Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  Hal frowned at first. Then he understood. The knight was asking for Hal's own promise to guard his king until Camelot rose again.

  Slowly he lifted his own fist to his heart.

  The big knight nodded once, then faded away to nothing.

  "I wish you hadn't done that," Merlin said.

  The meadow was as it had been before, a ruin of blackened, moss-covered stones surrounded by dewy grass. Only one thing was missing. Hal squinted into the distance.

  "Saladin's body," he said. "It's gone."

  "Of course it's gone,” Merlin snapped. “You killed him when the castle was here. That was centuries ago, in what you call real time. His bones have turned to ashes by now."

  Hal's face drained of color. "You mean we were actually . . . actually . . ."

  "Back at Camelot. Yes. The King called it all back." He eyed Arthur balefully. "And then he sent it all away."

  Hal looked out over the empty field. "And the cup? Where did it go?"

  "Only the wild birds know that," Merlin said. He sighed. "Ah, well. We may find it again." Arthur glanced at him sharply. "Then again, we may not," the old man added with a smile.

  Hal looked Merlin up and down. "Hey, how come you're still here?"

  "I didn't will myself back. I can't be in two places at once, you know. As long as you two are going to be bumbling around the planet, somebody's got to keep an eye on you."

  "Oh, no," Hal said. "I didn't sign on for this. I'll look after Arthur until I can find his aunt, but I'm not taking on a grouchy old man on top of that."

  "Who are you calling grouchy?" Merlin groused. He reached into a deep pocket of his robe. "Here. You'll need this." He pulled out a wad of hundred-pound notes and handed them to Hal as if they were a fistful of worms. "Filthy stuff, money. Makes your hands stink. And you can't buy anything you really need with it." He brushed off his hands.

  "Where'd you get this?" Hal asked suspiciously.

  The old man closed his eyes in exasperation. "I'm a wizard, remember? Go ahead and take it. You can exchange it for airplane rides and such."

  "What about you?"

  "I've got to bury that boulder before some archaeolobaby gets hold of it. Go on, though. I'll catch up with you later."

  "Later when? Where? I don't even know where we're going."

  "But I will," Merlin said slyly. “Actually, this may prove to be fun. I haven't been on a good adventure for the better part of two millennia."

  "You're not coming," Hal said stolidly.

  "We'll see." He shooed them away with a fluttering motion of his hands.

  Muttering, Hal turned and walked out of the meadow, the boy running behind him. "I suppose we're going to walk to the train station in Wilson-on-Hamble," he grumbled. "Ten miles."

  "I don't mind," Arthur said cheerfully.

  "I do. Well, the old haunt was right about one thing. Money never buys what you really need."

  "Like a friend," Arthur said.

  "I was thinking more of a taxi. My feet are killing me." They stepped over the narrow blacktop road. "Did I say taxi? This place is so isolated, we'll be lucky to find a gum wrapper here."

  Just then a pair of headlights crested the hill in front of them and skidded to a step.

  "Say, guv'nor," the driver shouted. "Seem to have got myself bollixed up. Would you know the way to Wilson-on-Hamble?"

  Hal looked up at the bubble on top of the black car.

  "You're a taxi?" he asked.

  "Right you are. Off duty, but I'll give you a lift if you need one."

  Arthur climbed into the back seat. As Hal was getting in beside him, he looked back up the hill, toward the castle ruins. The old man was standing there. He raised his arm and waved.

  Hal smiled and shook his head. "Thanks, you old turkey," he said. He held up his hand in a silent salute.

  Merlin took a last walk among the ancient stones. Things hadn't turned out half-badly after all, he thought. Oh, the boy was willful and headstrong, and didn't know what was good for him, but he'd expected that. No one had ever been able to make up Arthur's mind for him back in the early days. It was only when he became a politician that he'd lost himself.

  Maybe that wouldn't happen this time. Not if the redoubtable Mr. Woczniak had anything to say about it. He sat down on a rock and sighed. Yes, all in all, it had been a fine night.

  He was startled by the sudden appearance of a small grimy face from behind a rock.

