Steel Magic

by Andre Norton

  Huon shook his head. “Story or not in your world, young sir, you are now truly in Avalon this day. Just as I am eating your food and drinking this strange but refreshing wine of yours. And Rufus passed you through the Gate of the Fox without challenge. Thus it is meant that you should come here.”

  Cold Iron

  “That you have come through our gate without hurt or challenge,” Huon continued, “means that you have not been sent or called by them.” He held up his hand in a swift sign the children did not understand.

  “Them?” Sara asked before biting into her sandwich. This talk about a gate was reassuring because they could go back the same way they had come through.

  “The enemy,” Huon replied, “are those powers of darkness who war against all that is good and fair and right. Wizards of the Black, witches, warlocks, werewolves ghouls, ogres—the enemy has as many names as faces as Avalon itself—many bodies and disguises, some fair but mainly foul. They are shadows of the darkness who have long sought to overwhelm Avalon and then win to victory in other worlds, yours among them. Think of what you fear and hate the most, and that will be a part of the enemy and the Dark Powers.

  “We lie in danger here, for by spells and treachery three talismans have been lost to us: Excalibur, Merlin’s ring, and the horn—all within three days’ time. And if we go into battle without them—ah, ah—” Huon shook his head “—we shall be as men fighting with weighty chains loaded upon arms and limbs.” Then abruptly he asked a question: “Do you have the privilege of cold iron?”

  As they stared at him in bewilderment, he pointed to one of the basket knives. “Of what metal is this wrought?”

  “Stainless steel,” Greg replied. “But what has that got to do with—?”

  “Stainless steel,” Huon interrupted. “But you have no iron—cold iron—forged by a mortal in the world of mortals? Or do you have the need for silver also?”

  “We do have some silver,” Sara volunteered. She brought out from the breast pocket of her shirt the knotted handkerchief which held the rest of the week’s allowance, a dime and a quarter.

  “What’s all this about iron and silver?” Eric wanted to know.

  “This.” Huon drew the dagger from his belt sheath. In the shade of the willows the blade shone as brightly as if he held it in the direct sunlight. And when he turned it the metal gave off flashes of fire, as a burning log might spit sparks. “This is dwarf-forged silver—not cold iron. For one who is of Avalon may not hold an iron blade within his hand lest he be burnt flesh and bone.”

  Greg held up the spoon with which he had been digging. “Steel is iron, but I’m not burned.”

  “Ah,” Huon smiled, “but you are not truly of Avalon. As I am not, as Arthur is not. Once I swung a sword of iron, went battle clad in iron mail. But here in Avalon I laid aside such gear lest it do sad hurt to those who follow me. So I bear a dwarf-made silver blade and wear silver armor, as does Arthur. To the elf kind, cold iron is a breaker of good spells, a poison giving deep, unhealing hurts. In all of Avalon, there were once only two pieces of true iron. And now those have been taken from us—perhaps to our undoing.” He twirled the flickering dagger between his fingers so that sparks dazzled their eyes.

  “What are the two pieces of iron you lost?” Sara wanted to know.

  “You have heard of the sword Excalibur?”

  “Arthur’s sword—the one he pulled from the rock,” supplied Greg and then saw that Huon was gently laughing at him.

  “But Arthur is only a story, have you not said so? Yet it seems to me that you know much of that story.”

  “Sure,” Eric said impatiently, “everybody knows about King Arthur and his sword. Gee, I read about that when I was just a little kid. But that doesn’t make it true,” he ended a little belligerently.

  “And Excalibur was one of the things you lost?”

  Sara persisted.

  “Not lost. As I said, it was stolen through a spell and hidden by another which Merlin cannot break. Excalibur has vanished, and Merlin’s ring—that was also a thing of iron and of great power—for its wearer may command beast and bird, tree and earth. The sword, the ring, and the horn—”

  “Was that iron, too?”

  “No. But it is a thing of sorcery, given to me by the elf king Oberon, once high lord in this land. It can both aid and destroy. Once it nearly destroyed me, many times it came to my aid. But now I am without the Horn, and much of my power has departed—which may be an ill, ill thing for Avalon!”

