Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy

by Gardner Dozois

  Viviane did, watching the black bird as he threaded the moss-robed trees clanging like an iron bell, his deep and solemn croak echoing through the forest.

  When he was out of sight and sound, and the forest hushed and hopeless once more, she sat down on a protruding root, put her head in her hands, and thought about home. About meals in her mother’s bright kitchen. About lying on the rug in her room and doing homework to music. About cleaning Daisy’s stall and bringing Daisy an apple. Her homework had been hard sometimes, and cleaning the stall was hard work always; but at that moment she would gladly have given her new saddle just to be home, with the stall dirty and a theme due in—

  A little bird with a bright red breast had flown to the tree nearest her and perched on a twig to study her. It was followed almost at once, with a great deal of noise and commotion, by a flock of swans. These landed (badly) on the forest floor all around her. A pair of partridges came next, and after them a constant whir of wings and far too many birds to count.

  The last to arrive was a great golden eagle. Its weight bent a limb just above her as it spread its wings like a canopy over her head.

  “When I say down,” Nevermore mumbled, “you kneel an’ spread your wings like this. Got it?”

  Viviane managed to nod.

  “Receive now,” he intoned, “the Blessin’ of the Flock.” At the final word, his voice became an urgent whisper: “Down!”

  Viviane dropped to her knees and bowed her head, and spread her arms wide. The wings of every bird save the eagle were pointed toward her. “Receive the Blessing of the Flock!” was pronounced in a thousand ways by birds of a thousand kinds. Ravens croaked it. Crows cawed it. Warblers warbled it, and ducks quacked it. The swans—mute swans all—merely mouthed it, but gray geese from Iceland hissed it. It should have been a cacophony, and in a way it was. Yet there was a beauty there, the odd, hard beauty of wild things that need not be pretty to please nature (though they often are).

  It was followed by a thunder of wings as every bird except Nevermore flew away.

  “Now what?” Viviane rose, dusting her knees.

  “Now you get your nest, honey.” Nevermore preened himself. “We’re good at it.”

  “What’ll I owe you?” Once more, Viviane pulled the change from her pockets.

  “Nothin’. You ain’t used up your retainer yet, see?”

  The first whirring of wings came even as he spoke. Eight or ten sparrows had returned, busy and quarreling, with tiny twigs and wisps of straw. After that, the house seemed to grow faster than any bird could fly. Now and then its walls appearing through a seething mass of beaks, claws, and feathers.

  “It ain’t bad,” Nevermore opined, as a patient willow-wren added its finishing touch to the roof. “I coulda done better, only it woulda taken me a lot longer, see? Let’s go in an’ have a gander.”

  The door, a door of woven sticks, was standing open. Viviane entered and found she was treading on a carpet of hay, straw, down, and feathers. There were three rooms, each larger than she had expected, each accessible by an arch rather too small. Two boasted little round windows.

  “Three openin’s, get it?” Nevermore flapped up to land upon Viviane’s shoulder. “Three openin’s an’ three rooms. Most of us can’t count higher than that. Me, I can get into the twenties, only it’s confusin’ after that, so I just say a lot. Most times that does it. Three or twenty-three, they done the best they could. Like it?”

  Slowly, Viviane nodded. “It really does look like a wizard might live here, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure. Like, he might get us to build it for him. Save him some work.”

  She nodded again. “Right. You’re having a little fun with me, aren’t you?”

  “Me? No way!” Nevermore actually sounded sincere.

  “You’re allowed to have a little fun after what you’ve just done, so enjoy yourself. I don’t think you could do anything that would make me mad after this.”

  “Got it, honey. Got it, an’ same here. You can jerk my chain, just don’t make me fall off my perch.”

  “In that case, I’ve got a question,” Viviane said. “This isn’t a fun question. It’s perfectly serious. When all the birds came, I saw two brown hawks, kind of small and plain, but solid-looking.”

  “Sure. You want their names? I’ll try to find out for you.”

  Viviane shook her head. “I just want to know what kind of hawks they were. Like Cooper’s hawk or a red-tailed hawk? I know they weren’t either of those, but they remind me of Myrddin, so I’d like to know what they are.”

