The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  When Merlin raised his eyes to look at her, Morgana removed the hand from her face and pointed across the cave, to the wall on the opposite shore of the dark river.

  “By your lack of surprise I see you even located the entrance to the passageway. Oh, God, how divine. You were so damn close you actually found it, and now you don’t have the slightest chance of sealing it permanently. How delicious. Well, you’ve been such a good sport about the whole thing, the least I can do is show it to you.”

  Raising her hands, palms outward, thumbs touching, Morgana le Fay slowly spread her fingers apart as though she were opening a fan. As the area encompassed by her hands increased, the artificially created area of wall began to shimmer, slowly fading away to nothingness, leaving in its place only an intense blackness that appeared to be more of an absence of matter than an actual hole in the rock wall.

  “There you are, my dear. Now, isn’t that lovely? It will give you something to ponder while I’m away. And if you are really, really lucky, I might even leave your rotting carcass here so you have a front row seat when my friends come through. You can serve as a very small aperitif for the first one through the gate. But enough of these pleasantries. It really is my time to be off.” Turning away, she took a single step toward the tunnel entrance before turning back and leaning down so that her crimson lips were less than an inch from Merlin’s ear. “And now I’m going to leave you alone for a while to ponder all the wonderful things I’ve told you. I always find the drugs act more quickly and more effectively when the victim has had time to let the prospect of what’s going to happen to them sink in.”

  Morgana swept out of the cave, retreating along the rough-hewn passageway, whistling ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf’.

  Alone at last, Merlin was simply glad for the relief of not having Morgana gloating and harping at him. Every fiber of his body still ached horribly and his head was pounding. After taking a few minutes to marshal his energies and calm his burning muscles and nerve endings, he felt strong enough to assess his surroundings - the first step in planning his escape. Surveying the length and width of the cavern he examined the point where the river flowed out of the rock wall, escaping from its hidden course deep underground and into the short-lived freedom of the cave.

  At the other end of the cavern he strained to see the point where it again disappeared back into the ground beneath West Wycombe hill. Neither of these points of egress seemed to offer any immediate opportunities for escape. During the ensuing hours spent in minute inspection of his surroundings, Merlin’s eyes were repeatedly drawn back to the yawning nothingness of the dragon gate.

  The sheer absence of matter that revealed itself at the mouth of the gate seemed to be a malignant, living thing; hungry, needful and deeply disturbing. It was during one of his repeated examinations of the gateway which his powers had held closed for so very, very long, that he spotted a rat scurrying along the point where the wall of the cave met the floor. When he reached out to the small rodent with his mind it stopped, rose on its haunches and stared myopically across the watery gulf separating them.

  “Hello. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. I saw you in the catacombs when I was here with Jason and Beverley, didn’t I?”

  The rat remained upright and attentive, curious about the mind that had invaded its own.

  “Come over here.”

  The little creature approached the edge of the river, scurrying back and forth, squealing, unwilling to commit itself to a fight with the current for fear it might be swept away. When it reached the point on the river bank where the invisible bridge stood, he spoke again.

  “There. Stop there. That’s right. Now put out one foot. See, you didn’t fall into the water. Now come across.”

  Minutes later the rat had scampered across the bridge, scurried up the rough cloth of Merlin’s gown and was perched on his knee, staring intently at his face. For long, careful minutes Merlin programmed the rodent’s tiny brain, staring into its beady black eyes, telling it everything he needed it to know. Finally, as the sound of feet came shuffling along the dusty tunnel leading into the cave, Merlin sent the rodent scampering back across the river where it disappeared into a tiny crack in the rock.

  “Wakey, wakey, you old sleepy head.”

  Morgana leaned her head around the corner of the tunnel entrance, a huge grin plastered across her shapely mouth.

  “I have a big surprise for you.”

  Stepping into the cave, she extended a hand holding a small, ornately worked silver tray containing a number of hypodermic needles filled with a variety of different colored fluids. In her other hand was a delicately carved, three-legged table. Placing the table in front of her, she set the tray on it with a flourish and made a deep bow.

  “Your imminent demise has been served, sir. May I be so bold as to suggest a first course?” Picking up one of the hypodermics, she held it aloft, depressing the plunger just far enough to force a few drops out of the needle. “I think you will find this to be a delightful little number, sir, excruciating yet subtle in its assault on the central nervous system.”

  Approaching Merlin, she jammed the needle roughly into his arm through the coarse, dirty cloth of his sleeve, murmuring a line from the Pink Floyd song ‘Comfortably Numb’. “Relax. Just a little pinprick, but you may feel a little sick.”

  Drawing herself erect, she replaced the empty hypo on the tray. Crossing her arms and cocking her head to one side, she watched Merlin’s face as the color slowly drained away. In a matter of seconds she could see the muscles tighten in his cheeks as he gritted his teeth against the encroaching effects of the drug. As the chemicals cascaded through his system, she muttered to herself “What a world, what a world. So many questions and so little time.” Then, leaning down close to Merlin’s ear, she giggled and said “Is anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?”

