Merlin's Ring

by H. Warner Munn

  “I went to Byzantium, long ago—do you remember the storks? They fly so strangely. It was fun to ride in one of them—some happy day we must do it together when you wake. Oh, please, please do it soon!

  “I tried to find Arngrim and Mairtre. I did not like her very much, but I would have liked to see her again, now that you were not there to see how pretty she was, but I could not find them. There was some talk that they had gone back to live in Spain. I hope they did not fall into the -hands of the old wizard again.

  “I did find out a strange thing, though, that might interest you if you wake soon.

  “Of late years, everyone has been talking about letters that have been sent to the Pope, to Kings of all the countries, and to the Emperor of Byzantium—although they call that city Constantinople now.

  “It is said that there is a mighty Christian King somewhere deep in Asia who is interested in the West. He has powerful armies, tremendous wealth, and so many marvelous things in his country that it is hard to believe what we hear. Perhaps he would be glad to help you with ships. Perhaps he would like to be sovereign over Alata if the Christians of Europe do not want it.

  “His name is Prester John—John, the Priest, so he must be a good man.

  “Some people say he is Saint Thomas. Did you ever hear of him? Others think he is the John whom your Lord loved. All agree that he has lived a very long time, as we have, and he may live a long time more.

  “Wake and we will go to find him. Oh, wake! How can I wait for you like this?”

  “At last I have walked and talked with you! I wanted it so much that it has happened! Such a beautiful land it is you dwell in!

  “I do not wonder now that you stay there and no not want to leave.

  “Did you know I was with you? Of course you did. We talked of so many things and now I cannot remember what any of them were.

  “I wish I had a map of the Dream Land we were in. Surely Prester John’s kingdom could not be more lovely.

  “People still talk about him, hoping that his armies will march against the Turks, but Jerusalem was lost long ago. He did not come then and I think he will not come now, if in truth he is so long lived as the reports make him to be.

  “There have been seven more crusades since and still men fight and still you sleep. How can you sleep so long?

  “If I ever see Merlin—1

  “You would be surprised to see how your family has grown. You are a great-great grandfather many times over! All the boys have been handsome—all the girls so pretty! You would be proud of them, I know. Do you like farmers? I asked you in Dream Land, but I could not remember what you told me when I awoke.

  “They have all been farmers or farmers’ wives. They have not been rich, but they have not been poor or hungry either. The money you and I left with the old people gave our line a good start in life. How lucky that we found the wizard’s treasure!

  “About money. What you had with you a woman took when I possessed her mind and brought her down here to tend you. I suggested that she do it and give you her little crucifix on a golden chain. So it has been bought and paid for and it will remind you that you will know me by gold when we meet again.

  “Every time I came to see you and take care of you in someone else’s body, I had that person leave you his rings. You have many of them now. I was always careful to select wealthy people.

  “Do not be sorry for them. They could afford it and it was all I could do for you. How I wish you could speak to me today!

  “You are beside me—and I look at you—and I miss you so!

  “I have become extremely curious about this Prester John and I am going to seek him. Perhaps, if he is such an enchanter and if he has lived so long, I may find out how to wake you.

  “So now I say—stay here until I come back for you. Do not wake. I want you here when I return, but if you should wake and I am not near you—I think you will know— then seek me in his kingdom, if I have not written you again.

  “If I am not in that realm, search for me in your Land of Dream. It surely cannot be far away.

  “Sleep, my dear one. Never did-1 think before that I should pen those words!

  “Oh, yes—the year, as you would number it, is now called 12 hundreds and another 77. How strange! As though the world began then, such a few years ago!”

  15 In Search of ^Prester John

  Into Europe, that thin crescent rim upon the vast expanse of mysterious Asia, many strange and wonderful reports had come that could not be disproved, for few travelers had been deep into Asia and returned.

  Out of that breeding place of races, perhaps of humanity itself, all the peoples of Europe had been thrust There their migratory wagons had rolled to the sea until they could go no farther and must learn the ways of Ocean. Behind and following had come other successive waves of landless folk against that watery bastion and in turn had been either thrust back, destroyed, or assimilated.

