The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  “Got it.”

  In less than a minute Ras began translating the tour guide’s talk, condensing it into small sound bites for Jason. “He is telling them that the Coptic Church was founded in the second century by St Mark during the time when Nero’s persecution of Christians threatened to wipe out most of the established congregations in the Roman Empire.”

  The general historical background and tourist patter continued as the group paraded around two sides of St Mary’s Church. It wasn’t until they left the main building and followed a gravel path toward the smaller of the two buildings that the guide said anything that caught Jason’s attention.

  “Ahead of us is the treasury building where more than nineteen centuries worth of church documents and treasures are kept. Inside this building are antiquities such as bishops’ crowns and crosiers, thousands of ancient Bibles, gospels, testaments and other religious manuscripts including the original text of the Gospel of St Mark in the saint’s own handwriting. Here too are all the surviving crowns of the Ethiopian monarchs dating from the year eight hundred A.D. up through the crown of our late, beloved monarch, his Excellency, Emperor Haile Selassie. But without question, the most famous item in the treasury is the Ark of the Covenant, built at the command of Moses to house the Ten Commandments and taken by the Hebrews during their wanderings in the desert. Centuries later, the sacred Ark was kept in Solomon’s great temple in Jerusalem until it was finally brought here for safe keeping by the future emperor, Menelik, who was the natural son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon and the founder of Ethiopia’s Solomonaic line of monarchs. A tour of the treasury can be arranged through your local priest or bishop and submitted for approval unless, of course, you want to see the Ark of the Covenant.” This last comment was followed by a general round of politely subdued laughter. Raising his hand high over his head and pointing to his left, the guide continued. “Now if you will all please follow me, we will go around to the west side of the treasury and back…”

  “Come on. Follow me.”

  Still at the tail end of the throng of tourists, Jason grabbed Ras by the arm and held him in place while the rest of the crowd followed the guide around the south side of the treasury building. As the last of the group rounded the corner, Jason ducked down and reversed course, heading back toward the front of the treasury to the small gate in the tall blue wrought iron fence. While the gate was latched it did not seem to have any kind of lock on it and it only took Jason a second to figure out the latching mechanism. Clicking it open and swinging the gate inward, Jason motioned Ras to follow him.

  “Jason, you can’t just walk in there.”

  “Why not? It wasn’t locked and I didn’t see any kind of sign that said trespassers would be shot. Now come on.”

  Moving slowly backward, an inch at a time, like Michael Jackson doing the moon walk, Ras waved his hands in a fending-off motion and whispered “Look, you go if you want, but you don’t need me.”

  “I hired you as a guide and translator, Ras, now you get your skinny ass in here and guide and translate for me.”

  Reluctantly, shaking his head with all the enthusiasm of a man mounting the steps to the guillotine, the boy returned to the gate, stepped inside and closed it behind him. Ahead of him, Jason was surveying the projecting lower level of the treasury building, trying to find a way from the ground up to the walkway ten feet above them. Around one side of the building he discovered a narrow inclined ramp much like the kind used to provide handicapped access. Signaling for Ras to follow him, Jason ducked low behind the parapet wall of the incline and lurched up the ramp and around to the front of the building and the ornately carved entry door. Jason looked at Ras expectantly but Ras just shook his head.

  “This is your thing, you knock. If anybody actually answers, then I’ll do the talking.”

  Taking a deep breath, Jason lifted the circular handle of a big, cast bronze knocker, gritted his teeth and banged it twice against the door. A minute later the door was drawn open by an elderly man dressed in the voluminous flowing white robes and turban of a Coptic monk. The smile he offered was missing so many teeth that his mouth looked distinctly like a picket fence with half of the slats missing, but both the smile and the greeting were filled with a warmth that Jason understood immediately even though the man’s words were unintelligible. At this point Ras stepped forward, bowed and spoke to the man, pointing alternately to Jason, himself and toward the inside of the building. They chatted back and forth in what seemed, to Jason, to be amiable terms for a few minutes, at which point the monk bowed, smiled and closed the door.

  “So?” Jason raised his eyebrows enquiringly, anxious for an explanation as to why they were standing on the wrong side of a closed door.

  Ras grinned with all the innocence of a cat with feathers around its mouth. “I told him you were a famous archaeologist who has come all the way from England just to see Fr Marcos – that’s the guy who is the guardian of the treasures. I told him you had written a letter and that it must have gotten lost in the post, but that it was really urgent for you to see the guardian. The guy said he would ask Fr Marcos if it was ok for you to come in.” Ras scratched his head and gave his shoulders a small jerk. “I hope that was all ok.”

  “You did great, Ras. So, what? Is this Fr Marcos in? Will he see me?”

  “Evidently he’s always in. When somebody gets elected to be the guardian of the treasures they’re never allowed to go beyond that iron fence.”

  “Ever?”

  “Ever.”

  As they stood there talking, the door opened again and the old monk smiled, bowed slightly and waved a hand, saying something to Ras who then grabbed Jason by the sleeve.

  “He says just you. I can’t come in.”

  “How am I supposed to talk to this Fr Marcos?”

