The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  “That’s it. Just ‘my Lord’?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I can handle that.”

  “And by tomorrow you will be able to do it in either Welsh or Latin. And believe me, no matter how much Jason thinks he hates Latin, it is essential. Without it you won’t be able to read or write; all documents are written in Latin.”

  Jason shot him a piercing glance, suddenly intrigued by the turn the conversation had taken. “You mean you can teach us to read and write, too?”

  “No. But Latin is completely phonetic. Everything sounds exactly like it looks. In a day or so you’ll be able to read Latin like a monk.”

  Jason brightened immediately, his opinion of Latin completely turned on its head. “Then I can read your scrolls.”

  “Absolutely, my boy. And I will see to it that you understand how all of the spells work.”

  Beverley waved a hand in the air for attention and offered a strained smile. “I appreciate the language skills, Merlin – even if you really should have asked first – and I know Jason is dying to learn your magic, but will somebody please answer my question?”

  “I’m sorry, my dear, what did you ask?”

  “Should I take toilet roll along with us to the fifth century?”

  Merlin threw his head back and laughed. “I don’t think that would be wise, my dear. If someone else saw it the awkward questions would go on endlessly.”

  Beverley scowled and rubbed a confused hand across her forehead. “Ok. Fine. And I don’t mean to be crude here, but how do people…umm…you know.”

  “Ah, yes. I understand your concern. The answer is moss.”

  “What?”

  “Moss. You know, the fuzzy green stuff that grows on rocks.” Beverley and Jason both nodded that they understood what moss was, but their blank stare made it abundantly clear that they had no idea what the old wizard was talking about. With a deep sigh he pressed on with his explanation. “People collect little pads of moss, dry it in the sun and then use it the same way you use that paper. You will find neat little piles of it within easy reach in every latrina.”

  “Latrina.” Jason repeated Merlin’s last word, rolling it around in his mouth slowly. “Now there’s some Latin I can figure out already.”

  “Moss? Really?”

  “Yes, my dear. But I assure you, it will be just fine.” Behind her glasses Beverley’s eyes looked frustrated and unsure for the first time. Reaching across to where she sat, Merlin patted her consolingly on the arm and mumbled, “Not to worry. I assure you, there are far stranger things that you will have to get used to than moss.” After a momentary pause, he held up a single finger and spoke again. “And speaking of strange occurrences and how to avoid them; do you happen to have any of the anti-scrying ointment the Buddhist monks gave us when we left their monastery? It will undoubtedly come in handy when we try to avoid our old friend Mistress le Fay.”

  Jason shrugged and turned to stare at Beverley who was tugging gently at her bottom lip.

  “Yes. Somewhere. I ran across it not long ago. Give me a few moments and I’ll remember where it is.”

  When Beverley turned and left the room, Jason was staring at Merlin, his eyes squinted almost shut. “Are you expecting Morgana to be on the lookout for us?”

  “Ahh.” Merlin smiled sheepishly. “Well, if we hope to thwart the dragons it seems almost inevitable that we’re going to run afoul of their human agent.”

  “We’re going to get into a lot of trouble, aren’t we.”

  “No more than is absolutely necessary, I promise you. Now go pack.”

  Jason shook his head and wandered out of the room.

  For the next sixteen days life in the flat on Bootham Road became an endless series of confusions, questions and decisions as Jason and Beverley prepared to accompany Merlin to his world and his place in history. Some questions were a lot easier to answer than others; anything that might look out of place in the fifth century, or negatively impact the flow of history, was to be left behind. But what Jason and Beverley should do about paying their rent for an unknown number of months to come, and whether or not they should shut off the electric power were more debatable. Beverley was afraid that if they didn’t shut off the utilities and pay ahead on the rent as far as possible they might lose the apartment. In counterpoint, Merlin insisted that no matter how long they were gone he and Vivian would bring them back to within a few days of the time they left. Eventually, Beverley compromised and paid ahead on the rent and all utilities for two months insisting it was “just to be certain”.

