Merlin's Last Days

by Greg Krehbiel

  * * *

  She awoke just after noon that with a sigh, the medallion still clutched in her left hand. That had been the best vision ever. It wasn’t just that she had complete control over her actions. She also had complete fluency in the language, and everything was sharper – like moving from a 1960s TV to the best of modern hi-def. And not only in her vision. In sounds, and in sensations as well. It all felt so real.

  It was an odd feeling to be able to speak in a language she didn’t know. But as she lay on the bed she was thinking about the knight she had lured into the farmer’s barn. That was a lot of fun, and he didn’t even smell all that bad.

  Marianne rolled over and thought she would be content to lie in Merrell’s bed for hours, but she noticed a message on her phone, which was sitting on the end table. She reached for it languidly, but as soon as she read the message she jumped out of bed.

  Merrell: We’re just ending now. How about some lunch when I get back?

  The message was fifteen minutes old and it only took ten minutes to walk from the administration building. She was naked, and she was still clutching the medallion in her hand. She hoped Merrell wanted to go out to lunch and wasn’t expecting her to make something.

  Marianne pulled a dress off the floor, tossed it over her head and ran back downstairs to where she had found the medallion. She set it back on the shelf where it had been, then caught her reflection in a mirror. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her dress wasn’t on straight. Just then the door opened.

  “Oh, hi,” she said. “How was the meeting?”

  Merrell looked distracted and out of sorts. He didn’t seem to notice her disheveled look, and despite the sheerness of the dress, that she wasn’t wearing a bra or panties.

  “The idiots want to renew the dean’s contract, despite the fact that he’s been mismanaging funds. They say his fund-raising skills more than compensate for his spending habits, and …. Where’s lunch?” he asked, finally looking around. “I’m worn out, and I thought you’d have some sandwiches ready.”

  “I thought you wanted to go out,” she said.

  “Looking like that?” he asked, finally turning his attention to her. He looked her over with a penetrating gaze, and Marianne was suddenly and keenly aware that this wasn’t just some middle-aged, slightly overweight, horny college professor. This was Merlin – a man with hidden and mysterious powers. He looked her over like he was staring into her soul. She felt small and feared she was in quite over her head. She started to whither under his glare, and she almost confessed all. She was about to fall to her knees and beg forgiveness, but Merrell suddenly shrugged.

  “Whatever,” he said, and seemed to shrink back down to an ordinary human. “I’m going to have a beer on the back deck. Make yourself presentable and we’ll walk down to Roti.”

  Marianne curtsied. She’d never done that in her life, and it surprised her. She almost added, “Yes, my lord.” She felt completely silly and wondered what had come over her. Merrell seemed quite amused both by what she did and by what he read on her face, but he shook his head and walked into the kitchen to grab a beer.

  It took a solid fifteen minutes to get her hair anything like presentable, and the whole time she was muttering to herself, and wondering what happened to the confident, independent woman she thought she was.

  * * *

  Marianne’s delay untangling her hair and generally sprucing up turned Merrell’s one beer into three, which put him in a talkative, jolly mood. They walked the half mile to where the residential area blurred into a small retail district on the edge of the university campus. Roti was on the main strip, with a wine bar to the east and a microbrewery to the west. It was the default lunch option for most of the faculty.

  “You know,” Merrell said, noticing a few faces through the shop window, “I don’t want to see those bastards any more today. How about a burger and a flight at the brewery?”

  Marianne shrugged and followed him into The Ark and Dove. Normally she didn’t like being around men when they’d had more than a couple beers, but she was mildly curious about the behavior of a drunken druid. Besides, something made her suspect that Merrell / Merlin could hold his beer.

  The brewery was the favorite hang-out for the college students who were 21 or older. Marianne was only 20, but she had a fake ID, and the staff recognized her and didn’t bother to check.

  The brew master had eight beers on tap, so Merrell ordered two flights of four so they could both sample each beer. While they were waiting, Merrell explained that hops were mostly unknown to British brewers until the 15th century, and that the drink of choice in Arthur’s court was something like a strong Braggot mixed with wine.

  “What’s a Braggot?” she asked.

  “A drink made with honey and barley. I don’t know if there’s a word for honey and barley and grapes. It was something I dreamed up one afternoon in the kitchens. We spiced it up with the local gruit and aged it for a month in an oak casket. It was an instant hit, and Arthur decreed that it should available at all his feasts.”

  “You should show them how to make it,” Marianne offered. Merlin just smiled.

  Of the eight beers in the two flights, Marianne only liked two. She was more of a wine person, and said so.

