The Young Merlin Trilogy

by Jane Yolen

  For a long moment nothing happened. Nothing at all. Except that the clearing and the woods stilled around him.

  Then, as if a light had come down from heaven, piercing his head, and a second light had come up from earth, through his feet, he was shot through with a great energy. Between his palms the bird began to warm. A small flutter started beneath the flame-colored breast. The legs twitched, so hard one of the tiny nails on its feet scratched his finger.

  "Tic!" the bird said suddenly, sharply. "Tic!" Then it poured out the clear jangling warble of its autumn song.

  Stunned—but not really surprised—Hawk-Hobby threw the bird into the open air where it shook its wings and, still singing, flew off into the sky.

  Exhausted by his first real magic, Hawk-Hobby sank back onto the hide pallet, suddenly too tired to do more.

  12. FREEDOM

  TWO PEOPLE—AND TWO ONLY—HAD SEEN what happened. Cub had crept back, dolly in hand, and watched as the robin lifted off the boy's sweaty palm and flung itself into the lightening air. The other watcher was the wodewose himself, standing to one side, his good eye blinking as if not quite crediting what he had seen.

  "Surely," the man said to himself, "thee be much more than a dreamer." He left the hide he had been packing and strode over to the cage.

  "Who art thee?" he demanded. "What art thee?"

  "He is Dreamer," the child said, satisfied. "He is Breath of Dream. He is Maker."

  The wodewose paid the child no attention. "What art thee?" he asked again.

  "I am a boy," Hawk-Hobby answered carefully, but the magic demanded more of him now. A direct answer to a direct question. "I am..." And suddenly he realized he did not know what he was any longer. Boy. Man. Mage. In one brilliant light-filled moment he had been changed beyond all recognition.

  What am I indeed? he wondered. A magician full of tricks and misdirections like Amhrosius? Or a wizard in truth? He had made a dead bird fly. Perhaps ... he thought recklessly, perhaps I am a god. Or a demon. Vaguely he recalled, as if it had been a dream, someone calling him that. What am I indeed?

  "I am ... an orphan," he said at last. That much he was sure of. "I am alone."

  "We take orphans," the wodewose said. "They be our children."

  "Take?"

  "From hillsides where they be abandoned. From villages where they be abused. From cradles where they be forgotten." There was a kind of mercy in his one good eye. As he spoke his ugly face took on a rough beauty. "We only take what is not wanted."

  "As you took me," Hawk-Hobby pointed out. "From the dogs."

  The eye suddenly turned crafty. "But did thee run from the dogs, or did thee run with them?" Remembering for a moment how he had been part of the pack, Hawk-Hobby was silent.

  "What art thee?" the wodewose asked again. "Be thee Green Man? Be thee Robin o' the Wood? What hath thee been called?"

  "I have been called many things," the boy answered honestly. "I told you that before. I have been called Hawk. I have been called Hobby." He took a breath, remembering the falconer who had found him in the woods and became his first father. Master Robin. He saw suddenly how he could honor the man and remain truthful. "Robin is as good a name as any."

  "Hah!" the wodewose exclaimed. "Thee made the robin live again, so thee may be Robin indeed. Be thee merciful to us, Robin." He made a sketchy bob with his head, then his eye suddenly scrunched up. "But Robin o' the Woods is a tricksy spirit. I must think more on this." So saying, he left, walking out into the meadow and leaving the others to their mundane tasks.

  But Cub stayed behind. "Be 'ee Robin indeed?" he asked, his eyes wide.

  "What is a name," Hawk-Hobby asked, "but the outward dressing of a man?"

  "The Green Man must not be caged," the child said. "Robin belongs to all the woods."

  "Then open the knot, and let me free."

  "I cannot reach it," the child said.

  "Get me a knife."

  "I have none."

  It was an impasse and Hawk-Hobby could not think what to do next, but the child had his own ideas.

  "If 'ee be Robin indeed, knots cannot bind 'ee." "Oh, Cub..." Hawk-Hobby began, his voice sounding a hopeless note. But then he thought, Why not? How much more difficult was it to make a hird fly? "Hand me your poppet."

  With a sudden rush of courage, the child handed up the dolly, as if expecting to receive another shock and prepared to accept it. But this time there was none.

