The Old Magic Read online

  Once, long ago, he’d ridden with the Wild Hunt, and when he received the knowledge of a soul about to pass into Anoeth, that consciousness had meant he must turn and go in search of it to bring it to his master, Lord Idath.

  But those days were done—he had relinquished his horned crown and the power of his heritage in the Fairy Realm to become a simple forester. All who served the Lord of Winter knew that all things must pass, and if the memory of the Old Ways were fated to pass out of Britain, then Herne vowed he, too, would depart gracefully. Why was he being summoned back to his old commitments now?

  Herne straightened up, gazing around himself for danger as warily as any other forest dweller. He’d been gathering fell-timber for Ambrosia, and had been just about to shoulder his bundle when the warning came.

  Ambrosia.

  He knew she was ill—was this her time? There were things he could do to ease her passing and guarantee her safe voyage into the Summerland, that paradise that the Christians now claimed as their own Heaven. But Christian or Pagan, all were welcome in the Summerland, and somehow this did not feel like an ordinary summons to guide a wandering soul upon its journey.

  Grabbing up his quarterstaff, Herne began to run toward Ambrosia’s hut.

  “Ambrosia!” Mab cried again, as the once-priestess tried weakly to get to her feet. This was all part of some trick, Mab was certain of that. And she was running out of time—Merlin would be here at any moment to misinterpret all he saw.

  Suddenly she thought of a plan. Merlin would come here looking for his foster-mother—but what if Ambrosia were gone? Mab could whisk Ambrosia, her hut, everything the woman owned out of this clearing in the twinkling of an eye, and deposit them where Merlin would never find them. Soon he would give up looking and return to the Land of Magic.

  And to Mab.

  She raised her hands to weave the spell.

  “You never could leave well enough alone, could you, Queen Mab?” a man’s voice asked from behind her.

  Mab spun around, her teeth bared in a feral hiss. A man in green huntsman’s leathers stood in the doorway, gazing at her steadily with cold grey eyes.

  She knew him from long ago, when he had not been mortal, but a huntsman still.

  “So, Herne the Hunter—you come slinking back to regain my favor,” Mab said.

  Herne did not answer. He looked past Mab to where Ambrosia lay on the floor of the hut, and his expression hardened into anger.

  “You always did have a high opinion of yourself, oh Queen of the Old Ways. You were never my liege—and I would defy you now if you were.” Long ago, Herne had set aside his power in order to become the mortal champion of a people beset by the unjust policies of a tyrant king—Britain would remember that about him, he knew, when even his name was gone.

  Mab snarled wordlessly. “This is nothing to do with you, Hunter,” she said. “Leave us!”

  “If it concerns Ambrosia—or Merlin—then it is to do with me,” Herne answered. “The boy must have escaped your clutches if you’ve come back here looking for him. I won’t let you trick him into going back with you again.”

  Enraged beyond speech, Mab flung out her hand to launch a killing bolt of fairy-fire at her tormentor. But Herne was fast enough to evade it—he ran for the edge of the clearing, and the cover of the trees.

  Mab was there before him, materializing in an eyeblink.

  “You cannot stand against me. You have given up much, Forest Lord, to be the champion of mortals who have betrayed the Old Ways. You are not my equal in power or in cunning.” Mab smiled coldly at him, believing he was now at her mercy. She raised her hands to dispatch him.

  “Perhaps not,” Herne answered. “But I can call on one who is.” He raised his hand, and plucked the Horn of Idath out of the wintry air.

  The Horn of Idath was one of the thirteen sacred treasures of Britain, each as magical in its own way as the Grail of the Christians, which many said was only the Cauldron of Idath in a new form. So long as all thirteen of the treasures existed, the realm of Britain would endure no matter what evils beset it. Eons ago the treasures had been lost by their ancient guardians, scattered across the land and hidden from the sight of men and fairyfolk. Only the whereabouts of a few were known today, even by Mab’s kind, which had once had the keeping of all of them. The Horn of Idath was one of those few treasures which remained visible in the mortal world. It had the power to strike terror into those who heard it, to suspend Time … or to call its maker to aid the wielder.