  Hence came the Dorians and the Achaians to people Greece; to teach and to contend with mighty Rome. From them, to the Eternal City, the torch of civilization was nursed to brightness and passed on to Byzantium, which stood for a thousand years as a fortress against other invading Asiatic hordes.

  There that light still gleamed, but it was fading and the lamps were a little tarnished.

  When Gwalchmai outfitted himself in Byzantium, which he could not bring himself to call Constantinople, he negotiated a passage with a caravan bound for Central Asia. Stories still issued from that section of the world concerning the glittering empire of John, the Priest, and others had gone seeking before him.

  Only twenty years previously, William of Rubruk had been sent as envoy to the Great Khan of Tartary by Saint Louis, of blessed memory, in hopes that the French and the drum-led tumans of Mongol horse might unite in crushing their mutal foe, the Turk.

  The venture came to nothing. The Khan was not Prester John.

  Across those lands, so empty of castles and gleaming spires and golden domes, moved the Polo brothers, but they saw no shining capitol, for they did not see with eyes that had been touched by magic.

  Following, came Gwalchmai, a more tenacious and far-reaching wanderer than the Venetians.

  Gwalchmai had learned that the Crusades were over— the cause abandoned. Except for Acre, the Turks held the land and Constantinople awaited conquest A new age was beginning—the age of discovery.

  Perhaps the end of his long journey might be nearing soon, now that new trade routes must be found to avoid the Turkish lands. Ships must again crowd the seas in search of new sources of wealth.

  As the weary miles lengthened so slowly into thousands beneath his feet, he thought of this and the mission laid upon him by his father.

  Like many in Europe, he knew the world to be round. If he could not convince an European ruler of the importance of what he knew, surely an Asiatic one would appreciate more room for the immense multitudes of people he ruled. However, it must be a Christian potentate. Obeying Merlin’s order, he would give the land to no other. On then, to find if Prester John still lived, or failing him, to speak with whatever son or grandson ruled hi his stead.

  Bokhara, Samarkand, Kashgar—all these had seen Gwalchmai on his road. Through cities whose names are fabled, through mountain passes that themselves are higher than many other mountains much feared and famed in lesser countries, Gwalchmai traveled, always seeking, never finding.

  He had ridden donkeys, mules, and camels. He had ridden in solid-wheeled wagons, greased with butter, stinking with unwashed bodies. He had been sheltered in palaces and honored there. He had begged for a bed in dirty hovels and caravanserais, and drunk sour milk in felt yurts. He had panted hi jungle humidity and gasped in the thin mountain air of the Pamirs; banqueted and starved; formed a part * of miles’ long caravans and sometimes moved on to the East with only a single companion. No one could direct him to the Land of Dream.

  Everywhere there had been rumors of the Empire of John, the Priest, but its boundaries
, indicated by a vague sweep of the informant’s arm, were always farther to the east.

  Toward the east he staggered now, as he had for three days—and alone. Since his Bactrian camel had died, he had been on foot His guide had gone in search of water and not returned. Gwalchmai was certain that he never would.

  The nights were bitter cold. ~He dug holes in the banks of dry streams, just large enough for his body, lit small fires of dead willow roots before them and slept warm at nights, an old trick he had learned in Alata. He was comfortable, where another might have frozen, but the days were misery. There was nothing to eat or drink and he traveled under a blinding sun that pounded him almost senseless out of a cloudless sky.

  He stood now upon an ancient shoreline and looked out over a shimmering depression that had once held a primeval, ageless sea. Upward, out of its wind-worn salt-covered pebbles, thrust mountain peaks bare of verdure, but which had once been green and fertile islands. Among them whirled the dust-devils, dangerous to a dying man as the touch of Djinn or Marid, and as they spun they skirled their wind-song of menace.

  It was the desert of Hang-Hai and beyond its edge lay the even more dreadful Gobi. Gwalchmai had been warned of the larger waste, but he smiled cynically at the thought of any greater danger than the one he faced. It seemed that he had reached his end upon this prehistoric’beach.