  Before picking up their new clothes they made two additional trips to Murton Park for fittings and Merlin spent much of his time sorting through his scrolls and folios trying to remember which ones would be waiting for him in his laboratory and which ones he had stolen from Morgana’s library long after the point in time to which he planned on returning.

  Beverley became distraught trying to decide how she should tell her family and friends that she would be gone for an unknown length of time but, again, Merlin insisted that when they returned they would not have been gone long enough for anyone to think they had gone missing. Jason countered with the equally logical argument that until such time as they did return they would have vanished for exactly as long as they remained in the fifth century. The dichotomies involved in time travel quickly became so obvious, and so nearly overwhelming, that even Merlin eventually admitted he was thoroughly confused.

  As preparations came to an end and their new clothes arrived at last, Merlin greeted Jason and Beverley one day at breakfast with the announcement that they would be leaving within the hour and that everyone should take care of any last-minute issues.

  When Merlin’s voice called to him from the living room, Jason was still in the bedroom cramming the last few personal items into the small canvass hold-all bag that would contain the totality of his personal possessions for however long he and Beverley might be in the past. He had packed for a lot of trips over the course of his thirty-one years; he had moved from the US to England, he had been on dozens of archaeological digs that had lasted anywhere from a week to three months, he had trekked across the wastes of Mongolia with Merlin for more than two months and he had been hunted by the police in Ethiopia for almost a month but he had never felt so nervous and uncertain about going anywhere in his entire life. Something about moving through time just didn’t seem right; even when he had been in places as strange and far away as Mongolia and Ethiopia there had always been a known route home, but how do you get home from a world that had not existed for more than fifteen hundred years?

  Before fastening the last tie-down he shook his head, sighed and marched across the room to an old trunk standing by the wall. Opening it, he pulled out the small black pistol he had bought illegally before going to confront Morgana Le Fay at the Hellfire Caves. Grabbing the spare clip and a box of nine millimeter shells, he crammed them in the hold-all, stuffing them all the way to the bottom. Muttering “Just in case things get too weird” Jason gave a few final tugs to his ill-fitting woolen breeches, adjusted his sword belt and hurried out to join the others.

  “What took you so long, Jason?”

  “Sorry, Bev, just checking everything one last time.”

  Merlin and Beverley had already pushed most of the furniture against the walls and Merlin was standing at one end of the sofa motioning for Jason to help him move it out of the way. When the center of the room stood empty, Merlin pulled up his sleeves, raised his arms and began scribing invisible symbols and runes in the air over his head while he repeated a series of incantations in a language which neither Jason nor Beverley could identify even with their new-found knowledge of Welsh and Latin. The performance lasted for more than ten tension-filled minutes, with Merlin moving faster and faster and Jason and Beverley becoming more fidgety with each passing second. Finally, Merlin dropped his hands to his side, turned and smiled.

  “There it is. Are you ready?”

 
“There what is?”

  The entirety of the sorcerer’s work appeared to be a room full of air that looked exactly the way it had before he cast his spell.

  “Observe. I’m going to peek around the corner…just to make sure we’re in the right place and time.”

  As he leaned forward, suddenly, incredibly, the upper half of the old wizard’s body vanished into thin air. A moment later he reappeared and turned to smile at a stunned Jason and an open-mouthed Beverley.

  “Perfect.” Extending his arm in an inviting gesture, he offered a low, sweeping bow. “The past awaits you, my friends. Please mind your step.”

  Chapter Seven

  While Jason and Beverley stared in shocked silence, Merlin slipped the strap of Beverley’s hold-all from her shoulder and wedged the bag in the invisible door so he could step away from the gaping hole extending through time and space and allow them to precede him through the portal. Jason had just felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he watched his left leg disappear, when Merlin grabbed him by the arm, locking eyes with him.

  “As far as I am aware, no mortal has ever before been given knowledge of these doorways. I believe that we three are the first humans to have, quite literally, mastered time.”

