The Old Magic (11 page)

*To the Enchanted Lake that leads to the Land of Magic, Master Merlin,*
the horse responded. Though Merlin thought the horse was already running at top speed, it began to run even faster, so that
Merlin had to cling tightly to the saddle and speech became impossible.

They reached the edge of the forest and crossed it, and now Merlin was riding through a land he’d never even seen before.
The countryside was one of green and rolling hills, passing almost in a blur. Only a few distant huts and cart tracks were
visible, and it occurred to Merlin fleetingly that no matter how much wickedness King Vortigern had been responsible for,
it had not affected the land.

Then even those few signs of habitation were gone, and the landscape was as wild and untouched as it had been before the first
people had lived here. In the distance, Merlin could see a silvery gleam, which slowly grew and broadened until Merlin knew
he was staring at the Enchanted Lake. By small degrees, the horse began to slow, until it was trotting, then walking, then
stopped. Merlin slid from its back and stared out over the lake. A boat was coming toward them, gliding silently over the
calm surface of the enchanted lake.

“Is the Land of Magic on the other shore?” Merlin asked.

*No. What lies across the Enchanted Lake depends on who seeks it, and what they seek.*

Merlin shook his head in puzzlement, and when he looked up the boat had reached the shore.

It was made of a rich silvery wood, with a band of runes carved about its hull. The prow and the stern tapered to high points,
and there were neither oars nor sails aboard it. Inside the boat, Merlin could see a couple of benches covered in purple velvet
for the passengers to sit on.

“Thank you,” Merlin said to the horse. It shook its silvery mane at him and did not answer. “I suppose I’m supposed to get
into the boat?” he said reluctantly.

The horse backed away, watching Merlin with wary eyes. Merlin glanced from the horse to the boat. This was it. He could probably
still find his way back to the forest from here, but once he boarded the boat he would have no choice but to go where it took
him. There’d be no turning back.

But if he thought he could turn back now, Merlin realized, he was only kidding himself. He was only half-human. The other
half of himself—whatever it was—lay at the boat’s destination.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and climbed into the boat. It began to move off at once, as though some invisible
force was drawing it along. He stumbled backward at the motion, and sat down hard on one of the velvet benches.

This was it, then. There was nothing to do but wait.

L
ooking behind him, Merlin saw the shore and the shining white spark of the magic horse dwindle and vanish in the distance,
but the opposite shore of the lake still did not appear. He felt excited and uneasy about what was to come; even now he was
quickly coming to realize what a haven the forest had been for him, and how sheltered from the real world he’d been as he
grew up there. Everything that had happened to him since this morning was so strange and new, and yet he wasn’t frightened
by any of it. In a sense, it was as if he were coming home. He knew very little about Mab and the Old Ways …
But now all that will change,
he thought to himself.

How it would change was something Merlin did not stop to consider.

As the boat travelled across the glassy lake, a mist began to rise up off the water almost like steam from a pot of soup.
He did not notice it at first, but as the light dimmed Merlin glanced behind him to see how far away the shore was, and saw
that in scant moments the mist had veiled the shoreline and the very water itself from his sight. When he looked back toward
the bow, he saw that a great stone crag was rising out of the mists of the lake where there had been nothing but still waters
a moment before.

Merlin stared at it, marvelling at its sudden appearance. As the boat sailed closer, he could see a cave opening in the base
of the knoll, an opening that gaped as black and threatening as a dragon’s maw.

They were going to sail inside.

This was the first time it had occurred to Merlin that his journey might take him underground, and he was unprepared for the
sharp pang of pure panic that possessed him. He clutched at the side of the boat until his knuckles ached, and after a moment
he realized he was calculating the best way to jump into the lake and swim back to a shore he could no longer see.

Don’t be silly,
Merlin told himself chidingly.
The only things that are in a cave are bats and bears. The boat wouldn’t be sailing into it if it weren’t safe! And Mab is
waiting for you.

His apprehension faded as curiosity got the better of him. When he met Queen Mab, he would understand the other half of his
heritage, and that was something he longed to do.