  Hawk-Hobby took the doll and stared at it. Then he held it between his palms and breathed three careful breaths onto its berryjuice mouth. Was it his imagination, or did the stick figure move, ever so slightly, in his hands? He stretched full down on the cage bottom and stuck his hand—with the dolly—as far out of the cage as he could. "Is Poppet near the knot?" he called.

  "Down more. And more. There!" The child's voice was full of awe.

  "All right, Poppet," Hawk-Hobby said, "do thy will." He held onto the head of the doll and with its stick legs poked at the knot. He could not tell if the dolly moved of its own or if his own manipulations did the work, but suddenly Cub cried out, "There! 'Ee's got it!" and the knot came undone.

  The child danced up and down, clapping his hand. "Oh, Green Man, 'ee be free. Free."

  He did not take time to argue, but swung the door to the cage wide. It was but a quick jump to the ground and but ten steps to the line of trees. He could hear the women's cries behind him and Cub's singular squawl: "Robin, wait for me!

  But he waited for no one as he ran, ever faster, into the woods.

  13. HIDING PLACE

  HAWK-HOBBY MADE A PATH WHERE NO path had been, dodging through the undergrowth as if the Gabriel hounds, the dogs of hell, were on his trail. And indeed, the women's ululations sounded like the baying of a pack.

  But at last he tired of running and made the assumption that no one was following because he no longer could hear the voices, except as a thin honking. Looking up to discover the hour through the trees, he saw a vee of geese heading south, and laughed. Hounds, women, geese—they all sounded the same. Mostly, he told himself, he had been running from his own fear.

  He turned to his right and all but fell out onto a track. It was not a thin path such as a deer and its mate might make, nor the higher broken branches of a bear. It was a true road through the woods, the kind a marching army might take.

  He shuddered, remembering his dream, then heard a thrashing and crashing behind him. As startled as any wild thing, he glanced back over his shoulder and prepared himself for a second flight.

  "Ro ... bin..." came the breathy little voice.

  "Oh, Cub, you should have stayed with your family," Hawk-Hobby said, and he went to where the child was struggling through the brush. Picking him up he swung the child onto his shoulders.

  " 'Ee be my family," the child said. "I have taken 'ee as my own."

  "You cannot take me..." Hawk-Hobby began, but the child interrupted.

  "Silly Robin. Of course I can. We take who is abandoned. We take what is alone. 'Ee said thou wert alone. I take 'ee."

  Hawk-Hobby reached up and set the child back down on the ground. He knelt so they were face to face. "They will worry about you. I must bring you back."

  "They will put 'ee in the cage again," Cub said. Hawk-Hobby shrugged. He would have to deal with that after. But first...

  "Hush," the child said. "Listen."

  But he had already heard. This time it was the baying of hounds in truth as well as the breathy intake of horses. Somewhere up ahead on the track there was a troop on its way. Neither he nor the child believed it was the wild folk.

  "What do we do, Robin?" Cub whispered, slipping his hand with the dolly into Hawk-Hobby's. "Will they take us? Will they hurt us?"

  "We dare not run, for the dogs will follow and catch us. We must hide."

  They faded back into the undergrowth and searched until they found a sturdy oak well away from the path. Hawk-Hobby boosted the child up into the tree crotch then scrambled up quick
ly behind him. Then alternately pushing and pulling, he got Cub up into the highest branches where they could lie hidden behind the yellowing leaves.

  "Pull your legs to your chest like this," he whispered to the child. "Make yourself small. Make yourself invisible."

  The child nodded and did as he was instructed.

  They lay still but Hawk-Hobby could see that the branch on which the child huddled trembled. Magic, he thought frantically. Now is when I could really use it. By this he did not mean the breath of life, the moving poppet, the dreams. What good were they to him in this peril? If he could only call down lightning or call up demons or...

  And as he was thinking this, a host of horsemen trotted into view. From the treetop he could catch glimpses of them as they rode, two abreast, their armor dusted with the miles. He could see they wore white plumes and had white dragons embossed on their banners and that told him at once who they were: the soldiers he had dreamed of back in the days when he had lived in the green cart. They were the soldiers he had warned Duke Vortigern against. But Duke Vortigern had not believed him, had thrown him out of the castle, out of the town. Hawk-Hobby took some satisfaction in being right.

