The Lost Years (34 page)

Concentrating hard, I heaved, calling on all the powers within me. Perspiration slid down my brow, stinging my sightless eyes. At last, the slab budged just a little, though not enough to free Stangmar.

Before I could try again, the floor burst open. The two of us tumbled into the darkness below, amidst the rising roar of the castle’s final collapse.

All at once something broke our fall. Stangmar and I rolled together in a heap. At first I had no idea what had caught us, except that it was far softer than stone. Then, as the light from the giants’ torches returned, I viewed the ruins of the castle below us, as well as a familiar face above us. And I understood.

“I catches you!” crowed Shim. “It’s a goodly thing I has two hands!”

“Yes,” I replied, sitting in the center of his palm. “A goodly thing.”

The giant’s enormous mouth frowned. “The wickedly king is with you.” He roared with rage, “I will eats him!”

A look of terror filled Stangmar’s face.

“Wait,” I cried. “Let us imprison him, not kill him.”

Stangmar gazed at me with astonishment.

Shim growled again, scrunching his mountainous nose with displeasure. “But he is bad! Completely, totally, horribly bad.”

“That may be true,” I replied. “But he is also my father.” I turned and looked into the dark eyes of the man beside me. “And there was a time, long ago, when he liked to climb trees. Sometimes just to ride out a storm.”

Stangmar’s eyes seemed to soften ever so slightly, as if my words had cut almost as deep as the blade of Deepercut. Then he turned away.

Shim set us down on a knoll of dry grass at the edge of the hill where the Shrouded Castle once stood so formidably. Then he stepped away, the ground shaking under his weight. I watched him sit down, propping his back against the hillside. He stretched his immense arms and gave a loud yawn, though not so loud as the snore that I knew would soon come.

Seeing Rhia nearby, I left the crumpled form of Stangmar to join her. She stood looking westward, beyond the castle ruins, toward a faint line of green on the distant horizon.

Hearing the crunch of my footsteps, she spun around. Her eyes, wide as ever, seemed to dance. “You are safe.”

I nodded. “As are most of the Treasures.”

She smiled, something I had not seen her do for some time.

“Rhia! Am I mistaken, or is it growing lighter?”

“You are not mistaken! The Shroud is going the same way as the castle and the ghouliants.”

I pointed toward the giants, who had ceased their chanting and stomping. Singly and in clusters of two or three, they were beginning to drift away from the ruins. “Where are they going?”

“To their homes.”

“To their homes,” I repeated.

Peering across the hillside, we observed what was left of the Shrouded Castle. While much of it had been crushed in the Dance of the Giants, a ring of mammoth stones remained standing in a stately circle. Some of the stones stood upright, others leaned to the side, and still others supported hefty crosspieces. Whether the giants had placed the stones in this fashion, or had simply left them standing, I knew not.

In silence, as the first rays of sunlight started piercing the sky above the Dark Hills, I contemplated this imposing circle. It rose like a great stone hedge upon the land. It struck me that this ring of stones would make a lasting monument to the fact that no walls, however sturdy, can forever withstand the power of what is true. Vision that is true. Friendship that is true. Faith that is true.

All of a sudden, I realized that I could remember my own childhood in this very place! On this very hill!
Only when giants make dance in the hall, Shall every barrier crumble and fall.
The prophecy, I now understood, had not applied only to walls of stone. My own inner walls, that had cut me off from my past since the day I washed ashore on Gwynedd, had begun to crumble along with those of the castle.

First in gentle wisps, then in surging waves, memory after memory came floating back to me. My mother, wrapped in her shawl before a crackling fire, telling me the story of Hercules. My father, so confident and strong, leaping astride a black stallion named Ionn. The first time I ever tasted larkon, the spiral fruit. The first swim in the River Unceasing. The final, sorrowful minutes before we fled for our lives, my mother and I, praying that the sea might somehow deliver us to safety.

And then, from my distant childhood, came the words of a chant called the Lledra. It was a chant that had been sung by my mother long ago, just as it had been sung by the giants themselves today:

Talking trees and walking stones,
Giants are the island’s bones.
While this land our dance still knows,
Varigal crowns Fincayra.
Live long, live long Fincayra.

“Rhia,” I said quietly. “I’ve not yet found my true home. Nor am I sure that I ever will. But, for the very first time, I think I know where to look.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And where is that?”

I waved toward the circle of stones, luminous in the swelling rays. “All this time I’ve sought my home as though it could be found somewhere on a map. And now I remember a home that I once knew. Here, on this very spot! Yet, at the same time, I have the feeling that if my true home exists anywhere, it isn’t on a map at all. More likely, it’s somewhere inside of myself.”

Her voice wistful, she added, “In the same place that our memories of Trouble are found.”

I reached my hand into my satchel and pulled out the feather. Softly, I stroked its edge with my finger. “I have an idea of what happened to him when he vanished. I can’t quite believe it—but I can’t quite dismiss it, either.”

Rhia studied the feather. “I have the same idea. And I think Arbassa would agree.”

“If it’s true, and his bravery opened the door to the Otherworld—then he and Rhita Gawr must have fallen through that door together.”

She smiled. “It wasn’t a journey Rhita Gawr had planned! But it gave us the chance we needed. So if it’s true, Trouble is somewhere out there right now, still soaring.”

“And Rhita Gawr is out there too, still fuming.”

She nodded, then her face turned serious. “Still, I’m going to miss that hawk.”

I dropped the feather, watching it spin slowly downward into my other hand. “So will I.”

Rhia kicked at the brittle grass under our feet. “And see what else we have lost! This soil is so parched, I wonder whether it will ever come back to life.”

With a slight grin, I announced, “I already have a plan for that.”

“You do?”

“I think the Flowering Harp, with its power to coax the spring into being, might be able to help.”

“Of course! I should have remembered.”

“I plan to carry it to every hillside and meadow and stream that has withered. As well as to one particular garden, down on the plains, where two friends of mine live.”

Rhia’s gray-blue eyes brightened.

“I was even hoping . . .”

“What?”

“That you might want to come along. You could help revive the trees.”

Her bell-like laughter rang out. “Whether I come or not, this much is clear. You may not have found your true home. But I think you have found a few friends.”

“I’d say you’re right.”

She watched me for a moment. “And one thing more. You have found your true name.”

“I have?”

“Yes. You remind me of that hawk who once sat on your shoulder. You can be fierce as well as gentle. You grab hold with all your strength and never let go. You see clearly, though not with your eyes. You know when to use your powers. And . . . you can fly.”

She glanced toward the circle of stones, gleaming like a great necklace in the light, then turned back to me. “Your true name ought to be Merlin.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

Merlin.
I rather liked the name. Not enough to keep it, of course, though I knew that names sometimes had a strange way of sticking.
Merlin.
An unusual name, to say the least. And all the more meaningful because of the sorrow and joy it brought to my mind.

“All right. I shall try it. But only for a while.”