  Somewhere, in a distant, fog-shrouded place, far beyond time and space, long, long after the last thing Merlin remembered had slipped away, he thought he heard the distant echo of someone in pain. He knew they were in pain because he could hear them screaming. But no matter how he tried he could not tell which direction the screams came from and he couldn’t figure out how to get from wherever he was to the place where the terrible screams were coming from. It seemed like a million years later when he finally realized that the screaming voice was his own and there was no way he could make it stop.

  * * *

  For three days Jason and Beverley had done everything they could think of to discover Merlin’s movements since he and Beverley parted company at Heathrow Airport nearly two weeks earlier. While Beverley checked with the few people in the Archaeology Department who might recognize the elderly man who had been seen around York with her and Jason, Jason checked with Bunny the bartender and the regulars at the Minster Inn, and scoured his computer for any notes Merlin might have left or any websites he might have visited that would provide a clue to his whereabouts.

  After two days of intense, and utterly frustrating, effort they were left with the same conclusion they had come to within minutes of walking into Jason’s flat; Merlin had never made his way home from London. Consequently, they rang hospitals and county police headquarters at every town of any size between West London and York, asking if anyone had any news concerning an elderly man with a waist-length beard, hair down to the middle of his back and who was last seen wearing a long gray gown and a coat made of animal hide. It was not the kind of description anyone would likely mistake, but it yielded no results. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Merlin had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

  Through a simple process of elimination they were left with only one viable conclusion: for whatever reason, Merlin had chosen to return to the Hellfire caves alone. There seemed no alternative left except to return to Buckinghamshire, reconnoiter the situation and see what they could discover.

  Late Wednesday evening Jason was sitting in front of his
computer, looking up the telephone number of the Buckinghamshire Constabulary. He had moved Merlin’s antique Venetian scrying glass off to one side of his worktable and leaned it against the wall so it would not be in the way of his monitor. While in the process of moving the mirror, he wished for the hundredth time in the past few days that Merlin had shown him how to use the thing. If he could have tuned in to Merlin’s vibrations at least he would have been able to see the old wizard. It might take hours to sort out his exact location, but at least he would know that he was alright.

  Now, staring into the brightly lit monitor screen, his chin resting wearily in the upturned palm on one hand, Jason almost missed the tiny flashes of movement occurring inside the old mirror, eighteen inches to his right. The quick, white flash repeated once, twice and, finally, a third time before it caught Jason’s attention. Looking away from the bright screen into the darkening room, Jason squinted to bring the image in the mirror into focus. There, staring him in the face, was a white card with the words ‘Hello Jason’ scrawled across it in black marker.

  “Bev.” Jason’s voice, at first low and tentative, quickly rose in volume and urgency. “Bev. I think you’d better come in here, quick.”

  Beverley raced around the corner of the doorway, her mobile phone still raised in one hand. In front of her, his head turned to the right, she saw only Jason’s back but even before she could speak he motioned her forward with a wave of his hand. There, grinning maniacally out of the broken mirror, was the beautiful face of Morgana le Fay. When Beverley leaned over Jason’s shoulder, Morgana waved at her before lowering her head. A second later, another hurriedly scribbled sign appeared in the mirror. ‘Hello Jason’s whore’.

  “What in the bloody hell?”

  “It’s Morgana.”

  “I can see its Morgana. How can she see us?”

  “I have no idea, but I really don’t like this.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s nothing good. What the hell is she doing now?”

  As Jason spoke, Morgana had disappeared from view again. With the removal of her head the only thing visible in the glass was a blank, roughhewn rock wall some distance in the background.

  “Jason, I think that’s the inside of the cave.”

  Jason leaned forward, scrutinizing the disconnected chunk of stone wall. Suddenly, Morgana’s leering face popped back into view. Puckering her shapely scarlet lips, she pressed them against the surface of her scrying glass. When she withdrew, she raised another scribbled card and pushed it between her face and the mirror. ‘Hey kids ~ Want to see your friend?’

  “You son-of-a-bitch. What the hell did you do with Merlin?”

  “Easy, Jason. She can’t hear you. Just wait…”

  Beverley did not have time to finish the sentence. After bringing her face back into view long enough to offer an evil grin and a quick wink, Morgana turned the mirror around, revealing the image of her abused and tortured prisoner.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Look, Babe, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you, it’s just that I’m…” Jason lifted one hand away from the steering wheel long enough to flutter it helplessly in the air and then shake his head.

  He and Beverley had been arguing with each other for hours, driving a rented Vauxhall southward toward West Wycombe and uselessly rehashing the same limited body of information again and again to absolutely no good effect except to make each other wearier and more anxious than they already were.

  Outside of the car the air had taken on the freshening scent that so often follows an overnight rain shower, and the late morning sky was coming up so clear that, had either of them bothered to look at it, they might have felt that if they stared hard enough they would be able to see all the way to Alpha Centauri. But neither Jason nor Beverley noticed the sky or the first perfect English summer day of the year. Angry at the whole world, when they were not arguing with each other they fell into a morose silence punctuated by furrowed brows and heavy sighs.

