"Shhhh," GB said. "Pay attention, watch."

For a long while nothing changed. Joby just felt GB's feather-light presence sifting through his mind like a barber's fingers running through his hair. It was kind of relaxing, really. "Nothing's happening," he said at last.

"You always use such tiny brushes of power," GB replied. "I can't find anything big enough to make you see it."

"It feels kind of neat though." Joby smiled. "God, this is weird."

"Keep quiet," GB urged, then uttered a soft exclamation and said, "There!" Joby felt a sudden plunging sensation, as if he'd lost his balance. His hands clamped down involuntarily on the tabletop beneath GB's. "Relax," GB said calmly. "Can you see it? Man! How could anybody miss a thing like that?"

As GB spoke, Joby had already begun to slip into a dream of astonishing vividness, both frightening and fascinating-not just images but sound and touch-all his senses. Soon GB's voice was all that proved he was still in his classroom.

"Where is this?" GB asked.

"It's the lake!" Joby said, recognizing his surroundings in amazement. "I remember this! This was our swimming hole."

As Joby spoke, the experience ceased to feel like mere memory at all. The rising sun crested trees across the lake to spill across the rock ledge where he sat naked and dripping in the early sun, covered in undulating reflections of sunlight, and feeling suddenly as wild, as still, and as beautiful as everything around him. Lost in light and warmth, he gazed out across the dazzling water, and became aware of movement all around him in the silence.

Tiny flies danced on the lake's surface. Bees and dragonflies darted or hovered all along the shore. Ants searched rocks and pebbles for morsels to bring back to their queen. Thistle seeds and iridescent strands of gossamer drifted through the air, backlit with rainbow fire by the rising sun, until it seemed the entire world was one slow, swirling dance of glinting, golden illumination. It was the strangest feeling, yet familiar in some nameless way as well. A small wasp landed on Joby's arm, carrying the rainbow in its wings, but he felt no fear of being stung, only the tickling touch of kin. A bottle fly, also covered in rainbows, landed on his knee; one more intimate connection with the moving, luminous scheme of life that stretched away across the lake into the forest beyond, and on out of sight. With a surreal surge of wholeness and well being, Joby wondered how he'd stumbled into this sudden fairyland, and what might happen if he tried reaching farther into- "Whaaaaaaawhoooo!"

The shout and several pounding steps behind him were all the warning he received before Jupiter's body came hurtling past him to land like a depth charge in the lake, drenching Joby and his perch with spray, and shattering the spell.

"Jupiter!" Joby shouted, filled with delight to see the boy alive.

"Were you blind?" came GB's voice.

The dream dissolved in shards of light and sound as Joby's eyes flew open, swimming in unshed tears.

"How could you feel all that and not notice?" GB laughed, seeming oblivious to Joby's sudden pang of grief at having had and lost his young friend yet again.

"Feel what?" Joby asked, pulling himself forcefully back into the present.

"That was it, man!" GB said incredulously. "What'd you think, your average tourist sees the whole world edged in fire? You could've flown across that lake and taken half the water with you filled with that much power!" GB shook his head and laughed again. "No gifts, huh?"

Joby was astonished. "You mean that feeling was-"

"The power we all tap into." GB nodded. "I anchored that memory in your conscious mind before I pulled out, so it should come back pretty easy when you want it. Now all you have to do is learn to find that feeling in yourself again, then aim it with your will, and things will start to happen, dude."

"Like what?" Joby said, still filled with disbelief.

"Let's find out." GB grinned. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a book of matches, tore one loose, and laid it on the table between them. "Here's what you do," he said. "Try to fill up with the memory of that morning-your whole body, not just your head. Then focus that feeling on what you want the match to do until it does."

"That's all?" Joby said. "But I still don't know what I'm doing."

"There's nothin' to know," GB insisted patiently. "Once you've learned to tap in, you don't have to know how it works any more than you know how you're makin' your lungs fill up or your legs move. You just want 'em to, and they do. Tell 'em not to and they don't. For us, the power's built in like that too."

Doubting it could really be so easy, Joby concentrated on the match and reached for the strange ecstasy GB had helped him recall a moment earlier, amazed at how effortlessly the seductive feeling returned now. At first, he imagined the match sprouting wings and fluttering off like a butterfly, but that seemed too hard to hope for on a first try, so he decided just to make it light, since that's what matches did anyway.

