Earth's Magic (25 page)

F
lames chortled greedily, ready to consume the falling dragon and his passenger. Frantically, Sil thrummed his wings, pulled awkwardly out of his dive, and shot forward. He twisted and turned, dodging the grasping arms of flame. Then he clapped wings to his side, sliced through a wall of smoke, and shot into a dark, rocky cleft.

Skidding on his belly over the floor of the narrow passage, Sil finally came to a dust-clouded stop. Merlin tumbled off and lay beside him on the rocky ground. With a rumble, that ground shook—as did the rock walls and ceiling. Rock avalanched over the mouth of the passage, sealing the opening from the mortal world.

“Impressive,” a voice growled behind them.

Merlin struggled to sit up. There was fire, but it came only from a torch gripped in Apedemek’s hand. “Get up and keep moving,” the lion god ordered.

“Not yet,” Merlin gasped. “Sil here is hurt. Scraped and burned.”

“No time for healing,” Apedemek growled. “Carry him.” With that, he wove his clawed hands through the air, and the dragon shrank, not as far as he had before, but to something the
size of a kitten. Gently Merlin picked him up and tucked him into a fold of his tunic.

“Hurry,” the lion man said, and strode off down the corridor.

Anxiously, Merlin followed. Again, the trip seemed timeless, but deep within himself now, Merlin was acutely aware of time. In the mortal world, the Summer Solstice must nearly have arrived. The words that he carried, if they were to do any good, must be delivered soon.

At last, the rocky passageway cut through the reeking bat cave, then broke into the harsh sunlight of Apedemek’s Otherworld. Light glared off sparkling sand; treeless mountains rose against a sharply blue sky. Shy desert-colored animals poked about for grass or rested in the shade of squat stone temples. The creatures looked up curiously as they jogged past, then turned away.

After a long, hot trek, they reached a cliff, its sheer stone face rising like an impenetrable wall. Pulling out one of his swords, Apedemek brought it ringing down against the rock. A narrow cleft split open. The lion-headed man shouldered his way through, igniting his torch again. Thankful to be out of the blazing sun, Merlin followed.

As they hurried along another endless-seeming dark corridor, Merlin felt a squirming in the sling he’d devised from his tunic. “Hey, dragons are good self-healers,” a small voice squeaked. “I’m fine now. Put me down!”

“Glad you’re better,” Merlin answered. “But how about riding on my shoulder? You could get trod on in the dark.”

Before they even reached the end of the passageway, Merlin could sense a change. When they had approached this Otherworld before, birdsong and the fragrance of incense had floated down the corridor. Now there came screams and the sounds of battle.

They emerged into the great pillared hall to see animals and animal-headed people locked in hand-to-hand combat. Huge purple scorpions battled with giant iridescent beetles. A monstrous crocodile lunged at a cow wearing a moon crown. A woman with a cat head clashed swords with a man whose head was that of a jackal.

As they surveyed the scene, they saw another woman, of sorts, waddling toward them. Merlin looked at the large head and with a jolt recognized something from an old picture book.
Hippopotamus
was the ridiculous name, and the creature seemed equally ridiculous. Bulbous head, tiny ears, and a wide mouth filled with stubby teeth. But this one walked on its hind legs and had the huge belly and pendulous breasts of a very pregnant woman.

She snorted as she drew near. “Hey, you, lion guy. Go help fight. Horus looks busy grappling with Set over there. I’m no fighter, so I’ll guide. Hawk boy, my name’s Tawert. Follow me. And hurry!”

For a moment, Merlin felt torn. He almost wanted to stay and help. These people who had helped him were under threat. But his powers were not much good in an Otherworld, and he knew his real battle lay ahead. Apedemek turned toward him, golden lion eyes glaring into his. Then the ancient deity nodded, gave a vast toothy smile, and shoved Merlin toward Tawert. Roaring thunderously, the lion god drew out both his swords and charged into the battle.

Merlin turned and followed the hippopotamus woman. Astonished at how fast his clumsy-looking guide could travel, he broke into a trot, with Sil galloping behind.

The air was thick with smoke. Wavering torchlight cast grotesque fighting shadows on walls painted with peaceful country scenes. Merlin jumped aside as a pair of venomous-looking
black snakes suddenly dropped from a pillar and slithered toward him over the mosaic floor. With a roar, Tawert charged back and quickly stomped the reptiles into mush. Then she grabbed Merlin’s arm and dragged him along until they ducked through a small, dark doorway and into the interworld corridor again.

