But Linnet was sitting in her chair, reading by candlelight. He said her name, and she looked up at him without apparent surprise.
“Were you expecting me?” he asked.
“I think I must have been,” she replied. “Though I didn’t know I was until now.”
She stood up, moved toward him. He flung his arms around her, only to find himself strongly held too.
“Happy ending,” he said a little hoarsely.
“Happy,” she said, “but not an ending. You’re the direct heir to Hoad now, aren’t you? And my father—”
“Don’t tell me! He’s fallen into line,” Dysart exclaimed. “Is that what we’re doing, being together now? Falling into line?”
“He was so angry with me when we met again,” Linnet explained. “And yet he couldn’t hide that he was excited, too. What with that baby Shuba had a while back being a girl, I think he felt he was being edged out of all the possibilities of glory, so he loved the thought that I would someday be Queen of Hoad. In spite of everything, it’s so much more than being Queen of the Dannorad.”
“Nothing’s certain,” said Dysart. “All the same…” He felt her breasts pressing against him. “Linnet, let’s get married very quickly. Really, we’re married already. But let’s get married again. Now!”
Linnet gently stood back from him. She dabbed her finger toward the door.
“Casilla’s just through there,” she whispered. “She’s been told to watch over me. We’ll have to wait and do the grand, parading thing before we do the grandest thing of all, even though we’ve secretly done it once already. For us there’s what we do as you and me, and what we do on behalf of our kingdoms.”
Dysart sighed, then smiled, stepping back a little.
“Well, the grand, parading thing might be fun,” he said. “And in the end it will be just you and me together again. It’s been a long time, though, hasn’t it, fighting our way through.”
“You were the mad Prince,” she said. “I remember the battlefield. I remember you running out in front of the horses. But you’re free of him now, aren’t you, free of Heriot? You don’t need him in the way you thought you did. He might be Magician of Hoad, but someday you’ll be King, and he’ll have to stand behind your throne.”
“He won’t worry about that,” Dysart said. “After all, we’re friends beyond all that King-and-Magician business.”
“Do you think he’ll marry that wild girl—that Cayley?” Linnet asked, her voice becoming more uncertain as she spoke, for somehow the idea of marriage seemed irrelevant where Cayley and Heriot were concerned.
“Those two? Oh, I’d say they were well and truly married,” Dysart replied dryly.
But Linnet, smiling, then frowning, then smiling again, wasn’t really thinking of Heriot.
“It’s all been so strange,” she said. “Like some story straggling out this way, then unraveling in another. I find myself thinking about Betony Hoad and wondering…”
“I think Heriot was right. In a way, all there was for Betony was to dream,” Dysart said. “Waking life could never offer him anything that would be enough for him. He had the chance to be King, but the Magician’s very existence was always some sort of challenge to him—the constant reminder that there was someone much more wonderful than he could ever be in waking life. So he lies asleep in a room in the Tower of the Lion, and no one can wake him. Heriot says he might awaken some day, but when he does, he’ll be beyond any King and Hero dreams.”
But Linnet didn’t want to hear about Betony Hoad, sleeping his strange enchanted sleep in the top room of the Tower of the Lion. “Do you think we’ll be happy?” she asked, though she thought she knew the answer with certainty. She just wanted to hear Dysart say it aloud.
“Happy?” Dysart looked at her as if she had asked him a nonsense question. “Of course we will. And even when we are married, just for the fun of it, I’ll climb the castle wall out there and come in at your window. Darling Linnet, we’ll be happier than any other King and Queen of Hoad have ever been. But now I am going.”
“Back down the castle wall,” Linnet said. “Do be careful!”
“Well, I will be careful,” Dysart said. “But by now I know some of the handholds and footholds. And anyhow, that power to climb was a gift in the first place… a gift to both of us. I don’t think it will ever be taken away.”
And he climbed down again, sure of himself, but being careful all the same.
Back in his own room, filled with the mystery and excitement and astonishment of the day he had just lived through, he knew he would never sleep, and walked through the halls of Guard-on-the-Rock, silent now, yet never quite deserted, to the room that had once been Heriot’s before the shed in the orchard took him over. The door was open—these days there was no one to close it—and the room was empty, but there, on the desk in the corner of the room, were sheets of yellow paper… a letter. Filled with sudden apprehension, Dysart snatched it up. He read.
***
Dysart, I know you will come looking for me. I know you will come here, out of nostalgia, really, since I haven’t lived in this room for a long time. But my shed in the orchard hasn’t been the room we have shared. It’s been mine and only mine. Anyhow, enough of that. Tonight you won’t be able to sleep—none of us will be able to sleep much tonight. We have to stay awake, and work ourselves into what we are, in our various ways.
