by Daniel Diehl
“I just can't understand how can anybody can be that WICKED?”
“My dear,” Merlin said, taking her hand gently in his and locking his unnaturally vibrant blue eyes with hers, “the woman's soul is so empty, so completely imbued with evil, that she can only feel pleasure by inflicting pain on others. The more and greater the pain, the more satisfied she is. It’s a sad truth, but the truth none-the-less.”
Attempting to veer the conversation away from the subject of Morgana, Jason and Merlin concentrated on less depressing aspects of their journey. They described the ancient book - probably a form of pseudo-Gospel written by the ancient mystical sect known as Gnostics – they had discovered in the Buddhist monks’ library, and which seemed to refer to the secret of the dragon's method of entry into the world. With a sigh, Merlin explained that because the manuscript was written in a combination of Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Persian it was almost impossible to translate so that it made any coherent sense. From what he and the Panchen Lama had been able to worm out of it, the dragons earthly power cantered on, or around, a cave that had once been used by holy men who were not holy and a warrior who was not a warrior. There was also mention of the waters of oblivion and something referred to as the light of the underworld. None of it made any sense. Once again, Merlin insisted that it would be Jason, and not himself, who would unravel the mystery of the book, and the answer would lead them to the ultimate means of closing forever the ethereal gate through which Morgana planned to call in the dragons and conquer the world.
During the course of their long, rambling conversation, Jason carefully side-stepped his short imprisonment by Morgana and her threats to hunt down Beverley if he refused to cooperate in the capture of Merlin. Since he had escaped unscathed, there didn't seem to be any need to mention the ugly threats against Beverley's life, particularly since she was still dutifully wearing the crucifix that Merlin had empowered against Morgana's scrying crystal, and given to her before he and Jason left on their quest to find out if Morgana had a means of contacting the Dragon Lords from her fortress on the Mongol-Chinese border. Discussion of the crucifix did, however, remind Merlin of another protective device they had obtained from the Buddhist monks. Reaching into the leather pouch that hung from his belt, he produced a small jar, unscrewed the cap and held it out toward Beverley.
“What’s that?” Beverley leaned forward, sniffing at the nearly transparent, creamy contents of the jar.
“It would appear that this is an anti-scrying agent. Sun Wang To, the Panchen Lama of the monastery we were staying at, gave this to us. A small dab of this applied regularly to the center of the forehead makes it impossible for anyone to find you through the medium of a scrying glass. Jason and I have been using it now for more than a week, and we think you should begin wearing it too.”
“If you think that's best, sure. Do I need it when I have the magic crucifix?”
“The crucifix is hardly magic, my dear, and although the stone from which the cross is made has been given special properties to deflect the power of the scrying glass, it would still be best if you used this, too. Better safe than sorry, as they say.” Merlin reached across the table and laid his long, slender hand over Beverley’s.
“Whatever you say.”
Throughout the conversation, Merlin had been glancing over his shoulder, through the doors of the restaurant, and into the hotel lobby.
“Is something wrong out there?” Reflecting on all they had been through, Jason craned his head around as his voice became tight with anxiety.
“No, no. Everything’s perfectly fine. I just need a moment to investigate something. If you two will excuse me, I’ll give you a little time to yourselves. I should be back shortly and then we can have something to eat.” Thinking about what he had missed most in the world of twenty-first century culinary arts, he added dreamily, “I wonder if they have pizza here?” Rising from his seat, he wandered toward the door, ignoring Jason's protests that they were very nearly out of money.
Alone, Beverley leaned closer to Jason, nestling her head on his chest, idly tracing the seam on his tattered Levi's with one finger.
“You smell. You need a bath,” she murmured quietly.
“You want to help me take care of that?” When she raised her eyes to meet his, Beverley saw the grin playing across his weary face.
“Sure.” And she grabbed his ribs, making him flinch.
Before Jason could carry the thought any further, Merlin swept back into the restaurant and settled back down in his seat.
“I took the liberty of getting us rooms for the night. I think we will all feel better if we have a bath and get a good rest before starting out in the morning.”
“Umm, Merlin, where did you get the money this time?” Jason shook his head in anticipation of yet another of the old magi's semi-larcenous money-conjuring tricks.
With an air of complete innocence, Merlin answered defensively. “I wasn't the only one. I’ve been watching that machine on the wall of the lobby and one person after another was getting money from it, so I got some for us.”
“That was a cash machine. You’re supposed to have a card and an PIN number and it takes money out of your bank account. You don't have a bank account and mine’s almost empty.” Jason ran a dirty hand over his forehead. “How much did you get?”
Reaching into the pocket of his coat, Merlin pulled out a small mountain of ten and twenty pound notes and laid them carefully in the center of the table.
“I don't know. I paid for the rooms and this is what was left over. I would have gotten more, but there wasn't any more in the machine.”
“Oh, Lord, Merlin. You know, you really are a piece of work.”
Furrowing his brow in confusion, Merlin mumbled “Thank you…I think”.
