Hobby

Hobby by Jane Yolen is a fantasy story that reimagines the childhood of Merlin, the legendary wizard of Arthurian legend.

The story opens with a twelve-year-old boy waking from a dream of a flame-breasted bird rising to heaven. He wakes to smoke. Fire has caught the thatched roof of his home from a spark in the chimney. A woman screams for "Master Robin" before her voice cuts off. The boy carries a dog's body from the burning house and catches a burned woman before she collapses. The roof caves in, and the fire spreads to the mews, the falconry building, and the barn. No one else escapes.

The boy buries his entire household in a single grave: Master Robin, the falconer who rescued him from the woods four years earlier; Mag, the cook; Nell, a companion who taught him games; and two dogs. He saves only a tiny brass bell from a hawk's jesses, the leather straps used in falconry. Guilt consumes him for failing to understand his prophetic dream in time to save anyone, yet a powerful instinct tells him to stay alive and remember those he lost. He tells himself the first of many lies: that he will not cry. He is crying before he leaves the farmstead.

He sets out westward with two surviving animals, a plowhorse named Goodie and a cow named Churn, hoping to reach a market fair where he can sell them. Each time he naps on Goodie's back, he dreams the flame-breasted bird singing danger, and each waking renews his grief.

At dawn he spots a high wall he mistakes for a town gate. It belongs to a large ruin. Inside, a threatening stranger—a grey-haired man in black with a scarred eye—accuses the boy of being a thief, overpowers him, and discards the hawk's bell, a loss that hurts more than the physical blow. The man claims the boy's horse and boots. He plans to take the boy to Gwethern, a market town, and sell his labor, keeping the wages. The boy must give a name. His true name is Merlin, like the hawk in Master Robin's mews, but he senses that names hold power and calls himself "Hawk." The man takes the name "Fowler," claiming to have mastered the boy as a falconer masters a bird.

On the road, Fowler rides Goodie while Hawk walks. A hare startles the horse, and Goodie rears. Fowler's head strikes a marker stone; blood flows from his nose. His dog sits beside the motionless body and howls, exactly mirroring a vision the boy had at the ruins. Hawk recognizes a pattern: The fire-bird dream foretold the house fire, and this dream foretold Fowler's fall. He does not know whether his dreams are wishes or glimpses of the future.

He rides Goodie to Gwethern on market day. A man in a blue cloak and feathered hat performs a trick that makes a coin appear to fall from the boy's mouth, pays for two apples, and whispers for the boy to find "the green wagon, the castle on wheels." The boy finds the wagon and meets Viviane, a bard in a scarlet dress, and the mage Ambrosius. Ambrosius teaches the boy sotto voce, speaking under the breath so others cannot hear, and explains that he recognized the boy as an oddity: ragged yet composed like a prince. When the boy shares his prophetic dreams, Ambrosius invites him to join the traveling show and renames him "Hobby" after a small falcon.

The journey to Carmarthen, a walled city, takes two days. Hobby notices that the mage's magic relies on sleight of hand. At the fair, Ambrosius introduces him as "our boy Hobby," and the phrase fills him with warmth. On the third evening, they are summoned to perform at the palace for Lady Renwein, the Duke's wife. Hobby notices that some soldiers wear red plumes and others white, hinting at rival factions. A palace cook reveals that the Duke's new castle, built on old Roman barracks, will not stand: What is built by day falls by night. That evening, Hobby dreams of dragons, castles, water, and blood. Ambrosius wakes him and tells him to remember every detail.

They perform for the Duke and Lady Renwein. After Viviane sings and Ambrosius performs escalating tricks, Hobby is introduced as a dream-reader. He recounts his dream: a tower of snow reaching the sky by day but melting each night; soldiers draining the meltwater and finding two speckled stones like eggs; a mage striking them open to reveal a wine-colored dragon and a maggot-white dragon that fight until the white gashes the red's neck. The Duke gasps, recognizing the collapsing tower. Ambrosius interprets the dream as a practical problem: a hidden Roman water conduit beneath the foundation, with the speckled stones being rotted pipes. The Duke is disappointed, having suspected the dragons represent his and his lady's rival factions. Ambrosius fabricates a backstory for Hobby, claiming the boy's dead mother prophesied her son would be "a hawk among princes."

Two days later, a messenger confirms the pipes were found exactly as described. Hobby confronts Ambrosius, insisting the dream was about armies and the Duke's coming defeat, not drains. He realizes Ambrosius never understood the dream and is a charlatan, jealous of and afraid of Hobby's genuine power. Ambrosius does not deny it. He orders departure. Viviane overrules him, handing Hobby a generous pile of coins and sending him into town.

Sitting alone against a watering trough, Hobby falls asleep and dreams three dreams: a hand pushing through earth, a bear cub wearing a crown, and a tree within which he sleeps dreaming. A rough hand shakes him awake. Fowler is alive, only knocked unconscious, and has tracked the boy to Carmarthen; he identifies himself as one of the Duke's spies. Fowler drags Hobby toward the green wagon, but it is gone. Ambrosius and Viviane have fled in the night. Hobby realizes Viviane's coins were a farewell: His new family has abandoned him because they fear his dreaming.

Fowler brings Hobby to the Duke's private apartments. Hobby announces that Ambrosius was no real magic maker. Asked if he too is a charlatan, Hobby answers: "I do not know what I am." Remembering Ambrosius's warning against speaking truth to princes, yet knowing his power requires honesty, he tells the Duke the dragons represent armies, that a battle is coming, and that the Duke will die burned in flame. The Duke dismisses the prophecy and orders the boy away, turning on Fowler for bringing no useful intelligence. Fowler asks for the boy's name. Hobby answers: "I am a hawk. A hawk among princes." The Duke laughs and tells the little hawk to fly. As Fowler reaches for him, Hobby whispers his true name, "Merlin," sotto voce. He runs into the night, heading for the woods while armies mass beyond.

A brief epilogue shows Viviane tending a dying Ambrosius. He asks about a hawk circling above them; she says there is no hawk. He insists he heard its voice; she calls it a dream. He replies that he never dreams; only the boy dreams. Viviane tells him there was no boy and urges him to drink something that will bring the dream again "for good." The passage closes with the sound of her earring bells, compared to the jesses of a tamed hawk and the sound of a freed soul passing between earth and heaven.