  “Who stole them?” Eric asked.

  “The enemy, who else? They gather all their strength now to come down upon us and with their witchery nibble away at all our safeguards. It was laid upon Avalon at the Dawn of All that this land was to stand as a wall between the dark and your own mortal world. When we drive back the dark and hold it firmly in check, then peace reigns in your world. But let the dark surge forward here, winning victories, then in turn you know troubles, wars, evil.

  “Avalon and your world are mirrors for each other in some fashion even beyond the understanding of Merlin Ambrosius, who knows the heart of Avalon and is the greatest one ever to be born of mortal woman and elf king. What chances with us must follow with you. And now the dark rises high. First it seeped in silently, an almost unmarked flood, now they dare to challenge us to open combat. But with our talisman gone what man—or wizard—can foresee what will chance with Avalon and her sister world?”

  “And why did you want to know if we could handle iron?” asked Greg.

  For a moment Huon hesitated, while his gaze went from the boys to Sara. Then he drew a deep breath as if he were about to dive into a pool.

  “When one comes through the gates, it is because he has been summoned and some destiny awaits him here. Only a very great magic can reopen the way for him to go forth from Avalon again. And cold iron is your magic, just as we have other sorcery for ours.”

  Eric jumped to his feet. “I don’t believe it. It’s all a made-up story and we’re going right back where we came from. Come on, Greg—Sara—let’s go!”

  Greg rose slowly, Sara did not move at all. Eric pulled at his brother’s arm. “You blazed the trail from the gate, didn’t you?” he shouted. “Show me where. Come on, Sara!”

  She was repacking the basket. “All right. You go on.”

  Eric turned and ran. Sara looked straight into Huon’s brown eyes. “The gate is really closed, isn’t it?” she asked. “We can’t go away again until your magic lets us, can we?” She did not know how she knew that, but Sara was sure she spoke the truth.

  “I have naught to do with it.” Huon sounded sad. “Though I have powers of a sort, none of them controls the gates. I believe that not even Merlin can open them for you—if you have been summoned—only when you make your choice—”

  Greg moved closer. “What choice? You mean we have to stay here until we do something? What? Maybe get back Excalibur, or that ring, or the horn?”

  Huon shrugged. “It is not for me to say. Only in Caer Siddi, the Castle Foursquare, may we learn the truth.”

  “Is that a long way from here?” Sara wanted to know.

  “If one goes afoot, perhaps. For the Horse of the Hills it is no journey at all.”

  Huon stepped from the shade of the willows into the open sun of the river bank. He put his fingers to his mouth and blew a shrill whistle.

  He was answered from the sky overhead. Sara watched with round eyes and Greg cried out. There was a splash, as water washed about hoofs, and the flapping of huge wings. Two black horses stood in the shallow river, the cool water eddying about their legs. But such horses! Ribbed wings like those of bats were folded against their powerful shoulders as they shook their heads and neighed a welcome to the man who had summoned them. They wore neither saddle nor bridle, but it was clear they had come to serve Huon.

  One bent its head to drink, snuffling into the water, raising again a dripping muzzle. The other trotted to the bank and stretched out his head toward
Greg, eying the boy with what could only be intelligent interest.

  “This is Khem and that is Sitta.” As Huon spoke their names, both horses bowed their heads and whinnied gently. “The paths of the upper air are as well known to them as the roads of earth. And they will bear us to Caer Siddi before sundown.”

  “Greg! Sara!” That was Eric shouting as he burst from the grove. “There’s no gate. I followed the blazes back—no gate—only two trees standing close together!”

  “Did I not say the time for return is not yet?” Huon nodded. “You must find the right key for that.”

  Sara gripped the basket tightly. She had believed that from the first. But somehow, to have Eric say it was sobering.

  “All right.” Greg faced the winged horses. “Let’s get going then. I want to find out about the key and how to get home again.”

  Eric fell in step beside Sara, banging his hand against the basket. “You can’t drag that along, too. Leave it here.”

