The Old Magic (21 page)

At times only his grip on its mane kept Merlin with the animal, and the faster it went, the more he choked and gasped for
breath as the waves of its motion flung icy clear lake water into his face. He shivered both with cold and with dread as the
seahorse swam, for he was soaked to the skin and Mab’s caves were as cold as the Mistress of Magic herself.

It was so easy to think badly of Mab that Merlin was ashamed of himself, but it made a kind of terrible sense. The Lady of
the Lake had called her sister thoughtless and cold, and when Merlin came to think about it those words summed up Mab’s character
perfectly—she was as cold as the caves in which she dwelt, and once she had chosen her goal, no other consideration was allowed
to matter. Even love. The strange reluctance Merlin had always felt to acquiesce with the plans of the fairy queen who had
created him was no longer a mystery.

All along, his heart had suspected what it had taken the Lady of the Lake to tell him: that Mab was as merciless and amoral
as the forces of Nature Herself. But that was something Merlin could never be, by the power of his human mother. And just
as humankind did what it could to relieve Nature’s ruthlessness, so Merlin must fight Mab.

As he’d been brooding, the sea horse had swum from the smaller cave into one of the lagoons that linked Mab’s palace to the
canal that led into the Enchanted Lake. He heard the mermaids cry out as they spied him, and heard the faint droning as a
cloud of sprites flew toward him, their high shrill voices echoing off the cavern walls. Though the mer-creatures might aid
the Lady of the Lake, the sprites were wholly Mab’s creatures.

The first sprites reached him. Merlin felt a stinging burn on his arm as it shot him with a tiny arrow. He gasped with the
shock, and just at that moment the sea horse flung back its head and dove deep beneath the surface of the lagoon.

Merlin clung tightly to the sea horse’s mane as it dove downward. To his silent horror, it levelled off far beneath the surface
and began to swim forward. Merlin’s lungs burned desperately for air. It seemed a very long time before the sea horse headed
for the surface once more, flinging its body up into the air while Merlin gasped and sputtered for breath. It hardly seemed
that he managed to take a full breath before it sounded again.

Choked and blinded by water, Merlin could not tell if they were still pursued. He lost count of the number of times the sea
horse surfaced and dove again, dragging him with it as if it were a seal and he were a tangled scrap of fishermen’s nets.

At last they did not dive again. For several seconds all he could do was lie against the sea horse’s neck and pant while the
water dripped from his hair and ran down his cold-numbed face.

Warily, Merlin opened his eyes. He could see light up ahead—the mouth of the cave—and, just outside the entrance, the boat
that had brought him here, bobbing lightly on the surface of the lake.

Painfully Merlin pried his cold-stiffened fingers from the sea horse’s mane. There was a narrow walkway here—Frik had run
along it to reach the boat on the day Merlin had arrived—and Merlin dragged his shivering, cold-cramped body up onto that
slippery refuge.

“I thank you for the ride, Master Salmon—I think!” he said. The sea horse shook its mane, laughing at him silently.

“Well, go on. What are you waiting for? Scat!” Merlin said. Nothing anyone could do would be enough to induce him to mount
that creature’s back again, even if it meant returning to the Land Under Hill as a helpless prisoner.

As if it had read his mind, the sea horse snorted and turned away. There was a thrashing in the water, a flash of green-webbed
tail, and then it was gone. Merlin turned all his attention toward getting into the boat. It floated just out of reach, on
the far side of the boundary that separated the Lady of the Lake’s domain from Queen Mab’s. All he had to do was get to it
before someone stopped him.

With painful slowness Merlin dragged himself along the narrow ledge. The wind that blew from the Land of Magic to the mortal
world cut through his sodden clothes like a knife of elemental cruelty.

The winter wind gets crueler every year,
she thought, pulling her grey shawl tighter around her thin shoulders.

It had been eighteen years now since Elissa died, and the first snow always made Ambrosia think of her and of the first winter
the two of them had spent wandering, at the mercy of the elements while Elissa’s fragile body grew great with child.

Funny how every thought comes back around to the boy these days,
Ambrosia thought without humor. She missed him more with each day he was gone—not for herself, she told herself fiercely,
but for what Mab might be doing to him.

