Earth's Magic (21 page)

She laughed a moment at the recollection, then continued. “But because humans always want to
know
things, they came to believe that good or bad happened in their world because certain spirits were good or bad. So that’s what we slowly became, forces of good or evil. That was the new reality. There was no balance anymore. We were torn farther and farther from our roots.”

Merlin frowned. There was so much he wanted to know. “But this Otherworld of yours, how is it still here? How are any of them, for that matter? If it grew because of belief, and if all the people who once believed are gone, then why wouldn’t you just … fade?”

Osiris snorted. “What ignorance! Boy, think. A child is created by his parents, right? But when the parents die, does the child just fade away? No. He may change as he grows, and he will have been molded by his parents. But he exists and will until his natural time is up. We’re immortal. Our time is never up.”

The god’s wife placed a hand on his. “But now it may be. If the world is tipped so far out of balance that it is destroyed, neither mortal nor immortal will survive. There will just be a gaping void in creation.”

Merlin suddenly felt heavy and cold. He struggled to form his next question. “But I don’t understand this idea of Balance—if Good and Evil aren’t actually real.”

Isis smiled sadly. “But they are now, because people made them so. They made them absolutes, black and white instead of gradually melding shades of gray. In the end, it was the belief in Good and Evil that brought about great trouble and finally the Devastation. Everything was seen in absolutes. People were either friends or enemies. In the Otherworlds, beings that had just been ‘spirits’ became either good spirits or bad ones. But, by definition, that very imbalance is bad, so naturally the forces of evil began to dominate. Hatred, wars, the Devastation—it all came from that.”

Merlin found understanding slowly beginning to drop into place. “And what is happening now is the end of it all, isn’t it? The chance for one side or the other to have the final victory.”

Abruptly, Osiris stood up and paced across the room. The jeweled scepter he’d held casually in one hand he now thumped angrily against his palm. “Yes, tilted as things now are, almost certainly it will be Evil that will prevail. But weren’t you listening? That’s what you all don’t understand! If the balance is so irretrievably broken, they will have won nothing! The Earth cannot exist that far out of balance. It will die. All life will die—mortal and what we supposed was immortal. The roots will be severed.”

Merlin was appalled—and overwhelmed. He refused to let his mind touch the next inevitable conclusion. But the young dragon did it for him.

“So it looks like it’s up to you, boy. Take your key, unlock the
secret, and hurry back with it.” Awkwardly Sil got up from the dining pillow that he’d squashed flat. “A shame to leave all this food, though. But I’ve got my orders. Keep him safe, she said, and I promised.” He fixed his piercing red eyes on Merlin. “So get moving!”

Merlin stumbled to his feet, his thoughts still swimming. “Yes. Right. I will. But where do I go?”

Yawning, Horus got to his feet as well. “I’ll take him to the boundary. But can it wait till morning? I’m really tired.”

“No, Son, it cannot,” Isis said, pointing out into the blazing bright landscape. “See, things are moving over there already.”

Merlin squinted through sunlight more brilliant than he’d ever known, even in Avalon, even in Britain before the Devastation. “What’s out there?”

“The forces of Set, the power of chaos. The enemies of balance and rightness. They’re moving this way. They know the final battle is looming, and even if we here are only a small skirmish in it, they are eager for the fight.”

“Set, the Lord of Chaos,” Osiris grumbled. “What a pain he’s been. We cannot let him win! Go. Horus, take him to Apedemek, and hurry!”

Abruptly, the hawk-headed man turned and strode across the pillared hall. Nodding briefly to the royal couple, Merlin followed. Sil, snatching up one more fruit, hurried after him.

At the far end of the hall, a small, unadorned doorway opened onto another dark passage. It smelled of dry, dusty decay, and every step stirred up choking clouds of dust. They walked on and on until this passage too came to seem endless.

Lulled by the rhythm of his own stride, Merlin, despite his rising anxiety, had nearly fallen asleep on his feet when light sliced into the darkness from a rough opening in the wall. Joining Horus, Merlin peered out.