This is just to tell you that I am going off and away for a while. I don’t think there will be any need for a Magician of Hoad any more than there will be a need for a Hero. You will marry Linnet, and for many years your father’s peace will go unchallenged. Not forever, of course. Nothing lasts forever. But as for me, I need to wander a bit, and though I am completed at last, I need to complete the completion. I need to find out just what it truly means to be a Magician of Hoad. I am an unknown country to myself, but I know by now that being the Magician doesn’t mean standing at the King’s elbow reading his enemies or providing entertainments on grand occasions.
It’s taken so much struggle to find out what I am intended to be. One thing it does mean is becoming a true part of Hoad, melting out into its trees and grasses, flowing with its waters, aging, perhaps, in its stones. I think when the Magicians have been able to do this, the country has been strengthened in some remarkable way.
Trees have always haunted me, haven’t they? Perhaps when the Magician springs to life in some tree, flowing with its sap, the tree understands in some peculiar way just what it means to be a tree, tied into the soil of the land. Maybe the very stones understand, in their strange, resilient way, what it means to be a stone, and that understanding, even if it is not a human understanding but a curious unspoken awareness (down below thought, down below feeling, so deep down that it can’t be recognized) binds the land into itself.
Dysart, you are my friend… always will be. I sat, immersed in our mutual dreams, on your windowsill— our windowsill—so that when I needed saving you were able to save me. And in a way, since then, when you have needed saving, I have saved you.
So be a friend and watch over that Cayley for a while… until her arm is healed, anyway. After that, I think she might set out to find me. Just at present, she has yet another secret she thinks is entirely her own. But being what I am, I can’t help knowing. The voice of that secret comes to me, claiming me, like a secret of a growing seed—an unfolding leaf—like another secret of the earth itself.
Anyhow! You! Keep on loving your Linnet in that magical way. I know it seems at the moment that love is easy, but it’s got its challenges, too. Make sure you do what I tell you.
This isn’t good-bye. Sometime when you least expect it you’ll look up and I’ll be there, and we’ll sit down and gossip—talk about what it was like when we were boys, before you became King, and I became whatever it is I’m going to become. We’ll joke with each other— maybe weep a little too as we remember the hard times. But now I must get out and away to become what the Magician of Hoad is
meant to be—a secret essence, a connection of the land, which, when I fuse with it, will use my understanding to understand itself and become even more wonderful than it is now.
Heriot
BECOMING THE TRUE MAGICIAN
So Heriot wandered out into the world, leaving the towers of Guard-on-the-Rock behind. He strolled through the Third Ring, his back to the Bramber and the great castle embraced by its flowing waters. Strolling on in a leisurely yet determined way, he stared with a new curiosity at the great houses and gardens that were so familiar by now but that also seemed as if, given the right command, they might be able to renew themselves.
Leaving them behind, he came out into the Second Ring and felt himself touched with an edged energy, almost like a fury burning up within him. It was not his own fury, but the fury of people wheeling and dealing, arguing, planning, clashing, resolving. He strode on, staring around him almost as if he were a visitor who had never seen the city before. Something like wonder crept into his expression as he slipped between the tall buildings and out into the open spaces of the seething markets, for maybe true life was being lived here. It was impossible to be sure.
As he went by, people stopped talking midsentence and looked around, apparently bewildered for a moment, as if some alien thought had intruded into them, blotting out their own thoughts. But then, as Heriot… that distortion in the world’s unconscious view of itself… moved on, the moment of puzzling possession moved on with him, and the people shrugged, and laughed. “A ghost walked over my grave,” they told one another, as they went on talking, choosing to shrug off that moment of incoherence that had come out of nowhere. So Heriot wandered on, moving unchallenged through the gate between the Second and the First Ring, and all the time it seemed to him that Cayley, the wild and damaged child, the central sign of the city, was dancing beside him, laughing and talking, carrying in her very center the image of the man who had killed her twin… who would certainly have killed her if he had known she had been born, if he had known she was hidden there in the long grass… that Hero who was her father.
But the very moods and determinations that had enabled Lord Carlyon to become the Hero had enabled his daughter to sleep in gutters and steal from stalls, to dance, making up songs and chants to dance to, treating each blow the city aimed at her like a thrust from a possible striking sword. The Hero had passed on his power and skill to his girl child. The Third Ring, her ruthless tutor, had taken her in, imposing challenges of starvation and death, and she had laughed, being quick—quick—dodging from under its slashing blows.
Heriot thought of her scarred throat and damaged voice and wondered how he—how anyone—could ever have taken her for a boy. But they had. He had himself. He had believed in her because she had become, in so many ways, what she had commanded herself to become. And he had also believed in her because, as a boy wandering on the causeway, he had been struck down by the power of a trauma—a trauma that was still in the process of forming her. Heriot knew it had somehow formed him, too.
So he walked on beyond the city, reaching out to inhabit advancing trees, birds, plants, and miraculous dust—dust so wonderful, each grain holding a whole universe—trekking on and on over days and nights, circling around towns and villages, and finally crossing a wild heath until he found himself in a forest he knew.
