The End of Magic (12 page)

“Ah,” Mab said at last, turning toward Mordred with a small black glass bottle in her hand. “Here it is.”

Mordred regarded the bottle with interest. Whatever was inside seemed to be glowing.

She pulled out the stopper before seizing a battered and tarnished silver goblet from the top of a shelf. She poured it full
from the bottle—the liquid
did
glow, then began to bubble and smoke. She handed the goblet to Mordred.

“Drink this,” Mab said. “With its power you will be able to persuade anyone mortal of anything.”

Mordred stared down into the goblet. “And why would I want to do that, Auntie?” Persuasion hadn’t actually been in any of
his future plans.

“You will turn Arthur’s knights against him, and use them to destroy Camelot and all that it stands for!” Mab cawed in her
raven’s voice. “And then Merlin will see that it was wrong to oppose me!”

“But aren’t we going to destroy Merlin too, Auntie?” Mordred asked. He sat down in a large ornate chair, brushing away a few
cobwebs first. The goblet he held still bubbled and foamed.

“Leave Merlin to me,” Mab said. “I’ve made plans that will remove him from the World of Men completely. He will be powerless
to help Arthur.”

“That’s all very well,” Mordred said, getting up again and walking over to where Mab stood, “but don’t you want him dead?
Auntie? Tell your favorite nephew.”

“Merlin is a wizard,” Mab said. “He has the Old Blood running through his veins. The potion’s powers won’t affect him. I don’t
want you to fail, Mordred,” she said, turning to him and stroking his cheek. “You mean so much to me.”

But not as much as Merlin does,
Mordred thought with an unwelcome pang of realization. He’d always known that Mab had created Merlin. But Merlin had betrayed
her, and Mordred had been sure that Mab had written Merlin off years ago.

Suddenly he wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Drink,” Mab urged him.

Mordred did, cautiously. Despite the fact that the goblet in his hands was hot, the liquid it contained was cold—bitingly
cold. It burned freezingly all the way down his throat, numbing his mouth and tongue. He coughed and sputtered, dropping the
cup.

“I don’t feel any different,” he said when he could speak.

Mab patted his shoulder. “It won’t begin to work until you return to the mortal world—but beware. Its power will wane with
the waning of the year. At Samhain it will end.”

“That should be plenty of time,” Mordred said complacently. “Now. What other presents do you have for me, Auntie?”

Once he left Tintagel Keep, the now-mortal Frik wandered helplessly—aimlessly—through a world grown dark and cruel. He had
thought that there could be nothing worse than to be Mab’s eternal victim, but he had been wrong. Stripped of the magic that
had been his since the beginning of Time, he was forced to fight for his survival in a world where his gnomish appearance
made him every man and woman’s enemy. There were times when Frik, tired, hungry, and cold, yearned simply to lie down in a
ditch and let Lord Idath take him away to the Land of Winter.

But he wouldn’t. Not while Mab was larking around, gloating over her hopeful victories. There must be some way to stop the
old besom!

There was no one he could turn to for help, no one left alive who would look kindly upon him, save for one man.

Merlin the wizard.

Down deep inside himself, Frik cringed at the thought. He could not bear to accept Merlin’s forgiveness when he could not
forgive himself. But Merlin would understand his grief. Merlin would help him. The boy had a kind and generous heart, and
was dedicated to Mab’s destruction. Merlin would forgive Frik his part in all the abuse and maltreatment he had suffered in
the service of Mab’s ambition.

And it was time to face facts. Frik had nowhere to go and no one to turn to but Merlin. Perhaps between the two of them, they
could think of something that could destroy the powerful Queen of the Old Ways. Almost despite himself, Frik’s faltering steps
turned north, toward the forest where Merlin had been born.

We had some happy times here,
Frik thought to himself as he surveyed the little forest hut. It wasn’t kept quite as it had been in Ambrosia’s time—when
Frik had been a frequent, though invisible, visitor—but it was tidy enough. All right and tight, waiting for the day that
Merlin would come back to it.

