The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  “Oh, God, it was so bloody hilarious” she muttered to herself. “If poor old Baron Marston had just kept his fat bottom in his chair rather than trying to dance with the thing it wouldn’t have ripped him limb from limb and painted the walls with his blood.” Laughing so hard she had to hold her sides, Morgana leaned against the coolness of the wall long enough to collect herself. That’s enough levity for now, old girl, serious work to do. You’ll have all the time in the world to laugh once our allies are through the gate and all the lovely burning and death begins. Aloud, with a broad grin on her ruby lips, she muttered “We’ll just see who’s laughing then.”

  With one final glance around the cave she turned her back on the past and continued down the next section of tunnel, past the triangular shaped intersection that Dashwood had laughingly called the vagina, and on toward the River Styx, where the future of Morgana le Fay, the Excalibur Holding Corporation and the entire world lay waiting to be unleashed. This far below ground level even the pale incandescence with which Morgana had imbued the walls barely cut through the thick gloom of the tunnels. By the time she neared the spot where the manmade tunnel intersected the natural cave of the river she found that running one hand along the wall was a necessary aid to keeping herself oriented. Finally, there it was; the sound of gently flowing water and the sudden widening of the tunnel announced that she had reached the shores of the River Styx.

  Funny. Morgana sniffed the air again. It was the same strangely familiar odor she had detected when she first entered the tunnels; it was stronger here but she still couldn’t place it. Her thoughts were brought suddenly back into focus when the tips of her fingers fell on the final set of Roman numerals that she had instructed Sir Francis Dashwood to carve into the walls of his cave. XXII. She had never explained why he should put them there, instead just teasing him, saying it would be one more mystery to give the peasants and wags something to gossip about. The number, along with what everyone thought was nothing but a silly, confusing, nonsensical rhyme.

  ‘Take twenty steps and rest awhile

  Then take a pick and find the stile

  Where once I did my love beguile.’

  The numerals appeared seven times in the caves but this was the only place they really mattered. Francis thought he knew what it meant; twenty paces forward from this last set of numbers, across the slimy little river and you wound up at the opposite wall – the spot where Morgana and Sir Francis Dashwood had first had sex, standing up, pushing each other against the hard stone wall. Dashwood was a lot of fun but he had no idea what he was really dealing with or what the numbers, the rhyme, and the caves on his land were really about. She always told him the number twenty-two, rather than the twenty paces from this last set of numerals to the opposite wall, was gleaned from their private joke that they had banged each other so hard they had nearly driven themselves two paces into the cave wall. Now Morgana crossed the stream by way of the tiny, invisible bridge she had built a millennia-and-a-half before, and approached the far wall. Pressing herself against the rock she rubbed her body back and forth across the hard surface of the stone in a drooling frenzy of anticipation. One meter away, a scant forty inches behind what appeared to be a solid rock wall lay the gate the Dragon Lords had revealed to her sixteen long centuries ago. The gate she had promised to guard until she could rid the world of that horrid, meddling old bastard Merlin. And now the gate would once again open wide and deliver the world to the cleansing wrath of dragon fire.

  “Soon, my lovelies. Soon I will release you and then you can fly, fly, fly.” Then, with an almost inaudible whisper, she added “And burn.”

  With a long, self-satisfied sigh Morgana laid one hand gently against the cold stone wall before turning and making her way back up the long tunnel. As she passed through the dining hall a second time she decided this would be the most practical place to install the communicating device. It provided plenty of room for all of her equipment as well as temporary living quarters - and there would be no congestion as the creatures came and went on their way in and out of the cave when they made their forays to sear the petty evils and laziness from the face of a vain and diseased world. Chuckling at her own cleverness, Morgana dubbed the protective shell of the dining hall her ‘fallout shelter’.

