Earth's Magic by Pamela F. Service

Author:Pamela F. Service [Service, F. Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-375-85833-8
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2009-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

RETURN

As they rode on south, Merlin explained what had happened, at first disjointedly and then with happy calm. Heather was delighted for him, a boy who had always thought himself fatherless finding a father after two thousand years. But she was worried too.

“Earl, this thing about finding the roots, the beginnings, that doesn’t give you much of a clue.”

“No it doesn’t,” he sighed. “And my father didn’t have a clear idea either. He just said that he had confidence I could find it!”

Heather didn’t say a word. She knew Merlin hated carrying people’s expectations. She also knew he had done it all his life, usually with success.

Finally he continued. “What he said was to look for ‘the beginnings of things.’ Did you read a lot of natural science stuff in the Llandoylan library?”

“Not much. I skimmed a bit, but I really liked fiction more.”

“I didn’t read much in the natural history area either. I seem to remember that all life supposedly began back billions of years ago when volcanic eruptions ignited gas molecules or something, or maybe it was meteor strikes. But I don’t think that’s what he was talking about. It’s got to be when human life began that he meant, since he was talking about the mortal world and the Otherworlds intertwining. But I don’t know when or where that was either.”

For a while they rode along in silence. At the sight of a pair of boys and their sheepdogs coming toward them on the road, Heather sent a quick mental message to Rus for him and the dragons to duck out of sight. She and Merlin nodded politely at the boys, who turned and watched them, apparently impressed by their heavy cloaks and fine warhorses. Once they were out of earshot again, Heather offered a suggestion to Merlin.

“You know, Earl, we really aren’t far from Llandoylan School. Their library is probably as good as you can find because they made a point after the Devastation of gathering as many surviving books there as possible. We could drop in and ask to use the library to maybe track down this roots thing. Because we’re former students, they’d probably let us.”

Merlin snorted. “We didn’t exactly leave the place on the best of terms, so I don’t know if the ‘former student’ line would help. But as ‘envoys of the High King,’ we might have a little more clout. Worth a try anyway. I sure need some help with this.”

Several more days’ travel brought them to the town where they and Welly had all first met. The place was powerfully familiar but struck them both as smaller than it had loomed in their memories. So much had happened since they had last been there. They were tempted to go into the town itself, to see their old haunts, the shops and public spaces they had loved to visit when they’d gotten a day off from school. But sensing that time was short, they decided to deal with business first. They headed their horses toward the walled school grounds on the edge of town.

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