Steel Magic

by Andre Norton

  “Eric is entirely right,” Merlin continued after a pause during which their discomfort grew. “Yes, he is entirely right not to trust me, Sara.”

  “Why?”

  “Because to me the good of Avalon lies above all else. For more years than there are blocks in these walls about us, I have been one of the three guardians of this land. Arthur wields sword, mace, and lance in the east, Huon stands with his elf knights, a wall of fighting men, in the west. And I bend other powers and forces to strengthen them both. It was not so long ago that I crossed the gulf of time and space to open the Fox Gate—I, Merlin Ambrosius, the only man to walk that way in a long tale of centuries.”

  “Then you’re Mr. Brosius!” Greg interrupted.

  Merlin pulled at his beard. “So, I am still remembered? Time is not so well matched between our worlds—here it flows much faster than in yours. Yes, I opened the gate and sought those who would aid us in the coming struggle. But,” his voice sounded sad now, “there were none of the right spirit and mind, none we could summon as once the powers of this land summoned Arthur and Huon and me. Now it seems the gate has done its own selecting, just as we face a newer, stronger attack from the forces of evil.”

  “Huon told us about losing Excalibur, your ring, and the horn,” Greg said.

  “So?” Merlin’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “Then you can understand why we are so excited at your coming. We lose three talismans, and then you arrive. What else can we believe but that your fate is tied to our loss?”

  “We didn’t steal your things!” Eric sputtered.

  “That we know. But you may aid in their return, if you will.”

  “And if we don’t—then you won’t let us go home again—that’s it, isn’t it?” Eric demanded rudely.

  Merlin only looked at him and Eric flushed. It was Greg’s turn to ask:

  “Is that true, sir? We can’t go home?”

  Merlin was quiet again for a long moment, and suddenly Sara had a queer shamed feeling, as if she had done something wrong, although she had not spoken at all. And Eric’s face was now very red.

  “There is a spell which will force the gate open, yes. If you truly wish that.”

  “But you believe that we were meant to come here to help you, don’t you, sir?” Greg persisted.

  Merlin nodded. About his waist the colored lines of his sash twisted and spun until they made Sara so dizzy she had to close her eyes and turn her head away.

  “You have a choice, young sirs, Lady Sara. But I must also tell you that, if you choose to give us your aid, the roads set by the mirror are never easy to follow, and he or she who travels them does not return unchanged from such journeying.”

  “Is it also true that when your enemy here wins a battle, then our world is endangered too?” Greg continued.

  Again Merlin inclined his head. “Does your world now rest easy, my son? For the evil tide has been rising here, growing ever stronger through the years. I ask you again, does your world rest easy nowadays?”

  Sara shivered. She was not quite sure what Merlin meant. But she remembered all the talk back on the other side of the gate, the things she had heard Mother and Father say.

  “No,” that was Greg answering, “there’s always talk about another war and the Bomb.”

  “Avalon still holds fast, though how long we may continue to do so”—merlin’s eyes were so bright it hurt to look at them, Sara thought—“no man, mortal or elf kind, can say. It is your choice to aid us or no.”

  “Dad’s a soldier in our world,” Greg said slowly. “And if another war comes—the one everyone has been afraid of—would it come there if the enemy wins here, sir?”

  “The enemy is never wholly defeated, neither in Avalon nor in your world,” Merlin sighed. “He wears many surcoats, marches under many different banners, but he always exists. It is our hope to keep him ever on the defensive, always to face him squarely and never allow him a full victory. Yes, if he wins here, then well may he win in your time and space also.”

  “Then I choose to do as you wish,” Greg answered. “It’s for Dad, in a way.” He looked questioningly at Sara and Eric.

  “All right.” Eric’s agreement was reluctant. He looked as scared and unhappy as Sara felt inside.

  She held to the basket which was the only real thing now in this mixed-up dream. And her voice was very small and thin as she said, “Me, I’ll help too,” though she did not want to at all.

  Merlin straightened in his chair and now he was smiling. Sara was warmer, seeing that smile, and almost happy.

