The End of Magic (11 page)

As he fretted, Mab finally appeared, leading Mordred by the hand.

“Careful, my dear. The steps are very slippery.” The Queen of the Old Ways looked almost radiant in steel-grey and violet.
A dark bride for a black honeymoon, and woe to Britain when it was over!

“Where are we going?” Mordred asked eagerly. In the dim afternoon light there was a gloating sensuality about his sullen beautiful
features that made Frik shudder inwardly. Was it possible that he had once been as Mordred was now—heartless, sadistic? He
pushed the thought away. It was not wise to be distracted around Mab.

“To my land, the Land of Magic,” Mab answered happily.

“Can I create monsters?” Mordred instantly demanded.

“Oh… if you wish,” Mab said.

“You’re so good to me, Auntie.”

Come on, come on!
Frik thought. Why were they wasting time chattering when he needed them to mount up and ride off before Morgan noticed they
were leaving and made one of her scenes?

But Mab could never bear to waste an opportunity to educate her protégé. Even now, she paused on the landing to explain herself
to Mordred as she never had to Frik.

“It won’t be all fun and games. Arthur’s coming back—”

“Ah,” Mordred interrupted.

“—and there are things I have to teach you,” Mab said proudly.

“Is Mother coming?” Mordred asked.

“No,” Mab said. “We don’t need her anymore.”

They were almost at the horses. Frik trembled inwardly with apprehension, lest Mab should suspect his inner thoughts and punish
him for them. And in that moment, his luck ran out.

“Mab!”

Morgan appeared in the doorway at the top of the steps just as Mab and Mordred reached the bottom. She was wearing her green
gown with the crushed velvet over-robe—the one Frik liked best—and her beautiful features were contorted with innocent annoyance.

“Where are you taking my son?” she demanded obliviously.

“It’s time,” Mab said simply.

“Without a word? Without a by-your-leave?” Morgan was very conscious of the royal blood that flowed in her veins—her late
father Gorlois, like Lord Lot and his son Gawain, stood almost as near to the throne as the King himself—and liked to receive
the deference due to the mother of the future King. Mab was not handling her at all well.

But then, Mab didn’t care about handling people.

“I have to make him ready,” Mab said, with what passed in her for patience.

“You’re not taking him. He’s my son!” Morgan snapped.

Blissfully self-obsessed, Morgan had never understood Mab’s true nature. If she had—if she had been less self-centered—she
would have retreated now. But Morgan was who she was, and it simply did not occur to her after all these years that anyone
would treat her with less than the deference to which she had become accustomed.

Frik watched it all, frozen in horror, not knowing what to do. Interfering would only make matters worse.

“He’s mine!” Mab flared, turning on Morgan.

“I gave him love! You gave him toys!” Mordred’s mother shot back.

From the expression on her face, Morgan was belatedly coming to realize that having Mab for a fairy godmother might have been
a bad idea; that perhaps Mordred’s childhood should have been arranged differently. But Morgan herself had been little more
than a neglected child when Frik came into her life. She had never had the chance to develop the wisdom and maturity that
could have saved her and her son.

“I gave him life!” Mab raged, and Frik hesitated, desperately torn between wanting somehow to save Morgan—and to save himself
from Mab’s wrath. Then Morgan took the decision out of his hands.

“I’m never letting him go!” she said furiously, and took a step forward.

There was a tiny swirl of magic. And Morgan slipped, fell, rolled down the stairs and over the edge of the landing, to drop
with crushing force to the flagstones of the courtyard.

“No!” Frik cried in horror.

“That was very clever, Auntie.”

Mordred’s voice came distantly to Frik’s ears as he ran to Morgan and knelt beside her, gazing into her face. Unconcerned,
Mordred led Mab past Frik and the dying Morgan, heading toward the horses.

“My love, my love,” Frik said helplessly, cradling Morgan in his arms. She was dying, and as life left her battered body,
the fairy glamour he had cast over her years before left her as well, leaving her plain and ugly and dressed in rags.

“Frik, my love, am I still beautiful?” Morgan asked painfully.

