CHAPTER 7

Growing Magic

They woke in the morning, stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground. Merlain could see at a glance that both the royal pains and her brother were suffering in much the manner she was. But where was Auntie Jon?

"Where's Auntie Jon?" Charles asked, perhaps picking up her thought. He stretched his arms, seeming uncomfortable about something more than the woman's absence, but his thought was fading even as she tried to tune in to it. Just a picture of a cute little girl, and a warning of something bad.

"I want my breakfast!" said one of the royal pains. It was obvious that he had no concern with either a girl or a warning. What had Charles dreamed about? Almost, she could remember it; she was always connected to his mind somewhat, even in sleep, and sort of knew what he was dreaming. That little girl—it certainly wasn't Merlain herself! But who was it? As far as she knew, neither of them had ever met her. But she didn't seem like a pure dream, either. There was something disturbingly real about her.

"Me too," said the other pain, interrupting her chain of thought. Whatever conclusion Merlain had been about to come to was shattered. That hurt, because she had the notion that it was important.

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They looked around, but Auntie was not to be seen. "Maybe she's hiding from us?" Merlain suggested.

"Wearing an invisibility cloak."

Though they cried out again and again, Auntie Jon did not appear. The woman really had left them here to fend for themselves, after putting them forcefully to sleep. That reminded Merlain of Charles' dream again. Something about Auntie Jon—

"Appleberries!" a pain exclaimed, spying a bush.

Merlain gave up. She simply could not concentrate on anything elusive with the royal pains around.

Anyway, she was hungry, and those appleberries did look good.

They breakfasted on the fruits and spring water. Then, as bravely as possible, they set about making plans. Rotternik lay before them, great trees, incredibly voracious wildlife, and people who had the reputation of not liking visitors. Auntie Jon had said that they would have to cross the border by themselves, but Merlain did not want to believe it. Now she had to.

Resolutely they shouldered their packs, straightened their clothing, and took the never-to-be-taken-back step across the luminous green border. Past the great ugly gray stone with its pointing arrow, into the scary territory that was hidden by a deep ugly blackness, as if it lay in perpetual night. Into the fabled forbidden kingdom of Rotternik.

"I do wish," Merlain said plaintively, "that we could be birds again."

"Me too!" Charles said. "Kildom, look in that book of spells."

Kildom promptly sat down at the side of the trail and opened the volume. He had in fact had it ready, taken from his pack the moment he woke up and not replaced. Merlain felt a little envious of his reading ability, but then she knew why he had it. Kildom and Kildee might look and act like age seven and a half, but both had been born during the same year as her father. Of that too she could fell envious—a childhood that would be lasting many more years. When she and Charles were boring adults like Mama and Dad, Kildom and Kildee would still be doing kid things and being brats. They had all the luck!

As they had stepped across the border the blackness that lay beyond the stone had changed to trees and streams. It was really rather pretty, once it became visible. It wasn't dark at all, merely somewhat gloomy.

The trees were way, way high—higher than anything she had imagined. The river in the distance was wide, wide, wide. Strange animals gamboled in the very high grass. In the distance—too far for her eyes to see clearly—mountains rose with green and brown and a few snowcapped peaks. The luminous border behind them was replaced with a simple end to sight. Blackness on this side, blackness on Klingland's side. With a border that kept out light, and, she understood, sounds and signals, Rotternik hardly needed to fear invasion by foreign armies. No army would be able to communicate with its home base, to organize an effective campaign. At least that was what the adults said. Rotternik was forbidden territory, the place everyone talked about but nobody ever went. Not by choice.

Kildee, not to be outdone by his brother, got out his own stolen book and opened it. While Kildom read spell after spell to himself, Kildee was busily tracing lines on a map.

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"We have to go through or over the Dreadful Forrest; that has to be it straight ahead," Kildee announced. "Then we have to climb Heartbreak Mountain; that's in the distance. Then it's down the other side of the mountain and through or over Dismal Swamp. That bring us to Ophal. The border here looks like just an ordinary border on the map."

"Where do we come out in Ophal?" Kildom asked.

Kildee frowned more deeply and turned to another map. He studied the two, making comparisons by moving his hands back and forth between them. "We can come out on an island or we can come out where there's water. That's all Ophal is: water, islands, and land below water."

Merlain did not like the look of this at all. The forest, mountain, and swamp were bad enough, but land below water was worse. How would they breathe?

Charles caught her thought. "Auntie Jon," he said. "Are you here?"

