The Third Magic

by Molly Cochran

  Into this cacophony of voices and mechanical sounds came the motorcycles.

  With a roar that rent the air, the knights lunged into the police circle like a herd of bison. They came, single-minded, powerful, and fearless, the horsemen of the apocalypse come for their own.

  As they barreled through the crowd at breakneck speed, Launcelot extended his arm and plucked Arthur out of the police circle like a daisy. On a parallel course, Dry Lips grabbed Gwen around the waist and slapped her neatly in front of him. The rest never even slowed down.

  "Where are we going?" Curoi MacDaire mouthed as they headed down the highway.

  "Somewhere that's not here," Launcelot shouted in response.

  The pursuit began at once, with the police making up only a segment of the group of vehicles following them. A van from a television news team kept trying to weave through the traffic, despite loud warnings from police bullhorns. Observing the success of the van, the other motorists were not about to fall away. It was a strange procession, a parade to nowhere.

  About a half mile down the road, someone dressed in rags of such an extreme condition that he looked like a beggar from the Middle Ages stood directly in front of them, gesticulating wildly. Arthur recognized him at once. It was Taliesin, theatrical as ever, directing them into the woods.

  As the motorcycles veered off the road, the cars behind them pulled over immediately. A siren wailed, coming closer.

  The knights rocketed their bikes along a deer trail as far as they could go, until the path ended at a sheer wall of rock. On one side of the cliff was a thicket of thorns. On the other was a small stream overflowing with muddy water from the previous night's downpour.

  Agravaine flipped off his helmet with the hook at the end of his arm. "A fine road you sent us on, Merlin," he said, scowling.

  "Quiet," Taliesin said. "There's no time to waste. Are we all assembled?" He looked around, counting. "Good." He grabbed Arthur by the arm and propelled him forward, toward the wall of rock.

  “Walk," he commanded. He looked deep into the boy's eyes. "You know what I mean, don't you?"

  "Walk... through the rock?" Arthur asked.

  The old man nodded. "I'll be doing it for you. All you have to do is trust. Can you trust me, Arthur?" His eyes pleaded, as if what he were really asking was, Can you ever trust me again?

  The boy looked at him for a long moment. Worlds passed between them. "Yes," he said.

  Taliesin's eyes shone. "Thank you."

  Arthur walked over to Gwen, who was riding in front of Dry Lips. "Will you come with me?" he asked.

  A look of overwhelming anxiety passed over her face as she dismounted. "I don't think I have much of a choice."

  "You always have a choice," Taliesin said softly. "That's right, isn't it, Arthur?"

  The boy smiled. "I think we do." He held out his hand to Gwen. "Are you coming?"

  Her fingers wound around his as they faced the wall of rock. "I'm with you," she said.

  "You always were, my lady," Taliesin said, stilling himself for the spell he was about to perform. "Walk," he commanded.

  With that, Arthur and Gwen entered the wall and disappeared into it.

  Behind them came the knights, who apparently did not find this act to be in the least bit unusual. They all tumbled through the stone wall as if it were a holographic illusion.

  Not far behind came the pursuers from Miller's Creek, on foot and led not by uniformed police officers, but by the camera crews of broadcast news agencies. They were catching up quickly. Someone was shouting. A flashbulb popped.

  Taliesin waited for them. Just as the TV cameraman burst through the crowd of running spectators, he bowed theatrically, then backed into the rock as if it were made of water, disappearing an inch at a time.

  "Bye, bye," the old man said as his lips—the last visible part of him—vanished from view.

  Chapter-Forty-Five

  SEA LEGS

  Atlantic City, New Jersey

  Sea Legs was in its appointed spot, crowded in among other pleasure boats. She looked particularly tawdry, the painting of exaggeratedly large human hindquarters chipped and lading, the cheerful lettering looking old-fashioned.

  Titus Wolfe came aboard feigning good cheer. It was difficult, particularly since the stump of his finger had become infected and throbbed painfully with every step he took. "Ho, Cap'n!" he called, holding aloft a bottle of whiskey. "Care for a short run around the harbor?"

  That was the password. Edgington appeared in short order, his face drawn and gray.