  Exiting the cave, she paused long enough to snuggle deeper into her fur coat and allow time for her eyes to readjust to the midday sunlight. Across the courtyard and down the road two dozen yards stood the Bentley, where George sat with his chin nodding against his chest in sleep. Just as she was about to move toward the car, she heard a rustling sound and the sharp, sudden snap of a dead branch, not far to her right.

  “Oy. You there, wi’ the posh motor. What the devil you think you’re doin’, tearing down the barricade and wanderin’ into them caves. Don’t you know you could get yourself bad hurt in there?”

  Eyeing up the man confronting her, the first thing Morgana noticed was the double barreled shotgun slung over his forearm; it was there, but it was also broken open. She took a small step in his direction, offering him her most seductive smile.

  “I’m so sorry, but you see, the barrier was already down when I arrived. It must have been local vandals. I was just having a look around. I do hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Yeah, well I’d be the local gamekeeper and it’s my job to keep people from gettin’ theyselves in trouble, pokin’ round in them old tunnels. Ain’t safe in there.”

  “Oh, you’re the gamekeeper. I’m so glad to meet you.”

  Morgana stuck out her hand in greeting but the ruddy-faced man only looked at it momentarily before returning his hard stare to the face of the expensively dressed woman to whom the hand belonged.

  “And who might you be and why would you be glad to meet me?”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry; I’m the new owner of the caves. I’m going to refurbish them and open them back up to the public. Won’t that be nice?” Her smile was big, white and shiny, but totally ingenuous.

  “And how would I know you’d be who you say you are?”

  Opening her small handbag, Morgana fished around for a moment. “Oh, how silly of me. Let me show you some identification. Ah, here it is.”

  Still smiling broadly, Morgan extracted from her purse a magnificently tooled and engraved, silver plated Sphinx .380 pistol, fitted with a tiny silencer. Without even giving the man time to react to the sight of the weapon, she pulled the trigger three times, pumping all three shots into his chest. With a stunned look on his face, the gamekeeper opened his mouth in an attempt to shape words that he never spoke. After spitting a small stream of blood from his lips, he dropped to his knees before slowly toppling over onto his right side. Unhesitatingly, as calmly as someone else might select the ripest piece of fruit from a bin at the super market, Morgan replaced the pistol in her purse, tucked it under her arm and stepped to where her victim lay dying.

  Delicately kneeling in the weeds - careful not to snag her stockings or scuff her scarlet Prada shoes - she lifted the man’s head and whispered “Never, ever talk back to your betters, little man”. Then, with a small, bitter grin she leaned forward, pressed her lips over his and inhaled, extracting the last of his life force. Pulling a delicate, lace handkerchief from her coat pocket she dabbed the few small smears of blood from her lips and stood up. Walking to where George sat napping in the driver’s seat of the car she tapped gently on the side window.

  “Wa, wa…what?” The butler-cum-chauffer snapped to attention, nodded and stepped out of the car. “Madame is ready to leave, then?”

  Waggling a finger vaguely behind her, Morgana smiled, nodded in the direction of the corpse and said “Almost, George. Just a small spot of bother to deal with first. Then we can go.”

  Staring at the dead man, George muttered delicately “Oh, dear me. How awkward. Does Madame wish me to dispose of the rubbish?”

  Nodding, Morgana answered by saying “I’ll be in the car, George. Take your time and do a nice, neat job.
It would never do to leave a mess.”

  Nodding silently, George opened the rear door of the Bentley and allowed Morgana to make herself comfortable before closing it again and moving to the rear of the car. Opening the trunk he extracted a black rubber apron, yellow rubber gloves and picked up a meat cleaver, a saw and a box of black bin bags before letting out a single great, weary sigh and turning to his task.

  * * *

  “Oh, my God, oh my God, what kind of a monster is she?”

  Merlin waved his hand across the face of the mirror, causing the image to fade and blink out of existence. “Don’t look, my dear. That’s not a proper thing for anyone to see, particularly a woman.”

