The Old Magic (20 page)

Even though he’d exerted himself to deliberately mislead and manipulate the boy, Frik had developed a sneaking admiration
for Merlin—his resourcefulness, his stubborn human integrity. Merlin’s dual heritage was tearing him apart, anyone could see
that. The boy was suffering, yet all Mab thought about was
her
plans,
her
desires.

“The truth is, he wants to go home!” Frik said, goaded into honesty.

“Home?” In an eyeblink, Mab was on the other side of the chamber, her image shimmering with fury. “Home?” she repeated, as
if demanding an answer from the hoarded crystals. “Home?” she said again, at Frik’s side and more furious than before.

“Bring him to me.”

But Merlin had unwittingly placed himself beyond the reach of Mab’s wrath. When he’d left the schoolroom, he’d gone looking
for some place that didn’t remind him of his failures. But no matter where he turned, all he found was vast underground caverns,
deep subterranean lakes, forests of crystal that he’d seen a thousand times before. The immense oppressive weight of the rock
seemed to press down on him, crushing him into immobility, and Merlin yearned desperately for the vast open spaces of the
forest in which he’d spent his childhood. He wanted to go home.

Home. He slid down the wall and sat down on the floor, leaning his head and back against the wall. The cold of the stone sank
into his flesh like some malign opposite of sunlight, its chill making his muscles ache. He held out a hand and stared at
his fingertips. Right hand … left hand … it didn’t matter: In his heart, Merlin knew that he wasn’t living up to his full
potential. He’d been summoned here into the Land of Magic to learn, but all he’d learned was that he’d never match Mab’s skill
with magic—or even Frik’s. He was not willing to do the things that they did.

But what could he do—what was he
supposed to be,
if not her champion? He’d wanted to do right, to be good, and he was farther away from understanding what that was than he’d
ever been. Merlin closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, wishing he could breathe in the familiar scents of home. But all he
could smell was dampness and stone and water, the sterile dead odors of the crystal caves. The sense of being trapped, imprisoned
in a desolate vault was frighteningly strong.

He shook his head, almost overwhelmed by the sudden bleakness of his thoughts.
I don’t belong here. I don’t know what to do. I need someone to show me the way!
he thought desperately.

In the rock above his head a spark of light blossomed. As it grew in intensity, the rock seemed to become transparent, until
for all its massiveness it seemed as insubstantial as water. And through that water a glowing figure moved, dressed all in
a long flowing silver gown. A necklet of live fish swam like brilliant captive stars around her neck.

“Why did you call me, Merlin?” the Lady of the Lake asked.

Merlin turned toward the voice, startled, and saw a woman he had never seen before. Her eyes were the pale blue of wintry
skies, and her hair and eyebrows shimmered with the whiteness of fresh snow. She moved languidly, her hands fanning to hold
her place, as though the stone in which she manifested to him was in truth the liquid it appeared to be. He could tell she
was a powerful creature of magic—yet he did not know who she was. Mab had introduced him personally to most of the denizens
of her realm and told him about the rest … but who was this pale shining creature?

“I didn’t. …” Merlin began.

“You did,” the bright lady corrected him, smiling.

She seemed to radiate a wonderful unfettered aura of freedom; a stillness that was not passivity, but instead such a mystic
insight and enlightenment that Merlin sensed she had no need to rush fruitlessly about constantly doing things. It was in
some strange way the opposite of all the magic that Merlin had learned in his sojourn in the Hollow Hills: a wisdom that lay
not in doing, but in
knowing,
and Merlin’s heart opened to it as if this were his true nature.

“Who are you?” he asked. He sat up, leaning toward her and pushing the hair out of his eyes.

“I am the Lady of the Lake,” she told him. Her voice was soft, humming with power, a chorus of possibilities. “How are you
getting on with my sister Mab? We two don’t get on.”

The Lady of the Lake was Mab’s sister? That made matters even more puzzling. Merlin trusted his instincts, and his instincts
told him that the Lady of the Lake was good and wise. It seemed as if Mab’s decision not to speak of her sister must be deliberate,
but what possible reason could there be for it? Were they enemies? As far as Merlin knew, all the fairy kind agreed with Mab’s
plan to bring back the Old Ways—how could someone whose own existence was at stake not wish to see the Old Ways brought back?