  “You would not dare to summon Lord Idath and his Wild Hunt to your aid!” Mab cried in disbelief.

  Herne smiled grimly. “There’s quite a lot I’ll dare, and you know it, Queen Mab. Do you think I won’t tell young Merlin what you’ve done to Ambrosia? She’s ill and weak—is this how you repay her for raising your boy?”

  “She didn’t do that for me—she did it for herself!” Mab cried furiously. She lashed out at Herne before he could blow the jewelled horn—it spun from his grasp, burying itself in a drift of fallen leaves.

  Herne glanced from Mab to the horn. “So it’s still true,” Herne said, backing away from her. “Your magic cannot kill, though it can trick others into doing your killing for you. Is that what you want to make of Merlin—something that will kill for you?”

  “Silence!” Mab cried.

  She might not be able to kill Herne directly, but there were many things she could do to hurt him, Herne knew. And if she thought to summon a pack of griffins. …

  He must reach the horn. Desperately, Herne summoned the magic that was left to him, shaping it into a bolt to strike her with. She was weaker now than she had been at the height of her power, and if he could force her to change to any of her animal forms—raven, owl, wolf—she would be vulnerable. Summoning all his strength, he cast his spell.

  But his magic had no effect—his power fell away from Mab’s defenses like a glittering fall of ice crystals as it dissolved into nothingness. And at that moment, Mab struck.

  Herne struggled powerlessly as her magic enfolded him, realizing in a last despairing moment of consciousness that Mab was more subtle than he’d dreamed. He did not need to die for her to win.

  His whole body stiffened helplessly. In an instant his toes became roots, tearing through the soles of his boots and seeking the earth below. His arms were forced toward the pale snowy sky, his fingers lengthening and shooting heavenward to become a myriad of winter-bare branches. He threw his head back in a silent cry as flesh became wood. His body, his consciousness, slowed to the vegetable rhythms of the Earth as he became one with the green growing things of the forest. In a moment, Mab’s spell had worked its transformation, and where Herne had stood a moment before, a mighty oak now raised its branches to heaven.

  Mab stepped back, regarding her work with satisfaction. With a flick of her fingers she summoned a swarm of sprites to seek out and bring the Horn of Idath to her. They found it easily, but it took a dozen of them to lift it, and the sound of their wings buzzed with the strain as they carried the horn carefully to their mistress. Its pale jewelled curve gleamed in the winter twilight.

  Only a Lord of Fairy, such as Herne had been—or a great wizard—could sound this horn to summon her consort, Idath, Lord of Time and Death. Merlin would be the last of those, and she would see to it that he never suspected the horn’s existence.

  Mab took the horn from her sprites and placed it carefully in a fork of the branches of the great oak. When spring came the leaves would hide the Horn of Idath from sight, and in time the branches would grow over it, trapping it and its magic within the trunk of the tree for all time.

  “Now you may guard this forest forever,” Mab crooned, running her gleaming hand over the tree’s bark.

  Now she could deal with Merlin.

  The wizard magic in his staff carried Merlin homeward, whisking him through the chill winter air from the shore of the Enchanted Lake through the clouds that lay over the hills and valleys of Britain. Slowly the la
ndscape below began to seem familiar once more, and then he was flying low above the road that led from Nottingham Town to Lord Lambert’s castle.

  “Hattock and horse—hattock and home!” Merlin cried.

  The reversal of the spell should have caused the flying stave to descend gently to the ground once more, but Merlin was cold, tired, and worried. The command of the flying spell slipped through the intangible grasp of his wizard’s will in just the way his control over the candle-lighting spell had earlier.

  The stave spun wildly in the air for a moment; Merlin lost both his grip and his balance almost instantly. He was flung through the air to land with a bruising crash in a pile of fallen leaves. Twirling out of control in the air above, the stave burst like a dropped jug, spraying splinters through the air before the largest remaining chunks of wood fell to the ground.

  Merlin sat up with a groan.

