He was waiting to be born.
"But how will I find him?" Taliesin asked.
From inside the solid crystal, the man lowered his sword and pointed it toward the earth. A solitary beam of light traveled from the sword's gleaming metal tip into the blackness of space, to rest at last as a bright pinpoint on the darkened planet.
Hesitantly, Taliesin followed the beam of light, flying, floating free again in empty space, descending giddily, faster than a comet toward the tiny dot of light, until he saw the earth spread beneath him, its oceans blue as jewels, the land green and fragrant.
Mother, bring us life from death… The chant pounded in his ears. Bring us life from death... life from death…
The light ended in a tangled thicket in an old forest, on a slab of stone from which a great jeweled sword protruded, the same sword whose light had directed him here. There was no space between the perfect blade and the rock in which it had, quite impossibly, been buried; there was no human way to extricate it. And on the stone was engraved a message, covered with moss and lichen and eroded with time:
Whoso pulleth this sword from this stone
Shall be named rightwise King of England
So this was where it would begin. With a single point of light.
He awoke back in the sacred circle, and he was alone. Sweat dripped blue off his painted body. Surrounding him were the last glowing embers of what had been the great Beltane bonfire, now scattered red eyes winking at him in the night.
On wobbly legs he righted himself and walked slowly out of the clearing.
What did she mean about the gods' dying, he wondered.
When they go, they will take their magic with them.
A breeze rustled through the tops of the ancient trees. On their branches sat a full moon, fat and orange-colored. Beside him, a stream gurgled over stones grown smooth with centuries. He knelt beside it and drank. The water was cold, delicious.
This is their magic, he thought. It is all right here.
"Remember that, little bard."
He looked up, startled. It was the Innocent, standing across the stream from him. Taliesin had not heard her come, but then he never did.
"One day I will have to leave this place," he said.
She nodded.
And so his time in Mona would end, as it had begun, with a vision of a man he was yet to meet.
"Can the gods die?" he asked.
But the Innocent had already vanished.
PART THREE
THE MAGICIAN
Chapter Nineteen
The Center for Cosmic Consciousness turned out to be less eccentric than Taliesin had imagined. Located on a respectable block in Manhattan's west fifties, it was distinguishable from the other three-story apartment buildings lining the street only by a small brass plaque near the door.
"Most people we bring here expect something a little more woo-woo," Zack Diamond said.
"Woo-woo?"
"Meta. You know, metaphysical. Black walls with Day-Glo stars and incense in the corners. I guess it's the name."
"Corny, isn't it?" Kate mussed his hair affectionately. "See you later," she said, striding toward the stairs. "And welcome!" she called out behind her.
Zack laughed self-deprecatingly. "I guess she's right about the name, but I wanted to remind people that we're all in this together. That we're here for a reason, and that every one of us belongs. Do you know what I mean?"
"Cosmic consciousness," Arthur said. "C. C." Beatrice giggled. Taliesin glared at them both.
"Good people live here," Zack went on. "The retired minister who lived in the apartment where you'll be staying spent every day visiting hospitals, talking with people who didn't have anyone else."
He led them to a door just left of the foyer. "He died last week at ninety-eight. There were so many people at the funeral service that they couldn't all fit into the church."
"Good show," Taliesin said, touching the young man's arm. "Not a bit woo-woo."
"Glad you agree." He unlocked the door. "This is a nice room," he said. "It's just like mine, on the other side."
"Does it have a bath?" Beatrice asked longingly.
"Yep. They all do. No kitchen, though. I wanted to make as many units as possible. We all eat together, in the big room across from the front door. It's fun."
"I'm sure," Taliesin said graciously.
The apartment Zack showed them was sparse but clean, with a comfortable old chair in the corner and a threadbare sofa facing a fireplace.
"It works, too," Zack said, putting his foot on the grate. "Not that you're likely to build a fire in June—"
"Get away from there!" Beatrice shouted.
Zack leaped aside. "Is something wrong?"
