The Old Magic Read online

  “Use your magic!” Frik shouted from the far shore.

  “I can’t remember any of it!” Merlin shouted back. None of the spells Frik had taught him seemed suitable for saving him from falling into a river that would grind his bones like corn between millstones. I need to get out of here! his mind shrieked.

  To escape!

  To fly…

  “Fly!” Merlin shouted, without quite realizing what he was saying. Suddenly he felt the shimmering transformation of magic course down his body, but this time it did not end with the lighting of a candle or the elongating of a branch. This time the magic turned inward, transforming his very self …

  HALLMARK ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

  SAM NEILL HELENA BONHAM CARTER JOHN GIELGUD RUTGER HAUER

  JAMES EARL JONES MIRANDA RICHARDSON

  ISABELLA ROSSELLINI MARTIN SHORT

  “MERLIN”

  LEGEND ADVISOR LOREN BOOTHBY

  MUSIC BY TREVOR JONES

  CREATURE EFFECTS BY JIM HENSON’S CREATURE SHOP

  EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ROBERT HALMI, SR.

  PRODUCED BY DYSON LOVELL

  TELEPLAY BY DAVID STEVENS AND PETER BARNES

  STORY BY EDWARD KHMARA

  DIRECTED BY STEVE BARRON

  ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK AVAILABLE ON VARÈSE SARABANDE COMPACT DISCS

  Copyright © 1999 by Hallmark Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Aspect® is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  First eBook Edition: August 1999

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55916-4

  For Betsy, Jane, Fiona, and Russ,

  for all their help and support,

  and for MJ, for the usual.

  Contents

  Copyright Page

  Prologue: The Courts of Shadows

  Chapter One: The Courts of Winter

  Chapter Two: The Courts of the Greenwood

  Chapter Three: The Courts of Mirrors

  Chapter Four: The Courts of Love

  Chapter Five: The Courts of Fairy

  Chapter Six: The Courts of Deception

  Chapter Seven: The Courts of Magic

  Chapter Eight: The Courts of Honor

  Chapter Nine: The Courts of Cruelty

  Epilogue: The Courts of the Moon

  A Preview of Part 2: The King’s Wizard

  Further Reading

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  THE COURTS OF SHADOWS

  She rode the winds of the upper air in search of a very special man. She did not remember how long it was since she had traveled this way, for her kind did not reckon the passing of Time in the way that mortal men did. Seasons spun over the face of the earth like shooting stars, but she paid little attention to their passing. She was the stuff of stars, not seasons, and the Old Magic ran in her veins, hot and pure and old. She was Mab, Queen of the Old Ways.

  But the Old Ways were dying.

  It had started so insignificantly that even she could not put her finger on exactly when the first challenge to her power had come. Perhaps when the first Christian had come from Rome to preach his pernicious doctrine to the people of her land. She had been strong then, and arrogant in her power, and what could the insignificant doings of Men matter to her as she listened to the crystal music of the stars in their courses? The land would take them in and its magic would change them as it had so many others.

  But the land had not changed the Christians. They had changed the land. When they began to lay waste to her people, cutting down the sacred groves and toppling the standing stones that marked her temples and sacred places of power, she had lashed out at them in a hundred furious battles, but it was already too late to win the battle. These Christians were not content for their strange god to live in harmony with the other Powers of Britain. They demanded that those Powers be cast down and banished forever—and Mab’s kind could not live without human belief.

  War came to a land that had never known it. As the gentle spirits of field and wood were destroyed by cold iron and holy water, the people no longer lived in harmony with the land. Weeds grew among the scanty crops that had once grown lushly at the behest of a Priestesses of the Old Ways. Trees that had once borne abundant fruit withered. Famine spread throughout the land, for man and beast alike, and now humankind labored with incessant toil to bring crops from the soil, and turned in even greater numbers to the priests of the New Religion for the certainty and security they could offer.