“Ah, girl, you’re getting old—and maudlin with age,” Ambrosia said aloud. She levered herself painfully up from her seat by
the fire, trying not to see how small and empty the forest hut was now that Merlin was gone.

There wasn’t much employment for a wise-woman in winter, other than the odd birthing, but there was still plenty of work to
do: wood to chop and water to draw. Herne was always ready to turn his hand to that, bless him for his help. She wasn’t any
too spry these days. The pains in her chest came more and more often, along with the weakness in her arms and the dizzy spells,
and she yearned for the warmth of the summers she’d known as a young girl. The winters had been warmer, too, as Ambrosia recalled—not
this icy north wind spitting snow that found every chink in the walls of the hut.

Once she would have swept it up before it could melt, but these days the effort was too much for her. Let it melt. Who would
there be to care in a year or two?

Or even a month or two. You’re fooling yourself if you think you’re going to be around to see in the spring.
She wished she could see Merlin one last time. Only to see how he fared. Only that.

Her chest ached, and with more than the cold. Perhaps a cup of herbal tea would ease it, and making herself the tea would
do something to take her mind off the boy. With painful care Ambrosia measured dried herbs—comfrey, foxglove, horehound—into
a thick brown drinking horn. She always kept a kettle on the hob in the winter, and the water should be hot enough to make
an infusion.

But again her mind wandered away from the task at hand, back to her worries—and Merlin.

What was Mab teaching him, there in her palace in the Hollow Hills? Was he happy learning to master his magic, or did he miss
the simple pleasures of home? Was Mab being kind to him—or was she turning him into the same sort of heartless monster that
she was?

Roughly, Ambrosia scrubbed away a teardrop. She knew the answer to that from long experience—Mab had no kindness in her. But
Ambrosia could hope that the Queen of the Old Ways had enough self-interest left to see how special Merlin was. For all his
impetuous nature, he was kindness itself, and he would be kind to Mab as well, if she would only let him. If she broke his
spirit with her cruelty and indifference, it would be more than Ambrosia could bear. And she would know if that happened—she
had no doubt of that. You couldn’t raise a child from the moment it first drew breath and not be linked to it, certainly not
if you had once been a priestess of the Old Ways, as she had.

Only let him be happy, and I won’t even ask that he be safe!
She did not know to whom she made this promise, for in her lifetime Ambrosia had broken with the old gods and never accepted
the new, but she made it sincerely. Only let Merlin be happy.

She sighed and reached for the kettle, when suddenly the air in the little forest hut turned bitterly cold—a chill not of
the body alone, but of the soul. Ambrosia hunched her shoulders against it involuntarily, the ache in her chest spreading
with her dismay.

“Where is he?” Mab hissed.

Ambrosia did not even bother to turn around; she’d known who was there from the moment Mab had appeared.

“Ah, here you are again, still a chip off the old glacier,” she mocked, pouring her tea as if a visit from Queen Mab were
an everyday occurrence.

“Where’s Merlin?” Mab repeated, and this time Ambrosia did turn around, steeling herself to show no surprise.

The Queen of the Old Ways looked less like a human mortal than Ambrosia could ever remember seeing her look. Her dark and
glittering robes were encrusted with elaborate decoration, hanging stiffly from her body like folds of carven stone. Her face
looked less like a living face than like an image of a face—a beautiful jewelled mask, made inhuman by fury.

“So you’ve lost him, have you?” Ambrosia asked coolly.

She did not want Mab to see what joy she took in the knowledge that Merlin had run from her, but if he had, then surely it
meant the she-spider’s sorcery had failed her, didn’t it? It meant that Merlin had seen through Mab and rejected what she
had to teach him. His human mother’s heritage had won out after all.

“Don’t provoke me, Ambrosia!” Mab snarled. “I’m in no mood for your gibes!”

The Queen of the Old Ways was more than simply angry—she was as furious as Ambrosia had ever seen her, and inwardly Ambrosia
rejoiced at her adversary’s discomfiture. With so much passion between the two of them, Ambrosia and Mab could never have
simply remained indifferent to each other once their paths had crossed. The coin would have had to fall on the side of either
love or hate. The battle between what Mab represented and what Ambrosia did was never over and never would be; it would continue
forever, the adversaries changing but the conflict going on.