  Ras waved a hand vaguely in the general direction of the old monk. “He says Fr Marcos speaks really good English.”

  Jason patted Ras on the shoulder and nodded. “Look, you stay right here in case I need something translated. I don’t know how long I might be in there but don’t go away.”

  “Hey, I’m not going anywhere. You’re my meal ticket.”

  “Good man.”

  Jason had explored the massed treasures of the British Museum numerous times; he had seen the Met in New York and spent days plowing through the endless ancient manuscripts in the Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, but the contents of the treasury building of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church made them all pale by comparison. Although small and cramped, every square inch of the interior was jam-packed with the rarest and finest artifacts of two millennia of church history. Shelf upon shelf of gem-spangled gold crowns represented the reigns of hundreds of Coptic Orthodox bishops and the kings of Ethiopia. Shelves, racks and tables were piled high with Bibles, codices, gospels and manuscripts of every shape, description and culture, most of them illuminated in glorious color and tipped with the purest gold.

  Transfixed and too stunned to absorb even a fraction of what he was seeing, Jason was only brought back to reality when the old monk gave his sleeve a gentle tug and signaled that he should step forward. Ahead of him, in a small alcove near the rear wall of the main room, an old man in a white monk’s robe sat on a pile of cushions, smiling up at Jason and motioning him to come forward. So ancient and withered that his skin looked as shiny, black and wrinkled as a prune, the irises of the man’s eyes were still quick and as black as Merlin’s were blue, and his short, snow white beard was neatly trimmed. Instantly, Jason wished Merlin were here; he knew the old wizard would revel in meeting this man even before he spoke a single word.

  “Come in young man.” Fr Marcos grinned so broadly that his face nearly split in half as he motioned toward a pile of cushions next to him. “Come sit close to me. I am a little deaf so you need to come nearer if we are going to talk to each other.” Jason stepped forward, bowed in the way he had seen Ras bow to the monk, and introduced himself before taking a seat. When he appeared
to be comfortable Fr Marcos spoke again.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You want to see the Ark of the Covenant. To find out if it is really here. Am I right?”

  Jason felt like he had just had the wind taken out of his sails. “How did you know? I mean, that can’t be the only reason people come here.”

  “No. Of course not. Historians, religious scholars and ethnographers all come here to consult our manuscripts and Bibles but,” here Fr Marcos leaned forward and winked “the only reason an archaeologist would possibly have to come here is to see the Ark. So tell me, Mr Carpenter, just how much do you know about the it?”

  Jason tried to remember everything Fr Cunningham had told him but so much information had been thrown at him over the course of the last few weeks it was impossible to remember it all. “I know it was built to house the Ten Commandments, and that after Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem it was kept in the inner sanctum and nobody but the high priests were allowed to see it.”

  “So far, so good. But what do you know of its eventual fate?”

  “All I know is that it was probably already gone when the Egyptians sacked Jerusalem and the temple around…I think it was about 900 BC.”

  “927 BC to be exact and you are quite right. But do you know why it wasn’t there?”

  “I heard that King Menelik had brought it here, but I don’t know the details.”

  “That is correct. It was not in the temple in Jerusalem because it was already here…in Ethiopia; more specifically it was in what was then the Kingdom of Sheba, which would eventually become Axumia and is now Ethiopia.” Fr Marcos leaned back and studied Jason for a long moment before speaking again. “You seem like a nice young man, not one of those crazy conspiracy theorists who think the Ark is a secret atomic weapon or a device to communicate with aliens from some other world…”

  By this point Jason was certain it would be nearly impossible to keep the guardian’s respect if he told him what his suspicions about the Ark and its contents really were, and that telling him would only make the rest of the conversation even more difficult.

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the silly stories I hear. Now, would you like to hear how the Ark came to be in such an unlikely place as Axum?”

  “Yes, Father, I really would.”

  “I must warn you, the story is a bit risqué. I assume you are familiar with the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba?”

  “Sure. Solomon was the richest king in the world and she went to meet him and open diplomatic channels and while she was there they had an affair.”

  “Very good. And you know that Sheba was what is now known as Ethiopia. But what is not generally known is that the outcome of the affair between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba - whose name was Makeda - was a son named Menelik. Twenty years later Queen Makeda sent Prince Menelik back to Israel to visit his father who, by that time, was very old. It seems that Solomon wanted to convert the people of Sheba to Judaism so he assigned the sons of several of the high priests and the sons of some of his noblemen to return to Sheba with Menelik, and when they left, Solomon gave them the Ark to take with them.”

  “Why would he do that? I mean, it was the holiest object the Jews had.”

  The old guardian raised the palms of his hands skyward. “Who knows? All we know for certain is that it saved the Ark from being stolen by the Egyptians in 927 BC or, later, by the Babylonians when they sacked Jerusalem. Most importantly, Menelik assumed his mother’s throne when she died and he founded the Solomonaic dynasty which ruled Ethiopia until 1974 when those communist pricks murdered the emperor.” Jason almost choked at Fr Marcos’ decorative description of the regime, but he managed to hide it by pretending to sneeze. The old man seemed not to notice and continued with his story. “I know that some historians say there is no record of Ethiopian kings before 700 BC and others say that Solomon only sent a copy of the Ark with Menelik, but the records from three thousand years ago are so vague that they are as likely to be wrong as they are to be right. Face it, young man, there are almost no surviving, original records of King David, King Solomon or even of our Lord Jesus Christ, and yet no reasonable person doubts that they lived. Besides, we have the proof of the story. We have the vessel of God’s Covenant – the Ark.”

