The Book of Magic Read Free Page B

persistent. As Fincayra 's king Stangmar and Avalon 's sorcerer Kulwych both proved, these qualities make gobsken ideal allies for those who serve the spirit warlord Rhita Gawr .
    Grand Elusa
    This enormous white spider, larger than a horse, lived in the Misted Hills of Lost Fincayra . Although her appetite was great—she ate so much that even living stones trembled at her approach—her wisdom was also great. That is why she sided with young Merlin and Rhia , and against the hag Domnu , at the Great Council that began the quest of the Seven Songs . And that is also why the peoples of that world ultimately chose the Grand Elusa to guard the precious Treasures of Fincayra , which included the Flowering Harp, the sword Deepercut, the Caller of Dreams, the Orb of Fire, and six of the Seven Wise Tools. (The seventh Tool, most people believed, had been lost in the Dance of the Giants that destroyed Stangmar 's Shrouded Castle . But Merlin later discovered it.)
    Over his long life, Merlin never forgot the great white spider. But he had a different reason: It was in her lair in the Misted Hills that he first encountered the beauty of a crystal cave . Quietly, he vowed that one day he, too, would live in a cave of such natural magnificence.
    As a gift to the peoples of Avalon , the Grand Elusa wove a glistening gown of spider's silk for Elen of the Sapphire Eyes . This became the traditional gown of the High Priestess of the Society of the Whole . In time, that gown was worn by Elen's daughter, Rhiannon, as well as by Coerria . Yet no one loved its graceful design more than a young apprentice third class named Elliryanna .
    Gwri of the Golden Hair
    On the day young Merlin met Rhia in the Druma Wood of Fincayra , she led him to the rarest tree in the forest. It was a shomorra tree, whose branches grew every kind of fruit (including purple larkon fruit, which tasted like liquid sunshine). "This is my garden," she explained. Then she showed Merlin a different kind of garden, high above their heads: the garden of the stars . Rhia spoke of the wonders of the Fincayran sky—the constellations formed by the dark spaces between the stars, rather than the stars themselves; the River of Time that divided past from future; and the star known as Gwri of the Golden Hair.
    Later, in the quest of the Seven Songs , Rhia and Merlin met the bright-eyed woman who was, to their astonishment, the spirit of that very star. Gwri told them about the power of Leaping across space and time—and gave the young wizard the knowledge he needed to fulfill his dream of living backward in time. Most important, she helped Merlin understand that everything is connected to everything else—because, as she put it, "all voices join in the great and glorious song of the stars." When Gwri vanished at last, she left on Merlin's staff the symbol of a star within a circle. Thus was born the symbol for magical travel through space and time—the very symbol that Merlin's son, Krystallus , would one day choose for Avalon 's famous college of mapmakers.
    Gwynnia
    When a boulder on the bank of Fincayra 's River Unceasing began to quiver, then crack, Gwynnia began her life as a baby dragon. Out from the boulderlike egg she crawled, blinking her triangular, orange eyes that glowed as bright as molten lava. Raising one of her claws, the dragon tried to scratch the yellow bump on her forehead. But she missed and poked the soft, crinkled skin of her nose. She whimpered and shook her head, flapping her blue, bannerlike ears. But when she stopped, her right ear refused to lie flat again. Instead, it stretched out to the side like a misplaced horn. Only the gentle droop at the tip hinted that it was, in fact, an ear.
    So began the journey of Gwynnia, daughter of the ferocious dragon Valdearg . That journey almost ended moments later, with the terrible murder of her siblings, an attack that left behind only broken shells and hacked bits of dragon flesh. She might well have perished