“You wonder about that. Naturally you would. We can, well, do things with time, Viviane. It’s an invariable for you. I know that.”

  “Only not for you.”

  Vivien shook her head.

  “You put butter in the watch.” Viviane sighed. “Or else you never beat Time. When we’re through here, will you take me to the Griffin and the Mock Turtle? I always wanted to see them.”

  Viviane was cheered immensely by the small woman’s puzzled look. “I will be happy to show you griffins,” she said, “once we are through with Myrddin. Mock turtles… ? I really… Perhaps I can find some.”

  “Don’t worry about the Mock Turtle,” Viviane told her. “We’ll get to him later. Here’s my second question. Exactly why do you need me this time? The first time was because there was iron in Myrddin’s room. But now you’ve got him, don’t you?”

  Vivien nodded. “We do. This is, um, quite different. He is, you know. Older.”

  Slowly Viviane nodded. “Okay.”

  “More—ah—mature than you are, actually. And we—he objected… To continuing his studies, you know. And there’s still ever so much for him to learn.”

  “He wants to drop out.”

  “I—suppose so. It sounds… He—ah…”

  “What?” Viviane set her jaw. “Tell me, or you get no more help from me.”

  “Wants to go looking for you.” The gauzy wings drooped. “He cannot possibly find you, you see. He must learn much more before he can, ah…”

  “Can what?”

  “Search the past for people. For you. So we—it was my idea, Viviane. If you hate me for it, well, you do. We told him that if he studied, the time would come when he would see more and more of you. And—oh, I am so sorry! I never should have. And I will not tell. Not now! He must tell you himself. I… I like him, and I know you did, too. You said so. I would be… Stealing from him. I could never face myself again. Never!”

  “If I go with you, he’ll tell me?”

  Mutely, the small woman nodded.

  “You’ll bring me back here after? Soon?”

  “Yes! I promise!”

  Together, they walked into the wood.

  Things changed. There is no other way to say it. The trees Viviane had known all her life thinned out, and soon were no more. Strange new trees replaced them, kind trees for the most part, but secretive. The sky was a shade darker, the sun larger but not quite so bright. The air—motionless, windless air that seemed to await something new and strange—held a delicious chill. “Is this fairyland?” she asked.

  At once the small woman shot ahead, turned long enough for a brief smile, and vanished among the trees.

  A man’s voice shouted, “Viviane?”

  “I’m here,” she said, and was at once assailed by doubts. Was she? Really? “Are you calling me?”

  He ran lightly and silently, but not so silently that she caught no whisper of his coming. Then he was there, dark, hawk-nosed, and scarcely taller than she was. He dropped to his knees before her. “Oh, my lady! My dear, dearest, beloved lady of the lake. How I’ve longed for this moment!”

  She crouched, bringing her face to the level of his bowed one. “You… They can do things with time. She said that. Are you Myrddin?”

  He nodded. Slowly, gently, he took her hand between soft, long-fingered, brown hands that might have been a pianist’s. “I am. I’m Myrddin, my lady, your lover and your slave. Your slave no matter what may befall, and no matter what you or I may do or say.”

  “I don’t want to have a slave, Myrddin.” Would he be angry? “I want a friend. A good and faithful friend.”

  He looked up and smiled, perfect white teeth flashing. “Your slave and your friend, my lady. Faithful always.”

  Viviane reached toward him, and he toward her, and without her willing it in the least—or not willing it, either—they were in each other’s arms.

  They kissed, and kissed again, and though neither knew much about it, each kiss was sweeter than the last.

  Until at length they sat side by side, she with her sun-brown arm about his waist and her head on his shoulder. He with a more muscular arm around her shoulders and his cheek brushing her hair.

  “They promised I would see you again someday,” he told her. “If I learned everything. If I studied till I passed every test, I’d see you again.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  “I came to doubt them. Gwelliant I caught and shook till she greatly feared me. Show her to me, I said. Show her to me once, and I’ll believe you.”

  Viviane lifted her head from his shoulder until she could see his face.