  And as they did, Mab’s people—the folk of Fairy—died. When human folk forgot them, they dwindled away into nothingness. She must save them, somehow. She must destroy the Christians and the Christian king who persecuted her people.

  She needed allies, tools. …

  The mead-hall was lit by flickering torches whose smoke spiralled up to the age-darkened rafters of the Great Hall and the carven dragon-heads there. The sightless wooden eyes gazed down on the feasting Saxons below as if hungry to join in their merriment.

  The walls were hung with the painted round shields of the Saxon war-band, the bright designs and snarling faces looking down on the tables full of feasting men. Their enemies called them pirates; they called themselves warriors—landless men and younger sons who had no patrimony save a sword-blade and no skills save those of war. And so they sailed and raided all up and down the Frisian coast, seeking the gold and glory that could take the place of a homeland.

  The war-leader looked out over his followers and wondered why he could not share in their merry-making. He was a young man, Saxon-fair and muscled like a young bull. He wore a great wolf-skin cloak, and gold glittered about his brow and upon his brawny arms, a mark of success in countless previous attacks. The raid they celebrated here tonight had gone well; they’d sacked a village a few days’ sail down the coast and came away well-laden with gold and glory and few men lost. Now their leader hosted a great feast for them, with bards to make a song of his prowess and valor in the battle. And by so much his glory increased.

  But it wasn’t enough. Gold was spent and glory faded. His eyes were the pale wintry blue of northern ice, and he looked out over the merriment of his companions with increasing restlessness. Only land was eternal, and you could not load land aboard a ship and sail away with it …

  “But you could still take it,” a voice whispered in his ear.

  The young warlord straightened in his chair and turned sharply toward the sound of the voice. What he saw made his eyes widen.

  A woman stood beside his chair, but a woman like no other woman he had ever seen. Her skin was white as moonmilk, and her long black hair was as dark as raven’s wings. It was twisted and braided and studded with jewels, but enough of it fell free to coil about her shoulders like glittering black snakes. Her face was painted into a harsh mask, her eyes rimmed with black that made their translucent fire glitter like moonlight on the ice. She wore a trailing black gown that made the young warlord think of smoke and shadows and the dark and powerful undertow that could claim men and ships and drag them to the bottom of the sea in an instant.

  “Who are you?” he asked, but in his heart he already knew. His people called her kind svartaelfin—the dark folk of Fairy. This one must be their Queen, so rich and powerful did she look.

  “One who can give you what you desire,” she answered. She put a hand on his arm, and at her touch he felt a mingling of alarm and desire that excited him. He had never felt such an emotion before, save in the heat of battle.

  “And what do I desire?” he asked, turning toward her and looking over his shoulder to see who noticed. All were occupied at
their drinking. No one saw her but him, he was sure of it now.

  “Land. Power. A Kingdom. A name that will live forever.” Her voice was like the surf hissing over the rocks.

  “All men desire that,” the warlord said. He was beginning to be irritated as well as wary, and his temper was not good at the best of times. “Where are these lands?”

  “West of here,” the woman said. She pointed in the direction of the sea. “The are undefended and ripe for the taking, groaning beneath the tyranny of a Christian king.”

  “Britain?” The young warlord was astonished. “Britain is a Roman province; Constant rules there as their puppet, and if he should cry for help, the Legions will come to his aid. They’ll slaughter my men by sheer force of numbers.”

  “Rome will send no more Legions to Britain,” the woman answered. Her eyes glittered like those of a hunting cat. “The Empire is fallen—now is the time for new men to carve out new empires. And I will help you.”

  Rome fallen? But the Roman Peace had lasted for as long as the Saxons could remember, the Roman Legions keeping them from raiding the soft fat villages of Brittany, Armorica, and Gaul—all Roman provinces—but protecting Britain most of all, for the Romans valued the tin trade that flourished there.

  His eyes narrowed as he studied his eldritch companion. Most men would fear her, but he was not most men. He had known from the cradle that he was different, that he was born to rule.

  Now he would.

  “And your price for this aid, Lady?” he asked levelly.