  Jason stared into Merlin’s hypnotic blue eyes, his mind whirling, as Beverley eased her way past him, whispering into his ear as she slid through the gateway into the yawning nothingness beyond. “Get a move on, Dr Who, we have a job to do.”

  When they emerged on the other side, Merlin positioned himself between Jason and Beverley, allowing a few moments to pass in silence while they observed their surroundings. For as far as they could see in every direction, there was not a single living thing. Even the sound of birds chattering was absent and withered grasses struggled in vain to grow up through what had once been a neatly cobbled roadway. The dead trees lining the road were blackened, twisted and rotting as were the hedgerows surrounding them. Further on stood the shattered remains of a town where the crumbling corpses of its inhabitants lay cremated inside the charred remnants of their lost homes and farmsteads.

  “I needed you to see this so you could understand the full extent of what I’m trying to prevent.”

  “What is this place? When?” Beverley’s hushed voice sounded very small and far away in the grave-like silence of the dead town.

  “This is Bath or, rather, in your time it will be called Bath, in mine we called it Vaddon. Vivian brought me here shortly before I returned to your time.”

  Jason snapped out of his numbed reverie and turned to look at Merlin. “Did the dragons do this?”

  “Only partly. Arthur’s army fought the Saxons here. We were so certain that we were ready; we thought we could rid the west country of the invaders once and for all. But they were better than we were. Despite Arthur’s army and my own best efforts they drove us from the field and burned most of the town. It was the beginning of the end of Arthur’s kingdom. Only four years later Arthur was dead, I was on the run from Morgana and there was no one to even put up a token resistance to either the dragons or the Saxons. Sometime later the dragons came here and destroyed what little remained; I don’t know when, but this is what they left.”

  “So, when in time are we now?” Beverley crossed her arms and rubbed her shoulders as a shudder passed through her body.

  “I think we’re shortly after the time when Vivian buried my globe, so, maybe around the year four-eighty-eight or eighty-nine. I can’t be exact and the specific time is unimportant. I just wanted you to understand the scope of what we’re up against.”

  Jason stepped out of line and moved forward a few feet, surveying the devastation. “So how many warring factions are we are going to be dealing with here?”

  “In addition to my people, the Britons – which includes the Welsh tribes - and the dragons, there are also the Saxons who control the entire eastern half of England and the Anglii.” In answer to Jason and Beverley’s confused stare at this last comment, Merlin elaborated. “The Anglii are a loose confederation of the northern tribes, which include the Picts and the Scots. And everybody is at war with everybody else.” After a long pause he added “And then, of course there are the Irish who don’t really make war but they raid constantly, burning villages, kidnapping our people and taking them for slaves.”

  Suddenly Jason realized for the first time just how unlike the Arthurian world described in the works of Sir Thomas Mallory or Chrétien de Troyes the time of King Arthur had actually been. This wasn’t a world of chivalry, nobility and great quests; this was a world of unrelenting brutality, constant death and ceaseless warfare. “My God, you’re talking about a five sided war here, Merlin.”

  “Now you understand why we need all the help you can give us.”

  Jason held up a cautioning hand, waving it back and forth. “I still won’t introduce modern technology; not even to save Arthur’s kingdom. It’s just too dangerous.”

  “I understand that, Jason. We only need enough of an edge to beat the Saxons…and, of course, we need your ballistae to help us kill the dragons.”

  “Can we please leave here?”

  “I’m sorry my dear.” When Merlin put a comforting arm around Beverley’s shoulders he could feel her shivering despite the warmth of the day. “Back through the gate, children.”

  Grabbing Beverley’s duffel and stepping through the gate first, Jason asked “Where to this time?”

  “If I have my coordinates right we should come out somewhere near Arthur’s capital around the year four-seventy-three or seventy-four. That should put us at least a full year before we have to fight the Saxons here at Vaddon. Plenty of time to develop all the technology and tactics we need.”

