“… here …” said the Lady. “You can ride him to the vessel. …”
Merlin looked around the edge of a boulder at the still black water. Then suddenly there was a gleam in its depths, and an instant later, a horse’s head broke the surface.
It snorted and shook its head, spraying Merlin with a shower of droplets from its long white mane. Merlin mopped water from his face with the sleeve of his jacket and stared at the animal. It was a deep dappled grey, its mane as white as the tips of the waves on a stormy day, and its forelegs churned the water as it swam. The rest of its body could not be seen beneath the surface of the water, but as Merlin stared it became impatient with him, thrashing its tail against the water and rising up higher out of the lake.
“Hey!” Merlin cried, with mingled irritation and astonishment. Now he could see its body clearly for the first time. The animal’s torso was covered in gleaming scales, and it did not look like any horse Merlin had ever seen. Where its hind legs should have been it had a long muscled tail with broad fins, the color of the scales gradually darkening from a silvery ivory to a deep sea-green.
“It’s a sea horse,” the Lady said, sounding amused for a moment. “Mab does not control as much of the elements as she hopes—the creatures of water are still my allies. You must hurry, Merlin. Mab can be so thoughtless and cold.”
The thought of having to remain in Mab’s realm while Ambrosia was ill galvanized Merlin into action. He sat down on the rock ledge, then slipped into the water.
The water was bitterly cold, and he floundered for a moment before reaching out and grabbing the seahorse’s mane. It felt like any other horse’s mane—though wet—and as the animal bobbed in the water like a chunk of wood, Merlin managed to get his leg across its back and pull himself onto it. His weight did not push it under water as he had feared, though its powerful tail now thrashed constantly to keep its body above the surface.
“Go safely, Merlin. You will need all your cunning to prevail,” said the Lady.
He had no chance to answer her, for the sea horse lunged forward at that moment, its powerful legs and tail churning the black water into foam, and Merlin had all he could do just to stay on its slippery scaly back. It was like riding a trotting horse—but this horse “trotted” not over turf, but through icy water that tugged at its rider, trying to pull him from its back.
At times only his grip on its mane kept Merlin with the animal, and the faster it went, the more he choked and gasped for breath as the waves of its motion flung icy clear lake water into his face. He shivered both with cold and with dread as the seahorse swam, for he was soaked to the skin and Mab’s caves were as cold as the Mistress of Magic herself.
It was so easy to think badly of Mab that Merlin was ashamed of himself, but it made a kind of terrible sense. The Lady of the Lake had called her sister thoughtless and cold, and when Merlin came to think about it those words summed up Mab’s character perfectly—she was as cold as the caves in which she dwelt, and once she had chosen her goal, no other consideration was allowed to matter. Even love. The strange reluctance Merlin had always felt to acquiesce with the plans of the fairy queen who had created him was no longer a mystery.
All along, his heart had suspected what it had taken the Lady of the Lake to tell him: that Mab was as merciless and amoral as the forces of Nature Herself. But that was something Merlin could never be, by the power of his human mother. And just as humankind did what it could to relieve Nature’s ruthlessness, so Merlin must fight Mab.
As he’d been brooding, the sea horse had swum from the smaller cave into one of the lagoons that linked Mab’s palace to the canal that led into the Enchanted Lake. He heard the mermaids cry out as they spied him, and heard the faint droning as a cloud of sprites flew toward him, their high shrill voices echoing off the cavern walls. Though the mer-creatures might aid the Lady of the Lake, the sprites were wholly Mab’s creatures.
The first sprites reached him. Merlin felt a stinging burn on his arm as it shot him with a tiny arrow. He gasped with the shock, and just at that moment the sea horse flung back its head and dove deep beneath the surface of the lagoon.
Merlin clung tightly to the sea horse’s mane as it dove downward. To his silent horror, it levelled off far beneath the surface and began to swim forward. Merlin’s lungs burned desperately for air. It seemed a very long time before the sea horse headed for the surface once more, flinging its body up into the air while Merlin gasped and sputtered for breath. It hardly seemed that he managed to take a full breath before it sounded again.