  It was the face of one who is angry in a dream. “She said she would, and left. Soon she returned. You were coming, and your name was Viviane.”

  “It is,” Viviane whispered.

  “A lake arose from my floor. You must remember that. The shimmering water rose, and soon you rose from the water.” He sighed. “To me you will always be the lady of the lake.”

  “I saw you on your bed,” she told him, “a little brown hawk, too young to fly. You’re bigger now, but a brown hawk just the same. You’ll always be that, my brown hawk, small but fierce.”

  He chuckled, then grew serious. “Even when my beard is white, Viviane?”

  “Yes. Even when your beard’s white. Even when we’re both old.”

  “You don’t know. I see you don’t. It’s when you’re to be mine. When my beard is white.”

  “Really?” She stared at him. “Is that what they told you?”

  He shook his head. “It’s what I found out for myself, and it’s true. One of the things I’ve learned is to look with clear eyes on what’s past and what’s to come. I’ve combed the years for a time when we’ll be together, not for hours but for a time so long that a tree might grow from a cutting. Far in the past, that time existed. When it begins my beard will be white.”

  For seconds that seemed long, Viviane tried to grasp what he had told her—to truly understand and accept it; but even when she knew she had to speak, she still could believe it true. Haltingly, only because she knew she must say something, she said, “You’re going to live a very long time. That’s what it sounds like.”

  “Yes!” His arm hugged her, the hard, firm grip of a man who clings to something precious. “But I haven’t told you everything. The rest isn’t the crowning part. The crowning part is that once we’ve saved the future world, we’ll be together for many, many years. For decades, it may be.”

  They kissed again.

  “You should know this, too, Viviane. Once you and I are together at last, I’ll grow younger as the years creep by. Younger and younger, till at last we’re the same age.”

  “Really? You didn’t just dream it?”

  “No,” he said, “but if I had, it would yet be true. My dreams are no longer the idle fancies of a night. They haven’t been for a long while. I’ll grow younger, and you older. At last we’ll meet. After that, I’ll grow younger still. It’s hard to speak of this.”

  “Then don’t,” she said. “Let’s be happy now. I am.”

  “So am I. But you must know. When I’m a child again, you’re to return me to my mother. It will be arranged by them—by Gwelliant and the rest. My mother will never know I’ve been away. I’ll grow up then, like any other child. And you’ll call out to me once more.”

  Somehow, Viviane felt sure it was the truth. “Yes, I know I will.”

  He shook himself, shivering as if chilled. “We’ll win in the end. That’s what I’ve seen, and it’s what matters. In this too-short day, we have till moonrise. Let’s make the most of it.”

  · · · ·

  This was not the stand of pine and oak that Daisy had called a drawing-in wood. Nor was it the strange expectant forest in which she had been so happy. Its towering oaks were familiar, but older than any she had ever seen. And though their upper leaves were bathed in sunshine, the black loam she trod lay in a twilight no sunshine could reach.

  “Anywhere in here,” the small woman told her. “You may build it anywhere you like. I am no builder myself—”

  “Neither am I,” Viviane said.

  The small woman ignored her. “But if I were doing it, I would try to build it close to the building materials.” The gauzy wings fluttered nervously. “I mean, I could not fly carrying an armload of sticks, and I would try to save steps.”

  “I don’t see any sticks.”

  “There must be some around somewhere, you know. All these trees? There are bound to be sticks. Just build it, and now I have to go.”

  “Wait!” Viviane reached for her but missed.

  “It need not be big.” Vivien rose into the air and out of reach. “Have I said that? I feel sure I have.” She vanished among the leaves, her voice floating back: “Two rooms. One big room.” Very faintly: “You know.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Viviane said to no one and nothing. Then louder and with increased feeling, “Ohmygosh!”

  A raven dropped from the top of one of the surrounding trees to land with a considerable flapping upon a nearby branch. “You ring for me, honey?”

  Viviane took a deep breath and found she was smiling—a wan smile, or at least it felt wan. “I,” she said fervently, “am very, very glad to see you, Nevermore.”

