by Daniel Diehl
“I don’t know that she controls them, but she’s been working with them for more than a thousand-and-a-half years. Unless I can find a way of stopping her, she is about to turn an army of them loose on the world.”
The Lama eased himself heavily into a chair. “Oh, dear, this could be a very bad thing.” After collecting his thoughts he stood up, brushed off the seat of his robes, and stepped toward Merlin. “Undoubtedly we will need all the help we can get, but we must not alarm the brothers. I shall call in Doloman, the librarian. He has an extensive knowledge of languages and is most discrete. As Doloman is quite advanced in years, you may want to bring in Mr. Jason to help him sort through the stacks.”
For the next four days Merlin, Jason, Sun Wang To and Doloman ploughed through thousands of books, scrolls, pamphlets, folios and manuscripts. While most were in Hindi, Tibetan or one of the various Chinese dialects, literally hundreds were in more languages than the four men could begin to name. There were books in Farsi, Burmese, Japanese, Arabic and Latin. There were others in Hebrew, Aramaic, Egyptian Demotic, Greek, Cuneiform, Sanskrit, Sumerian and dozens more. Some were so ancient it would have taken a laboratory to determine their age.
Hour after hour Doloman, thin as a stick and as dry and yellow as the parchments he guarded, pulled his ancient body up one ladder after another, sorting through shelves and piles, muttering to himself softly and scratching his shaven head in confusion. Occasionally he would call down to Jason, asking him to remove a particular volume, or stack of papers and carry them to the row of tables which had been pulled together in the center of the room.
No matter how hard he tried to remain true to his task, Merlin kept being sidetracked by the mountain of curious manuscripts piling up around him. “Jason, do you know what this is?” Merlin and Sun Wang To were worrying over an accordion folded manuscript made of a heavy, paper-like material. Surrounding a central area of indecipherable text were delicately executed borders showing aquatic birds and rows of dancing men in short, white skirts.
“My God, Merlin. This is Egyptian hieroglyphics.”
“How old?”
Jason shrugged. “Three thousand, maybe four thousand years old. I don’t know.”
“Can you read it?”
“No. It can be read, but I certainly can’t read it. I’m not an Egyptologist.”
“How sad. All this knowledge and we can’t get at it. The secrets of the kings of Egypt could be right here in front of us.”
Sun Wang To leaned forward and patted Merlin consolingly on the shoulder. “It could also be someone’s shopping list.”
Straightening up to relieve the kinks in his back and rub his tired eyes, Merlin said “You’re right, of course. In either case, it is unarguably not what we’re looking for. Take this back to Doloman and bring the next batch.”
Slowly, from the ocean of irrelevant information, they sorted out a small pile of documents dealing specifically with dragons. There were spells for summoning a vast array of dragons; dragons to bring luck, dragons for rain and dragons for wind, all of which, Merlin insisted, were superstitious nonsense and had nothing to do with real dragons. They occasionally discovered a seemingly legitimate account of a dragon attack. The most impressive came from the diary of a Buddhist monk named Fa-Hsien who traveled from India to China between the years 391 and 414 AD. According to Fa-Hsein’s account, "In the Bolor-Tagh mountain range there are also venomous dragons which, if provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, rain, fire, sand and stones. Of those who encounter these dragons not one in ten thousand escapes." On being told that Bolor-Tagh was the early Indian name for the Himalayas, Merlin felt certain the date and place fell within the time frame of the first reliable accounts of dragon attacks.
Like Fa-Hsein’s account, most of the early dragon sightings dated from the fifth century; the earliest ones coming from the furthest points east, in China and Japan, later ones working their way inexorably westward across India, the Middle East and into Europe. Scenes of unimaginable carnage described by horrified eye-witnesses all corresponded to Merlin’s own recollections and seemed, for the most part, to be reliable accounts. Tragically, none of them offered any insight as to where the dragons came from, or how they could be defeated.