Frik sat down on a stool and stared morosely into the cold hearth. The harsh wind of autumn blew through the chinks in the
thatching, and Frik shivered in his threadbare mountebank’s costume. He was cold—and try as he might, no amount of will could
light a fire in the fireplace, or even generate a little heat. Life wasn’t much fun without magic… and yet Merlin had struggled
so hard against it, both against learning it and against using it.

It was very puzzling.

Frik’s shoulders slumped. There was no point in putting off the horrid realization any longer. Merlin wasn’t here. Part of
Frik had known all along that he wouldn’t be. Merlin would be at Camelot—and soon, so would Mordred, armed with all of Mab’s
venomous ingenuity. Frik had come on a fool’s errand—but down deep inside, a small voice insisted that there was something
he needed to do here in Barnstable Forest. Something important. Something vital.

Frik gazed bleakly about the hut. Little curls of autumn leaf had blown in under the tattered door curtain, and spiders had
strung veils of lace between the shelves and along the walls. The little cottage had the look of a place that had been abandoned
forever, but surely that could not be true. This was Merlin’s home. He loved the forest and the wild lands. He must be planning
to return here.

When?

When Arthur was dead and Mordred ruled in Camelot? When Mab had won? Even if Merlin were willing to abandon his vendetta against
her, Mab wouldn’t just let Merlin walk away. She was too vengeful for that. She would want her renegade wizard to bow down,
to acknowledge her supremacy—and, try as he might, Frik could not imagine Master Merlin doing that.

Unfortunately, Frik couldn’t imagine Merlin winning a battle against Mab either. Mab was an elemental force of nature, the
Queen of the Old Ways. No mere human—or half-fay wizard—could destroy her, not when she drew her power from human belief.
Only when every last one of them had forgotten her would she lose her malign potency.

Frik put his head in his hands and thought longingly once more of Lord Idath and his soft dark all-comforting cloak. In the
Summerland there was no cold, no hunger, and no pain. Frik was sure that he would not mind being dead very much. And surely
Lord Idath would have to take him in. He was mortal now, after all. And all that was mortal were Lord Idath’s subjects.

Frik gazed woefully around himself, self-pitying thoughts of Mab’s invincibility and Lord Idath’s kingdom swirling together
in his mind. And suddenly he realized why he’d come here, why he’d never quite despaired in all the long days since Morgan’s
murder. There was something here that could help him destroy Mab.

Slowly Frik got to his feet, pacing around the interior of the hut, casting his mind back through the years. As if it were
yesterday, he remembered the day Merlin had escaped from the Land Under Hill back into the mortal world and Mab had gone in
search of him. She had returned in a terrible temper—alone—vowing vengeance against Merlin for betraying her, and Frik had
not dared to ask her what had happened that day in the World of Men. But later, when her anger had cooled, Mab had boasted
of the things she had done that day in the forest to hurt Merlin. She had boasted of her part in Ambrosia’s death.

And of what she had done to Herne.

Once, like Ambrosia, Herne had been a cleric of the Old Ways, serving Lord Idath in his aspect as Lord of the Wild Things.
But as Vortigern’s oppression had grown, Herne had set aside his priestly horned crown to become the champion of the people,
feeding the hungry and protecting the weak from his home here in the greenwood. Herne had watched over young Merlin as he
grew up here within the forest, and when Ambrosia had been killed, Herne had tried to save Merlin from Mab’s vengeance, only
to be destroyed for his efforts. But even though he had renounced his ancient power and priesthood, Herne had given Mab quite
a fright, Frik knew, for Herne had still held the Horn of Idath, one of the thirteen sacred treasures of Britain, and even
Mab could not stand against its effects.

So long as all thirteen of the treasures existed, the realm of Britain would endure no matter what evils beset it. Aeons ago
most of the treasures had been lost to their ancient guardians. The Horn of Idath was one of those few treasures that remained
visible in the mortal world. Only a Lord of Fairy, such as Herne had been—or a great wizard—could sound this horn, but once
it was blown, it had the power to strike terror into those who heard it, to suspend time… or to call its maker, the Lord
of Winter, to aid the wielder.

Herne was dead. But Merlin still remained.

A giddy wave of hope washed over Frik, forcing him to sit down for a moment. Mab had taken the Horn from Herne, but she had
not dared to bring it back with her to the Land of Magic, for then Idath, its master, would have known where it was—and asked
Mab some very awkward questions, Frik was sure.

