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Tim got on one knee, bowed his head, and raised a trembling fist to his brow. He tried to say Hile, Maerlyn, but his voice had deserted him, and he could manage nothing but a dusty croak.
"Rise, Tim, son of Jack," the mage said. "But before you do, put the cap back on the bottle. There's a few drops left, I wot, and you'll want them."
Tim raised his head and looked questioningly at the tall figure standing beside the cage that had held him.
"For thy mother," said Maerlyn. "For thy mother's eyes."
"Say true?" Tim whispered.
"True as the Turtle that holds up the world. You've come a goodly way, you've shown great bravery--and not a little foolishness, but we'll pass that, since they often go together, especially in the young--and you've freed me from a shape I've been caught in for many and many-a. For that you must be rewarded. Now cap the bottle and get on your feet."
"Thankee," Tim said. His hands were trembling and his eyes were blurred with tears, but he managed to get the cap on the bottle without spilling what was left. "I thought you were a Guardian of the Beam, so I did, but Daria told me different."
"And who is Daria?"
"A prisoner, like you. Locked in a little machine the people of the Fagonard gave me. I think she's dead."
"Sorry for your loss, son."
"She was my friend," Tim said simply.
Maerlyn nodded. "It's a sad world, Tim Ross. As for me, since this is the Beam of the Lion, 'twas his little joke to put me in the shape of a great cat. Although not in the shape of Aslan, for that's magic not even he can do . . . although he'd like to, aye. Or slay Aslan and all the other Guardians, so the Beams collapse."
"The Covenant Man," Tim whispered.
Maerlyn threw back his head and laughed. His conical cap stayed on, which Tim thought magical in itself. "Nay, nay, not he. Little magic and long life's all he's capable of. No, Tim, there's one far greater than he of the broad cloak. When the Great One points his finger from where he bides, the Broad Cloak scurries. But sending you was none of the Red King's bidding, and the one you call the Covenant Man will pay for his foolery, I'm sure. He's too valuable to kill, but to hurt? To punish? Aye, I think so."
"What will he do to him? This Red King?"
"Best not to know, but of one thing you can be sure: no one in Tree will ever see him again. His tax-collecting days are finally over."
"And will my mother . . . will she really be able to see again?"
"Aye, for you have done me fine. Nor will I be the last you'll serve in your life." He pointed at Tim's belt. "That's only the first gun you'll wear, and the lightest."
Tim looked at the four-shot, but it was his father's ax he took from his belt. "Guns are not for such as me, sai. I'm just a village boy. I'll be a woodcutter, like my father. Tree's my place, and I'll stay there."
The old mage looked at him shrewdly. "You say so with the ax in your hand, but would you say so if 'twas the gun? Would your heart say so? Don't answer, for I see the truth in your eyes. Ka will take you far from Tree Village."
"But I love it," Tim whispered.
"Thee'll bide there yet awhile, so be not fashed. But hear me well, and obey."
He put his hands on his knees and leaned his tall, scrawny body toward Tim. His beard lashed in the dying wind, and the jewels caught in it flickered like fire. His face was gaunt, like the Covenant Man's, but illuminated by gravity instead of malicious humor, and by kindness rather than cruelty.
"When you return to your cottage--a trip that will be much faster than the one you made to get here, and far less risky--you will go to your mother and put the last drops from the bottle in her eyes. Then you must give thy father's ax to her. Do you understand me? His coin you'll wear all your life--you'll be buried with it yet around your neck--but give the ax to thy mother. Do it at once."
"W-Why?"
The wild tangle of Maerlyn's brows drew together; his mouth turned down at the corners; suddenly the kindness was gone, replaced by a frightening obduracy. "Not yours to ask, boy. When ka comes, it comes like the wind--like the starkblast. Will you obey?"
"Yes," Tim said, frightened. "I'll give it to her as you say."
"Good."
The mage turned to the sheet beneath which they had slept and raised his hands over it. The end near the cage flipped up with a brisk ruffling sound, folded over, and was suddenly half the size it had been. It flipped up again and became the size of a tablecloth. Tim thought the women of Tree would much like to have magic like that when beds needed to be made, and wondered if such an idea were blasphemy.