  “Then do you search out our talismans, wheresoever they may lie and whosoever may guard them. Remember, cold iron is your servant and your magic—call upon it when you must—and change is the pattern of your going. And the time to begin is now!”

  His voice rang as loud as a trumpet blast. Sara cried out as she had when the gate mist had wrapped her in. Then the roaring was gone.

  They were still three together. She caught Eric’s and Greg’s hands. Neither boy pulled away from her. But this was a new place—there were no windows in this room and the light came from five globes of pale green fire set in a star overhead. Three of the walls were covered with hangings of cloth such as Sara had once seen in a museum. There were pictures on the cloth, which moved as if a current of air blew behind it. Strange men with hairy legs ran races there with unicorns. Birds flew and the leaves of the trees seemed to rustle, or perhaps it was the air which made that sound.

  The fourth wall was very different, a vast shining surface reflecting all within the room. Of Merlin there was no sign. Sara’s grip on her brothers’ hands tightened. Now she wished they had asked to go home.

  “I don’t like this place,” she cried and the words reechoed—“place-place-place.”

  Greg pulled free and walked to the mirror wall. When he stood before it, he put out his hands so they lay palm flat on its surface. The other two followed him hesitantly.

  “Greg, what do you see?” Sara crowded in on one side, Eric on the other. Both of them looked over his shoulders into the strip bordered by his hand.

  They might have been looking through a window out upon open countryside. Only what lay beyond was not the green and gold land over which the winged horses had carried them, but a very different country.

  Nor was it day, but night. Moonlight showed a wandering road just outside, climbing up and up until it was lost to sight on a mountainside. It was bordered by thickets of stunted trees, most of them leafless, and many of them twisted into queer, frightening shapes so their shadows on the ground looked like goblins or monsters. That was all—just a white road running on into dark and gloomy mountains.

  “This is the road for Greg. Let him arm himself with cold iron and go!”

  Was that order voiced by the people of the tapestry, or did it come from the air?

  “No!” Sara cried out. “Eric, stop him!” She tried to hold Greg’s arm. “It’s so dark.” Greg hated dark—maybe that would stop him.

  But for the second time he broke her hold. “Don’t be silly! If we want to help, we’ll have to follow orders.”

  “That’s a bad place, Greg, I know it is!” She turned to look at the road again. It was gone and in the mirror she could see only the reflection of the room and the three Lowrys.

  “Arm himself with cold iron,” Eric repeated, puzzled.

  “Cold iron.” Greg went down on one knee beside the picnic basket. “Remember what Huon told us about the power of iron. The same thing must be true of steel.” He opened the basket to show the forks, the knives, and the spoons.

  Sara sat down beside him, trying hard not to show her fright.

  “Remember what he said about the magic in the food also? That we must always eat some of our own along with theirs? You must take something to eat.” Her hands were shaking as she put a sandwich, an egg and some cookies into a napkin and made it into a packet. Greg took one of the forks from the webbing.

  “You call that a weapon?�
� Eric jeered. “I think you’d better ask for a sword, or one of those big bows. After all, if you’re going to help Avalon, they ought to give you something better.”

  “Cold iron, remember? And this is pointed, sharp.” He tested the tines on his finger. “This is what I’m to take, I knew it the minute I touched it. Thanks for the food, Sara.”

  With the napkin packet in one hand and the fork in the other, Greg walked once more to the mirror.

  “Hey, Greg, wait a minute!” Eric tried to intercept him and Sara cried out a despairing “Greg!” But at the same time she knew her protest was useless, for Greg was wearing his “do-it-now-and-get-it-over-with” expression.

  They reached the mirror too late. Greg had already touched its surface. He was gone—though Sara believed that she saw for an instant a shadowy figure on the mountain road.

  Eric ran his hands over the surface through which Greg had vanished. He pounded on it with his fists.

  “Greg!” he shouted, and the tapestries stirred, but there was nothing to be seen now but the reflection of their two selves. Sara went back to the basket and then heard an exclamation from Eric.