No answer. Merlain wondered whether he had thought there would be. The woman could be watching them invisibly, waiting to take a hand, but Merlain doubted it. The Auntie Jon they had now wasn't like the Auntie Jon of yore. What was it that Charles had dreamed about her? Something that—

"How far across this kingdom?" Kildom demanded of his brother.

Kildee measured with his fingers and a scale at the bottom of a map. "Can't really tell. Mountain's at the bottom of this picture. Mountain's high. Dreadful Forrest may be magical. Road through forest goes to capital, Beraccck."

"Beraccck? Like when you stick your tongue out?"

"See for yourself."

Kildom did, then stuck his tongue out at Charles and went "Beraccck!"

Charles bristled. He looked as if he wanted to fight. His hand went for his sword.

Don't be stupid, Charles, Merlain told him in his head. We need them to read the spells and the maps.

Also, you know someone may have to take some blame when we get back. Everything bad that happens will be their fault. Besides, you know how old they actually are. If you tried fighting them, you'd get hurt.

Not with this sword! It's magic! Auntie Jon said so!

But there was something about Auntie Jon. Merlain no longer quite trusted what she said. But until she was able to remember what it was she had heard in Charles' dream, there was no point in saying that.

Then you save your sword for the orc or something equally dangerous.

Awwwwww.

You know I'm right.

The kinglets, quite oblivious to the conversation she was having with her brother or to Charles' menacing gesture, had their faces cheek to cheek so that they resembled one red-haired boy and one mirrored Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

reflection. Unless Merlain looked into their minds, she was never sure which was which, and then sometimes she was doubtful, because their minds were as alike as their bodies.

"I dunno, Kildom. If we fly straight across and nothing happens—"

"Maybe half a day, Kildee. But if we walk, and if we climb the mountain..."

As if cued by the royal brats' discussion, a flock of small birds—very dark and very long of beak—flew over. Merlain was trying to decide whether they were starrows or sparklings or some more sinister creatures, when the sky darkened above the flock. A horrendously great bird dropped through them, snatching little birds in either set of talons and snapping up two or three others with its sawed beak. The flock dispersed in terror, while the big preybird halted its dive, flopped its gross wings, and flew away over the forest. Both its mouth and its claws were full, and dripping blood.

Merlain looked at Charles and Kildom and Kildee. They had all seen what she had. So much for the suggestion that they turn themselves into tender young swooshes and fly the rest of the way. They would have to walk, at least to such a place where flying might be less dangerous. Maybe some broad plain, where an enemy bird could be seen as far away as the horizon.

Actually, Merlain felt relief. She just knew that the royal pain would never get the spell right. There was no telling what forms they might have assumed if a kinglet tried transformation. She felt safer as she was.

Dreadful Forrest appeared even more dreadful close up. The trees were sooo high, and the stretch of prairie with head-high grasses was wider than Merlain had expected. Kildom and Kildee both sneezed all the way through the grass, to Charles' ill-concealed delight. They couldn't see ahead in the grass, and then the meer path they were following came out abruptly into trees. Now they could see ahead a short distance, and behind a short distance, but not overhead. There were twisted branches and vines and flocks of birds and assorted animals in the trees that they hoped were harmless; now and then something odorous was falling on their heads. Light that reached them on the path was filtered green by large spade-shaped leaves. On either side of their path the tree trunks were as big around as houses if not actually palaces. Looking up, Merlain wished mightily that she could see all the way up to the trees'

distant tops.

They had been walking for half a day. Merlain's feet hurt and she was becoming bored. She wasn't sure which was worse. She was beginning to wish that something interesting would happen, even if it was a little threatening.

Suddenly Charles stopped walking and drew his sword. What is it, Charles? For her part, she saw nothing dangerous.

Straight ahead! In those bushes!

She strained her eyes. Lights danced in them. She could make out some peculiarly bent branches in the bushes, and an assortment of red eyes. What?

I can see better than you and I don't know what. I just know we don't want to get eaten by it.

Eaten? She shivered. This was too interesting for her taste. She wondered how Charles had been alerted to it. What had tipped him off?

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Charles raised his voice. "Kildom, Kildee! In the bushes—"

The kinglets responded like truly grown-up men: they left off whispering to each other, turned a significantly paler green, and ran for the trees. Their young, royal legs moved remarkably fast. As they ran, a hairy branchlike thing reached out for Charles. Also at that very moment, a loud hoot sounded from overhead and a hairy creature dropped from a higher to a lower branch. Other hoots sounded, and soon the branches above were filled.

