought sadly. A sleepy little town on the River Thames, then later, it seemed, the capital of a great nation. If there was anything left of even that river now, it was the faint dry scar that seamed the desolate plain below them. On a hollow wind, snow blew across the wasteland like drifting sand.
It was almost with relief that they saw Morgan's army approaching. Any life and promise of action was better than this. The enemy poured over the plain in a black wave, while the armies of the West and North watched and felt relief turn into growing uneasiness.
Arthur squinted against the glare of snow and patches of mirror-like earth. Of the human warriors marching toward them, most, he imagined, were not volunteers. Once Morgan's forces won a land, the locals had little choice but to do her bidding. But it was the other soldiers who were more worrisome. There were mutants from beyond the Channel, and most chilling of all were the allies from beyond this world. Arthur had never seen their like in such numbers. For his own army, bred in a different age, he knew this must be unimagined nightmare.
He looked to his right, smiling encouragement at Margaret. Grimly she returned his smile, her face unusually pale against her crown of red hair. Sighing to himself, Arthur wished that Merlin rode at his other side. It wasn't the magic he needed so much as the well-tested companionship and counsel. But he could spare little time at present to wonder about his friend. A battle lay at hand, a decisive battle. The King needed no prophecy to see that.
As the enemy neared, their ranks parted and one rider came forward, halting on a bare rise. Black hair blew about her shoulders, and her restive mount hissed and pawed the hard earth with its claws. The woman's voice rang powerfully over the shifting silence.
“Arthur Pendragon. After two thousand years, we meet again. It was very thoughtful of you to come this far to meet me, but hardly necessary. You could have lost this battle just as well where you were.”
“I have no intention of losing this time, Morgan.”
“But you will, just the same. Your army is large, but it can never equal mine. You haven't even your pathetic little wizard with you. Of course, you are right; you need not lose. You could join with me. We could conquer the rest of this wretched world together. Think of it, you as High King again, and I as your Queen. You don't need that red-haired Scottish harpy any longer.”
Beside him, Queen Margaret snarled and hurled her war spear toward the enemy. Arthur laughed heartily. “This is a queen after my own heart. You have your answer, Morgan.” He turned in his saddle. “Sound the charge!”
Trumpets, horses, and the battle cries of men and nonmen—the sound of warfare broke out on the long-dead and silent plain.
But Morgan did not engage in the fighting. Instead, she clothed herself in flame and power and worked a terrible invocation. Dragging forth power long prepared, she reached back into time to a day of empty horror, to a day when this plain was peopled neither with warriors nor wit
h city dwellers, but with the restless spirits of countless newly dead. She called forth these spirits. Held by power and their own aimless misery, they came.
Amid Arthur's army, a gray cloud began to swirl. It formed into shapes hardly more solid than mist. Images of death—creatures seared into ashes, vaporized into shadows on a wall. Into the midst of living warriors came specters whose skin hung off them in rags, whose bodies were blistered like scorched meat, whose hollow eyes ran with blood.
They floated by in anguished, unspeaking torment, and the living around them went mad with fear. Brave warriors threw down their weapons and ran. Horses twisted under their riders and stampeded off. Even among those from Faerie, many quailed and slipped away like smoke.
Those around Arthur tried to hold their ground, but fear rose in a choking cloud, gripping both horses and riders. Some closed their eyes and huddled together. Squealing, Troll rolled on the ground, throwing hairy arms over his head.
Suddenly there was a deafening crack, as if the world had split open. Three young people and a dog stood before them, beside a stump of charred wood. Overhead, a black crow screamed and flew off over a plain that was littered with fear-stunned bodies.
Merlin leaped forward. Above the moaning and wailing he shouted, “Morgan, go! You are defeated! The spirits of once-living people cannot be our enemy now. It is things we fight against!” Chanting, he thrust his arms into the air. “By the power of human pity, I send these spirits back to their rest!”
The gray shapes churned and thinned like windblown smoke. Morgan shrieked in fury, then cried out, “You cannot win, Merlin! In the end, your side will lose as it has before.”
“Perhaps, but I think not. The world has changed, Morgan. And now I would have it change more!”