  Her face twisted into a mask of hate. “Kill the King! Kill Constant and every Christian in the land and I will help you rule in his place,” Mab hissed. “You will have power and rich lands beyond imagining. You are Pagan, and I do not care who rules there so long as the people return to the Old Ways.”

  “Killing Christians. I can do that. I’m pretty good at it, actually,” he said with satisfaction.

  Let her think he served her, until he had his kingdom. He bowed down to no power on earth or beneath it—he cared not what gods or spirits existed or didn’t so long as he ruled.

  Prince Vortigern smiled.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE COURTS OF WINTER

  The road to Anoeth was long and twisted. Only the dead travelled it easily. It was a land of grey mist and the blackened stumps of stark, twisted trees that reached out of the mist like hands from the grave. Even Mab felt its chill, and she shivered as she groped her way among the standing stones that marked the path. This was not her own kingdom—this was the land of Death and Winter, ruled over by its own dark king, Idath.

  Once they had been lovers, for Idath, grim and terrifying as he seemed to the souls he harvested, was as necessary to the Old Ways as Mab herself. When the Wheel of the Year turned, spinning the seasons from summer to winter, Idath was there to take up the weak who fell to Winter’s cruel sharpness. Without death and change, there could be no light and life.

  But death must balance life, not overwhelm it. The war that had raged over Britain since Vortigern landed had sown death in its wake as a farmer sowed seed, until the land was awash in blood. King Constant was old and crafty, and his priests filled his armies with the terror of Hell and the death which has no rebirth. They fought like maddened wolves for their King, but Vortigern had allies in the Danelaw, and with their help he had slowly pushed the royal armies back across the face of Britain, but at a terrible cost to both sides in lives.

  Now it ends, Mab told herself. Vortigern was camped outside the walls of London, and her allies would open the gates to him. Before another dawn, the Christian rule in England would be over, washed away in blood.

  But though Mab could see many things, the future was closed to her. For that she turned to Idath. His Cauldron of Rebirth showed the future of all lives that were reborn from it. He would tell her the outcome of today’s battle.

  The endless misty plain frustrated her, and she howled her displeasure—a wailing, terrifying cry that had slain grown men on the battlefield. They had named her bean sidhé—the banshee—for it, and Morrigan, Lady of the Ravens, those birds who were the only victor on any battlefield. They had loved her once.

  The echoes of her cry died away in the mist, and Mab snarled with rage at her memories.

  “There’s no need to shout,” Idath said mildly.

  He was tall and gaunt, his whole being cloaked in shadows. Beneath the heavy antler-crowned bronze helmet he wore, his eyes glowed a feral red. Yet he, just as she, was dwindling away through the force of the humans’ disbelief.

  “Don’t play games with me,” Mab raged. “You know what I’ve come for.”

  “You’ve come to know what will be,” Idath answered. “But are you sure that’s what you truly want? The future holds only sorrow, for all things die.”

  “Not us!” Mab answered quickly. “We shall live forever—for as long as the hearts of the people beat in tune with the Old Ways.”

  “And if they are all dead?” Idath answered inexorably. His cloak billowed, and now Mab could see the glowing metal of the Cauldron of Rebirth, souls rising from it like steam as they returned to the world; the dead who filled it being transformed by Idath’s powerful magic. “You have made much work for me in these last years, with your Vortigern. His appetite for slaughter is endless.”

  “He was necessary,” Mab answered. “Constant and his Christians were destroying us. Vortigern is a Pagan. He will restore the Old Ways once he rules England.”

  “Are you truly certain of that, my love? Gaze into my cauldron and tell me what you see here.” Idath stepped back.

  Almost reluctantly, Mab came forward and gazed down into the mists. The pearls that studded the lip of the cauldron glowed like captive moons, turning the liquid within an eerie glowing emerald. The mist that boiled up from the cauldron’s depths veiled the surface.

  “I can’t see anything,” Mab complained.