  “Pigeon hawks,” Nevermore told her. “Only say merlins when you talk to them. It’s politer.”

  Suddenly the whole house was full of gauzy-winged people carrying stools or stepstools, shelves or seashells, tables, tablets, or trinkets, old books or bold banners or a hundred other things, each more miscellaneous than the last. “How do you like it so far?” Vivien asked. She was holding a big glass retort filled with green liquid that bubbled of itself.

  “I like the house a lot,” Viviane said, “and I hope you do to. But these…This clutter—my gosh!”

  “The wooden snake?” Vivien positively grinned. “That is a bedpost. There are four, all different.”

  Nevermore’s soft croak was almost soothing. “For the other four kinds, most likely. Birds, snakes, fish, and cats. Number five would be you, only he’ll sleep in there, see? So that rounds out the five.”

  “It’s a mess, just the same.”

  A cracked voice said, “A place for everything, and everything out of place is my rule, my dearest, dearest darling.” The speaker was old and bent, his long gray beard nearly white. Advancing with the help of a contorted staff, he took her hand, holding it gently between his. “My lady of the lake,” he whispered.

  Viviane took a deep breath. “They told me you’d be old, so I expected that. But your eyes haven’t changed. They haven’t changed at all.”

  They embraced. No doubt there was a flurry of wings as Nevermore, Vivien, and her gauzy-winged friends departed; but Viviane did not hear it—or indeed, hear anything save his sighs and the pounding of her heart. He kissed her, and one small, hot tear (only one) coursed down her cheek. “Oh, Merlin….” It was less than a whisper. “Oh, my own, my darling Merlin…”

  When they separated at last, he said, “Sit down. Sit down, please, precious lady. Will you not? To make me happy? For as long as you stand, I shall think you about to desert me.”

  She did, choosing a small chair curiously carved.

  “You’re stricken, dear ageless lady of the lake, to see me as I am, a man of many years. I could grow young again before your eyes, but the transformation would be ultimately unreal, and—alas—but temporary. To make it real is past any power of mine. Past the powers of the kind lady I name Gwelliant, as well. And in all truth, lady, her powers are less than mine.”

  Viviane took a deep breath, drawing in a rich and nourishing atmosphere spiced by the forest and untainted by smoke. “Are you saying you can really, I mean really and truly, do magic with all this junk? I don’t believe it!”

  Merlin smiled, showing one broken tooth and several discolored ones. “That I am not, dearest lady. My powers are in me. You wish me dentures, and I know it. Watch.”

  He passed his hand across his mouth and smiled again. White teeth, nearly perfect, gleamed in his dark face. “I have two sets, you see, my lady. Not two sets of false teeth, as you think, but two of true teeth. These are my own, as the others were. And I may display either, as I choose. I have other parts as well, doubled and tripled in a few cases. I cannot display them for you because they are within me, but with them I may do many things. All this…” A wave of his hand took in the books, the strange instruments of science, and even the stuffed crocodile hung from his ceiling. “Is but stage dressing.”

  Tapping his forehead with a long forefinger, he added, “The magic’s here. As it always is. Now then. Do you wish to see me change my shape? Or do you wis
h to change yours, for an hour? We’ve a bit of time, Gwelliant tells me, ere Arthur comes.”

  “I…Well, I—I’d like to be a bird. A—a dove. Can you do that?”

  Viviane did not change at all—or so she felt; but the cozy room of sticks swelled to theater size, and the curiously carved chair on whose seat she perched was far larger than the dining-room table at home.

  You are a dove, my dearest.

  The voice in her mind emanated from the compact brown bird on the other side of the vast room. She knew that, and did not wonder how she knew, or even how she had been changed. She was a—she had forgotten the word. Still she could fly, and wanted to. Spreading white wings, she fluttered through the doorway.

  The brown bird flew after her, far more swiftly than she. I am a merlin. I won’t harm you, but guard yourself if you see another like me.