“Why?” he asked, with a directness verging upon bluntness.

The Lady blinked slowly, her hands moving with hypnotic deliberation at her sides. “I don’t approve of what she’s been doing,”
the Lady answered. Her voice was remote. “Creating you and letting your mother die like that.”

The words seemed to press down on him as if they were the stone that hung over his head. His mother! He’d visited Elissa’s
simple grave deep in the forest many times, wondering about the woman who had given him life. Aunt Ambrosia had never spoken
of his mother to him, and now, with an awful certainty, Merlin knew why. It was because his Aunt Ambrosia had been careful
never to speak against Queen Mab.

“She let my mother die?” he said slowly.

A sensation for which he had no name was growing in Merlin’s chest. It was as destructive as fire, as cold as the water of
the Enchanted Lake, as hard and unyielding as the crystals that Mab so loved.

“Oh, dear,” the Lady said mournfully. Her pale beautiful face remained expressionless, though her voice held regret. “I shouldn’t
have told you, but it just slipped out.”

She let my mother die. Mab let my mother die.
Merlin was stunned, as if he were trying to understand a lesson beyond his comprehension. He got to his knees and then to
his feet, hugging himself against the cold of the cave and gazing into the Lady’s moon-pale eyes.

Somehow he’d always assumed that Mab cared for him as a mother should. Aunt Ambrosia had loved him, and he’d presumed that
Mab, who’d created him, loved him just as his foster-mother did. He’d been able to do all the strange and sometimes frightening
things she asked of him because he’d thought she had his ultimate good at heart.

But Mab had killed his mother, and the illusion of her compassion was stripped away, leaving Merlin enveloped in confusion
and bewilderment. Why did Mab want him if she did not love him? If she was not being honest about that, what else had she
been dishonest about? Did she truly want him to be her champion? Did she mean him to kill for her?

Ambrosia would know. His foster-mother would understand his bafflement and distress. She would know how to straighten things
out. She would tell him the truth.

“I want to go home,” Merlin said in a low voice.

“You should,” the Lady of the Lake said. “Ambrosia is very ill.”

“No,” Merlin said in horror. He understood in that moment how Nimue had felt as she sank into the quicksand: Safety was visible,
but it was slipping away and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Now Merlin’s security was disappearing with the danger
to his foster-mother Ambrosia.

“I have to go to her.” He straightened, and gazed into the Lady’s face. “Tell me how to reach her.”

When he left Mab, Frik went to the classroom, to Merlin’s bedroom, to all the places in Mab’s palace where he usually found
the boy. There was no sign of him.

“Where is he?” Frik demanded in frustration, giving up and returning to the classroom. If gnomes had possessed imaginations,
Frik would have said that the room looked more than empty; it looked abandoned, as though Merlin was never going to return
here.

But that was ridiculous.

“He’s gone,” Mab growled, appearing behind him.

Frik tried on several different expressions, none of which really fit the occasion. “Gone?” he bleated.

“He’s on his way home to that viper-tongued witch, Ambrosia.” Mab’s eyes gleamed with fury, and at that moment Frik was very
glad not to be her enemy.

“But—But—But—But how can he get across the lake?” Frik demanded indignantly. The Enchanted Lake was the border between human
realms and the Land of Magic. Merlin had not been back in human lands since the day he’d come to the Hollow Hills—even the
Wild Hunt, which crossed through all lands and all times, brought the magic of its own domain with it, and no one left the
Hunt without Lord Idath’s consent. Frik had been certain Merlin could not escape.

And the boy should not even have known he wanted to escape, much less have been able to. Not until Time had done its work
in the mortal realms, and all who had a claim on Merlin’s human heart were safely dead.

“My dear sister …” Mab whispered, venom in her voice. There had never been war between the Mistress of Magic and the Lady
of the Lake, for their interests had always been too different, but now—or so it seemed to Frik—things were about to change.
If the Lady of the Lake had helped Merlin to cross her territory and return to human lands …

“No!” Mab cried. “Vortigern betrayed me—and now Merlin? Why must everything I love turn to ash? I won’t allow it—I won’t lose
him!” Mab vowed.

