Free Earth's Magic by Pamela F. Service Page B

here if you can,” the man taunted. “Some of the others here suggested we eat you. But that would only confirm your thought that we are ‘animals.’ Live or die as you will. We don’t care.”
    The luminous people started shuffling away into dark tunnels. Dizzily, Merlin stood up. “Wait. There is another war coming. Don’t you care who wins?”
    The leader turned back. “Perhaps we do, perhaps not. War means change, and change can be good. We will see.”
    Merlin was left alone in the dark, total dark. He could get out of there, of course. He could conjure light and eventually find a way. But instead, he tried to force his anger andimpatience aside. Sitting again on the cold, dank floor of the passage, he thought. Get in touch with the roots of magic, the man had said. The Earth. Was this what he needed to hear? Was this his real way out?
    Without calling forth light, he rolled over onto his stomach and spread his hand on the earth. Some was loose soil that had fallen in with him. Beneath that, the soil felt packed and solid like living skin. It made sense, he realized. It made profound sense that the Earth itself was the root of magic. No matter how far apart one place is from the other, they are all connected by the underlying earth. Even dividing oceans have earth passing under them.
    And all the places of power, the wells of magic, must be connected too.
    Digging his fingers deep into the earth, Merlin forced his mind into them, sending his thoughts, his need, questing into the earth. Slowly images came back to him, drawn back through his fingers. They were swirling, chaotic images at first. Unformed power, balls of light breaking and re-forming into shapes, into places. Some places were unimaginably strange, some hauntingly familiar. And they all seemed bound together. The image slowly formed of a great web of power coursing through the Earth. It spread and clung, like a huge, glowing spiderweb, binding every aspect of the Earth. Mortal worlds and Otherworlds were inextricably linked. And in the heart of this vast, throbbing web, he sensed one place.
    As though he were there now, he saw the sun rising. He saw the first piercing shaft of light and the ancient stones that it touched. All at once, he knew.
    Joy and release bubbled through him.
    Again, he stood. He certainly had the power to find a way out of here by following their tunnels or maybe even by burrowingthrough the earth. But urgency flooded him. There was no time. By looking directly up, he could see a smudge of lesser dark far above. Tantalizing, but way too far for him to climb, and the shaft of this pit was no doubt too crumbly.
    But he could always fly.
    He sighed. Transformations were not what he did best. The only thing that worked consistently for him was a hawk—a merlin hawk. And it took a great deal of energy. But, oddly, the magic searching he had just performed had not drained him, it had energized him. Fumbling through the darkness over the dirt floor, he found his staff and tucked it into his belt. Then, closing his eyes, he pictured a hawk, pictured himself seeing the hawk from the inside, seeing the gray-brown feathers on his wings as he stretched them out.
    Merlin shuddered, then felt himself shrinking until he was standing with cold, bare bird feet on the dirt floor. Above was the sky, the freedom he so desperately wanted. With strong wing thrusts, he rose up, though he had to turn and bank awkwardly around in the constricted shaft. Steadily he spiraled upward until he burst out into the clear predawn sky. He soared free.
    A part of his mind told him he should transform back. But another part urged him to hurry. Wings were so superior to two human feet. The sun had nearly cleared the horizon. He must be back soon.
    Where? Be back where? There were so many fells and valleys where he could fly free forever. So many rocky crags to perch upon and look for prey.
    No! No, he had somewhere to go. He had knowledge that others needed.