  "I say, would you care for a short—"

  "Get belowdecks," Edgington growled, not looking Titus in the eye as he pushed past him.

  Titus found his way to a cabin. It was filthy, but there was a blanket inside. Maybe he doesn’t recognize me,” he thought. He’d gained a lot of weight since Edgington had seen him last. Then again, the man's drug use was probably getting the best of him.

  Titus had seen the rapid deterioration of junkies before. Among the Coffeehouse Gang, a number of optimistic young men had turned to drugs once the euphoria of schoolboy idealism wore off and reality came galloping in. Faced with the choice between being double agents and going to jail, more than one had opted out of either scenario. A few, brave or foolish, killed themselves quickly, by hanging or with a bullet in the brain. The others died slowly.

  Edgington was clearly one of these. From the looks of him, his habit—it was probably heroin—was nothing new. Always thin, he was wasting now, and his eyes had that incurious, unfocused look. But he could still pilot a boat, Titus imagined. The Coffeehouse Gang would eliminate him in a day if he couldn't.

  The two men didn't meet again until dinner. There was beef stew from a can. Edgington didn't eat much of his. His beverage was straight whiskey in a tumbler, around which he kept his fingers tightly clasped. They spoke desultorily for a time—mostly Titus spoke, with Edgington looking glassily elsewhere—until the captain drained his glass and set his gaze squarely upon his passenger.

  Titus felt immediately uncomfortable. They were old friends, after all. Titus knew the difference between heroin and trouble. All was not well.

  "What is it?" he asked quietly, though they were the only ones in the galley.

  "The Coffeehouse Gang knows what you've been up to," Edgington said. Even after all the years of hiding among the proletariat, his voice still maintained the crisp upper class accent that had been the hallmark of the "old money" aristos at Cambridge. "There's a photo of you."

  Titus felt his entrails constrict. How was there a picture of him? He had broken Ginger's camera to avoid being photographed.

  "Off a security camera, I think. Said it was black and white. Could be worse."

  A security camera? Where? He had always been careful to keep his back to those. In the drugstore, where he had bought the hair dye? No, he had spotted that camera before he even went in.

  "It was in connection with some woman who worked in a laboratory or some such. She'd been killed, apparently by her daughter and a boyfriend. Blah, blah, the usual. I don't know how you're involved, but there you have it."

  The water analysis lab. There must have been a camera in the ceiling. Titus had been too shocked by Ginger's recognition of him to pay attention.

  That, he knew, was how careers were lost. "I see," he said. "Who's got it? Besides the Gang?"

  Edgington gave a lazy snort of mirth through his stony, waxen face. "Everyone, apparently. FBI, CIA, all of them, every local bobby along the east coast. Surprised you made it this far."

  So they had his face. "For murder?" he asked quietly.

  "Not really. The girl claims you tried to kill her.”

  “The girl?” Titus was dumbfounded. “She’s alive?”

  Edgington gave him a pitying look. “She also claims you're her father, although she only knows you by the sobriquet 'Bob.' But since she's the prime suspect in the murder of her mother, the authorities aren't taking her completely seriously." His mo
uth twisted into a wry smile. "Anyway, she's bolted, so nothing's on paper. You're quite safe from the Feds."

  But not from the Coffeehouse Gang. Darling and the others would only see the huge, publicized mess Titus had left in his wake. Very, very poor PR for a firm that specialized in extreme privacy.

  He exhaled noisily. The other bad news had been about the girl. He had been hoping that that particular part of that nightmare night had been his imagination.

  He knew he had killed the girl. How could she have sat up for the Christ Child? What in hell had the boy done?

  "What happened to your finger?" Edgington asked, smacking his lips slowly. He was high, Titus thought. Shot up just before dinner, when the going was apt to be smooth.

  "Accident," Titus said tersely. "Am I wanted for anything else?"

  The captain shrugged, indifferent.

  "There wouldn't be anything else," Titus affirmed, feeling sweat bead on his forehead.

  Edgington blinked slowly. "Right-o."

  "So the Coffeehouse Gang wouldn't have anything to worry about, would they?"

  The captain grunted.

