The Merlin Effect

by T.A. Barron

  Floating in its place, barely as large as one of the fangs, was a grotesque little fish with a beaklike nose. The entire body was covered with scraggly white hairs, while the dorsal fin wriggled energetically, as if trying to scratch. Then, to the astonishment of Kate and Terry, the fish spoke.

  “I never should have shown you the book.”

  “Geoffrey!” whooped Kate. “It’s you.”

  The fish opened his jaws to the widest, much as the scorpion had done, then gurgled noisily before snapping them shut. “Pardon my yawning,” he said grumpily. Swimming closer to Terry, the fish eyed him suspiciously. “And what, may I ask, is this?”

  “The same could be asked of you,” answered Terry. “I never thought I’d owe my life to a scrawny old fish.”

  “Delighted to be of service,” came the reply. “Actually, before you arrived I was searching for some way to slip past the many-legged creature.” His thin mouth pinched as he fought to hold back a yawn. “Thanks to you, I was able to mount a surprise attack.”

  “Where,” asked Kate, as quietly as she could, “is the Horn?”

  The fish looked at her slyly, then uncurled a small fin under his tail just enough to reveal a gleaming object tucked inside. “Reduced in size, but safe enough.” The fin closed tight again. “Well now, if you’re going to accompany me—”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Kate, her whole transparent body vibrating. Then she fell still. “Was that creature you killed related to the spider monster who guarded the entrance to the land of Shaa?”

  The old fish blew a bubble, which expanded to the size of his head before popping. “No doubt.”

  “Does that mean the entrance to Shaa is near?”

  “Nearer than you know.” The fish’s white mane quivered. “The land of Shaa lies at the bottom of a great abyss. Darkest of the dark, as it is known in legend.”

  “That’s the only way I want to know it,” said Kate.

  “You may not wish to accompany me, then.”

  “You mean—?”

  His dorsal fin wriggling, the old fish said grimly, “That is the way, the only way, to the Glass House. For the Glass House and the land of Shaa lie on the same path. If you are going to join me, you must travel down the same dark passage as Emrys and Merlin did long ago.”

  Kate felt suddenly limp.

  “You can go back to the ship in the way you came, if you choose. I shall do my best to send word.”

  Her single-celled form tensed. “I’m coming with you.”

  The old fish studied her. “Are you quite sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Well then, as I was saying, if you’re going to accompany me, you will need to dress more appropriately. A disguise, what? As you are, you’ll soon end up as salad for one of Nimue’s sea demons.”

  Terry swung his silver-blue eye toward the monstrous corpse, whose mouth gaped wide, its tongues hanging limp. “Whatever sea demons are, they can’t be as bad as that thing over there.”

  Shaking himself, the old fish said to Kate, “He doesn’t know very much, does he?”

  “No,” she replied. “But he’s learning.”

  “Don’t count on it.” Terry turned to Geoffrey. “I won’t delay you any longer. Would you mind changing me so I can get out of here?”

  “It will be a pleasure,” replied the fish. He burbled some syllables and waved his fin awkwardly.

  Pop. Terry’s watery shape vanished. In its place swam an ugly fish with goggle eyes, the same kind of fish that Isabella had analyzed in her makeshift laboratory.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” sputtered Terry. “I meant change me into a person. Not a fish version of Frankenstein! Change me back. Right now!”

  “That might be risky,” answered Geoffrey. “In the first place, people don’t survive very long at the bottom of the sea. In the second place, I am not sure I can do it. Going from human to animal is much easier than the other way around. You might end up as a peacock or a giraffe.”

  Kate could not suppress a giggle. “That might be an improvement.”

  Pop. She found herself as an elegant fish with emerald green scales and a phosphorescent stripe down both sides. Elegant, but for the fact that in her nose she sported a large brass ring.

  “What’s this?” she exclaimed. “There’s a ring in my nose.”

  “A nice touch,” pronounced Terry.

  “My apologies,” said Geoffrey. “It’s happened to me before. I must work on that charm.”