The boat was close enough now to the cave for Merlin to feel the wind that blew from its mouth. It was colder than the surrounding
air, but instead of the lifeless scent Merlin associated with caves, this breeze smelled of something he could not put a name
to.

Magic?

The prow of the boat passed with slow majesty through the cave opening. Looking up, Merlin saw the rock seem to rise up and
crest over him like a breaking wave. A shudder of excitement passed through his body as he passed from light into shadow.
Now the roof of the cave was his sky, and when he looked back, his view of the enchanted lake was framed by rock.

The sound of the water slapping against the sides of his boat was loud now as it echoed from the walls, and the boat jostled
gently in the choppy water as it continued through the cave-turned-tunnel. A faint light seemed to radiate from everywhere,
so that he could still see what ought to have been dark, and it seemed to Merlin as if every sense he possessed was being
tantalized by some essence he could not yet sense. There was music he could not hear, sights he could not see, just out of
the reach of his mortal senses. He was beginning a great adventure.

This was magic.

Frik ran down the path to the boat landing, trying to run and dress and gather his thoughts all at once. The great day had
come, when the second stage of Mab’s plan would debut. Merlin was coming home to them.

Frik did hope the boy’s arrival would put Her Majesty into a better temper. She’d been very touchy since Julius Caesar had
invaded Britain, but the divine Julius hadn’t been one-tenth the trouble that Constant and his new religion had been. Once
the mortals had started pulling down her shrines instead of stuffing them full of Roman gods, she’d been quite impossible.
And of course, Vortigern simply made things worse. And he’d been all Mab’s idea.

Oh, well,
the gnome thought to himself,
least said, soonest mended.
At least having Merlin to teach would take Mab’s mind off of him for a while. Frik hadn’t at all liked living beneath the
constant threat of rockhood. What if Mab forgot about him and just left him to be a rock forever? It gave a chap the cold
wobblies just thinking about it.

And he did have to admit that he was interested in getting to know this Merlin. Of course, Her Highness was always bringing
home these seven-year stands, like that Thomas Whatsisname who’d wanted to be a poet. Remarkably bad verse, if Frik remembered,
and eventually Mab had gotten so tired of him that she’d put a curse on him to tell nothing but the truth.
That
had set the fellow packing! But that sort of interlude wasn’t like getting to know a mortal. Merlin would be—was—different.
Though Frik had kept a weather eye on Merlin through his childhood, he’d been spying from a distance. This would be a chance
to get to know the young mortal on his own terms.

But young Merlin wasn’t quite mortal, Frik reminded himself. He was Mab’s child, half-fairy. He belonged as much in the Land
of Magic as he belonged upon Earth.

And what if—now that she has Merlin—she doesn’t need you at all?
The thought gave Frik a momentary pause, but he brushed it aside. Merlin was to be Mab’s champion, not a member of her household.
No matter what, she would continue to need someone of Frik’s caliber to manage her establishment.

Frik came to a stop, peering into the bank of mist that hid the mouth of the cave. The boat should be here any minute. He’d
been supposed to go with it to greet Merlin, but to be perfectly frank, Frik and the Lady of the Lake weren’t on the best
of terms, and he’d been just as glad to miss the boat. So to speak.

Only now, as he waited for the magic barge to come back, his mind was filled with all the things that could have gone wrong
in the mortal world. He wasn’t sure he could find any place secluded enough to wait out Mab’s displeasure if any of them had
actually happened.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Frik murmured to himself, checking the time with a large gold pocket watch. Just as he was about to despair,
a dark shape appeared in the mist, and the prow of the barge appeared. There was a figure seated amidships. Frik heaved a
sigh of relief. Merlin.

“Sorry I’m late,” Frik said briskly. “The ship left without me. Coming aboard—” Quickly converting his pocket watch to a bosun’s
whistle, he piped himself aboard and leaped into the boat.

Merlin stared at the strange being. The new arrival had long pointed ears, strange protruding eyes, and was dressed in the
most peculiar clothes Merlin had ever seen: a bright red coat trimmed with lots of gold braid and large brass buttons, and
wearing a strange sort of three-cornered hat on his head.