  “It serves me right, I suppose,” he said ruefully. He got to his feet, rubbing the sorest spots. He was close enough to home now to be able to travel the rest of the way on foot. Quickly Merlin began to walk—and then to run—in the direction of Ambrosia’s cottage.

  The knowledge that she was dying brought Ambrosia a great peace. At last she could lay down the tangled threads of the responsibilities she’d taken up with her life. She’d done as well as might be for all her loved ones. Most of them had preceded her into the land of Anoeth, where they waited for her in the golden fields of the Summerland. There was only one love that she was leaving behind.

  “Auntie A! Auntie A!”

  As if her dying thoughts had summoned him, Merlin burst into the hut. His face was pale with fright at the destruction he saw all around him—the aftereffects of the rage of a fairy queen. He skidded to a halt and knelt beside Ambrosia where she lay on the floor in a jumble of household goods, reaching for her hand.

  Ambrosia smiled painfully up at him, searching his face with her eyes. He wasn’t much older, but he’d changed in the Land of Magic; she could see it in his gaze. He was no longer a boy—there was both sorrow and knowledge in his eyes, the glimmerings of the man he would become. Now Merlin knew all the secrets of his true nature, and till the end of his days he would be forever trapped between the two worlds of mortal and magic, never to belong fully to either.

  But Ambrosia was content. You’ll never have him for your accomplice, Mab. He’s mine. You gave him to me—to the mortal world—with my death.

  “Dear boy, dear boy,” Ambrosia whispered. The easy tears of illness filled her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Merlin asked. His voice trembled as he took in the enormity of the destruction and the pallor of his foster-mother’s face. He touched a fold of her shawl with trembling fingers, feeling fearful and lost in a way he had never been before. Deep inside he’d expected to find the forest cottage exactly as he’d left it, but all of Ambrosia’s careful housekeeping had been destroyed by the fury of a force impossible for Merlin to envision. His childhood home looked worse than if a bear had blundered into it and smashed everything in a blind rage, and in the middle of this terrible destruction, his Aunt Ambrosia lay dying.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Ambrosia whispered with effort. “Everything’s as it should be now.”

  Merlin whimpered, deep in his throat, trying to deny the evidence of his senses. His Aunt Ambrosia couldn’t die. He needed her. He would always need her.

  He fought back his tears. Ambrosia seemed to be roused by his bewilderment and desperation to give him one last comfort. “Merlin—Merlin, remember. Only listen to your heart.”

  His heart. As though it had ever done anything but confuse him with contradictory warnings he had not understood until it was too late.

  And then, as he watched, Ambrosia closed her eyes and was gone, as if a bright candle flame had been quenched, leaving only the wick behind. Ambrosia’s body remained, lying on the floor of the hut, but the spirit that had been Ambrosia was gone, never to be met with again in this lifetime.

  Merlin was alone. He would have to make his own choices, discover his own truths without Ambrosia’s help, for all the days left to his life. The last person who truly loved him was dead.

  He did not, in that moment, consider Nimue. For all her youth and beauty, he had known her only briefly. Ambrosia had raised him. She had been a part of him, understanding him better than he understood himself.

  Slowly Merlin rose to his feet. He turned toward the door of the hut, unsurprised to find Mab standing there, waiting for him.

  Always before he had been dazzled by her, a little overwhelmed. But it was as if now his anger had stripped away her fairy glamour, and she was no longer impressive, even in her elaborate whimsical garb. Despite her high-piled raven hair, Mab was even shorter than he was, and somehow unreal—a strange, dangerous vestige of an ancient time that was justifiably over, never to come again.

  “You killed her!” Merlin said. He saw clearly now, and at last he realized what the cold hard pain in his chest was: rage. Rage at Mab, who had lied to him, misled him, deceived him, taken Ambrosia from him.

  Taken everything from him.

  “No, I didn’t,” Mab said. Her face was as cool and remote as always.

  “You killed her like you killed my real mother!” Merlin cried. Some part of him hungered for Mab’s understanding, her grief. He wanted her to weep for what she had done.