Choked and blinded by water, Merlin could not tell if they were still pursued. He lost count of the number of times the sea horse surfaced and dove again, dragging him with it as if it were a seal and he were a tangled scrap of fishermen’s nets.
At last they did not dive again. For several seconds all he could do was lie against the sea horse’s neck and pant while the water dripped from his hair and ran down his cold-numbed face.
Warily, Merlin opened his eyes. He could see light up ahead—the mouth of the cave—and, just outside the entrance, the boat that had brought him here, bobbing lightly on the surface of the lake.
Painfully Merlin pried his cold-stiffened fingers from the sea horse’s mane. There was a narrow walkway here—Frik had run along it to reach the boat on the day Merlin had arrived—and Merlin dragged his shivering, cold-cramped body up onto that slippery refuge.
“I thank you for the ride, Master Salmon—I think!” he said. The sea horse shook its mane, laughing at him silently.
“Well, go on. What are you waiting for? Scat!” Merlin said. Nothing anyone could do would be enough to induce him to mount that creature’s back again, even if it meant returning to the Land Under Hill as a helpless prisoner.
As if it had read his mind, the sea horse snorted and turned away. There was a thrashing in the water, a flash of green-webbed tail, and then it was gone. Merlin turned all his attention toward getting into the boat. It floated just out of reach, on the far side of the boundary that separated the Lady of the Lake’s domain from Queen Mab’s. All he had to do was get to it before someone stopped him.
With painful slowness Merlin dragged himself along the narrow ledge. The wind that blew from the Land of Magic to the mortal world cut through his sodden clothes like a knife of elemental cruelty.
The winter wind gets crueler every year, she thought, pulling her grey shawl tighter around her thin shoulders.
It had been eighteen years now since Elissa died, and the first snow always made Ambrosia think of her and of the first winter the two of them had spent wandering, at the mercy of the elements while Elissa’s fragile body grew great with child.
Funny how every thought comes back around to the boy these days, Ambrosia thought without humor. She missed him more with each day he was gone—not for herself, she told herself fiercely, but for what Mab might be doing to him.
“Ah, girl, you’re getting old—and maudlin with age,” Ambrosia said aloud. She levered herself painfully up from her seat by the fire, trying not to see how small and empty the forest hut was now that Merlin was gone.
There wasn’t much employment for a wise-woman in winter, other than the odd birthing, but there was still plenty of work to do: wood to chop and water to draw. Herne was always ready to turn his hand to that, bless him for his help. She wasn’t any too spry these days. The pains in her chest came more and more often, along with the weakness in her arms and the dizzy spells, and she yearned for the warmth of the summers she’d known as a young girl. The winters had been warmer, too, as Ambrosia recalled—not this icy north wind spitting snow that found every chink in the walls of the hut.
Once she would have swept it up before it could melt, but these days the effort was too much for her. Let it melt. Who would there be to care in a year or two?
Or even a month or two. You’re fooling yourself if you think you’re going to be around to see in the spring. She wished she could see Merlin one last tim
e. Only to see how he fared. Only that.
Her chest ached, and with more than the cold. Perhaps a cup of herbal tea would ease it, and making herself the tea would do something to take her mind off the boy. With painful care Ambrosia measured dried herbs—comfrey, foxglove, horehound—into a thick brown drinking horn. She always kept a kettle on the hob in the winter, and the water should be hot enough to make an infusion.
But again her mind wandered away from the task at hand, back to her worries—and Merlin.
What was Mab teaching him, there in her palace in the Hollow Hills? Was he happy learning to master his magic, or did he miss the simple pleasures of home? Was Mab being kind to him—or was she turning him into the same sort of heartless monster that she was?