  Finally, Jason’s eyes lit up and he snapped to attention. “So you really do have it?”

  “Of course. We have had it for nearly three thousand years.”

  “Has anyone actually seen it in those three thousand years?”

  “I have seen it many times. I prayed before it at Christmas and again last month at Timk’et.”

  “I don’t suppose you would let me see it?”

  “My son, the Ark, like so many treasures of the church, is more about faith than about physical proof.” Here he gave a small shrug. “If you had only come here before 1974 you could have seen it. We took it out every year during the Timk’et festival when we placed it on a catafalque and processed it through the streets.”

  “So why did you stop?”

  Fr Marcos gave a great, sad sigh and wiped his face with one wrinkled hand before answering. “Because with the deposition and murder of Emperor Haile Selassie and his son the line of Solomon came to an end. Think about it, young man, our Emperor was the only man on earth who could prove that he was in any way related to Christ. I believe his death signaled the beginning of the end of all time and of all things. And now the millennium has passed and things are becoming steadily worse than ever. So no, no one will ever see the Ark again.”

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course. I am afraid I have depressed you and I did not mean to do so. What is your question?”

  “Are there any photographs of the Ark during the Timk’et festival taken prior to 1974?”

  “Yes, of course. Would you like to see some?”

  “I’d really appreciate that.”

  This might not get Jason close to the Ark, but at least it should provide proof of its existence. The photos, when Fr Marcos handed them to Jason, showed a procession much like the one he had witnessed earlier that day; row upon row of men in Coptic clerical gowns parading through the streets of Axum. Finally, as he flipped through the stack of photos, Fr Marcos pointed to one in particular.

  “This is great, Father, but the thing on the catafalque is all covered up.”

  “Of course. We never allowed the Ark to be displayed to the public. It is much too sacred. Even the ancient Hebrews were forbidden to look at it. Are you aware that all guardians, like myself, are forbidden to ever leave this compound once they have beheld the splendor of the Ark of the Covenant?”

  Jason nodded and sighed. “I heard you weren’t allowed to leave. I didn’t know that was the reason.”

  “Now you understand.”

  This approach obviously wasn’t working at all. If Jason was going to do anything more than go around and around with this sweet old man he was going to have to try a more aggressive tactic.

  “Father, please understand – and I am going to be as honest as I can with you – I have very serious reasons to believe that the entire future of mankind depends on one of the objects that may be inside the Ark. Millions and millions, probably billions, of lives are at stake here. It is essential that I see the Ark and look inside of it.”

  The guardian of the Ark smiled and patted Jason’s knee. “The lives of millions of people always depend upon someone doing, or not doing, something. And usually that something is not done, or is not accomplished, and the world continues on its rather sad course much as it always has. As a Christian, and a man of God, I often think of two ancient Hebrew words – Sarx and Pneuma. Do you know these words?” Jason shook his head. “Sarx is the flesh of the body; Pneuma is the spirit - the soul, if you will. Often the flesh must suffer greatly if the spirit is to flourish. Life is suffering. It is the way of things.”

  Jason only knew two ancient Hebrew words and they were Urim and Thummim and one way or another he was goi
ng to find them and take them to Merlin. As he mulled over the old guardian and his place in church history, Jason decided it was time to put all of his cards on the table.

  “Father Marcos,” Jason began after coming to a possibly disastrous decision and letting out a long sigh “are you familiar with an ancient semi-religious sect known as the Gnostics?”

  Surprised at the abrupt change in the direction of their conversation, Marcos blinked several times before responding.

  “Of course. The Coptic Church was a central player in suppressing the Gnostic heresies.”

  “You disagree with the Gnostics, then?”

  “It is not their approach to scientific investigation that we disagreed with but with their contention that all matter – that is to say virtually everything in the world – was basically evil. How could any sane person consider all of God’s vast and wondrous creations to be evil?”

  “And the Coptic Church considers itself – this treasury - a great repository of religious and scholarly writings?”

  “Of course.” Fr Marcos raised his sparse, fuzzy white eyebrows in surprise and waved one arm in a broad arc that encompassed the room. “Just look around you. You have already seen some of our collection.”

  Jason leaned forward and pulled his briefcase into his lap. He hesitated for a moment before opening it but steeled himself against the guardian’s possible rejection of his last, best offering. Finally, he opened the lid of the briefcase and lifted the Gnostic gospel out, passing it gently to Fr Marcos.

  “Here. I want you to give me your honest opinion of this.”

  The old man accepted the book with the gentle hands of someone who truly loves and respects both the written word and all ancient things. Silently, he laid it in his lap and began turning the brittle pages, one after the other. He had only moved to the third or fourth page before turning to Jason and pointing to one of the many languages on the page.