  Beverley pulled herself together, straightening her back and clearing her head. “Merlin, I have to know, what in the hell was that horrible woman doing to that poor man she shot?”

  “You have just witnessed one small example of the evil magic she has used to remain young and beautiful for sixteen centuries. You see, among the many things the Dragon Lords taught her was the secret of immortality – or near immortality. She literally drains the life force out of her victims to replenish her body.”

  “You mean she’s a vampire?”

  “More like a succubus; a female creature found in Roman mythology which was reputed to drain the life from men through the act of sexual congress.”

  “She didn’t have sex with that poor sod. She just…I don’t know what she did but it wasn’t sex. God she’s as cold and bitter as two-day-old coffee.”

  “No, it wasn’t sex, but the principal is the same. She drains the life force from her victims, and it doesn’t matter whether they are male or female. And I assure you this is both the least of her powers and only the smallest sampling of her capacity for cruelty. Believe me when I tell you, you do not want to come into contact with this woman under any circumstance, my dear.”

  “She’s like some barking mad auntie they used to keep locked away in the attic.” Then, after a moment’s pause, Beverley stared hard at the old wizard, making it plain that she did not want any dissembling or sugar-coating. “Tell me honestly, Merlin, is that what she did to Jason in Liverpool last autumn?”

  Merlin started down at his hands for a moment before answering. “No. It’s what she attempted to do to him. Had she succeeded he would have died.” Putting his arm around Beverley he steered her toward the bedroom door. “Now, I think you have had quite enough excitement for one day. Let me take you out for a nice drink; I just discovered something called a lemon drop martini and I think you’ll love it. Then a bit later we can come back and call Jason to see how he fared with his quest for the Ark.” While holding out her coat for her, he nodded, smiled and said “Shall we?”, but in his own mind he was wondering how long it would take for Morgana to move the communicating device out of her office and into the Hellfire cave, and how on earth he was going to go about destroying it once it was there.

  Chapter Twelve

  By the time Jason exited the treasury to rejoin Ras the desert sun had sunk low enough to paint the sky with fingers of bright orange fire. For more than three hours Ras had been sitting on the dusty ground with his back against the blue iron fence. Now, even before he could stand up and dust off the seat of his faded jeans, Jason was already headed toward him, fingering the phone in his pocket, anxious to coordinate his next move with Merlin.

  “So how did it go, boss? You were in there a really long time.”

  After giving his assistant a rough outline of the meeting, ending with Fr Marcos’ promise to meet with him again at noon the next day, Jason extracted a small wad of crumpled Ethiopian currency from his pocket and shoved it toward Ras.

  “We’re going to need someplace to stay tonight and I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.” Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth Jason realized this was probably not the best possible phrasing in a country where death by starvation was a common occurrence, and hoped Ras hadn’t taken offense. To cover his momentary embarrassment he handed over the cluster of bills. “You take this and go get us a hotel and then grab us something to eat. You can eat whenever you want but bring mine back here. Just make sure you wait till after dark.”

  Ras screwed up his forehead in confusion. “You want me to leave you sitting here alone until after dark?”

  “Right. I’ll move outside the walls so the monks don’t chase me away or something, but I need to stay here for a while.”

  “I can get some take-away and be back in an hour or so.”

  Jason shook his head. “No. Thanks for the offer but I need you to wait for at least two hours before you come back.”

  Glancing briefly at the money before stuffing the little wad of bills into his pocket, Ras turned away shaking his head. “Ok, boss, whatever you say.” Still shaking his head, the boy wandered toward the gate of St Mary of Zion compound muttering to himself, “You are one seriously weird dude.”

  As soon as Ras’ willow slim shape disappeared from view, Jason followed him out through the big wooden gate. Rather than go back toward the main road he made a hard left and followed the high stone wall to its northernmost point. There he pulled his phone out of his pocket, sat down and leaned his back against the warm stone wall as he punched in the number of his flat in York.

