The Merlin Effect

by T.A. Barron

  Jim set aside his mug and stood up, his frame almost filling the cabin. He stepped to the counter and punched a few commands onto the computer keyboard. With a scowl, he studied the screen. “Nothing yet. We’ll give it just a bit longer, and if there’s still nothing, we’ll fix up the buoy and try again.”

  “After you tell me what’s going on.”

  Returning to his chair, he said, “All right, you win. But first, you’ve got to promise me never to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. Not even your mother, not even Isabella. The risks are too great. Do you understand?”

  Kate swallowed, but not her cocoa. “Yes.”

  Jim stared into his mug for a moment before speaking. “For starters, if the Horn of Merlin could be recovered, it would put to rest all the doubts about whether Merlin himself really existed.”

  “But how?”

  “There is only one Horn of Merlin, and its life was so closely intertwined with the wizard’s, at least for a time, that from the standpoint of history they have become inseparable. If one existed, so did the other. And if the Horn still exists, it will be simple to recognize—not so much by its spiral shape and rainbow fluid as by its power.”

  “You really believe it has some sort of magical power?”

  “I do.”

  She scrutinized him. “This is about more than just history, isn’t it?”

  “Right you are. We’re talking about the Horn of Merlin! Many people—and many forces beyond our comprehension—would go to enormous lengths to get it if they knew it still existed.”

  Kate looked at him skeptically. “You mean like that enchantress Nimue?”

  He nodded gravely. “They could have human forms. Or others. I’m talking about forces that thrive on pain, injustice, chaos. It makes me shudder just to think what they might do with the Horn . . . although the true nature of its power remains unclear. Merlin must have known what it was, but he never shared the secret with anyone else.”

  “Emperor Merwas, in your story, said the Horn’s power had something to do with eternal life.”

  “He said it was a kind of eternal life, but not the kind most mortals seek.”

  She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t ask me. But it does give you an idea of the magnitude we’re dealing with.”

  Swallowing some more cocoa, Kate couldn’t shake the feeling that her father knew more than he was revealing. Yet she felt reluctant to press him too hard, since he was being so uncharacteristically open with her. Better to try an indirect approach.

  “There are lots of legends about the Horn, aren’t there?”

  “Plenty,” he responded. “In the centuries since it disappeared, the Horn of Merlin has popped up in all manner of folklore, all over the world. I’m up to thirty-seven languages, and I’ve been looking hard for only a few years. But none of the references says anything specific about the Horn’s power. It’s always the mysterious Horn, the marvelous Horn, the wondrous Horn, and the like. And none of the references talks about the Horn actually appearing again. None . . . except one.”

  “Which one?”

  Peering straight at her hazel green eyes, he said, “That reference came from right here. It was an old ballad, known only in the fishing villages in this part of Baja, about the wreck of the Resurreccíon. It was Isabella who first told me about it, more than three years ago. Over coffee in the faculty lounge. She thought it was just another bit of Merlin trivia, having no idea that the reference to the Horn was so unusual. But I checked her translation, and there it was.”

  Kate took a final slurp of cocoa. “Can you remember how it goes?”

  “Can I remember? I haven’t been able to get it out of my head now for years.” He cleared his throat. “Starts like this:

  An ancient ship, the pride of Spain,

  Embarked upon a quest

  To navigate the ocean vast

  And still survive the test.

  It carried treasures rich and rare

  Across the crashing waves

  Beyond the flooded fields that are

  So many sailors’ graves.

  Its goal to link the Orient

  With distant Mexico,

  The ship set sail with heavy hearts

  And heavier cargo.

  The galleon brimmed with precious gems,

  Fine gold and silver wrought,

  Silk tapestries and ivories

  And spices dearly sought.

  From China, Burma, Borneo,

  Came crates of lofty cost,

  And one thing more, the rumors said:

  The Horn that Merlin lost.”

  Kate listened, feeling the boat surging on the swells. “The Horn that Merlin lost.”

  “Yes, but note that it says the rumors said. Not a very reliable reference! It could mean that the Horn was on board, or that the ship was destined somehow to encounter the Horn, or something else entirely.”

  “The Resurreccíon has plenty of its own legends, doesn’t it?”

  “More than its share,” he agreed. “You’ve got to remember, not many sunken ships are surrounded by so much controversy. Some people think that it never existed, or if it did, that it carried nothing of value. But if you ask the villagers around here, they’ll swear it went down off the coast, although they can’t give you any proof. And a few historians agree, saying that when it set sail from Manila it was carrying enough treasure to wipe out the entire war debt of Imperial Spain. That’s more than ninety million dollars in today’s currency.”

  “So why hasn’t anybody tried to find it before?”

  “I guess no one was crazy enough. First, it’s hard to raise money to pay for an expedition when the very existence of the ship is in doubt. Second, the ocean bottom is deep around here, averaging half a mile. Third, there is the matter of the whirlpool. I don’t need to elaborate on that.”

  “No,” she said weakly.

