The Old Magic

by James Mallory

  “This—as you would know if you’d paid attention to your Geography lessons—is the Bridge of Blades, which spans the River of Life, which forms the boundary of Anoeth, which is where we are going. It may look rickety, but it’s perfectly safe, I assure you.”

  “What if I slip?” Merlin asked, looking at the gleaming edges of the swords.

  “Don’t,” Frik suggested.

  Though from experience Merlin knew that his gnomish tutor was both cowardly and lazy, Frik sprang quickly onto the bridge, skipping lightly across the span. Determined not to be outdone, Merlin followed him, trying to match his pace.

  The bridge surface gave springily beneath his feet, and the blades creaked and sang as they slid over each other. Merlin tried to keep his eyes on the far shore, where Frik waited impatiently, and to forget the nature of the surface on which he walked. He succeeded far too well, for with only a few steps to go, he slipped and fell.

  For a moment he hung suspended in space, as if he had taken a giant step sideways. One foot hung over the river, the toes of the other still touched the bridge. He lunged forward, arms windmilling, trying to reverse the direction of his fall, but his momentum was too great. All he managed to do to save himself was to grab one of the sword-hilts as he fell.

  The sword slid a few inches out of the weave, but it held, angled slightly downward and vibrating with the stress he placed upon it. Merlin clung to the hilt with both hands, desperately trying to hang on. His shoulders ached with the strain, and his feet dangled above the long drop to the surface of the river, and the misty sky above seemed like a great hand reaching down to crush him into the earth. His heart hammered with the awareness of the danger he was in.

  “Use your magic!” Frik shouted from the far shore.

  “I can’t remember any of it!” Merlin shouted back. All the spells Frik had taught him were for mundane things like setting fires or summoning storms. None of them seemed to be suitable for saving him from falling into a river that would grind his bones like corn between millstones. I need to get out of here! his mind shrieked.

  To escape.

  To fly. …

  “Fly!” Merlin shouted, without quite realizing what he was saying. “I want to fly! I want to fly!”

  Suddenly he felt the shimmering transformation of magic course down his body, but this time it did not end with the lighting of a candle or the elongating of a branch. This time the magic turned inward, transforming his very self.

  His arms elongated, the bones becoming light and thin and hollow. His fingers spread, becoming the support not of a hand, but of a wing. In the same moment his body, lighter and curiously shortened, sprouted a thick coat of ruddy gold feathers, and he lost his grip upon the sword. He became, in fact as well as name, a merlin, creature of the air.

  With a cry, the wizard-turned-hawk tumbled down toward the water, as deadly to him in this form as in the other. At the last moment, one awkward flap of his wings carried him to safety, and a second carried him up out of the gorge and into the pearly sky.

  He was flying.

  He felt a rush of pure joy sing through him as the cool air slid through his feathers. The sky was not flat as he had thought it before—it was an infinite land, a palace to which he had been given the keys. It seemed as if all his life until this moment had been spent crawling painfully and slowly across the surface of the earth, and now the freedom of the heavens had been opened to him. Acting on instinct, Merlin reached for the winds. An updraft carried him far above the earth; he spread his wings and angled the feathers to catch every breath of air. He opened his beak and shrieked—a harsh avian cry of triumph for the sheer joy of flight—and tumbled down through the temple of the winds.

  He forgot his other self, circling higher and higher, flying in great circles for the sheer animal joy of it. But no matter how high he flew, the nacreous sky did not turn to blue. The sun that shone on the living world did not shine here. Baffled in his hunt for clear air, the hawk turned his attention elsewhere.

  With strangely altered sight he considered his new domain. The world was curiously distorted, flat yet amazingly sharp and vivid at the same time. The earth below seemed to rise up at the edges like a great shallow bowl filled with sky, and in all directions the vista was the same. The mists that had baffled his human eyes were no barrier to his hawk’s vision. Merlin could see every stone, every tuft of withered grass on the ground below. He could even see the gnome, his figure made tiny by distance, leaping and yelling on the bank of the red river as he tried to attract Merlin’s attention, but Merlin was too beguiled by the sensation of flight to pay any attention to Frik. The whole world now was open to him, and he could see for miles in every direction.