This time, they didn’t take any shortcuts. As they raced past the entrances to several of the Otherworlds, Merlin glimpsed turmoil and fighting in there as well and realized shortcuts would not be short. The long route passed through narrow tunnels, wide caves, and along fearsome ledges. It crossed a deep chasm on a treacherous swinging bridge that Merlin knew they had missed the first time. And again the journey seemed timeless, except that his own tense inner clock warned Merlin they were not moving fast enough.

Tawert seemed to feel that as well. Just after threading a maze of hummocks across a bubbling swamp, she turned to him and complained, “Can’t you move
any faster?”

By now he was panting, and every muscle ached. Kitten-sized Sil had long since given up running and had clambered onto his shoulder “I could turn myself into a hawk,” he conceded. “But I think my wings would be almost too tired to lift me.”

She snorted. “You mortals are hopeless!” With that, she reached down, grabbed him around the knees, and threw him over her shoulder like a sack. He yelled in protest, and Sil fluttered frantically off his shoulder and landed on Tawert’s head. But the goddess kept charging down the corridor as if her new passengers weighed nothing.

Bumping along, hanging upside down, the only thing Merlin could think of, besides his immediate discomfort, was to hope that no one would ever see the great wizard Merlin being carried like a sack of potatoes on the back of a pregnant
hippopotamus. The thought struck him as so absurd, and he was so tired, that he began to giggle. With difficulty, he shut himself up, but he was so exhausted he finally slipped into a miserable sleep.

That abruptly ended when Tawert skidded to a halt and unceremoniously dumped Merlin back onto his feet. “I don’t like this,” she whispered. “We are close to the end, but something here feels very wrong.” She plucked Sil off her head and dropped him onto the floor. “Lizard, get big again. We’re going to need some protection.”

Instantly Merlin was alert. He didn’t see any danger, but he certainly felt what Tawert did. Something very dark was rolling their way, like a flash flood of evil. And it wasn’t moving down the corridor toward them. It seemed to be pulsing closer through the solid rock.

Suddenly the rock wall beside them seemed to thin and melt as if it were wax confronting flame. Cold, dark fog poured out of the gap, surrounding them with a miasma of hopelessness.

A deep, sepulchral voice seeped around them. “You may not pass until I take what I need.”

Tawert’s voice quavered slightly under its growl. “Who are you to detain a goddess of most ancient Egypt?”

“One as old as you and infinitely more powerful. You and the dragon may go on your way. I take only the human.”

The fog swirling around him tightened into clutching hands, and Merlin was suddenly yanked through the once-solid wall. The opening slammed shut behind him, giving Merlin only the briefest glimpse of two astonished faces, one dragon and one hippo.

Impossibly, he seemed to be dragged through solid rock, until every molecule in his body ached with cold and fear. Then abruptly he was through the rock and standing in a vast cavern,
its mossy walls glowing a corpselike blue. Vapor swirled around him, then slowly drew away and coalesced into a dark shape. The eyes appeared first, black and deep, then came a long, pale face framed in black hair and beard. The robes were long and black as well and kept wavering insubstantially like smoke from a funeral pyre.

Merlin felt awe and fear but most of all—anger. Without being told, he knew who this person was. Arawn. Lord of the Dead. Someone who had condemned his own son to millennia of imprisonment. Grandfather.

The dark figure scowled at Merlin. “Boy, you have been tracked. You have gone places no mortal should, meddling in matters that should not concern you.”

The voice was chill as the tomb. Merlin’s simmering anger overcame his fear. “On the contrary, Lord Arawn, they do concern me. They concern every creature on this world. And every moment you delay me here, the closer that world spins toward destruction.”

Arawn’s eyes flared with anger of his own. “Your presumption is laughable, boy. I have little to do these days with the mortal world, except to rake in souls once they leave it. Perhaps you, whoever you are, may think that you can make some sort of difference—the way young, arrogant fools often do. But do not be deceived. I have absolute dominion in my world, and that dominion will soon expand. Nothing, least of all a meddlesome brat just growing his first beard, can prevent that.”

Merlin knew he was fencing with death yet kept speaking. “But you’re afraid that I
can
prevent it, aren’t you? It’s the same fear that once drove you to renounce your own son, to abandon the woman who loved you, and retreat to your dark, joyless domain. Don’t you see? The victory that you think you want will actually
fulfill
the prophecy you fear so much.”