  As his brother had done before him, he was leaning close to the glass, his hands flat against it. And he was watching something.

  “Is it Greg? Can you see him?” Sara flew to the mirror. Maybe they could go through, be with Greg—

  But over Eric’s shoulder she saw no moonlit road or high mountains. Instead there was a stretch of seashore, a beach of sand, with tufts of coarse grass in dark green blots. White birds coasted over the rolling waves and it was day, not night.

  “This is the road for Eric. Let him arm himself with cold iron and go!”

  Were those Merlin’s words? Both children pushed back from the mirror. Sara looked at her brother. He was chewing his lower lip, staring down at his hands.

  “Are you going?” she asked in a small voice.

  He scowled and kicked at the basket. “Greg went, didn’t he? If he can do it, then I can—I will! Give me some food, too, Sara, and one of those forks.”

  But when he took the fork, he hesitated, and slowly slid it back into the webbing loop again.

  “That doesn’t feel right,” he said. Even more slowly he pulled out the spoon in the next loop. “This is better. Why?”

  “Maybe you take what is going to help you most,” suggested Sara. She was making up a second packet of food. Though she wanted to beg Eric not to go, she knew that she could not keep him from this adventure, not after he had watched Greg go before him.

  “Good luck,” she said forlornly as he took the food.

  Eric was still scowling as he faced the mirror and his only answer was a shrug. “This is crazy,” he complained. “Well, here goes!”

  As Greg had done, he walked to the mirror and through it. Sara was left sitting on the floor in a very empty room.

  She studied the mirror. It had made a door for Greg, another for Eric. And she knew it was only waiting to make a door for her.

  “I wish we could all have gone together,” she said aloud, and then she wished she had not, for the echoes rang until it sounded like people whispering behind the tapestry.

  Sara picked up the basket and went to the mirror. Then she said determinedly:

  “Show me my road, I am ready to go.”

  There was no mirror at all, but green and gold and sunshine. She marched ahead and her feet passed from floor to the softness of earth. For a moment Sara was bewildered. Here was no mountain road, no seashore. She was in the middle of a woodland glade. Could it be the same wood as held the gate?

  This was so different from Greg’s dark and lonesome road, from the wild seashore where Eric had gone, that Sara could not help being a little cheered. Only now that she was here, what was she to do?

  “Kaaaw—”

  Sara looked up. On a branch of tree which hung overhead teetered a big black bird. The sun did not make its feathers look shiny and bright, but dull and dusty. Even its feet and bill were black, but, as it turned its head to one side and looked down at her, its eye glinted red. Sara disliked it on sight.

  “Kaaaw—” It spread wide its wings, and, after a few vigorous flaps, took to the air, diving at her head. Sara ducked as it circled her, its hoarse cries sounding like jeering laughter.

  Sara ran back under the tree, hoping the thick branches would keep the bird off. But it settled on a limb above her, walking along the bark and watching her all the while.

  “Go away!” Sara waved her arm.

  “Kaaaw—” The bird jeered and flapped its wings, opening its bill to a wide extent, ending its cry with a hiss which was truly frightening.

  Sara, holding to the basket, began to run. Once again the bird took off into the air and streaked down at her head. She jumped for the shelter of a bush, caught her foot on a root, and sprawled forward, scraping her knee painfully.

  “Kaaaw—”

  This time there was a different note in that sound, the jeer was gone. Sara sat up, nursing her skinned knee. The bush met in a green canopy over her head, and she could not see the bird, though she heard its cries plain enough.

  Pattering into sight was the large fox she had met by the gate. With his attention fixed upon some point well above her head, he was snarling ferociously.

  Mountain Road

  Greg stood shivering in the middle of the moonlit road. He glanced back. Behind him was a dark valley, with no sign of the mirror through which he had come. A wind blew through the branches of the misshapen trees, finding a few leaves to move. It was a cold wind when it pushed against Greg. He hunched his shoulders against it and began to walk forward.

