The Mirror of Merlin (Lost Years of Merlin, Band 4) - Hardcover

Chapter 24 Merlin's Isle The aged man, my elder self, ran his sleeve across his brow. Wearily, he confessed, "This will require a bit of explanation, I'm afraid. Shall we sit down?"
Without waiting for my response, he wriggled his fingers in a strange manner. Immediately, the floor behind us erupted, spraying chips of stone across the floor of the cave. I leaped aside, though the wizard didn't even budge. When I turned around, I saw that a fully grown beech tree had surged through the floor, its branches arching from one wall to the other, touching the crystals at either end.
Awestruck, I studied the tree whose sturdy roots now clasped the broken stones. Unlike any tree I'd known before, its trunk rose only a short distance above the roots before bending sharply to the side. Then, after a short horizontal distance, the trunk lifted upward again, stretching its leafy boughs to the ceiling. Heaving a sigh, my old companion sat himself upon the horizontal section and leaned back against a pair of branches. His feet swung slightly above the floor.
"Ah," he mused, "I have always loved to sit in trees."
"So have I," I replied, "but normally not indoors."
Ignoring my comment, he laid his hand upon the smooth, gray bark. "And beech trees, somehow, always make me feel more peaceful." His voice dropped a little lower, as did the harp music that continued to fill the chamber. "Such things are more and more helpful these days."
"Tell me," I said, stepping nearer. "What has happened to you, to us?"
"In time, lad, though first you should have a seat yourself." His brow knitted. "There's really not room for two of these chairs, however. A matter of floor space, what? Ah, there's the solution!" He pointed to the empty stools beside Arthur, who was busily devouring another chicken leg, oblivious to anything but the repast before him. "Fetch another one of those, would you?"
I started to move when, to my utter astonishment, something else went to fetch the stool. The wizard's shadow! The great form, as tall and broad as the tree itself, slid across the crystal cave's wall and over the floor to the banquet table. Without a sound, it lifted the stool, carried it through the air, and placed it by my side, right on top, I was pleased to note, of my own squirming shadow.
As the immense shadow returned to its position, nestled among the branches next to its master, the wizard gave a nod of approval. "Thanks, old friend."
Old friend, I thought. That part of my own future will surely be different! And yet, I glanced down at my own little shadow, struggling to free itself from the chair, and wondered. Could it be possible? Though I felt certain that the answer was no, I grasped the stool and slid it to one side, just far enough that it no longer pinned the shadow. As expected, I received no gesture of thanks, only an impudent kick.
The elder, I realized, was observing me. "How do you get your shadow to behave so well?" I asked. "I'd love to trade mine for one like yours."
He shook his head, making his flowing white hair shimmer in the crystals' glow. "It's part of you, my lad, just as the night is part of the day."
"I wish it weren't," I grumbled, seating myself on the stool. "Now tell me, please. What caused you to send Arthur back to that marsh? The way he described it, you were imprisoned, very likely to die! Yet here you are, in your own crystal cave."
Somberly, he gazed at me. "All of that is true, indisputably true."
"But this place, so full of marvels-"
"Is also my prison," he declared. Sliding his hand over the smooth trunk, he drew a deep breath. "It's that sorceress Nimue, I fear. She lured me, tricked me, into revealing some of my most powerful spells. Then, using the very power of this chamber to enhance her own, she turned those spells against me, sealing me into this place forever."
The final word fell upon me like a stone. "So you're completely trapped?"
His eyelids closed. "I am."
"That Nimue!" I cried. "What torture it must be for you."
"All the more so because of the important work that remains to be done beyond these walls."
For a long moment, his words hung in the air. Then, reopening his eyes, he noticed something above his head. With a curious expression, he raised one hand toward an object, slender and brown, dangling from one of the limbs. A cocoon! Despite his troubles, the wizard seemed rapt in concentration. As the cocoon quivered slightly at his touch, he nodded, and the firmness seemed to lift a little from his face.
He lowered his head, then turned back to me. "She did forget about one thing, though, one quite important thing. The Mirror! I can still use its pathways, the very Mists of Time, to bring others to me, or send them elsewhere. Even if I can't travel through it myself, it offers me a window, you see, on the world outside." The sober expression returned. "And, for at least a moment, it gave me a chance to escape."
A shudder ran through my whole body. "The key."
"Yes. It is-er, was-the only thing strong enough to break Nimue's spell." He blew some stray beard hairs off his lips. "I recalled that it had been hidden in the swamp. So I sent Arthur to find it, to bring it back. When the sorceress learned of that, she realized she had to find it first. So she, too, entered the mists. No doubt she turned the marshlands upside down searching. Why, she even lured you in there to assist her, changing our history in the process."
"So you, at my age, didn't spend any time in the Haunted Marsh?"
"Heavens no, my lad." He grimaced. "She really made a beastly mess of things."
"I'm the one who made the mess!" I could hardly contain my anger. "Now I understand.
She tricked me, just as she tricked you. She knew that the key could only be used once. And even though she expected me to use it to stop the bloodnoose, not to free the marsh ghouls, she still got what she most wanted."
My throat made a sound, part growl, part sob. "By using the key in the past, I sealed your fate, my own fate, in the future. Nimue said so when she left: 'You have doomed yourself.' That's what she told me! And she was right. More right than I could ever have guessed."
"At least," said the old man, "you stood up to her."
Bitterly, I hung my head. "What good did that do? It was just what she needed to prevail."
I regarded him sharply. "And what good does it do for you to teach Arthur all those high ideals, when you already know that his kingdom is going to fail in the end? That he'll never live to see them prevail?"
Squeezing a branch of the beech tree, the wizard gazed at me. At last, he spoke, his voice full of tenderness. "What good? I cannot tell. Nor can anyone."
I shrugged. "Just as I thought. More good intentions worth a handful of dust."
"Hear me out," he declared, his eyes gleaming anew. "There is still this: A kingdom that is banished from the land may yet find a home in the heart." His back straightened, and he seemed to grow larger as I watched. "And a life, whether wizard or king, poet or gardener, seamstress or smith, is measured not by its length, but by the worth of its deeds, and the power of its dreams."
Absently, I scanned the glittering facets surrounding us. "Dreams can't make you free."
His hand, so deeply wrinkled, reached over and clasped my forearm. "Ah, dear lad, but they can." He looked not at me but through me, at something far distant. "Most surely, they can."
I studied his face: the dark eyes, almost...