Merlain looked up at a face she would have preferred not to believe. A babkey, she thought, and a large one. But the forest dwellers were interested not in the children, but in the creature in the bush. One of them threw a chunk of tree bark and then another threw a rotted tree branch. Soon the air was filled with missiles raining down on and around the bush. It was a fight between hairy babkeys and a thing in the bush, and each side seemed worse than the other.

Charles! Merlain thought to her brother. Let's go!

But stupid Charles was liking his sword and his stance. He switched the blade as if he knew how to use it, ignoring the primates overhead. What had gotten into him? Auntie Jon had said the sword was magic; was it working some kind of spell on him, making him think he was bigger and bolder than he was? Yet he did seem to swing it with a certain competence, despite not having had any practice with it. Only magic could account for that.

But magic could not change the fact that he was only six years old. He had no business tackling any unknown monster.

"Charles!" A big bumpy thing rose from the bush as she resorted to voice. It was the bush, with legs that resembled brown and hairy branches. Many, many hairy legs, reaching feelers, and red eyes. It was what Merlain had always feared most: a spider. Unable to control herself, she turned and fled.

"Charles! Oh, Charles!"

Who was that calling? It wasn't herself, Merlain realized, for she was running as fleetly as she could, away from the threat, in a manner that would have been cowardly had she been a boy.

She looked back to see the spider begin a scuttling charge. Missiles rained down on it. Could it be that the babkeys were trying to help the human children? No, she realized; it was more likely because the babkeys didn't want the spider to eat the children before the babkeys could.

The spider's feelers batted away the missiles. Now and then a leg helped, when a missile was large. The spider evidently did not fear the babkeys; maybe it liked to feed on them when there wasn't something juicier to catch, like a child.

The spider was fast, but Charles was faster. He was running now, finally convinced of the necessity.

Maybe the spider would have been faster, but not when it had to keep knocking away the missiles. They might be no more than a distraction, but they did slow it down.

"HELP! HELP! HELP!" Now she placed it: the voice of royalty, calling so shrilly that the words could be heard above the din of the chase and battle. Running as hard as she could in their direction, Merlain found she was getting a dusting from huge flower stems. Tree roots that must have been the size of the great silver serpents her father talked about were treacherous as they continually blocked her and forced Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

her to change direction. Everything was happening at once!

She looked back again, and saw Charles coming hard. He looked breathless. She felt breathless! Her breathing hurt her lungs. Not for the first time she wished that she had big air bags in front. A grown woman would be able to run much faster without running out of breath!

"MERLAIN! HELP US!"

She abruptly stopped running. Right in front of her was a long, damp slope. At its bottom, quite some distance ahead, the two royal pains were lying on their backs. Around them, heaped there, were the greenish skeletons and loose bones of animals. The royal pains were surrounded by skulls and arm bones and leg bones and—

BUMP!

"HELPPP!" Charles' voice came. He had run into her, trying to look back. Now they were both tumbling, sliding, falling....

Greenish blur and muddy slide changed places and changed places again as she somersaulted. Her bottom finally plopped down, and there she was on the bone pile, with the royal pains cushioning her.

THUMP!

Charles landed against her, heels uppermost. Now they were all stuck in this boneyard. Ugh!

The royal pains began howling to them. The azies and chimpees and babkeys howled and screamed overhead. They were shouting insults at the huge spider, which was crouched now at the mouth of this trap which had taken so many of their kind. As well as four terrified children.

"Oh, Charles! Oh, Kildom! Oh, Kildee!" Merlain said. She had never before been this scared, even when stealing. There was nothing she could imagine that could save them. The babkeys, monboons, azies, and chimpees had to be as frightened as she felt. They were all trapped in the horrible spider's den.

Charles got himself untangled, climbed to his feet, and drew his sword. He had resheathed it while running, and that might have been fortunate.

The sword looked like a toy. It was a toy, she thought. Not even her father's sword would be a defense against the spider, and what Charles had was much smaller and more delicate. Magic? It had better be magic, if they were to have any chance at all!

The huge spider crept down the slope they had just rolled down. Merlain saw now that the ground was coated with webbing, making it smooth, so that anything falling here would not be able to stop. It would also be hard to climb out. The spider's strategy was to drive its prey into this place, where it could not escape.

The spider had no difficulty, however. Its gnarled feet were sure on the webbed slope. It had perfect balance. It was a thing of beauty, in its appalling way. Its hairy front legs reached out toward them.

Charles swallowed. Merlain caught his thoughts. I'm afraid, oh, I'm so afraid! But he clutched the hilt of his sword, and the sword seemed to give him courage. There was something about it, but no obvious magic.