  Huon came to her aid. “The maid is wise, Eric. For this is also one of the spells of Avalon: those who eat entirely of her food, drink only her wines and water, cannot easily escape her borders once again, unless they take upon themselves some grave change. Treasure the rest of your food and drink and add it to ours when you break your fast.”

  Greg and Eric mounted on Sitta, Eric’s arms tight about his brother’s waist, Greg’s hands twined in the horse’s mane. Huon took Sara up before him on Khem. The horses began to trot and then to gallop and their wings snapped open. Then they were mounting up above the sunlit water and the lacy green of the trees.

  Khem circled once and headed southeast, Sitta matching him wing to wing. A flock of large black birds started up from a field and flew with them for a while, calling in cracked, shrill voices, until the horses out-distanced them.

  At first Sara was afraid to look earthward. In fact she shut her eyes tight, glad of Huon’s arm about her, the solid wall of his body at her back. It made her giddy to think of what lay beneath . . . and then she heard Huon laugh.

  “Come, Lady Sara, this is not so ill a way to travel. Men have long envied birds their freedom of wings, and this is the nearest mortals can come to such flight, unless they be under some enchantment and no longer men. I would not trust you to some colt fresh out of the cloud pastures. But Khem is a steady mount and will not play us any tricks. Is that not so, Father of Swift Runners?”

  The horse neighed and Sara dared to open her eyes. It was really not so bad to watch the passing of the green countryside. Then from ahead there was a flash of light, rather like the sparks from Huon’s dagger, but much, much larger. It was sun reflected from the roofs of four tall towers linked in a square by walls of gray-green stone.

  “That is Caer Siddi, the Castle Foursquare, which is the western hold of Avalon, as Camelot is its eastern. Ha, Khem, take care in your landing, I see a muster within the walls!”

  They circled well above the four towers of the outer keep and Sara looked down. People were moving below. A banner flapped from the tallest tower, a green banner of the same color as Huon’s surcoat, and worked upon it in gold was a dragon.

  Tall walls rose about them, and Sara shut her eyes again quickly. Then Huon’s arm tightened, and Khem was trotting, not flying. They were on the ground.

  People crowded around, so many of them that at first Sara noticed only their odd dress. She stood on the pavement, glad when Greg and Eric joined her.

  “Boy, oh boy, some way to travel!” Eric burst out. “Bet a jet would beat ’em, though!”

  Greg was more interested in what lay about them now. “Archers! Just look at those bows!”

  Sara followed her brother’s direction. The archers were dressed alike, much the same as Huon. But they also wore shirts of many silvery rings linked together and over those, gray surcoats with green and gold dragons on the breasts. Their silver helmets fitted down about their faces so that it was hard to see their features. Each carried a bow as tall as himself, and slung across one shoulder was an arrow-filled quiver.

  Beyond the lines of archers were more men. They, too, had ringed shirts and dragon-marked surcoats. But long green cloaks fastened at their throats. And instead of bows they had swords belted about them, while their helmets were topped with small green plumes.

  Behind the men with the swords were the ladies. Sara became acutely conscious of her jeans, of the shirt which had been clean that morning but was now dirty and torn. No wonder Huon had believed her to be a boy if this was the way women dressed in Avalon! Most of them had long plaits of hair with sparkling threads braided into them. And the flower-colored dresses were long with gemmed girdles at the waists, while their loose sleeves hung in points to touch the ground.

  One of the ladies, her hair dark and curling about her face, her blue-green dress rippling about her as she moved, came toward them. She had a circlet of gold and pearl on her head, and the others made way for her as if she were a queen.

  “Lady of Avalon,” Huon came up to her, “these are three who have entered through the Fox Gate, by let and with no hindrance. This is the Lady Sara, and her brothers Greg and Eric. And this is the Lady Claramonde who is my wife, and so High Lady of Avalon.”

  Just to say “hello” seemed wrong somehow. Sara smiled timidly and the lady smiled back. Then the lady’s hands were on Sara’s shoulders and, because the lady was small, she had only to stoop a little to kiss the girl on the forehead.

