Mothering

The tomb of King Arthur still had an air of majesty about it, even though the legendary monarch left his resting place over two years ago. Ninane had known of the place for centuries, but never did go and visit it. She had shed no tears for him ever since he killed her first love Mordred, but she smiled at the fact that at least everything equaled out. The Avalon-born may well have left the burial site untouched for yet another millenium had it not been for her son’s death. She shook her head in frustration that The Magus had to pick this spot to die out of all the other possible resting places in the world.

She approached the burial mound’s cast iron doors. Getting through the newly-closed portal would prove to be a challenge, they were probably resealed by her father. Ninane wasn’t about to let them stop her from getting to her son. She concentrated on the spell and her eyes began to glow blue with mystical energy.

As soon as the last syllable escaped from her lips, the huge doors of the gravesite began to shudder, and silently crumbled into a pile dirty crimson that drifted away in the strong, desolate wind. Ninane readjusted her robe and entered.

The Fey scanned the impressive interior of the British King’s tomb, from the elegant tapestries to the gleaming suit of armor he left behind, and let out a harried sigh. "He always was a bit gaudy" she commented. "Luthyran should have had more taste."

Ninane thought of Camelot, and how much it could have been if her beloved Mordred or at least *somebody* else ran the kingdom. But Arthur Pendragon was the rightful king, and she couldn’t deny or change that fact in any way. "It was a shame that he only made the place look pretty" Ninane muttered to herself as she finished her long walk to the resting slab where her son now lay.

Ninane stood over the prone form of Luthyran and a tear, pure as liquid crystal, fell to his brow. She had forgotten how long ago she had seen him, way back when he and Princess Katherine took the gargoyle eggs from Castle Wyvern and made the journey to Avalon. Although her love for him was strong, just like any between a normal parent and child, she couldn’t bring herself to tell the Magus the truth. In fact, the only form she used when visiting Castle Avalon was that of a bluebird. Every now and then she would perch on the window and sing for her son, but would take flight whenever he approached her.

"It has been too long" Ninane said sadly as she knelt beside the cold body and began to work on the incantation that would bring him back to life.

The glow from the phosphorescent moss bathed Ninane in an unearthly light, making her already pale skin appear pure and snowy. She closed her eyes and searched the inner reaches of her mind for the magical symbols that would revive her son. It had been nearly two and a half centuries since the Fey attempted a spell of this magnitude,and she never used such an incantation on anyone she cherished and loved. To do so would run the risk of irrevocably destroying them, and insure that her pain would be eternal and unbearable. The images slid into place, and she saw them clearly in her mind’s eye. Ninane’s eyelids shot open, revealing glowing electric blue orbs...

As the verbal interpretation of the spell was spoken, Ninane’s body glowed with the same electrical blue energy as her eyes. She rose up into the air, and miniature lightning bolts of all colors danced about her body in a lattice of primal energy. With all of her expertise, the Fey molded the flitting sparks into a single large bolt of electrical fury, which struck the Magus directly in the heart.

Ninane fell to the floor of the burial mound in a heap, her breathing labored. However, she let out a sigh of joy and relief when she heard her son coughing and taking in air on his own.

The Magus shuddered and slowly opened his eyes, peering at the vaulted ceiling of King Arthur’s Tomb. He remembered everything that had happened before he came to rest here; the eggs, Katherine, Goliath, Elisa Maza, the battle with the Archmage, and lastly, the revival of Arthur Pendragon. He marveled at the fact that he was once again alive, and even bit his tongue and pinched himself to make himself believe it. With great effort the Magus sat up from the stone slab and heard the song of a bluebird, a familiar tune that he couldn’t place.

Perched on the shining suit of armor was a cardinal with glowing blue eyes. The aged mage nearly fell from his seat when the avian addressed him.

"It is good to see you awake, my son" Ninane said as she finally revealed her true form to her child.

"Who are you?!?" were the only three words The Magus could blurt out. "My mother died from a plague" he stated while glaring at the lithe figure standing before him. Ninane could understand her son’s disorientation and confusion. After all, waking up after a year or so of death can be straining on the mind. Considering that she also faked her own death to kill the suspicions that Luthyran was a half-breed, the Fey could blame him even less.

"Luthyran, it’s me," Ninane said in a very calm, mother-like tone. "I had to pretend to pass away to ensure that you would be taken for a human being."

Of course the excuse meant nothing to The Magus, who flew into a rage.

