Merlin's Last Days

by Greg Krehbiel

  * * *

  Two weeks went by, and while she didn’t have any more waking dreams, her actual dreams were increasingly vivid. She would find herself on a white mare, riding through rich countryside next to men in Roman plate armor. She could hear them laugh and speak, but she couldn’t understand the language. She thought that what she heard sounded a little like Latin, but other times they spoke something that reminded her of German. She wished she had taken a language in high school.

  In another dream she was dancing a peasant dance in a dark, smelly hall, with tapestries hanging dangerously close to the open fireplaces, where large dogs gnawed on the bones from a feast.

  One night she awoke drenched in sweat after dreaming that she was standing on a hill, watching armed men burn a town to the ground. She knew she was powerless to stop it, but she also couldn’t turn away. She could hear the screams of the women and the dying groans of the men, and she watched in horror as they were butchered mercilessly.

  Toward the end of the first week she was sleep-deprived and worried that her studies would suffer, but she realized one morning in the shower that she didn’t care. The dreams were more interesting than her classes anyway, so she decided to be deliberate about it. She would analyze her dreams with the same rigor she put into her other classes.

  The next few nights she’d wake several times, but rather than worry about lost sleep, she’d grab her sketch pad and either takes notes about what she’d seen or try to draw the faces of the people. A few appeared repeatedly, and she started to recognize a core of men that she assumed made up some kind of inner circle.

  There was also an old woman whose face kept haunting her. Marianne couldn’t remember what part she had played in her dreams, but somehow she would always remember her face when she awoke.

  Two weeks after she met Merrell Anthony she dreamt of a funeral, and she noticed a man who stood out from the crowd. Most of the mourners were in dun, drab colors, but this man was cloaked in deep blue and presided over the ceremony. She was sure the man was Merlin. But as things can be in a dream, even though she knew the man in blue was Merlin / Merrell Anthony, he didn’t look at all like the man she’d met in the lecture hall. The Merlin in her dreams was much taller and heavier, and while Merrell’s face was worn with cares, Merlin’s was serene, and almost child-like.

  When the funeral was over and the people started to leave, Merlin stayed behind. At first he seemed to be wrapping up the liturgy, or finishing his spells, and then he appeared to be dithering about and wasting time. Once everyone was gone he pulled a large mallet from inside his cloak and started driving iron stakes into the ground at regular intervals around the site. He took measurements against geographical features with something like a sextant. He was very methodical about it, and his actions seemed anachronistic.

  Her dreams went on in that fashion for the rest of the night. The visions were of two types. In some of them, Marianne felt as if she was seeing things from an actual participant’s perspective, like the time she was riding the horse with a small company of cavalry. But other times the dream was as if from the perspective of a drone, hovering around the scene, invisibly observing.

  While she was in the drone sort of dream she watched Merlin taking his measurements. Her perspective would change unnaturally, from a side view to an overheard view, or from a distance to a sudden close-up. She couldn’t control it.

  She zoomed in and felt as if she was just behind Merlin. And when she did he suddenly stiffened, as if he sensed her, and then he turned to face her. She almost gasped in surprise, not only at the feeling that she was found out, but at what she saw on his face. In that moment the Merlin of ancient Britain looked very like the Merrell Anthony of 21st century Pennsylvania, with all the care lines and sadness of a man who had suffered much. But he quickly changed back to the youthful druid of previous visions, and that young face smiled and smirked at her. When she looked into his eyes she believed they were a deep hole and that she was in danger of falling into them. The last thing she saw was her own face reflected in his pupil.

  She woke with a start and tried to reach for her writing pad, but she fell back in bed and started to shiver violently. She pulled her covers all around her and pulled her arms and legs in close to conserve heat, but quickly realized she wasn’t shivering from cold. She’d never taken drugs, but she thought what she was feeling was like a kind of withdrawal. Her head started to pound, worse than any hangover she’d ever experienced, and she worried she would be sick.

  After a few dreadful minutes wondering if she should run down the hall to the bathrooms or risk retching in her bed, the feeling started to pass. She kicked the covers off and lay back on her pillow, staring up at the ceiling with a big smile on her face.

  “I know your secret,” she wrote in big letters, and set the paper on top of the stack of sketches.

  * * *

  “The land, Merlin,” Arthur said in growing despair. “There’s some hideous curse on the land.”

  “You are the land,” Merlin replied, embarrassed to say such rubbish. His 21st century mind knew perfectly well what was happening, to the crops and to the people, and that even in the 6th century there were things that could be done to save both. But Arthur wasn’t destined to rule a gentle, pastoral people. He had to defeat the combined armies of the Saxons under their mysterious leader, Mordred, and then march to Rome through France to set Europe on the right path. To do all that he had to believe in his mission.