  “But I…”

  Whatever Jason was about to say was forestalled by another quick, stomach churning passage through the gate. In the time it takes to step through a door they moved from the heart wrenching world of the burned-out village to the middle of a warm, sunlit, green pasture. The sky overhead was as clear and blue as a baby’s eyes and all around them short legged, hairy cattle grazed happily on the tall, succulent spring grass, their blank eyes barely registering the fact that three people had suddenly materialized out of thin air only a few feet away. In the distance the silhouette of a man followed in the wake of an ox harnessed to a crude scratch plow as it crept across the horizon line.

  “I don’t see any town. How do we know if we’re in the right place?”

  Merlin pointed toward a deeply rutted track twenty feet from where they stood. “We follow that road to the left and over the hill.”

  Without another word, the old wizard set off across the meadow at a brisk pace, waving at Beverley and Jason to follow him. Shrugging and readjusting the shoulder strap on his duffle bag, Jason motioned Beverley to go ahead of him, muttering “Follow the yellow brick road”.

  Twenty minutes later they topped the crest of a low hill and entered the fringes of an extensive rural settlement that sprawled hap-hazardly across the landscape, reaching to the furthest edges of a long, shallow valley. Around them were clusters of tiny houses not demonstrably different than the reproductions in the Dark Age village at Murton Park. In the middle distance, half way across the valley, stood a large collection of domestic buildings situated in the midst of a collection of barns and outbuildings. Behind this complex rose a huge manmade hill surrounded by a series of wood and stone fortification walls.

  Beverley leaned near Jason and laid a hand on the sleeve of his tunic. “You recognize this place, don’t you?”

  “Um-hum.” Pointing toward the fortified hill, he elaborated. “That’s Barbury hill fort and in front of it is my Roman villa. It’s amazing; it’s all really there. Just like it should be.”

  “You were digging in the right place all along, you clever boy.” She smiled, leaned into Jason and gave him a squeeze.

  Coming toward them on the rutted wagon track was a man leading one of the hairy cows on a length of rope. As he approached
he gave the three of them a casual glance and a nod but when his eyes rested on Merlin he looked away, muttering “May God be with you, Praefator”. Keeping his eyes averted the man elbowed his cow toward the edge of the road, moving as fast as his plodding bovine companion would allow. Both Jason and Beverley followed the man’s passing but only when he was beyond hearing range did they say anything, and then they both spoke at once.

  “I don’t think he liked us very much.”

  Beverley’s words were lost as they tumbled out on top of Jason’s “What was that word he called you?”

  Merlin smiled and shook his head slightly, addressing Jason. “It wasn’t us he was afraid of. It was only me.”

  “Why?”

  At Beverley’s response Merlin burst out laughing. “Because, my dear, he recognizes me and he knows I’m a wizard. Can you imagine how people even in your time would react to something like that? They’d probably shoot me. Human beings do not respond well to those who are different from themselves – fear and suspicion are among the few constants in human nature.”

  “I guess.”

  “Excuse me, but what did he call you?” Beverley repeated her previous question. “I mean, you taught us Latin and Welsh but I can’t figure it out.”

  “Ah. It was Latin and the word was ‘praefator’. It means magician, prophet, priest, wizard; all of them and yet something slightly more. It doesn’t translate well, but it does tell us that we are in the right place and the right time.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because, my dear boy, he knew exactly who I was.”

  “Oh, right.”

  A short time later, as Jason and Beverley tried desperately not to stare at everyone and everything around them, Merlin led them toward the main entrance of the old Roman villa. The walls of the building had been repeatedly patched and repaired and many of the outbuildings lay in ruins. Two hundred feet to their right a group of workmen were disassembling what appeared to be a disused stone barn, removing the roof trusses and dislodging the stones of the walls, loading them into a small, two-wheeled cart hitched to a sleepy red ox. Brought back to the moment by the sound of Merlin’s voice, they realized they were approaching a pair of guards dressed in sleeveless leather coats covered with heavy metal rings. In their hands were spears and at their sides hung wide, short swords much like the one Jason was wearing.