And so Mab had hidden it here, somewhere in the forest. If Frik could only find it, and bring it to Merlin, the wizard would
at last possess a weapon that even Queen Mab feared.

All Frik had to do was find it.

In the days that followed, Mab showed Mordred all the secrets of her underground dominion. Mordred feigned appreciation, and
never let Mab suspect the fury that was slowly growing deep inside him.

She was going to spare Merlin. Her firstborn—the wizard whose malfeasance had caused Mab to create Mordred.

Mordred could not remember how long he’d known he was competing with Merlin for Mab’s affection. She’d always called Merlin
her enemy, but Mordred, even as a child, had known better. Mab wasn’t finished with Merlin. She’d forgive him in an instant
if he came back to her, and then where would Mordred be? He wasn’t a wizard. He didn’t have any of the Old Blood. While Merlin
was alive, he was
second best.

It was intolerable.

In a just world, matters would have righted themselves naturally. Mordred would have killed Merlin, and eliminated his rival
for Auntie Mab’s affections. She’d always promised him that he’d get to do that just as soon as he grew up.

But now she’d changed her mind. Now she was planning to hide Merlin somewhere else while Mordred got rid of dear Father and
that trollop he’d married. Once he’d seen the full extent of her power, of course Merlin would want to return to Mab, and
then Mab would love him best… and where would that leave Mordred?

Obviously, this could not be allowed to happen. And so Mordred would learn all Mab could teach him, take all the weapons she
was willing to give him, and use the power he gained in ways she had never imagined. Arthur would die—and so would Merlin,
no matter where Mab hid him.

It would all be for the best.

She’d see.

He searched in the high branches of trees, under thorn-bushes, beneath the surface of ice-crusted woodland pools, in an ever-widening
spiral that had Ambrosia’s cottage as its center. The search was tedious, and Frik was never afterward quite certain of how
long it took him, only that the forest turned from autumn brown to winter grey while he searched. The Horn of Idath was here.
He knew it. And he would find it, even if he had to sift through every scrap of the detritus of thirty winters.

If Frik had still been able to call upon even a scrap of magic, the search would have been quick and simple, but Frik was
as helpless now as any human, and far less used to managing things without the power of magic. Frik was—had been—a creature
of magic. Without it Frik was not a normal mortal, but a crippled gnome. He felt the loss of his powers keenly.

But even though Frik was now mortal and magicless, he still had the ageless patience of fairykind. And at last he found what
he sought.

The Horn of Idath was wedged high in the branches of an oak tree. The tree’s wood had grown tight around it, and in any other
season it would have been invisible. But in winter the gleam of gold and gems stood out brightly against the grey bark. He
had not quite believed it was here, but he had also not dared to doubt.

Carefully Frik climbed the tree, and worked patiently with a small knife he had found in the forest cottage until he had freed
the Horn from the wood. It had snowed last night, and it had begun to snow again as he worked, but Frik noticed neither the
cold nor the fat wet flakes that mantled his shoulders and crusted his eyelashes. All he could see or think about was the
Horn. Now at last it was in his possession. Its magic made his fingers tingle.

He climbed stiffly down from his precarious perch and stood at the base of the tree, holding the recovered Horn in his two
hands. It was a huntsman’s horn, with a long strap of gilded leather attached so it could be slung over the shoulder. Frik
had seen Herne carry it that way so many times as he watched Merlin grow up here. Its mouthpiece was gold, and the white curve
of the Horn was banded in gold, the bands studded with emeralds, sapphires, and opals.

Its fatal beauty tempted him to sound it, but Frik was neither a wizard nor a Lord of Fairy. The Horn would not work for him.

But it would work for Merlin.

He must go to Camelot. If Merlin was not there, surely someone would know where he was. Merlin was the king’s wizard, after
all.

Carefully Frik wrapped the Horn up in a bit of cloth and tucked it away safely in his backpack. He had a long journey ahead
of him, but for the first time since Morgan’s death, he had hope.

If only he could reach Merlin before Mordred did.

“I cannot teach you magic,” Mab said regretfully to Mordred. “But I can
give
you magic.”