by Daniel Diehl
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. People are only prepared to believe what their mind can accept. It’s amazing, really. There are otherwise intelligent people who firmly believe in the existence of fairies, Atlantis, unicorns, personal angels and heaven only knows what else, but there are some things so disturbing, so frightening, that people cannot accept them. And at the moment, neither can you.”
“Now, wait just a minute.” Jason rose from his seat shaking his head. “Let’s see if I have this straight. You expect me to believe that you are Merlin the magician, from the court of King Arthur and the round table, and all that other fantasy stuff, but you don’t think I could handle knowing who the bad guys in this little story really are. Is that right?”
“Very little of that is right, actually. You are correct that I don’t think you are ready to accept the truth about my enemies, but that is about as far as your understanding of the truth goes. The man you know as Arthur was not a king and there was no round table and there was no such place as Camelot.
Jason cut him off in mid-sentence. “I know. I do know my history.”
“You know but you don’t yet understand. It might be easier for you to grasp the magnitude of the situation if I began at the beginning.”
By this time, Jason was making his way purposefully back to the curio cabinet and the bottle of Jack Daniels. Sighing, he reached into the cabinet. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, but said “Sure, why not. I haven’t slept in a week, why start now?”
Then, lifting his empty glass between his thumb and middle finger and wiggling it back and forth, Merlin asked playfully. “This talking is very dry work after so many years in silence. Another glass of that amber nectar would help considerably.”
Jason sighed and reached for the old man’s glass. He knew this was going to be a very long, strange evening, but there was always the remote possibility that if Merlin the magician was actually sitting in his living room, he could get more answers about the sphere than either he or Professor Daniels could ever have imagined existed.
Accepting the glass with a nod of thanks, Merlin settled back in his chair and rearranged his robe over his long legs. “Now, where to begin?”
Chapter Four
When Merlin finally looked up at Jason his eyes glowed with the distant, introspective light of things only distantly remembered. “I’m sure you know the basic story of Britain’s occupation by the Roman Empire but, at the risk of boring you, let me just go over a few things to give us a starting point. The Romans came as conquerors but they also made life easy. Good roads, good wine, good schools, what more could you want? And not too many years before the Romans pulled out they brought us Christianity.”
Entranced by the soft intensity of Merlin’s voice, Jason only nodded his assent. Merlin mused, stroking his long white hair as though massaging his memory. “Where was I? Ahh, yes. When Rome recalled their legions in the middle of the fourth century the governors promised to come back and everything would be the same as before. Of course, they never came back and without the legions to keep order, it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart. Petty wars broke out over boundary disputes and trade routes. The wars expanded and civilization shrank. In a matter of three generations we became savages. Do you follow me on this, Jason?”
“Yes, of course.” Jason pursed his lips “it’s a simple history of Roman Briton. But I don’t see where all this is leading, and what it has to do with you.”
“That’s just the problem, isn’t it? You think of my time, of me, of Arthur, as romantic figures from what you so amusingly call the middle ages - all that clanking plate armor and jousting and bowing and scraping. It wasn’t like that. We weren’t like that. We considered ourselves Romans. When I was born, sometime around the year 405 – I’ve never been sure of the exact year - we were on our own. And we were lost.
“By that time virtually the only people who could still read and write were the clergy, so my family, being Christianized Welsh people, sent me off to become a priest. At the monastery school I learned about the sciences and philosophies and about how life had been under the Romans, and with it came the realization that we were on the brink of social collapse. From every direction pagan tribes were flooding into England. They had no regard for human life. They burned our towns and killed anyone who stood still long enough to become a target. Wave after wave, year after year, they swarmed across the earth like maggots, devouring every last rotten shred of Roman civilization. Only where there was a local warlord who understood the old Roman way of training an army was there any chance of maintaining order.
“The warlords called themselves Governors, Procurators and other fancy sounding Roman titles - but they were just warlords. Most of them were brutes but at least they maintained order. Naturally, the church allied itself with these strongmen for protection, and I was sent to serve as priest and advisor to one of these chieftains who controlled part of the Cornish coast.”
“You’re talking about Uther Pendragon, right?” The note of skepticism and sarcasm in Jason’s voice was impossible to miss.
“I am talking about Uther Pendragon”, Merlin nodded. “I was so young and arrogant. I honestly thought my piety and Uther’s tiny army could prevent civilization from plunging into the abyss. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Uther was a fine soldier and, to give him credit, he did manage to hold back the Welsh and the Picts. But, although none of us knew it at the time, there were far worse things than barbarians out there.
“I studied frantically, trying to devise ways to help Uther defend his little kingdom. I studied the stars for the best time to do battle and worked with the elements - earth, air, fire and water - to discover anything that might give him an edge.” The pace of Merlin’s discourse had been steadily increasing for some time - as though his urgency would help convince Jason of his truthfulness. But now he fell silent, running a hand over his eyes, shaking his head from side to side.