  “The future is always in motion,” Idath replied. “Wait a moment and it will settle … there.”

  Mab gazed down, fascinated at the mirrored scene the cauldron contained. She saw the gates of Pendragon Castle forced open by treachery, saw Vortigern’s troops swarm through the breech, slaughtering everyone they could reach as the red dragon banner of King Constant was dragged down and trampled underfoot. She watched as the King, knowing his army was defeated, ordered all his prisoners slain, and watched as Constant was slain in turn. The golden crown rolled across the floor, away from the spreading pool of blood.

  Vortigern picked it up, a slow smile of satisfaction spreading across his heavy Saxon features as he placed it upon his head. He stepped up to the throne from which Constant had been dragged only moments before, and seated himself on it.

  “Where is the boy?” Mab heard him ask.

  “Your Grace, he has escaped to Normandy with Queen Lionors,” Kentigern told his brother. “He’s just a boy.” His voice shook a little with fear as the new king frowned.

  “Boys grow up to be trouble,” Vortigern rumbled. He seemed to recover his triumphal feelings of a moment before with an effort. “But meanwhile, there’s work to do. Take as many knights as you need and ride through the kingdom. Slay everybody who isn’t loyal to me and won’t pay my new taxes, Pagan or Christian. The Queen of the Old Ways thinks I will rule as her puppet to bring back the Old Ways, but she’s wrong. From now on, the supreme power in the land is me—and only me.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Kentigern said, bowing and nearly stumbling with the relief of leaving the royal presence alive.

  “No!” Mab’s shriek of despair shattered the smooth surface of the cauldron, dissolving the image. “No! I gave him Britain so that he would bring back the Old Ways! He has betrayed me! He has betrayed all of us!”

  “He has been true to his own nature,” Idath said inexorably. “His symbol is the White Dragon, and the White Dragon cares for nothing but battle.”

  “He will serve me in the end,” Mab vowed through gritted teeth. “Whet
her he wills it or not. But the next champion I choose will not be able to betray me, ever—this I swear!”

  “Gracious Lady, thrice-crowned Queen, hear the prayers of those who worship you and come to our aid.” Ambrosia finished her morning prayers in a hasty rush and got to her feet. Not that you’ll help, she added cynically. The hilltop shrine—no more than a tiny altar hidden at the end of a long passageway made up of bluestone menhirs—was one of the few on the Downs that still remained undefiled. But even it had not escaped without injury, for at the back wall was the carven stone image of Mab in her three aspects—Morrigan the Warrior, Titania the Maiden, and Melusine the Mother—that had been marred by some angry and disappointed petitioner until only the Warrior aspect was still whole. The Maiden and the Mother had been battered almost into invisibility, but between them Mab-Morrigan—Raven-lady, Sword-crowned, Queen of Battles—looked down at Ambrosia with sightless, knowing eyes.

  Ambrosia lingered, more from weariness than from any desire to commune with the Lady she still grudgingly served. On the crude stone altar a bronze lamp shone down on the meager offerings—a barley-cake, some flowers, water from the sacred well. Little enough to offer to the Queen of Air and Darkness, but her followers were starving.

  “And it isn’t as though You’re going to come for them,” Ambrosia said with a sigh. Ambrosia had not seen Mab in the flesh since she was a child first serving at the great shrine of Sarum, when Constant’s rule, though Christian, had not yet descended into its later madness. In those days the followers of the Old Ways had been persecuted and driven from their holy places, but they had not been hunted and slaughtered as Vortigern was doing now. It was scant consolation in these dark days to know that the Christians suffered equally from the new King’s tyranny.

  Ambrosia lifted the carved amber amulet that she wore about her neck and kissed it dutifully. Then she turned reluctantly away from the altar, back to the world and her duties. There are times when I wonder if You ever cared for us at all, she thought. Ambrosia only had her mother’s tales of the golden time when the Old Ways reigned supreme, their magic setting in motion the stars and the seasons. Now everything was darker, grimmer.