  Save one.

  Beyond the gorge through which the red river fell, the land rose sharply, into peaks as sharp and craggy as the mountains of the moon. At the very top of the highest crag there was a palace, gleaming bone-white against the stone. It gleamed as brightly as the blades of the bridge. What was it, and who lived there?

  To think was to act. Merlin caught a soaring updraft and towered into the heavens, climbing until the river was only an insignificant red thread meandering through the grey land below, and even the white palace was a tiny speck against the silvery mountain crags.

  But reaching the castle was harder than he had thought. Gusts of wind buffeted him back, causing him to tumble hundreds of feet in seconds. Each time he saved himself at the last moment, slicing upward through the sky as if his body were a blade. His human form, the waiting gnome—these things were forgotten. All that mattered to Merlin now was his flight and his goal. At last he won through to a lake of calmer air directly over the castle, where he could soar in a wide circle and inspect his target at leisure.

  The castle was a ring-shaped structure with eight tall towers surrounding an octagonal center courtyard. Each tower flew a long forked banner: two were black, two were white, two were red, and two were silvery grey. Men in elaborate armor and horned helms patrolled the castle walls, clashing their spears and shields as they paraded. Despite the barrenness of the surrounding landscape, the foliage within the castle wall itself was lush and even gardenlike.

  Looking down into the courtyard, Merlin could see the thatched roofs of extensive stables. Flowering vines climbed the walls, and fruit trees in tubs adorned the compound. Set into the castle walls, facing each other, were two massive sets of gates. One set was the translucent golden color of horn, the other the glistening cream of ivory. They were carved in elaborate knots and spirals and whorls, until even his hawk-sight was dizzy with following all the convolutions of the tangle.

  As Merlin circled lazily above the castle, pleased to have reached his goal but no longer knowing why it was so important, a tall man walked out into the courtyard. The nacreous light that illuminated the land was growing dimmer now, but it still gleamed off his red hair and struck sparks like buried embers from the flowing locks.

  He was dressed for the hunt all in dark green leather. Silver-stamped grey leather boots adorned with jewelled golden spurs reached to midthigh. His leather tunic was trimmed in grey fox fur and studded all across the shoulders and front, and each stud was in the shape of a small silver skull. His gauntlets were jewelled along the turned-back cuff to match his spurs, and sewn with small crescents of lacquered metal, so that they glittered like a dragon’s scales. The black cloak that flowed from his shoulders rippled like smoke, or like the night itself, and the hawk thought it spied the twinkle of stars deep in the fabric’s folds.

  When he reached the center of the courtyard, the castle’s master looked up into the sky. He whistled shrilly between his teeth, and held up his fist. Merlin felt the hunter’s grey gaze transfix him like winter ice.

  The circling hawk was seized by an irresistible impulse. Without conscious deliberation, Merlin folded back his golden wings and dove toward the man below. At the last moment, he spread his wings wide and yanked himself to a halt, his talons spreading to grasp
the upraised fist as he settled to a stop.

  “Here’s a pretty hawk for my mews,” the hunter said in a deep rumbling voice, stroking the hawk’s feathers with an outstretched finger. “But I do not think you will become a subject of my kingdom for many years yet, Master Merlin.”

  As if the mention of his name had reminded him of who he was, Merlin felt another great wave of magic kindle within him. The transformation rushed over him in reverse, and he fell sprawling on the cobblestones of the courtyard, in human form once more.

  Merlin lay there for a moment, blinking up at the green-clad hunter, his heart beating as fast as that of the bird he had been only moments before. He felt as if the track of his life had been wrenched out of its bed, as if something enormously significant that he could somehow not quite remember had happened to him. He’d become a hawk. He knew that much, but the details were oddly vague, like the dream that vanishes away upon waking. The cobblestones of the courtyard were hard and cold against his back. He drew a deep breath.

  “Master Merlin!” Frik flickered into evidence at his elbow, glanced up long enough to get a good look at the hunter, and fell to his knees in obeisance. “That is to say—Lord Idath—terribly sorry, and—”

  “How did you know it was me?” Merlin asked the hunter, getting to his feet. If this was Lord Idath, he didn’t look particularly terrifying. In fact, he reminded Merlin just a bit of his friend Herne.

