by Daniel Diehl
“You cannot even imagine.”
“You have to tell me Merlin, who were they? I guess I mean, who are they?”
The old man stared at Jason through his shaggy eyebrows for a long moment, trying to decide if this young man was ready to absorb the truths he would have to know. Finally, after a deep breath, Merlin answered with a single word. “Dragons.”
“Dragons.” Jason repeated the word very slowly as if he had never encountered this particular combination of sounds before. Inwardly, Jason had to fight to keep himself from laughing; but whether he wanted to laugh because the situation was so absurd, or because of some hysterical panic creeping up through his stomach, he couldn’t quite tell. Finally he realized that if he could believe the rest of Merlin’s wild tale, there was no earthly reason he shouldn’t believe in dragons as well. “Jesus.” He said vaulting from the chair, rubbing his temple with a shaking hand.
Jason wandered aimlessly around the room, finally heading toward the dark window, watching as big, juicy raindrops splattered against the glass. He could feel Merlin’s eyes following him, waiting. Looking out at nothing in particular, Jason finally spoke. “I think you were right. I just can’t accept this. Do you have any idea how impossible it sounds?”
“If I hadn’t seen them for myself, I don’t know if I would have believed it, and I come from a time when the most impossible superstitions were routinely accepted as fact. All I know is that it’s imperative that you believe me.”
Turning to lock eyes with the old man, Jason said “Merlin, if nothing else, you can believe that I really, really don’t want to see any dragons.”
“Then you must help me find a way to rebuild my globe before Morgana finds me. Because if she does, we will all see dragons, and I guarantee it will not be pleasant.”
“Ok, ok.” Jason tried to find some way to make sense of a world suddenly gone utterly crazy. “Let’s say - just for the sake of argument - that I believe you. How long do we have to make another globe?”
“Months, weeks, maybe only days; how can I tell? But, you see, it took me nearly five years to make the first globe.”
All of a sudden Jason felt as though he were going to throw up. His head swam and his field of vision contracted until it was like looking through a tunnel. All he could say was “Great.”
Exhausted, confused and, if he was completely honest with himself, nearing a state of panic, Jason wandered across the room toward the liquor cabinet, picking up the empty glass next to Merlin’s chair on his way. “Maybe,” he muttered as he bent down near Merlin’s chair, “you had better tell me everything you can about Morgana le Fay and these dragons. If I don’t know what the hell is going on you can’t expect me to be much help. Can you?”
“No, I don’t suppose I can.” Merlin said quietly. “And, Jason, thank you for believing me.”
Jason said nothing, but let out a long, deep sigh of resignation.
Chapter Five
Morgana le Fay looked at the delicate antique mirror as she tucked it back into the black velvet pouch and placed it inside the top drawer of her desk. It was a lovely little thing. The crystal face was backed not with the usual silver coating but with crushed diamonds; the oval frame delicately worked in pure gold. It had been a gift from Lucrezia Borgia, who Morgana had considered a close friend, if a bit indiscrete in her relationships with men. The mirror’s value must be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars but it’s true worth lay in its usefulness as a scrying glass. For more than five hundred years Morgana had used it to spy on friends and enemies alike and today it may have provided its most valuable service. While making a routine check on her many enemies, as well as those foolish enough to trust her, the mirror had picked up the vibrations of her oldest and most reviled enemy.
Locking the drawer, Morgana idly fingered the ancient bronze brooch holding the dark purple scarf to her dress. The brooch had been a gift from Ygrane, her mother. Finally, she would have revenge on that horrible old man who had helped her father discard her mother, kept that nasty little creature, Arthur, on the throne and thwarted her plans for so many, many centuries.
God, this is going to be wonderful. Morgana’s hand trembled with excitement as she rubbed the brooch. But why had he come out of hiding? Had he finally figured out how to close the gate permanently? No, probably not. If he had, he would have done it immediately. Damn, if I could only hear what he and that boy were talking about.
Scrying glasses were wonderful things but watching people without knowing what they were saying could be so frustrating. Approach this logically. If he can’t close the gate then he probably never meant to expose himself. An accident? Probably. Did that boy have something to do with it? Are they working together? The boy didn’t look like much of a wizard and Merlin obviously hasn’t learned any new tricks. He was still wearing the same seedy gown and doing the same insipid disappearing tricks he did sixteen-hundred years ago. No wizard worth his salt did crap like that anymore. He hasn’t been able to keep up with the times, has he? Doddering old fool.
Since she did not yet know where Merlin was, or what he was up to, the only thing Morgana could do was watch, wait, learn as much as she could, counter every move he made, destroy his allies and decide on the best way to eliminate him once and for all. She hadn’t figured that part out yet but it needed to be something delicious, something very special, something that would simultaneously humiliate him and fill his last seconds with shrieking terror. But first, she had to share the good news. Morgana pushed her chair back from the desk, rose and walked across the room.