  “Can’t you make it disappear?”

  “Unfortunately not,” he sighed. “A quirky business, this. At least I got the luminous stripes right. You can be our torch. There is no light where we are going.”

  With a quick jackknife he darted away, followed a few seconds later by Kate and Terry, muttering to themselves about their new forms. The white-haired fish led them across the ocean floor, offering a running commentary about how to swim like a fish.

  “Your head is sagging,” coached Geoffrey. “Look dead ahead.”

  “Easy for you to say,” huffed Kate. “I’ve got this stupid ring in my nose.”

  She tried again.

  “Not like that! You’re weaving like a drunkard. Use your spine. Your whole spine.”

  “Here, I’ll show you,” offered Terry. “It’s easy once you get the hang of it.” He gave a sharp jerk of his tail and promptly flipped over backward.

  “Gee, thanks,” moaned Kate.

  After several false starts, however, she started to move with some confidence. Before long she and the others reached the very spot where they had encountered the spidery creature. As they approached, a black chasm loomed before them. Wider than a whale, it looked impossibly deep and utterly dark, illuminated only by the faint glow of a smoking vent nearby.

  “Is that it?” asked Kate doubtfully.

  Geoffrey eyed the chasm. “The abyss.”

  “You’re joking,” said Terry as he cautiously approached the edge. “Magma is pushing higher all the time! Going down there would be like swimming straight into the eruption.”

  “You can wait for us here if you prefer,” offered Geoffrey, circling slowly above the entrance. “Of course, you might have to deal with the mother of your many-legged friend. And she might not be in a very jolly mood when she returns.”

  With that, Geoffrey dived into the abyss. Not far behind came Kate, whose phosphorescent stripes cast a pale blue light on the jagged rock walls, and behind her, a reluctant Terry.

  Suddenly, a fissure opened in the rock just ahead of them. Molten lava bubbled out, sizzling like hot coals doused with water. The walls of the abyss trembled as the space filled with a distant rumbling. Gradually, the fiery lava dimmed, hardening into stone before their eyes.

  “As if it weren’t hot enough in here already,” said Geoffrey, jackknifing past the fissure.

  “This is insane,” objected Terry, starting to retreat.

  Kate beckoned to him with her fin.

  “But we’ll be fried fish fillets if we go any deeper.”

  “It’s our only chance,” she replied, darting past the smoldering stone. She did not look back, but waited to hear him swim again before she continued.

  Downward they swam, plunging into the chasm. Despite the uncomfortable warmth of the water, Kate felt increasingly gripped by a strange chill, a chill she had felt somewhere before. The vague, half-formed memory of a nightmare swelled inside her. It was not a matter of temperature, or of anything physical. Something about this place blew biting cold on her innermost self. The chill only deepened as they descended.

  “Douse the torch!” ordered Geoffrey.

  Kate obeyed. The abyss fell raven black. Although she could not see, she still could feel. The icy feeling grew stronger, working into her bones, her brain, her blood. Darkest of the dark. She wanted to shriek. At that instant a shadowed figure swept by, rising out of the depths. It brushed her with its frozen breath as it passed.

  In time, she dared speak again. “What wa
s that?”

  “I don’t want to know,” said Terry, shaken.

  “A sea demon.” Geoffrey’s tail twitched nervously. “We must be doubly careful now. We should proceed without any light.”

  Terry frowned. “But I can’t do that. I’ll swim straight into a wall.”

  “Not advisable,” the elder fish replied crisply. “Stay right with me, close as you can.”

  Following his suggestion, Kate positioned herself immediately behind Geoffrey, while Terry trailed her closely. Sometimes, especially rounding bends, they would bump into one another, jamming faces into tails. As they continued, though, they swam with increasing coordination. Kate gradually became aware of a new sense guiding her motions, that ancient instinct that binds a school of fish together as they swim in unison. In time their three bodies moved almost as one.

