by Daniel Diehl
“Actually. I have been thinking about that very thing…in its larger context. What is it you call it? The big picture?”
“And?”
“Things have been moving so fast since you dug up my sphere that I haven’t really had time to reflect on things. What I mean to say is, I always knew it was inevitable that I would come back into the world to face Morgana and deal with the dragons. What I hadn’t realized was that I would be called back so unexpectedly. I thought I could come back at a time of my own choosing.”
“I understand. I’m sure it was confusing for you, being dumped into the modern world like that.”
“I don’t think you do understand.” Merlin twisted around in his seat so he could look directly into Jason’s face. “After centuries in isolation I lost sight of my true role in the world. It has never been my lot to initiate the action. I am an advisor, a teacher if you will. I am the enabler, not the hero.”
“Like with Arthur and Uther.”
“Exactly. But you see, in a very real sense, I failed both of them. I was unable to save either their kingdoms or their lives. In the end, I was forced into hiding to protect what little knowledge I possessed until someone came along to take their place. I have now been given a chance to redeem myself and set the world right again.”
“Merlin...I don’t like the way you’re staring at me. And you’re doing that head thing again. I can feel...”
A crackling voice cut Jason off in mid-sentence. “Air Mongolia flight seven for Moscow, Copenhagen and London Gatwick now boarding at gate four. Will all passengers please report to the boarding desk.” Passing through the check-in desk, Merlin grinned as he handed over his ticket, boarding pass and the folded magazine cover. Jason followed suit, shaking his head at how small a thing could still amuse the old wizard after so many centuries. A few minutes later, walking down the enclosed ramp leading to the plane, Jason picked up the thread of their conversation.
“I don’t understand why you’re trying to tie me into this whole thing. It’s your thing. I’m just trying to help.”
Merlin reared his head back and stared at Jason, his intense glare locking the young man’s eyes. “Jason, don’t you realize you have passed a great test? You defeated a dragon, the living symbol of mankind’s deepest, darkest fears. And, moreover, you’re still alive.”
“Aw, come on, Merlin. All I did was build a shitty copy of a medieval siege weapon.”
“No. What you did was stand alone against the most terrifying creature any human being has ever encountered. You’re a real hero.”
“No way. I was scared shitless back there.”
“Whatever made you think heroes don’t feel fear? They do, they just learn to conquer their fear as the first step toward conquering their enemies. That’s what you did, and it makes you a hero and, as such, you now have a destiny.”
“What destiny?”
“I’m not sure yet. But what I am certain of is that it will fall to you, not me, to decipher the riddle of the Gnostic Gospel, because therein lies the secret of the dragons and the dragons have become an integral part of your destiny.”
“Merlin,” Jason threw up his hands, completely at a loss for words, “I don’t even understand the damn clues, how can I unravel the puzzle?”
“Sometimes, the truth is not understood, it is only perceived.”
“I don’t understand that either.”
“I will be there to help you understand, but from here on, the path is yours, not mine.”
Jason pursed his lips, sighed and shook his head.
“Don’t feel bad, Jason. Arthur was always a bad student, too.”
“I am NO Arthur.”
The old wizard reached out a long, thin hand and tugged gently on Jason’s dirty-blond ponytail. “We shall see, my boy. We shall see. I have great hopes...”
Epilogue
The first class passengers for Cathay Air flight 432 had already been called and the stewardess waited inside the door of the plane, her greet-the-people smile fixed firmly in place. Although she seldom took much recognition of individual passengers it was hard not to notice the woman in the floor-length mink coat and matching Cossack hat. They had both been died the palest possible shade of lilac.
“Goodness, what a lovely coat.”
“I assure you, young lady, goodness had nothing whatever to do with it” snapped the woman, as she swept past, hardly glancing at the stewardess.
Morgana le Fay eased back into her seat, throwing the mink coat on the floor and burying her feet deep in its velvety warmth before removing the cell phone from her red handbag.
“Mrs. Morgan’s office.”
“It’s me, Jerry.”
