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Shrewd, colorless eyes studied her. “I see you brought your own dinner.”
Mew…
The man shook his head. “She didn’t need the caterpillar for that. The mushroom just opened her eyes. She could always see.”
“I am here, you know,” Rose said. She refrained from pointing out how rude the man was being, since she had come wanting his help, and he seemed the sort who might take offense.
“Well now, cat”—the man straightened and blinked—“what is this you’ve brought me? The child sees me as well as you. Now, that is quite something.”
“Wasn’t I supposed to see you?” Rose remembered her manners. “I’m Rose. Pleased to meet you…Mr….”
“Pleased now, is she?” The man rubbed at the narrow blade of his nose. “What is it you want of me, child?”
“Might I know your name?” Rose asked politely. Miss Havisham had always stressed the importance of knowing exactly who you are dealing with. A lesson she herself had learned at the altar while her intended made off with her fortune.
“My name?” The man spread his arms. His staff held a shard of crystal amid the rootlike cluster at its top. A small flame, deepest crimson, seemed to burn within it. “Can’t you guess?”
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Rose said without hesitation.
The man deflated before her eyes, as if her answer had punctured him.
“Tell her, cat.” But somehow the huge cat had vanished, as completely as if he had simply walked through the nearest wall. “Hmmmph.” The man deflated a little more. “My name is Myrddin. Some call me Merlin.”
“Are we in a book?” Rose asked.
It seemed that the man had expected more of a reaction. He narrowed his eyes at her. “No, we’re not in a book.”
“The world above then. Where the people who write them live? My mother—”
“We are in a landscape. The fiction where those who spun many stories may stand, reaching out to touch this tale or that, or merely a mention. My name is known—though not to you, apparently—in many places. This allows me a freedom to roam denied to many others.”
“Oh.” Rose looked around for the cat again, hoping he would be able to lead her out of the cave. “I can do that already. I was hoping to go back to the other world. My mother wrote me, you see, and I think she needs my help now. Also, maybe I need hers. There’s this bookworm after me, you see, and…”
“You were on the other side of the page? You? You!” Merlin’s outrage echoed in the cavern, and the red light from his staff infected the closest crystals.
“Only for a short while. There was this bookshop, you see. And a boy. I was watching him but he couldn’t see me, and then he got dragged into a book and I went with him. I didn’t want to. Well, I didn’t really know what—”
“Enough!” Merlin stamped the heel of his staff on the rock, and the light quavered. “I have a foot in that world too. A toehold. It is no small thing to move between such worlds, to pass through the page. Even for the mighty it is no small thing. For a child…” He scratched distractedly at the stubble on his neck. “And a wyrm has been set on your trail? Such a thing is not lightly done. A power is interested in you, girl.” The wizard—for Rose was sure he must be such a one and was only glad that she hadn’t squashed him beneath a tree or a house—frowned at her. “Tell me, Rose, what do you know of the Library?”
“Which one? I mean I only really know Miss Havisham’s, but the Muse had a lot of books too and she—”
“The Library. The. Singular. The collection. The Athenaeum. The battleground.”
“Uh, no. I don’t know that one.”
“Well, for someone to send a wyrm after you, you must have done something spectacular, or”—and he stepped closer, leaning forward until his face occupied space that Rose would have claimed as hers—“be something spectacular.”
“Why is this worm after me? I’m not special. Why did they choose me?”
“The universe is both far more random and far less random than we imagine, Rose. Which is to say that there are often no reasons at all, until suddenly there are.”
Rose was beginning to think that the caterpillar had made more sense than Merlin, but she pressed her lips together against the desire to say so.
“To be chosen, to be The Chosen One, is not as unusual as people think. One special person might be picked by a rare disease to suffer an unpleasant death. Another selected by the agitation of numbered spheres might be destined to a life of empty luxury. The pulling of swords from stones is not always a requirement.”
“Can you help me? I don’t know how to fight this worm. Let alone whoever sent it after me, if it didn’t send itself. I asked the caterpillar for help and he showed me the cat and the cat brought me here. I think he thought you’d help me.”
Merlin shook his head slowly. “That cat. I used to think he came with the Romans. But he’s older than that, I feel—” He broke off, staring into the red heart of the crystal in his staff. “That wyrm of yours is a bold one. It’s sniffing around outside my cave. Remarkable!”
