The Dragon of Avalon (3 page)

Air whizzed past the falling egg. It spun slowly in the afternoon light, twirling, a brief but graceful dance that would soon come to a sudden end. Straight toward a sharp pinnacle of rock it plunged. Closer it came, and closer, just a few final seconds from destruction.

At that instant, a new gust of wind blew across the cliffs, scattering dirt across the ruined barrow. Like the wind that had knocked the egg from the falcon's grasp, it appeared quite suddenly. But unlike those gusts, it blew more gently this time, surrounding the egg with a cushion of air. This wind broke the egg's fall and carried it sideways, so that it missed the pinnacle and instead skimmed across the soil of the slope. Finally, it rolled down a small ravine toward a pile of bones bleached white by time.

The egg came to a stop, at last, in the outstretched fingers of a skeletal hand. Buffeted by the gentle wind, the bones of the hand almost seemed to close around its new treasure. Then the lifeless fingers relaxed again. The green egg rested like a precious ring upon one finger.

Then, as if its work were now complete, the mysterious wind vanished. It left behind a living egg that now adorned a long-dead hand. And it also left, afloat on the air, the slightest smell of cinnamon.

Hours passed. The young man in the torn tunic scaled the cliffs to explore the ruined burial mound. His coal-black eyes, glinting with magical sight, scanned the area. He took in every detail, searching for something that had eluded everyone else. Something that could help him save the world he loved. Something that would be visible only to a wizard.

Yet he couldn't find it. Biting his lip in frustration, he wandered about, poking at crushed shields and broken vases with his gnarled wooden staff. At one point he followed the contours of a small ravine, examining the wreckage around him. Something crunched under his boot: a bleached, bony hand. On one of its fingers lay something green—the stone, perhaps, of a ring.

The young man bent down to look more closely. Was it a stone—or an egg?

Abruptly, he halted. Not far away lay an object even more unusual: a glowing wreath of mistletoe, its golden leaves quivering in the breeze. It adorned a fallen statue carved from black obsidian. Intrigued, he left the green egg and stepped over to the statue.

Moments later, he exclaimed, "That's it! I've found it!"

To which another voice, deep and wrathful, answered: "Found your death, you mean."

Whipping around, the young wizard faced his challenger, a foe so ruthless he was known by the name Slayer. "You! You followed me here."

"That's right, Merlin. Come to end your meddling, I have. Once and for all."

A fierce battle ensued, so violent that the very ground shook. Nestled within those lifeless fingers, the green egg rocked with the vibrations, rattling against the bones.

All through that day and the long night that followed, the two enemies fought. Sword and staff, fist and knife, magic and counterspell—these were their weapons. Under the silver arc of the moon they battled, and into the next day's dawn.

At last, young Merlin prevailed. He stood shakily, holding his sword over his rival's chest, ready to end this brutal ordeal. A mighty wave crashed against the island's shore, sending a blast of spray onto the cliffs. Merlin swallowed, tasting the salt of the sea mixed with his own sweat and blood. And another taste, as well—one also richly imbued with blood. Revenge. He braced himself, then raised his sword, as a single drop of seawater rolled down his cheek, stinging the scars under his eye.

He squeezed the hilt of his sword, even as Slayer glared up at him, taunting him wordlessly. Yet . . . the scars on Merlin's cheek reminded him of a terrible blaze long ago—and the terrible anguish of his past. Anguish that his enemy had shared.

"I could kill you," he proclaimed.

"Then do it now, whelp."

"I could," repeated Merlin. He drew a deep, ragged breath. "But I won't."

To his foe's astonishment, Merlin lowered his sword and slid it into its scabbard. "Too much blood has stained this soil—and our lives—already."

All at once, the whole island trembled. Distant thunder sounded, then swelled louder and louder into a deafening rumble. The quaking grew suddenly stronger, knocking the young wizard to his knees. The green egg rattled vigorously against its bony cage, until one of the fingers finally broke off. Free again, the egg rolled down the ravine and only stopped when it smacked into Merlin's boot. But the wizard didn't notice. Something else filled his mind with wonder.

Even as the quaking grew more violent, the water surrounding the island grew strangely calm. All the way across the channel, no waves rolled, no surf pounded. The sea itself seemed to be holding its breath.