The land beyond was desert, except for a broad silver ribbon of river. Barren mountains jutted up in the distance, forming a jagged border against a painfully blue sky. A meager green meadow softened a patch of desert between their doorway and the river, and in the center of the meadow squatted a temple. The temple’s stones were the same grayish red as the desert, and its columns were thick and strong-looking. So was the figure that leaned casually against one of those columns.

After a moment, the figure pushed itself away from the temple’s cool shadows and began walking toward them with smooth animal strides. As it neared, Merlin could see this was a man, not lithe and graceful like Horus, but solid and powerfully muscled. His skin was shiny black, and he wore a fringed kilt and two sword belts crossed over his chest. Most remarkably, his head was that of a lion, a gleaming gold mane falling onto the shoulders like a priceless headcloth.

“Apedemek,” Horus said quietly to Merlin. “Chief spirit—or warrior god, if you prefer—of Kush. We’ve had our differences, Kush and Egypt, but we are united in furthering your quest. I leave you in his care.”

Horus began to turn away, then leaned over Merlin and whispered, “Apedemek can be a rather prickly character. Don’t let him get you down. Best of luck, brother hawk.”

With that, Horus vanished back into the darkness. Merlin, with Sil cowering behind him, awaited the approach of the lion-headed man.

R
OOTS

A
pedemek reached the doorway, crossed his arms over his broad black chest, and just stared at Merlin. His eyes were the same piercing gold as the sun that blazed overhead. Sil slipped farther back into the dark passageway, but Merlin felt himself prickling with annoyance. Crossing his own arms, he locked his black eyes onto the golden ones. “I need to go farther into Africa. This is Africa, right?”

The man growled. “This is Kush! The best of Africa, the best of Egypt. It is both, and what is left of it, I rule! Follow me.”

He turned and strode off without once glancing back to see if he was being followed. Keeping to what he hoped seemed a dignified speed, Merlin followed. When he heard Sil’s footsteps padding behind him, he said over his shoulder, “I thought you were supposed to
protect
me, not cower in that tunnel.”

The dragon snorted.
“If that
lion guy had pulled out one of his swords, I would have torn him apart. But there might have been bad things lurking in the tunnel too. I had to guard your back.”

“Right,” Merlin answered. The long trek, the heat, and now the arrogant lion man had put him in a foul mood. But something about this fierce-looking dragon’s obvious timidity made
him smile. As always, images could be deceiving, and at least Sil’s heart was in the right place. Glancing around as he walked, Merlin was at first uncertain if this was the mortal world or an Otherworld. But the sun beat down with such fierceness and the sky was so clear, he realized it could not be part of the world touched by the Devastation. But for an Otherworld, it certainly wasn’t lush. The ground was hard and sparkling with sharp-edged gravel. Occasional trees rose as wispy, thorn-bedecked scribbles against the bright sky. His heavy clothes, suitable for winter-encased Britain, Merlin began to find stiflingly warm. But he wouldn’t give his guide the satisfaction of seeing him having to stop and peel off uncomfortable layers.

Finally they reached the welcome shade of a bare, rocky hill. A rough, dark opening seemed to have been hacked into its side. Without a word, Apedemek stepped inside. Merlin followed and was immediately assailed by a gagging stench. The stone floor underfoot seemed soft and sticky. Despite himself, Merlin coughed and was answered by a dry fluttering overhead.

“Bats!” Sil exclaimed. “Too bad Goldie’s not here. She loves a nice, crunchy bat—or several hundred.”

Several thousand is more like it
, Merlin thought as he forced himself through the stench and slime of centuries-thick bat droppings. Eventually, the bat-festooned cave dwindled down to a narrow gallery and then to a rough, rock-walled passage barely wide enough for the dragon’s bulk.