Turning, he strode back to the tree stump and raised his voice so it echoed over the plain. “You opened a crack, Morgan Le Fay. Now I call through it other things. I call forth the picture of our real enemy, a vision of soulless things gone mad. May its image burn into every soul here, and through them onto the furthest generation! And I call forth, too, the human cry of its victims. May its echoes haunt mankind for all eternity!” He stomped a foot down on the charred wood.
It seemed that heat filled the plain, as if a giant oven had been flung open. There came a concussion of sound like the scream of dying suns, and with it came millions of screams from severed lives. Blinding light burst upon them, searing into the very cells of their bodies. The memory of what had been and what could be again was sealed there forever.
A cold wind of their own world revived them at last. People staggered to their feet, all military order gone. Morgan had fled, and her followers, shaken and abandoned, were slinking away.
The soldiers of the West and North, seeing their leaders still among them, rallied to the Lion and Dragon banners snapping in the cold, clean wind. All were subdued and quiet.
Arthur Pendragon surveyed the field, then turned to his oldest friend. “Even as a vision, that weapon and its effects …” He broke off, struggling to control a new wave of shuddering. Then grimly he smiled at Merlin. “But still, you saved us, old wizard. Now will you finally prophesy for us? Is Morgan gone for good? By what you have done, will we finally live in peace?”
Merlin put a hand on the King's shoulder. “Arthur, you were always a dreamer. No, Morgan or others like her will surely be back. And as for peace … we are dealing with human beings, creatures that fight among themselves and want what the other has. Changing that will not be easy. Though with this new sort of power, there may be some hope.”
The wizard looked at the crowd growing around them. He grinned at Troll's bouncy greeting, then jumped onto the old charred stump. “But here I will prophesy. The nature of humankind may linger, but the memory of this ultimate horror will be carried with each of us as well. By the new powers, it is sealed in every one of the thousands who were here today, friend and foe alike. Their descendants will carry it in their bodies and spread it, a racial memory to pass on for all time.
“Perhaps people will still fight and make weapons, but this one scorching memory may turn them back from that final horror. They may gallop wildly down the same road, but now, perhaps, they will turn aside before the precipice. And, Arthur, perhaps this time you and your queen can lay foundations for a world that will not topple. There is strong, new, human power in today's magic. We can use it to build a world of hope.
“There! You wanted prophecy, and you have it!”
Laughing, the wizard spun around and pointed at Kyle the harper. “Now make that into a song if you will, a song to ring through time. But don't forget the verse about how this world's sorcerers—and sorceresses—are human, too, and will be part of the new world as well!”
He stepped down from the stump and hesitantly reached out a hand to Heather. Running to him, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him joyfully. Then she drew back.
“Earl Bedwas, I thought so! Or perhaps I should start calling you Aged Merlin.”
“Huh? ”
“It's just that I do believe you are finally growing a beard!”
Startled, he raised a hand to his slightly scratchy chin. “Well, it's about time!”
PAMELA F. SERVICE grew up in Berkeley, California, and spent three years in England studying archaeology. She, her husband, Bob, and their daughter, Alex, lived for years in Bloomington, Indiana, where Pam worked as a museum curator, served on the city council, and wrote. Now back in California, she has published over twenty children's books, works as a museum director in Eureka, acts in community theater, and is still writing. She is delighted to have a couple of her earliest and favorite books available again.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Pamela F. Service
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Children's Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE AND colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Service, Pamela F.
Tomorrow's magic / Pamela F Service. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
SUMMARY: Two novels in which a young, resurrected Merlin and two friends attempt
to bring King Arthur back to Britain, then struggle against
the evil plots of Morgan Le Fay to build a new and better
civilization in the wake of a nuclear holocaust.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49833-5
1. Merlin (Legendary character)—Juvenile fiction. [1. Merlin (Legendary character)—
Fiction. 2. Arthur, King—Fiction. 3. Morgan le Fay (Legendary character)—Fiction.
4. Wizards—Fiction. 5. Fantasy] I. Title.
PZ7.S4885Tom 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2006016131
v3.0
Tomorrow's Magic Page 36