  “I will say this, though,” he continued. “The whirlpool itself has been rather elusive. Since it’s almost always covered with mist, and since these waters are so dangerous for sailing, very few people have ever actually seen it. Or have lived to tell about it.”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  He gazed at the steamy window of the cabin. “Come to think of it, the shroud of mist is a little like Avalon. It was the mist more than anything else that made Avalon seem to King Arthur less a real place than an enchanted dream, less part of his own kingdom than the Kingdom of Faerie.”

  When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “Some of the villagers had another name for the whirlpool besides Remolino de la Muerté. They called it el lugar donde empieza el viento, which means the place where the wind begins.”

  Despite her visceral feelings about the whirlpool, Kate found herself slightly intrigued. “That makes me think of the realm of Shaa. You know, the place where the sea begins.”

  “Sounds similar, I admit,” said her father, adopting a professorial tone. “But just because two things sound alike doesn’t make them related. It’s like a billion other coincidences throughout history.”

  “But you jumped on a coincidence when you heard Isabella’s ballad,” objected Kate. “You put this whole project together on the basis of one little reference to the Horn.”

  “Not quite,” Jim answered. “The ballad was my first clue, to be sure. But I didn’t get really serious about this thing until I discovered something else.”

  “What else?”

  “You might recall I went to Spain a couple of years ago for a conference. Well, I took the opportunity to search through the Spanish archives in Seville, hoping to find something that would help me determine whether the Resurreccíon really existed. Eventually, I did turn up something—although, strangely, it was filed in the wrong place.”

  “What was it?”

  “Some papers that appeared to be the original ship’s manifest for an unnamed galleon that sailed from Manila in 1547. When I checked th
rough all the details, it matched to a tee the other surviving descriptions of the Resurreccíon. There was one thing odd about it, though.”

  A large wave splashed against the hull, jostling them both. Kate leaned closer. “Odd?”

  “Yes. Along with all the other items on the list—gold and silver, jewelry and tapestries, spices and ivory—there was some kind of strange marking. Like nothing I’d ever seen before.”

  “What did it look like?”

  He took his clipboard and drew a design. Tearing off the page, he handed it to her.

  “Like this.”

  Kate puzzled over the mysterious marking. “Somebody’s signature?”

  “More like a code,” her father replied. “Look at that spiral in the middle.”

  She looked up at his lanky form swaying with the movement of the boat. “A code for what?”

  “That’s what I wondered, too. I tried to find a way to decipher it, not really expecting I’d succeed. The trail got incredibly complicated, and I got involved with other projects, but something kept me from giving up completely.

  “Then one day I was doing some research on a little-known language that is said to have been developed by some of the followers of Merlin in medieval times. They were a strange bunch, many of them doubling as monks, and they had some sort of secret society. Their language is related to Ogham, an ancient Druid alphabet, with some important twists. Suddenly I realized that it looked a lot like the marking on the manifest. So, for the heck of it, I tried to translate it.”

  She twirled the page in her hands. “And?”

  Jim turned the page right side up. “It said . . . Serilliant.”

  “The Horn? So it really was on the ship?”

  Jim stroked his chin. “It could be nothing more than a hoax, a medieval prank of some kind. Yet, if it’s true, and if the Horn could be recovered . . .”

  As his words trailed off into the sound of splashing waves, Kate felt again there was something else, something about the Horn, that he was not telling. She folded the page and slid it into the pocket of her wet cotton shirt on the floor. Still, what did it matter? He had told her more than anyone else about his dreams. Even if they were destined not to come true, he had shared them. With her.

  “Dad, what did Merlin look like? Sometimes I try to picture him in my mind, but it’s hard.”

  “How do you picture him?”

  “Tall,” she answered. “Even taller than you. With a bent, pointed hat that made him look even taller. Straight, white hair, flying in all directions, like hay. Probably a big wart on his nose.”

  “That’s the archetypal form, all right. But the evidence suggests he looked different than you think.”

  “No pointed hat?”

  “No pointed hat. The only two things he wore constantly were the Horn—for the years he had it—and the blue cape, the one decorated with stars and planets that he used to bring light to dark places.”

  Kate ran her finger along the rim of her mug, considering the image. “You said losing the Horn killed him in the end. How did he die, anyway?”

  “He was entombed in a cave by the sea, somewhere on the British Isle of Bardsey. That’s about all we know, that and the date: 547 A.D.”

  “Hey, that would have been exactly one thousand years before the Resurreccíon set sail.”

  “So it would,” acknowledged the historian. “Another coincidence, no doubt.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Most people think he sealed himself in the cave permanently because he was so distraught at losing the Horn. Yet that’s by no means clear. My own view is that he was sealed in the cave by someone else, someone who wanted him out of the way forever.”

  “Who?”

  “His greatest rival, who tried for years to steal his power, and finally, the Horn.”

  “Who was he?”

  “She.”

  “You don’t mean—”

  “Yes. I mean Nimue.”

  “But . . . couldn’t he stop her?”

