The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  Stumbling backward toward the living room, Jason had to grab hold of the doorframe to keep from tripping over his own feet. “Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, shit. You’re not real. You can’t be. Get the fuck out of here. Out. OUT!”

  “Calm down, Jason. Calm down, please.” The strange figure said with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re going to give one or the other of us a heart attack; and considering my age it’s more likely going to be me. Now, why don’t we just go into the other room and sit down and I’ll try to explain as much of this as I think you are ready for. Hmm?”

  Jason didn’t know whether to scream, attack the old man or make a mad dash for the door and the safe, real world that he desperately hoped still lay outside his rooms. All of a sudden nothing seemed to fit. The world was all jumbled up. His nightmares had come to life and were playing with his computer. Tightening his grip on the doorframe, he realized the adrenaline rush had turned his knees to jelly. His heart was racing. Jason may not have been a barroom brawler, but he had never considered himself a coward. This, however, was too far beyond reality to cope with.

  As the intruder slowly rose from the chair, Jason could see he was nearly as tall as he was, just over six feet, and his posture was as erect as someone a third his age. His eyes riveted to the figure in front of him, Jason didn’t move a muscle as the old man took one step toward him and extended a long-fingered hand - the same hand he had seen in his dreams. “Come on, Jason. You’ll be all right in a minute. Nothing a good stiff drink won’t fix. You come sit down and I’ll fix you one if you like. Where do you keep your aquae vitae.

  “My what?” Jason stammered out, blinking his eyes and pulling himself to a fully upright position.

  “Aquae vitae. Ahh...” the man faltered, apparently searching for the right word. “Distilled spirits. Booze. Where do you keep it? You do have some, don’t you? I could really use one myself; I’m not accustomed to so much excitement.”

  Jason regained as much of his composure as he could under the circumstances - which were unusual to say the least. As he took an unsteady step into the living room, the old man offered him a helping hand, but Jason jerked his arm away. He had no intention of letting this weird creature touch him. “Just sit your ass down over there.” he said, pointing toward an old overstuffed chair. “And stay where I can see you. Don’t you dare move.”

  Pulling himself to his full height, Jason walked to the large china cabinet that held his random assortment of dishes, a few bits of bric-a-brac and, occasionally when he could afford it, a bottle of Jack Daniels for guests and emergencies. And this definitely qualified as more of an emergency situation than a guest situation. As he poured the amber liquid into a glass with a shaking hand, Jason could feel the old man’s eyes boring a hole into his back.

  “May I have one?”

  Jason turned to stare at the intruder, either unsure or confused by the question. As he glared at the old man, he lifted the bottle a few inches and inclined his head toward it questioningly.

  The reply came in the form of a question. “Please?”

  “Yea, yea, ok. You can have ONE.” Jason shot back. “And you can tell me why the hell you broke into my house and, if you think you need to tell me anything else, go right ahead and then I want you to leave. Ok?”

  “Agreed” said the figure in the chair, smiling a secretive half-smile. “I’ll tell you why I’m here and then you can decide if you want me to stay or go. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough. But I can tell you right now I’m going to want you to leave” Jason said, his breathing finally slowing to a near normal pace. As he turned to hand over a small glass half filled with the golden liquid, the old man looked up with piercing eyes and reached to accept the drink held toward him from what Jason considered to be a safe distance.

  “Thank you. Now, please, sit down, Jason. This will take a little time. I suppose you want to know who I am first?”

  “No. Not really.” Although he had regained his composure, Jason’s voice made it obvious that he was still furious at the unwarranted intrusion. The old man raised one eyebrow quizzically and cocked his head to one side like a small bird.

  “Oh, yes, all right.” Jason continued, nodding his head, moving toward the couch facing his unwanted guest. “After the shit you put me through these past two weeks I do want to know. Who the hell are you?”

  Smiling a small, almost apologetic smile, the old man said “my given name is Myrddin Emrys ap Morfryn, it is a name of ancient origin, Taken from the language of the Wealas; the Welsh to you. I have also been known by many other names, but you probably know me as Merlin.”

  A long, heavy stillness descended on the room. Jason opened his mouth as though he were going to say something and realized there was nothing sensible he could say. Finally, after nearly a full minute of silence, he blurted out. “Merlin...as in THE Merlin. Merlin the wizard? Oh, you really are just too fucking much, old man. Leave. Go on, get out.” Rising from the chair, his voice rose in pitch, but before he could take a step the old man spoke; riveting him with eyes Jason had already seen too many times.

  “You know it’s true. You know deep down, in here” he said, tapping a bony finger against his sternum. “Don’t you?” He spoke in a calm, reassuring, and almost singsong voice. “Eventually you will have to admit it to yourself. You were really pretty close when you said to your Professor Daniels that the orb was my crystal ball and that I had thrown it down the...what was your word...the shitter?” Seeing the anger, along with most of the color, drain slowly from Jason’s face, he continued, “I really think you had better sit down. This is going to take quite some time.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jason did as he was instructed. He was still rattled, but was trying hard to convince himself that the old man was probably harmless even if he wasn’t playing with a full deck. At the very worst this should be more entertaining than any of the crap on the tube, so for the time being he might as well play along. If the crazy old fart decided to spaz out he could probably have him in a hammerlock in less than a minute. With a sigh, Jason snuggled into the corner of the sofa that sat facing this so-called Merlin.

