Merlin's Booke Read Online Free PDF Page A

if the tree he slept in held the memory of its previous occupant strongly.
    But the other dreams were bad.
    There was the dream of the two dragons, one red and one white, sleeping in hollow stones, who woke when he looked at them. That dream ended horribly in fire, and he could hear the screams of someone being slowly burned to death. The smell was not so different from the smell of the small hare he had found charred under the roots of a lightning-struck tree.
    There was the dream of lying within a circle of great stones that danced around him, faster and faster, until they made a blurry gray wall that held him in. Awake, he avoided rocky outcroppings, preferring to sleep in trees rather than in caves. The hollow of an oak was safer than the great, dark, hollow mouths that opened into the hills.
    And there was the dream of a man and a sword. Sometimes the man pointed the sword at him, sometimes he held it away. But the sword’s blade was like a silvery river in which many wonderful and fearful things swam: dragons, knights on horseback, ladies lying in barges, and the most awful of all, a beautiful woman with long, dark hair and bare arms, who beckoned and sang to him with a mouth that was black and tongueless.
    He could not stop the dreams from coming, but he had learned how to force himself to wake before he was caught forever. In the dream, he pushed his hands together, crossed his forefingers, and said his name out loud. Then his eyes would open—his real eyes not his dream eyes—and he would slowly rise up out of the dream and see the leaves of the trees outlined in the light of a pale moon or the stars flickering in their ancient patterns. Only once he was awake he no longer could recall his name.
    So he thought of himself as Star Boy or Moon Boy or Boy of the Falling Leaves, whatever caught his fancy or his eye. He did not think of himself in the intimate voice, did not think I am or I want or I will. It was always Star Boy is hungry or Moon Boy wants to sleep or Boy of the Falling Leaves drinks. Time for him was always now. As more and more of his words fell away, so did his need for past or future and his only memory was in dreams.
    It was the tag-end of fall, and the squirrels had been storing up acorn mast, hiding things in holes, burying and unburying in a frenzied manner. A double V of late geese, noisy and aggravated, flew across the gray and lowering sky. The boy had watched them for a long time, yearning for something he could not quite recall. He shaded his eyes, following their progress until the last one disappeared, a speck behind the mountain. He sighed. Then he squatted and urinated right there in the path, something he never did, his fastidious nature usually forcing him to do such things in the brush. But the geese had awakened in him such a longing that he had forgotten everything for the moment and became as an infant again. Then, suddenly aware of what he had done, he scrabbled around the path, digging with his nails and a stick, loosening enough dirt to cover the wet patch.
    Pleased with his concealment, he noticed that his hands were filthy. He checked the sky once more and then turned abruptly, running down the deer track to the river. He plunged in and paddled awkwardly near the edges until he felt clean again. Then he stood a moment more, for the cold water made his skin tingle pleasantly. When he climbed out, he shook himself like a dog and pushed the hair from his eyes.
    The geese were gone and yet the memory of that squawking line stayed with him. He wandered off the path to uncover a squirrel’s cache of nuts—one of the many he had memorized—and ate each nut slowly, savoring the slightly bitter taste. He hummed as he walked on, a formless little melody that had no words. When he yawned, his hand went to his mouth as if it had a memory of its own. He climbed into a tree, nestled in its crotch, and napped.
    A strange noise woke him, but he did not move except to open