  “No,” Mab said, shaking her head. She enunciated slowly, carefully, as though she were speaking to a dull-witted child. “I only let her die.” She smiled at Merlin as if she were pleased to have explained it so neatly.

  There is no difference! His rage boiled over, mastering him swifter than thought. Merlin raised his hand to strike her, his fist plunging toward her chest as though his hand held a dagger. If he could have killed her in that instant, he would have.

  But for all Merlin’s training and untapped power, Mab was still the stronger. His hand stopped inches from her body, held back by an invisible shield.

  “You haven’t the power to strike me,” Mab told him, her voice faintly chiding.

  “Watch my power grow!” Merlin cried. He stared into Mab’s eyes, feeding his fury with the lack of remorse he saw there. Mab had used him, just as she used everyone. When her tools broke she did not mourn them—she merely cast them aside. Nobody mattered to her.

  Merlin called upon everything he knew, everything he was, trying to force his attack home. His hand moved closer, but he still could not strike. It seemed as though there were some great reservoir of power just tantalizingly out of his reach—something that he could attain if he could only figure out how.

  But before he could touch it, Mab thrust him aside, as if she’d only been toying with him as she assessed his strength. Merlin fell sprawling to the floor of the hut beside Ambrosia’s body.

  “That was very good, Merlin. I’m impressed,” Mab said approvingly. She spoke as if she hadn’t even noticed his fury and hatred.

  “I’ll never forgive you—never!” Merlin shouted.

  He struggled to his feet, weak and out of breath. He had no magic left, only the power of his human emotions—and he burned with his revulsion against all that Mab stood for like a bright torch. For the first time he understood in his heart why the New Religion despised the Fairy Folk so: Their callous indifference to suffering was as damaging to the human spirit as any hatred could be. The two races could never peacefully coexist: If the Fairy Folk did not rule mankind as its slaves, then mankind must destroy them.

  “I’m sorry about your mother and Ambrosia, but they were casualties of war,” Mab said at last. It was as if she had just now remembered that some explanation of her actions might be called for, not as if she meant it. “I’m fighting to save my people from extinction.”

  “I don’t care if you die and disappear,” Merlin said furiously. In that moment he meant it with all of his heart. Die, disappear, vanish—we have no use for your kind, or for your lying magic!

  “I will, unless I fight and win!�
� Mab assured him seriously. “That was why you were created.”

  To help Mab, against people like Ambrosia? He could not bear the thought. To be her servant would be to help her do far worse than anything Vortigern had ever done. Merlin shook his head, appalled by the knowledge of how close he’d come to becoming what Mab wanted. In his mind, Mab had become a black serpent, coiling around the things he loved and crushing the life out of them.

  “I will never help you,” he vowed.

  “You will,” Mab purred, her green eyes gleaming with wolf-light. “I’ll make you help me.”

  Merlin shook his head mutely. The day had held too many tragic shocks for him to be able to articulate his new wisdom, but it burned within him, transfixing his soul like a burning sword. This day would always live in his memory as the one upon which he’d been given absolute understanding of goodness and evil.

  And Mab was evil.

  The Queen of the Old Ways smiled, confident of her eventual victory. She turned away from Merlin and moved toward the door of the hut, vanishing as she approached it, going back to her hidden kingdom.

  Merlin waited, but nothing more happened. Neither Frik nor any of Mab’s other servants came to torment him. He was alone. And for the first time he was on his own. There was no one he could turn to for help.

  Blaise? Herne? Perhaps they could help him, but later. For now, his grief was too raw to admit the existence of anyone else’s feelings. He picked up Ambrosia’s frail body and laid it tenderly down upon her bed, covering her gently with a blanket. Then he turned to undoing the destruction Mab had brought to his home, as if by erasing her works he could erase her very existence.

  Frik had known the instant Mab returned to the Land of Magic that the news was bad, and he did not feel the need to learn anything more. If she had returned without Merlin, it could only mean that the boy had successfully defied her, and Frik could not remember the last time something like that had happened.