  But only for a moment.

  Duke Vortigern had not believed him. But Fowler had. Fowler! No sooner had he thought the name than—as if by magic conjuration—the man himself appeared, walking by the side of the horsemen, his massive dog Ranger held fast on a lead.

  "I be frightened, Robin," the child whispered.

  Hawk-Hobby put a finger to his mouth to shush the boy. "Be like a deer," he whispered back. "Disappear into stillness."

  Cub seemed to understand and, like a fawn in danger, he drew back into the tree and all but vanished.

  But the dog had caught the sound or their scent. He sniffed the air, gave tentative tongue.

  "Hush, dog," Fowler cried out, but he looked where the dog looked. Then he pointed.

  The soldiers halted and the man at the lead turned his horse aside and rode over to Fowler and the dog. "What is it, man? What does that hellhound of yours see?"

  The dog pulled his master off the track and into the brush, through nettle and bracken and the brittle brown fern. He circled the oak, barking impatiently.

  Fowler stared up into the tree, trying to make out what the dog was barking at. Shaking his bowstring-colored hair out of his eyes, he peered carefully.

  Hawk-Hobby closed his eyes and thought about magic. Thought about it as hard as he could.

  The dog suddenly went quiet.

  "Well?" called the man on the horse.

  Fowler, looking up, saw a shimmer of green behind the yellow leaves, as if some bit of sun had pierced the dark canopy, but nothing more. Whatever had irritated the dog was invisible to the eye. "Nothing, my lord Uther. The dog barks at shadows." He stroked his sparse moustache.

  "Then we go on," Lord Uther said. "My men are tired and angry after the battle at Carmar then. That bloody Vortigern burned up with all his possessions. These men fight for so little reward and they sorely miss the spoils they were promised. Shut up that hound of yours and let us be out of this woods. There is dark magic here. Some tricksy Green Man magic. I do not like such conjurations. I do not fight shades."

  "Yes, my lord," Fowler said, hauling the dog away.

  The horseman spun back to the head of his column of soldiers and they went on. It was nearly dark when the last of them was out of sight.

  And darker still when the boy and the child dared to climb down from the tree.

  14. BATTLEGROUND

  "WHERE DO THEY GO, ROBIN?" THE CHILD asked when they were, at last, on solid ground. He asked—but there was already an uncomfortable certainty in his voice. Cub knew—as Hawk-Hobby guessed—that the track led right back to the wodewose camp.

  Hawk-Hobby despaired. They had no way of warning the wild folk. Except, of course, he had warned them already with his dream. He only hoped they had been able to escape in time. An angry, tired army would make quick work of them. Not that he had any love for the wild folk. Except for this yellow-haired child, except for the wodewose himself, they had not been good to him. He wanted to be shed of them but he did not wish them dead. Having recently buried Master Robin, Mag, and Nell, he desired only to be done with death.

  "We will go softly, quietly, like a fox, like a wolf, back to the camp," he said.

  "I can be a fox," Cub said. "I can be a wolf,"

  "I know you can," Hawk-Hobby said. "And we will find everyone well and hale. You will see." He patted the child on the head, thinking to himself that he would see Cub back to his family and make his own escape. Having done it once, he was confident he could do it again. But they were no sooner several steps along the track when there was suddenly thunder, great rolling clanging walls of it, and rain bolted down from the sky.

  "Robin, I be afraid." The child clutched his hand tightly and shivered with the wet and cold.

  Despite his growing magic, Hawk-Hobby was frightened, too. He was, after all, but twelve years old himself. But he would not let the child see his fear. "Come," he said, "we will not stay out in the storm. Let us shelter in the tree."

  "Oh, no, Robin," the child said. "Lightning will hurt us there. We must find a cave."

  Hawk-Hobby smiled down at him. "Who knows what beast lives in a cave?"

  "Thou art Robin o' the Wood," the child said. "No beast be harming 'ee."