“Who are you?” Merlin asked.

“Arr, Jim me lad, them as sails with Long John Frik must resign themselves to a life of adventure,” Frik said.

“But—”

“Shhh … I has to concentrate, I does. These is treacherous waters, strong currents, unseen rocks …” the creature’s voice trailed
off as it muttered to itself.

Merlin shook his head, confused. He wished that Master Frik had been willing to talk to him. As soon as the ship had sailed
into the tunnel he’d felt oppressed, as if the ceiling might be going to collapse upon him at any moment, and he would have
welcomed any distraction. Even though the roof of the tunnel was several feet above the top of his head, Merlin imagined he
could feel the weight of all the rock above him as though it were pressing on his chest. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

But he forgot about all his problems when Master Frik piloted the boat out of the tunnel and into what proved to be the first
in a series of large underground lagoons.

Merlin ducked as a sprite whizzed by overhead. Its wings and body glowed faintly, so that it looked as if the air were full
of thousands of multicolored fireflies all moving in different directions at once. His jaw dropped as he realized they had
entered a vast cavern full of the tiny creatures.

There was a splash in the water near the boat, and Merlin glanced over to see a beautiful golden-haired woman clinging to
the side of the ship.

“Scat, you!” Frik said, raising his barge-pole menacingly.

The woman laughed and slipped back into the water. As she turned away, Merlin saw that at the waist her body became a gleaming
emerald fish-tail with long transparent fins. She was a mermaid. He stared after her in amazement, and as he looked he could
see other rainbow gleams, far beneath the surface of the black water.

The boat crossed the lagoon, and entered another chamber where the walls were completely encrusted with enormous crystals
in many different colors. Each of them gave off a soft glow like the bodies of the sprites in the previous cavern, some of
which had followed the boat. Their radiance glittered off the glowing crystals, making the whole chamber seem to be in constant
sparkling motion. The effect was like travelling through the heart of a rainbow.

“Here we are,” Frik said. “Look lively, Master Merlin.”

Merlin stared hard. In the distance he could just make out an enormous flight of white marble steps leading up to an elaborate
portico with tall pillars framing the doorway. The skiff glided over the black water with amazing speed, until Merlin could
see a figure standing on the steps awaiting him. Queen Mab.

The Queen of the Old Ways glittered more dazzlingly than the crystal-covered walls. She wore a flashing crescent-moon tiara
of amethysts and black diamonds, and her long sleeveless violet gown was oversewn with the same jewels. On her arms, coiling
from shoulders to wrists, she wore diamond-studded bracelets in the shape of poisonous snakes. Suddenly Merlin felt shy, just
as he had when he’d encountered Nimue and her party earlier in the day. Mab was so grand, so beautiful. How could she have
any interest in him?

But she was the one who’d created him. Aunt Ambrosia had said so, and his foster-mother had never lied to him. He was Mab’s
child as much as he was his real mother’s.

Seeing the Land of Magic glittering all around him, for the first time his own fairy heritage began to seem real to Merlin.
He’d always thought of himself as a normal person, but now he had to accept that he was only half-human; a boy without a mortal
father. The other half was magic; sorcerous, inhuman.

The boat bumped against the dock, wrenching Merlin out of his reverie. When he glanced toward Frik, the red velvet coat and
the plumed hat were gone. Frik stood upon the dock, wearing a long blue satin robe that sparkled with embroidery, and a small
round hat on his head. His hands were tucked into his sleeves. He bowed, smiling.

“Follow me, follow me—don’t get lost, don’t get lost,” he chanted in a singsong voice. He had long drooping moustaches, and
his half-closed eyes were slanted like a cat’s. As he turned to go, Merlin saw with astonishment that yet another Frik was
now facing him—a goggle-eyed gnome dressed in black tight-fitting clothes. He stared, unable to believe his eyes. Frik bowed
again—in a different style—and began marching up the long sweeping stair.