Divided against Yourselves (Spell Weaver) (50 page)

“As do we all,” Merlin replied, letting his inner demon flash for just a second in his eyes to underscore his point.

I got up off the ground, brushed myself off, and thanked my friends. For a few minutes I was engulfed in a storm of handshakes and hugs—mostly hugs, even from the guys. A handshake was the most Dan dared to offer, though. I nodded to him but decided not to start
the
conversation. That would have to wait until later. First things first.

“Merlin, you have already done so much for me, but I could use your help getting Carla and Stan back the way they should be.”

Merlin looked a little uneasy, not a common expression for him. “You are the expert in how to deal with past selves, not I.”

I had no idea where Merlin might go after we parted, but I very strongly suspected he would not end up living in Santa Brígida. If I had any chance of getting his help, it would have to be now.

“Merlin, please. You must have some idea.”

“I always have
some
idea, but whether or not it is the right one is another question. I once thought it was a good idea to trust Nimue, and look where that got me. If you look at Carla, however—and I mean
really
look—I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

I turned to Carla, scanned her, and discovered that she no longer had two separate presences within her. She was all Carla. Well, not quite. As my past selves had become part of me, Alcina had become part of her. If the process had worked for her as it had for me…”

Apparently Carla could see my question in my eyes. “That’s right, Tal; I have access to all of Alcina’s memories and abilities, including magic. I’m just like you now.”

“Which means you will need training,” said Nurse Florence. “Even before, you were using a little magic accidentally. As someone working at Alcina’s power level, you will have to learn how to control that power.”

“And how not to use dark magic,” I pointed out. “I learned that lesson the hard way!”

Carla seemed supercharged with enthusiasm. “It’s as if I see a whole new world I never knew existed. I can hardly wait to begin my studies. But don’t worry, Tal, I’ll still have time for the band and…other things.” She hugged me, pressing much closer than she needed to, and whispered in my ear, “Like winning you back. I’ll always make time for that!”

As Carla let go of me, I noticed Eva looking at us with, I don’t know, an expression I had never seen on her face. It almost looked like…regret.

You have got to be kidding me! So now, with Carla already fixating on me again, now you’re interested?

I almost had the nerve to pose that question directly, but when Eva saw I was looking at her, she turned away, and my nerve vanished. Well, back to business.

“This is great, but how did it happen? Merlin?”

“If I had to guess,” he said with a wink, since, to the best of my knowledge, he had never guessed at anything, “I would say that Alcina’s own spell worked on her so well that she would do anything to please you. She knew what you wanted, Carla fully healed, and somehow she figured out a way to do it. Perhaps she used the bond between you to absorb some of your knowledge of how to integrate past selves.”

“I spaced out for a few minutes and thought I was dreaming about Alcina and me having a conversation,” said Carla. “She took my hand and just vanished. Then I felt her inside of me somewhere, part of me instead of separate from me, and I snapped back to reality again.”

“Yeah, that’s about how it works if you know how to do it. Merlin, you must be right. But what about Stan?” I did a quick scan and saw with horror just how mangled the potential connections between Stan and David were. “This is beyond my skill to fix.”

“It isn’t beyond your skill,” said Merlin firmly. “It is beyond your power…but that I can help with.” He put his hand on my shoulder, and suddenly I felt strong enough to take on an army…or mend a mind seemingly shattered beyond all hope.

I let myself flow into Stan, and I used my borrowed might to heal both Stan and David and then to create links between them, links that could survive friction between them, links that could survive even David emerging full force to take over Stan’s body, something that seemed to happen with remarkable frequency no matter how much I warned them.

I tried to take the final step and merge them into one integrated personality, but I couldn’t do it, even with the white-hot power of Merlin behind me. Perhaps they had to do it for themselves. At least I had stabilized their situation for the foreseeable future, and given enough time, I might be able to figure out how to solve the problem once and for all. For now it was comforting to get poor, self-sacrificing Stan back in his own body.

“That’s what comes of being too self-sacrificing,” whispered Dark Me from somewhere in my mind. “Somebody else has to keep rescuing you.” I just ignored him.

Before long Nurse Florence and Vanora started making preparations to bring us back. Annwn time did flow more slowly than our own, but we had been in Annwn for hours, and we needed to get back pretty soon to avoid having to make yet another round of explanations. I suddenly realized I wanted to stay with Merlin awhile longer.

“There is so much I could learn from you. Is there any chance…”

“What?” said Merlin with his unnerving laugh. “Move to your charming little town, masquerade as…oh, let’s see…the high school’s librarian? Dispense wisdom to you under the guise of checking out books? Have tea with the ladies of the lake every afternoon?”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

“Taliesin, it would actually give me pleasure to pass on what I can to you, but I have the strange suspicion that you will find what you need elsewhere.”

“Is that a prophecy, Merlin?” Under the circumstances, it was a logical question.

“It is what you would call a ‘hunch.’ Regardless, Taliesin, I have been trapped in a tower for fifteen hundred years. Many tasks I was meant to do have been left undone. I need to get the universe back into balance. After that, I think it might be time to start my next life. I should have reincarnated long ago. I never intended to use my powers to stay alive for so long.”

“Did the tower force you to stay alive?” I asked.

“No, I did that to myself. I could have escaped the tower by dying, but I foresaw I should stay here.”

“For what?”

“For this very day, Taliesin. I didn’t know exactly what would happen, but I knew someone would eventually come along who would need my help, someone worthy of that help. I made my demonic fake Merlin to be sure that someone who came along was truly worthy. I figured that anyone who could defeat my double would certainly be worthy.”

“Like someone who could break the unbreakable tower even you couldn’t break wouldn’t be worthy!” I gave as good an imitation of his laugh as I could. Merlin looked momentarily surprised, and then he joined in the laughter.