“Oh yes,” Frik said honestly. He did not care what Morgan looked like. He loved her with all his heart. “Beyond words, my
love.”

He felt a tingle as Mab wrenched away the dashing illusion of handsomeness he had worn for so long, and though he tried, he
could not keep himself from asking: “Am I?”

“Oh, yes,” Morgan assured him, gazing clear-eyed into her lover’s face. “Beyond words.…”

Gently Frik bent to kiss her one last time, and as he did, he felt the spirit leave her body, carrying Morgan le Fay where
he could never go, to a land where she would always be young and beautiful and loved.

She was dead.

Fury filled him, blotting out fear and self-preservation for the first time in the uncounted centuries of his existence. He
got to his feet and turned toward Mab, shaking with rage and grief.

“You killed her!” he shouted.

“Perhaps she just slipped,” Mab said archly. Mordred had just assisted her into the saddle and now turned away to mount his
own steed. She could not conceal her pleasure that the day she had waited so long for had come, and Morgan’s death did nothing
to diminish her happiness.

“In any case, what does it matter, Frik? You’re holding us up. We have a lot to do,” she said impatiently. No vestige of human
emotion was present on Mab’s porcelain countenance.

“Mab, you evil old crone! May God have mercy on your soul! He obviously didn’t have any on the rest of you!” Frik raged.

“Why is everyone suddenly against me?” she said plaintively, and shrugged, coming to a quick decision. “Frik, I’m leaving
you with your misery and pain—but with no more magic powers! Now you’ll wander through the world ugly and alone, just as if
you were human.”

She turned her horse toward the gate.

“Good-bye, Frik, I’ll miss you,” Mordred said good-naturedly. “No I won’t,” he added with a mocking grin, and urged his horse
after Mab’s. “Why didn’t you kill him, Auntie Mab?” Mordred asked. Frik could hear his voice quite plainly.

“Because that’s what he wanted me to do,” Mab answered.

Frik stood in the courtyard beside Morgan’s body, watching them go. The two riders vanished into the mist, still talking.
And then even their voices were gone, and he was alone.

For centuries he had followed Mab’s orders and played his own cruel games without thinking—without caring—about the pain they
had caused. He had felt a little sorry for Merlin when the boy had been his pupil, it was true, but he had done nothing to
help him when he should have. And so, in the end, Frik had been unable to protect Morgan, the woman he loved.

Frik sank down beside her body and wailed his grief.

Enchantment had been all that held Tintagel together for years, and now that the magic was gone it took everything with it.
The servants reverted to mice and rabbits and gulls, the fine furniture to driftwood and sea-wrack, and all of Morgan’s toys
and jewels to bits of colored glass and silver paper. Her fine gowns vanished as though they’d never been, and when everything
else had vanished, even the walls and roof began to crumble, rotting away with the neglect that magic had concealed.

And as the castle crumbled away, the sea-mist thickened, and for the first time in many long years, it began to rain.

The rain soaked Frik to the bone, chilling him and making him aware of just how helpless and ridiculous a figure he presented.
Even his grief and anger could not distract him from his own discomfort, and at last he got stiffly to his feet, gathered
up Morgan’s chill body, and made his way slowly up the stairs once more.

At the top he looked down, longingly, at the stones of the courtyard. He was mortal now. How sweet it would be to fling himself
down from here and gain sweet and eternal peace.

But no.

There was something he must do first. He did not know how he would manage, when those more powerful and more clever had failed,
but Frik vowed that before he died he would see Mab utterly defeated.

He carried Morgan inside, and spent the rest of the day collecting enough wood from the wrecked remains of the furniture to
build her a funeral pyre in the center of the Great Hall. There were still scraps of bread and cheese about—for no matter
what else had been illusion, the food had been real—and Frik made a meager meal before settling in to keep vigil beside Morgan’s
body. Most of the roof of the Great Hall had crumbled away, but there was enough left to shelter him.

He wished for so many things that night. He wished he had been a better person when he’d had the chance. He wished he’d helped
Merlin more when he’d had the power. He wished he’d been clever enough to know that this day would come, and to somehow spirit
Morgan away when there was still time.