  "Who the devil are you?"

  "Tom Rogers, sir," the boy said shakily. "I live down the village, sir."

  "Then what are you doing here?"

  "Come to hear the horsemen. You know, St. John's Eve."

  "Ah. And did you?"

  The boy blinked. "Why, they was all here, in the flesh," he said, his voice fluttery with amazement. "And you was in the thick of them." He waited for a response from the old man. When there was none, he went on, as if trying to jog Merlin's memory: "Killings, there was, and some bloke half-bleeding to death, hacked to pieces, and he come right back to life without a mark on him . . ." He was talking so fast that he had to wipe the saliva from his mouth with his ragged sleeve.

  "And then the castle come up real as you please—I seen that before, mind you, but never like this, with the drawbridge down and all the knights charging out, why there must have been near a million of them, all in armor . . ."

  He cocked his head. "You seen it, right?"

  Merlin laughed. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, lad."

  "But you was there. You was . . ." He turned away, brushing at his eyes. "It's you old ones never remember," he said despairingly.

  Merlin sat quietly for a moment. "Then why don't you remind us?"

  "What's that mean?" the boy asked belligerently.

  "Why, write it down. Write all about the knights and the castle and the, ah, marvelous wizard. Write about the young boy who pulled the sword from the stone and began a new world. Start from the beginning, pay attention as you grow up, and write it down. Write it all, Tom.”

  The boy stood, dumbfounded. "Write? Me?"

  "Why not? It's a respectable trade. Nothing like being a bard, of course. Now that was a glorious profession. But I'll tell you about that another time."

  "Will you be here when the castle comes back again?"

  "I wouldn't be surprised if I were."

  The boy stepped back, watching him. Slowly a broad grin grew across his face. "He was a jolly marvelous wizard," he said.

  "Quite. You see, you've got a way with words already." The old man stood up. "Now run along, boy, and practice. The king will need a chronicler."

  "What's that, sir?"

  "Look it up."

  He gave the boy a shove and Tom Rogers ran off, his laughter filling the night until, gradually, it was replaced by the sound of horses' hooves, phantom horses carrying their riders on their endless search for their king. They came like thunder, galloping across the meadow, filling all the places time had emptied. They rode as they always did on this night, and when they had passed, the night was still again except for the boy's faraway laughter.

  Write it all, Tom, Merlin thought. It will make a good story. A jolly marvelous story.

  Excerpt for The Temple Dogs

  Chapter One

  The white chrysanthemums arrived anonymously, as they always did.

  The unknown sender had been so conscientious through the years that the Haverfords had counted on the flowers, reserving an entire wall of New York's elegant Inn on the Park at their daughter's wedding reception.

  They weren't disappointed. The blossoms, as delicate looking as the Eurasian bride, filled the wall and spilled over into the adjoining rooms, suffusing the restaurant with their soft fragrance.

  Susi Haverford, now Mrs. John Belmont, wore a white silk Mary McFadden gown covered by a Japanese ceremonial kimono duster, bright red and worked heavily with hand-painted gold. Her clothing, like her face, reflected the mingling of two cultures, two races, a
nd as she danced with her brother, Miles, the two Haverford offspring looked like exotic and beautiful visitors from another planet.

  "Even more flowers than usual," Susi said.

  "Our secret admirer never fails," Miles said with a grin. He remembered a truckload of flowers had arrived at his apartment in New Haven on the day he graduated from law school. And it had been that way since they were toddlers. Every birthday, every personal milestone, had been greeted with white chrysanthemums; but no one ever knew where they came from.

  At first their mother Mickey had believed that her husband was sending them, but he quickly disabused her of that idea. "Tomfoolery," he had grumbled. "And a waste of good money."

  As Miles spun her around the dance floor, Susi was able to see the vast array of the floral arrangements. "These must have cost thousands," she said. "But why chrysanthemums? Aren't chrysanthemums for funerals?"

  "Depends on where you live," Miles said with authority. "In Japan, chrysanthemums are the symbol of love."