  “Welcome, three times welcome.” The Lady Claramonde smiled again and then turned to Eric, flustering him greatly by greeting him with the same kiss, before facing Greg. “May you all rest well within these walls. And peace be yours.”

  “Thanks,” Eric blurted out. But to Sara’s astonishment Greg made a quite creditable bow and seemed very pleased with himself.

  There was another personage to greet them. The crowd of knights and archers opened a path for him as the ladies had done for Claramonde. Only this was no man-of-arms who walked toward them, but a tall person in a plain gray robe on which lines of red twisted and coiled in strange patterns. His hair was as gray as his robe and lay on his shoulders in thick locks which mingled on his breast with the wide spread of his beard. He had the brightest eyes Sara had ever seen—eyes which made one think he was looking straight into one’s mind and reading everything which lay there, good or bad.

  For a belt he had a sash of the same dull red as the patterns on his robe. And when one watched it closely it appeared to move, as if it possessed some strange life of its own.

  “So at long last they have come.” He surveyed the Lowrys with a somewhat stern look.

  Sara was uncomfortable at first, but when those dark eyes were turned directly upon her she lost her fear, if not her awe. She had never seen anyone like this man before, but she was sure he meant her no ill. In fact, quite the contrary, something reached out from him to her, giving her confidence, taking away the faint uneasiness which had been with her ever since she had passed through the gate.

  “Yes, Merlin, they have come. For good reasons, let us hope, for good.” Huon’s voice was low and Sara thought that he too, for all his lordship, looked upon Merlin as someone greater and wiser than he.

  Merlin’s Mirror

  “I don’t like this. We’ve got to get away before something happens.” Eric was looking out of one of the narrow castle windows. “It can’t be far from sundown. What’ll happen if we don’t get back to Uncle Mac’s for supper?”

  Sara, seated on a velvet-cushioned stool, the picnic basket between her feet, laughed. “Mrs. Steiner will have a fit, that’s what. Anyway Huon and the Lady Claramonde are nice and I don’t think they’d let anything bad happen. And how would we get back with the gate gone? Besides, that’s miles and miles away from here and we don’t know the way back.”

  “No? Well, I bet those flying horses know it. We could get a couple of them and—”

  “And how are you going to do that?” Greg came out of the shadows at the door of the chamb
er. “There’re umpteen people around and they’d ask questions if we tried to walk out. Also, what makes you think the horses would fly for us? Sara’s right, what would be the use of going back to the gate anyway, if it’s no longer there?”

  Greg was no taller than he had been that morning. There was a smudge of dirt on his chin, and his thick light hair needed combing. But he was different, maybe different inside, Sara thought. When he talked quietly like that, he sounded almost like Father in a serious mood.

  “You mean we have to stay here until they let us go?” Eric exploded.

  Sara turned on him indignantly. “That’s not fair and you know it, Eric Lowry! They’re not keeping us prisoner. Didn’t Huon tell us right at the start that he had no way of opening the gate for us?”

  Eric strode over to stand before her, his hands on his hips. “And you’re ready to believe everything they tell you!”

  “Be quiet!” Greg cut in, sounding more like Father than ever. Eric half swung around ready for an angry retort, but his brother continued. “Sara’s right. If part of what they’ve told us is true, all must be. We are in a castle, aren’t we? A regular King Arthur castle. And how did we get here, by riding on a pair of winged horses. Also,” he ended thoughtfully, “Merlin is no hoax. And he said he had to talk with us.”

  “I don’t trust him either!” Eric snapped defiantly.

  “So, you do not trust me, young sir?”

  Sara started and Eric jumped. They had been facing the room’s one doorway, but they had not seen Merlin enter. Only now he was standing there, his bright eyes on them.

  “Eric didn’t mean that,” Sara began hastily.

  “Oh, but I think he did.” Merlin combed his beard with the fingers of his right hand, while those of his left patted his sash belt. In the stone-walled room he seemed even taller than he had in the courtyard, and the gray of his robe blended into the gray of the walls until he might have been part of the castle itself. Now he seated himself in a high-backed chair and surveyed the Lowrys as they stood uneasily before him.