  Jim turned toward the window and the moonlit waters beyond. “Apparently not. Perhaps Merlin was so angry at himself for losing the Horn and jeopardizing Arthur’s return that he allowed Nimue to finish him off, as the ultimate punishment. Perhaps he had grown arrogant while he had the Horn and underestimated her strength. Or perhaps . . . she had some help.”

  “Help?”

  “Some sources indicate that Garlon, a legendary seaman of the time who seemed to have had a personal grudge against Merlin—I have no idea why—teamed up with Nimue.”

  Kate sighed heavily. “She and Merlin must have really hated each other.”

  “That’s an understatement. I imagine, though, that beneath their bitter rivalry, there was some mutual respect. Maybe, even, a kind of admiration. After all, they did share some things in common, like their fascination for the sea.”

  “Sounds like that’s about all they shared.”

  “I wish I knew! You have no idea how many conflicting theories there are surrounding Merlin. For example, there’s a mountain of good evidence that he died in the cave. Yet there are some people who still maintain that he descended into the sea at the end of his life. They point to an old ballad:

  He that made the wode and lond

  So long before in Engelonde

  So too made the steormy sea

  And the place where Merlyn be

  Searching still in mystery.”

  “Searching still in mystery,” repeated Kate. “For the Horn, I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  “You said Merlin was fascinated by the sea.”

  “That’s right. He spent a good deal of time there. The name Merlin itself comes from the old Welsh word Myrrdin, meaning ‘Sea Fortress.’ ”

  A vague recollection stirred in her. “And wasn’t the first name of Britain something that meant ‘Merlin’s Isle’?”

  Jim’s eyes gleamed. “Clas Myrrdin.”

  Placing her mug on the counter next to a pile of printouts, Kate thought of the others, probably still hard at work back at camp. “How did you get Isabella and Terry to come along on this project? They’re not interested in Merlin.”

  “Not in the least! It’s a marriage of convenience, that’s all. Our interests don’t overlap one bit. Isabella is studying one fish in particular that was supposed to be long extinct, but was found recently in the catch of a local fisherman.”

  “And Terry?”

  “I didn’t really know him when I asked him to join us, which was risky. But I knew he is a leader in sonic imaging technology, even if he is only in his twenties. He was the first person to merge sonar, much like whales use to communicate underwater, with the same thermal sensing devices used by satellites. I thought, naively, that getting him meant getting to use his equipment. Was I ever wrong. He’s been using it to study the unusual volcanic activity off this coast. And he’s—”

  “A total jerk.” She touched the black cable with her bare foot. “Too bad you can’t just get Isabella to take you down in the submersible. Then you wouldn’t need to use Terry’s stuff to get a picture.”

  “She guards the submersible with her life! Being the director of the Institute’s deep-water research program is not nearly as important to her as being the submersible’s chief pilot. And she’s reluctant to take it down anywhere near the whirlpool, for fear it might be damaged. So unless I can come up with something very convincing, she won’t risk it.”

  Giving the counter a pat, Jim rose from his chair. “It’s time.” He punched the commands into the computer once again, then waited.

  Nothing.

  Lips pinched, he shrugged. “Looks like I struck out.” He turned toward the door.

  “Look,” exclaimed Kate, pointing to the screen. Slowly, a hazy image was beginning to form.

  He whirled around. Instantly, he activated the printer. For several agonizing seconds, they waited for the hard copy to emerge. At length, a single sheet of paper edged its way out of the pri
nter.

  He snatched it up, his face alight, and studied the hazy image. “It’s there!” he announced buoyantly.

  Kate took the paper, and her heart sank. “It doesn’t look like anything,” she lamented. “Just a weird gray blob.”

  “You could call it that,” agreed her father. “Or you could call it an underexposed picture of the area below the whirlpool. Here, look closely. Imagine it with five times the resolution, if I had been able to make a complete image. Can you see those three lines? Could be masts. See? Mizzenmast, mainmast, and foremast, with the mainmast broken. And maybe, just maybe, the hull of a ship, viewed from an angle of about forty-five degrees.”

  She shook her head.

  “And look here,” the historian went on. “That patch, could it be . . . sails?” Poring over the picture, he muttered, “No . . . no. They couldn’t still be intact after four hundred fifty years! The pressure alone down there would have ripped them to shreds.” He focused again on Kate. “Forget the cocoa, we should be drinking champagne! There’s something down there, no doubt about it.”

  “If you say so,” she answered uncertainly. “Are you sure it’s not just a smudge?”

  “I admit it’s not clear enough to prove anything. It does fire the imagination, though. Even this quality isn’t bad for three thousand feet down! I’ll give Terry this much. He knows his stuff.” His expression darkened. “But he didn’t count on the fact that the buoys’ sonic beams seem to attract the local whales. It was probably one of them who wreaked havoc on the buoy.”

  Kate cleared her throat. “Dad, there’s something—”

  “I still can’t believe it,” he interrupted, tossing the page on the counter. “By itself, this picture is worthless. Just a smudge, as you said. But a longer shot is going to show us something. Maybe something amazing. I just need to hook up the transmitter dish, and we’ll find out.”

  As he started for the door, she caught him by the pant leg. “Dad, I’ve got to tell you something.”