Over the next four straight hours the mother and her son argued about the proper way to raise a child, neither of them backing down from their points.

"There were times when I could have USED you, Ninane!" shouted Luthyran, but was cut off by the Fey.

"I’m your MOTHER! You shall treat me with the respect that children should show their parents!"

The Magus stomped about, gesturing wildly and shouting things at Ninane that no son should ever say to a parent. "I was getting along just fine without you!" Luthyran screamed. "Just go away, and the rest of my days shall be peaceful!"

The mother’s eyes widened, and her lips tightened into a straight line. Her first impulse was to turn her child into a newt, but what would that prove? It would be just as pointless as a spanking. Ninane breathed heavily before asking a question. "So, you really think you can get along by yourself?"

The Magus looked down at the Fey and stared her directly in the eye. "I have survived Castle Wyvern, Viking attacks, and held my own with the Archmage on several occasions. I can survive anywhere I need to."

Ninane’s eyes glowed electric blue once again as she pointed to her son. "Anywhere, you say?" she questioned snidely. "Okay, let’s see how you fare."

Avalon’s Child cleared her throat as she flew up into the air and pointed her finger at Luthyran. The Magus was bathed in a dull red light as his mother began the incantation...

The mage was standing in the middle of a black solid road, riddled with craters and splattered with gobs of yellow dye organized in two solid lines. It was dark, but glowing orbs on either side of the road dimly lit the landscape, a haphazard array of huge concrete boxes with holes in them. Some of the holes had lights coming from them, and others were black as pitch. Odd music (Coolio’s "Gangsta’s Paradise") was blaring out of a box not more than twenty feet from Luthyran. He would have shut the infernal contraption off himself, but it was guarded by nearly a dozen ebony-skinned young men wearing strange clothing and staring at him with threatening eyes. Three of the pack detached themselves from the rest of the group and approached the aging mage, still dressed in medieval clothing.

"What the f*** are you looking at?" demanded the largest man of the three, slamming a gloved fist into his huge mitt of a hand as the other two scowled over his shoulders.

Luthyran decided to use his magic, the typical way of dealing with insolent youths. He fished into his robe and produced a leather bound book. "Do not threaten me, waif!" warned the Magus as he began to thumb through the tome to find a suitable spell. However, the largest urbanite snatched the book out of the mage’s hand, took a glance at it, and laughed.

The Magus stared at the title of his compendium: "I’m Fine, You’re Fine: The Road to Personal Meaning".

"Yeah, old man, I’m fine," sneered the huge African American, "but YOU are dead!"

The other men behind the first three thugs heard the call to battle, and joined their cronies to help beat the Magus to a bloody pulp.

Luthyran began to backstep, he picked up his book, and sprinted for dear life through the rotting streets of Harlem with the gang right at his heels. It was quite a stretch for the old man, who hadn’t run in years. The street was relentless, throwing the mage an upgrade here or a large pothole there. Wearing sandals didn’t help his cause either. Even the water worked against Luthyran, whose feet were slipping within them, coated with the oily sludge from the drippings of the hundreds of automobiles that traveled the street during the daylight hours. Unfortunately, the streets were abandoned, with the exception of a single yellow construct, rumbling like no beast Luthyran ever heard before. It had a strange bump of its back, with the symbols T,A,X, and I on it.

This was a break that the Magus had hoped for, as he saw a figure in the object, which he believed was the automaton’s controller. He rushed up to the hole in the beast where the controller was sitting. The cabby looked rougher than any Viking the mage had ever seen or fought, and reeked of rotten and mistreated pipeweed. However, despite the person’s rough appearance, Luthyran hoped that his heart was kind and good.

"Kind sir, may I ask you for refuge?" the old man begged of the taxi driver, casting a worried glance at the gang beginning to catch up behind him.

The cabby blew a puff of smoke into Luthyran’s face. "Up yours, pal. I’m off duty."

The Magus threw up a hand in frustration and a series of sparks issued from his long, pale fingers, incapable of doing any real damage, but it was enough to invoke terror into the hearts of the gang members.

"He’s a freak!" screamed one of the gang members. "Let’s get the Hell outta here!" The entire dozen turned around and shot back to their home turf.

The Magus let out a huge sigh of relief, picked himself up, and started his quest to find shelter.