Late in the afternoon of the fourth day, as Jason was trundling back to the shelves with yet another armload of dusty manuscripts, Doloman called down to him from the stacks.
“Please be so good as to move faster Mr. Jason. I have yet more material for the venerable Panchen Lama and Mr. Merlin and you are holding me up.”
“I’m coming Doloman. I can’t return them any faster than Sun Wang To and Merlin get through them.”
“Yes, yes, I understand that, but I may have found something relating specifically to their search.”
Jason set the heavy pile of books on a small table and handed the first of them up to Doloman to be replaced on the shelves. “Really? What do you have?”
“I am unsure. I can only read parts of the text which seems to be in a combination of Latin, Greek, something I believe to be Hebrew and yet another, which I cannot identify. But even those I can read are often in some arcane linguistic structure which I cannot make clear.” The old librarian climbed down the ladder as he spoke, carrying a heavy volume under one arm. He finished talking just as his feet reached the floor.
“So what makes you think it might be important?”
“Please observe.” He flipped through brittle parchment pages, pausing at an illustration of a terrifying dragon, its head, shoulders and wings emerging from a cave.
“Now that would seem to be what they’re looking for.” Jason nodded appreciatively. “Here, I’ll take that over to them and be back to help you put this stuff away.”
“You will not.” The librarian said indignantly. “We shall both take it over. If it is important I want to know, too.”
“Ok.” Jason smiled and motioned for the old librarian to precede him. Together they moved toward the big worktable in the center of the room, pushing the new book in front of Merlin so he was forced to look at it.
“I think you had better take a look at this one. Doloman just found it and thinks it might be important.” Jason’s tone was even and business-like but his eyes, and the fact that the ancient librarian was dancing excitedly from one foot to the other, told another story.
Merlin pushed aside the crumbling scroll he had been translating, pulled the new book close and motioned for Sun Wang To to join them. Covered in ancient, crumbling leather, the chronicle was slightly smaller than a sheet of typing paper but nearly five inches thick.
“What is it you want me to look at?”
“Show him where that picture was, Doloman.”
The librarian stepped forward, leaning over Merlin’s shoulder, turning the pages gently, his hand shaking with age and excitement. “Here. Here it is.”
The four of them stared at the black and white image. The creature staring up from the page was not one of the friendly dragons from a children’s book or the writhing, serpent dying under the lance of St George. This was a hideous, slavering beast with a look of pure, menacing evil spewing from its snake-like eyes.
“I know this thing.” Merlin’s voice was soft and breathy with emotion. “After all these years, I still remember its face. These are the creatures that destroyed Uther’s army.” With trembling hands he turned the page to examine the text. “Good Lord.”
The others leaned forward to peer at the conglomeration of letters and shapes crawling across the pages. There seemed no cohesion, no consistency of language. Jason recognized the Latin, Greek and Hebrew characters, but there were others he could not begin to identify. To make matters worse, the words were jumbled together, one language tumbling after another without any apparent regard for structure or punctuation.
“How are you ever going to wade through this mess?” Jason was tugging at his ponytail in a distracted, anxious way.
Merlin looked up at the librarian. “Doloman, how
many of these languages can you read?”
“The Latin and the Greek. I can identify enough of the Hebrew to know what it is, but not enough to read it properly.”
“Your Holiness?”
“The Greek and some of the Latin and Hebrew.”
“Jason?”
“Don’t look at me.”
“All right. Obviously we can make it through the Latin and Greek easily enough. I’ve read enough Cabalist texts that I should be able to make it through the Hebrew without much problem. The fourth one is Persian and that’s going to take a little work.”
“You think this might be what you’re looking for?” Jason asked nervously.