  For what might have been hours they voyaged downward. At last, ever so slowly, Kate discerned a subtle light ahead. For a while she thought it was merely her own wishful thinking. Yet the passage was indeed growing less dark. The abyss began to widen and to dive less steeply, even as it brightened. Finally they entered a great cavern, wider and taller than they could tell.

  Geoffrey angled upward, leading the others. With a trio of splashes, they broke through the surface of what appeared to be a lake, set inside the expansive cavern.

  “Air,” puzzled Kate, keeping her gills underwater. “How did air get down here?”

  “The sea holds many surprises,” answered Geoffrey. He swished his tail, then said, “If you look up, you will see another.”

  XXIII: Sea Stars

  Raising her eyes to the ceiling of the cavern, Kate saw the one thing she least expected to find, far beneath the stormy surface of the ocean.

  Stars. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Shimmering with an eerie undersea light, beaming down upon the little band. Like an endless procession of candles, the stars vaulted overhead, illuminating the immense chamber.

  She could see none of the familiar constellations she had come to know during her evenings at the research station, when the dome of night had risen over San Lazaro Lagoon. Yet here she found a myriad of new patterns and shapes, clusters and swirls. Galaxies upon galaxies adorned the cavern, floating in fairylike reflection on the water. And, as ever, the spaces between the stars spoke to her of wonder and infinity.

  Then a familiar wailing echoed, a song of loss and longing. The three companions listened in silence.

  Geoffrey swayed his dorsal fin. “Whales may wander far and wide, seeking some way to ease their pain, but it does them no good. Even such a flowering of undersea stars cannot soothe them.”

  “I remember,” said Kate wistfully, “my dad’s stories about Merlin.”

  Geoffrey’s fin stopped moving. “Yes?”

  “He told me how sometimes Merlin would enter a cave, someplace blacker than night, and take off his cape that was studded with stars. Then he would flick his cape in such a way that the stars would float up and stick to the ceiling of the cave. So when anyone else came, it would be light instead of dark. My dad said that if you ever found a cave like that, you could tell that Merlin had been there.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Geoffrey. “I rather like that story. Perhaps it is true.”

  “And perhaps it is just a story,” replied Terry.

  Geoffrey examined him with reptile eyes. “So you don’t believe in Merlin?”

  “Believe he really existed? No, I’m afraid not. He makes a fine legend, I’ll give you that much. I don’t expect to run into him on the street, though.”

  “You might run into someone who knew him,” cautioned Geoffrey.

  “Meaning Nimue?” asked Kate.

  The white mane bristled. “Do not speak that name. We are close. Too close.”

  At that moment a fragrant wind, full of the smells of the sea, swept over them. Kate suddenly noticed that, on every wall of the cavern, waterfalls gathered and tumbled into the lake. The water within them sparkled with such purity that the cascades seemed to glow with liquid light.

  Here we are, she thought, in the realm of Shaa. The place where the sea begins, the womb where the waters are born. Then, in a hushed voice, she asked, “Where is the castle of Merwas?”

  Geoffrey simply plunged downward, leaving her question unanswered.

  They swam just deep enough in the warm currents to coast along the border between light and dark. Below, all was black. Above, the horizon stretched over them like a shining circle, perfectly round. Within this circle danced the stars, seeming to belong first to water and only second to air.

  Once Kate glimpsed a solitary form swimming above them. Its shape was blurred, but it appeared to possess the tail of a fish and the upper body of a man. She turned to Geoffrey to catch his attention, but by the time she looked back, it had disappeared.

  Before long, the lake began to smell richer, like the scent of deep woods in autumn. A few trunks of kelp rose from the bottom, with fronds so intricate and plentiful that Kate had to swim carefully to avoid entangling her brass ring. Prickly sea urchins clung to rocks. Eels drifted lazily past.