Pushing along a winding track through the trees, taking in every branch, every twig, every changing leaf, he found himself, yet again, in that deserted village in the wild wood. Once he was there he slept… not because he was unduly tired, but because in sleep he was able to dream his way back through his past life, correct the distortions Diamond had imposed on it, able to sink at last into the true mystery of existing like a true Magician—to soak outward into the vast spaces beyond the moon, to soak inward, down and down, into huge spaces at the heart of wood and stone, the space within his own heart and head, spaces that were not simply emptiness, not simply the absence of anything else, but an essential part of the structure of the world.
For weeks he lived a very simple life—eating fruit and watercress, catching fish from time to time, wandering to the nearest village to buy bread and cheese, dreaming himself in and out of it all.
***
And then one day he felt an intrusion and opened his eyes to find Cayley standing over him.
She still wore her hair in Wellwisher braids, and was rather more richly dressed than he had ever seen before, but there was an entirely new feeling about her… a sort of huge ease, as if she, too, had been released at last from some ruthless oppression.
“I found you,” she said. “No hiding from me.”
“I wasn’t hiding,” he answered, then added, “well, maybe from Diamond. But I knew you’d find me whenever you wanted to.”
She made a gesture, sweeping the folds of her cloak, left and right. One of her hands was covered in a black velvet glove. As he watched, she drew it off and held out toward him a hand beautifully shaped, molded of silver and set with small jewels.
“That’s a work of art,” said Heriot admiringly.
“It’s what we both are,” she said. “Both of us. Works of art.”
“I knew you’d come. I was always in touch with you there, and then I could feel you, coming closer and closer. Do you remember how to kiss?” inquired Heriot.
***
Later he asked after Dysart and Linnet.
“Them?” said Cayley. “They’re so happy, they give off happiness like candles give off light. And the thing is, the King’s still there, but somehow he’s sharing what he is with Dysart. Betony sleeps on… dreams on… smiling in wonder at his own dreams… but Dysart and the King, they talk it all over together—policies for Diamond, plans for Hoad, peace for everyone. That game! Oh, they’re so pleased with themselves.”
“We should call in on them,” Heriot said. “Though maybe not for a while. I think we should go wandering… wander through all the counties of Hoad and tie them together, reinforce the land, and ourselves at the same time.”
Cayley was silent for a while. “It sounds wonderful,” she said at last. “Your idea of wandering, I mean. If I had to choose over the next year I’d choose to wander and see it all. Being free, that is. Free of Diamond. But mostly free of myself… free of what I’ve been. You know, suddenly, as I was fighting Carlyon and he lay there in front of me, all I could do was laugh… laugh at him, but mainly laugh at myself, too, because I’d been ridden for so long by the vision of dealing that final blow. I turned away from him. I felt suddenly free from the charge of it all, and I was going to let him go free too, poor fool. I laughed a bit. But he couldn’t stand that, could he? Being laughed at, I mean. And I’ve inherited a bit of his pride. I’d like to be set free of myself.”
“I don’t suppose we’re ever totally free of ourselves,” Heriot said. “But let’s try. Let’s set out together. If you can travel, that is.”
Cayley smiled almost shyly down into the leaves and grasses. “You know already, don’t you?” she said. “I was planning to surprise you, but no surprising a Magician, I suppose. Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“I can’t help knowing. It calls out to me, wanting attention. “Hey, you!” it says. “I’m on my way. Do you want me to tell you who I am?”’
“Not a word! Let it surprise one of us,” Cayley said. “I never dreamed of this for myself, so it’s a surprise already, but I like to think there are still amazements ahead. So let’s walk on!”
***
One fine day, as the sun rose, tranquil but implacable, four different lives—remarkably different lives—began working their way away from one another. They had been such mixed lives it would have seemed impossible that the people living those lives would ever manage to live either together or apart, but a noble girl and a Prince were being drawn together, embraced by a city, commonplace in many ways, yet always mysterious. A Magician and a wild girl set off, walking through a forest with the sun behind them, feeling the endless growth around
them, the bursting of seeds, the impulses of nesting birds, feeling the way the world worked, dissolving, always dissolving, yet locking itself together over and over again. On they went, both finding some part of themselves, not only in each other but waiting for them in the world out there. Magician and warrior, they were about to be completed in ways they had never totally anticipated.
A story has to end somewhere. This story ends here.
MARGARET MAHY
has lived in New Zealand her entire life. A former children’s librarian, she decided to become a full-time writer in 1980. Ranging from picture books to YA novels, the books she writes vary as much as the characters in her stories. She won the British Library Association’s Carnegie Medal for The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance. Her other books include Alchemy and Maddigan’s Fantasia. An author whose books have received many accolades and praise around the world, Mahy was awarded the Order of New Zealand, the highest honor a citizen of that country can receive, and in 2006 she won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, given to a living author whose works have made a lasting contribution to children’s literature.
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