  Susi smiled. "I'm glad your two semesters of Japanese Language and Culture weren't wasted." She closed her eyes as they danced, and Miles noticed how little she had changed since childhood. She looked as Japanese as their mother, golden-skinned and delicate. The difference between them was that Susi accentuated her Asian features with her makeup and clothing, while their mother had spent a fortune on plastic surgery to eradicate hers.

  "You look beautiful," Miles said quietly.

  "I'll miss you, Miles." She lay her head on his chest.

  "Hey, this isn't goodbye. You can count on me for dinner every Sunday. John does cook, doesn't he?"

  "Dog," Susi growled mockingly and hugged him more tightly. "Dad says you might join his law firm?"

  Miles sighed. "I guess so. I've been dodging it as long as I could, but I guess Dullstein, Boringly, and Stultifiable are now calling. God, Susi. Brain death as a career. Even marriage sounds better."

  Susi reddened. "You'd still have to work sometime, at something," she said stiffly.

  Miles smiled at his sister.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I must be an awful bore."

  He kissed her forehead. "Forget it, Sis."

  In the tradition of younger sisters everywhere, Susi was given to worrying about Miles. It seemed to her that everything—money, women, athletic skill, social grace—had always come too easily for him. He was an excellent piano player who didn't practice; a fine boxer who, like as not, in a tough bout would surrender before the bell and walk out of the ring; potentially a brilliant lawyer who had chosen instead to party his way through Yale, graduating somewhere near the middle of his class.

  Miles's lack of drive bothered Susi more than it did either of his parents. Mickey Haverford had never objected to her son's academic mediocrity, since he excelled at all the things that really mattered: he was six feet tall, darkly handsome, and possessed of the sort of shallow charm that shows best at cocktail parties. Miles was the perfect tenth man at dinner, glib, self-assured and undemanding—either of others or of himself—and the ideal escort for his mother on the many occasions when her husband begged off some unmissable "A"-list party or another, preferring to hide in the sanctum of his law office.

  As for Miles's father, Curtis Haverford felt nothing but disappointment in the boy who had once held so much promise. Miles had won a Westinghouse Science Award at eleven. He had given a piano recital of Bach fugues at Julliard when he was thirteen. By sixteen, he had read every book in Curtis's library, including those on law. And he was going to follow his father into the profession.

  But that was long ago, it seemed. Long before Miles had lost interest in his future.

  "It's just that you could do something wonderful with your life, if you wanted," Susi said gently. "If there were something worth dedicating yourself to . . ."

  "Oh, Susi."

  "I mean it, Miles. You're special. Meant for special things. I've always known that about you."

  With a gesture, Miles invited his father to cut in. Curtis shook his head. During the brief exchange, Mickey Haverford eyed the dancing couple with disdain, then turned away.

  "Okay, I'll shut up," Susi said.

  "Good." He laughed. "Did you see Mother? She looks like somebody forced a dill pickle down her throat."

  "It's my kimono," Susi said with a sigh. "She hates it. She hates anything that reminds her that she's Japanese."

  Miles didn't answer. He knew it was true. Mickey Haverford had spent several hundred thousand dollars on cosmetic surgery to systematically westernize the Asian features of her face.

  "That's why she likes you so much better than she does me," Susi went on. "You don't look Japanese at all."

  "You're paranoid," Miles said.

  "Oh, I don't really mind. Not anymore. And she's been a lot better since I decided to marry John. He's a good round-eyed WASP, the way she likes them."

  She laughed and he joined her, but Miles felt uncomfortable all the same.

  Susi had spoken the truth. Their mother exercised an almost absolute racial denial. She knew nothing about her own origins, and expressed no desire to know.

  Mickey Haverford had been adopted by a wealthy Yankee couple when she was a small child. English was her first language, French her second. She had been raised in Westchester County, confirmed in the First Presbyterian Church, educated at Brearley and Barnard, married to an American husband, and produced two American children. There was, in fact, nothing Japanese about her.

  But Miles remembered the woman on Fifth Avenue.