Jason shook his head but Beverley only covered her mouth and giggled softly. “Here, Bev,” Jason said, snatching the wad of bank notes from the tablecloth, “put this in your purse. We don't need everybody in the place witnessing our bank robbery techniques.”
While Beverley made a neat pile of the money and tucked it carefully into her hand-bag, Merlin broached a new subject.
“I know you came down from York to see Jason and give us a ride back home, and I’m sure we both appreciate your effort on our behalf...” It was obvious he was going somewhere with this, and Jason and Beverley waited to see where that might be. They only had to wait a minute till Merlin held up his empty wine glass, signaled to a waiter and picked up the thread of his tale.
“Since you have your car here, I was wondering if you would mind if we took a little side trip on the way back north...a detour, if you will.”
“You mean I finally get to go on one of your little adventures with you?” Beverley's tone was half-mocking, but she was obviously thrilled to be included.
“Yes. If you don’t mind and it’s not too far out of the way. There’s someone we need to talk to, an old friend of mine. She might help us answer the riddle of the Gnostic gospel.”
“No offence, but I didn't know you had any old friends.” Jason's face was screwed up in doubt and confusion. “I mean, with the exception of Morgana, I thought everyone you knew is long dead.”
“All the people, yes, but not everyone.” Still delighted with his ability to mystify his young friends, Merlin was obviously enjoying this new game.
“Ok. I give up. Who is this friend who is not a person and where do they live?”
“She lives in Wales. I am a Welshman, you know. That's where I’m from.”
“I know, you told me. Carmarthen, if I remember right.” Jason knew he was right, he even remembered that the original name of Carmarthen in Old Gaelic, had been Caer Myrddin, and it meant Merlin's fortress.
“Very good, Jason. You have been paying attention.” Now that he had their rapt attention, Merlin leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “My friend is someone with whom I was once very close, her name is Vivian...”
“Wait. You said that name
the first night in my apartment when you were telling me about Arthur and Morgana. But I can’t remember.” Jason screwed up his face concentrating vainly for the answer.
“You know her from the stories about Arthur where she is referred to as the Lady of the Lake.” As Beverley stared at him in open-mouthed amazement, Merlin rose from his seat. “But there’ll be plenty of time for explanations tomorrow on the drive to Wales.” Turning to Beverley he continued. “How long would it take to get from here to north Wales?”
“I don’t know, it’s two hundred miles at least so, somewhere between four and five hours.”
“Would you mind? It could be important and might well help us unravel the riddle and provide the key to closing the dragon gate permanently.”
Her eyes lighting up at the prospect of meeting the legendary Lady of the Lake, Beverly nodded enthusiastically. “I’d love to, if you two aren’t too knackered for another day on the road.”
Jason just shook his head, wiped a hand across his eyes and shrugged wearily. “At this point it’s just another day.”
“Well, then, I wish you two young people a very good night and I will see you at breakfast at eight o'clock in the morning.” With that, he reached into his pouch, produced a room key, laid it on the table, tossed back his half-finished drink and walked silently toward the lobby and the elevators.
“What on earth are we supposed to make of that?” Beverley was talking to Jason, but her eyes were riveted on Merlin’s retreating figure as it glided across the marble floor of the lobby, with great dignity, in a filthy grey gown and a goat skin vest.
“I have no idea, but if I’ve learned anything from that old man, it’s never to underestimate him. He knows things you can't even imagine and probably don't want to.”
Picking up the key with one hand and taking Jason's arm with the other, she said quietly. “One thing I can imagine is that shower we were talking about.”
Jason leaned over and planted a soft kiss on her temple. “Oh, yeah, I can imagine that, too...but why imagine?”
Pulling him up from his seat she whispered in his ear “Oh, I don’t know, that gamey boy-smell kind of turns me on.”
Chapter Two
Jason, Merlin and Beverley piled into Beverley’s black Mini Cooper the following morning, drove north from Gatwick Airport, took the M40 past Birmingham, skirted Liverpool where, only three months earlier, Morgana le Fay had nearly killed Jason, bypassed the medieval town of Chester and headed into the northern reaches of Wales. Even at the height of summer the hills and valleys of Wales can be subject to the most unpredictably unpleasant weather; the locals say that if you can see the mountains it is about to rain, if you can't see them it’s because it’s already raining. Lowering clouds with slate grey bellies cling perpetually to the mountain tops, making the country look like a land ruled by small, petty and very angry gods. In the dead of winter Wales is far less hospitable.
Long before Merlin directed Beverley to pull the Mini off of the main roadway and move onto back roads that were little more than unmarked sheep paths, the fat black clouds had virtually devoured the ghostly shape of the distant mountains. If the occupants of the car could have seen the entire dome of the sky, it would have appeared to them like little more than a field of boiling lead. As they climbed steadily upward toward the distant hills, the air became filled with a mist so thick that everything more than a few yards in front of them was reduced to shimmering, spectral outlines. Not that there was much to see; the only things moving on the remote roads of rural Wales were a few sheep wandering aimlessly through the fog in search of any edible patch of grass that miraculously survived on the sodden, brown hills. Once they passed near a border collie who paused in his work of shepherding a flock of sheep long enough to bark once at the passing Mini.