A new breeze kicked up, fluttering the sleeves of Merlin's tunic. Bracing himself against his staff, he managed to stand. But the sight that met his gaze almost caused him to fall over again.

Moving.
The island was moving! Like a shard of driftwood blowing across a pond, the small island slid toward the western coast of Fincayra. Cliffs on the opposite shore drew steadily nearer. The channel narrowed by the second. For a timeless moment, Merlin gaped at the sight, the breeze tousling his dark hair.

A sudden, grinding crunch erupted—pitching Merlin, and the egg by his feet, into a shallow pit. The egg bounced off his arm, nearly falling into the pocket of his tunic. But just at the last instant, it rolled away, dropping to the ground by his side. Merlin glimpsed it, recognizing its color. But he didn't pause to examine it. For his mind was teeming with thoughts of miracles.

The Forgotten Island had, at long last, rejoined the mainland! Just as the prophecy had predicted,
the land long forgotten
had returned to its shore. Unlikely as that feat was, though, it was perhaps no more unlikely than the wondrous sight of mer folk rising from the depths to make a radiant archway. And no more unlikely, thought Merlin, as he glanced over at the huddled form of his old enemy, than an unexpected act of mercy that spared someone's life.

Merlin nodded, pondering all this, even as he wondered whether more miracles were yet to come. Miracles that just might enable him to defeat the immortal Rhita Gawr, whose craving to conquer this magical realm had never slackened. Would this world—or some new world—survive the coming battle?

His gaze turned to the shiny green egg at his feet. Was his own destiny just as hidden, just as mysterious, as the contents of that egg? Would the miracles he hoped would come—rising from the courage of children, the loyalty of friends, and the depths of magic—be enough to prevail? Would they open up a new future for this world, just as new life emerges from an eggshell?

An idea struck him. Right at that spot, he knelt down. Placing his palms flat on the ground, still moist from sea spray, he felt the soil's gift for renewal. He considered how the land beneath him, returned at last to Fincayra's shore, finally felt complete. Much as his own heart, which had so recently spared his enemy, also felt complete. And then, reaching into his leather satchel, he carefully removed something precious.

A seed. A magical seed. Held in his palm, it beat slowly, like a living heart.

The young wizard studied this seed, recalling the mysterious person who had given it to him. Although that person had refused to reveal what the seed would become, he had told Merlin that it would grow into something marvelous. Truly marvelous.

Instinctively, Merlin knew this was the right time and place to plant it. And so, only a hand's width away from the green egg, he dug a small niche in the ground. Carefully, he placed the seed into the sea-dampened soil. He covered it, gently patted the spot, and then rose to his feet.

Moments later, he departed. Concentrating, he summoned the wondrous power of Leaping—magic whose strength came from what the great spirit Dagda, lord of the Otherworld, called
the great and glorious song of the stars
. At one instant, Merlin was there, standing on the soil atop his newly planted seed; the next instant, he was gone. Soon, on the far side of Fincayra, he would confront his enemy, Rhita Gawr—and face his destiny as a wizard.

For a few seconds, that spot fell as still as if it were frozen in time. No wind stirred the soil; nary a whisper broke the silence. A few grains of sand fell from the cliff ledges nearby, the individual grains sparkling like diamonds in the waning light. But nothing else moved or breathed. The land itself seemed to be waiting. Just waiting.

Of all the creatures who lived in Fincayra—and of all those who would one day live in the new world of Avalon—only one witnessed the very first sign of change. It was not someone who could see clearly. Or even see at all.

It was the creature who lay hidden inside the egg. Although it couldn't peer beyond the shell, or smell the hint of new life, or hear the crackle of electricity in the air—it could feel the first subtle stirring of the soil.

For from that tiny niche in the ground, hollowed out by Merlin's hand, emerged a thin, frail shaft of something green. As sparks crackled all around, flashing in the air, the shoot began to swell. And swell. And swell some more. Cracks appeared in the soil, radiating out from the base of the plant like dark bolts of lightning.

The ground started to shake. The little green egg rolled once again, skipping over a clump of soil to lean against the fast-growing shoot that was rising from Merlin's magical seed.

