The Old Magic (4 page)

“I’m going to create a leader for the people,” Mab answered. “A powerful wizard who’ll save Britain and bring the people back
to us and to the Old Ways.”

But the approval—the interest—she had hoped to see on her sister’s face did not appear. The Lady of the Lake was one of the
strongest Powers still left in the world, but she had not suffered as Mab had. She did not hate as Mab did.

The Lady of the Lake sighed, shaking her head slowly. Her pale hair swirled around her face. “It will be too much for you,
Mab. It will drain you of what power you still have.”

Don’t you think I know that?
Mab wanted to shout. But she held her tongue. What did the Lady of the Lake care for the fear that haunted Mab? “If I don’t
do it, we’ll die,” she said desperately. “If people forget us, we won’t exist any longer. The new religion has already pushed
us to the margin. Soon we’ll be forgotten.”
I need your help,
she thought, but could not bring herself to say the words.

“All things change, sister,” the Lady of the Lake sighed. “It’s sad, but Heaven, Hell, and the world move on. It’s our Fate.
Accept it.”.

“I won’t accept it!” Mab hissed in her snake’s voice. “I’ll fight! Will you help me?”

Her sister shook her head slowly, gazing at Mab pityingly. “You forget that I am the Lady of the Lake. I’m made of water,
and now that the tide has turned away from us I accept it. I’m sorry, my dear.” With a last backward glance, the Lady of the
Lake swam away, sinking again below the surface of the water.

Mab stared without seeing at the silvery surface of the lake. All along she had been fighting for survival, to reclaim what
was hers. Now she realized that she was willing to die for it as well. Her sister had been right: To create and shape the
leader who would save Britain would take every ounce of power that she possessed. In making him she might unmake herself,
vanishing from the pleasant world of Men forever. But at last, Mab realized that it didn’t matter. Her death didn’t matter.
No one’s death mattered.

Winning was what mattered.

“Then I will do it myself.” The darkness swirled around her, and she was gone.

Rather to her own surprise, Ambrosia was accepted easily into the community of lay brethren who lived side-by-side with the
religious at Avalon at a tiny village called Glastonbury. She found that Elissa’s views were far more widely represented than
Brother Giraldus’s, and she was valued here for what she could teach of herb-craft and herb-lore and the healing arts that
were unaligned with Pagan magic. Slowly her spirit began to heal as her body had been healed, and as summer died into autumn
and the Wheel of the Year turned, Ambrosia began to wonder what the future held. She had renounced her allegiance to Mab and
the Old Ways, but she could not find it within her heart to follow Elissa into the new faith.

Trouble isn’t in the gods, it’s in ourselves. We make the gods over in our own image, and then wonder why they’re always quarreling
and scrapping. And their followers are worse—look at young Giraldus, all puffed up with pride just because he’s spent some
hours kneeling on a cold stone floor. No, I’m through with gods of any stripe, Pagan or Christian. King Vortigern, Queen Mab
… it’s all one in the end.

But in the end, it did not matter whether Ambrosia had renounced the Old Ways, for the Old Ways were magic, and magic would
find her in the end.

“Frik? Frik, where are you?” Mab shouted as she swirled into the enchanted sanctuary at the heart of her power. This was where
she crafted her strongest magics, and being here was like being in the heart of a jewelled rainbow. In the center of the spherical
chamber was a great crystal altar that seemed to have risen up out of the living rock. The floor surrounding it was as smooth
and polished as a mirror, and around the edge of the circle, row after row of concentric rings of crystals stretched as far
as the eye could see, crystals that glittered with magical fire in every color the eye could see. The whole sanctuary glowed
with a complex shimmering fire, and though it was deep in the heart of the earth, the chamber was awash in a dark unearthly
radiance, a light never meant for mortal eyes to see.

“Frik!” Mab shouted again, and her servant came running.