  "Christ," Titus said, deciding to concentrate on his meal. Edgington was no help at all. After a few minutes, the captain stood up and shambled out of the galley, taking the bottle of whiskey with him.

  Fat lot of good he is to the Coffeehouse boys, Titus thought. Edgington was so far gone, he'd probably give the lot away for a fix if he needed it badly enough.

  He put down his fork. The food in his mouth seemed to turn to cardboard.

  That was it, of course. Edgington was a liability, and the Coffeehouse Gang never kept those.

  So why was he still alive to make this run? Why had the Gang agreed to have anyone meet Titus at all, since he, too, was a liability, now that his face was known?

  Suddenly he knew. He inhaled deeply with the shock, as if someone had just stabbed him with a knife. Edgington had been ordered to kill him. That was why he'd been so talkative about Titus's photo; he'd felt guilty. The man had never been any good at wetwork.

  Afterward, of course, after Titus was dead, Edgington himself would be put out of his misery.

  Titus sat back and allowed himself a short, bitter laugh. They'd never had a chance, either one of them. They'd been performing dogs from the beginning, driven to work at the peak of their ability under threat of death. And then, after one mistake on Titus's part and a slow and inevitable decline on Edgington's, the threat was made real.

  That was how all the bright young boys in the coffeehouse ended, their dreams exposed for the rhetoric they were, their little lives unnoticed beyond their criminality, plucked like weeds in the garden of treason.

  Titus found Edgington on the bridge, steering the helm while he scratched idly at one arm. The tracks on it were black, long threads of needle marks from years of abuse. His face, waxy and impassive, resembled a skull. Titus doubted if the man even saw him come in. He moved squarely into Edgington's line of vision and leaned against a wall.

  The captain's body stiffened with dread. His obvious revulsion at having to kill Titus was evident, and touching. If Edgington weren't an addict, Titus thought, he might even have refused the assignment. Of course, if he weren't an addict, he would know that such an assignment was a prelude to his own death.

  Edgington, in his early years at least, was the sort who might have killed himself rather than stoop to such degrading work. He most probably would have killed himself if he had known he was going to die as soon as he carried out the murder.

  Not any more, though. Addicts never believed they were going to die. That was part of their denial; the future didn't exist for them.

  It certainly didn't exist for Edgington, Titus thought. That was a fact.

  "I've brought you a gift," he said softly, smiling.

  The captain squinted at him with the exaggerated suspicion of someone not quite in his senses. He looked like a cartoon caricature of a spy.

  He's expecting me to take out a gun, Titus understood. Instead, he brought from his pocket a glassine envelope into which he had placed the contents of the remaining strychnine capsule from his suitcase. "I had to kill someone, a junkie. He had this on him. Heroin, I think." He shrugged and laid the envelope on a wooden shelf. "Consider it a tip."

  Edgington didn't move.

  "Or you can throw it away. It makes no difference to me, surely, although I admit to hoping you might swap me a glass of whiskey for it." He nodded toward the half-empty bottle Edgington kept beside the helm.

  The captain stared at him for another moment, his eyes rheumy and red-rimmed. The envelope filled with white powder quivered on the ledge. Finally, in a quick, sweeping motion, Edgington snatched it and stuck it in his pocket.

  Titus had known he wouldn't be able to resist. Even suspecting poison, the captain would think of his habit first. If he thought at all anymore.

  He folded his arms. "Where are you planning to do it?" Titus asked casually.

  Edgington started; but after a moment of hesitation, he stared stonily ahead.

  "Well?"

  A tear trickled down the captain's cheek. He's crying, Titus thought. Crying, over having to kill someone. Edgington really had gone over the hill.

  "I'm sorry, Titus," he said.

  Wolfe shrugged.

  "I guess it was the photo thing."

  "Probably."

  "I'm supposed to put you overboard before we reach Panama. That would be just after dawn."

  "Put me overboard?" Titus could not help smiling. "How do you propose to do that?"

  "Oh, Christ, I don't know. Buggers, all of them. I'm not going to, of course. That's why I'm telling you."

  Titus wondered what Edgington was more grateful for— the drugs he'd given him, or Titus's knowledge of the situation. The relief in the man's eyes was evident. If Titus knew, then Titus would know what to do. That was how it had always been.

