by Daniel Diehl
“Merlin.” At first the word came out of Jason’s mouth calm and even, then rising as Jason was overwhelmed by a dizzying vertigo. He felt hollow as though everything, including himself, was somehow unreal. Finally, in an instant of terrifying clarity, he plunged along the veranda toward Merlin’s room, slipping and sliding across the floor, till he crashed through the door. “Up, up, up! MERLIN! For God’s sake get up!”
“I’m up. What’s wrong?” Merlin was dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed when Jason grabbed his arm and dragged him, hobbling, toward the outside balcony.
“Look.” Jason’s voice was tight with panic, ready to crack into a falsetto.
Merlin understood the danger instantly but remained outwardly calm. “Out. Out into the courtyard, Jason. Warn the monks.”
“Right. Come on, I’ll help you.”
“No. You go. I’ll be along in a second.” Jason hesitated, not wanting to leave Merlin limping around on his own. “I said GO.”
Jason shot through the door to the inner balcony, shouting at the monks to take cover, while Merlin stood sizing up his enemy, now suspended in the air only a few hundred feet from the monastery roof. “I know you.” His voice was calm and even - one old enemy eyeing up another after years of nurturing an implacable hatred. “I know you…and you’re mine.”
By the time Merlin limped onto the inner balcony, Jason was already in the courtyard trying desperately to make the monks understand they were in mortal danger. The shouted questions and general confusion brought the Panchen Lama to his balcony just as the head of the creature appeared over the crest of the roof.
Its front end high in the air, head reared and front claws raised, the beast let out a bellowing shriek that sent a ball of acrid smoke and flame cascading down the porch roofs to ricochet off the cobblestones below. The massive rear feet plunged forward, reaching for the comb of the roof like a bird trying to land on a small branch; but the creature’s weight and speed were too great. A twenty foot section of roof exploded into space, raining down on the courtyard, slamming into fleeing men. Monks ran blindly in every direction, shouting and screaming, while Jason tried to herd them to safety. His heart was hammering so hard he thought it would break through his chest. By now the dragon had propelled its massive body to the far side of the complex, the whipping tail only clearing the ground by a dozen feet. Within seconds, it disappeared over the opposite side of the roof with a terrible scream.
“Is it gone?” Jason’s shaking voice called across the open space as Merlin hobbled down the last few steps into the courtyard.
“No. It’s just turning around for another pass. Get these men out of here and let me deal with this thing.”
“It knows we’re here, doesn’t it?”
“Of course it knows. Now get out of here and give me room to work.”
In the few minutes it took Jason and the Lama to get the panicked monks inside, the sound of ponderous wings were already echoing back across the valley. When the thing finally halted its assent, it was nearly a thousand feet above the monastery roof. Jerking its wings into an upright position, it plunged earthward like a dive-bomber, head forward, mouth open, waiting for the moment to strike. In the center of the courtyard stood the lone figure of Merlin, arms outstretched, tracing invisible patterns in the air.
The blast of foul breath hit like a furnace: an apocalypse of flame, a baptism of fire. On the balconies behind Merlin a few straggling monks shrieked in terror as their robes incinerated, their flesh blistering away from the muscle beneath. Near the front gate, sheltered beneath the small pagoda, Jason watched in terror as his friend vanished inside the rolling ball of fire. When the flame cleared Merlin was still there, one hand upraised like a tiny umbrella, fending off fiery destruction, while the other hand continued to scribe airy designs. His chanting was louder now, more forceful, more determined. Jason wanted to go to him but, knowing there was absolutely no way he could help, he remained frozen.
By the time the monster returned for a third pass the clouds had thickened to impenetrable blackness, plunging the courtyard into a murky twilight. In seconds the temperature dropped so far that Jason’s teeth began to chatter.
When the thing came ripping over the tiled horizon of the roof, it was apparent that the cold air was slowing its movement. The huge, leathery wings struggled, pumping and lunging to keep the massive body in the air, the head thrashing from side to side in frustration like a chained bear tormented by dogs. The attack, when it came, was less furious than previously but the blast of heat was still enough to knock Jason off his feet, tumbling him beyond the safety of the pagoda. Laying there, half dazed, he imagined someone was throwing rocks at him. Clearing his head, he realized it was hailing.
Thicker and thicker the hail fell. The first hailstones had been no bigger than peas, but within minutes they increased to the size of marbles, finally growing as large as golf balls. Clattering and slamming onto the roof and cobblestones, the din was deafening. Pieces of broken roof tile flew in every direction, shattered by the force of falling ice. The dragon tried desperately to make another attack, but the hail, the cold and the weight of ice on its wings conspired to pull it down. Its front feet grasped frantically at the roof, ripping out another massive section as the shrieking creature crashed helplessly through the trees toward the valley below.
By the time Merlin called Jason and the monks from their refuges, the courtyard and balconies were a foot deep in ice. The first to move, Jason rushed to make sure Merlin was safe.
“Are you alright?” He said, clutching at Merlin’s shoulders as though reassuring himself the old man was real.
“Yes, yes, I’m perfectly fine.” Merlin’s chest heaved as he gulped in lungs-full of fresh air. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Now what the hell was that?”
