by Tom Larcombe
“Suffice it to say that should I ever need master miners or diggers, I know who to look for.”
“Well then, I'll be on my way. I'll tell my folk what you advise, though we're as liable to go deep as we are to flee the country.”
“As you wish. Now, I have other things to do. Gunter is impatient with me, probably with good reason, and he will have to wait longer yet,” Merlin said.
The three ex-prisoners slipped into the forest and before Merlin leaned into the cab of the truck he could no longer see them.
“Can we go now? I've been watching the main road and there doesn't seem to be any pursuit. That worries me even more than if there were someone following us,” Gunter said.
“One more thing Gunter. I need to start the transfer of pilot skills to Dieter. Otherwise we still won't be going anywhere when we get to the airplane.”
Gunter shook his head and returned his gaze to the main road, watching for pursuit.
Merlin hopped into the back of the truck. His headache was gone now so he could arrange for the transfer of memories.
“Johann, we have need of your skills. I know that you can't use them but are you willing to share them?”
“I can't teach someone to fly in just a few minutes if that's what you mean.”
“You can, with my assistance. How long would it take your mind to call up all your memories of flying? Both of being taught it and memories of doing it.”
“Not that long I suppose.”
“If you're willing, I'll assist you in sharing those memories with someone else.”
“If it gets us out of this Godforsaken country, then yes,” Johann responded
“Dieter, it was your idea. Will you pilot the plane?” Merlin asked.
Dieter paled, but nodded his assent.
Merlin created a link between the minds of the two men.
“Johann, you just need to think of all those memories I mentioned. Try to avoid consciously thinking of anything else since those thoughts will be shared as well.”
“I'll do that.”
“Dieter, just try to treat them all as memories you're recalling and storing in your mind again. It should allow you enough familiarity with piloting to fly us out of here.”
“Yes Merlin.”
Merlin climbed out the back of the truck. As he was walking to the cab he heard Dieter speak aloud.
“Yes Johann, he does things that sound insane on the surface, but they work. How else would I have just been able to answer your thoughts. Now, concentrate on flying please.”
Gunter started the truck again, muttering as he did so.
“Finally.”
“Let's get out of here Gunter. Take us to the airstrip.”
The truck jerked into gear and bumped down the dirt road, heading back to the paved one that would take them to their destination.
After Gunter reached the smoother main road and turned towards the airstrip. Merlin finished preparations for the destruction of the facility by setting several spells on the crystal containing the remaining death magic.
* * *
Chapter 20
The airstrip was completely dark when they approached it.
“Merlin, there should be lights, movement, something.”
“You're right Gunter. I think they know we're coming. I'll check it out in a moment. No-one gets out of the truck yet.”
Merlin sent his thoughts back and broke the tie between Johann and Dieter.
{Dieter}
The feeling of an agonizing headache was Merlin's only reply.
{Anselm?}
{Merlin?}
{Yes. Dieter seems incapacitated at the moment. We're stopping the truck, no-one gets out yet though, there's something amiss.}
{I'll tell them Merlin.}
Merlin cast his thoughts in a wide net about the airstrip. There were people there, he could feel them, but he couldn't pinpoint their locations. There was some sort of mist surrounding their minds that prevented it.
“There are people here but someone has them hidden from me,” Merlin said.
“So, what do we do now?” Dieter asked.
“I'll lure them out and then we'll see.”
“Can't someone else do that? You're too important to the plan to take that risk.”
“There are two reasons for it to be me. The first is that I have the best shields of anyone here. The second is that I'll never send someone to do something I'm unwilling to do myself. I'd love to have someone else do it, but I can do it with the best chance of survival.”
“Scary and moral. I don't know if that makes you more frightening or less.”
Merlin used his cloaking shield to make himself invisible, raising both a physical and mental shield at the same time. Merlin opened his door and Gunter looked over, possibly to make a comment. When Gunter saw no-one there, his jaw dropped.
“Definitely more frightening,” he said to himself.
Merlin slid out of the truck and slowly walked out towards the center of the airstrip.
{Gunter, tell the others to shield and get out of the truck. All of you take cover someplace, I like this less and less.}
Merlin heard hurried movements behind him at the truck as he continued to try to pinpoint the location of the minds he could sense but not pin down. His awareness surrounded the airstrip now but the minds he could sense seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.
A voice, amplified beyond normal volume, broke the silence with a shout.
“Now”
Merlin heard engines start up all around the airstrip. Moments later, blinding lights turned the center of the airstrip brighter than day. The voice cried out again.
“Fire near the shadows.”
Merlin looked down and saw that his cloaking spell was keeping him hidden, but shadows stretched out beyond him on the side opposite every searchlight. The shadows bracketed his location like a bulls-eye on the ground.
Bullets started whistling through the night and Merlin found himself surrounded by a horizontal hail of metal. He dropped his cloaking shield to reinforce his physical one. Moments later he let his mental shield go as well. His physical shield was now strong enough to hold off the constant rain of bullets. They struck his shield in a continuous impact and the amount of energy it absorbed caused the shield to start glowing.