  He sank down and buried his face in his hands, crouching low to protect himself against another spinning tower of sand, which could either burst and bury him or, whirling on, suck the remaining moisture from his almost dehydrated body.

  As it towered and threatened, it wailed, “Gwalchmai-i-i! Gwalchmai-i-i!” Every syllable was clear and distinct as its dark shadow fell across him, but this was nothing new.

  While traveling through the many shifting hills and valleys of sand, he had heard such voices before. In the night he had listened to the passing of long cavalcades; the tinkling bells of the baggage animals and the hum of many people; the tramp of soldiers marching in cadence to the beat of kettledrums and the braying of horns.

  There were never marks of their passage through the sands and he had known that he listened to a mirage of sound, preserved forever in this timeless land, where lost armies had trudged the world across a dead sea bottom on forgotten conquests for unremembered Kings.

  This shadow was no mirage. Its menace was real. He did not look up, but upon the sand he saw a hideously horned profile of a head, black and monstrous, its jaws open in a sardonic laugh. He knew that what hung over him was more than the shadow of whirling, whistling sand.

  “Ah! Spirit of the Wave!” he muttered. “Goddess of the Waters! You have been my friend, without demanding my worship. You, who love the one I love, be my benefactor once morel I pray you. Let me see my Corenice once more, before I die.”

  The dust-devil must have been very near, for its rushing sound was close. He waited, eyes closed, but it did not break upon him and the burning wind seemed cool upon his uncovered skin.

  The sound went on and on without ceasing, but now it was rhythmic and held a pattern and the wind had sunk to a breeze that felt moist. He raised his head and looked out across no dry waste, but a blue and dancing white-capped sea, whose surges broke almost at his feet.

  Was he mad? Was this only a mirage of sight and sound combined?

  He leapt to his feet and plunged forward—not upon harsh pebbles. But into cold, stinging brine. He laughed and splashed and flung the glittering streams of water into the air. They broke and fell upon him, limpid drops like tears of joy.

  Then he crawled dripping up the beach, ten, twenty, thirty feet and began to dig. Seepage came into the hole. He did not wait for the silt to settle, but tasted it cautiously. It was brackish, but drinkable. He drank.

  This was not delirium. It was wonderful, heartening, glorious fact—hard, indisputable truth.

  Somehow—someone or some being had heard his prayer and had answered in this strange way, but not as he had asked. His life had been preserved, but Corenice was not near for him to see.

  Yet a part of what he had asked had been granted. This could be no other than the Sea of Sand, which was part of the dominions of Prester John and where were found the fish of wondrous savor that produced the dye of royal purple and whose scales were flakes of diamond.

  He searched the shore for anything that could be eaten. There was nothing. At a distance, he thought he saw the white colonnades of a temple or mansion, among the trees that crowned the nearest island, but there were no boats upon the water and no smokes in the air to prove in-habitance.

  He turned his back upon the sea and climbed a little green hill near it, looking backward upon the way he had come to reach this shore.

  There were mounds to be seen that he had not noticed before. They were not dunes, but looked like artificial constructions. In their grouping he was sure he saw a village of conical huts, and in the streets of the village, movement.

  He walked in that direction. As he neared it, it became evident that what he saw were not people, but animals of an unknown variety. He dropped to the ground and peered through a clump of tamarisks, parting the pink blossoms to give himself a better view.

  They appeared to be purposeful creatures. They were burden bearers, constantly lifting, hurrying, carrying; they hustled through the streets, climbed the mounds, disappeared and came back again, tugging, dropping then* loads, choosing better spots for placing them and dashing back for another parcel or weight. It was hard to determine their size or identity, with no known size of any near landmark. He did not have long to wait.

  He heard no step behind him. In his interested spying, he had failed to notice a dry rustling in the bushes at his rear, until he felt a pressure upon his shoulder like exploring fingers.

  He whirled. There stood an ant, the size of a wolf, mandibles parted ready to seize him, should the inquisitive antennae prove him a desirable prey.