  Before launching into what was obviously going to be a wordy explanation, Merlin looked down at his long, slim hands, flexing his fingers as though, somehow they would give him just the right combination of words to convince his reluctant host of the truth in whatever bizarre tale he was about to unfold. Jason could not help but notice that the hands which, despite their obvious age, did not seem to be ravaged by the deformities of arthritis and rheumatism that are the nearly inevitable result of the passage of time. Finally, after some minutes in silence, the old man raised his shaggy head.

  “The sphere you dug up at Tintagel has been my home for somewhere in the region of one thousand five hundred years.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “A little longer, actually.”

  “That small, crystalline globe has been my home, my library and the laboratory where, for eons, I have been working to find an answer to the problem that led me to hide myself away in the first place. You could call it a haven, a crystal cave if you like, which has kept me safe from enemies that, I am sorry to admit, I still do not know how to defeat.”

  With a cynical grin, Jason broke in to the conversation. “You’re telling me that a thousand-and-a-half years ago, the greatest wizard who ever lived was so afraid of someone that he buried his head in a shit heap.”

  “Yes, and no,” the old man continued in an absolutely serious tone despite the obvious ridicule in Jason’s voice. “I was afraid. I still am. No one wants to die. But I did not bury myself in - as you so poetically put it – ‘a shit heap’. I grew the crystal sphere and implanted it over a line of power - what you might know as a ley line - and then enclosed myself, and those things that would be essential to sustaining my existence, inside of it. With the exception that I have still not been able to discover how to defeat my enemies, it’s not been a bad life, the occasional boring century now an
d again; but I’ve been able to study without interruption and I have kept in relative touch with the outside world through my scrying glass - what you think of as a crystal ball - and other methods that would take too long to explain.” Shifting his gaze from his hands to Jason’s face, he added “I had no idea anyone would build a castle next to my sanctuary, or that they would dig a cesspit on top of me.” Now, with more force, he added “And don’t mock me, Jason Carpenter, you know perfectly well that my sphere was well below the level of the dung heap.”

  At this last comment, Jason could feel the skin tighten around his head. How did this crazy old man know so much about the excavation? For that matter, how did he know so much about Jason himself?

  Jason’s emotions must have shown on his face because the next thing the old man said was, “I see I finally have your attention.” And then he chuckled. “As long as I remained inside the sphere, and it remained buried directly above a ley line, I was assured of enough power to prevent my enemies from finding me. You see, the crystalline web on the surface of the sphere made me invisible to them. It worked in a manner similar to what you might understand as a radar jamming device.” He could see the disbelief in Jason’s eyes, but refused to be drawn away from his train of thought. “When you and your friends removed the sphere from the ground, I no longer had access to the power source that was necessary for me to remain in cognito. I became vulnerable to detection and, ultimately, to destruction by my enemies who, I might add, are your enemies too. You see, if my enemies find me, not only will they kill me, they will almost certainly destroy your world.”

  Shaking his head incredulously at what was beyond a doubt the most outrageous story he had ever heard, Jason managed to keep his voice level. “You’re a wizard - Merlin the wizard - and you lived in a glass ball for fifteen-hundred years and have enemies who want to destroy the world.”

  “Oh, more than want to, Jason. If they kill me, they will bring about a calamity that will, quite literally, be apocryphal in its immensity; a horror beyond the scope of the human mind to compass. I know it’s hard for you to accept, but it’s the simple truth.”

  “I don’t know how you could honestly expect anyone to believe in wizards, much less the rest of that crap. It’s a fantasy. It makes a great story, but basically it’s a load of crap.”

  “I never said I was a wizard; you said that.” Merlin’s voice rose for the first time. Then, more calmly, he continued “The fact is, there is not now, nor has there ever been, any such thing as what you think of as a wizard. The terms wizard and sorcerer imply something unnatural or, at least, something supernatural. Nothing in nature, no matter how strange and amazing it may appear can, by definition, be unnatural. It is just an aspect of science with which the observer is unfamiliar. In my time science was based on slightly different principals; the elements of earth, air, fire and water. Today’s scientists deal with the same elements, but broken down into their most basic component parts. More precise, possibly, but basically the same thing.

  “Dozens of devices that you have at your finger-tips everyday would once have been considered wizardry of the highest order but we both know they’re not. My sphere of invisibility was no more inexplicable in the year 480 AD than that amazing computer of yours is today. Does that make sense to you?”

  Whatever Jason did or did not believe about the weird individual sharing his living room, he knew without a doubt the old man’s eyes had appeared in his dreams. So, without addressing himself to Merlin’s bizarre ramblings about alternative sciences, Jason shifted the conversation in a more practical direction. “So why the hell were you inside my head?”

  “I am sorry if you found that disturbing.”