“Oh, Mrs. Morgan. I’ve been trying to reach you for nearly a week. Do you know your mobile phone has been switched off?”
“It hasn’t been off, Jerry, I was out of range. And do you know there are more important things in life than whatever it is you have to tell me?”
“Yes, Mrs. Morgan. Sorry.”
“Now, what was so important?”
“The engineers have the system back up and running. They’re just reinstalling the company web sites. There were one or two they didn’t have on back-up but they’re rebuilding them now. By the end of the week nobody will ever know there was a problem.”
“I’ll know, Jerry, so you can tell them for me that they better build in enough safeguards that this never happens again.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Now connect me to Peter Haskell.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Haskell.”
“Peter. Lu Morgan, here.”
“Mrs. Morgan. Is there a problem?” The voice sounded as though it couldn’t decide whether to be pleased by a personal call from the CEO, or just plain terrified.
“No, Peter, no problem. I just have a little job for you.”
“Of course.” The expulsion of breath was audible on the other end of the line.
“Do you remember that device I had you hook up to the computer system in my library a few years ago?”
“The one with the big gold dish and the crystals?”
“That’s the one. Well, I want you to disassemble it and have it packed for shipping.”
“I’ll take care of it immediately.”
“Good. And since we removed the old power source, I want you to build a self-contained unit with a satellite relay system.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem...but...”
“But what?”
“Well, since we never figured out exactly how that thing works, it may take some time to devise a power source that will provide enough energy without blowing its circuits.”
“Time shouldn’t be a problem. Not now. Take all the time you need, just do the job right.”
“I’ll get to work on it right away, Mrs. Morgan.”
“I knew I could count on you, Peter. And remember, the future of your entire life depends on this.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Good-by, Peter.”
Morgana le Fay, known to her employees as Mrs. Lu Morgan, tossed the phone on the empty seat beside her, pulled the mink coat over her shoulders and leaned her head against the tiny pillow wedged between her seat and the window.
Poor old dragon. Ah, well, your slimy lizard-life wasn’t completely wasted; that meddling old cretin is dead and I’m finally free to call in all your brothers and cousins. Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, big bad wolf, big bad wolf...
As she dozed off a small, very private smile of satisfaction played across her scarlet lips.
On the following pages are
exciting preview chapters from
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice:
Book Two of
The Merlin Chronicles
Available Spring 2014.
Chapter One
Mumbling and twitching in his sleep, Merlin snuggled deeper into his heavy bearskin coat then, after a restive moment, he began to drea
m again. He dreamed of a time when he had been court priest to the warlord Uther, known as the Pendragon, and of his time as mentor to Uther's son Arthur. He dreamed of the ambitiously evil Morgana le Fay who had driven him into fifteen centuries of self-imposed exile in a six inch crystal sphere buried deep in the earth beneath Tintagel and of Jason Carpenter, the young archaeology student who had dug him up, thrusting him into a world for which he was emotionally and psychologically unprepared. But mostly, he dreamed of dragons.
First appearing as legends and stories brought to Briton by sailors and travelers, when the dragons had finally appeared in Briton during Uther's reign they brought with them a wave of death, fire and destruction that had destroyed Uther's fragile political coalition. Appearing out of the sky, the dragons swooped down on the primitive armies of fifth century Briton, leaving in their wake a land burned and blackened, much as it had been foretold in the New Testament book of Revelations. Merlin’s troubled dreams brought back the time when their common greed had brought the Dragon Lords and Morgana le Fay into a mutually advantageous compact designed to wipe out all civilization and install the mad Morgana as regent over the shattered remnants of the earth; their plans only having been thwarted when Merlin himself had broken into Morgana's library and secured enough information to temporarily close the invisible gate through which the dragons came to earth. Lastly, he dreamed of his brief time in the twenty-first century when he and Jason Carpenter had alternately chased, and been lured by, Morgana le Fay in a crazy race across three continents to face the last of Morgana's pet dragons at a monastery inhabited by a band of Buddhist monks in the icy mountains separating Mongolia and Russia. They were terrible dreams, nightmares filled with danger, death and blood. Worst of all, they were completely real.
