by T.A. Barron
For a moment I watched the plucking leaves, then turned to the elder who sat across the table. “You made that harp yourself, didn’t you?”
“Aye,” he answered wistfully, “but only a power far greater can make the music.”
Just then a flutter of wings descended on us. A plump white goose landed on the table’s edge, not far from the roast chicken. She curled her neck around to face the wizard, her yellow eyes glowering at him. She squawked once, then spoke a single word in her nasal voice: “Disgusting.”
Very nearly, I dropped my bowl. “She speaks?”
The old man raised an eyebrow. “Indubitably.” He took another spoonful of ice cream, being careful not to miss the sauce. “Now, Mary, you don’t have to eat it yourself.”
A white wing slapped angrily, splattering some leeks on the floor. “Marigaunce, if you please. There are strangers present.”
“Marigaunce it is, then. Didn’t I give you that name myself? But, as some bard or other said, what’s in a name, what what? Besides, they aren’t strangers so much as guests. You already know young Arthur. And this handsome young lad is, in truth, my younger self.”
The goose swung her head toward me, stretching her neck to its fullest length. “Hmmm,” she muttered. “Handsome isn’t the word I would use.” Her eyes squinted at me. “I only hope you’re less foolish than the old gander over there.”
Dismayed, I considered returning the compliment. But the mage spoke first. “Don’t mind her, lad. When the last of my owls, nineteenth in his line, finally took the Long Journey to join Dagda, I swore I’d never have another bird. They had lived under my roofs (and, come to think of it, under my hats) for several centuries, but enough is enough. Too many droppings—in the hair, in the soup, in the . . . oh well, you understand. Then Mary came along, barely a fledgling, and a half-starved one at that. And though her manners weren’t nearly as developed as her neck, I took pity on her.”
“Bah!” spat the goose. “It was I who pitied you, not the other way around.”
He scratched the end of his beaklike nose, pondering. “I was wondering, my lad, since you’ve come all the way here . . .”
“Yes?”
“Would you like a closer look at my—er, your? No, no . . . our crystal cave?”
I beamed at him. “Oh yes.”
“Good then.” He curled his arm around mine. “Let’s take a little tour, shall we?”
Together, we strode over to the tall wooden cupboard loaded with books of every thickness and color. The smell of worn leather grew stronger as we approached (as did the sound of harp strings, since the leaf-draped instrument hung on the cupboard’s far side). With the tip of his finger, my elder self touched the bindings of several volumes, greeting them like venerable colleagues.
For my part, I stood gaping at the sheer number—and diversity—of books on those shelves. The cupboard itself was three or four times larger than any I’d seen before, covering a good portion of the wall. The shelves, and the volumes stacked upon them, glowed with the light of the crystals that seeped through the cracks in the wood. Drawing closer, I could tell that the books had not been separated according to subject. On the contrary, they were shelved with no apparent logic: a botany text sat beside a treatise of Aristotle; a pictorial history of a place called the Ganges River lay in between two volumes titled Astrophysics: The Long View. There were books on sea voyages, rare birds, cloud formations, someone named Leonardo da Vinci, healing herbs—and one, called The Wind in the Willows, that must have been about weather patterns along riverbeds. Many more books displayed titles in languages that I couldn’t comprehend; of those, most left me with the feeling that I couldn’t understand them even if the tongues had been familiar.
And yet . . . it was clear that he understood them. A quiet thrill passed through me as I watched the white-bearded man beside me perusing the shelves. Might I really know so much one day?
“How,” I asked, “do you keep track of them all?”
He turned to me, combing his beard with one hand. “Keeping track of what books are here is easy, my lad. It’s keeping track of all the books—all the subjects—I know nothing about that’s difficult.”
“But you have so many,” I pressed, waving at all the volumes. “And they’re all mixed up, besides.”