Staring at the match, the memory of "power" grew even fiercer within him, becoming a kind of pressure in his face as the image of the match aflame grew more vivid in his mind. With a smile, Joby started to believe it might actually happen, and- The match went up all at once-not just its tip, but the entire length of it! Joby lurched back in surprise, then lunged forward to beat it out with his cupped palm. He'd been so sure nothing would happen that he'd never worried about scorching the tabletop.

"Kind of a boring choice," GB grinned, "but not bad for a beginner."

Joby gaped at him in stunned disbelief.

"Hey, that wasn't me," GB said with mild amusement. "You're in, man."

"What do I do now?" Joby asked, still in a daze.

"Whatever you want." GB shrugged happily. "Practice, I guess. I can help you if you want, but we'll have to do it someplace private, so people don't start askin' questions. In fact," GB said, looking troubled again, "maybe you better wait awhile before you show people, or they'll think it was awful sudden and I'll get discovered."

"All right," Joby said, still too overwhelmed to think straight. "We can meet in my room at the inn or somewhere in the woods." He shook his head in wonder. He'd done magic! Real magic! Snap! Just like that, his whole world had changed again.

Agnes stood inside one of Taubolt's newest boutiques, discreetly concealed behind reflections in the store's large plate-glass window, and watched Joby Peterson being fawned over by a crowd of hooligans up the street. Since getting Nacho Carlson and that vagrant boy off the hook, he'd become the darling of delinquents everywhere.

Community service, Agnes thought with contempt. What impression was that likely to make on anyone? No one on her side of the issue had even been informed of the underhanded coup where that decision had been made. She'd clearly placed far too much trust in Donaldson-not a mistake she'd make again.

Turning away in disgust, she walked out of the store in a huff just as Peterson's band of thieves produced a burst of braying laughter at some doubtless filthy joke. The sound brought back her first encounter with him in the Heron's Bowl all those years before. The proof of his poor character had been plain even then. What was such a perverse young man doing teaching school? She'd be looking into that immediately.

It all seemed very curious, Merlin thought as he stood outside his grandson's room waiting for Joby to answer his knock. Joby had sent him a general delivery letter, of all things, saying he had something urgent to discuss. Admittedly, it was a lengthy hike to Merlin's house up on Avalon Ridge, and, yes, he had been gone a lot, what with all the work involved in defending Taubolt, and it was true that "Solomon" did not have a phone. Still, a letter by post? Joby was lucky it had come to Merlin's attention at all. Why had he not just left a message with anyone on the Council? And why was he not answering now? Mrs. Lindsay had seemed quite sure about seeing Joby come in. Merlin knocked again, suppressing a distasteful hybrid of irritation and concern.

"Come in," Joby called, sounding muffled and unwell somehow.

"Joby?" Merlin called back. "It's Solomon. I can come back if you're sleeping?"

Receiving no answer at all, Merlin's concern increased. Finding the door unlocked, he opened it and peered inside. No one was there. Early evening light poured through the half-open window onto Joby's unmade bed. A chilly breeze ruffled class assignments stacked neatly on Joby's desk. That was all. Yet Merlin had heard someone call to him quite clearly. Seeing Joby's partly opened closet door, Merlin went with growing discomfort to see if Joby were inside it for some reason. When he pulled the door open, however, what he found left him gaping in disbelief.

Leaning into Joby's modest wardrobe was a woman Merlin hadn't seen in centuries, dressed precisely as he'd seen her last, just before she had betrayed him.

"Nimue!" he exclaimed, aghast.

"You remember! After all this time." She grinned coquettishly. "I'm flattered."

Behind him, the merest breath of air and a soft click as Joby's room door closed. Merlin whirled, still dazed with disbelief, to find an adolescent boy of astonishing beauty smiling slyly from across the room. His fair hair was shot with miser's gold, his chiseled features rife with malice, his blue eyes, icy. Merlin knew him instantly, for Hell's master made no effort to shield himself from Merlin's probing mind. "Lucifer!" Merlin gasped.