  “In the Land of Winter, we tell nothing but the truth, young Merlin,” Idath said in his deep voice. “There are no lies, and no illusions—no matter your seeming, I knew it was you.”

  “That was no illusion,” Frik said fervently. “Master Merlin, I thought you were lost for certain. I don’t know what Madame would have done if I’d come back without you.”

  “She would have turned you into a rock for a thousand years,” Idath told him genially, and the gnome shuddered.

  “Then I really turned into a bird?” Merlin asked, fascinated. He glanced toward the sky. Had he really flown through that as easily as he could swim through water? He felt a sharp longing to leap into the sky once more, and sail along the wind on a merlin’s feathered wings.

  “You did—but don’t try that again soon, young wizard,” Idath said. “It’s easy to lose your way when you change your form, and to forget who you are. And when image becomes truth, then illusion becomes real. Remember that.”

  “I won’t forget,” Merlin promised.

  “Well, now, here we are, all matey,” Frik chirped fulsomely. He glanced toward the sky a little warily, rubbing his hands together briskly. “A lovely evening for a good gallop, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Begone with you, foolish one,” Idath said impatiently. “Tell Mab I’ll return her apprentice to her safe and sound once he’s done what he’s come here to do.”

  “What have I come here to do?” Merlin asked. Now that he’d gotten over his disorientation, he found he rather liked Lord Idath.

  “You’ve come to ride with my Hunt, Master Merlin,” Idath said, putting an arm around Merlin’s shoulders and leading him toward the stables. “To pass through the gate of dreams, to gain visions, to learn the boundaries of Life and Death.”

  As Merlin and Idath reached the stables, the door slid open, and the grooms began to lead out the horses. Through the doorway, Merlin could see the grooms rushing back and forth, saddling and bridling the animals and leading them out into the courtyard. He could smell the scents of horses and fresh hay, and the rich scent of well-cared-for leather.

  Idath’s mount was led out first. He was a splendid grey stallion whose eyes gleamed as red as a wolf’s. His coat was polished until it gleamed like the river stones, and he set his feet on the stableyard cobbles as though his hooves were made of fine glass.

  “He’s beautiful,” Merlin said reverently.

  Idath stroked the stallion’s velvety nose. “His name is Tempus—he is that which no man can elude; that which no one can halt. But he is not for mortal man to ride, nor even a wizard. Here is your mount. Sir Rupert, meet Merlin. He’s a wizard.”

  *Pleased to meet you, Master Merlin,* Sir Rupert said, tossing his head. He was a placid grey horse with a dark mane and tail. He regarded Merlin with wise brown eyes as his ears flicked back and forth.

  “I am pleased to meet you as well, Sir Rupert,” Merlin answered. He was a little disappointed not to have been given a fiery charger like Idath’s to ride, but he didn’t wish to seem rude.

  “Oh, Sir Rupert will be a better companion to you than someone like Tempus,” Idath said, as if he had guessed Merlin’s thoughts. “He may look like a common palfrey, but he has more than a touch of the Old Magic running through his veins. He will serve you well, and will always be there when you need him. Now mount up, for we have far to go.”

  A groom ran forward and boosted Merlin into Sir Rupert’s saddle. *Easy, lad,* the horse said, stepping sideways to shift Merlin’s weight into balance. Merlin, who was not used to horses, clutched at the saddle.

  The light had dwindled as they stood talking, and servants came out of the castle with torches to light the courtyard. All around them now were mounted riders, men and women both. The noise level had increased as more and more members of the Hunt arrived and were mounted, laughing and calling to one another, greeting old friends. Some wore armor, and some wore masks, and some needed no masks, for they had the heads of beasts.

  *Here we go. Oh, this will be fun. I do so love a good run.*

  “I hope you’re right,” Merlin said uneasily. He gathered up the reins and tightened his legs around Sir Rupert’s middle.