Merlin looked at him the way people look at a not-very-bright child. “It was a dragon, Jason.”
“God damn it, I know it was a dragon. Where did it come from?”
“Don’t blaspheme; God had nothing to do with it. Now help me inside and I’ll tell you what I think.” Glancing around the rubble-filled courtyard he added, “and find the Lama. I think I better talk to him, too.”
“Maybe we should help the monks first,” Jason said, scanning the balconies where dozens of disheveled monks rushed to gather around the blackened and broken bodies of their brothers.
“No time, I’m afraid. Sooner or later that thing is going to thaw out and when it does it’ll be back.”
“Back? You think it isn’t dead.”
“I know it isn’t dead. I just drained some of its energy by conjuring the cold and ice. When it wakes up it’s going to be very hungry.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“This is a part of the evil which seeks you out, is it not, Mr. Merlin?” The old Panchen Lama was flailing his arms and shouting across the courtyard, slipping and sliding through the ice in an attempt to reach Jason and Merlin.
“I am afraid so, Your Holiness. It would seem that our enemy has located us yet again.”
Panting with emotion and fear, Sun Wang To slid to a halt at Jason’s elbow, never taking his eyes off Merlin’s face. “I will speak to you of my distress and unhappiness later. What I want to know now is have you defeated the thing?”
“I was just telling Jason that the three of us need to have a conference.”
“You are telling me the danger is not over, are you not?”
“I’m afraid that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“I must help the wounded and see to the dead but...” here he shook his finger furiously in Merlin’s face “I will join you in the library very shortly. I suggest you both be there.”
Merlin bowed his understanding and acquiescence while Jason could only stare in amazement at the holy man’s fury.
* * * *
“No.” Merlin shook his head vehemently in answer to Jason’s question. “She could not have opened the dragon gate. Not as
long as I remain alive.”
“Then, please, Mr. Merlin, explain to my satisfaction where this dreadful thing came from.”
“There have always been stories, Your Holiness, that when I sealed the gate centuries ago one or more of the dragons was trapped on this side. In England there is the story of the Lambton Worm - a series of dragon sightings which took place around the year 1120. There are other stories too, but this is the one I’m most familiar with. Evidently the stories are true.”
“You think there are more of these things?” Jason’s brow was knitted in worry.
“I doubt it. If she had more than one she would have sent them all after us.”
“How does this evil woman know where to find you? Why my monastery?”
“Obviously she can follow my movements the same way I followed hers; with a scrying glass. As long as I was sealed in the orb the energy field prevented her from locating me, but this is the third time she managed to fiund us over the past four months. The danger was limited when she only used human agents to help her but now, with this thing...” He left the thought unfinished but the implication was clear.
“Explain this to me, Merlin. How, exactly, did the ice storm incapacitate the dragon.” Jason was waggling his fingers in the air, drawing attention to himself and his question.
Merlin sighed, leaned back in his chair and shifting his throbbing ankle. “In the simplest, modern terms, I short-circuited the beast. As I already explained to you, dragons are essentially composed of energy. The ice and cold drained away some of that energy the same way water drains power from an exposed electrical wire.”
“Can you short out its whole system?”
Merlin shook his shaggy head, “To do that I would have to get the water inside it and I can’t penetrate its thick hide with hailstones. I can weaken it, even hurt it, but I can’t do enough damage to kill it.”
“How about lightning? Could you blast it with lightning during a hailstorm? That way, if you could open up a wound the water would get down inside its body.”
“Lightning won’t hurt it, it will feed it. The beast consumes energy; lightning is energy.”
“You told me you saw one of Uther’s soldiers kill one of these things, right?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He impaled it with his lance. He nearly ran it through; completely buried the lance in the creature’s chest. Of course, to penetrate the dragon’s belly the man was riding at top speed on a heavy warhorse. That provides a tremendous amount of motive power - power that we lack. But, Jason, the man was incinerated before the beast died.”
“I’m working on that part. Just let me think. This is not insoluble. There are lots of ways to puncture something. We could use a cannon, or a rocket, or...”
“We can’t use anything that delivers a charge of energy.”
“I don’t mean the cannon shell should deliver an exploding charge. I know we can’t kill it that way. I mean we could use something like a cannon to deliver a lance or some kind of a sharp object that could penetrate the dragon’s skin.”
The Lama shook his head vehemently. “Mr. Jason. I appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to help, but I assure you there are no such devices in my monastery.”
There was a long pause while Jason pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, nodding his head one way and then the other, until he finally opened his eyes. “Wait. I know. Merlin, are you familiar with a ballista? I think the Romans called them catapulta.” Jason’s hand was shaking with excitement. “They are sort of like a big crossbow mounted on a tripod....”
“Yes. I know what you mean. Ballistae are torsion driven siege engines that can throw a wooden bolt as long as a man’s arm with enough power to tear a man off a charging horse. I once saw a ballista bolt skewer three men in a row. But, I’ve never had a close look at one. Have you?”
