attentions to where it will do some good. I am running for mayor of this city!' He saw their reactions and added, 'Yes, that's what this is all about. I see it in your faces. This is why I want a moment of your precious time.'
'You don't have to get insulting,' shouted someone in the crowd.
Arthur laughed. 'I? When every common grunge thinks nothing of treating me as if I were a nonentity, to be snubbed and ignored at their discretion? I merely call a halt to the insults that have been dealt me this day.' He held up a clipboard, and the sheets of paper affixed to it rustled noisily in the breeze. 'Do you see these?' Without pausing for a response he continued, 'These are petitions. In this free society not just anyone can declare himself a candidate for office. I have to obtain ten thousand signatures, which actually means that I have to have twice that number, since it is generally assumed that half of you will be bloody liars. So I'm going to want every one of you to affix your signature to this most noble document. Is that clear?'
The question came from the crowd. Arthur did not see who asked it. The only thing that he noticed was that the voice was slightly nasal, almost tremulous. But the question was cutting in its simplicity. 'Why should we vote for you?'
Arthur looked around. 'What?'
There was a ripple of laughter from the crowd at his bewilderment.
'You haven't even told us your name!'
'I am Arthur. Arthur Penn.' He could have kicked himself for the brainless oversight.
'Why should we vote for you, Arthur Penn?'
Arthur would have felt more at ease if he could have found who in the world was addressing the questions to him. But it was an anonymous face, one he simply could not locate (although the voice was greatly disturbing to him). 'Because...' he began, wishing frantically that Merlin had tutored him better. But then Merlin had not been aware that Arthur was going to take his first shot at addressing crowds at a completely impromptu political rally.
At that moment Merlin was not too far away. At Bryant Park, behind the Forty-second Street Library, the wizard was watching an old drunk, watching as he rocked slowly back and forth against the cold, his coat pulled tightly around him.
Merlin shook his head. 'Pitiful. Simply pitiful.' Hands buried deep in his New York Mets sweat jacket, Merlin walked over to the derelict and dropped down onto the cold stone step beside him. He wrinkled his nose at the stench.
At first the drunk didn't even notice him, but was content to rub the bottle with his cracked and blistered hands. Eventually, however, he became aware of a presence next to him, and he turned bleary eyes on Merlin. It took him several moments to focus, and when he did, he snorted.
He was a black man of indeterminate age. His wool cap obscured much of his head, although a few tufts of curly white hair stuck out. Much of his face was likewise hidden behind the turned-up collar of his coat. His eyes were bloodshot.
'Youakid.' Three words into one.
After a moment of meeting his gaze, Merlin turned and ooked straight ahead. 'Looks can be deceiving/' he observed.
'You got money on you?'
'No.'
'Parents care where y'are?'
'No.'
'You a kid, all right. Ain't no doubt.'
Merlin winced. 'Why must you talk like that? You're perfectly capable of proper grammar if you so desire.'
This time the drunk looked at him more carefully. 'You're a smartass kid, besides,' he finally concluded.
'Probably.' His rump becoming chilled by the cold stone, Merlin shifted his position and sat on his gloved hands. 'My name is Merlin.'
His words were accompanied by little puffs of mist. The weather was turning even colder.
'Merlin? Like the football player?'
'More like the wizard, actually.'
The drunk proferred his almost empty bottle, wrapped in a brown paper bag. 'You want some lifeblood, little wizard? Not much left, I'm sorry to say___'
'It's full,' said Merlin quietly.
The drunk laughed, a wheezy, phlegm-filled laugh that became a hacking cough within moments. When the fit subsided he told Merlin, 'If there's something I always know, little wizard, it's how much I got in this here-'
He hesitated, because suddenly the bottle felt heavy. He slid the bag down and saw the top of the liquid sloshing about less than an inch from the mouth of the bottle. He shook his head. 'Oookay.'
Merlin finally stood and stepped down two steps so that he was on eye level with the drunk.
His thick brown hair blew in the wind. 'Enjoy it, Percy.' The drunk's eyes narrowed, but Merlin didn't pause. 'It's the last you're going to be having for a time-ever, with any luck.
We're going to sober you up and put you back in harness.'
Percy shook his head and waggled a finger. 'I ain't no horse.'
'No. You're not. If you were a horse, we'd simply shoot you and put you out of your misery.'
'You ever learn not to talk to y'elders that way?'
For the first time Merlin threw his head back and laughed. He himself did not like his laugh-it was far too squeaky and childish to suit him. But in this instance he could not help himself.
'Percy,' he said. 'How old do you think I am?'
He shrugged. 'Dunno. Eight, nine, I guess. Sure not old enough to be- '
'Eight or nine. Guess again. Guess a couple of hundred times that and you'll be on the right track. Percy, I'm going to tell you this because if you decide to stay in the gutter, no one will care what you say, and if you come now with me, you won't want to tell anybody. I am Merlin, Percy.'
'Yeah. So?'
'The original Merlin. King Arthur's Merlin.'
Again Percy laughed, this time managing to stop before a coughing fit racked his lungs.
'Don't gimme that. Merlin's an old man with a beard and a pointy hat. I seen pictures. You sure ain't no old man.'
'I was once.' He wiped at his nose with the sleeve of his sweat jacket. 'You will not find this simple to comprehend, Percy, but I live backward in time. In another fifteen centuries -by my reckoning, not yours-I shall be an old man. The price of immortality. It's difficult to maintain the form of an old man for an excessively long time, which is what would have been required had I aged as other men-had I been spawned as other men, Mary Stewart notwithstanding.
But to age backward, to be forever becoming younger-I can maintain this body for decades, centuries to come. When I said fifteen centuries by my reckoning, I meant backward to the fifth century. Forward into the twenty-fifth century I shall be much as you see me now ... if not a tad younger.
He held out a hand. 'Come with me, Percy. Let's go somewhere and talk. We can use you.'
Slowly Percy shook his head. 'You are without a doubt the smoothest talkin' little so-and-so I ever met. You really expect me to believe all that?'
'Not at first,' Merlin admitted. 'But you will, you will.'
'No-'
'Percy, look around you. Look at this place. The leaves are disappeared from the trees.
Winter is hard upon us. All that's left for you to do is huddle and shiver on cold, uncaring stone stairs. And when the winds blow hard, the best you can hope for is to find shelter in that pile of garbage over there; human refuse blending in with the rest of the trash.' He leaned forward, his small fists clenched and his voice pleading. 'Woufcf you refuse belief in me, Percy, to cling to this pitiful reality?'
His face almost vanished into his coat, Percy was silent for such a long time that Merlin almost thought he'd fallen asleep. In that case Merlin would have left him to rot. But finally Percy said, in a low and resigned voice, 'It's my life, little wizard. Why not let me live it?'
'Because it's not a life. And it's not living.'