"Very good." The fair boy smiled. "Not one of your celebrated Council members has managed to see through my disguise at all. But then, I didn't want them to. If you don't mind, however, I prefer GB at present." The boy moved gracefully to place himself between Merlin and the door, as if that mattered now. "Kallaystra, dear. Come say hello to the man who's caused us all this trouble," GB said, waving vaguely at his own body.

"We've met. Several times," she said, stepping out of Joby's closet to stand behind Merlin and run her hands seductively across his shoulders and down one arm. "I wore this," she gestured like a Vegas showgirl-not just at her medieval attire, but at her face and form as well-"in honor of the last one."

Merlin barely managed not to groan. One good forgery of Joby's signature was all it had taken to breach his defenses. How could he have been so stupid? More to the point, in how many dreadful ways would he and who knew how many others pay for it now?

"It's amazing that I didn't guess your identity earlier," said Lucifer. "Able to hide from celestial eyes and fend off the wrath of demons. Who else but that troublesome half-breed, Merlin? Or should I say Solomon? No, wait, it's Mary too, isn't it? So nice to have you sorted out at last, though I confess I'd no idea you were still around."

"I've lived quietly," Merlin said, struggling to maintain his composure. Against Lucifer himself, he'd have stood no chance at combat and little of escape. Against both of them, without more preparation, he stood no chance at all.

The too-pretty boy sidled closer, his every gesture filled with subtle threat. "So what is your interest in this matter, Merlin? I'd think a man of your distinction would have bigger fish to fry than the fate of one obscure young man in a tiny town like Taubolt."

"You have the power to destroy me," Merlin said, ignoring the question. "But I will make you pay for it. I can make you pay."

"Destroy you?" said the boy. "I've no such intention, old man. Not yet. I want you alive to watch as I destroy your grandson. That's who we're talking about, isn't it? The grandfather from Taubolt who hasn't any past. The dead old man who gave Joby his beloved book of fairy tales. What a lot of roles you have performed in this affair. It's practically a one-man play, only you're not the one man it's supposed to be about." The boy finally let his mocking smile slip. "You've been no end of trouble, if you want to know the truth, and last time I checked, you were still serving Heaven. Does that place you squarely next to Gabriel on the reservations list for my little summer camp? I think it does," he growled. "And for what? I am bound to win at this point. Even a bleeding heart like the Creator's can justify only so much illegal interference before being forced to default. You can't imagine how much I appreciate your help with that. I'm sure the whole world will want to thank you-if there's time."

"The Creator would never have entered into any wager you were bound to win," Merlin said defiantly.

"The Creator's miscalculations are piling up enormously, if you haven't noticed," Lucifer countered. "I mean, if you're going to trot Arthur out again, why on earth would you send Mordred too? It's that kind of cockiness that's lost Him this whole contest."

"Arthur?" Merlin asked, confused. "Mordred? What are you talking about?"

After gazing at him in bemusement, Lucifer burst into delighted laughter, joined by Kallaystra. "You really don't know, do you! Destiny's own device, utterly unwitting! Oh, that's rich!"

"What are you two cackling about?" Merlin asked, annoyed to be caught so transparently off guard. "What's Arthur got to do with this?"

"Spirited away to sleep until the world has need of him again," Kallaystra murmured in his ear. "Isn't that how the story goes?"

Lucifer suffered another bout of giggling, then said, "That you should be the one to bring him back into the world this way is rich enough, but not even to know, now that is entertaining. Really," he chortled, "every time I find myself convinced He hasn't any sense of humor, He surprises me with something like this!"

It took another moment for Merlin to decipher their ravings. Then it was all he could do to keep his legs beneath him. His grandson . . . was . . . Merlin nearly moaned aloud to think that his first concession to love since Nimue should have plunged that poor boy's soul a second time into such ordeal. "You lie," he insisted palely. "And Mordred was an incest. Joby has no sisters. Not even any cousins."

"A bastard son is a bastard son," the boy said sardonically. "The niceties are unimportant, surely. Either way, your great-grandson is going to deliver you grandson to me again." He gave Merlin a chiding smile. "Or were you even unaware that Hawk was Joby's child? My goodness, what a lot of things you've overlooked."

"You can't possibly know all this," said Merlin. "You're speculating."