He was dark and misshapen, as grotesque as Mab was beautiful. His long pointed ears and goggling eyes made him look as if
someone had tried to create a parody of a human being and hadn’t gotten it quite right. He had been her servant and companion
for so long that Mab herself could not remember when the relationship had begun. Had she captured him? Had she created him?
Neither of them remembered, but while Mab preferred always to remain herself, Frik was in love with the powers of illusion,
taking a thousand different guises purely for his own amusement and rarely appearing before Mab in the same form twice.

Today the gnome bowed low before her, dressed in some bizarre costume that he’d plucked from some past or future era. Frik,
like Mab, existed outside of Time, and could see into the future as easily as into the past, and he was dressed now in a pair
of grey-striped trousers and a black coat that hung down in two tails behind. The costume seemed to amuse him greatly.

It did not amuse Mab.

“You saw it all. You were eavesdropping again, weren’t you?” Mab demanded.

“Ma’am?” Frik said, trying to look innocent.

“She denied me!” She closed her eyes in fury, clenching her fists. “The Lady of the Lake denied me!”

“I’m afraid your sister is rather indecisive when it comes to making decisions, Madame,” Frik said obsequiously. “She never
gives you the support you deserve.”

“She deserves to be forgotten—but I don’t! We’re on our own, Frik. You know what I mean to do, and now I must do it alone.
I’d better get started.”

At this her gnomish servant actually looked alarmed. “Don’t you think you should at least wait a few days?” he asked, trying
to be assertive and servile all at once. “To build up your strength?”

“There’s no time,” Mab snapped. “Our world is dying.” She knew in her bones that Frik was mistaken. To rest would not restore
her strength. Only the destruction of the new religion could do that. Every moment she delayed was another moment in which
it grew stronger.

She sensed Frik backing away as she closed her eyes, drawing upon all of her power.
A wizard, a leader, a savior for Britain.
She concentrated upon that image, shaping it with her will, as all about her the crystals of her sanctuary glowed with enchantment,
pulsing with color and light.

A figure began to form, reflected a thousand times in the hearts of the glowing crystals. Mab opened her eyes, unable not
to look. She saw the image of a beautiful young man with light brown hair and piercing dark eyes.

He was perfect.

Merlin
… Almost reverently Mab breathed his name. She would name him for the merlin-falcon, the swift and nimble bird that soared
through Britain’s skies. Merlin. A great weight of frustration and sorrow—even guilt—seemed to lift from her shoulders. She
had been wrong in choosing Vortigern. One who could not wield the magic would never be the savior the Old Ways needed. But
her Merlin, her wizard-prince, would be a creature of the magic itself. He could never betray the magic, any more than he
could betray himself. He was not yet born, but already Mab tasted the hot joy of victory.

But thus far all she had cast was illusion, enchantment. Now she must give him life.

To create true things was the hardest thing there was for any of her kind to do. Her power and that of her kindred lay in
the realm of illusion and dreams, not the material world. It was said that the most ancient of her kind had sung that whole
world into existence where before there had been nothing but the Void, but if that were true it had been long ago, in the
morning of the world when the powers of the fairyfolk were at their height. Now, weakened by centuries of battles and losses,
Mab struggled to reach beyond herself, to draw upon the very power that kept her alive in order to give life to her illusion,
to make her Merlin real.

My champion—child of magic—protector of the Old Ways—
The thoughts in her mind scattered like a shower of sparks from the Beltane fires that marked the turning of the year, but
the image of Merlin stayed bright and true within her. Only she could give him life. Only she could save them all.

I cannot do this alone!

She could not do what she had first intended, and instantly create the grown man of her vision. She was too weak for that,
and so Merlin must begin as a spark in a mortal woman’s belly, and grow to manhood the way the mortal kind did. Frantically,
the power growing in her moment by moment, she cast about for a suitable vessel.

He must be born a prince and the son of princes—
An image of her Merlin raised within the walls of a noble house, wearing the golden coronet of rank upon his head, and dressed
in furs and velvets filled her mind for an instant. Yes. That was as it should be. Let the mortal kind bow down to him from
the first instant of his life.

Suddenly her whole being was jarred by the clangorous sound of iron bells—Christian bells, ringing out their holy music over
the land that Mab was fighting to reclaim for her own. Avalon. Her search had brought her to Avalon.