  “Release the hounds!” Idath shouted, and from somewhere an enormous pack of hounds boiled into the stableyard. They had white bodies and red ears, and their eyes gleamed with a fierce red light. They yelped and babbled around the horses’ legs, adding their baying to the din.

  Idath reached down and took his helmet from a waiting groom. It seemed ordinary enough, but as soon as he set it upon his head, great ivory antlers sprouted from its brow-band, growing and branching until Idath wore the glorious crown of the king stag.

  As Merlin still gaped at the transformation, the Hunt Lord reached into the air and plucked down a jewelled hunting horn. Placing it to his lips, he blew a single mournful note that drowned out the baying of the hounds and the shouting of the riders. As if it were a signal, two servants flung open the ivory gates. With a laugh, Idath spurred Tempus forward, reaching down to snatch a burning torch from one of the servants as he passed. Sir Rupert bounded forward in pursuit; Merlin, caught by surprise, lurched sideways in the saddle then clung frantically.

  *Duck!* Sir Rupert commanded, and Merlin crouched low in the saddle as Sir Rupert sprang into the air, vaulting a brace of hounds in his path and clearing the archway. The rest of the hunt followed, shouting and clashing as all of them tried to pass through the ivory gates at once. The hounds boiled between the horses’ legs like water through a millrace, fanning out into a ghostly living carpet at both sides of Idath’s steed. They gave tongue as they ran, their yelping sounding eerily like the calling of the geese flying south through the winter sky.

  The sensation of sheer speed was as intoxicating to him as flight had been. The air whipped past Merlin’s face so fast that there was no scent to it, only a bright coldness like starlight and fresh snow. Merlin found himself shouting along with the others, a wild yell of unfettered delight.

  *Careful. Here comes the first jump.*

  Sir Rupert’s warning came only a moment before he checked, then launched himself into space. Merlin glanced down, but saw nothing more than a faint glittering below before Sir Rupert jolted to earth once more.

  By now the rest of the hunt had caught up with them, and the night was filled with the drumming of many hooves, and the wild battle-cries of riders further back in the pack. The horses slowed the pace a bit after their first wild rush, and now the hounds surged ahead in a body, red eyes flashing as they tasted the wind.

  �
��Where are we going?” Merlin shouted to his mount. “What are we hunting?” He could recognize no landmarks in the grey land: though it was night, it wasn’t fully dark. The same radiance that had lit the day persisted, though dimmer, and the mist that rose from the ground gleamed like pearl.

  “We hunt souls, young wizard,” a rider next to him shouted. He rode a piebald horse, and all he wore was a spotted cat skin kilted about his waist, and on his head an untidy crown of wild grapes and ivy twisted together. He carried a harp in his free hand. “We are the Wild Hunt, and all the mortal kind’s forgotten gods and terrors ride with us.” He laughed wildly, and a few moments later his horse had pulled ahead and he was gone.

  “What did he mean?” Merlin demanded of Sir Rupert, but he thought somehow that he already knew. Idath was the Hunt Lord, and the Lord of Winter, but he was also the Lord of the Dead, Hunter of Souls.

  Merlin saw his fellow horsemen in glimpses: the hollow eyeholes of a gilded mask, a crimson cowl that seemed to have no tenant. Long white fangs gleamed in beastly muzzles, branching horns curled from broad foreheads, and glowing eyes gleamed from beneath jutting brows. One rider had no head at all, and under his arm in place of it he carried a candlelit orange gourd that had been carved with a demon face. Merlin closed his eyes very tightly. Those he rode with now were far more inhuman than the members of Mab’s court in the Hollow Hills.

  *Jump,* Sir Rupert said laconically.

  This time Merlin managed to take the jump with his mount, rather than being dragged along behind. As soon as they landed again, he realized that something was different. The air was warmer. He could smell growing things. The sky was truly dark, and far above a fat silvery moon sailed through the midnight heavens, bright as a coin.

  “We’re home!” Merlin said in astonishment.

  “Of course, young Merlin. My business is with the race of men,” Idath said. He’d reined in so that Tempus and Sir Rupert ran side by side for a few moments.

  “Was he right?” Merlin asked him. “The man in the leopard skin? About the souls, and being forgotten, and all?”