  He rolled to one side. The chitinous pincers clashed only inches from his arm. Before he could get to his feet, the monster was upon him, snapping and striking out with its jointed forelegs. He had barely time to thrust a wad-of his thick cloak in front of him.

  He swung around and freed himself from the clinging garment. The giant ant tore and mauled the cloth and finding no blood in it turned upon the man in nervous fury.

  By this time, Gwalchmai had his flint hatchet in hand and chopped at the viciously swinging head. The keen edge found its mark^arid one sickle-like blade hung disabled and dangling.

  _ The monster set up a high stridulation and, oblivious to ‘ pain or fear, rushed in, battering at its attacker. It was not until Gwalchmai had hacked the head from the body that the thin shrieking ceased, although the creature did not know it was dead.

  The head still tried convulsively to open and close its damaged jaws and the mutilated body curled up, straightened out, and scuttled blindly down the bank, through tamarisk and reeds and did not stop until it ran aimlessly into the sea.

  The cry it had set up had not gone unnoticed. Out of the village—which Gwalchmai now realized held no humanity, but was instead a crowded colony of the huge insects— a horde now came pouring in his direction.

  He turned toward the water and ran along the beach. For a few hundred feet he thought he had eluded his pursuers. Then in front of him a clacking wave of the creatures streamed over the knolls in that direction and blocked Ihe way.

  Behind him, where he had fought, a second glistening expanse of hurrying backs covered the ground, moving rapidly toward him, holding their heads high as though they were smelling him out with their waving antennae, constantly in rapid motion like the leafless twigs of the black birch in a high winter wind. As they dashed upon him they set up a shrill whistling.

  There was no refuge except the water. He plunged into it and swam for his life.

  The insect masses met and lined the beach, paralleling his course, marching along with him. The only small crumb of comfort available to him in his predicament
was the information Corenice had once given him about the Gobi Sea.

  The advent of the Lord of the Dark Face from Venus had, by the fiery blasts from his space-ship, set off an atomic reaction in the minerals held in that body of water in solution, which completely evaporated the sea and left only the desert Gwalchmai had been traversing.

  Therefore it followed naturally that if the water was still present, he must have been sent back to a time before Oduarpa had arrived arid need not have a present fear of that evil genius, either in the spirit or the flesh.

  The giant ants were not kin to the dwergar with which Oduarpa had once menaced him, and the fay, in Elveron. They were not driven by hate and the love of cruelty, but only by hunger. Still, that was enough.

  He began to tire as the chill water sapped his strength. It had been a long time since he had eaten and his vitality was low. Several times his mouth opened involuntarily, gasping for air, and he took in choking gulps of water. Then, just as he felt that he must either founder or struggle in to take his chances upon shore, a besom of flame struck down from the sky and swept the beach clean before him, leaving only a burst of seared, exploded bodies and clouds of greasy smoke.

  Gwalchmai looked up, with dimmed and smarting eyes, at a vast shadow that swept overhead. A smooth, rushing sound took the place of the alarming stridulations. The clacking horde fled back from the beach, over the dunes, and disappeared.

  A hovering Vimana, one of the shining, golden swan-ships . of drowned Atlantis, was circling to descend beside him up-on the waters of this impossibly existing sea! As it furled its glittering metal wings, extended its webbed feet and landed as lightly as a gull, he realized the fantastic truth.

  Small wonder that the Kingdom of Prester John had never -been found. It had never existed! Thousands of years pre-viously, when Atlantis ruled supreme and the Gobi was an inland sea, of which this body of water formed only a con-necting lake, Atlantis had planted a colony here.

  These were the ants that brought up gold hi the dirt thrown out from their tunnels and chambers, as legend had told in Merlin’s books. Yonder, upon the verdant islands, shone the fanes and temples of a mighty nation’s worship. Somewhere, perhaps near by, was the summer palace of the Atlantidean Emperor, constructed of white, trans-lucent alabaster. Above all, in these very skies, flew their lovely ships of air and water.