“Merlin. Merlin, wake up.”
“Mph? What? Oh, I'm sorry, Jason, I must have dozed off for a moment.” Merlin opened bleary eyes, focusing on the haggard face of the tall, slim young man in the seat next to him.
“A moment? You've been out cold for nearly four hours.” Jason grinned wryly, tugging idly at his long blond ponytail.
Pulling himself upright in his seat, Merlin looked around, taking in his surroundings, bringing himself back to the world. “Oh, good heavens. I am sorry, I must have been dreaming.”
“I know, you were muttering in your sleep. It was her wasn't it? Morgana? You were dreaming about her, weren't you?”
“Yes, her and the creatures. It was very disturbing. You’d think I’d be used to it after a millennia and a half, wouldn't you?”
“I understand. And don't apologize. After what we’ve been through in the last six weeks you’re entitled to a little sleep, I'm just sorry it wasn’t more restful.” Jason's voice was placating, reassuring.
“Where are we?”
Glancing up at the seat-belt lights on the overhead panels, Jason answered “We’re about to land...” Before he could finish he was cut off by the public address system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing at London Gatwick International Airport in approximately ten minutes. The weather in London this evening is cold and rainy, and the temperature is five degrees Celsius. Please remain in your seats until the plane has come to a complete stop and the overhead seatbelt lights have been turned off.” The stewardess’ voice droned through the close air of the 747, grating on the nerves of more than two-hundred tired passengers.
“God, it’s good to be home again.” Only Jason's eyes betrayed the depths of his exhaustion, but at twenty-five, he was expected to have more resilience than his companion whose bearing and agility belied his physical age of seventy-five and whose chronological age was only slightly shy of one-thousand-six-hundred years.
“It is, indeed. Unfortunately, there is still so much work to be done, my boy.”
“I know, but we don't have to think about it tonight, Merlin. Morgana can't find us anymore and you have all the time you need to figure out a way of sealing the dragon gate once and for all.”
“Not me. Us. Remember, it is you who will decipher the riddle of the Gnostic gospel, Jason.”
“Oh, please, Merlin, not tonight.” Jason waved his hands helplessly in the air. “I just want to go home and get some sleep.” He paused, shook his head and let out a long breath before completing the thought. “Sleep, what a wonderful word.”
“Do you think your young lady is going to let you get any sleep after not having seen you in almost two months?” The old wizard's eyes twinkled.
“You really are a dirty old man.”
“Not in the least,” Merlin protested in a tone of mock injury. “She’s an attractive young woman and love is a perfectly natural thing between two healthy young people.” Then, after a small pause he added almost as an afterthought. “She does love you, you know.”
“You really think so?”
“Yes.” Merlin laid a paternal hand on Jason's arm. “I really think so. In fact, I know so.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Nothing. But one doesn’t have to be a wizard to know love when it stares you in the face.”
“Right.” Walking toward the check-in gate and passport control, Jason looked at Merlin with a side-long glance. After seeing the old man levitate himself over the walls of Morgana's fortress and spew cannon ball sized fire bombs from his fingertips, any doubt about his powers had long since been erased.
Beverley McCullough elbowed her way through the crowd of people milling around the entry gate outside the international arrivals desk; her long, frizzy auburn hair billowing out around her shoulders like a halo of fire. Craning her head one way and then the other, she searched through the line of tired looking passengers from Air Mongolia's flight number seven as they straggled their way into the vast bleakness of Gatwick's main terminal. Finally, her eyes came to rest on two disheveled looking figures, a skinny, heavily bearded old man wearing a long grey gown under a filthy fur coat and his tall, slender young companion. Ignoring those around her she rushed forward, throwing herself onto Jason, embracing him and burying her face against his shirt. A second later, she pulled back and began pounding furiously on his chest with one fist while clutching his jacket with the other. Huge, wet tears seeped out of her eyes and rolled down her delicately freckled cheeks.
