by Daniel Diehl
The window glass, like the beads and broken chunks of pottery, was definitely from the Roman period. But because of its location immediately outside of the post-Roman addition, Jason hoped to establish that the Britons had removed it from a window in the villa and re-used it in the addition they built along the southern-most wall of the villa’s main building. The best he could hope for was to find more pieces of broken glass near the same location. This would both affirm that the addition included material taken from the original villa and give him an approximate location of the new window.
Handling the fragile, ancient piece of glass with the utmost care, Jason held it over the wash basin and brushed clean water across its face again and again. With each pass the glass became cleaner. Finally, he blotted the water from both sides of the glass and held it in his hands, studying its makeup. Vaguely blue-green in color, it was full of flaws, ripples and tiny bubbles. As he moved it one way and another, examining its surface texture, a vague distortion moved across – or through, or behind – the glass. Jason looked again but at first saw nothing. Then, in a matter of seconds, the shadow came again, moving in exactly the same right-to-left direction it had moved the first time. Jason blinked his tired eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose to clear his vision, acknowledging to himself that Beverley was right, he really needed to get more rest. When the cloud moved through the glass the third time it moved slowly enough for Jason to make out the blurred image. Somehow, impossible as it sounded, buried inside the glass was the image of a man’s face. The man was obviously elderly, with a long white beard and hair, and a great hawkish nose set between a pair of piercing blue eyes. Beyond a doubt, the man in the window was Merlin.
Fumbling, terrified and excited, Jason nearly dropped the palm-sized piece of glass before he could regain control of himself. With shaking hands he set the glass down on a clean towel, afraid to touch it. Peering hard at the object in front of him, he lifted one edge of the towel to move the glass under the light. The next time the face appeared it moved, turning from one direction to another, before moving away toward Jason’s left, finally disappearing from his line of vision.
“Bev.” Jason’s voice was calm and level but not nearly loud enough to be heard inside the camper. Then he lost control. “BEVERLEY, BEVERLEY. JESUS, COME HERE. QUICK.”
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Kitty Honeycutt at Ravenswood Publishing for her continued support, my tireless publicist Renee Shaw for all the tweets and my readers, Barbara Rudish and Pat Diluzio for their attention to detail. A very special thanks goes out to Dan Nestlerode for his help and faith in the viability of our sly old wizard: thanks Dan.
OUT OF TIME
Book Three of the Merlin Chronicles
Praise for
‘The Merlin Chronicles’
This is bloody awesome!! I was gripped from the start and can't wait for MORE. ~ Orchard Book club (UK)
An intriguing novel that made me lose track of time. I enjoyed the suspenseful drama and creativity of this book. The characters are impressive (and) the conclusion was great. ~ Michelle Stanley for Readers' Favorite
Daniel Diehl has created an adventurous blend of Arthurian legend, biblical prophecy, classic wizard fantasy and contemporary urban fantasy. ~ SpecFic Daily
I couldn't put it down. This is such an awesome story. ~ Ask David.com
Can’t help but entice the reader. The storyline is complex but accessible [and] Morgana le Fay is a brilliant baddie. ~ RabidReaders.com
Revelations will satisfy the expectations of fantasy enthusiasts and demand the attention of lovers of thrillers. ~ Fantasy Book Review (UK)
As usual, Daniel, likes to throw you off the plot..... but in a good way! The story is fast paced, gripping and at times had you asking yourself how in the world are they going to get out of this? ~ Orchard Book Club (UK)
Table of Contents
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Introduction
If you have been following Merlin’s adventures through the previous two books in this trilogy you already know that this story is a work of fiction based primarily on characters from the Arthurian legends and a diverse range of historical sources.
As I did in the previous volumes, I have worked diligently to maintain the authenticity of historical facts, geographic locations, adherence to the Arthurian legends and other information that serves to give a realistic setting in which our characters live out their make-believe lives. In the previous volumes most of the cities and physical sites referred to in the book have been real. The places in the city of York appear much as they are described in the story and most of the other locations I use were based (sometimes rather loosely) on actual places. The individuals, occurrences and other details are inventions of my imagination and should not be taken as fact. In this latest book I have relied largely on historical documents and archaeological information, which are sometimes a bit sketchy, to illuminate the so-called Dark Ages. Considering that I am dealing with primarily fictitious characters set against a background of fictitious action I suppose even the sketchiest information wouldn’t make much difference to their lives but I have tried, where possible, to stay within the bounds of known historical facts concerning fifth century Britain. It is worth noting that the characters of General Ambrosius Aurelianus, King Hoel of the Bretons, Duke Aegidius of the Franks, King Hengist of the Saxons and his war chief, Colgrim, were all real people who lived during the late fifth century AD time period in which much of our story takes place. Likewise, the political map showing the British Isles of the fifth century is as near to accurate as possible.
I should also mention something about the Welsh language. Welsh suffers from a severe lack of vowels and contains letter combinations that appear strange to outsiders. Suffice it to say that the most common vowel is ‘y’ and that anywhere you see a double ‘d’ (dd) it is pronounced like the ‘th’ combination in English. Hence, the name Griffudd is pronounced Griffith and the town Vaddon is pronounced Vathon. Similarly, the double ‘l’ combination, such as you find in the name Lloyd, is pronounced not unlike the sound you make when clearing flem from the back of your throat – a kind of coughing ‘k’ sound.