Roughly, Ambrosia scrubbed away a teardrop. She knew the answer to that from long experience—Mab had no kindness in her. But Ambrosia could hope that the Queen of the Old Ways had enough self-interest left to see how special Merlin was. For all his impetuous nature, he was kindness itself, and he would be kind to Mab as well, if she would only let him. If she broke his spirit with her cruelty and indifference, it would be more than Ambrosia could bear. And she would know if that happened—she had no doubt of that. You couldn’t raise a child from the moment it first drew breath and not be linked to it, certainly not if you had once been a priestess of the Old Ways, as she had.
Only let him be happy, and I won’t even ask that he be safe! She did not know to whom she made this promise, for in her lifetime Ambrosia had broken with the old gods and never accepted the new, but she made it sincerely. Only let Merlin be happy.
She sighed and reached for the kettle, when suddenly the air in the little forest hut turned bitterly cold—a chill not of the body alone, but of the soul. Ambrosia hunched her shoulders against it involuntarily, the ache in her chest spreading with her dismay.
“Where is he?” Mab hissed.
Ambrosia did not even bother to turn around; she’d known who was there from the moment Mab had appeared.
“Ah, here you are again, still a chip off the old glacier,” she mocked, pouring her tea as if a visit from Queen Mab were an everyday occurrence.
“Where’s Merlin?” Mab repeated, and this time Ambrosia did turn around, steeling herself to show no surprise.
The Queen of the Old Ways looked less like a human mortal than Ambrosia could ever remember seeing her look. Her dark and glittering robes were encrusted with elaborate decoration, hanging stiffly from her body like folds of carven stone. Her face looked less like a living face than like an image of a face—a beautiful jewelled mask, made inhuman by fury.
“So you’ve lost him, have you?” Ambrosia asked coolly.
She did not want Mab to see what joy she took in the knowledge that Merlin had run from her, but if he had, then surely it meant the she-spider’s sorcery had failed her, didn’t it? It meant that Merlin had seen through Mab and rejected what she had to teach him. His human mother’s heritage had won out after all.
“Don’t provoke me, Ambrosia!” Mab snarled. “I’m in no mood for your gibes!”
The Queen of the Old Ways was more than simply angry—she was as furious as Ambrosia had ever seen her, and inwardly Ambrosia rejoiced at her adversary’s discomfiture. With so much passion between the two of them, Ambrosia and Mab could never have simply remained indifferent to each other once their paths had crossed. The coin would have had to fall on the side of either love or hate. The battle between what Mab represented and what Ambrosia did was never over and never would be; it would continue forever, the adversaries changing but the conflict going on.
“I’m worried about the boy, too,” Ambrosia said levelly. You should have looked after him better! her heart cried.
“He’ll be here. He’s heard you’re ill,” Mab cooed.
Any sympathy Ambrosia felt vanished in the face of Mab’s feline self-interest. “I’m not ill. I’m dying,” Ambrosia said, in a half-echo of Mab’s long-ago words to her.
She’s not dying. She’s dead, Mab had said of Elissa on that long-past autumn day. Elissa had given the child into Ambrosia’s arms, and Mab had given him a name. And now the circle had come full round and Merlin was caught between the two of them—and what they represented—once more.
She was abruptly filled with bone-weariness at the thought. Groping her way to a chair, Ambrosia eased herself into it. Mab watched her with birdlike interest but no scrap of compassion. The Queen of the Old Ways understood human frailty as little as she understood human love.
“When he comes, send him back,” Mab demanded. She began to pace the hut like a leopard in a cage, her fury making it impossible for her to remain still.
“Can’t you make him come back?” Ambrosia asked, unable to resist a last taunt. Have you found something that you can neither bend to your will nor pretend out of existence? He’ll be stronger than you in the end because of his humanity—you mark my words, Queen Mab!
“It’s better if you tell him his place is with me,” Mab said, a vindictive smile on her face. Love might be beyond her capacity, but Mab understood spite and vengeance very well. Humans had taught her that, over the generations.
“No,” Ambrosia said, suddenly tired of the verbal fencing. “No, I won’t do that.”
“You defy me?” Mab demanded incredulously, as if she’d only just discovered the fact. What dreams of victory Merlin must have raised in her heart to have made her so arrogant, so confident!