  It had happened when Miles was still a small child. He had been walking down the sidewalk with his mother when a demented looking old woman lurched toward them muttering, "Jap! Dirty Jap!"

  Mickey had pulled Miles away, walking quickly to escape the old harridan, but the woman had followed them, shouting and pointing, her eyes huge and bulging almost comically. "You killed my son, Jap. . . ."

  "What's she talking about, Mom?" Miles had asked, but Mickey only rushed him silently toward home.

  It was only later, when Miles sat up in his bed listening to his mother weep in his father's arms, that he realized it hadn't been the first time she'd been humiliated by a stranger.

  And later, the same slights had been inflicted on his sister. Susi would come home from school in tears because of some obscene schoolyard insult. Miles had tried to comfort her.

  "Don't pay any attention to them, Susi. The big event of their day is picking their noses." He had smiled as he spoke, but he could feel the anger inside him threatening to explode. Anger, and something else—something deeper and infinitely more shameful.

  They've never bothered me, he thought, because I pass.

  "Anyway, Granddad stood up for me," Susi said, bringing Miles back to the present. "He told Mother that he'd traveled twelve thousand miles to bring me an antique kimono from Tokyo so that I'd have something old at my wedding besides him, and by God, I was going to wear it."

  Miles laughed aloud. "The old man's more Japanese than Mother will ever be." He spun Susi around and waved toward the bar, where their grandfather, Matt Watterson, was singing "Amapola" along with the band. Watterson saw them, hoisted a glass of champagne in salute, and kept singing.

  At seventy-five, he was still a big, hulking man who had lost none of his wavy white hair and only a little of the stevedore physique that had earned him the nickname Shiro Ushi, or "White Bull," in Japan during his younger days. No one could have looked less like an expert in Oriental antiquities than Matt Watterson, yet among the trade his name was as respected as his fortune.

  As Susi and Miles watched, a change came over the old man. His mouth fell open and the glass in his hand dropped with a crash to the floor. Susi gasped, pulled free of Miles, and ran toward him.

  "Granddad!" she shouted, reaching for him. But Watterson waved her away absently while he walked toward the door.

  Seven men had just entered. They were a strange group. All of them were Japanese. Six of the men, i
dentically dressed in blue suits, formed a double phalanx on either side of the seventh, a diminutive old man with thinning gray hair and slender, sensitive hands, which he kept folded in front of him.

  The crowd parted for the small man and his entourage. Even the band faltered, and a murmur went up from the guests as Matt Watterson moved slowly and hesitantly forward.

  "Sadimasa?" he said softly into the silence.

  The small man turned to Watterson and bowed deeply. His wrinkled face struggled with emotion.

  The two old men stood facing each other for a long moment as if they were both suspended in space, then Watterson rushed forward and they embraced like lost brothers while the blue-suited asians formed a protective circle around them.

  The music started up again. "I thought he was having a heart attack," Susi said, sidestepping the busboy who had come to clean up the broken glass from Watterson's spilled drink. "Who is that man?"

  Miles shrugged. "Drinking buddy, probably."

  "Don't be stupid," Susi snapped as the circle around the two old men broke and Watterson stepped out, his arm draped over the old man's shoulder like a bear's. "Look at Granddad's face. He's so happy he's crying. And what are all those other men doing with him? They look like some sort of praetorian guard."

  "Guess you can ask him yourself," Miles said. "They're coming this way."

  Watterson brought the man over to them and introduced him as Mr. Nagoya. The old man bowed to the bride.

  "And this must be your grandson," Nagoya said, extending his hand to Miles.

  Watterson's florid face flushed even deeper. "Yes. Yes, it is," he mumbled. "Miles, Mr. Nagoya is—"

  The old man dismissed Watterson's words with a gesture. "I am a person of no account, whose worthless life your grandfather once saved."

  Watterson's lips tightened, and Miles saw the big man's pale eyes shine with tears.

  "During the war?" Miles asked politely.

  Watterson nodded, then took Nagoya by the shoulder and led him away. "C'mon, Sadimasa. I want you to meet Mickey. That's what we call Masako, my . . ."