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Charles stepped forward, screwing up what little courage he had. I'll stop it! I have to stop it! I'll kill it!

I have to!

She watched her brother brandish his sword, and she knew that whatever magic it had was not going to help him, and that he was about to die. She knew that once that happened, there would be no help for the rest of them.

"Auntie Jon! Auntie Jon!" the two kinglets began calling. But Auntie did not come, and Merlain thought the kinglings stupid for thinking she might. Auntie Jon had brought them to the edge of Rotternik and dumped them; she was responsible for this. She must want them dead, crazy as that seemed. No, there would be no help there! They would have to help themselves. Charles was trying, and the royal pains were useless, which meant it was up to Merlain. If only there was something she could do!

A long, hairy foreleg darted at Charles. His sword shot out to meet it. The foreleg jerked back minus its tip; a drop of greenish substance dripped from it. The spider clicked huge mandibles and emitted a foul stench.

Maybe Charles actually could fight the monster! Maybe the sword enhanced him so that he was fast enough and strong enough and skilled enough. Maybe—

The foreleg darted a second time. Again foreleg met blade, but this time not directly on. With one fast sweep the spider whipped the sword expertly from Charles' hand. He was defenseless.

She had to do something! She had to!

A second leg grasped her brother. It yanked him off his feet. Charles screamed as he was slowly pulled toward the waiting mandibles of the monster.

"Help him!" Merlain cried.

How they found the courage she did not know, but Kildom and Kildee actually responded. Each boy grabbed one of Charles' legs. The spider pulled as they pulled. A tug-of-war was on, Charles was screaming, the furred audience in the trees producing a cacophony. But all that was only noise; something more was needed.

Merlain tried to help the boys, but their combined weight and strength was not enough. If only she weighed more! If only she had magic. If only she knew one of the spells in the kinglets' speller, or—

Maybe she could do it with her mind! She concentrated her thoughts at the spider: STOP! LET GO! GO

AWAY!

The spider merely pulled harder. Evidently it was not receptive to such messages. But maybe if she changed it a little:

These creatures probably taste bad. I don't want to eat them.

The spider's mouth orifice dripped drool. It was even hungrier than before!

It just wasn't working. Obviously the spider, like most creatures, was not receptive to mind talk. Merlain and her brother could snoop on the thoughts of other people, and could send their thoughts to them when Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

they made a special effort, sometimes. It helped to be close to the person they were sending to, physically and emotionally. She couldn't even read the thoughts of this monster; it was too alien. But its slaver spoke for it clearly enough.

Meanwhile branches and bark, nuts, fruit, and excrement came down from above in a blinding shower.

Merlain winced as a particularly large chunk of bark bounced harmlessly off her head. The tree dwellers were trying to help them, not do harm, but it was clear that they were not magic.

Something had to be magic! That book—that had to be the answer! But she didn't have time to read it even if she could understand what was in it, and the screaming kinglets were no good for that at this stage. There had to be something else.

Charles' feet were moving higher, and the kinglets' bodies were now being drawn up off the ground.

Merlain clung to one kinglet, feeling the hideous strength of the spider through the linked bodies. What was there she could do?

The Alice Water! Maybe that was it! But she didn't know which way it worked. If it made her as small as the girl in the storybook, that would be no good. Well, she could hide among the bones. Maybe all of them could. But then the spider would just move the bones and keep moving them until it found them.

Still, if they were small enough, say the size of ants, they might hide in the skulls for a while and maybe find a hole in the ground. If they were small enough, the spider might lose interest in them, because they wouldn't be enough to feed it. And there might be other predators, no danger to them now, that would pounce on them when they were small enough. So that was no answer.

Unless she could take a small sip, and if it made her smaller, then she could dump the bottle on the spider and make it small, and then it would be no threat to them.

The kinglets screamed in unison as the straining spider's limb pulled all three closer to the opening and closing mandibles with their dripping drops of digestive liquid. Merlain would be the last one to be eaten, but that was small comfort.

She had to try. It was the only thing. Quickly she took out the small bottle from her pack, scattering the extra underwear and stockings. It was impossible to be neat when she had to keep hanging on to the kinglet's leg with her other hand so that the others would not be hauled into the maw even faster. She brought the bottle to her face and unstoppered it with her teeth. Not giving herself a chance to think, she turned it up and took more of a sip than she had intended, because of the motion of the bodies she was touching.

Nothing happened, except that something seemed to slip away from one hand. Disappointed, she replaced the stopper, though it seemed pointless to save unmagical water.

Then she realized that the noise had diminished. She looked around, and saw that the spider and children were gone. So were the trees. There was shoulder-high shrubbery all around. Tiny bugs scuttled in it.