A hint of a grin lifted the corner of his mouth. “That is because, my lad, the universe itself is all mixed up. The only divisions in the sphere of knowl edge are put there by us, you see, not by the cosmos. Physics, poetry, biology, philosophy—they’re all facets of the same crystal. Why, in another millennium, scientists will realize that the very same questions they are asking about subatomic particles also apply to the very origins of galaxies! That will surprise more than a few of them, what what?”
Seeing my bewildered gaze, he bent toward me. “Don’t worry, lad. It’s truly the way of things. The universe will always continue to surprise us, no matter how clever we may think we are. That’s its nature, just as the nature of people is to keep trying to comprehend it.”
I frowned, unsure how to take his words. “So we can’t ever really understand the universe?”
His grin broadened. “Not completely.”
“Then what can we do?”
“We can wonder at it.” A light, brighter than the walls around us, kindled in his eyes. “No matter how old you get, my lad, never lose your sense of wonder.”
He reached for a thin tube, fashioned from some sort of metal, that rested on the edge of a nearby shelf. “Here. Whenever my awareness of surprise runs low, I try this.”
I turned the tube over in my hands. “What do I do?”
“Why, peer through it, of course.” He tapped one end. “This side faces you.”
Hesitantly, I trained my second sight down the tube. Suddenly I jumped back, knocking into the cupboard and dropping the instrument on the stone floor. “A giant goose! I saw—”
“Mary, that’s all.”
The goose, glaring at me from the banquet table where Arthur continued to eat, hissed loudly.
The wizard bent, bones creaking, to retrieve the tube. “It’s called a telescope. Brings far things much closer.” His expression clouded slightly. “Except for those things you might wish most to bring.”
I watched him as he stretched his arms outward in the way I so often did myself, trying to relieve that elusive pain between the shoulder blades, that burden of every Fincayran. After a moment, I ventured to ask, “Just because our ancestors lost their wings so long ago, must we always feel that pain? Or do we have to find some way to regain our wings before we can be free of it?”
As if he hadn’t heard me, he stepped deeper into the cave.
When I caught up with him, he stood pondering a plant box that hung from a curling lavender crystal. At once, I recognized the plant it contained: eelgrass, the reed most precious to Hallia’s clan. Observing the dark green shoots, I could almost feel their rough texture on my tongue. And I could almost hear Hallia’s brother, Eremon, when he had explained to me, for the first time, the deer people’s many uses for those reeds. They served as thread for baskets and curtains; as kindling, soaked in hazelnut oil, for winter fires; and as a symbol of the clan’s connection to the web of worlds—a newborn’s first blanket, and a departed friend’s funeral shawl. My mouth went dry as I remembered watching Hallia wrap such a shawl of vibrant green around Eremon’s own lifeless form.
All of a sudden I noticed a small, thin shape lying amidst the reeds. It was a lock of hair. Even in the lavender glow of the crystal, its auburn hues shone clearly.
“That’s . . .,” I said, my throat constricted. “That’s from Hallia.”
“Yes,” replied the elder, his voice wistful.
I turned to him, searching his face. “What happens to her?”
He gave no reply.
“Please,” I beseeched. “You don’t have to tell me about the lost wings. Or about whether I ever get to see again through my own eyes. Or anything else
I might ask you! But do tell me this: Does something terrible happen to her? To us?”
The old man looked not at me, but at the lock of hair. Behind us, the harp strings’ tempo slowed, while their melody seemed more melancholy than before. “Not exactly,” he said at last. Slowly, he turned toward me. “If I say any more, it might, well, disturb things. For you, as well as for her. Just savor all your moments together.”
“Moments?” I repeated, my voice hoarse.
“All life is but a stream of moments, my lad, each one containing its own choices, its own marvels, its own mysteries. And, I fear, its own perils. But this much I have learned: It sometimes happens that what seems, in one moment, a curse, could turn out in the end to be a blessing.”
Tenderly, I touched a shaft of eelgrass. “Or the reverse?”
He nodded. “Or the reverse. And one never knows until the moment has passed.”