"Wrong. Yes." Beatrice stood as if she were frozen, her gaze trained on the fireplace. "A dark place... underground..."
"Wow, you can really pick up on vibes," Zack said admiringly. "This building was built over the site of a witches' coven. That's what somebody told me at the municipal building, anyway."
"The city government here must be very thorough," Taliesin said.
"Oh, every building has a history. I had to go through a lot of red tape to renovate the place, so I spent a lot of time looking through records. I found out about the coven stuff then. But that went on hundreds of years ago. The original building was burned in the 1800s. In fact, another building was built over it before this one."
He leaned down so that his face was level with Beatrice's. "Besides, witches aren't so bad. They were just nature worshippers, kind of like the old druids. Ever hear of them?"
The girl's head snapped up imperiously. "These were not druids!" she spat. She closed her eyes. "And not witches, either."
Zack laughed uncomfortably. "Jeez, I wish I could give you another apartment, but—"
"No, no. This one is quite lovely," Taliesin said, offering his hand to the young man. "We will try to be good guests. And we shall do our best to earn our keep. When are we to report for duty?"
Zack grinned. "After dinner, in the kitchen behind the dining room. There'll be other volunteers." He turned back to Beatrice. "Are you sure you're okay about this?"
She blinked. "What? I'm sorry. I think I was daydreaming."
"About the... Oh, it doesn't matter." He turned to Taliesin. "Hey, I think I can get hold of some clothes for you. A lady on the second floor collects stuff for the Salvation Army. You want to come up with me?"
Taliesin shot a quick glance at Beatrice. The girl seemed perfectly normal now. "Delighted," he said.
When they were alone, Arthur stood by the wall studying Beatrice, who was inspecting a pot of silk flowers on the windowsill. "It's much nicer than I expected—''
"Bea," Arthur said softly. "What were you saying about the fireplace?"
"The fireplace?" She looked at it. "It seems fine. Do you think it works?"
Arthur took a deep breath. "Zack said it did."
"Did he?" She clapped her hands together. "I get the first bath."
"This looks disgusting," Arthur said, swabbing out an enormous pot containing the burnt remains of pea soup.
"And it tasted even worse," Beatrice added.
Taliesin adjusted the waistband of a pair of jeans donated by the woman upstairs. "I certainly can't dispute that," he said quietly. "Ah, Zack."
The young man was carrying a tray of salt and pepper shakers. "How'd you like dinner?"
"Splendid," Taliesin lied. "We were just talking about it."
"I made the soup myself," Zack said proudly.
"In that case, I'm glad I missed it." Kate came in and helped Zack put the shakers away. "Sorry I'm late. I was studying."
"Want a sandwich?"
"Maybe later." She smiled at Taliesin. "How's your wound?" she asked.
"Wound? Oh, yes, that. It's fine. That is, it was only a scratch."
She stared at him. "I didn't even see a scratch."
Taliesin cleared his throat. "Yes, well, um... Tha
t is, there was rather a lot of blood, but the source of it was negligible. Almost impossible to find, in fact." He made a great clatter washing his pot.
Kate opened her mouth to argue, but the old man prevented her. "Tell me, Kate, are you a street person as well?"
She smiled and shook her head. "No, I can't say I am. I'm not rich, but that's a choice I made. I grew up with a lot of privilege."
Zack, who had ambled over, stuck his hands in his pockets and laughed. "I'd say that's an understatement," he said. "Kate's father was President of the United States."
Arthur screwed up his face. "Well, what are you doing here?" he asked. Beatrice nudged him, but it had never occurred to him that he was being rude. He simply wanted to know.
Kate grabbed one of the pots and a rag and joined them in their work at the sink. "You can't spend your life just being someone's kid," she said with a shrug. "I left home as soon as I was out of high school. I joined the Peace Corps and went to Africa. Then I bummed around Europe for a few years. So now I'm twenty-five years old and a starving student."
"She's working on her Master's at Columbia," Zack added.