“Not really,” replied Jason, “but I saw some guys build one in a television documentary, and the engineering seemed pretty simple. I think I could build this thing and it should give us all the power and distance we need. I don’t see that we have that many options, here. So what do you think, Merlin, is it a plan?”
“You know, my boy, I think you might just be on to something.”
“Good. That solves the problem of how to deliver the shot without making it a suicide mission, but it doesn’t answer the big question - why did the lance kill the dragon in the first place?”
Stroking his beard slowly, Merlin realized he had never considered this question before. “An interesting point. I don’t know.”
“Ok. Let’s look at this logically; one step at a time. Describe the lance. What was it made of?”
Merlin shrugged. “It was like any lance; about twenty feet long, three inches in diameter, and made of wood. At the rear was a hand grip and on the front was an iron tip.”
“An iron tip? Describe it.”
“There’s not much to describe. It was about two feet long and made of beaten iron. It fit over the end of the lance and was fixed in place with two nails. Not much by today’s standards but very effective in a brutal sort of way.”
That doesn’t give me what I need. The metal alone wouldn’t have shorted out its system, especially not on the end of a wooden pole because wood is nonconductive. Wait. Wait just a minute.” Jason peered off into space, searching for some great truth. “Merlin, what was the weather like on the day of the battle?”
“The weather? Jason, I don’t remember. It was a very, very long time ago.”
“Please, Merlin, try to think. Try to remember. This could be critical.”
“Alright. Yes. The day really was too terrible to forget. It was foggy, drizzly. Not raining, but still very wet. Why? What does this have to do with anything?”
“If the air was full of water then the lance was wet, right?” Jason’s eyes shone with the excitement of realization.
“I see where this is leading. The combination of the water and the metal lance-point shorted the creature’s system. A very good line of thought, but we can’t rely on a metal lance, or a ballista bolt, or whatever, being wet enough at the moment of impact to short it out.”
His mind percolating furiously, Jason leaned across the table, laid his hand over the back of the Panchen Lama’s gnarled fingers and said something extraordinarily odd. “By any chance, do your monks do their own electrical and plumbing work here at the monastery?”
Sun Wang To blinked several times, very slowly, before stammering out his answer. “Yes. We have no choice. Have you ever tried to get a plumber in Mongolia?”
“Then you keep some electrical and plumbing supplies on hand?”
The old Lama nodded dumbly.
“Great. One last question. Do you, by any chance, have a freezer in the monastery?”
“Yes. Of course. We use it to store the produce from our garden over the winter.”
“Alright, gentlemen, I have it.” Jason leaned back with a self-satisfied air. “Let’s go kill us a dragon, shall we?”
* * * *
Assigned the responsibility of keeping the weather cold and wet for as long as necessary, Merlin excused himself, insisting the strain of maintaining the spell gave him a splitting headache. Meanwhile, Jason drew up plans for his ballista, making lists of materials as he went along and passing them out to the monks along with appropriate job assignments. Lu Shi was given the task of assembling the materials for making the arrows, which Jason hoped would short out the dragon’s internal circuitry. The list included six, four-foot lengths of half-inch copper pipe and as many hundreds of feet of copper wire as the monastery had. Ideally, he wanted six lengths of wire each a thousand feet long. Even though he had no idea what part it played in Jason’s plan, Sun Wang To instructed Lu Shi that if there was not enough wire in the supply room, he should assign two of the brothers to strip as much wire as they needed out of the monastery walls.
Three carpenters worked feverishly on the body of t
he ballista. The tripod-shaped base stood nearly four feet tall and its feet covered an equal spread to provide stability. The carriage, which would set on the tripod and carry the projectile, was cut from a four-inch-square beam six feet in length. Near the front of the carriage a rectangular frame would be mounted; this would hold the throwing arms and the ropes providing the tension necessary to hurl the giant arrow toward its target. The throwing arms were shaped from two axe handles requisitioned from the monks’ tool shed. At one end of each handle a notch was cut to hold the bowstring, and at the other end, channels were hollowed out to ensure that the ropes did not slip out of place when subjected to the tremendous pressure the machine would generate.
As Jason directed the process of mounting the frame onto the carriage, Lu Shi came to report he had assembled the copper pipe and wire. As instructed, the wire had been spliced into six coils, each nearly a thousand feet in length.
“Good job, Lu Shi. Congratulations.” Jason took a deep breath while mentally shifting gears to assign the monk his next task. “Now, what I need you to do is to hammer one end of each piece of the tubing to a point.”
“Just one end?”
“Yes.” Jason nodded “just one end. Next, I need you to strip the insulation from about five feet of wire on one end of each coil and thread the bare wire through the pipe far enough to wrap the loose end around the point three or four times. Just enough to hold it in place...”
“Wait, please. Let me understand. I push one end of a wire coil, from which I have removed the insulation, into the large end of the pipe, bring it out through the end which I have fashioned into a point, and wrap the wire around the point of the pipe several times. Yes?”
“You got it.” Jason clapped Lu Shi encouragingly on the back. “When you have done that, plug the pointed ends to make them watertight. You can use a ball of clay, bread dough, even a clod of dirt - anything to seal it.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Finally, fill the pipes with water, cap the back end and lay the pipes in the freezer.”