A cry of pain, abruptly cut off, caused him to turn and look back. A body lay collapsed on the ground behind the truck. A quick thread of his awareness sent to check told him that it was Dieter and that, while he was still alive, the wounds were mortal. Both heart and lungs were damaged and the less damaged lung was quickly filling with blood.
Merlin's temper was legendary at the court of King Arthur. As he loosed it into the night, a new age discovered why.
Merlin went utterly cold. No emotion colored his face, nor distracted his thoughts. His breathing was still entirely normal and the only thought in his mind was the annihilation of this threat. His hand dipped into the satchel and withdrew the candle. A moment's thought brought it alight, the flame burning six inches into the air beyond the end of the wick. The orange flame was threaded through with pale blue and virulent green threads.
Merlin could now tell where the people were around the airfield. The location of their minds was still obscured so he simply pointed towards where he saw the most rifles firing. A ball of flame shot from the end of the candle. It began as a bright orange sphere the size of a man's fist. As it crossed the intervening distance between him and his targets it grew to the size of a man. The flames that increased its size were in the blue and green of Merlin's rage.
The ball struck the center of a squad of SS soldiers. It exploded and bits of flame flew through the night. Where the tiny flickers of flame landed, they ignited more fires. Both the original bits of flame and the fires started by them couldn't be extinguished. They burned anything they touched and then ignited the ground they landed upon.
Merlin swept the airstrip with his eyes, ball after ball of fire rushing
through the night to strike the people who would harm him or those under his protection. Ammunition exploded, the rounds cooking off in the intense heat of the flames. The sound hammered his eardrums as though an entire platoon of machine gunners were opening fire simultaneously.
The acrid scent of burnt gunpowder accompanied the thick smoke that filled the airstrip. Merlin spat to remove the oily taste from his mouth and peered through the smoke to see if any of the SS soldiers were still alive.
Within minutes the entire perimeter of the airfield, except for the hangars containing the planes, was burning. There were no more gunshots and the final few screams were fading away. A single man stepped out of the smoke and flames onto the airstrip as the fires burned low.
“Expended your rage, have you?” the man taunted.
Merlin was too tired to speak. His anger still raged within him but he was trying to contain it. It took an enormous act of willpower to kill the flames he previously released and fueled. Instead of answering, he simply glared at the man.
The man smiled and extended a hand. A bolt of blue-white electricity flew from it towards Merlin, the lightning crackling and forking as it covered the distance.
Merlin released his partially contained rage and used it to fuel a shield against magic. The bolt struck the shield and was deflected into the ground.
“No, I haven't,” Merlin answered.
The stub of the candle still burned in Merlin's hand. He released the last of the energies in it, throwing a massive ball of fire towards the wizard.
The wizard stepped through the fire, unharmed.
“Just the one trick then? You'll have to do better than that.”
The man gestured and a wind whipped up about Merlin. It formed a circle with him at the center and as it blew it picked up dirt and rocks from the ground, hurling them against his shield.
A wave of Merlin's hand stilled the wind, the solid objects in it drifting or dropping to the ground according to their weight. Merlin glared at the other wizard.
I've no time for this, Dieter is dying. Maybe I was wrong and there's something I can do for him, Merlin thought.
Merlin's smile looked like the rictus of a corpse to the opposing wizard as he drove a portion of his awareness into the ground.
A hole, three meters square, opened up beneath the other wizard. The materials removed from the hole appeared in the air over the man's head. He tumbled into the hole, the dirt and stone falling on top of him.
The crackling of the fires was the only sound on the airfield, for a moment at least. Then a geyser of dirt erupted upwards, the center of it containing the other wizard. Merlin looked at him for a moment then snapped out in a loud voice.
“Gunter, shoot him.”
The sound of two pistol shots rang out. Both struck the intended target and the wizard, who was trying to send another attack against Merlin, fell to the ground. Merlin turned his back on him and hurried towards Dieter.
“How did you know that I could shoot him? I saw bullets bouncing off of you,” Gunter asked.
“His clothes. They got dirty when I dropped him into the ground and he came back out. If he were protected by a physical shield, there wouldn't have been dirt on them. No more questions now, Dieter is badly wounded.”
Gunter looked where Merlin was headed and silenced his next question.
Merlin knelt beside Dieter. The student was still alive but only barely.
“Dieter, can you hear me?”
Dieter's eyes flickered. His mouth moved but no sound emerged.
{Dieter, can you concentrate enough for this?}
{Yes Merlin, but it hurts.}
{I'm going to try to heal you now. It may hurt more for a bit.}
{Don't waste your energy Merlin. We both know it's a mortal wound. I've been trying to patch it since it happened and I'm barely extending what time I have left.}
{Let me try.}
{No Merlin, save your energy for what's coming.}
Dieter coughed and blood trickled from his mouth to join the stains on his shirt.