"And my parents don't support me. I work for my room and board here, just like you."
"Does everyone stay here for free?" Arthur asked.
"Every last one of us," Zack said.
"How can you afford that?"
"Arthur, please," Taliesin said.
"That's all right. It's a natural question." Zack leaned against the sink. "I don't own the building. I only manage it for a friend."
"A rich friend," Kate said.
"The place is a tax write-off for him or something." He smiled. "And it helps a lot of people. Good karma all around."
"Come on, give these a swipe with the dishcloth," Kate said, handing him a rag. "You, too," she said to Beatrice, who had ceased working to stare at Kate through narrowed eyes.
"Your father," Beatrice ventured timidly. "Would he be the man who was shot in Morocco?"
"He wasn't shot," Kate said, not looking up from her pots.
"But..." Beatrice pressed her lips together. "I'm glad he's well," she said finally.
"He's perfect." The dishrag hung suspended in Kate's hand.
Zack smiled sympathetically. "Kate has a hard time believing in miracles."
"It wasn't a miracle. It was a heart attack. The doctors all agree. Someone near him got shot, and blood spattered on my dad's clothes. The shock of it all brought on a mini heart attack."
"That's not what he says."
"Well, he's crazy, all right? My dad's sixty-seven years old, and he's losing it."
"Look, he's not the first person to have seen the Grail..."
"He didn't see any Grail, Zack!" she shouted. "He believes he was healed by something that looks like a nut dish!"
Slowly, Beatrice looked at Taliesin. The old man shook his head in a barely perceptible gesture.
"Hey," Zack said gently, placing his hands on Kate's shoulders. "You're upset. Let me give you a love bomb."
"Oh, get off it, Zack," she snapped, brushing him off. She threw down the dishcloth. "Love bomb," she muttered as she left the room.
Zack shook his head sadly. "I keep telling her, you have to believe in magic for it to work."
"What's a love bomb?" Beatrice asked.
Taliesin held up one finger. "Later, child." His voice was somber. "Tell us first, Zack, about this Grail."
Zack grinned. "Oh, you haven't heard about that? The Holy Grail?"
"I believe I've heard of it. The magic cup that was the object of King Arthur's Quest."
"That's the one. Some people think it's back in circulation."
"Which people?" the old man asked tensely.
Zack spread his hands. "Lots of us. Kate's dad, for one. He was shot point blank in the chest. Four days later he was back in Pennsylvania without a scratch. He says a cup fell on top of him and miraculously closed his wound. The government won't believe him, of course, but that doesn't mean anything."
"Was President Marshall the first to tell you about this… object?"
"Oh, man, no," Zack said. "I've been hearing about the Grail for over three years. Nobody knows where it is, exactly, but it's back. And it'll come to light in time for the new millennium."
"What's one got to do with the other?" Arthur asked.
"Everything," Zack said, his eyes sparkling. "The whole planet's changing, all of us who call ourselves human beings. Think about it. We started out as a pretty nasty species, killing everything we didn't understand, even each other. But that's changing. Slowly we're evolving into something different, a different kind of homo sapiens that can look beyond anger and fear and territoriality, into the very heart of God." He looked at each of them in turn.
"That's the purpose of this center, and other places like it. To foster that new kind of human being. And we're everywhere. We're housewives and corporate executives and artists and doctors. All over the place, people are beginning to experience things they'd never dreamed possible—seeing visions, getting messages from spirits, weird things. We're getting in touch with something bigger than ourselves, and a lot of us are being called crazy, and a lot of us feel crazy while these things are happening, but they keep on happening. And sooner or later, we're going to realize that we've become something completely different from the human beings we used to be. That's when the Grail will appear."
Taliesin stared at him, blinking, for a moment. "Ah," he said at last, unable to think of anything more eloquent in response to the young man's impassioned soliloquy. "Then the cup—the Grail—may or may not really exist."
"Oh, it exists, all right. It's just a question of when we'll be ready for it."