“Damn, you. Damn you, Jason Carpenter. I’ll have your guts for garters, I swear I will. Seven weeks of running all over the orient and not a single word until you were ready to come home. I was worried sick. I didn't know if you were alive or dead. Morgana could have eaten the both of you for all I knew. Then what would I do? I'm not exactly on her list of friends and favorites, you know. Don't you ever do that to me again, do you hear me?”
“Whoa. Easy, Bev, easy. I told you when I called from the airport that we lost the mobile phone when we had to abandon the Land Rover. I'm really sorry. Honest.”
Beverly pulled away, wiping her face awkwardly before turning to Merlin and embracing him fondly.
“I'm really glad you're alright, too.” Then, pulling her head back with a jerk, “Oh, my God, what is that smell?”
“I'm afraid it’s my coat. It’s had a rather hard time of it.”
Beverley's grimace almost passed for a weak smile. “I told you not to wear dead animals.”
Merlin laughed for the first time in weeks and threw one arm around Beverley and the other around Jason. “May I suggest that we all go somewhere, sit down, relax a bit and get something to eat? I'm famished.”
“What you really mean is you mean you want a drink.” Jason snapped, poking the old man gently in the ribs.
“Ah, yes. That is what I meant, isn't it.”
“Oh, I don't know. If we’re going to drive all the way back up to York tonight, we need to leave now. It’s a long way and you both look dreadful.” There was real concern in Beverley's eyes as she examined the two men's faces.
“Well, then, possibly we should get rooms somewhere near the airport and get a good, fresh start in the morning.” Merl
in seemed genuinely enthused by his sudden inspiration when, in fact, staying near London had been his plan all along.
“Umm, we don't really have much cash left and I think my credit card is about tapped-out after paying for the plane tickets.”
Herding Beverley and Jason toward the exit and the car park beyond, Merlin muttered “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find a way.”
“You're not going to do one of those weird things you do to get money, are you?”
“Why, Jason, I’m shocked that you would think such things about me.”
Two hours later Jason, Beverley and Merlin were ensconced at a small corner table in the restaurant of the Gatwick Marriot Hotel. As Merlin and Jason unraveled their adventures in Mongolia they were both careful not to reveal anything that might cause Beverley undue worry. But the knowledge of what they now understood about Morgana and the dangerous work still ahead of them punctuated their conversation with occasional awkward silences. They told Beverley about their time with the itinerant Mongol tribesmen and the wonders of the Buddhist monastery, trying to avoid any in-depth retelling of the deaths caused by the attack by Morgana's captive dragon. Still, Merlin insisted on heaping lavish praise on Jason for coming up with the idea of constructing a medieval ballista with which he had ultimately killed the beast, and for probably being the only man ever to face down a dragon and live to tell about it. When Beverley stared into her boyfriend’s face in shocked awe, Jason pooh-poohed the whole thing as a fluke and admitted he was scared out of his wits the entire time. His humility only made Beverley snuggle closer to his side.
In gentle retaliation for what he honestly believed was unwarranted flattery, Jason deflected the conversation toward Merlin. He told Beverley about the previously unseen talents the old man had displayed; his levitating skills, his ability to create flaming balls of fire from thin air and hurl them at Morgana's army of mercenary thugs. He told her how Merlin had made the two of them appear in Morgana's office even though they were actually standing in a pitch-black tunnel far below ground. With mounting excitement he even blurted out the details of Merlin's duel with the sorcerer Ling Chow, and how Merlin had hung suspended in mid-air during a bone-jarring electrical storm, fighting the evil Chinaman in an epic battle-to-the-death. Already awed by what she had seen of Merlin's powers, Beverley was at once fascinated, and more than a little frightened, at the power of this seemingly ageless man who had suddenly popped into her and Jason's life from the pages of some Arthurian legend, bringing with him tales of the threat posed to humanity by Morgana le Fay. The more Beverley heard about Arthur's step-sister's plots and plans, the more incredulous she became.