  “You got a bit of company there.” Nevermore cocked his head, regarding her through one bright eye. “You need a nest?”

  “A little house,” Viviane explained. “A shack, a shed, a hut.”

  “Same thing.”

  “The idea is to make this kid Arthur think Myrddin’s been living there. Vivien—the other one, the fairy—is going to bring furniture and stuff. My job’s to build the house. The nest? Only I don’t have anything to work with, and I wouldn’t know how if I did.”

  “Got it.” Nevermore spread his wings. “Right up my alley.”

  “You mean you’ll help?” It seemed too good to be true.

  “I mean I’m gonna take care of it, honey. First we got to do the Blessin’ of the Flock. Stay right there.”

  Viviane did, watching the black bird as he threaded the moss-robed trees clanging like an iron bell, his deep and solemn croak echoing through the forest.

  When he was out of sight and sound, and the forest hushed and hopeless once more, she sat down on a protruding root, put her head in her hands, and thought about home. About meals in her mother’s bright kitchen. About lying on the rug in her room and doing homework to music. About cleaning Daisy’s stall and bringing Daisy an apple. Her homework had been hard sometimes, and cleaning the stall was hard work always; but at that moment she would gladly have given her new saddle just to be home, with the stall dirty and a theme due in—

  A little bird with a bright red breast had flown to the tree nearest her and perched on a twig to study her. It was followed almost at once, with a great deal of noise and commotion, by a flock of swans. These landed (badly) on the forest floor all around her. A pair of partridges came next, and after them a constant whir of wings and far too many birds to count.

  The last to arrive was a great golden eagle. Its weight bent a limb just above her as it spread its wings like a canopy over her head.

  “When I say down,” Nevermore mumbled, “you kneel an’ spread your wings like this. Got it?”

  Viviane managed to nod.

  “Receive now,” he intoned, “the Blessin’ of the Flock.” At the final word, his voice became an urgent whisper: “Down!”

  Viviane dropped to her knees and bowed her head, and spread her arms wide. The wings of every bird save the eagle were pointed toward her. “Receive the Blessing of the Flock!” was pronounced in a thousand ways by birds of a thousand kinds. Ravens croaked it. Crows cawed it. Warblers warbled it, and ducks quacked it. The swans—mute swans all—merely mouthed it, but gray geese from Iceland hissed it. It should have been a cacophony, and in a way it was. Yet there was a beauty there, the odd, hard beauty of wild things that need not be pretty to please nature (though they often are).

  It was followed by a thunder of wings as every bird except Nevermore flew away.

  “Now what?” Viviane rose, dusting her knees.

  “Now you get your nest, honey.” Nevermore preened himself. “We’re good at it.”

  “What’ll I owe you?” Once more, Viviane pulled the change from her pockets.

  “Nothin’. You ain’t used up your retainer yet, see?”

  The first whirring of wings came even as he spoke. Eight or ten sparrows had returned, busy and quarreling, with tiny twigs and wisps of straw. After that, the house seemed to grow faster than any bird could fly. Now and then its walls appearing through a seething mass of beaks, claws, and feathers.

  “It ain’t bad,” Nevermore opined, as a patient willow-wren added its finishing touch to the roof. “I coulda done better, only it woulda taken me a lot longer, see? Let’s go in an’ have a gander.”

  The door, a door of woven sticks, was standing open. Viviane entered and found she was treading on a carpet of hay, straw, down, and feathers. There were three rooms, each larger than she had expected, each accessible by an arch rather too small. Two boasted little round windows.

  “Three openin’s, get it?” Nevermore flapped up to land upon Viviane’s shoulder. “Three openin’s an’ three rooms. Most of us can’t count higher than that. Me, I can get into the twenties, only it’s confusin’ after that, so I just say a lot. Most times that does it. Three or twenty-three, they done the best they could. Like it?”

  Slowly, Viviane nodded. “It really does look like a wizard might live here, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure. Like, he might get us to build it for him. Save him some work.”

  She nodded again. “Right. You’re having a little fun with me, aren’t you?”