  “You have turned from your destiny, and the land suffers,” Merlin said in his most mysterious voice. He was using a voice he had trained Arthur to associate with prophecy. “The land fails because you fail. To save the land, you must fulfill your mission. You have gone after foolish counsel and allowed your knights to run off on a quest. They should be at your side as you prepare for the battle.”

  After delivering a message in that tone, Merlin would always quiver and shake, and then stamp his feet, as if to recover from the burden of the spirit of prophecy. Then he’d look at Arthur in a kind way, as the sympathetic counselor who only reluctantly delivered these harsh messages.

  “But Merlin,” Arthur complained, “you were away, and His Grace the bishop told me of a different destiny – to recover the grail and create a Christian kingdom that would stand forever. I sent all my knights on this quest, and now I don’t have the captains I need to lead my armies into battle. My people would be – what is that strange term you use sometimes? – ‘cannon fodder.’”

  Merrell had always treated the bishop as a hated rival, but now he stopped to consider whether he could be an ally after all. They had similar goals, but different methods. He’d ponder that later. For now, he had to continue to press Arthur to prepare for war.

  “Then recall your knights, Arthur,” Merlin said. From long experience he knew how to pitch his voice to sound as if he was speaking the hidden thought that Arthur was unwilling to say. “You know the bishop is a weak man who fears bloodshed, and that is why he has you sending your knights all over the world – so you can’t fight. But while you dilly dally, the Saxons grow in strength every day. You know that they’re not afraid of bloodshed. But the window is closing fast. If you defeat them soon, the path to Rome is clear, and you will take your rightful place as emperor. If not, …” he let that hang in the air.

  Arthur knew the consequences. For the last year, Merlin had been preparing him for this battle, painting a picture of two futures, one in which he defeats the pagan hoards and Christendom is preserved, and the other in which Mordred prevails and pagan darkness covers the land for a thousand years.

  “You can see the future, Merlin. I’m not afraid to die, but you lay a heavy burden on me. Be straight with me now. Will I defeat Mordred?”

  “If I could tell you, I would,” Merlin said in a calm voice. “But that is one thing I have not seen. All I know is that you must try. And I know this mission is what you were born to do, Arthur. And … me as well. If you do not try, the land will
waste away.”

  “I believe you, Merlin, and I trust you. But I feel that I need the grail,” Arthur insisted. “With the sign of Christ’s blessing I know I can conquer.”

  “I have searched for the grail myself,” Merlin lied, “and I have never felt its presence anywhere in these islands. If such a talisman existed in the land, surely I would have sensed it. If the grail exists at all, I don’t believe it is within the grasp of mortal man. The holy cup may rest in some other reality beyond your reach. But you don’t need a magical cup, Arthur. The Saxons are just men, and this Mordred, whoever he turns out to be, is just a man. And you have defeated many men. You have a well-trained army and mighty captains who have won many battles. You need them back at your side, and you need to break the Saxons’ backs before they grow too great.”

  * * *

  St. Andrew’s occupied the highest spot in the hilly east side of Grantsville, Pennsylvania. In the 1950s and 60s the town was second only to Pittsburgh in the western half of the state, and a thriving steel industry created a strong middle class. As the jobs left in the 70s and 80s, the culture took a sharp turn for the worse. Young people with ambition left for greener pastures, and the ones who remained just got high.

  Marianne’s parents would never have considered St. Andrew’s if there hadn’t been any of reforming work of the Grantsville mayor and the college president. In 2005 they both happened to attend a talk at the local library by a Pittsburgh author they admired. The three of them walked across town to the local watering hole, and the two local men had the painful experience of seeing downtown Grantsville through the eyes of a stranger.

  That night they resolved to do something about it, and they formed the beginnings of a public-private partnership. They didn’t just lock up the addicts, they created a 24-hour counseling and treatment center. They walked the town every Saturday morning and spoke with local businessmen, encouraging them to clean up alleys, replace broken windows and sagging awnings, repaint front doors and generally give the town a face lift. With a public campaign to raise funds, and with some of their own money, they helped two college alumni start the micro brewery and the wine bar on Main Street, which made Grantsville a destination. College kids from Pittsburgh regularly made the trek, and the revitalization of the town became national news.

  The new college needed a way to distinguish itself, so the board decided to take a gamble and invest in the nascent conservative Anglican movement. The goal was to position the college as the school of choice for men pursuing ordination in the Anglican Mission in the Americas. This was a break-even prospect domestically, but they attracted a lot of students and donations from Africa, where conservative Anglicanism was catching fire.

  As the police cracked down on the town’s meth culture, the college created a world-class addiction and treatment center, which received national attention and generous grants from philanthropists, including the Gates Foundation.

  The revival of the town and the university peaked just as Marianne and her parents were looking at colleges. Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher didn’t like the political direction of some of Marianne’s dinner conversations, and they hoped the more conservative tone of St. Andrew’s would prevent any further movement to the left. Marianne suspected they had something like that in mind, but she had her own plans.