  “Good evening, Jason. Thank you for calling so promptly after your meeting with the old priest. Was it fruitful?”

  Jason nearly dropped the phone. Merlin’s uncanny ability to know things that no one had any business knowing unnerved him almost as much now as it had when he first met the old man the previous autumn.

  “I’m not even going to ask how you knew it was me and why I’m calling.”

  “But deep down you really want to know, so I’ll tell you. I’ve been watching you in the scrying glass. I saw you at breakfast with a young black boy; you had some kind of thick coffee and unleavened bread. Later, I followed you to your meeting with the old priest. I’ve watched you several times today between bouts of keeping an eye on our friend Miss le Fay.”

  “Damn. You get inside people’s head; you spy on them; there’s just no limit to the way you invade people’s privacy, is there?”

  “You seem to miss the point, Jason. The question is: why am I able to see you in my scrying glass? If you were wearing the monks’ ointment you should be invisible.”

  “The damned airline lost my luggage and my jar of that invisibility ointment stuff was in it. So why were you tuned into me? Is there a problem?”

  “I simply passed through your frequency while I was tuning in on Morgana. More importantly, since I have no way of getting you any more ointment, you must be extremely careful. If I can see you, so can she.”

  “I know. I’m trying, I’m trying. Now tell me what she’s been up to.”

  “If it’s any comfort I have no reason to suspect that she found you by accident like I did. She probably doesn’t even know your harmonic frequency. In any case, she’s far too busy elsewhere.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Confirming all of our suspicions. She’s just been to the caves at West Wycombe.”

  “You mean today?”

  “Correct.” Omitting the bloodiest details of her visit to the caves, Merlin brought Jason up to speed on what seemed to be Morgana’s intention to make use of the caves in her upcoming attempt to release the dragons.

  “But you think she is going to move the communicator there?”

  “I do.

  “Is there any way we can stop her from setting up her headquarters there? I mean…maybe we can blow up the cave or something.”

  “My boy, even blowing up the cave would not eliminate the gateway to the dragon’s realm. It would be further underground but it would still be there. No, we need to seal it permanently and the only way for me to do that is by using the Urim and Thummim.” Jason let out a huge sigh and mumbled his acquiescence before Merlin continued. “Now, tell me about your meeting with the guardian of the treasures. All I know for ce
rtain is that you have not seen the Ark.”

  Jason relayed the pertinent details of his meeting with Fr Marcos, ending with his offer of exchanging the Gnostic Gospel for access to the Ark and the guardian’s closing statement that he would ask for God’s guidance and see Jason the next day. As a closing note he suggested a gentle nudge from Merlin might be in order.

  “Are you seriously suggesting that we interfere in God’s business, Jason?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jason could hear the grin in the old mage’s voice when he answered. “I suppose it’s true that God helps those who help themselves.”

  “Great. Now how do we convince him that God wants me to see the Ark?”

  “I think we can probably rely on one of faith’s oldest standbys - signs and portents, a grand vision of some sort. I think we should give him the full performance.” After a short pause for thought, Merlin offered a suggestion. “I could make a ball of light hover over the church…”

  “Naw. Too much like the Christmas star. We need something more Old Testament and Arky.”

  “I could appear to him in a dream…or possibly a vision…”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “A dream is a dream but a vision would take place while he was wide awake.”

  “You could to that?”

  “It’s no different than the times when I appeared to you here in York or when I made us both appear in Morgana’s office.”

  “But you were really close when you did those things; this is thousands of miles away.”

  He could hear Merlin chuckle as he answered. “It’s not about distance, it’s about tuning in to the correct harmonic vibrations of the individual.”

  “So, do you have Fr Marcos’ harmonic vibration things?”

  “No. But I know yours and you’re only a few yards from his location. If you would be so good as to go back into the compound and stand by the fence near the treasury for a few moments, I can tune into your specific location. Later, when the good priest is at prayer, I’ll pay him a little visit.”