Once again, the trek took on a timeless quality. Merlin knew time passed differently in the Otherworlds, and the normal fatigue he would expect after such an exertion in the mortal world seemed to be held dreamily back. Even so, he felt his strength and his patience begin to fray. To keep from falling into a walking stupor, he figured he should at least try to talk with his guide.

“I’m sorry to be so poorly schooled, but I have not heard of Kush before.”

The man growled but kept walking. “You arrogant northerners wouldn’t have. We were here when Egyptians were still playing in the Nile mud, when Romans wore skins and grunted. Yet both Egyptians and Romans tried to take our land, and both failed. I rose out of the land and its people, and I am here still. Other gods came here and left, but I persist. It was I, not they, who rose from this rocky soil. I am this land.”

This didn’t seem to leave much room for conversation, but Merlin kept at it. “And the dark things, are they troubling your land too?”

Apedemek snarled. “They eat at it, creeping around its edges like a rising sandstorm. I have fought them back the best I could, but … I am forced to accept help. I expected
more
help than a pale northern infant and his pet lizard. But if you carry the key …” He grumbled into a long silence, then gruffly continued. “I will take you to the edge of my land, to where the power is even older. Then you must go on your own. And understand
this, you had better succeed.”

Merlin tried not to shiver. The alternative that was implied probably involved fangs and claws. In an Otherworld, with his own powers suppressed, could he fight off a god? Well, if he didn’t succeed, it probably wouldn’t matter what became of him. Nothing might matter then.

They trudged on and on. The passage widened slightly, and despite the enchantment, Merlin was becoming so tired he found himself walking beside Sil and leaning on the dragon for support. Then suddenly Apedemek stopped, and the two of them almost blundered into him.

“Here,” the lion god growled. “You may enter the mortal world here. But it is still night out there and dangerous to the
likes of you. Rest in this protected cave until the sun rises. Then be on your way.”

Merlin looked out at a vast night-shrouded plain, then turned to Apedemek to ask directions for where that way might be. But he was gone.

“Dragons are more polite,” Sil grumbled.

“Sometimes,” Merlin conceded as he sank to the ground with exhaustion. “But his suggestion that we rest is a good one.”

The night air that blew in from the darkened plain was dry and cold. Unsure what protections this cave might have, Merlin decided against conjuring a fire. Instead, he leaned against a rocky wall and wrapped his wool cape more closely around him. Settling down beside him, Sil served as a windbreak. Merlin welcomed the warmth perpetually rising from the dragon’s fiery belly and slowly shifted from leaning against the rock to leaning against the warm silvery scales.

At first sleep would not come. The sounds blowing to them on the cold air were too foreign. High-pitched yaps followed by silence and then throaty growls. More silence followed, silence so deep it seemed to be a sound of its own. Then a lonely howl would spiral through the night, shivering Merlin with primal fear, making him feel not like a powerful wizard but like a naked child at the beginning of hazardous life. But finally, neither fear nor cold nor strangeness could keep him awake.

What did eventually wake him was the sun. It smeared purple and orange across the dust-clouded eastern sky, proof that he was now on the edge of the mortal world, the world still damaged by the Devastation. Shifting his gaze from the horizon, Merlin looked over the plain. It was vast. A steady dry wind rippled the grass in pale yellow waves. Here and there darker shapes moved. Animals, he realized. Herds of animals like he had never seen.

Again, Merlin wished that Heather were with him. She would thrill to see these creatures she had known only from ancient books. So many of the animals that had thrived in pre-Devastation times were extinct that those he saw now were a wonderful surprise. Not far away a small herd of huge gray beasts moved calmly through the grass until one raised its head and trumpeted some annoyance.

Beside him, Sil snorted. “Elephants. Seen them on banners and such. Aren’t they mythical?”

Merlin laughed. “Aren’t dragons mythical?” Stiffly he stood up. “We’d better get going.”

“Where?”

Merlin sighed with frustration. “I wish I knew. Just walk, I suppose, until something looks or feels right.”