  The testy atmosphere had been their almost constant companion since Morgana le Fay’s appearance in Merlin’s scrying glass the day before. When Jason declared that he had to try to rescue Merlin, Beverley agreed but insisted on coming along. Jason wanted her to stay well away from the danger that was certain to follow any attempt to gain access to the Hellfire caves, particularly now that Morgana was so obviously using Merlin as bait. Jason had no idea what Morgana might have planned, but it would certainly place his life, and the life of anyone accompanying him, in immediate and mortal danger. Beverley had won the argument but now, as a result, their moods were so black that even the speed of the car hurtling down the M1 motorway could not manage to stir the heavy air that engulfed them like a concrete shroud.

  Jason tried desperately to clear his mind enough so he could think logically, but it was impossible. He was worried about Merlin, he was worried about himself and now he was frightened half to death for Beverley’s safety, as well. It was an additional burden he really did not want to deal with.

  “I know, Jason. I’m worried about him too.”

  “It’s not just Merlin, it’s you too. You don’t belong here. I don’t think you understand just how dangerous this is going to be. Tangling with Morgana is about as safe as kicking a hungry tiger with a sore paw.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know how dangerous this is going to be and neither do you. We can’t know until we get there and I think we had better come up with some kind of a plan.” She glanced at the road sign as it whizzed past the window and then looked down at the map laying across her knees, tracing a line with her finger. “We’re almost at the M25 and we should be in West Wycombe within an hour, so we don’t have much time to figure out what we’re going to do. We can’t just blunder in there.”

  All Jason had been able to think about for an entire day was how stupid he had been not to have insisted on Merlin teaching him at least a few rudimentary spells. Any scrap of mystical knowledge that would have given him even the tiniest edge if he was forced to confront Morgana on his own. But instead he had just stumbled along following Merlin’s orders. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Maybe that was what made him the angriest; the fact that at least some of this madness was his own fault and he could have prevented it if he had just taken the time to think ahead.

  “Jason, we have to think ahead and we have to stay calm. If we panic now – if you panic – we’re sunk.”

  “I know, I know. You’re right.” Shaking his head to clear away the dark cobwebs of self-recrimination, he turned to look at Beverley. “Let’s look at this logically. All I know for sure is that Morgana did it to us again. Last autumn she lured Merlin and me all the way to Mongolia and now she is luring me – us – to that damn cave. It just really pisses me off that she manages to stay one step ahead of us no matter how much damage we inflict on her operation. It’s like some horrible, recurring nightmare; I can’t make it go away, I can’t make it stop and it just keeps repeating over, and over and over.” Again, Jason turned his eyes from the road to look directly at Beverley. “This can’t happen again, Babe. One way or the other we have to figure out how to kill that bitch before she turns her dragons loose, ‘cause if she does, the whole world is going to be royally fucked. And I think this is our last chance.”

  “Ok, so what do we do?”

  “Well,” Jason paused long enough to draw a great, deep breath and collect his scattered thoughts. “Our first problem is getting inside the caves.”

  “How are we going to do that? I mean, she obviously has guards posted.”

  Jason slipped his right hand under his lightweight jacket and slid it behind his back. When he brought it out his fingers were wrapped around the butt of a small black pistol. By the standards of a gun fancier it was not much to look at; cheaply made, it carried no name or marks other than to proclaim that it had been made in Spain and that it was a .380 caliber. When it emerged from its hiding place beneath Jason’s belt, Beverle
y’s eyes grew large and round.

  “Jesus, Jason. Where did you get that thing?”

  “It took some doing, believe me. Let’s just say that I found a guy who knew a guy.”

  Unable to take her eyes off of the weapon, Beverley asked what seemed, to her, to be the next logical question. “Is it loaded?”

  “An empty gun isn’t much good to anybody. It’s got a full clip in it and I have three more full clips in my pocket. That gives me a total of thirty-six shots.”

  Beverley had never seen a gun of any kind this close and she was unable to tear her eyes away from it. As she spoke, she stared at the chunky black object with the fascination of a bird hypnotized by a snake.

  “Do you have any more…things. You know. Bullets.”

  Jason leaned forward over the steering wheel as he slid the gun back into the small holster clipped inside the waistband of his jeans.

  “Nope. That’s it. Thirty-six shots then I’m out.”

  “You think that’s going to be enough to get us inside?”

  Jason snorted. “With all the noise thirty-six shots will make I’m hoping to be able to get us inside without firing even one. The aim is to do this as quietly as possible, not to get the attention of Morgana, all of her goons and the county cops.”

  “And how are we going to get inside without making any noise?”

  “Haven’t figured that part out yet. We’ll have to reconnoiter the situation once we get there. When we know what’s what we can figure out the best way forward.”

  “Ok. I guess that makes sense.” Beverley canted her head to one side in thought, idly adjusting her glasses while her mind moved ahead, trying to give some semblance of order to all the fragmented bits and pieces of this madness. “So, let’s assume we actually get all the way in. What then?”