Arawn’s eyes blazed with cold fire, and he raised his hand menacingly.

“No, hear me out!” Merlin shouted. “Once tipped totally out of balance with one side crushing the other, this world will fall into utter destruction. Your domain of Annwyn, your Lady’s land of Avalon, and all worlds, mortal and immortal, will die—a death beyond even your control.”

Arawn’s expression flowed between fury and confusion. “How can you …? Who are you to …? The prophecy! What can you know of it?” Angrily, he turned and paced across the cavern, black robes churning like volcanic smoke. He was yelling now but more to himself than to Merlin. “I knew it! I sensed that my son had been freed—that the key might yet be used. But how? His mother was bound against freeing him. That
geis
was unbreakable.” He swung back to face Merlin. “If she did free him, I will see to it that every glowing blade of Avalon’s grass withers, that every—”

“No!” Merlin thundered, his voice almost equaling Arawn’s own.
“She
did not free your son.
I
did. And it was not he who worked the key. He gave it to
me
. I have used it. And your letting me go now is the only hope for saving Earth, Avalon, and all the rest—even Annwyn.”

Lunging forward, Arawn grabbed Merlin by the throat and glared down at him. “Impudent, meddling boy! Who are you?”

The Lord of Death’s cold grip on Merlin’s throat choked off any possible answer. But another voice answered for him.

“Oh, Arawn, my love, don’t you see your face in his?” The gentle voice suddenly ringing in the cavern caused the dark god to drop Merlin and spin around. The Lady of Avalon stood in a ring of golden light that seemed to have melted a patch of cave wall.

“You are still a striking man,” she continued softly. “And so is he, your grandson.”

Arawn stood speechless, looking back and forth between the Lady and Merlin. She stepped fully into the cavern, trailing light behind her. “You bound me not to tell of our boy’s whereabouts, and I did not. But in declaring that only one who shared your blood could free him, you did not realize that your son might have a son of his own. Now Merlin, that very son, holds the key and the secrets it unlocked. Free him to use them.”

“And to destroy my world?” Arawn shouted.

The Lady stepped closer, putting a hand on his arm. He flinched but did not pull away. “No, to unite our worlds again. We two were once united, though even then, we still remained separate, different. The world can be like that again. Full of differences but balanced. Oh, some of us who consider ourselves nearly gods may have to be content with what we once were—spirits of place, of the Earth. But we could be at peace again.”

Expressions moved and changed across Arawn’s face with the swiftness of cloud shadows. “Yes, those were simpler times, but times long gone. Forget them! Change has come and continues. It cannot be reversed.”

“It can be. And if that change is
not
reversed,” she argued, “if that imbalance is not set right, then all of our worlds will collapse. That prophecy you feared, remember the wording? It talked about ending your
dominion
. Don’t you see? It didn’t mean your dark realm. It meant the
domination
of the dark over the light, tipping the balance into oblivion.”

Frowning, Arawn slowly reached to touch the Lady, placing a large, battle-scarred hand over her small, delicate one. “But how can there be—”

“Will you two ever stop talking?” a new voice snapped through the cave. They all turned to stare at three women who
were suddenly standing in the middle of the chamber, a pocket of cold mist churning around them.

The oldest of the three women hobbled forward. “It’s the Summer Solstice already! Battles are bursting out all over the world. And while you all natter and philosophize, fates are being decided that you might not like. Let this boy get on with it, will you? He may win; he may lose. We’re not prophesying on that one. Old as we are, we know our limits. But let me tell you both, the fate of the worlds will be woven or unwoven from the threads that this boy, your grandson, holds.”

Merlin turned. He and his grandfather locked eyes. The god’s expression was as cold and fixed as ice. But slowly his mouth twitched in a grim, lopsided smile. “Then I will not interfere. I leave him to his fate—and to ours. Go!”

Screeching like ravens over a corpse, the three women pranced forward, bringing the fog with them. Chanting, they began dancing faster and faster around Merlin. Their spinning-shuffling swirl slowly spun itself into spiraling mist. This coalesced into a glowing tunnel, and Merlin found himself falling down it. He didn’t slow, couldn’t slow although he was racing toward a rock wall. He burst through the rock as if it were thin glass and found himself sprawling on a field of dry, trampled grass.