A Wizard's Wings (2 page)

In time, I came to understand Merlin’s greatest surprise. The lad who washed ashore on that fateful day was more than a boy, more even than a mythic figure. He was, himself, a metaphor.

Perhaps, like that boy, each of us harbors some hidden gifts. Gifts that are invisible to everyone, even ourselves, and yet remain there, waiting to be discovered. And who knows? Perhaps, like that boy, we harbor a bit of magic as well—magic that just might hold the makings of a wizard.

As with the prior volumes, I am most grateful to my wife, Currie, and my editor, Patricia Lee Gauch. All the other people I have thanked before, including Jennifer Herron, and each of my children, I thank once again. But one more source of inspiration deserves to be thanked above all: Merlin himself.

T. A. B.

Ay, winged as the summer wind,
I left the haunts of men behind:
By waters dire, through forests dark,
Under the white moon’s silver arc;
O’er hill, down valley, far away.
Toward the sunset gathering gray,
I, Merlin, fled.

—From “Merlin and the White Death,”

a ballad by Robert Williams Buchanan

P
ROLOGUE

Wings, take me back! How often have I dreamed, in the centuries since that day, of returning to that place and time, of facing once again the choice that changed everything.

Such longing, though, is useless. An idea that is lost may yet be reborn, but a day that is lost is gone forever. And even if I could return, would I choose any differently? Probably not. Yet how can I be certain? Even after all these years, I know so very little.

But there is one thing I do know, a gift of that long ago day: Wings are far more than feathered arms. They are part mystery—and also part miracle. For what bears high the body may also give flight to the soul.

Bare feet in the water, the boy sat alone.

Though his sandy hair spun in jovial curls, his eyes, as brown as the muddy tarn before him, seemed strangely sad. Not that he minded being alone. As far back as he could recall—most of his eight or nine years—he’d lived that way. Even when others welcomed him at their meal table, offered him a pallet of straw for a night’s rest, or shared their games with him, he knew his only real companion was solitude.

His life was simple—just like his name, Lleu. Whether the name had come from his parents before they died, or from someone else he’d met in his travels, he didn’t know. And why should it matter? His name was just a word. A sound. Nothing more.

He plucked a reed, ran his finger down the shaft as if it were a tiny spear, and tossed it at a dead leaf floating in the water. A perfect hit: The leaf sank under the weight, sending rings of tiny ripples across the tarn. As the water lapped at his toes, the boy almost smiled.

Then, seeing that his spear had dislodged a small, lavender-backed beetle, he leaned forward. The little insect flailed, trying without success to work its sopping wings in the water. In a few seconds, it would drown. The boy stretched out his leg, caught the beetle on his toe, and brought it safely to shore.

“There ye be, friend.” Taking the tiny creature in his hand, he blew gently on its wings. “Jest a bit o’ sunshine an’ ye’ll be flyin’ again.”

Almost in answer, the beetle shivered and lifted into the air, flying haphazardly. It veered toward the boy’s head. With a moist tap, it landed on top of his ear, then crawled onto one of his dangling curls.

“Likes me, do ye?”

Chuckling, the boy turned back to the tarn. This was one of his favorite places to camp, whenever his wanderings brought him to this part of Fincayra. Even now, as the days shortened and ice choked many streams, the water here still burbled freely. More than once, he’d caught a pheasant here, or made supper from the brambleberries lining the water’s edge. And it was quiet, far from any roads, and the rascally knaves he sometimes met there.

Met—though not for long. He could outrun any of them. He could run for a whole day without stopping if necessary. Lifting one foot out of the water, he studied its calluses, as thick and rough as the leather on an old boot. But even better. These soles wouldn’t wear out. All they needed was a tarn like this, for soaking after a long day’s trek.

Lleu’s face tightened. He scanned the wintry sky, watching the gray, leaden clouds slide above the leafless trees on the far side of the tarn. Turning back to his foot, he knew he’d really welcome a pair of boots, or sandals at least, in the colder days to come. Days when he might need to cross long stretches of snow to find his next meal.