As the shoot grew taller, expanding into a sapling, the egg caught in the fork of one of the first branches. Still bigger the sapling grew, carrying the egg upward. Soon the egg disappeared into the layers of greenery that burst from every side. With relentless vigor, the young tree kept growing, bearing the egg ever higher.

For this was no ordinary tree, born of no ordinary seed. Rooted in the ancient soil of Fincayra, which would soon merge with the immortal mists of the spirit realm, this tree would continue to grow. It would reach upward and outward and inward as well. It would expand with majesty and mystery and complexity beyond description. It would, in time, grow so vast that it would become a world of its own—a world that would embrace all things mortal and immortal, a world that would rest between the realm of the spirits and all the other realms of the universe.

It was the Great Tree of Avalon.

3:
L
ITTLE
W
ANDERER

Of course, I have a special fondness for smells. All sorts—the more exotic, the better. But there has never been, and never will be, a smell that I treasure as much as the scent of cinnamon.

Y
EAR OF
A
VALON 1

There came a day when an immensely strong gust of wind blew across the highest reaches of the Great Tree of Avalon, now fully grown into a world between worlds. Enormous branches, pathways to the stars, quivered from the wind's force; the constellation that would someday be called the Golden Bough seemed to shift its place in the heavens. Out of the fabled River of Time roared this remarkable wind, over the gracefully curled branch that one day would be the wizard Merlin's favorite stargazing point, across the pristine takes of Starlight's Palette, and, at last, into a narrow canyon where a certain mottled green egg lay in a cluster of ferns.

The wind, smelling vaguely of cinnamon, circled the egg—not just once, but three times, as if it were examining it closely, making sure that this was indeed the very egg it sought. Then, with renewed vigor, it gusted strongly, lifting that little egg high into the air. Far, far away it bore its prize, which spun slowly in the starlight as it moved. Finally, at a place chosen by the wind itself, the current of air suddenly ceased.

The egg fell.

Faster and faster it plummeted, speeding downward. Past the Great Tree's branches, past the promontory that future explorers would call Merlin's Knothole, past the trunk that already held within itself such wonders as the Spiral Cascades and the Great Hall of the Heartwood, past the bizarre little body of water to be named the Swaying Sea—all the way down to the westernmost root, the forested realm of El Urien, that would someday be known as Woodroot.

If the creature inside the egg could have known, it might have felt genuinely glad that of all the places in Avalon's root realms to land, it was heading toward one of the most wondrous. For the egg was dropping directly into Woodroot's deepest grove, home of trees so rich with magic that even the slightest breeze that stirred their branches produced achingly beautiful melodies. Unfortunately, the creature's gladness would have been somewhat tempered, since the egg was falling so fast that it would soon be crushed, utterly obliterated on impact.

Already the air around the falling egg had thickened, full of the rising mist from forest glades. Resins, both sweet and pungent, wafted above the trees. Spray from Woodroot's waterfalls thickened the air even more, and a few tiny droplets of water formed on the egg's surface.

Just seconds remained before the egg finally smashed to the ground. If the creature inside had any premonition that its free fall—and its life—were about to end, it showed no sign: Not a whimper of sound, not a trace of movement, came from within.

At the final instant before impact, a new gust of wind erupted, bending the tops of the trees. Like the earlier gust, it smelled of cinnamon; and also like the earlier gust, it seemed to know precisely where it wanted to carry this small green object. The egg flew slightly to the side, just enough to hit the thick branches of a massive cedar. Caught by the swaying boughs, the egg dropped slowly downward, from one layered canopy to the next, until it fell into a deep cushion of moss in the tree's roots. The wind abruptly ended, its cinnamon scent mixing with the resins of the forest.

As the egg landed—it cracked. Seconds later, the crack opened wider, as something pushed from within. A narrow nose, glistening green, poked out through the opening. Again the crack widened, breaking off shards of green shell.

The nose crinkled slightly, sniffing the rich aromas all around. Then, all at once, the whole head pushed out, crashing through the eggshell. Two tiny bright eyes, as green as emeralds, sparkled in the misty light. A pair of cupped, batlike ears, so big they dwarfed the rest of the face, rode atop the head like sails. As the head pushed farther, more pieces of shell toppled onto the bed of moss. Finally, the remaining shell split in two—and a minuscule green lizard with big ears crawled out of the debris.