‘Out of Time’ is the third book of (at least) a trilogy covering Merlin and Jason’s adventures and, as inconceivable as it seems, I suppose some of you may have missed the first two installments of the trilogy entitled Revelations: book one of The Merlin Chronicles and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: book two of The Merlin Chronicles. While I strongly recommend reading both of these before diving into this third volume, I am going to make your life easy by opening this final volume of the trilogy with a prologue that gives new readers a short synopsis of the first two books so they won’t be left scratching their heads, trying to fill in the blank spaces with assumptions and imagination – that’s my job. This does not leave you off the hook for volumes one and two – go out immediately and buy them or you will never know how much fun you have missed.
And now, friends, fans and followers of Merlin, welcome to Out of Time: book three of the Merlin Chronicles.
Prologue ~ Our Story So Far…
After robbing the library of the flamboyantly evil sorcerous Morgana le Fay, the wizard Merlin discovered an ancient spell which would tempor
arily close the invisible gate through which Morgana’s allies, the dragons, had been attacking earth from the mysterious realm where they exist. When the vengeful Morgana discovered the theft she sent her mercenary thugs in search of Merlin with orders to retrieve her books and kill the old man. Fearing for his life, the great wizard constructed a small crystalline ball in which to hide himself until he could find a way to close the dragon gate permanently. With the help of his lover, the water sprite Vivian, also known as the Lady of the Lake, Merlin buried himself and his spheroid refuge on the Cornish coast. Sixteen centuries later he was still seeking a solution to his problem.
When archaeology student Jason Carpenter was assigned to conduct his first dig at the site of Tintagel castle he, his entire team, and their professor were amazed when they unearthed a strange blue crystalline sphere in otherwise undisturbed soil. Catapulted to fame thanks to his strange discovery, Jason’s notoriety crumbled when the sphere exploded, ruining the laboratory in which it had been kept. But far stranger was the bearded old man wearing a long gray gown who appeared in Jason’s apartment insisting that he was Merlin the wizard and that he had been hiding from the nearly eternal Morgana le Fay for 1,600 years while searching for a means by which he could close a magical gate through which dragons were trying to attack earth.
As Merlin spun out a tale of deceit, betrayal and terror, Jason came to believe the old man’s wild story and reluctantly agreed to help him rebuild his sphere; a plan which came to a disastrous end when the laboratory where the sphere was being reconstructed – along with the scientist working on it – were destroyed in an explosion. If Jason had any lingering doubts that Morgana le Fay was still alive after sixteen centuries they disappeared the night she tried to seduce, and murder, Jason.
With Morgana and her agents closing in on Merlin and Jason, the pair went on the offensive, following Morgana from her offices in Cardiff, Wales to an old fortress on the Chinese-Mongolian border where her opium processing operation was overseen by Chinese triad gangsters. Knowing full well that Merlin and his young companion were following her, Morgana laid a series of traps with the help of a five hundred year old necromancer named Fu Ling Chu. Although her thugs captured Jason and imprisoned him, Merlin engineered his escape and, in the process, destroyed much of the fortress which served as Morgana’s Asian headquarters. Days later, during a raging thunderstorm and flood that threatened to wash away the car in which Jason and Merlin were escaping from Mongolia, Merlin encountered and killed Morgana’s nefarious ally Fu Ling Chu.
Taking refuge in a Buddhist monastery on the Mongolian-Russian border, the battered and exhausted pair discovered a cryptic, two thousand year-old manuscript which Merlin believed might contain the answer to his long search for a means of permanently closing the dragon gate. There were, however, two small problems: first, the manuscript was written in a virtually indecipherable combination of ancient languages and, second, the vengeful Morgana was about to release the pet dragon which she had kept in an underground cavern for more than a millennia and a half. Following the creature’s first devastating attack on the monastery Jason frantically devised a crude, tripod-mounted crossbow and was ready to fight the dragon when it returned. To Jason’s amazement the machine worked and the monstrous reptile was destroyed.
After returning to England, Jason and Merlin felt relatively safe from Morgana’s spying thanks to a strange ointment which the lama of the Buddhist monastery had presented to them. Unfortunately, while they may have been safe from Morgana they were no closer to unravelling the cryptic manuscript which held the secret to closing the dragon gate…at least until Merlin, Jason and his girlfriend Beverley McCullough visited a tiny island off the Welsh coast where they conferred with Merlin’s lady friend Vivian. Speaking in cryptic, disjointed phrases Vivian tried to explain that the secret of locking the dragon gate lay in the power of two mystical pebbles which may – or may not – be locked inside the legendary Ark of the Covenant, the exact location of which had not been confirmed for more than three thousand years.