  “Fine. We’ll go there next,” Merrell said, finishing off each of the small glasses in the flights and ordering a pint of the Belgian triple.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the server said, “we don’t sell that in pints. It’s ten percent, so we serve it in an eight-ounce tulip glass.”

  “You have pint glasses, don’t you boy?” he asked, as if he was speaking to an idiot. “Pour the bloody ale into a pint glass and bring it over here.”

  Marianne suddenly wondered if the Merrell of 2017 retained any of the magic of the Merlin of 587. She remembered how she had used one of Merlin’s own tricks on Joe, so it seemed likely he could still manipulate people.

  In her dreams she’d heard elaborate tales about Merlin’s feats of magic. During one battle he had changed into a raven and flew a crucial message from Arthur to Lancelot. Another time he disguised himself as a rival king’s trusted advisor and heard all his plans for the next day’s battle. There were stories that he had healed people’s wounds, and even brought back the dead.

  Either because of Merlin’s magic or simply the force of his personality, or because the server didn’t actually care about the rules, he came back a minute later with a pint of the strong, dark beer.

  * * *

  They made an entire afternoon of it, and by the time they got back to Merrell’s house at eight, he had consumed more beer and wine than Marianne thought possible. She was sure he would lie on the couch and quickly fall asleep, but he had other things in mind. She was afraid of what he’d be like in such a state, but he was unusually kind and gentle.

  “Merlin,” she asked a couple hours later when he came into the bedroom with a decanter of brandy and two glasses. She shook her head in astonishment that the man actually wanted more to drink.

  Merrell didn’t care in the least what she thought of the brandy, but he stopped abruptly and looked at her severely.

  “Don’t call me that name,” he said. “I am Merrell Anthony to you and to everyone else in this world.”

  “Okay, if that’s what you want,” she said with a smile.

  “This is serious,” he said, and his red face was grave. “It’s very important. Don’t call me that again.”

  “Alright. I’m sorry,” she said, and he seemed placated.

  He sat down beside her on the small couch in his large bedroom and poured them both a glass of brandy.

  “You were going to ask me something,” he said with a gentle smile.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I was looking at the things on your shelves in the hallway downstairs. Are they all from your digs?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Most of them are insignificant trinkets, but I like to keep them around. The visions come and go,” he said. “Sometimes
I’m away for months, and it’s nice to look at them and remember my other life.”

  “It must be awkward,” she said.

  “Awkward? If it is, I’m used to it. It’s just my life. So why did you mention it. Was there something you fancied?”

  She was on dangerous ground now. What if she named the thing she wanted, and he refused? She was sure she’d have to steal it. The thing was worse than heroin. Having used it once, she was hooked. But to steal something from him ….

  “You stole from Merlin the Magician?” she could hear her inner accuser scream. “What did you expect would come of that?”

  She tried to keep her head and focus on Merrell, and somehow find some way to get his permission to have that medallion. But if she had to steal it …. Well, she was starting to resent Merrell, his demanding ways and his patriarchal attitudes. Maybe she should move on.

  “I liked a lot of them,” she said.

  “Take what you want,” he said, to her great relief. “The time grows short, and I won’t be needing them anymore. But have a care. Not everything is what it seems. And I think I know what you seek.”

  Marianne feared the conversation would take a dangerous turn if she let it continue like this, so she took the glass from his hand, set it on the end table, then leaned over and kissed him.

  * * *

  “I wondered when you’d be back,” the crone said in her dream that night. “I see that you’ve discovered the delights of my medallion.”

  “It’s been very useful,” Marianne admitted. She was in the body of a local peasant girl. She liked this host. She was pretty, and her parents didn’t watch her too carefully.

  “You say the medallion is yours? Why did you give it to me?”

  “There’s a little thing I’d like you to do for me,” the old woman said. “Don’t worry,” she continued with a laugh, seeing Marianne’s discomfort. “You’ll enjoy it. If you think that little thing is amusing,” she said, waving dismissively at the peasant girl’s body, “you’ll like what I have planned for you.”

  Marianne wasn’t sure what to say, so she waited.

  “It’s a very simple thing,” the crone said. “But first I have to show you how to use that medallion to its full potential.”

  “I don’t have it, of course,” Marianne explained, remembering that the medallion was in Pennsylvania, a thousand miles and more than a thousand years away.

  Or was it? Professor Merrell Anthony had retrieved it on one of his digs, so it might be here, somewhere. Maybe the crone had it.

  “But … I don’t understand. How do you know about this? How do you know … what I am?”

  “Ah,” the old woman said. “Sometimes I forget how bland and flat your world is. Everyone is the same, and there’s very little magic. This world …. It’s a very different thing, right here.” She gestured to the woods, and toward the village, and then to the mountains in the distance.