  Those plans clashed early in her new life at St. Andrew’s. Before she finished her first semester she changed her major from economics to women’s studies. Her father refused to pay any more tuition at first, but he eventually gave in. The money didn’t mean that much to him, and he didn’t want to further sour an already tense relationship.

  He still hoped she would meet a nice, conservative boy at college and settle down. Even if he was an Anglican.

  “But it’s not damned likely now,” Marianne overheard her father saying one weekend when she was home. “What boy in his right mind would date a girl studying that bullshit?”

  That may have been the comment that pushed her over the edge, or she may have been intoxicated with the newfound freedom of being away and on her own, but she acted out that first year, partying more and studying less than she intended.

  After three disastrous boyfriends in two years, she had finally settled into a more serious college life, and after attending both of the recent summer terms, she was back on track to graduate in four years. But things were still frosty with her father.

  She thought of him as she knocked on the door of professor Anthony’s office. They were probably about the same age.

  “Come in, the door’s unlocked,” came a voice from inside.

  She tried to steal herself for this, standing up a little straighter, and – as a former boss and mentor used to tell her – mentally pulling up her big girl panties. She walked into the small office, looked straight into Professor Anthony’s eyes and immediately forgot what she wanted to say.

  He looked at her with a fixed stare that unnerved her. His blue-grey eyes flickered like a sparking, live wire, and she felt he was sending messages straight into her soul. Something was happening deep inside her that she couldn’t explain, and she couldn’t stop it. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

  She had rehearsed her speech on the walk across campus, but now she just stood there, mouth agape. She felt small and silly and part of her wanted to turn away and never return, if only he would release her.

  “Did you want something in particular?” he finally asked, and there was something suggestive about the way he said it.

  The words set her mind free. Yes, she did want something, desperately, but with an incredible effort she forced herself to look away from his face and clear her head, and after a moment she recovered enough of her composure to speak. She had prepared a lengthy presentation to go with her sketches, but she knew she couldn’t recite her entire speech with him standing there, looking at her, so she reduced everything she had rehearsed to one question.

  “When you put iron spikes in the ground to mark the location of a site, were they there already, say, when you were born, or do your actions in the past change the present world?”

  Anthony’s eyes narrowed as he looked straight into hers. Marianne tried to remain calm, but she feared she might start trembling. A slight smile touched the corner of Anthony’s mouth and he studied her face. Then he looked her over from head to toe, very slowly and carefully. Marianne was used to men’s gazes, but felt like she was being examined, the way a man might look over a horse before he buys it, and she felt humiliated. But she also desperately wanted to pass the test.

  He took a step towards her and she started to shiver. He reached out with his left hand and gently held the side of her face, then he pulled her lips towards his.

  * * *

  “So how did you put the vision in my head,” she asked an hour later as they lay naked on his king-sized bed. She couldn’t remember how they got from his office to this house. She knew where she was, and she could remember every second of the last half hour, and every part of her body that he had touched. But the journey was a blank. She had a feeling they had walked, but that would have taken at least fifteen minutes, and she couldn’t remember any of it.

  “You have the blood,” he said, dismissively. “It’s not my doing, and I can’t control it, although I can sense it. I usually avoid people like you. You’re trouble.”

  “‘The blood’?” she asked, feeling a sudden rush that somehow she was … somebody. Special in some way. And she liked the idea of being trouble. “Do you mean my heritage?”

  She had done a project on her family tree in high school. She’d been disappointed to find that her ancestors were Irish peasants as far back as she could trace. There was nothing interesting there. At least not on the surface.

  “It’s not quite that simple,” he said, “although Brits and the Irish tend to have the gift more than others.”

  “So anyone who makes eye contact with you and … uh, wants you … .”

  “I embellished that part,” he said with
a lascivious wink. “And it worked, right? Anyway, eye contact isn’t always necessary. Usually the first time, but not always.”

  “So how many people has this happened to?”

  “I haven’t counted, although when I try I can recall all their faces.”

  “Do you sleep with them all?” she asked, sheepishly.

  “Heavens no,” he said, shocked at the suggestion. “Some are men. Some are children. One was an old woman on her death bed.”

  “And you can’t control what they see?”

  “If I can, I haven’t learned how. And I’m not likely to.” He got up from the bed and pulled on his pants.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s not much time left,” he said.

  “Before?”

  “Before I die,” he said casually, as if talking about the weather. “The final conflict is approaching.”

  “What conflict?” she asked, sitting up in the bed. Then she felt guilty she hadn’t asked about the dying bit.

  “I don’t know all the details yet,” he said, looking for his shirt. “It’s the big battle between Arthur and Mordred. In … another setting … I used to say that my memory of the future is fading. But I don’t know all of the past either.”