Reaching for a hefty, twin-bladed ax, he raised it slighdy off the stone floor before it fell back with a thud. “Take this terrifying piece of weaponry, for example. Looks most assuredly like an instrument of death, does it not?”
“Of course,” I replied. “That’s what a battle-ax is for.”
His eyebrows lifted like rising clouds. “Well then, it should interest you to know that this battle-ax saved—or will save, I should say—your very life. Indisputably! Mine, too, as I think about it. And in a most unexpected way.”
Before I could ask him to elaborate, he ran his fingers over the silver hilt of my sword. “Just as this sword will save the life of young Arthur over there—oh yes, many times.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the boy, watching him drain his remaining soup and tear off a slab of nut cake. “I knew, down deep in my bones, that he was the one.”
“The very one.” Gently, he patted my shoulder. “And you will guide him, as best you can, whether his quest is to find the legendary Grail—something as wondrous as peering into the eyes of seven white wolves—or to find his own true self.”
My throat more parched than ever, I tried to swallow. “Does he ever find this Grail?”
“No,” answered the mage. “But the quest succeeded nonetheless.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
He wove his fingers into his beard. “Ah, but it does, truly. As does his even greater quest, to usher forth a whole new concept of justice and law—inspired by high ideals, but doomed to fail in its time. For the effort alone spawned a triumph, frail but nonetheless alive. A triumph that might yet outlast the tragedy.” With a mixture of sadness and affection, he watched the boy, who was stuffing more nut cake into his mouth. “That is why, in times to come, he will be called the greatest of all the kings of Gramarye, the King Once and Future.”
I shook my head. “How can Arthur fail, but still triumph in the end?”
“I didn’t say that he would, lad. Just that he might.” His eyes glistened, reflecting the glow of the crystalline walls. “Just as you and I might.”
My heart felt suddenly heavy. I stood there, silent, wanting to know more yet afraid to ask.
He drew a slow, ponderous breath. “You see, I sent young Arthur back to that marsh for a simple reason. It was the only way—the only hope—of saving me. You. Us.”
24: MERLIN’S ISLE
The aged man—my elder self—ran his sleeve across his brow. Wearily, he confessed, “This will require a bit of explanation, I’m afraid. Shall we sit down?”
Without waiting for my response, he wriggled his fingers in a strange manner. Immediately, the floor behind us erupted, spraying chips of stone across the floor of the cave. I leaped aside, though the wizard didn’t even budge. When I turned around, I saw that a fully grown beech tree had surged through the floor, its branches arching from one wall to the other, touching the crystals at either end.
Awestruck, I studied the tree whose sturdy roots now clasped the broken stones. Unlike any tree I’d known before, its trunk rose only a short distance above the roots before bending sharply to the side. Then, after a short horizontal distance, the trunk lifted upward again, stretching its leafy boughs to the ceiling. Heaving a sigh, my old companion sat himself upon the horizontal section and leaned back against a pair of branches. His feet swung slightly above the floor.
“Ah,” he mused, “I have always loved to sit in trees.”
“So have I,” I replied, “but normally not indoors.”
Ignoring my comment, he laid his hand upon the smooth, gray bark. “And beech trees, somehow, always make me feel more peaceful.” His voice dropped a little lower, as did the harp music that continued to fill the chamber. “Such things are more and more helpful these days.”
“Tell me,” I said, stepping nearer. “What has happened to you—to us?”
“In time, lad, though first you should have a seat yourself.” His brow knitted. “There’s really not room for two of these chairs, however. A matter of floor space, what what? Ah, there’s the solution!” He pointed to the empty stools beside Arthur, who was busily devouring another chicken leg, oblivious to anything but the repast before him. “Fetch one of those, would you?”
I started to move when, to my utter astonishment, something else went to fetch the stool. The wizard’s shadow! The great form, as tall and broad as the tree itself, slid across the crystal cave’s wall and over the floor to the banquet table. Without a sound, it lifted the stool, carried it through the air, and placed it by my side—right on top, I was pleased to note, of my own squirming shadow.