“But Madame—” Frik began. Soft words and fair dealing were the only way to get Merlin’s cooperation, and Mab wasn’t inclined
toward either at the moment.

Mab turned on him, her breath coming in a hiss. She gestured, and with the merest thought sent Frik flying across the chamber
into the pile of played-out crystals. He landed with a great crash, and at the moment of his impact, Mab clenched her fists
against her chest and vanished.

Merlin did not need the Lady of the Lake to tell him that he was in danger. It seemed to him that he’d been blind and foolish
all the time he’d been here in the Land of Magic. Mab did not hate him—but she did not love him, either. All she loved was
her plan to make the Old Ways supreme once more with Merlin as their defender, and she would destroy anyone who got in her
way.

Even the one she had appointed as her champion.

As Merlin inched along the cavern paths, the Lady of the Lake swam through the rock above as if it were the water of her lake.
Merlin followed her glow through chambers in the crystal caves that he had never seen before, along a twisting route that
made him edge carefully between boulders or walk along hunched over to pass beneath the tilting roof. He knew that Mab’s underground
kingdom was dangerous to any but his mistress, but at the moment he didn’t care. Nothing was more important than getting home.

Home to those who
did
love him. How could he simply have
forgotten
about Ambrosia, about Nimue, about all his friends? He’d never even tried to send Ambrosia word of how he was!

That was Mab’s doing. Mab’s was the fairy glamour that clouded minds and led wills astray. Frik had taught him what they were—creatures
of magic whose magic was based on illusion and misdirection—but Merlin had thought it was only part of his lessons and never
applied it to himself. He knew better now. He’d been so arrogant—he’d thought that just because she wanted him as her champion
she wouldn’t do the same things to him that she did to everyone else.

I’ve been such a fool!

“Merlin …” The Lady’s echoing voice broke into his thoughts, and Merlin realized that for the last several minutes he’d been
able to hear and smell water. They must be getting near to the cave mouth that opened onto the Enchanted Lake—but without
Frik to guide the boat through the lagoons and canals that led to the entrance, Merlin knew he had no chance of reaching the
outside.

“… here …” said the Lady. “You can ride him to the vessel. …”

Merlin looked around the edge of a boulder at the still black water. Then suddenly there was a gleam in its depths, and an
instant later, a horse’s head broke the surface.

It snorted and shook its head, spraying Merlin with a shower of droplets from its long white mane. Merlin mopped water from
his face with the sleeve of his jacket and stared at the animal. It was a deep dappled grey, its mane as white as the tips
of the waves on a stormy day, and its forelegs churned the water as it swam. The rest of its body could not be seen beneath
the surface of the water, but as Merlin stared it became impatient with him, thrashing its tail against the water and rising
up higher out of the lake.

“Hey!” Merlin cried, with mingled irritation and astonishment. Now he could see its body clearly for the first time. The animal’s
torso was covered in gleaming scales, and it did not look like any horse Merlin had ever seen. Where its hind legs should
have been it had a long muscled tail with broad fins, the color of the scales gradually darkening from a silvery ivory to
a deep sea-green.

“It’s a sea horse,” the Lady said, sounding amused for a moment. “Mab does not control as much of the elements as she hopes—the
creatures of water are still my allies. You must hurry, Merlin. Mab can be so thoughtless and cold.”

The thought of having to remain in Mab’s realm while Ambrosia was ill galvanized Merlin into action. He sat down on the rock
ledge, then slipped into the water.

The water was bitterly cold, and he floundered for a moment before reaching out and grabbing the seahorse’s mane. It felt
like any other horse’s mane—though wet—and as the animal bobbed in the water like a chunk of wood, Merlin managed to get his
leg across its back and pull himself onto it. His weight did not push it under water as he had feared, though its powerful
tail now thrashed constantly to keep its body above the surface.

“Go safely, Merlin. You will need all your cunning to prevail,” said the Lady.

He had no chance to answer her, for the sea horse lunged forward at that moment, its powerful legs and tail churning the black
water into foam, and Merlin had all he could do just to stay on its slippery scaly back. It was like riding a trotting horse—but
this horse “trotted” not over turf, but through icy water that tugged at its rider, trying to pull him from its back.