“I don’t know, Jason, but it’s the best chance we have and we’re running out of time.” Pulling himself to his feet, Merlin leaned forward, palms on the table, and turned from one to the other of those around him like a general directing his officers on the eve of battle. “Jason, help Doloman clear away the rest of this litter. Your Holiness, I need to impose on you for more pens and paper. I think we are going to be here for a while.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Another full day passed before any coherent information could be wormed out of the conglomeration of texts and languages in the manuscript. Jason, who had been running errands for the three scholars, had just returned with a fresh pot of tea as Merlin leaned back in his chair, rubbing his palms against his tired eyes.
“Ah, thank you Jason. I appreciate that.”
“I just wish I could help with this.” Jason’s voice was tight with frustration.
“No one can be expected to do everything.” Merlin smiled understandingly before turning his gaze back to the strange book. “But at least I think we have a passable translation of the applicable chapter.”
Everyone huddled close as Merlin launched into his presentation. “From what we have so far, I believe this work is by one of the Gnostic philosophers. For those of you unfamiliar with the Gnostics, they were a semi-religious sect, which flourished in the Middle East during the late pre-Christian and early Christian era. There are even rumors of Gnostic Gospels which were suppressed by the early fathers of the Christian Church. Many Jewish Cabalists were heavily influenced by the Gnostics - and vice versa - that would account for the presence of Hebrew in the text...”
“Excuse me, Merlin, but weren’t the Cabalists black magicians or something?”
“Some of them, yes, but most of them concentrated on sciences like astronomy and astrology. Their work was very little different from my own.”
“And the Gnostics?”
“I was just getting to that, Jason. The Gnostics believed that all matter - meaning virtually the entire world, as we know it - is evil and that liberation from evil is only achievable through spiritual knowledge, which they referred to as Gnosis. The similarities with Tantric Buddhism, at least what little I understand of it...” Here he inclined his head toward the Panchen Lama “...would account for the presence of this volume in a Buddhist monastery.”
“Certainly,” Sun Wang To interjected, expanding on Merlin’s line of thought. “Even if this text is as old as you believe it to be, it would still postdate the founding of Buddhism by as much as nine centuries. If there were similarities between the two schools of thought it would not be unreasonable that Buddhist scholars would have sought out such a work.”
“I know this is important stuff and all, but what does it say about dragons?” Jason’s small patience with comparative religion was over-powered by his need for facts.
Merlin tapped his finger against his translation notes. “I believe what we have here is a true Gnostic Gospel. Why the bizarre combination of languages, I cannot possibly guess, but every one of the languages used here would have been known to early Christians and the Gnostics. Jews would account for the Hebrew; Zoroastrians for the Persian and both Latin and Greek were used by early Christians. Tragically, because of the disastrous hodgepodge of languages it’s almost impossible to infer the meaning of even a single word from its context. Worst of all, no one here knows old Persian.”
“What I believe you are trying to tell us, Mr. Merlin, is that we are guessing at much of the meaning.” It was a shorter explanation than Merlin would have preferred, but the Lama had made the point.
“Yes. We’re guessing and we only have bits and pieces, but I think Jason will agree that some of it sounds familiar enough to tell us we are on the right track. This first passage describes the dragons and the ferocity of their attacks - pretty standard stuff, really. Now this next passage concerns a woman who is somehow connected to the dragons. You translated this...” Merlin turned to face Sun Wang To “What was it you thought it said?”
“I don’t know the word, but it speaks of a concubine, not like a court concubine, but one who accepts money for her services.”
“A whore.”
“Yes. That is the word: whore. Then it goes on to say that this woman is somehow involved with a land ruled by someone referred to by the title of Caesar and having the name Nebuchadnezzar. These words mean nothing to me. Can you make any sense of them Mr. Merlin?”
“I believe so. Nebuchadnezzar was a king of ancient Babylon; obviously indicating that the woman in question is the Whore of Babylon, mentioned in the Book of Revelations. The reference to Nebuchadnezzar as Caesar was probably made because it is widely believed that St. John was actually referring to the Roman Empire when he used the term Babylon. I believe we have here our first independent verification of the Whore of Babylon being in league with the dragons and, by extension, a reference to Morgana le Fay.