  “Me? No way!” Nevermore actually sounded sincere.

  “You’re allowed to have a little fun after what you’ve just done, so enjoy yourself. I don’t think you could do anything that would make me mad after this.”

  “Got it, honey. Got it, an’ same here. You can jerk my chain, just don’t make me fall off my perch.”

  “In that case, I’ve got a question,” Viviane said. “This isn’t a fun question. It’s perfectly serious. When all the birds came, I saw two brown hawks, kind of small and plain, but solid-looking.”

  “Sure. You want their names? I’ll try to find out for you.”

  Viviane shook her head. “I just want to know what kind of hawks they were. Like Cooper’s hawk or a red-tailed hawk? I know they weren’t either of those, but they remind me of Myrddin, so I’d like to know what they are.”

  “Pigeon hawks,” Nevermore told her. “Only say merlins when you talk to them. It’s politer.”

  Suddenly the whole house was full of gauzy-winged people carrying stools or stepstools, shelves or seashells, tables, tablets, or trinkets, old books or bold banners or a hundred other things, each more miscellaneous than the last. “How do you like it so far?” Vivien asked. She was holding a big glass retort filled with green liquid that bubbled of itself.

  “I like the house a lot,” Viviane said, “and I hope you do to. But these… This clutter—my gosh!”

  “The wooden snake?” Vivien positively grinned. “That is a bedpost. There are four, all different.”

  Nevermore’s soft croak was almost soothing. “For the other four kinds, most likely. Birds, snakes, fish, and cats. Number five would be you, only he’ll sleep in there, see? So that rounds out the five.”

  “It’s a mess, just the same.”

  A cracked voice said, “A place for everything, and everything out of place is my rule, my dearest, dearest darling.” The speaker was old and bent, his long gray beard nearly white. Advancing with the help of a contorted staff, he took her hand, holding it gently between his. “My lady of the lake,” he whispered.

  Viviane took a deep breath. “They told me you’d be old, so I expected that. But your eyes haven’t changed. They haven’t changed at all.”

  They embraced. No doubt there was a flurry of wings as Nevermore, Vivien, and her gauzy-winged friends departed; but Viviane did not hear it—or indeed, hear anything save his sighs and the pounding of her heart. He kissed her, and one small, hot tear (only one) coursed down her cheek. “Oh, Merlin…” It was less than a whisper. “Oh, my own, my darling Merlin…”

  When they separated at last, he said, “Sit down. Sit down, please, precious lady. Will you not? To make me happy? For as long as you stand, I shall think you about to desert me.”

  She did, choosing a small chair curiously carved.

  “You’re stricken, dear ageless lady of the lake, to see me as I am, a man of many years. I could grow young again before your eyes, but the transformation would be ultimately unreal, and—alas—but temporary. To make it real is past any power of mine. Past the powers of the kind lady I name Gwelliant, as well. And in all truth, lady, her powers are less than mine.”

  Viviane took a deep breath, drawing in a rich and nourishing atmosphere spiced by the forest and untainted by smoke. “Are you saying you can really, I mean really and truly, do magic with all this junk? I don’t believe it!”

  Merlin smiled, showing one broken tooth and several discolored ones. “That I am not, dearest lady. My powers are in me. You wish me dentures, and I know it. Watch.”

  He passed his hand across his mouth and smiled again. White teeth, nearly perfect, gleamed in his dark face. “I have two sets, you see, my lady. Not two sets of false teeth, as you think, but two of true teeth. These are my own, as the others were. And I may display either, as I choose. I have other parts as well, doubled and tripled in a few cases. I cannot display them for you because they are within me, but with them I may do many things. All this…” A wave of his hand took in the books, the strange instruments of science, and even the stuffed crocodile hung from his ceiling. “Is but stage dressing.”

  Tapping his forehead with a long forefinger, he added, “The magic’s here. As it always is. Now then. Do you wish to see me change my shape? Or do you wish to change yours, for an hour? We’ve a bit of time, Gwelliant tells me, ere Arthur comes.”