“Of course I defy you—I’ve always defied you,” Ambrosia answered irritably.
“Why? Why?” Mab cried, and in that moment Ambrosia had the answer to their long conflict.
“It’s my nature,” she said simply. New Religion or Old Ways, she realized at last that she would have fought with all her strength against anyone who had tried to compel her belief and loyalty with nothing more than a demand. And Merlin would do the same—she’d given the boy that much of herself. She wished Mab would leave so she could lie down to wait for Merlin. She was weary, so weary. …
“When my boy comes here, I won’t say a word. He’ll do what’s in his heart,” Ambrosia said. He has a heart, unlike you.
As if that final word—“heart”—were the ultimate act of insolence, Mab opened her mouth in a soundless wail of cheated rage. Chaos rose around her in a thunderclap, shaking the hut and its contents as a weasel would shake a hare. The fire blew out, furniture tumbled about as if it were made of straw. Cooking pots and jars of herbs flew everywhere. The kettle, still half-full of steaming water, flew across the room and struck Ambrosia on the shoulder, knocking her from her seat.
Her anger, the sudden shock of the storm, were too much for Ambrosia’s weakened condition. She lay where she had fallen, clutching at her heart as if her fingers could ease away this pain as they had eased so many others.
“Now look what you made me do!”
The cheated selfishness in Mab’s voice made Ambrosia laugh weakly, even as she winced at the pain. Oh, dear, mustn’t do that. …
“Ambrosia!” Mab cried. “Ambrosia, what is it?”
“You tell me,” the once-priestess whispered painfully. “You’re the great Mistress of Magic. …”
The air seemed strangely flat once the boat began moving across the surface of the lake, and Merlin realized after a moment that what it lacked was the scent of magic that he had breathed all during his stay in Mab’s domain. Well, I don’t miss it, he told himself stubbornly.
There was an unlighted brazier in the bottom of the open boat—a common enough accessory when the sailing was likely to be hard and cold—and Merlin quickly summoned fire to warm himself and dry his clothes. It was harder to do here than it had been in the crystal caves, and the effort left him weak and gasping. But it was still more—far more—than any mere mortal could do.
I’m not a mortal. I’m Mab’s child. I’m a wizard. No matter what else happens, I have Mab to thank for that. That was, if he could really be certain whether he wanted to thank her for
the gift of magic—or curse her for it.
The return trip, sped by the magic of the Lady of the Lake, seemed to go more swiftly than the outward voyage had, and soon the boat’s keel was grinding along the stones of the shore. The whole landscape was dusted in white, and the trees were bare of leaves.
It’s winter.
It had been summer when he left, but Merlin had literally no idea of how long he’d been in Mab’s domain. Had it really only been a few months? Or had it been years?
He had to go home.
Longing for the forest drew him nearly as strongly as his love for Ambrosia, but now Merlin faced another obstacle. The forest was miles from here, and he did not have Mab’s magic horse to ride home upon. But he did not need Mab’s magic when he could summon his own.
He searched until he found what he needed: a fallen branch, polished smooth by the elements, that was long enough to serve as a walking stick—but Merlin did not intend to walk. There were still a few spells that he remembered from his days as a Wizard by Incantation that would serve him now.
He flung the stave into the air. It did not fall, but hung there against the winter sky as if someone were holding it up.
“Horse and hattock—horse and home—horse and pelatis: Go—go!”
The stave shuddered as his wizard-magic filled it, its color changing from winter-brown to gleaming silver, though each whorl of the grain could still be seen against the enchanted wood. Merlin quickly straddled it, his hands gripping it tightly. The enchanted stave rose into the sky and began to move forward with the speed of a running horse. Merlin soared over the tree tops, borne aloft by magic.
He was going home.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE COURTS OF HONOR
Someone was dying.
He’d learned to shut out the warnings over the years—you could do anything with practice—and there weren’t that many people in Barnstable Forest anyway. All the more reason that this summons to a duty long abandoned took Herne the Hunter completely by surprise.
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