  "We'll be passing the Bahamas late tonight," the captain said. "You could take a dinghy then." His eyes were scanning the ceiling, trying to think as he spoke. "But then you'd have to get lost. Lay low for a time."

  "A long time," Titus said mildly. "I suppose I'd have to change my identity and hide for the rest of my life."

  Edgington scratched his arms through his sleeves. "Could be," he said noncommittally. "You could keep the authorities at bay, that won't be a problem. There's just the boys." He made an involuntary gesture, something like a spasm of his head.

  "Will they kill you if I go missing?"

  "Oh, no, never." Edgington dismissed the thought with a too-large wave of his hand. "I've been with them too long. Besides, I'm just the ferryboat driver." He grinned. His teeth had rotted, Titus noticed. "I'll say you went overboard during the night. You can leave the dinghy at sea, if you would. They'll think you drowned."

  Titus laughed. The Coffeehouse Gang would think no such thing. "Whatever you say, Captain."

  "Good, then." He grabbed the whiskey bottle and handed it to Titus. "Here you go. No glasses, I'm afraid, but help yourself."

  Titus raised the bottle in salute. "L'chaim," he said, meeting Edgington's gaze warmly. "To life." Then he set down the bottle and went belowdecks.

  When he returned to the bridge, Edgington was dead, his fingers curved and splayed with the effects of the strychnine.

  Couldn't even wait to get back to his room, Titus thought with disgust. Edgington had used all the strychnine—shot it, probably—without even sniffing to see if it was poisonous. He hauled the body to the rail and pushed it overboard.

  Quickly he fitted himself out in a life jacket and a pair of Edgington's boots. From the captain's cabin he took five hundred dollars—apparently all Edgington had to his name— and sixty packets of heroin in a watertight container. Drugs were always useful. Look what they had done for Edgington, Titus thought as he lowered himself in the dinghy off the coast of Grand Bahama Island.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  CAMELOT

  "Wher
e are we?" Gwen asked. Her voice, echoing and tinny, sounded as if she had spoken in-a cavern. She could see nothing. White haze swirled around them all, thick as cotton candy. "Is this a cloud?" She swallowed hard. "Are we dead?"

  "Probably," Launcelot answered. "We were the last time. The wizard may well have killed us again. ‘Tis well within his dark power."

  "What?"

  "Oh, stop." Taliesin's voice boomed, seeming to come from all directions at once, clear as a bell and loud enough to make Gwen jump. "You're not dead, girl. We're merely existing on a plane—a zone, if you will—where you're not accustomed to being."

  "And this is where you brought us?" Arthur asked, annoyed. "All we needed to do was to get away from the police. You could have taken us to Tahiti."

  "Instead of this nothing," Launcelot finished gloomily.

  "What ingrates!" Taliesin sputtered. "Oh, well, I suppose it doesn't have to look quite so lackluster," he said with a sigh, as if he were giving in to a bunch of spoiled children. "I can make it into whatever—well, here's an idea."

  Suddenly the entire group found themselves in the middle of the Great Hall at Camelot, seated at a long table piled with meats and roasted fowl and steaming loaves of fresh bread.

  "Now this is more like it," Dry Lips said, helping himself to a turkey leg.

  MacDaire rubbed his hands together. "How long has it been, boys?" he asked. '"Eh?"

  Lugh Loinnbheimionach began to blubber.

  "Ah, it's all right, lad," MacDaire said, putting his arm over Lugh's shoulder.

  "I miss it," the big man said.

  "Aye, we all do," Kay said softly. A hush fell over the room. Even Dry Lips set down his food.

  "'Tis but a dream, anyway," Launcelot said bitterly. "Something the wizard's cooked up to trick us into thinking we're home."

  "But it is home," the Merlin said, walking jauntily down the stairwell. He was dressed in his magician's robes, slightly frayed but still stiff with magnificent medieval embroidery. "This plane exists, every bit as much as the one we just left. We may say 'the past,' as if time were something real that comes and goes, but actually, there is no past. No future. We are here now, as we were then, as we will be."