  Not harm, she thought. Not harm. She flew into a tree, leaving the pile of sticks behind. Landing upon a another stick there, she nearly fell. Once she caught her breath, she would fly high.

  The sky was still wide and blue, though the sun was low. Up she flew, and learned to fly by flying.

  There are eagles. There are many hawks. Better to hide among the trees. It was the brown bird.

  The sky grew darker. When an owl swooped toward her, the brown bird flew at it, keening, talons wide. The owl veered away. Lower. Follow me.

  Reluctantly, she did.

  Lower! On the ground!

  The brown bird had vanished.

  Down here! Before you die!

  She landed, and found herself—found Viviane, in her boots and jeans and denim shirt—crouching on the floor of an ancient forest.

  As she stood, a small man with a long gray beard laid a hand upon her shoulder. “Arthur has not yet come, but we must return to my cottage before he does.”

  She nodded, and as they walked side by side, her hand found his. “It was wonderful,” she whispered. “Not as wonderful as I had expected, but wonderful just the same. Thank you.”

  “You may find yourself a dove again,” he told her. “Be careful. Earth or running water will make you think yourself as you are now, and you’ll be yourself once more. Have I made that clear?”

  “I think so.” She spoke so softly that she had to repeat it.

  “If you think yourself as you are now when you are high, you will change and fall a long way. Take care.”

  “And stay low,” she murmured. “Sure.”

  “It will be truly wonderful,” he said, “when we are together at last. I will be older then, but being with you will make me grow younger.”

  Slowly, she nodded. “I heard about that.”

  “I’ve years to wait and work.” His hand tightened on hers. “I’ll work and wait full of joy, knowing what’s to come.”

  The little woman with gauzy wings was waiting for them at the hut of sticks the birds had built for Viviane. “Hello!” she called.

  “Hello, Gwelliant,” Viviane said. “Do you mind if I use your real name? I like that better.”

  “You may call me that,” the little woman told her, “but we have no real names. Only unreal ones, like Vivien and Gwelliant.”

  “No real names?”

  The little, gauzy-winged woman shook her head. “We don’t need them. There aren’t many of us left, you see.”

  “When you were bringing in the books and the round thing with all the pointers it seemed like there were an awful lot of you.”

  “No.” The gauzy wings, drooping already, drooped further. “That was all. Our whole population, and you saw some of us three and four times. We would bring something and look for something else, perhaps for days. When we got it, we would return to the time when we brought the first, and bring that, too. We are very few.”

  Viviane nodded to herself. “Every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ a fairy dies. I read that somewhere.”

  “We are not really fairies either, Viviane. We are—There is no time. Here we are and you must act for us.”

  “I’m getting really, really tired of it. Is this the last time? Before Merlin and I get together for all those years?”

  “Two, but they will be done in five minutes if only you will do them. Stand there.”

  It was a fairy ring.

  “There will be a lake all about you, but you will not get wet. Soon, Arthur will throw his sword into the water. You must catch it without cutting yourself, so take it by…”

  A fish swam past Viviane, and she did not hear the rest. Looking up, she could see the shimmer of waves. It was broken, as someone flung something long and heavy into it.

  It was a sword bigger than she had ever imagined a sword might be, and as it sank by her she snatched its hilt, wetting her hand.

  “Good.” The little woman’s voice sounded in Viviane’s ear. “You must not bring it back. It is steel and would distort the field. Feel at your feet. The scabbard is there.”

  Viviane did. “It’s beautiful! Can you hear me? It’s really lovely, and all set with jewels.”

  “We made it.” The voice was more remote than as ever. “Thank you for your praise. Pour out all the water, please, before you sheathe the sword.”

  Water and mud, Viviane thought, but the water that came forth from the mouth of the scabbard sparkled and shone, a river of tiny diamonds. When the last was gone, she sheathed the sword.

  “One more, please, Viviane. One more, my dear friend, and all your tasks are done. You will have saved us then—and yourself, too. Yourself, your family, and all you hold dear. Count to five and hold the sword above the water. Let Arthur take it. And that is the end.”