"You'd be amazed at what I know," the boy said icily. "Our dear, trusting Joby has let me riffle freely through his mind. I know more about him now than he does himself and about everyone he's met here, everything he's done, everywhere he's been. That little shard of Eden you've all been hiding up north will make a splendid bonfire."

"You'll have to get through Michael first," said Merlin. "He will be nowhere near as easy to deceive as I was."

"But, my dear Merlin, I thought we had been over this," said the boy. "Michael is required, just as you were, to refrain from interfering. While I concede that he's a fiercer foe, he's also got a reputation for obedience that, I must say, puts yours to shame."

"The Garden has nothing to do with Joby!" Merlin spat. "Michael's not a fool!" As I am, Merlin thought bleakly.

"But it will have everything to do with Joby when he goes up to help them save it." Lucifer smirked. "Did I forget to mention that I'm teaching Joby magic now? In fact, I'm supposed to meet him for a lesson right here in several minutes. I'll be right beside him when he finds your body. How poignant. He's quite skillful actually. When I'm doing all his tricks, at least. What a good thing someone's kept him ignorant of what it's really like to use such power, or I doubt he'd have fallen for my useful substitutions."

Merlin could no longer help closing his eyes and looking down in shame. Michael had been right all along. His meddling had brought them all to this. Given Kallaystra's choice of costume, he thought he knew what they intended. They were going to make him fail Arthur again, and in exactly the same way. They would think it deliciously cruel to repeat every detail as perfectly as possible.

"No need to look so sad," Lucifer assured him. "I'll be here to take on Joby's care and feeding while you're gone. Just because I'm administering his wounds doesn't mean I'd let him suffer them alone. I am compassionate that way. In fact, I'm such a softy that, though I'm now intimately aware of nearly every child of dawn in this village, I'm not going to destroy any of them. They're Joby's people after all. Why not let him do it?"

"Joby comes," Kallaystra said at Merlin's shoulder. "He's just outside the inn."

"Alas, it's showtime," sighed the wickedly lovely boy. "And, while I did promise you could watch, I cannot have you meddling anymore."

In the instant left him, Merlin mashed his own tongue between his teeth hard enough to draw blood, and spat on the floor at the fallen angel's feet. Praying that Lucifer would simply take it for a final gesture of contempt, he snarled, "I defy you to the-"

"Last," Lucifer finished as Merlin's body went rigid and collapsed. "You've made that stupidly clear several times now." Lucifer and Kallaystra came to gaze down at Merlin's frozen but quite conscious form. "Not to worry," drawled the boy. "I'll make certain they notice you're not dead. I suspect they'll take you to that lovely hospital in Santa Rosa where poor Lance breathed his last-again. They've lots of specialists in stroke and coma there. Your body will receive the best of care, and, of course, I wouldn't dream of leaving your poor, imprisoned mind without a ringside seat here on the home front." Merlin felt his conscious self yanked rudely from his body. "Crystal caves are so passe." The boy grimaced in distaste. "Let's try something more in vogue."

Seconds later, Merlin found himself standing in a vast, deserted shopping mall. Irritating muzak wafted toward him from somewhere high above, and every plate-glass window for as far as he could see held bank upon bank of television screens. It seemed that all the stores sold only televisions here, none of which showed anything but Taubolt. It was all far bleaker than the crystal cave had ever been.

But Lucifer had goofed again; for Merlin could still feel the tiny thread that tugged between his spirit here and that tiny spot of blood he'd left on Joby's floor. It would take quite a while to follow that gossamer trail back to consciousness through all the labyrinthine knots that separated Merlin from the bit of himself that Lucifer's spell had missed, but there was nothing to distract him from the task, and he set his mind to it immediately, hoping Joby wouldn't pick this moment to wash his floors.

31.

( Making Mordred ) "Six months?" Kallaystra shrieked. "It would be impossible in twice the time!"

"Nonetheless, those are his instructions." Basquel shrugged, his satisfaction so poorly concealed that Kallaystra longed to make cinders of him then and there. "He holds you responsible, I fear, for having overlooked the boy's true paternity for so many years."

"Malcephalon was still in charge then!" Kallaystra protested.

"Ah, but he's not here to blame now, is he." Basquel smiled.