To be sure, being an orphan had some advantages. He could roam wherever he pleased, sleep wherever he liked. The sky above was his ceiling, often brightly painted. Meals came at odd times, but at least they usually came. He expected little, and normally got it. And yet . . . he longed for something more. Placing his foot back in the cool, dark waters of the tarn, tinted red from the leaves still clinging to the bramble bushes, he thought about another place and time—a time too distant for memory, yet impossible to forget.

He couldn’t recall her name. Nor even her face. The color of her eyes, the shape of her mouth, the length of her hair—all lay hidden, buried deeper than his dreams. He didn’t know her name, or the sound of her voice. He wasn’t even sure she was his mother.

But he remembered her smell. Earthy, like fallen leaves; tangy, like rose hips in summer; zesty, more than meadowsweet.

She had held him, that much he knew. Every so often, sitting by a tarn like this one, he might hear a blackbird warbling, and the wind humming through the reeds. And then he’d feel sure that she had sung to him, too. Yes, she had! What sort of song, in what sort of tones, he couldn’t say. Yet he knew she’d held him close, singing softly, surrounding him with her fragrant skin.

He shuddered. Probably, he told himself, it was just a sudden chill in the air. Sunlight felt weaker at this time of the year, and the wind harsher. Already a tracery of ice lined the far side of the tarn. The longest nights of the year, he knew, lay just ahead.

But he’d survived other winters, at least five or six, and he’d survive this one, as well. Tomorrow he’d move farther south, closer to the coast. Meadows there stayed mostly unfrozen, and if snow fell, it rarely lasted for more than a day or two. As long as he didn’t venture too close to the sea, and that shoreline where the dark mist swirled endlessly, forming twisted shapes and scary faces, he’d be fine.

A fire. That’s what he needed now. He reached into the pocket of his tunic, squeezing some shavings of dry bark, as well as the pair of iron stones that never failed to spark a flame. He would warm himself, as well as the strip of dried beef a man had kindly tossed him that morning, and make camp for the night.

Lleu stood, scanning the bank as he slapped his feet on the mud. He knew from experience the weight and thickness of the sticks he needed for a good fire: several as thin as his smallest finger, a load or two of larger ones, and at least one about the size of his leg. Dry kindling was more tricky to find, especially at this time of year, which was why he always carried some. Otherwise he might have to use a strip of cloth from his tunic. And burning his tunic was burning his blanket.

Behind the brambles, he spied the largest branch he would need, ripped from a hawthorn tree by some heavy wind. He ran over. But the branch weighed more than he’d thought—too heavy to carry, or even drag. Nonetheless, he tried, tugging on it with all his weight. Still it wouldn’t budge.

“All right then,” he muttered aloud, “I’ll bust ye! All I’m needin’ is ‘nuf to burn.”

Bracing his foot against a cracked portion of the branch, he grabbed the upper end. Hard as he could, he pulled. The branch wriggled, creaking slightly, but didn’t break. Again he tried, without success.

“Jest break now, will ye?”

As the boy set his hands to try again, a sword suddenly slashed through the air. The blade severed the branch, as if it were nothing more than a twig. A section just the right size to carry rolled on the muddy ground.

Grateful as well as startled, the boy whirled around. But his words of thanks caught in his throat. There, facing him, stood the most fearsome warrior he had ever seen—a man, immensely tall and sturdy, wearing a horned skull as a mask. Behind the mask shone wrathful eyes. And worse, the warrior carried two massive swords, each strapped to one of his arms.

Strange,
thought the boy.
Those swords
. . . He sucked in his breath. They weren’t, he suddenly realized, strapped to the man’s arms. Rather, they were his arms, bound somehow to the warrior’s powerful shoulders.

The masked man stared down at him. In a deep but hollow voice that seemed to echo from somewhere faraway, he commanded, “Tell me your name, boy.”

“Ah, ‘tis . . . Lleu, m-master.” He tried to swallow, but his throat only made the sound of a whimper. “Least that’s what I be mostly called.”

“Have you no home?”

“N-no, master.”

“Have you no parents?”

“N-no, master.”

The warrior laughed mirthlessly, even as one of his swordlike arms lifted. “Then, young whelp, you shall be my first victim.”