“I’m worried about the boy, too,” Ambrosia said levelly.
You should have looked after him better!
her heart cried.

“He’ll be here. He’s heard you’re ill,” Mab cooed.

Any sympathy Ambrosia felt vanished in the face of Mab’s feline self-interest. “I’m not ill. I’m dying,” Ambrosia said, in
a half-echo of Mab’s long-ago words to her.

She’s not dying. She’s dead,
Mab had said of Elissa on that long-past autumn day. Elissa had given the child into Ambrosia’s arms, and Mab had given him
a name. And now the circle had come full round and Merlin was caught between the two of them—and what they represented—once
more.

She was abruptly filled with bone-weariness at the thought. Groping her way to a chair, Ambrosia eased herself into it. Mab
watched her with birdlike interest but no scrap of compassion. The Queen of the Old Ways understood human frailty as little
as she understood human love.

“When he comes, send him back,” Mab demanded. She began to pace the hut like a leopard in a cage, her fury making it impossible
for her to remain still.

“Can’t you make him come back?” Ambrosia asked, unable to resist a last taunt.
Have you found something that you can neither bend to your will nor pretend out of existence? He’ll be stronger than you in
the end because of his humanity—you mark my words, Queen Mab!

“It’s better if you tell him his place is with me,” Mab said, a vindictive smile on her face. Love might be beyond her capacity,
but Mab understood spite and vengeance very well. Humans had taught her that, over the generations.

“No,” Ambrosia said, suddenly tired of the verbal fencing. “No, I won’t do that.”

“You defy me?” Mab demanded incredulously, as if she’d only just discovered the fact. What dreams of victory Merlin must have
raised in her heart to have made her so arrogant, so confident!

“Of course I defy you—I’ve always defied you,” Ambrosia answered irritably.

“Why?
Why?”
Mab cried, and in that moment Ambrosia had the answer to their long conflict.

“It’s my nature,” she said simply. New Religion or Old Ways, she realized at last that she would have fought with all her
strength against anyone who had tried to compel her belief and loyalty with nothing more than a demand. And Merlin would do
the same—she’d given the boy that much of herself. She wished Mab would leave so she could lie down to wait for Merlin. She
was weary, so weary. …

“When my boy comes here, I won’t say a word. He’ll do what’s in his heart,” Ambrosia said.
He
has
a heart, unlike you.

As if that final word—“heart”—were the ultimate act of insolence, Mab opened her mouth in a soundless wail of cheated rage.
Chaos rose around her in a thunderclap, shaking the hut and its contents as a weasel would shake a hare. The fire blew out,
furniture tumbled about as if it were made of straw. Cooking pots and jars of herbs flew everywhere. The kettle, still half-full
of steaming water, flew across the room and struck Ambrosia on the shoulder, knocking her from her seat.

Her anger, the sudden shock of the storm, were too much for Ambrosia’s weakened condition. She lay where she had fallen, clutching
at her heart as if her fingers could ease away this pain as they had eased so many others.

“Now look what you made me do!”

The cheated selfishness in Mab’s voice made Ambrosia laugh weakly, even as she winced at the pain.
Oh, dear, mustn’t do that. …

“Ambrosia!” Mab cried. “Ambrosia, what is it?”

“You tell me,” the once-priestess whispered painfully. “You’re the great Mistress of Magic. …”

The air seemed strangely flat once the boat began moving across the surface of the lake, and Merlin realized after a moment
that what it lacked was the scent of magic that he had breathed all during his stay in Mab’s domain.
Well, I don’t miss it,
he told himself stubbornly.

There was an unlighted brazier in the bottom of the open boat—a common enough accessory when the sailing was likely to be
hard and cold—and Merlin quickly summoned fire to warm himself and dry his clothes. It was harder to do here than it had been
in the crystal caves, and the effort left him weak and gasping. But it was still more—far more—than any mere mortal could
do.

I’m not a mortal. I’m Mab’s child. I’m a wizard. No matter what else happens, I have Mab to thank for that.
That was, if he could really be certain whether he wanted to thank her for the gift of magic—or curse her for it.