  “Worlds are colliding in Britain right now. The fairy folk hang on in little pockets here and there, preserving their ways. And there are the Romans, of course. The Angles and the Saxons are taking what they can, and sometimes new people pour in from the north, from the continent, and from the islands.”

  “Which one is your world?” Marianne asked. “Who are your people?”

  “Now that would be a tale,” she said. “But have you ever wondered where the druids come from?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking. Aren’t they just some religious order among the Celts?”

  The crone laughed for a good while.

  “They’re all men,” the crone said, significantly, but Marianne still wasn’t following.

  “Yes,” she said, nonplussed. “I would expect a priesthood to be all men.” She almost said “an ancient priesthood,” but the anachronisms were starting to confuse her. “I thought they just recruited promising boys and trained them.”

  “No, heavens no,” she croaked. “These village boys don’t have the blood, and neither do the Romans. Some of the fairy folk do, and a few from the other tribes. Of those who do, the boys become Druids and the girls stay with us.”

  “And who are you?”

  The crone paused a moment and considered.

  “The name would mean nothing to you,” she said. “But like the Druids, we keep order and freedom among our people. You know what I mean. There are forces that would enslave women and keep them under the thumb of the men. We want to prevent that, and that’s why I need a small favor from you. To help you do what I need, I’ll teach you how to choose your host.”

  Marianne smiled. “You mean I can pick whose body I use?”

  She was starting to like this old woman. Her words were a refreshing change from Merrell’s old-fashioned vision of things. He wanted to undo all the progress that women had made.

  “Yes, of course,” the crone said, “but more than that. You can escape this peasant life and see what it’s like to live in a town. But you’ll need a little training, and you’ll need to have a care. You’ve been visiting the common folk, and most of them hardly notice your presence in their minds.” She stopped and chuckled. “They hardly notice their own presence in their minds, but if you want to move up in the world, things are different. People with a more disciplined mind will notice you, and you need to learn to deal with that.”

  “I see,” Marianne replied. “And you want me to enter the mind of someone in particular.”

  The crone nodded her head and smiled.

  * * *

  “Sister, can I join you?” Paul asked, coffee in hand, standing next to the little table where Marianne was enjoying her late-morning latte. She shrugged and signaled for him to take the other spot, then quickly looked him over. She guessed from his words, from his English accent, and from his sharp dress that he was one of the African students.

  “You’re in my sociology class, aren’t you?” he said. “Front row to the left, I think. I’m Paul.”

  He extended a hand and she shook it.

  “Nice to meet you, Paul. I’m Marianne. How do you like sociology?”

  He scowled. “It’s not what I expected,” he said.

  “How?”

  Paul laughed. “Well, you see, St. Andrew’s has a reputation in my country for being conservative and promoting Anglican scholarship. But this professor….”

  Marianne laughed.

  “She can be a bit much,” Marianne agreed. “But I like her. And I’m glad there’re still a variety of views at the college. It would be boring if everything was … regulated or something. So what are you studying?”

  “History. Then I hope to go to seminary.”

  “Normally I would make some sexual comment at this point, but Anglican priests can marry, right?”

  “Yes and no,” Paul said. “There is some debate – at least in my circles – about the distinction between ‘Anglican priests can marry’ and ‘married men can become Anglican priests,’ if you catch my meaning.”

  Marianne nodded. She had no idea about the little theological quarrels in the Anglican communion, and she had no interest in learning. She was about to change the subject, but he beat her to it.

  “So what about you, Marianne? Have you come to the place in your life where you know that if you were to die, you would go to heaven?” he asked.

  “Oh my gosh,” she said with feigned shock as she set her coffee cup down on the table. “You’ve taken the Evangelism Explosion course. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the ‘diagnostic questions.’”

  Paul’s face lit up.

  “So you’re a believer then?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “I grew up Catholic, and then my folks because Evangelicals. I took that workshop when I was a teenager. They made us go door to door in the neighborhood around the church. I think it traumatized me.”

  She intended it as a joke, but Paul took her seriously. His face looked somewhere between crestfallen and concerned, as if she was a deeply wounded soul and he was trying to come
up with the right words to offer his sympathy. Marianne almost laughed. She suspected he was trying to develop a pastoral instinct to comfort.

  “I understand,” was all he said, but then he seemed to change gears entirely.

  “I noticed you the other day,” he said, and his eyes grew large. “You were walking across campus with a man – a professor, I believe – and … please don’t mistake my meaning, your affairs are none of my business. But something troubled me, and I would like to ask you if everything is okay. It seemed to me …. This will sound strange, I know, but I thought you were captive and wanted to call for help, but you couldn’t. It’s not my business, I know, but I’d like to know that you’re okay.”