When he resumed, Merlin abruptly changed the subject as though the weight memory threatened to overwhelm him. “Uther’s first wife, Ygrane, was a kind, gentle, pious Christian woman. Tragically, she could not give her husband what he needed most, a male heir. In my first five years at court she gave birth to three children, all born dead. Twice she nearly died herself, poor child. Only once did God see fit to deliver her a living child, and it was a female. They named her Morcant.”
“Now you’re talking about Morgana le Fay.”
Merlin nodded and continued. “Even as an infant she was a striking little thing, hair as thick and black as a raven’s wing. Uther loved her as he loved her mother. But a male heir was essential to ensuring his kingdom after his death. Finally, out of sheer desperation, he appealed to the pope for a divorce and I supported his petition. God help me, had I known what tragedies that simple act would eventually cause I would have fallen on a sword. But none of us can know the future, not even Merlin.
“Only months after his wife and daughter were sent away, Uther married again. I give him credit; he had a talent for picking charming women. Gotgiffu, his second queen, gave him a male heir after hardly more than a year. They named him Arturus - the one you know as Arthur.” For the first time since he began speaking, Merlin smiled. “By the time Arthur was five years old, his half-sister Morgana would have been about eight and she had already developed a seething hatred for the father who cast her off and she swore she would find a way to seize his throne. Supposedly, she even claimed she would kill Arthur. Most of Uther’s advisors counseled him to have the girl killed, but he insisted it was just the ranting of a lonely child. He could never have harmed his children.”
The strain of remembering so many painful events was obvious. Merlin’s craggy face looked drawn, making him appear no more substantial than a ghost from a time remembered by him alone. Afraid the strain was becoming too much for the old man, Jason asked if he wanted to take a break.
“No, you really need to hear all of this if you’re going to understand.” he rep
lied. “But, if you don’t mind, I think I could use another drink.”
While Jason went to the cabinet to get the bottle, Merlin picked up where he had left off. “It must have been only a few years later that the real enemy came.”
“These are the people you think are still looking for you?” Jason said, handing over a fresh glass of sour-mash bourbon. “The ones you’re still afraid of.”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t exactly call them people.” Merlin glanced up from his chair, accepting the glass with a wan, enigmatic smile.
“It started with rumors. The occasional ship that risked the dangerous channel crossing brought stories of an invader so unstoppable that there was literally no way to oppose them. The storytellers insisted they were striking all across Europe and that they moved with incredible speed; one week they were in Poland the next in Greece or Gaul. Naturally, everybody laughed. But once they struck nearer home, the laughing stopped. The war was terrible beyond anything you can imagine. Entire villages were wiped out in hours; cottages, fields, forests - all burned to the ground. Not a soul left alive. No one knew where they came from or when they might strike, and once they struck it was too late.
“Uther’s legions and those of his allies banded together to fight this terrible enemy. I tried to make some small contribution; developing new siege equipment and weapons. After months of waiting for the enemy to appear, Uther and his allies became determined to hunt them down. How they expected to find them, I don’t know, but soldiers are always impatient for battle. I was asked to go along. Naturally, I agreed. It was the greatest mistake of my life. I only lasted through the first battle; if you can dignify such a route as a battle.
“When they attacked, our army was camped near a village on the Salisbury Plain. They literally came out of nowhere. There weren’t many of them, there didn’t need to be. Terror is a far more effective weapon than numerical superiority. The battle lasted half an hour, but it seemed like an eternity. The fire engulfed everything and everyone - the living and dead alike. Within minutes the smoke and stench of burning bodies shrouded the field. Soldiers and animals, their clothes, hair and skin on fire, stumbled over the charred bodies trying to escape. Somehow, one of Uther’s men actually got close enough to kill one of them but our army was utterly destroyed. It was more than I could bear. I ran as fast and as far as I could. It’s only by the grace of God that I escaped.
“I think my mind must have come unhinged that day. For years I wandered from village to village trying to warn people. But there would have been nowhere to run to, even if they had understood my ramblings. Thinking I was a lunatic, they drove me away, pelting me with sticks and stones, shouting, "Myrddin Wyllt, Myrddin Wyllt!" It means Merlin the wild. I couldn’t blame them.”
As Merlin rambled on, his hands shaking, sweat gathering in tiny incandescent beads on his brow, Jason recalled accounts he had read of the supposedly real, historical Merlin - stories of an ancient Welch cleric so terrified by a horrible battle that he wandered the countryside, completely mad, for years. Could this be the same man? Was it possible that the Merlin of legend was also the Merlin of history and that this very man was now in Jason’s house, spilling out his tragic life-story? The sound of Merlin’s quavering voice snapped Jason out of his disquieting reverie.
“It must have been ten years or more, before I heard that Arthur had surfaced to claim his father’s throne. I didn’t believe it. My confused mind refused to accept that anyone from Uther’s court could have survived. But finally, after what must have been a decade-and-a-half of wandering aimlessly, I made my way back to Cornwall. The kingdom was in tatters; decaying villages covered the landscape, some burned out and some just abandoned. The old Roman villa that had been Uther’s palace was nearly in ruins. But the stories were true. Arthur was there and had claimed his father’s crown.