“That I could have overlooked such an obvious point! Well, everyone makes mistakes!” Interestingly, the original Taliesin had no memory of Merlin ever even coming close to admitting an error. I suppose the old guy had mellowed a bit over the centuries.

I found myself glancing in Eva’s direction and watching how the light from Annwn’s sunrise was sparkling in her strawberry-blond hair.

“Ah,” said Merlin, following my gaze. “That reminds me. Taliesin, I can tell that finding your true love will not be easy, and I can’t help you with that, either. The only one who can is she who was born of the foam.”

Good! Now we get to the riddles.

I forced myself to look away from Eva, but Merlin was already gone. I guess he was not one for long good-byes.

“Tal! It’s time to go.” I looked over to see Jimmie, still in his angel form. Evidently, he had taken a liking to that one.

“Jimmie, I meant to thank you for all you did today.”

“Thank me by forgiving Dan…for real this time.” I suddenly felt a cold breeze.

“I’ll work on it, Jimmie. That’s all I can promise right now.”

“You’re just stuck with me for a while longer, then.”

“Jimmie, I don’t want to cause you more pain.”

“It’s funny,” said Jimmie, with a big smile. “Since being inside you, the pain seems to have gone away, at least for now.”

“Well, I’m glad you got something out of it! Anyway, Jimmie, if I hadn’t had your light to copy—”

“My light?” said Jimmie, looking confused. “I just reflected what I saw in you.”

Now I was confused, but I pretended I wasn’t.

“Love the angel form, by the way.” I grinned. “That came from that book you had when you were six, didn’t it?”

Jimmie looked at me strangely. “Tal, that was your book, but you did show it to me. I always thought the angel looked like you. It just seemed to fit.”

I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it earlier. The face of Jimmie’s angel form did look a lot like me. I could hear Dark Me snickering. I ignored him again.

“This makes me look like your conscience,” said Jimmie. “And that’s who I’ll be until you forgive Dan.”

With that, Jimmie turned and walked toward the others. There was a danger in Jimmie haunting me, even beyond Jimmie’s possible pain, which was bad enough. The danger was that Dan and I would get too used to having him around. Then we would both lose him again. Well, even with that risk, I still couldn’t forgive Dan…yet, anyway.

So there were still a few things left on my to-do list. I had to check Nurse Florence’s theory that the memories I had found in Dan’s mind were false. I had to figure out how I felt about Carla, to say nothing of what to do about it. I had to find a way to merge Stan and David as they should be. I had to help my mom adjust to her new abilities.

And then I had to find a way to do what I should have done in the first place: break the awakening spell and become just plain old Tal Weaver again—no magic, no memories of the long past—just me.

I was damned if I was ever going to use dark magic again. And I was damned if my friends and family were going to keep on suffering because of who I was.

WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

In the first book,
Living with Your Past Selves
, Taliesin Weaver (who goes by Tal) is just recovering from the sudden rending of the barriers between this life and all of his previous ones, a crisis that nearly destroyed his mind. By age sixteen, he has learned how to handle the flood of memories and even to take advantage of them. For instance, he can speak languages he never learned—at least not in this life. He has also become an expert musician and swordsman, and he can even work magic. He owes many of these traits to the earliest life he can remember clearly: the life of the original Taliesin, chief bard at the court of King Arthur. He also uses the knowledge from this early life to find the sword White Hilt, which, centuries ago, he helped Arthur steal from Annwn, the Celtic Otherworld. Despite his earlier fear, he has come to accept his new abilities and even to be secretly pleased with them—secretly, because he has an overpowering fear about what would happen if anyone should discover the truth about him.

Just when his life seems to be going OK, his best friend, Stanford (Stan) Schoenbaum, figures out Tal’s secret. Tal does what he can to confuse the issue, but that very night the
Gwrach y Rhibyn
(the Welsh banshee) appears outside his house and predicts his death. Much more ominously, the very next day Tal discovers that a
pwca
(shape-shifter) has taken Stan’s place and managed to steal White Hilt from Tal. Tal defeats the
pwca
with considerable difficulty, but the shock of having to kill “someone”—which he has not yet had to do in this life—nearly incapacitates him.

He is rescued from being discovered in a situation he cannot explain by Dan Stevens, a former friend recently turned enemy. Dan’s bizarre and sudden change of heart is explained when an anonymous voice speaks through Dan and explains that the voice is Tal’s ally and will help him, as will the sometimes-possessed Dan. However, the voice refuses to identify itself, and Tal is left to ponder what to do next. He ends up going to Stan’s house and telling him everything. Though skeptical of the magic, Stan is eventually won over, and now Tal has at least one more ally.

Together Tal and Stan explore what Tal can do, and Tal practices abilities, like shape shifting, that he has not yet tried in his current life. He and Stan also work out physically—Tal because he realizes he needs more stamina, and Stan because he realizes that girls like muscular guys better. Meanwhile, Dan becomes friendly again, even when not possessed, and Tal and Stan start working out with the football team (of which Dan is the captain) in exchange for tutoring. Their social statuses soar, and Tal again begins to think his life might work out. Unfortunately, he is wrong again.

During the Founders’ Day celebration in Santa Brígida, their home town, Tal, Stan, Dan, and several other students who are being honored for various achievements, are torn out of their reality and thrust into Annwn. There they encounter Morgan Le Fay, who insists she did not bring them but nevertheless intends to hold them prisoner for her own purposes. Only the timely intervention of the Voice saves Tal and his fellow students and returns them to reality. At that point Carrie Winn, the most powerful citizen in Santa Brígida, reveals that she is the Voice, now communicating directly because the situation is more dangerous than she thought, and so she and Tal must work together more closely.