  The road was not often used, he judged. In some places it was almost hidden by drifts of soil and in others the stone blocks of its surface were tilted up or down, with dried grass bunched in the cracks between them.

  Now the road climbed, curving about the side of the rise. When Greg reached the top, he turned once more to look back. Only the road, running across a wasteland, was to be seen. No sign of any house or castle, nor could he sight any shelter ahead.

  His legs began to ache with the strain of the steep climb. Now and again he sat down on one of the boulders brought down in old landslides. But while he rested he could hear nothing save the moan of the wind.

  There were no more trees here, only small, thorny bushes without leaves, which Greg avoided after one bad scratch. He was sucking his hand when he heard a faint howl with a dim echo, coming from some place far ahead.

  Three times that chilling cry sounded. Greg shivered. Wolf? He swallowed and strained to catch the last echo of that wail.

  Now he looked down at the fork he was carrying, wondering what sort of defense that small weapon could be against a wolf attack. As he held it in the moonlight, testing the sharpness of the tines with his thumb, it glittered as had the dwarf-made blade Huon carried.

  “Iron, cold iron.” He repeated the words aloud without knowing just why. “Cold iron to arm me.”

  Greg stood up. Again he did not know why he must do this, but he tossed the fork from one hand to the other, and each time he caught it anew it was heavier, longer, sharper, until at last he was holding a four-foot shaft ending in four wickedly sharp points. Maybe this was another of Merlin’s spells. It was a queer-looking spear but one which, added to the thought of Merlin, gave Greg confidence in spite of that distant howling.

  The road was more and more broken. Sometimes the blocks were so disturbed Greg seemed to be climbing the steps of a stairway. And twice he edged about falls of earth, digging the fork-spear into the ground as support and anchor.

  The moonlight, which had been so fresh and bright, was beginning to wane. Greg, seeing how bad the footing was here, and disliking the growing pools of shadow about, decided to camp until morning. He crawled into a hollow between two boulders and put his spear pointing out to seal the entrance.

  He awoke stiff and cramped, so cramped that it hurt to move as he wriggled out of
his half cave. It must be day but there was no sun. The world was gray, cloudy, but lighter than night. Greg found the trickle of a spring and sucked water from the palm of his hand, taking care to eat bites of his own food with the drink.

  The road appeared to lead nowhere except up and up. There were no tracks in the patches of earth covering it, no trace that anyone save himself had been foolish enough to go that way for years. But, though no sun rose, the gray continued to lighten. Greg topped a narrow pass between two huge pillars of rock and gazed down into the cup of a valley, where a river ran fast under a humpbacked bridge. About that bridge, on both sides of the stream, were clusters of stone cottages, patches of green growing about them.

  With a cry Greg hurried forward, half sliding down one slope, running down the next in his haste to reach the village and to see another person again.

  “Halloooo!” He cupped his hands about his mouth, called out with all the force of his lungs.

  The sound rolled about the valley, magnified and bounced back at him from the mountain walls. But there was no answer, no stir on the crooked street of the village. Alarmed now, Greg slowed his headlong pace, bringing his spear before him as he had the night before when he had taken refuge in the cave. He studied the huddle of dwellings with greater care. Most of them were small stone huts with thatched roofs. But now he could see that the thatch was missing in ragged patches, so that some of the houses were almost roofless.

  However, just on the other side of the bridge, standing apart from the smaller buildings, was a square tower three stories high, with narrow slits of windows. And this did not seem so weatherworn.

  Although Greg decided that the village had been long deserted, he was still alert. The green spots about the tumbledown cottages were rank with huge weeds with fat, unpleasant-looking leaves and small, dull purple flowers which gave out a sickly scent.

  He hesitated on the bridge and then glanced quickly at the nearest cottage. The doorless entrance gaped like a toothless mouth, the window spaces were eye-holes lacking eyes. Yet Greg could not rid himself of the feeling that he was being spied upon, that someone or something was peering from that doorway, or from one of the windows, slyly—secretly—