Mab knew that the nobility often sent its soft pretty daughters there to be schooled in safety. So be it. She would find the
vessel for her Merlin here and at the same time strike a blow against the powers she so hated. With a sigh almost of relief,
Mab freed the burgeoning power she had summoned. It welled up and through her, power drawn from the very fabric of the Earth
itself. She held nothing back—if it cost her everything she was, still she would do this thing. Her very bones tingled as
she summoned all her arts, drew power from every source, and shaped it to her will.
For Merlin—for Britain—for the Old Magic—

At last it rushed from her grasp, taking everything that she was—her fire, her heart, all the best of her—with it. Somewhere
out there in the world, her Merlin took form, took life, took wing like the owl upon the wind.

And only Darkness remained in the cavern beneath the Hollow Hills.

Elissa heard the church bells chiming on the wintry air, ringing out the glory of the blessed Nativity. When midnight came,
the doors of the Grail Chapel would open, and all who could manage to fit inside would crowd in to hear Mass in the presence
of the blessed Cup. But until that time, Elissa watched before the altar in the Grail Chapel alone.

She had become a novice only last month, but the Father Abbot said that if she studied and prayed hard she might become a
professed nun as early as the spring. The thought made her wriggle with excitement, though she tried hard not to succumb to
the distraction of idle thoughts. It was a great honor to be chosen to watch over the Grail, especially on this holiest of
nights.

Though preparations for a great Christmas feast were going on everywhere throughout the Abbey, Elissa did not feel left out.
It was wonderful beyond imagining to be able to spend this time alone in the presence of the Grail, its soft radiance shining
down upon her alone and mingling with the light of the dozens of candles lit in the Sanctuary. If Giraldus got his way, these
wonderful hours would end.

Since the summer the Grail had healed Ambrosia, there had been dissension here in Avalon. Brother Giraldus, and others who
sided with him, thought that the Grail should be kept locked safely away like the great treasure it was, so that no Pagan
could profane it by their touch or presence. This was the faction that thought as the old king had, that their mission must
be to convert the heathen to the new religion by any means—or failing that, execute them so that they could work no more wickedness.
Fortunately the Father Abbot who ruled over their small community believed as their founder Saint Joseph of Arimathea had:
that the Grail’s magic should be free to all who sought it, and that Love must be their ultimate law.

Elissa sighed faintly, keeping her eyes fixed upon the shining Cup. People made everything so complicated, when surely there
was one simple truth that bound them all together, Pagan and Christian. Perhaps when she became one of the healing sisters
she would be able to work toward its discovery, so that they could all live together in peace. It must be possible, for Elissa
knew that Ambrosia was a good woman, nothing like the Pagans Giraldus preached of when he’d had a little too much wine. She
wondered how many Pagans Giraldus had actually seen, for he had come to Avalon as a small child, just as she had.

Suddenly, as if it were a divine punishment for her irreverent, uncharitable thoughts, the doors to the chapel burst inward
with a sound like the rushing of great wings, and a black wind blew out all the candles.

“Who’s there?” Her voice was cracked and high with fear.

The darkness seemed to pluck at her with a thousand tiny hands. She shrank away from the touch, whimpering with terror. The
chapel, so welcoming and friendly moments before, was now as cold as the wind blowing in from over the sea, filled with a
presence whose rage and triumph filled Elissa with agonized despair. She wanted to scream for help, but the presence of the
malign spirit that had somehow entered this holy place seemed to stifle her cry stillborn. There was no light anywhere—she
could not see the Grail—and as she sprang to her feet and tried to run, the long full skirts of her novice’s habit tripped
her and sent her sprawling across the cold stone.

This is my fault! It’s because I made fun of Giraldus. …

But she could not complete that thought, for suddenly her whole body was pierced with a spear of pure liquid agony. It was
as if she had been struck by a bolt of black lightning that meant to burn her to ash and remake her as some creature of the
darkness. She drummed her fists against the cold stone of the chapel floor and could not feel the blows. Every nerve in her
body sang with the vengeful Power that had come upon her in the holiest place in all Christendom.