Two walls of the library were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Most of the books were the kind rich people buy by the yard to look good and impress their guests; expensive volumes bound in fine leather but never read. This library, however, never had guests to ogle at the books – it never had guests of any kind. Walking to the center of one wall, Morgana touched the edge of a book, a yellow, morocco-bound edition of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. Morte D’Arthur – the Death of Arthur – the irony always made her smile. Pulling the uppermost corner toward her, Morgana stepped back while the wall parted and two sections of shelving swung silently outward. Pushing them to the sides, she surveyed the contents of the hidden space nestled behind them. To either side were shelves packed with ancient scrolls and books bound in leather so old it was turning to dust. In the center was a polished, golden disk nearly a yard in diameter. Beneath it sat a bank of crystal dials and levers engraved with indecipherable symbols. To one side sat a computer keyboard. It was toward the keyboard that Morgana’s excited hand strayed. Punching the ‘enter’ key she listened to the reassuring hum as the computer powered up.
When the correct codes were entered the surface of the big disk alternately clouded and cleared until, after several minutes, a hideous face filled the disk, leering across time and space, staring at her. Long, gray-green crocodile-like jaws filled with crooked yellow teeth filled half of the screen. Above them a pair of gigantic golden eyes with glowing red pupil-slits stared malignantly at Morgana. The voice, when it came, was a hollow, rumbling hiss.
“I am Astaroth the eternal. I am legion and my numbers are many. I have been patient with you, Morcant le Fay. I have given you knowledge and power and eternal life – all the things a small, petty creature like yourself could desire – and yet you have failed to grant the one small thing I ask of you. When will I regain control of the gate?”
The thought running through Morgana’s mind was God, why does he always have to be so bloody melodramatic, but her words were far more temperate. “My great Lord Astaroth, I come as your humble servant offering hopeful news. Our ancient enemy, Merlin Emrys ap Morfryn, has inadvertently exposed himself to the world and in your name I will destroy him and set you free.”
The creature’s vertical red pupils expanded slightly. “And thus will you rectify your own mistake, for it was your negligence which allowed this human to gain control over our passageway into your world.
But I am generous and forgiving. Correct this gross error and the world shall lay at your feet.” The creatures tongue flicked in and out of its nightmarish mouth. “When will the gate be opened?”
“I don’t know where he is yet, or how many confederates he may have. I will destroy them all to prevent another from taking his place when he is dead.”
The gigantic eyes blinked again. “Cause him to suffer, Morcant le Fay. Make them all suffer. Their pain must be great.”
It was the first time since beginning the conversation that Morgana smiled. “I swear it, My Lord.”
“Let it be soon and report to me regularly on your progress. For I am Astaroth and my patience is not without limits.”
“Soon, My Lord.”
As suddenly as the face had appeared, it winked out of existence and the golden disk went blank.
Good. A little time to play with the old fart before I kill him.
Morgana gently closed the bookcases before leaving the room. Walking with a small spring in her step, she began to whistle. The tune was Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. She had always liked the insipid little ditty. She taught it to a close friend in Germany during the late 1930s and it had become one of his favorites, too. Some years later she heard he had whistled it incessantly during his final days in the bunker beneath Berlin; just before he put a bullet through his head. Pity, too. Adolf was such an interesting man, so dedicated to his work. Now there was a man who knew how to make his enemies suffer. Kindred spirits are so hard to find in a world of dull-spirited weaklings.
Chapter Six
Jason plopped back onto the couch with a sigh. With luck, Merlin might offer something that made sense, but Jason doubted anything so reasonable would happen. He was right.
“What I am about to tell you now will challenge everything you thought you knew about the world. But believe me when I tell you the survival of the human race depends on how you deal with this information.”
Jason did not like the sound of this but he was not about to swallow some apocalyptic nightmare without question. He was a scholar, not some credulous kid who still believed in comic book villains and superheroes. “Look, Merlin” he began, “for some weird reason, I’m starting to believe you are who you say you are. And I know you seriously believe there are some really evil bastards who have been after you for a thousand years. But dragons? There’s not a single shred of evidence that they have ever existed.”
“Ah, but there is. It’s just that no one chooses to believe it. First of all, there were very few survivors of dragon attacks; and those who did survive were driven half mad by what they saw, so no one believed them. What reasoning person would believe a story about gigantic flying reptiles? Even people who believed in the Holy Grail and Unicorns scoffed at such things.”
“Ok, ok. So what proof is there? Give me something solid to convince me.”
“Everyone knows the story of Saint George slaying the dragon. Were you aware that the first version of the account came from Greece? This was the first dragon story to reach England during Uther’s time and about same time that dragons entered Chinese art - around the year 450. They probably appeared in the east first, but it was only a matter of time before they were attacking everywhere. And yet news of the attacks were either disbelieved or suppressed.”
“Suppressed? By who?”
“By the church. They didn’t want to be accused of spreading panic, so they buried the entire story.”
“Why would they do that? Why didn’t they warn people?” Jason asked.
“Because they believed it was the end of the world. It was the Biblical prophesies coming true; precisely the way it was foretold in the book of Revelations. Are you familiar with Revelations?”