“I don’t know how he recognized me. I would never have known him. He had only been six or seven when I last saw him and now he was twenty. Tall, strong, blond, with braided hair hanging half way down his back, he had a real soldier’s bearing about him. He was a natural prince. Men who were three times his age followed him without question. It was probably only charity that made him take me in. I certainly had nothing to offer him: an old man in a tattered priest’s gown with his mind in a jumble. By the time I could offer him any real advice he must have been twenty-five – about your age.” For the first time in nearly half an hour, Merlin glanced up at Jason.
“Actually,” Merlin continued with a sigh, “he didn’t need my advice. He was doing fine on his own. He had taken steps to rebuild his father’s army and political allegiances. I think he knew the enemy would eventually come back. He also knew that somewhere, out there in the forests, Morgana was still plotting to destroy him and seize the throne.”
Merlin had been pushing himself with a desperate urgency. It seemed as though his story had been bottled-up for so long that if he didn’t get it out he would explode. When he finally paused for breath, Jason began asking questions he hoped would fill in some of the gaps in the story.
“Umm, Merlin...” he began. With these few words, Jason unwittingly acknowledged to himself that the strange intruder was, indeed, the incomparable magician of legend. “Arthur’s court, what was it really like? I mean, so far a lot of the story, at least the characters, follow the Arthurian legends. What about the rest of them? Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawain, were they real? What was Camelot like?” Jason stopped himself when he realized he sounded like an excited child demanding to know what he would get for Christmas.
“First of all, Jason, they were not characters. They were human beings and they were my friends.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”
“I know you didn’t. We just need to establish what is fact and what is fiction. Uther, Morgana, Guinevere – although she was Welsh and her name was actually Gwenhwyfar - and Arthur were all very real. The rest were creations of fiction. All except my dear, sweet Vivian.” Merlin offered a small, sad smile.
“Vivian?”
“You probably know her as the Lady of the Lake.”
Jason’s eyebrows knitted together in an incredulous scowl. “I thought she was supposed to be a fairy or something.”
“Let’s just leave it at ‘or something’, and yes, before you ask, she really did give Arthur his sword. It’s amazing, it seems like it was only a few days ago that I was walking with Arthur along the Cornish coast. We spent a lot of time simply staring at the sea.” His magnificent blue eyes were moist with pain.
Jason frowned slightly as though he had been expecting some dramatic twist that would explain the impossible presence of Merlin in the twenty-first century. As he pondered the fact that his entire perception of reality and myth was being turned upside down, Merlin returned to his story.
“For a time, things went pretty well for Arthur. By the time he was thirty, which was much nearer the end of a man’s life than it is today, Arthur was far more astute than his father had ever been and he had established alliances with chieftains and kings across southwest Britain. That may not seem like much by your standards, but at the time it was a major accomplishment. The one issue he never addressed was his half-sister, Morgana. If he had followed a lot of people’s advice, including mine, he would have had her hunted down and killed.”
“Whoa,” Jason interjected, his eyes wide and round. “I thought you were a priest. Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”
“Had I known then what I learned later, I would have ordered her killed like the rabid animal she was. Believe me, young man, when I tell you she would quite literally have destroyed the world for the sake of revenge. Morgana le Fay had relinquished the right to be classed among the children of God.”
“Ok, take it easy.” Jason made braking movements with his hands. “Point taken. She was crazy. So what happened then?”
“Initially, nothing. She was so deranged that no one would ally themselves with her except brigands and outlaws. And such
men do not constitute an army. They could never cooperate long enough to seize a town, let alone conquer a kingdom.”
“I know you’re leading up to something here. Are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?”
“So you can see it coming? For a thousand and a half years I have wondered why none of us saw it at the time. Now, it all seems so obvious.”
Feeling only slightly queasy, Jason offered “She went to them, Uther’s old enemies, didn’t she?”
For a second, Merlin only nodded his head. Finally he squeezed out a faint “Oh, yes. She became their agent, spying for them, telling them everything they wanted to know.”
“And they came back and destroyed Arthur’s kingdom didn’t they?”
A small, sad “Yes” was all Merlin offered.
“And they’re the ones you think are still after you.” Jason stated it as a fact, but he needed Merlin to confirm it for him.
“I know they’re still after me, Jason, and so is Morgana le Fay.”
“What? How in the hell could she still be alive? She would have to be sixteen-hundred years old.” Jason asked the question before realizing the answer was setting in the chair opposite him.
“She stayed alive all these centuries the same way I have. They - the enemy - told her how.”
“Wait, wait. Are you telling me you went over to their side, too?”
“Not at all. Along with everything else they taught her in exchange for her services, they gave her the secret of longevity. I stole it from her along with every other scrap of information she ever got from them.”
“And that’s why they’re looking for you?”
“Of course. That, and the fact that one of the things I learned when I raided her library was how to keep them from attacking.”
“And now you’re out in the open where they can find you.” He paused before voicing the thought that was now running wildly through his head. “We’re in big trouble, aren’t we?”