She looked down at her feet, and—

She was standing in a shallow hole. Two little chimps, or were they azies, pulled at a third. But all were dressed as humans! Right at the edge of the hole, holding on to the brown-suited azie with the winged helmet was—a spider.

Suddenly she understood the situation.

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Merlain hardly thought at all. A spider was a spider, and one this size she could handle as she would at home. Careful so as not to step on her brother or the kinglings, Merlain raised her right foot out of the ankle-deep hole. She moved it over the group, then over the spider, centering the heel of her boot above its body. She lowered her foot.

The spider, no dummy, scrambled back out of the way. The three boys tumbled heels over heads in the other direction. The little fleas swarmed through the brush—actually the trees—to pursue the spider in its retreat. Charles and Kildom and Kildee stared up, shouting at her. But it was the mental voice she received best.

Merlain! You're big.

Oh, I know that! The water hadn't made her small; it had made her a giant! That had certainly solved their problem with the spider.

She looked around again. That rough rise a short distance away was the mountain they had been traveling to. She could carry them all in a few steps. That would be better than being a bird! But she'd have to hurry. Magic had a way of wearing off.

She leaned down and put her hand out in front of them. Charles ran and got his sword, and in a moment he and the two kinglets climbed on.

Well, Charles, she thought, straightening, now I know what it is to have three boys on my hands.

She had to smile, though Charles, hanging tightly to her little finger, probably wasn't smiling.

The old woman was that hungry. Her stomach growled in the manner of a subdued dragon, and she knew it hadn't had nourishment since she'd awakened in the store's dressing room. She had spent the night in an alley, crouched between garbage cans. Now it was morning, and she was awake and cold and stiff arid sore and dispirited. In fact, it would not have been too much of an exaggeration to say she felt bad.

Holding on to a can she pulled herself to her feet and took off its lid. Nauseating odors came at her. She banged down the lid and closed it tight. Possibly the other one.

Cautiously, so as not to choke on its fumes, she lifted the lid on the second can. Inside were the remains of meals, together with bottles and cans. But there, right near the top, was a partially eaten, partially clean loaf of bread. Obviously someone had dropped the loaf, so that it got soiled on the ground, and tossed it into the garbage. It had been there all night, right next to her, just waiting to be discovered. If she was careful, she could eat from the clean side. If she was careless, she would eat some of the dirt, but even that side of it would feed her, and that was much better than nothing. She lifted the bread to her mouth and prepared to bite.

"What you got there, sister?"

Startled, she looked. He was big and he was ugly and he probably needed the food as much as she did.

He reached out a ragged sleeve with a deformed hand protruding from it.

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Alarmed, she pulled back her prize. "It's mine," she explained, fearing his intent.

"Give it here, hag!"

"We can share. If you're really hun—"

He made a sudden grab, got the bread, and pushed her away with his free hand. She fell back against a rough wall, the collision making her gasp. He turned his back, walking away with her food, not even interested enough to rape her. Insult added to injury.

Anger filled the old woman's cloudy mind, invigorating her for the moment. Hardly knowing what she did, she got to her feet and slipped the sling she carried out from under her arm. She took out the pouch, shook out a stone, placed her rock in the sling pocket, and twirled the sling like an expert. There was a whistling sound as the sling built up velocity, and she sensed the precise moment to release. The rock flew, straight and true.

The ragged man dropped the bread in the alley and put a hand to his neatly wounded backside.

He turned back to face her. "OHHHH! You filthy crone, you—"

She fitted the sling with another stone. "Next one's for your head," she warned.

He was lurching into a clumsy charge. Then he saw the sling, saw her starting to whirl it, and the significance of her words sank in. He changed his mind. He reversed directions and lumbered away.

The old woman held her fire. There was no point in wasting a good stone on a bad target. Momentarily the man was outlined in the mouth of the alley by the morning light; then he was gone.

She waited until she was certain he was not coming back, possibly with a club or some other weapon.

Then she hobbled over to the bread, picked it up, and examined it. Grease and filth clung now to every crusty side and soaked into the interior. The thing might as well have been a sponge, and it had landed in a foul puddle. No part of it was remotely edible anymore. She sighed, dropping it back.

She made her way to the stone she had hit him with and picked it up. Good hurling stones were valuable. She had learned something about herself: she was not defenseless. But that was all; her memory remained too confused to enable her to make sense of any more.

Somewhere, somehow, there had to be a bit of nourishment in this city for one poor and hungry old woman who didn't know whether she was coming or going.