“Nice country you got here, Merlin. Has it always been so inviting?”
“Wales has its own peculiar charm, Jason. The atmosphere lends a mystery to the Welsh countryside that is found nowhere else in the world. It grows on you.”
“So does a wart."
“Don't mock what you don't understand.”
“Where are we going again?” Beverley was straining her eyes through the fog, trying to follow Merlin's vague directions toward the coast and the westernmost point of Great Britain.
“Just follow the signs toward Ynys Enlli and Bardsey Island. It’s the same place, the signs just list it in both English and Welsh. Can you make out the signs?”
“Um Hum. I think so. As long as I don't go too fast.”
“Take your time.”
“Oh, there’s the turnoff, now. Ynys Enlli.” Beverley cranked the steering wheel hard to the left, bumping along over the rutted track that passed for the roadway leading towards Ynys Enlli Island.
“When you get near the ocean, just park anywhere along the edge of the road and we can walk from there.”
“Oh, look, over there’s a little car park. I can pull in there.”
Once on the foot path, they stumbled along through the fog, Merlin in the lead, feeling his way according to some mental map that had not been accessed for a thousand and a half years. How he kept from getting hopelessly lost, the other two could not imagine. The fog was so thick it even blotted out the natural sounds of both the sea and the countryside, leaving them to stumble, nearly blind and deaf, through a soft, wet, silvery curtain. After a half-hour of climbing up hill and down, the temperature began to drop, a sure sign they were nearing a large body of water. Ten minutes later, the tough gorse and dead ferns that covered the landscape gave way to a rock-strewn shingle.
Merlin stopped moving, looked left and right, while idly wringing the water out of his waist-length beard. “We need to follow the shore northward until we come to a big hawthorn bush standing on its own.”
“What makes you think this bush is still here after all these eons?” Jason was holding tight to Beverley's hand, helping her over the uneven stones and rocks of the beach.
“It will still be here. Never fear.”
“Is this where your friend, Vivian, lives? Out here on the edge of the world?” Beverley was fighting to maintain her balance, keep up with Jason and Merlin and still carry on a conversation.
“More or less. She lives on the island; it’s about two miles off shore. Out there somewhere.” Merlin gestured vaguely to his left. “Today they call it Ynys Enlli or Bardsey, in my day it was commonly known as either ‘the road to heaven’ or ‘the gate to paradise’ but its proper name was Avalon.”
“You mean Avalon was a real place?”
“Oh, my, yes. Later scholars somehow came to the erroneous conclusion that it was near Glastonbury, but it was here in Wales. Ah and there it is.”
“Where’s what?” Straining his eyes, Jason could still hardly see ten feet ahead of him.
“The hawthorn. It’s over here.”
The twisted shape of an ancient thorn bush suddenly appeared out of the fog to loom up in front of them. Massive, gaunt and leafless in winter, its gnarled branches looked like skeletal fingers reaching out to ensnare unwary passers-by. Following Merlin haltingly toward the bush, Jason and Beverley came to a stop only inches from the briar covered branches.
“Where to now?”
“Through the bush, Jason. Through the bush. Here, let me pull the branches apart. You go first and open the way while I will hold the path open for Beverley.”
“Through the bush? Why don't we just go around it? There isn’t another thing within a million miles.” Jason gestured toward the endless expanse of open shoreline stretching into the foggy distance on either side of them.
“Because going around it won't take us to where we’re going. Now, come on boy, step lively.”
Lowering his head and elbowing his way through the ensnaring barbs and twigs of the hawthorn, Jason stumbled forward, holding Beverley’s hand to help her along. A minute later, the three of them were out of the thicket and standing on the same rocky shingle as before, but in the time
it had taken them to fight their way through the shrub, the fog had dissipated enough that they could clearly see the gently lapping sea in front of them. In the distance, far out across the glassy, green surface of the water, stood a fog enshrouded island.
Looking around, Beverley furrowed her brow in confusion. “I would have thought the fog would have hung more heavily on the water than on the surrounding land. This seems to be all backwards.”
“Turn around and look back the way we came.” Merlin's voice was simultaneously playful and commanding. Doing an about face, Beverley drew in a quick breath of amazement. The nearly impenetrable fog had all but disappeared. Behind them they could see the path they had followed all the way back to where the Mini was parked somewhere in the distance.
“Where did the fog go?”
“It is still there, but it only exists on the other side of the hawthorn.”
“That’s why we had to come through the bush, isn't it?” Beverley seemed fascinated by this impossible truth, but Jason still scowled incredulously. Excited, almost like a child discovering a new plaything, she continued. “How do we get to your friend's house?”
“Let's just go over there on the shingle and sit down. She should be along in a minute.”
Exchanging a quick, confused look, Jason and Beverley followed the receding shape of Merlin as he made his way along the shore to what he considered an accommodating spot and sat down heavily on the rocky beach. By the time they caught up with him, Merlin had leaned back, pulled his filthy fur coat close around him and locked his hands behind his head.