Another clue in the strange chain of riddles leading to the precise location of the dragon gate came when a friend of Jason inadvertently mentions a fancy dress party that he was planning to attend. Connecting one tenuous thread of information to another, Merlin, Jason and Beverley travel to an elaborate system of tunnels and caves once used by a group of notorious eighteenth century rakes known as the Hellfire Club. Eventually, Merlin comes to realize that deep in the cave is the hidden gateway through which the dragons enter our world and it is here that he will have to return when he possesses the stones which will permanently lock the gate.
While Merlin and Beverley keep a close watch on Morgana’s actions through his scrying glass, Jason tracks down clues as to the possible location of the legendary Ark of the Covenant and its contents. His investigations lead him to the conclusion that the Ark may actually exist – and that it may contain the magical stones which will lock the dragon gate forever. He also learns that the Ark may be hidden in a church somewhere in an Ethiopian desert town named Axum. Leaving Beverley and Merlin to keep an eye on Morgana’s movements, Jason flies to Africa where he eventually locates the Ark only to be told by its guardian that no one has been allowed to see it in more than three thousand years.
Thanks to Merlin’s magical intercession, and the offer of donating the strange text containing the riddle to the dragon gate to the church’s treasury, Jason is finally granted the privilege of looking at the Ark. While the Ark is every bit as splendid as biblical legend holds it to be, it seems that no one has been able to figure out how to open it since it left Jerusalem nearly three millennia ago. As he studies the golden box, Jason realizes that there is a piece missing and that piece appears to be identical to a large bronze disk through which Morgana le Fay communicate with the dragons. That evening he calls Merlin and Beverley, promising to return to England immediately so they can steal the disk from Morgana and take it to Africa and open the Ark.
Even as Jason prepares to leave Ethiopia, Morgana le Fay accidently picks him up in her scrying glass. Dispatching a gang of thugs to kill or capture Jason, their target eludes them but when the mercenaries kill the desk clerk at his hotel, Jason becomes the object of a police manhunt, making it impossible for him to leave Ethiopia. Frightened, angry and frustrated, Jason goes into hiding.
As Merlin and Beverley ponder the best way to proceed without Jason, Morgana prepares to move the device through which she communicates with the dragons to her new operational headquarters in the recesses of the Hellfire Caves where she plans to open the dragon gate. Realizing that their only hope of stealing the communicating disk is to intercept it while it is in transit from Morgana’s headquarters to the Hellfire Caves, Merlin and Beverley set off on a mad quest to hijack the van containing the disk. Their mission successful, Beverley and the disk board the next flight to Ethiopia.
For reasons he refuses to divulge, Merlin declines to accompany her, instead setting off toward the Hellfire Caves on foot, swearing to kill Morgana and put an end to her evil scheming for all time.
Unaware of Merlin’s intentions, Beverley and Jason haul the bronze disk across the Ethiopian wastes to the building where the Ark is kept. There, after long and exhausting arguments with the treasurer, they are allowed to attach the disk to the Ark of the Covenant, allowing the Ark to be opened. There, in the bottom of the Ark, along with the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, lay the two small stones Jason had been searching for. In gratitude for opening the Ark, the guardian gives Jason the stones and arranges for him and Beverley to be smuggled out of Ethiopia.
While Jason and Beverley were busy in Africa, Merlin found his way back to the Hellfire Caves, made his way inside and lay in wait for Morgana le Fay. While investigating Morgana’s alterations to the labyrinth of tunnels he is stunned and left unconscious by a military grade Taser that had been buried in one of the cave walls as part of Morgana’s security system.
When Jason and Beverl
ey return to England and can find no trace of Merlin or his whereabouts, they frantically telephone police and hospitals in search of their friend. Just as they begin to discuss the possibility of Merlin’s having gone to the caves alone, the face of Morgana le Fay appears in Merlin’s scrying glass. Gloating over her triumph, she redirects the glass to show a beaten and drugged Merlin tied to a chair, deep inside her lair.
Returning to the caves in the hope that they can rescue Merlin and lock the dragon gate for all time, Jason and Beverley wind up in a wild shoot-out with Morgana’s guards. The pair’s progress is nearly halted when they come face-to-face with Morgana who, in a psychopathic fury, tries to destroy Jason and Beverley. During the melee Merlin slips his bonds and joins the fight.
As the combatants alternate between launching assaults and dashing for cover, Morgana seizes Beverley and uses her as a shield to make her way to the dragon gate. By the time Jason and Merlin realize what happened, Morgana has reached the gate and is casting the spell which will open it and allow the monstrous creatures into the world. As the vortex opens the cavern fills with howling, hurricane force winds, driving Jason and Merlin backward down the tunnel.
Fighting their way toward Morgana and her struggling captive, Jason pulls Beverley free as Merlin defies the cyclone spewing from the mouth of the dragon gate, using the mystical stones to enact the spell of permanent closure while simultaneously fighting off the furious attacks of his ancient adversary. In their struggle Morgana is thrown into the yawning vortex. Toppling backwards, struggling frantically to regain her balance, she grabs the sleeve of Merlin’s gown. Realizing that his friend is inches from being dragged into the pit along with Morgana, Jason lunges forward to pull Merlin back from the precipice. Their fingers touch but it is too late and Merlin disappears into the mouth of the rapidly closing gateway.