  “Disturbing.” Jason nearly shouted. “Son of a bitch, you cost me almost a whole week’s sleep and damn near gave me the screaming meemies. Jesus Christ, I thought I was cracking up...and I’m still not sure. Shit like this just doesn’t happen in the real world.”

  “I said I was sorry. I simply needed to perfect my knowledge of your language and your world. I don’t assume you speak Gaelic, Greek, Latin or any of the other languages I once used on a daily basis. And, if I was going to communicate effectively, I had to understand your world.” With a wry smile he added “I’ve been a little out of touch lately.”

  “You’re still out of touch, but that’s no excuse to suck my brains.”

  “I think ‘share your knowledge’ would be a more accurate phrase.”

  “No. People offer to share things. You just started wandering around inside my head.”

  “Very well,” sighed Merlin, conceding the point, “but I honestly didn’t have any way of asking permission. I was still inside the sphere. And since I was going to come to you for help, you were the logical...in fact, my only possible point of contact.”

  Jason was still seething, but whether this Merlin person was lying, just plain crazy or, at the very least, some kind of incredibly effective magician, he couldn’t decide. And all of a sudden there were a lot of questions to which Jason wanted answers.

  “So” he asked, again shifting the conversation to fill in some of the blank spaces in the past week’s events. “It was you who appeared as George Bernard Shaw at the reception, wasn’t it?”

  “I have no idea who the man was but, yes. Was it convincing?”

  “Oh, yeah. Damn near convinced me I was losing my marbles. What the hell was that for anyway? Another mind game?”

  “No, no, I simply needed to exercise my powers which, I’m afraid, are a little rusty. This George Bernard Shaw person was simply an image I had picked from your mind. I could have chosen any one of a thousand images but I didn’t want to frighten you. I could have appeared as your mother.” He said with a sly chuckle.

  “Not funny, old man.” Jason tried to sound angry but he was fascinated. “So how does this appearing and disappearing thing work?”

  “Think of it like your, what do you call it, television? There isn’t really anybody there, yet you can clearly see people and places on the screen.”

  “So you can disappear and shape shift?” asked Jason, his interest now definitely aroused at the possibilities.

  “No. I cannot shape shift. When you saw me at the reception I was still in the sphere.” After a brief pause for a sip of the Jack Daniels, which he was obviously enjoying, Merlin continued. “And I can’t really disappear. I can just make it so you can’t see me. Observe.” In less time than it took Jason to blink his eyes, the figure in the overstuffed chair vanished.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Jason cried, as he pushed himself backward so hard his bottom lifted off of the couch cushion, his eyes darting furiously from one side of the room to the other. “Where the hell did you go?”

  “Still here.” The voice coming from the chair was clear and strong, but entirely disembodied. “I have neither moved nor changed physical form. I have just...let’s call it misdirected your line of vision. To physically dematerialize would be impossible. This is just a trick.” Quick as he had disappeared, Merlin reappeared, smiling quietly at Jason who was gaping open-mouthed and stammering for words.

  “Ok, ok,” said Jason, pausing to organize his thoughts, which were suddenly very confused. “So I believe you are a really good magician. How could you possibly hope to convince me, or anyone else, that you are Merlin?”

  Merlin shook his head sadly, rubbing his long fingers across his wrinkled forehead. “Young people. Why is it you are always so sure of yourselves? Has the vast accumulation of knowledge gathered since you left the place called Canal Fulton, Ohio given you an insight into the secrets of the universe?”

  Jason was completely mystified and, he had to admit, more than a little fascinated by his uninvited guest. There was something intriguing, almost magnetic, about the man, even beyond the fact that he clearly had the power to invade the human mind, vanish and reappear at will and who knew what else. Jason decided that if for no reason beyond academic curiosity he wanted to know more about this pe
rson and why he was here.

  “So now that you have access to our technology as well as your own, what are you going to do with all this knowledge?”

  “Sadly, since I was forced to destroy my laboratory inside the crystal, I’m reduced to asking you to help me recreate my protective crystal with the material and technology available in your world. And we have to do it soon; before my enemies are able to locate my whereabouts.”

  “Look, even if you really are Merlin and you really are sixteen-hundred years old, doesn’t it occur to you that anyone who wanted to kill you would have died centuries ago. They can’t be any threat to you or anyone else.”

  “Oh, they’re still most assuredly a threat, and not just to me. As I said before, if they kill me the world will be at their mercy.”

  Jason shot back, “You really have a high opinion of yourself and your abilities, don’t you old man?”

  “No.” said Merlin ruefully, suddenly looking very tired, “If I was all that good I would have eliminated them long ago. But, since I have not, it’s imperative that I go back into hiding until I can...however long that may take. The world is only safe so long as I remain alive…at least until I can find some kind of resolution. And I’m afraid that certain aspects of your modern world make it more vulnerable than it was in the pre-technological age. And that fact makes my work both harder, and more urgent, than ever.”

  “Sounds like you’re talking Armageddon, here.”

  “A particularly appropriate choice of words, I’m afraid.”

  Thoroughly frustrated by Merlin’s evasiveness, Jason demanded an answer to the question his guest had danced around for nearly an hour. “And who, exactly, are these enemies?”