New York City proved to be a formidable challenge to the Magus, who had never seen anything but tenth-century Scotland and Avalon’s island for all of his life. He was not used to the skyscrapers, electric lights, music, people; and most of all, the pollution. Car exhaust fumes mixed in with all of the chemical smells that a metropolitan city had to offer made Luthyran’s every breath labored and painful. He shook his head in dispair, lamenting his foolishness for insulting his Fey mother, and winding up in a location which most people of his time and place would consider one of the nine layers of Hell.

He managed to trudge to a more populated section of the city, not nicer, but at least it wasn’t Harlem. The Magus took a bit of comfort in the fact that no one thought that a man walking the streets in a white robe toting a self-help book was strange. In fact, no one took notice of him at all. The lack of life in the locals’ eyes depressed Luthyran deeply, and he longed to return to Avalon and to his parent.

"Mother, where are you?" the Magus whined as he trudged through more puddles of oily water in search of refuge. "Will you please accept my apology and return me to my home?"

His pleas were met by silence.

Luthyran scanned the streets, and spotted more of the yellow constructs that he saw earlier that night. He watched as dozens of people called out a spell of summoning that brought the metal monsters to them. "Perhaps one of those contraptions can take me to an inn" he wondered aloud. The old mage stepped to the edge of a curb and tried to imitate the locals. Luthyran raised his arm and shouted. "YO TAXI!" he screamed.

But something went wrong. A small fireball shot from his hand, blowing out one of the tires. The cab sped off, with the driver’s words of ill wishes drifting back toward him. The Magus sighed and continued to wander the streets in search of help.

For another two hours Luthyran stumbled about the abused city roads, battered and exhausted. Every time he tried to approach one of the taxicabs, it would drive off; leaving him stranded yet again, with no knowledge of the area or how to go about getting help. He periodically tried calling for his mother, but every time, he would get no answer.

"Why won’t you help me?" cried the Magus, shaking his fist to the sky. "I said I was sorry!"

This time he got a response; a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder.

"Dammit all" mumbled the Magus, once again imitating one of the so-called finer bits of inner city culture. The thunder was getting stronger, and he knew it was going to rain any minute. "Wonder if oil falls from the sky here" Luthyran sighed as he adjusted his sandal.

All of a sudden he heard a loud caterwauling (Jimi Hendrex’s "Purple Haze") as one of the yellow constructs rolled up to him. Inside was a woman, at least as far as he could tell. She wore twelve chains about her neck and the loudest tye-dye shirt in New York City. The fabric was ripped, showing off a thick bra strap. Her eyes were azure blue and distant, sparkling with a life that The Magus had not yet seen on the concrete isle.

She smiled, revealing perfectly-lined teeth, one of them being made of white gold. "You look lost, child" she said in a very airy voice. "Let me take you from this dispair."

Every neuron in the mage’s mind screamed against the idea, but Luthyran was tired, and let his weariness get the better of him. "Thank you, milady" he breathed out tiredly as he dragged himself into the taxicab.

As he laid out in the backseat of the vehicle, the music switched from caterwauling to that of a more soothing, crooning nature (Crash Test Dummies’ "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm"). The cab bounced over the potholes in the street and came to a squeaking halt at a red light. The woman turned to face her passenger.

"So, lost one, where do you need to be?" she asked.

Luthyran wiped the sludge off of his brow and groaned. "Anyplace where I may get some rest."

The cab driver smiled and nodded as she put the car into gear again. After about ten minutes of listening to crooning and dozing, the Magus was awakened by the short stop of the cab. "We’re heeeere!" the woman sang.

The Magus rose and looked out of the cab window, viewing a green concourse of an elegant-looking building. The symbol of a sun was emblazoned on a sign which read "Days Inn."

The cab driver pushed a small bunch of ten dollar bills into the hands of the mage. "Here is some money, Luthyran," said the cabbie. "You should have enough there to get a room for a couple of days and buy some clean clothes."

The old man took the stack of green papers from the woman, wondering how she knew his name. He wanted to thank her for everything, and spotted her name on a plaque in the front of the cab. "Uh, thank you...Shimmer" stammered the Magus. "I will not forget your kindness."

Shimmer smiled back to the mage and said "I will see you tomorrow afternoon, and show you around this island I call home. Perhaps your day experience will be more enlightening."

Luthyran slid out of the cab, once again thanked Shimmer, and headed up the steps of the Days Inn to check into a room. "It looks like there are some kind souls in this place" he thought aloud. The cabbie waved and smiled broadly as she drove off.

Shimmer motored down the potholed street, watching the sun rise, and spotted the first bluebird she had seen in years following her car.

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