As the immense shadow returned to its position, nestled among the branches next to its master, the wizard gave a nod of approval. “Thanks, old friend.”
Old friend, I thought. That part of my own future will surely be different! And yet . . . I glanced down at my own little shadow, struggling to free itself from the chair, and wondered. Could it be possible? Though I felt certain that the answer was no, I grasped the stool and slid it to one side, just far enough that it no longer pinned the shadow. As expected, I received no gesture of thanks—only an impudent kick.
That elder, I realized, was observing me. “How do you get your shadow to behave so well?” I asked. “I’d love to trade mine for one like yours.”
He shook his head, making his flowing white hair shimmer in the crystals’ glow. “It’s part of you, my lad, just as the night is part of the day.”
“I wish it weren’t,” I grumbled, seating myself on the stool. “Now tell me, please. What caused you to send Arthur back to that marsh? The way he described it, you were imprisoned, very likely to die! Yet here you are, in your own crystal cave.”
Somberly, he gazed at me. “All of that is true, indisputably true.”
“But this place, so full of marvels—”
“Is also my prison,” he declared. Sliding his hand over the smooth trunk, he drew a deep breath. “It’s that sorceress Nimue, I fear. She lured me—tricked me—into revealing some of my most powerful spells. Then, using the very power of this chamber to enhance her own, she turned those spells against me, sealing me into this place forever.”
The final word fell upon me like a stone. “So you’re completely trapped?”
His eyelids closed. “I am.”
“That Nimue!” I cried. “What torture it must be for you.”
“All the more so because of the important work that remains to be done beyond these walls.”
For a long moment, his words hung in the air. Then, reopening his eyes, he noticed something above his head. With a curious expression, he raised one hand toward an object, slender and brown, dangling from one of the limbs. A cocoon! Despite his troubles, the wizard seemed rapt in concentration. As the cocoon quivered slightly at his touch, he nodded, and the grimness seemed to lift a little from his face.
He lowered his hand, then turned back to me. “She did forget about one thing, though, one quite important thing. The Mirror! I can still use its pathways, the very Mists of Time, to bring others to me, or send them elsewhere. Even if I can
’t travel through it myself, it offers me a window, you see, on the world outside.” The sober expression returned. “And, for at least a moment, it gave me a chance to escape.”
A shudder ran through my whole body. “The key.”
“Yes. It is—er, was—the only thing strong enough to break Nimue’s spell.” He blew some stray beard hairs off his lips. “I recalled that it had been hidden in the swamp. So I sent Arthur to find it, to bring it back. When the sorceress learned of that, she realized she had to find it first. So she, too, entered the mists. No doubt she turned the marshlands upside down searching. Why, she even lured you in there to assist her—changing our history in the process.”
“So you, at my age, didn’t spend that time in the Haunted Marsh?”
“Heavens no, my lad.” He grimaced. “She really made a beastly mess of things.”
“I’m the one who made the mess!” I could hardly contain my anger. “Now I understand. She tricked me, just as she tricked you. She knew that the key could only be used once. And even though she expected me to use it to stop the bloodnoose, not to free the marsh ghouls, she still got what she most wanted.”
My throat made a sound—part growl, part sob. “By using the key in the past, I sealed your fate, my own fate, in the future. Nimue said so when she left: You have doomed yourself. That’s what she told me! And she was right. More right than I could ever have guessed.”
“At least,” said the old man, “you stood up to her.”
Bitterly, I hung my head. “What good did that do? It was just what she needed to prevail.” I regarded him sharply. “And what good does it do for you to teach Arthur all those high ideals—when you already know that his kingdom is going to fail in the end? That he’ll never live to see them prevail?”
Squeezing a branch of the beech tree, the wizard gazed at me. At last, he spoke, his voice full of tenderness. “What good? I cannot tell. Nor can anyone.”