“The text goes on to say the woman calls the dragons through some kind of opening. Here, look at this illustration again for a second.” Merlin flipped back to the drawing that first caught Doloman’s attention. “You see what appears to be the cave from which the dragon is emerging? Does it look just a little too perfectly round to be a cave?”
“You think this is a black hole, don’t you?” Finally it was all beginning to make sense to Jason.
“Please, what is the meaning of ‘black hole’?”
It was Jason’s turn to contribute something and he offered a few short, concise sentences on the black hole theory before turning the conversation back over to Merlin.
“As you say, Jason, this could be a black hole. Of course, it could also just be a stylized representation of a cave. But the text clearly states that this opening is unassailable.” Merlin shuffled back and forth through his notes before continuing. “The next passage is in the form of some kind of riddle, and I can make absolutely no sense of it at all. I have lost some of it in the translation, but I’m sure it again speaks of a cave, and then it calls the cave a place where, and I quote: ‘holy men who are not holy men would be led by a warrior who is not a warrior, beyond the waters of oblivion to pay homage to the light of the underworld’. Do any of you have any thoughts on what this might be telling us?”
General head scratching and murmurs of confusion reigned until the Lama asked Merlin to break down the sentence one phrase at a time. For all the good it did, he obliged. “‘Holy men who are not holy men’, ‘a warrior who is not a warrior’, ‘waters of oblivion’, ‘light of the underworld’.” None of it made any sense. The most they could agree on was that the clause ‘will be led’ probably indicated that whatever the writer believed was going to happen, would take place sometime in the future. Assuming it was written to within a century or two of the time of Jesus, and assuming that these four were the first to begin unraveling the riddle, then the event in question took place at some unknown point over the past two thousand years – or might yet take place in the future. Where, when, or the exact nature of the event involving sham holy men, a pretend warrior, lights in the underworld and the mysterious ‘waters of oblivion’, were left completely unanswered as was what part the Whore of Babylon would play in this bizarre scenario. After hours of wrangling and wracking their brains, the four finally gave up and went their separate ways.
Doloman went back to replacing unneeded books on the shelves, Sun Wang To went to prayer and Jason pushed Merlin’s wheelchair along the cloister toward their rooms.
“Do you have any idea what all this means?”
Merlin raised his face toward Jason, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I did come to one conclusion that I did not mention.”
“What?”
“Do you remember I said that the passage about the door, or portal, through which Morgana calls the dragons was referred to as being unassailable?”
“Yeah, so?”
“If it is unassailable, then it can neither be closed nor breached. Correct?”
“Ok.”
“And we know we have shut down her communications device, at least temporarily.”
“Check.”
“And I have been keeping the dragons from coming through for fifteen hundred years. Right?”
“I don’t think I like where this is leading.”
“If this opening were truly unassailable, then it could not be closed, even temporarily. Therefore, I think there is either another communication device, another passageway, or the passageway I have been holding closed all these centuries has only been closed on one end.”
“Which end?”
“I have no idea...but...” Merlin paused before completing the thought, the last of his words still forming in his mind.
“Yes?”
“If it’s on the dragon’s end, then somewhere there is a passageway leading directly to the dragons’ realm. And if it is on our end...”
“Ok?”
“Then what might we find behind that door, and how long has it been waiting to get out?”
“...Shit.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chen’s boots made a soft, slopping sound, depositing a trail of mud along the hall to Morgana’s office. No matter how long she had been waiting for him, and how impatient she was for his report, tracking filth onto her carpeting would cause him more grief than delaying long enough to remove his boots. Carefully, he laid the objects in his hand on the floor and propped his backside against the corridor wall, leaning forward to pick at the dirt encrusted laces and scrape the largest clods of mud from his trousers. Finally, he was satisfied that his physical presence would not infuriate the esteemed Missus. Picking up the objects, Chen approached the ornately carved door and knocked.