  "I have no answer for you that will suffice," Hawk-Hobby said. "We will find a cave." And no sooner had he spoken than—as if by magic—they came upon a cave in a cliffside. It was really more a shelf than a cave, too narrow for a beast's den but wide enough to keep them from the rain. Hawk-Hobby went in first and pulled the child in after. And there, huddled together for warmth, they spent a disquieted night.

  The track they followed back to the camp had been well widened by the army. Great swaths of bracken had been crushed beneath the horses' hooves; autumn wildflowers had been ground into the dirt.

  The child seemed undismayed by the destruction, set as he was on getting to the camp. But at each step, Hawk-Hobby grew colder and colder. It was not fear he was feeling, but dread. It trickled down like sweat between his shoulder blades.

  The child stopped suddenly. "Robin. Listen."

  Hawk-Hobby listened. He could hear nothing. And then—as if in another dream—he realized: he could hear nothing. No birds, no chirruping insects, not even the grunt and moan of trees as they shifted in their roots. Nothing.

  "Nothing," he said.

  "Robin ... I want..." and then Cub began to wail, a sound so alien in the woods that it sent a terrible shiver down Hawk-Hobby's spine.

  He gathered the child up in his arms and soothed him until the tears stopped. "Come," he said. "I will hold thee." The deliberate use of the word thee had a salutary effect on the child.

  "Thee must take me now," Cub said.

  The track took a slow turning and then they were in the meadow ringed with beech trees. Not a blade of grass stirred between the bodies. The busy, scurrying ants were gone.

  The oddest thing, he thought, is that there is not much hlood. Not a flood of it. Not a meadowful. just bodies strewn about as though they were dollies flung down by a careless child.

  They found the dark-haired scar-faced woman first, lying on her back, her arms spread wide as if welcoming her death. Near her were two of the boys, side by side. Close by them, a third boy and one of the wild men.

  He held the child against his shoulder. "Do not look," he cautioned, though he knew from the rigid body that the child was taking it all in. "Do not look."

  He wandered across the field of death until he heard an awful sound. It was a dog howling, the cry long and low. He wondered that he had not heard it before. Following the thread of it, he came to the meadow's edge and there was the wodewose and, with him, Fowler. They were locked in an awful embrace. It was Fowler's dog, Ranger, who was howling, his muzzle muddied with blood. When he saw the boys, he shut up and lay down miserabl
y, head on paws, following their every movement with liquid eyes.

  "Stay, Ranger," Hawk-Hobby said, trying to put iron in his command.

  The dog did not move toward them and, after a minute, Hawk-Hobby put the child down, and examined the dead men.

  It was clear to see how it had happened. The wodewose's hands were tightly wrapped around Fowler's neck, so tightly the traitor's eyes bulged and his tongue protruded from his mouth. Out of the wild man's back stuck the haft of a soldier's spear, and around that wound were bite marks. Which of the two of them had died first hardly mattered.

  "Make him live, Dreamer," the child whispered. "Make him live."

  Hawk-Hobby took the wodewose by the shoulder and brought the ruined head close to his own. The wild man was stiff with death, his lips parted in a final agony. It was all the boy could do to touch him.

  "Give him breath, Dreamer," the child whispered again.

  Bending over, though he shook with the horror of it, Hawk-Hobby blew the breath of life into the grimace of a mouth.

  Once, twice, three times he blew. Then waited. Then blew again.

  He closed his eyes and remembered his dream of breath, remembered how it had felt when he had given life to the little bird. He prayed, sudden tears running down his cheeks.

  He blew again.

  And again.

  And nothing happened.

  Nothing at all.

  "Make him live, Dreamer," the child begged. Let him live, the boy prayed.

  But his magic—capricious, wanton, unpredictable—did not come at his calling.

  15. FAMILY

  HOW LONG THEY SAT THERE BY THE DEAD men, Hawk-Hobby did not know. But eventually the dog came over to him and licked his hand several times as if learning the taste.

  The boy stood. "Come," he said. "It is time for us to go." And the three of them—boy, child, dog—walked together to the edge of the meadow, leaving the dead behind.

  "Why did he not live?" Cub asked.

  Hawk-Hobby shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "I do not know near enough yet. But I will learn." He looked into the child's face, now streaked with dirt and tears. "I promise you I will learn."