  When the sword was gone and the lake with it, Viviane stepped from the ring. Walls of stone rose block by block in the distance, higher and higher as she looked. Flowers sprang up at her feet. Not far away, a fountain played. As she walked toward the fountain, a great white tower rose behind it, lifting its proud head until it was far above the tallest trees. A moment more, and crows flew around it—no, black birds too large for crows.

  She found him sitting on a marble bench, watching his fountain with rheumy eyes. “You’re young still.” It was an old man’s cracked voice, “I’m old, and Arthur sleeps. Hic Iacet Sepultus Inclitus Rex Arturius in Insula Avalonia. I dare not sleep, dearest Viviane. Not yet. And so this.” He patted the bench. “Come, sit beside me.”

  She sat, trying not to sit primly.

  “You will not be eager of my kisses,” the old man said.

  Viviane whispered, “You’re wrong.”

  He seemed not to have heard. “Never fear. Never fear, my darling, you will not have to endure them. Nor these, my words, if you do not wish to. You need not listen, but I must speak.”

  She nodded. “And I’ll listen. I’ll listen to all you say, Merlin.”

  “The Table Round is sundered. Arthur lies with his queen, while its lesser knights war one upon another. Camelot will soon fall to the pagans. All is lost.” He sighed. “Except the dream. The dream lives in fireside tales and the musings of plowmen. It must not die. Men everywhere must know that once there was a time of justice, when brave men bent the knee to God and sallied against a dark and evil world. When brave men came forth to do what was right because it was right, though they risked life and lands.”

  “I know one,” Viviane said.

  “You’re fortunate.” That man’s palsied hand found hers and clasped it. “I must wait and watch, touching many though I cannot be touched. I must see to it that the flame burns still, however faint, however smoky its light.”

  He fell silent. Viviane waited.

  “You need not linger with me, O Lady of the Lake. You need not, nor will I force you. But I hope…I—I wish, please, dear lady…I wish…”

  “Your wish is granted,” Viviane told him. “I’ll stay.”

  WHEN it was over, when all the flying years of shared happiness had flown at last, a small woman with gauzy wings guided Viviane back to the spring into which she h
ad once dipped her bandana. “You have helped save us,” the small woman said. “We will always be grateful to you.”

  Viviane nodded absently. “What’s your name? I’m sure I used to know it.”

  “Yes, you did. It is the same as your own. I am Vivien.”

  “I remember.” There was a great deal to remember, and Viviane knew she would never be able to remember it all.

  “Do you also remember that I told you we were few? You said that each time a child said, ‘I will not believe in fairies,’ a fairy died.”

  “Did I really say that?” Viviane smiled.

  “Yes, you did, and in a way it is true.” Vivien seated herself on a small stone beside the pool. “We are your future, Viviane, just as we are the future of Arthur’s Britons, and of Myrddin’s whole family—of his brother’s descendants, his sisters’ descendants, and his own. If the people of Arthur’s day were to stop believing in beautiful things and trying to make them come true, we would perish, becoming less and less probable until we winked out. If the people of your day ever stop, it will be the same.”

  “I’m going to have to think about this,” Viviane said. “Why are you so little, and why do you have wings?”

  “We were more once,” Vivien explained; her gauzy wings rose in joy as she spoke. “So many that we crowded Earth. We did not want the plants and animals to die to make room for us, so we made ourselves smaller and smaller. When we had become as small as I am, we realized we could fly, if only we had wings. So we gave ourselves these. See them?”

  “I certainly do. It’s wonderful to fly, isn’t it?”

  Vivien nodded and rose into the air, her gauzy wings a blur of motion.

  “I did it once. He made me a white dove, and I flew.” Viviane looked into the pool at the reflection of her own lined face. “I’d be a gray dove now, I suppose.”

  There was no reply. The small Vivien with gauzy wings had gone.

  Viviane sighed, examined her reflection once more, and looked at the thin, blue veins on the backs of her hands. Talking to herself as she sometimes did now, she said, “I suppose I’m sixty. Or older…I should’ve marked the years, but it would…I felt…”