He wished he’d never met Queen Mab at all.

The folk of Fairy do not cry as mortalkind understands the word. Their tears are shed for malice, or magic. But Frik wept
now, understanding the impossibility of gaining the only thing he had left to desire. How could one de-magic’d gnome destroy
the Queen of the Old Ways? Merlin had magic—a considerable amount of it, in fact—and he had never managed to defeat her. Though
Frik felt this latest plan of hers would only end in disaster, he was quite certain that Mab would come out of it all right.

And that was something he found unbearable.

When morning came, Frik found flint and steel and kindled Morgan’s funeral pyre. Fire was the simplest magic, but even that
was beyond him now. When the pyre was burning brightly, he turned and walked out of Tintagel for the last time.

By the time he reached the causeway the fire had begun to spread, for Tintagel, like most castles, contained as much timber
as stone. When the fire had consumed all it could, all that would be left was a tumble of old stones, with no one to say what
they were or who had once lived here.

Turning his back on the flames, Frik walked on, his mind fixed on Mab’s destruction.

There must be a way.

He would find it.

With time.

M
ab and Mordred rode away from Tintagel, and as they went, Mordred slowly became aware of things around him that he had never
seen before. There were tiny winged women who flitted through the air around him, clad only in a bright rainbow of colored
lights, gnarled old dwarves in green coats and red caps who crouched by the roots of trees and watched them ride by. Even
the horses were transformed, until Mab rode a shining silver mare and Mordred rode a gleaming black stallion.

At last he was going to the Land of Magic. There Mab would give him the gifts she had always promised him, the gifts that
would enable him to destroy his father and all his father’s works.

Around the two riders the land slowly changed from the tree-dotted green fields of Cornwall to rolling hills covered with
white trefoil blossoms and pale heather. The sky was the silvery grey of mist, and though Mordred looked carefully, he could
see no brighter spot where the sun might be shining beyond the mist. The only sparks of color came from the flying sprites.
Mordred swatted at one that flew too close, and was pleased to feel his hand connect solidly with the tiny body. He heard
its thin wail as it sailed through the air to land heavily against the ground.

“Now Mordred,” Mab said, “you mustn’t be rude. These will be your subjects someday.”

“If they’re to be my subjects, then that means I may do just as I like with them,” Mordred said logically. But the sprites
steered clear of him for the rest of the ride.

Soon they reached a place where an immense stone henge had been erected, gigantic pillars of pale granite set in a ring, with
stone lintels laid across them so that the structure resembled nothing so much as an enormous ring of cyclopean doorways leading
to unknown destinations.

“This is the way into the Land of Magic,” Mab said proudly.

She gestured, and the doorways filled with rainbow fire. Through them, Mordred could see visions—of marching armies, of strange
weapons, of machines that flew through the sky spewing fire.

War.

He liked it.

Mordred smiled. “Which door shall we choose, Auntie?” he asked eagerly.

Mab did not answer, but rode forward, through a door that showed Romans fending off blue-painted savages who fought with clubs
and spears. Mordred eagerly spurred his own horse after her, but once he had ridden through the gate, the warriors vanished.

Mordred stood beside Mab in the center of a silver path that arced through a vast cavern. He could hear the sound of water
lapping somewhere far below, but the cave was so dark that he could not see it. All around him, the walls glittered with a
dull crystalline shine, and in the distance he could hear a faint chiming.

This is rather disappointing,
Mordred thought privately. Frankly, he’d been expecting something more impressive than a cave.

“I have brought you Mordred!” Mab cried, throwing her arms wide. Her shout echoed through the vast cavern. “Come, Mordred.
We have much to do.”

She took his hand, and suddenly the two of them were in a completely different place.
This is more like it,
Mordred thought. The room had a fireplace, a table, and chairs, but what it had most of was books, large dusty impressive-looking
tomes that probably contained all manner of vile spells. Mab ripped through them with her customary destructiveness, flinging
them from the shelves and tossing them aside as she searched for a particular object.