P
ART
O
NE

1:
T
HREADS

This wasn’t just a familiar stroll down a wooded path. No, this was something far different: more like a flight.

Luminous threads of light wove through the loom of branches, making the forest floor sparkle. The springy turf, softened by centuries of fallen leaves, seemed to lift me higher with every step. I felt I could leap into the trees, or sail like the golden butterflies among their branches. I had taken this woodland path many times before, to be sure. But it had never seemed at once so bright and so dark, so full of clarity as well as mystery.

Hallia, her hand in mine, walked with the same lilt in her step—and something more, the added grace of a deer. She knew, with every curl of her toe and sweep of her arm, the simple glory of motion. Truly, she
was
motion, as fluid as the falling leaf that spun downward from the highest boughs, as gentle as the forest breeze that stroked her auburn hair.

I smiled, thinking of the many such walks we had taken in the past few months. When she had first invited me to live among her people and learn their ways, several of the elders of her clan had objected. Long councils and fierce debates ensued. I was, after all, not a member of the Mellwyn-bri-Meath. And worse, I was a man. How could they possibly trust me with some of their most precious secrets, when my kind had so often hunted and killed their own, for no better reason than hunger for a slab of venison?

Hallia, in the end, had prevailed. The tales of how I’d saved her life didn’t sway the elders, nor even the things I’d accomplished for the land of Fincayra. No, it was something far more simple, and powerful: Hallia’s love for me. Faced with that, even the most skeptical members of her clan finally gave way. And so, in the time since, I’d learned how to drink water from the rill without disturbing its flow, how to feel the ground as if it were part of my own body, and how to hear with the openness of the air itself.

Such walks we had taken! Hallia guided me through meadows where ancient trails lay hidden, through tall stands of eelgrass that could be woven into baskets or clothing, and through secret glades where many a fawn-child had been born. Often we strode upright, as we did now. Just as often, we ran side by side as doe and stag, our bodies sailing above the soil more than treading upon it.

Yet on this day and on this trail, I felt closer to her than ever before. Tonight, when we reached the far side of the forest, I would show her a secret of my own—my stargazing stone. And there I would give her the present I’d been saving. I tapped my leather satchel in anticipation, knowing that in many ways the gift belonged to her already.

Seeing a stream just ahead, I lifted my staff so it wouldn’t catch on the gooseberry brambles along the bank. Then, without a word, we leaped into the air, our four legs springing in unison as if they belonged to a single person. Beneath us, the water sparkled, its surface alive with light, even where it passed under a branch or over a moss-splattered stone. We landed gently on the opposite side and continued down the path.

I gazed about, my second sight—now sharper and truer than my lost eyesight had ever been—overwhelmed by the wide array of highlights and colors. Even the etchings on my staff seemed to glimmer with the magic surrounding us. Dew glistened on rain-washed limbs, while the forest floor shone orange, scarlet, and brown. Above our heads, a pair of squirrels, their eyes nearly as large as their bulging cheeks, scurried over a branch, chattering ceaselessly. Beech trees’ smooth bark reflected the sun like mirrors, and linden leaves trembled like running streams. Clumps of moss, deep green flecked with red, nestled among the burly roots of oaks and pines, often joined by parades of yellow toadstools.

Resins wafted everywhere—from the needles of fir trees, sweeter than honeysuckle; from rainwater cupped in palmate leaves, as rich in smells as marshland pools; and from fallen branches already more soil than wood. I could smell, not far away, the gamey scent of a fox’s den. And I knew that the fox itself could smell us approaching.

The sound of the stream behind us merged with the undulating whisper of wind among the branches. And, as always, I heard in the forest wind many distinct voices: the deep sighing of oak, the crackling of ash, the rhythmic whooshing of pine. Many voices, yes—and one above all, the unified breath of the living forest.

A place of many wonders.
Those words, the first description I’d ever heard of Fincayra, never felt so true as today. Especially here, in the depths of Drama Wood. Even the harsh winds of winter, which had already brought snow and frost to much of the rest of Fincayra, seemed unable to penetrate here. Though some forest animals had retreated to their burrows and hollow logs, and many trees had changed to brown and tan, the Druma still pulsed with life.