Jason shifted uneasily. “I haven’t exactly read it. Our church never had much time for Revelations: all that stuff about the seven seals and the beast from the pit and all that crap.”
“The earliest written account of dragons is found in chapter twelve of the book of Revelations. It says: ‘And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its head.’ The ones I saw didn’t have seven heads or any crowns, but the warning is clear enough.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of goofy stuff in Revelations and most of it just can’t be taken literally. So, where were these dragons supposed to come from?”
“Revelations says the dragons appeared in the heavens. That implies that they flew from somewhere, and it goes on to say: ‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought his angels.’ The implication is obvious: the dragons were the legions of Satan - his fallen angels.”
“Ok, so apparently they were driven out of heaven and came to earth. But that still doesn’t tell us how they got here, does it?”
“No. But in chapter seventeen of Revelations it says: ‘The beast that thou saw shall ascend out of the bottomless pit’.”
“Wait. Back up. I thought they came out of heaven. How can they come out of a bottomless pit if they came from the sky? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No?” A small, knowing smile played across Merlin’s lips. “Don’t think about Biblical cosmology, Jason, think about your modern science. Why can’t there be a bottomless pit in the heavens? Think of it as a vast hole in the universe.”
“You’re talking about a black hole, a wormhole to some other dimension, or something like that. Is that what you’re getting at?”
“It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”
“Now, hang on a minute. I think you’re getting your stories mixed up. Now we have King Arthur versus the Klingons. This is getting about as far out as Revelations.” Jason was tired, his mind was foggy from weeks of lost sleep and now his whole world was being turned inside out. “Ok, ok, so just tell me what, exactly, you saw? How many of them were there?”
“I only saw three or four, but who knows. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, how could anyone know?”
His mind reeling under the weight of so many impossibilities, Jason was ready to grasp at any fact that might dispel the thought of flying nightmares. “But even if they once existed, how could an entire army of dragons go unnoticed for fifteen hundred years? Maybe in the fourth century they could stay out of sight, but this is a different world. There just isn’t anywhere left to hide.”
Merlin nodded in sympathy with Jason’s obvious panic. “They went back through the…what did you call it, a black hole? It’s where they live.” He gestured with one long finger, scribing small circles toward the ceiling. “Somewhere out there.”
“That’s just so fucking wrong.” Jason said, shaking his head.
“In God’s creation there are an infinite number of universes. Even modern humans, for all their technology and space travel and orbital telescopes, have no idea of the vast strangeness of the cosmos.”
“But you still haven’t told me why there isn’t any evidence of their having been here. No bones, no remains, nothing. If they were, or are real, why didn’t they leave anything behind?”
“That has to do with the physical nature of dragons. They are essentially energy beings; they are made of energy the way life on earth is made of matter. We - all animals on earth - consume matter and transform it into energy inside our bodies. Dragons consume energy and convert it into matter; it’s how they keep their corporeal shape. They don’t eat the people and animals they attack; they burn them with their breath and absorb the energy released by the fire. A dragon will descend on a burning village the way a glutton bellies-up to a banquet table.”
“But there aren’t any remains. I mean, you said that one of Uther’s soldiers killed one of them. What happened to the body? If these things are as big as you say they are, surely something would have been discovered by now.” Jason was grasping at straws in an attempt to make all this go away: banished to the black hole where the dragons lived.
“Because they burn them too.”
“Eooo! You mean they eat their own dead?”
“In a manner of speaking. They burn them and consume the energy. Nothing is lost. One of your physicists, I think his name was Einstein, proved that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So they simply recycle it. Indefinitely. And that’s what makes them so dangerous to the modern world.” Merlin raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, waiting for Jason’s inevitable question.
“How’s that?”
“Because” Merlin replied, “all of your modern technology is based on the expenditure of massive amounts of energy. As energy-based creatures, the dragons will absorb the energy released by the very bombs sent to destroy them. There is no way of knowing how much energy one of your hydrogen bombs might provide them with. In the past, in my time, they had to rely on the energy released by the fires they started. But now....” he let the sentence dangle in mid-air.
“Oh, God, make this go away.” Jason buried his face in his hands. The entire world had turned into a kaleidoscope, the pieces tumbling and falling on top of each other, rearranging reality into strange and horrifying patterns. Finally he looked up, peeking through his fingers. “So, what does all this have to do with you and Morgana le Fay? Where do you two come into it?”
“As I told you earlier, somehow, Morgana managed to make contact with the Dragon Lords - the leaders of the dragons. How she managed it, I have no idea, but she did. She struck some kind of deal with them. In exchange for her services they shared some of their knowledge with her; including the prolongation of life through the absorption of energy.”
“And when you stole her library, it gave you the knowledge to stay alive all these years.”
“Yes, and thanks to Morgana’s library, I also learned that the dragons are far more than a pack of wild animals. They are intelligent, organized creatures with a long-term strategy. What Morgana was too blinded by hate to realize was that once they conquered the earth, there was no way they would let her survive - she knew too much. Besides, they had no intention of leaving anything alive on the planet.”