  Fish of all sorts wove their ways through the sparkling water. Some, as slim as snakes, encircled the swaying trunks of kelp that climbed upward from the bottom. Others, brightly painted, inhabited the colonies of pink and purple coral shaped like lacy fans, bulbous horns, or grooved brains. Passing nearby, Kate could hear hungry fish biting the corals with their teeth, crunching and scraping in search of food. Towering sponges, splashed with colors, sprouted on all sides. And from dens under ledges, shadowed eyes watched with interest.

  Surrounded by the jungle of coral and its many inhabitants, Geoffrey slowed his pace. He swam almost leisurely, hardly bending his back. At length, he surfaced again. The others followed.

  Kate gasped. Facing them stood a glorious castle with walls made of streaming, spraying waterfalls. Thundering and crashing, it lifted high out of the lake, glittering in the starlight, a tower of sculpted water. Columns of cascading liquid supported its turrets and buttresses. Archways made of rainbows ran along the rims of its battlements. Stairs of lavender coral spiraled into its rampways and towers, leading to halls and chambers hidden behind crystalline curtains.

  “The Glass House,” she said in wonderment.

  “Known in other times,” added Geoffrey, “as the castle of Merwas.”

  Kate fluttered her fins. “So they are the same!”

  “One and the same.”

  Viewing the magnificent castle, she said, “What a place to hide the Treasures.”

  “Yes,” agreed the white-haired fish. “It made good sense at the time. Remember that when Merlin found his way here, the entire realm of Shaa, including this castle, was deserted. Not only had the mer people fled, but . . . the sorceress, having searched fruitlessly for the Horn, had abandoned the cavern as well. And so Merlin believed,” Geoffrey added dismally, “that it would stay that way. He simply did not count on the fact that one day she would return here and discover the hidden Treasures. Or that she would willingly destroy the Glass House and everything in it, not to mention the whirlpool and the ship and much else besides, just to get the Horn.”

  “That N—”

  “Hush!” commanded Geoffrey, looking around fearfully.

  “Sorry,” she replied. “I won’t slip again. I promise.”

  Focusing again on the Glass House, she followed the contours of its flowing walls. Then she gasped again. For at the base of one of the battlements, partially concealed by a fountain, she spied a large silver shape. The submersible.

  She had no chance to cry out. In an instant, the castle vanished and the stars eclipsed. The world went dark, dark as the abyss.

  XXIV: Prisoners

  Kate awoke, shivering. The water here is so cold I feel numb. She reached to rub her sore head. Reached, she realized all of a sudden, with her own hand.

  She sat bolt upright. Though this place was very dark, she could still make out the shape of
her hand. She closed it into a fist, then reopened it. She touched her face, her hair, her arms. No more brass ring. She took a deep breath. No more gills. Her head still throbbed. All she could see in the dim light was water, running and rushing from all directions. And all she could feel was wet and cold.

  A strong hand reached out of the shadows and clasped her by the forearm.

  “Terry?”

  “Glad you’re back with the living. I was getting worried there.” Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “Especially when old Geoffrey had you looking like a partridge.”

  “An unavoidable detour,” grumbled the old man, emerging from the shadows. He scratched the tip of his pointed nose. “I had to do it to get rid of the ring.”

  “That’s not what you said when it happened,” Terry reminded him. “But you got it right in the end, as you did with me.”

  “You mean to tell me,” queried Geoffrey innocently, “you didn’t like being a donkey?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Once an ass, always an ass.”

  “All right, you two,” interjected Kate, clambering to her feet. She sloshed a few steps across the wet floor. “Where are we, anyway?”

  “We are in the dungeon.” Geoffrey’s morose face came closer. “Somewhere under the Glass House.”

  “The dungeon! How did we get here?”

  “We were captured. By the sea demons. For some reason they didn’t kill us on the spot, but merely rendered us senseless and threw us in here.”

  “Have you looked around for a way to escape?”

  Geoffrey eyed her somberly. “Since regaining our human forms, that is all we have been doing. But although these walls and this floor are made only of water, they are as sturdy as iron.”

  “Dad and Isabella are somewhere around here, too! I saw the submersible.”