"I see," Taliesin said, remembering a time long ago, when a great king had turned the Grail away rather than see it misused by mankind.
"May I ask about the love bomb now?" Beatrice whispered, interrupting the old man's thoughts.
Zack laughed. "Sure. Now like I said, you have to believe it'll work for it to work, okay?"
"You're going to give one to me?" she squealed.
"It won't hurt. In fact, it'll feel good. It's love."
"All right." She held herself stiff and scrunched closed her eyes, giggling. "I'm ready."
"Here it comes," Zack warned. He nodded vigorously toward Beatrice and grunted. "Did you feel that?"
Beatrice peeked out of one eye. "Oh, you've done it already?"
"Guess she didn't feel it," Arthur commented drily. Taliesin thumped him on his head.
"Let's try again." Undaunted, Zack began hyperventilating noisily. "It's like... gathering all your energy... up in a ball... and then... throwing it at someone," he explained between exertions.
"Just like baseball," Arthur said, ducking out of the way before Taliesin could bonk him again.
"Get ready!"
Beatrice could barely stop herself from jumping up and down.
"Here goes!" Zack screwed his face into a mask of concentration, then threw his arms out in front of him as if pushing a column of air toward Beatrice. When he was finished, he staggered back to the kitchen sink, panting. "There, did you feel that one?"
Beatrice smiled. "Well... I think perhaps a little."
"Oh, brother," Arthur mumbled.
"Now throw it back to me," Zack said.
Beatrice giggled.
"Just concentrate," Zack urged. "That's it, close your eyes. Now pull your energy together and—" With a shriek, he flew backward across the room and thudded against the far wall.
"Did you feel it, Zack? Did you..." She uncovered her eyes. "Oh, dear."
Zack slapped one hand against the wall and tried to pull himself up, but his legs were too wobbly to support him. "How did you do that?" he whispered.
"I... I don't know. I just…"
In an instant Zack was flying upward, skittering along the wall like a spider. His arms and legs were outstretched, his face a study in exultation. "It works!" he cried, jubilant. "It rea
lly works! Wait'll I tell the other tenants! We've got to do this on TV!"
Taliesin turned to Arthur. "Perhaps you'd better take Beatrice to our rooms," he said quietly. Then, with a twitch of his fingers unnoticeable to anyone, he felt the thickened column of air emanating from the middle of Beatrice's forehead and severed it. Zack slid to the floor.
"Marvelous!" the old man said, beaming, as he helped his host get to his feet. "Zack, you must tell me how you accomplished that!"
Chapter Twenty
"What did you do back there?" Arthur asked when they were both back in the room.
"I honestly don't know," she said, mystified. "I felt this... sensation from Zack, a little thing, really, and I tried to throw it back at him." She looked at Arthur. "Something's happening to me," she said softly. "I've always had a sense of things that other people didn't understand, but I thought that was because I was blind. When I got my sight, I thought I'd lose that other sense, whatever it was."
"But you haven't."
"No. It's gotten stronger. "Sometimes I have dreams… Oh, Arthur." Her eyes welled with tears. "Terrible dreams..."
Arthur took her hand. "Nightmares can't hurt you," he said.
"They're different from nightmares. I'm not even afraid while they're going on, only after I wake up. In them, an old woman is talking to me."
"Your grandmother, maybe?"
"No, it's not Grams." Beatrice swallowed. "The old woman is me. She's me, Arthur, and she's telling me to get ready."
"For what?"
"For death," she whispered.
Taliesin walked in, fuming. "Please don't ever do that again, Beatrice," he said irritably. "Zack was about to have your love bomb performance broadcast on television!" He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. "It was all I could do to convince him that he, and not you, was the originator of the incident."
He sat down heavily. "Now he believes he's tapped the power of the universe. In celebration of his triumph, he's invited you both to go out for ice cream." He waited for a response. "I say, are you two not feeling well?"
"What do you think, Bea?" Arthur asked. "I haven't had ice cream for a while. How about you?"
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