"Joby and the girl were estranged!" Kallaystra insisted angrily. "She was three thousand miles away, and out of his life forever, we assumed. What reason was there to waste resources watching her and that pathetic alcoholic when Joby was the import-"

"What reason?" Basquel interrupted, sounding scandalized. "This was Guinevere, Kallaystra! The love of Joby's life! Of both his lives!"

"Lucifer didn't say that to us then!" she snapped, forgetting to contain herself.

"Surely you are not blaming our master," Basquel said, hopeful.

"Of course not," she said through gritted teeth. "I mean only that we did and do exactly as we're told to."

"Ah. Well, that's wise," Basquel said. "And I'd find some way to do exactly as you're told this time too. You know how touchy he's been since deciding to don flesh like all the rest of us," Basquel pretended to commiserate. "The fact that now, with Merlin gone, his role as GB leaves him the only one still forced to bear that indignity has not helped his patience either."

Daring to say no more in front of Lucifer's latest tool, Kallaystra simply glared at Basquel, wondering if he were really so stupid that he could stand there grinning at her and not see what happened to their master's favorites as soon as something made him angry. Having ridden her into the ground, he now clearly meant to tack his own poor planning to her back and drive her off into the wilderness like a sacrificial goat. It would serve Basquel right to get her canned, and end up tied to this post in her place.

"Even if I succeed," Kallaystra fumed, "does he think no one will notice such a drastic transformation and grow suspicious of the little changeling in their midst?"

"I don't think he cares about suspicion now. Even Joby knows we're here. All our master cares is that the boy is rendered pliable in time. Those around him will likely chalk it up to the effect of grief and trauma anyway. Just watch him like a hawk, as they say, and do that voodoo that you do so well." Basquel grinned in smug amusement.

"If I whisper in his ear night and day without ceasing, I will be lucky to achieve half of what our master asks," she growled. Lucifer was clearly setting her up to fail despite all she'd done to get them here. That he had sent a buffoon like Basquel to deliver these instructions was ample proof of his displeasure. But could he really be so stupid as to discard the sharpest tool left in his shed just to satisfy this latest fit of pique?

"Such strategic matters require direct communication," Kallaystra said, turning her back on Basquel to go take her life into her hands. "I must speak with him myself."

"Good luck," Basquel said cheerfully. "I shall miss you when you're gone."

Yes, you will, you rotund turd, she thought. Be careful what you wish for.

Donaldson hung up the telephone in a state of delirious shock. After reading Mansfield's letter, he had called immediately to make sure it wasn't some kind of hoax. Mansfield had hardly been effusive, rudely warning Donaldson that if he screwed up this time it would be the end of him entirely. But it was true! Donaldson was being promoted to deputy sheriff, and four officers were to be transferred to Taubolt under his command! His substation was even being enlarged to contain a jail! It made Donaldson's head spin!

If anything, he'd been expecting to be replaced at any moment since pissing Hamilton off with his concessions to Joby Peterson in December. That had been a big mistake. As intimidating as Peterson's old-school crew had seemed, it had not taken Donaldson long to figure out who was actually going to call up Mansfield and make trouble. Hamilton had been on his butt like a boil ever since.

Far worse, the town's periodic arsons, muggings, and vandalisms hadn't fallen off at all, yet he'd apprehended not a single likely suspect yet. Whoever was behind these crimes was unbelievably slick. Never any witness descriptions of the perp. Never a shred of physical evidence-except the crime itself. It was beginning to seem downright unnatural. Had detectives sent out from the county seat not been as stumped as Donaldson himself, he was sure his ass would have been grass months earlier. Nonetheless, it seemed that somehow he had not just survived, but thrived!

He got up to do a little two-step around his chair, still clutching Mansfield's letter, which, of course, had made the price tag for this miraculous boon quite clear. Donaldson was expected to restore complete tranquillity to Taubolt's crime-ridden streets and do it quickly-or there'd be hell to pay. But Donaldson was hardly worried. With four officers in a town this size, who'd get away with anything? The law was going to have some teeth around here now, baby!

His private celebration was still just warming up when he heard someone enter the substation's outer office. He went out to be of service feeling so good that he even managed not to lose his smile when he saw that it was Agnes Hamilton.

"What can I do for you this fine day, Ms. Hamilton?" he asked.