"No, no, I'm sure you're right," Maerlyn said absently. "But 'twould go wrong and cause hijinks. Magic's full of tricks, even for an old fellow like me."
"Sai . . . is it true you live backwards in time?"
Maerlyn raised his hands in amused irritation; the sleeves of his robe slipped back, revealing arms as thin and white as birch branches. "Everyone thinks so, and if I said different, they'd still think it, wouldn't they? I live as I live, Tim, and the truth is, I'm mostly retired these days. Have you also heard of my magical house in the woods?"
"Aye!"
"And if I told you I lived in a cave with nothing but a single table and a pallet on the floor, and if you told others that, would they believe you?"
Tim considered this, and shook his head. "No. They wouldn't. I doubt folk will believe I met you at all."
"That's their business. As for yours . . . are you ready to go back?"
"May I ask one more question?"
The mage raised a single finger. "Only one. For I've been here many long years in yon cage--which you see keeps its place to the very inch, in spite of how hard the wind blew--and I'm tired of shitting in that hole. Living monk-simple is all very fine, but there's a limit. Ask your question."
"How did the Red King catch thee?"
"He can't catch anyone, Tim--he's himself caught, pent at the top of the Dark Tower. But he has his powers, and he has his emissaries. The one you met is far from the greatest of them. A man came to my cave. I was fooled into believing he was a wandering peddler, for his magic was strong. Magic lent to him by the King, as you must ken."
Tim risked another question. "Magic stronger than yours?"
"Nay, but . . ." Maerlyn sighed and looked up at the morning sky. Tim was astounded to realize that the magician was embarrassed. "I was drunk."
"Oh," Tim said in a small voice. He could think of nothing else to say.
"Enough palaver," said the mage. "Sit on the dibbin."
"The--?"
Maerlyn gestured at what was sometimes a napkin, sometimes a sheet, and was now a tablecloth. "That. And don't worry about dirtying it with your boots. It's been used by many far more travel-stained than thee."
Tim had been worried about exactly that, but he stepped onto the tablecloth and then sat down.
"Now the feather. Take it in your hands. It's from the tail of Garuda, the eagle who guards the other end of this Beam. Or so I was told, although as a wee one myself--yes, I was once wee, Tim, son of Jack--I was also told that babies were found under cabbages in the garden."
Tim barely heard this. He took the feather which the tyger had saved from flying away into the wind, and held it.
Maerlyn regarded him from beneath his tall yellow cap. "When thee gets home, what's the first thing thee'll do?"
"Put the drops in Mama's eyes."
"Good, and the second?"
"Give her my da's ax."
"Don't forget." The old man leaned forward and kissed Tim's brow. For a moment the whole world flared as brilliantly in the boy's eyes as the stars at the height of the starkblast. For a moment it was all there. "Thee's a brave boy with a stout heart--as others will see and come to call you. Now go with my thanks, and fly away home."
"F-F-Fly? How?"
"How does thee walk? Just think of it. Think of home." A thousand wrinkles flowed from the corners of the old man's eyes as he broke into a radiant grin. "For, as someone or ot
her famous once said, there's no place like home. See it! See it very well!"
So Tim thought of the cottage where he had grown up, and the room where he had all his life fallen asleep listening to the wind outside, telling its stories of other places and other lives. He thought of the barn where Misty and Bitsy were stabled, and hoped someone was feeding them. Straw Willem, perhaps. He thought of the spring where he had drawn so many buckets of water. He thought most of all of his mother: her sturdy body with its wide shoulders, her chestnut hair, her eyes when they had been full of laughter instead of worry and woe.
He thought, How I miss you, Mama . . . and when he did, the tablecloth rose from the rocky ground and hovered over its shadow.
Tim gasped. The cloth rocked, then turned. Now he was higher than Maerlyn's cap, and the magician had to look up at him.
"What if I fall?" Tim cried.
Maerlyn laughed. "Sooner or later, we all do. For now, hold tight to the feather! The dibbin won't spill thee, so just hold tight to the feather and think of home!"