{Oh, Dieter...}
{I should have liked to have a farm of my own, some livestock, perhaps a wife.}
{You deserve that, at the very least.}
{I've one request of you Merlin.}
{Ask it, if it's within my powers I'll grant it.}
{What we're doing still needs to be done. I want to help. Capture my death energies and let me help destroy that place in whatever manner I can.}
Merlin was torn. He'd resolved not to use death magic after his discoveries regarding it. His promise to Dieter took precedence though.
{It shall be as you wish.}
{Then I don't want to waste any more energy keeping myself alive.}
{Farewell Dieter.}
{Good-bye Merlin.}
Dieter's mental voice slowly faded,
{A wife would have been nice...}
and was gone.
Merlin reached into the satchel to touch the crystal and draw Dieter's death energies into it. Despite his use of the crystal's energies earlier in the evening it was filled nearly to the point of shattering when he was done.
Merlin stood, his body rigid, tears streaming down his face.
Dieter... he would've been very powerful if I could have finished training him. My student... no. My friend deserves burial honors. I shall give him a pyre the likes this country hasn't seen in ages.
“Gunter, take Johann and find which plane we shall use. Once we have it on the runway, I will give Dieter a pyre made from everything else on this airstrip. The soldiers are all dead so there's no danger,” Merlin snapped.
Gunter wouldn't look Merlin in the eyes. He seemed to be keeping his distance as well. He gathered up Johann and the two men walked to the hangars.
Merlin walked over to the two remaining students.
“What happened?”
“You told Gunter to have us shield and take cover. Dieter threw a shield over Johann to protect him since he wasn't a wizard. He was putting a shield on himself next. He staggered and looked exhausted. I went to help him but he told me he'd shield and be out in a moment, that he was just still dizzy from learning the piloting skills.”
Anselm shook his head.
“And?” Merlin urged.
“The next time I saw him, he was coming out the back of the truck but still not shielded. Then the gunfire started,” Anselm said.
Merlin's shoulders slumped.
“We need someone to pilot still. If neither of you are willing then I'll do it myself. We don't have the time to do it as planned though. We'll use a slightly less dignified option.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Ernst asked.
“I'm going to use magic that will allow Johann control over the pilot's body. The person who owns the body will see everything that happens but be unable to control it. They'll be a passenger inside themselves. Before you ask, yes it's similar to what Horst did. The main difference is that I'll use a volunteer for it.”
“You have other things you need to be doing, don't you?” Anselm asked.
“Yes, but I might be able to do those while Johann controls my body. Magic uses the mind, not the body, and my mind would still be under my own control.”
“Only might? You don't know for sure?” Anselm said.
“I don't know for sure, no.”
“Then I'll do it.”
“Good man. I'll make sure it's acceptable to Johann.”
Merlin turned and walked away. He returned to Dieter's corpse and stared at it for a moment.
I should give him what dignity I can, he thought.
He tore a large section of canvas off the back of the truck and covered the body with it.
Merlin gathered up his remaining students and they set off to find Gunter and Johann. Johann was almost happy when they found him.
“It's the same plane I brought you here in. She's fueled up and repaired. She has the range to get us all the way to London if you want, but not bac
k again.”
“Johann, we're going to need you to pilot but not in an ordinary fashion.”
“What do you need? Dieter seemed like a likely lad, I'm sorry...”
Johann's voice broke slightly and the happy look fled from his face.
“I didn't know what he was doing until he'd done it or I would've stopped him. I knew he was tired, I got some feedback from his mind while I was showing him the skills. It should've been me out there, not him...”
Johann's voice trailed off as he ran out of words for what he wanted to say. When Merlin was sure Johann was done speaking, he replied.
“I'm going to do something similar to what I did earlier, except this time instead of connecting minds, I'm going to give you control of Anselm's body. You'll see from his eyes, hear from his ears, and be able to control the body. He's already agreed to this if you're willing.”
Johann remained silent for several seconds. When he spoke, it was to Anselm not Merlin.
“Did you really volunteer?”
“Merlin said he'd do it himself if neither of us was willing, but he has other things to do. So, I volunteered. It's how I can help best.”
“I'll do it then,” Johann said.
“We'd best get the plane underway. Let's get you inside, strapped down, and Anselm in the pilot's seat. I want to burn down the hangars and the rest of the planes before we leave. That will slow any pursuit but we need to get this plane out as quickly as we can,” Merlin said.
The five men entered the plane. Johann showed Anselm where to sit in the cockpit and then Merlin strapped Johann into a seat in the middle. Ernst took the other seat there.
“What's the armament on this thing?” Gunter asked Johann.
“MG 81J machine guns.”
“Good, I should be able to use them since I've trained on similar equipment. I'll take the rear gunner position.”
Gunter moved to the controls of the rear guns.
“You said you did bombing runs with this aircraft before?” Merlin asked.
Johann nodded.
“Where are the bombs placed?”
“In the internal bay, but there aren't any in there.”
“There will be,” Merlin said.
He rummaged in his satchel and pulled out the crystal. Then he turned to Johann.