The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  “A hollow crystal sphere, you say? I’ve never heard of anything quite like that.” He leaned forward, obviously intrigued. “This isn’t something naturally occurring, is it?”

  Merlin admitted the original had been a man-made object.

  “Thought so. I’d have heard of anything like that if it had been natural. Can I get a look at the original? It would help a lot.”

  Merlin explained that the original had been accidentally broken and he needed a precise copy as soon as possible.

  “Before somebody finds out you broke their toy. Right?” Jimmy hinted with a conspiratorial smile.

  “You might say that. Can you possibly help me?”

  “Sounds like it would be a lot easier if you just wanted me to grow you a nice big chunk of blue-white diamond, but anything is possible. Can you get me some samples of the original? I need somewhere to start.”

  “Jason and I have fragments and photographs of the original to show what it looked before the...accident.”

  “Great. No problem then.”

  Leaning forward until his face was only a foot from Lo-Pan’s, Merlin said quietly. “When can you start?”

  Leaning back, Jimmy turned to Jason. “Your Grandpa is one seriously intense dude, isn’t he?” Then, turning back to Merlin, “Come around to my lab about this time tomorrow. Bring the samples and pictures and anything else you have. We’ll see what we can do.” As if to break the seriousness of the last minutes, he threw his head back, laughed and said “Now! How 'bout some beers before we all dry up and blow away?” Without another word, he stood up and walked toward the bar.

  “Is your friend really a competent scientist?” Merlin asked with a look of unmasked doubt.

  “Word around campus is that he is the best.”

  “I hope so. And you were right, he is a little strange.”

  “That’s Jimmy.”

  * * * *

  The following day Jason did not have a class with Carver Daniels, so he went to his office to ask permission to copy Beverley’s drawings and photographs of the sphere. He would have liked to ask to borrow a few pieces, but that would probably raise awkward questions. Walking down the narrow hallway on the top floor of King’s Manor, Jason went to the third door on the right where a small sign read ‘Carver Daniels PhD’. Beneath the sign a typed notice gave Daniels' office hours for the term. Jason waited a moment, took a deep breath and knocked quietly on the thick door.

  “Yes, yes. Come in. Come in.” A reedy voice filtered through two inches of solid oak.

  Jason turned the knob and stuck his head around the edge of the door. “Professor Daniels? I hope I’m not dis...”

  “Ahh, Mr. Carpenter. Come in. Come in.” he repeated, peering over the top of his reading glasses. “I’m so glad you could come round. Wait, I haven’t rung you yet, have I? Well, you must be clairvoyant then. I’ve been thinking about ringing you since yesterday. Or was it Monday? No matter, you’re here now. Please, sit down.”

  “I assume you wanted to see me, then.” Jason queried, suppressing a smile.

  “Yes. The department has organized a little touring exhibit of last summer’s dig finds. They will be traveling to Birmingham, Liverpool...” As he spoke Daniels sorted furiously through a heap of scrawled notes cluttering his desk. “...and, I can’t remember where all, but four museums all-together. Newcastle, I think... Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “That’s great, professor. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Yes. I wonder if you could help me crate everything up in preparation for shipping. Since you led the team in archiving the objects you probably know more about the collection than anyone else. Probably even more than I do.”

  One more thing to deal with. It was just what Jason needed right now. “Of course I’ll help. When do they have to be ready?”

  “Well, we don’t really have much time, I’m afraid. The first showing is at the Liverpool Museum and it opens on October sixteenth, so we need to have everything ready for shipping by Monday.” Jason’s heart sank as Daniels prattled on. “The Liverpool staff will be setting up the display themselves, of course, so we need to give them all the time possible. But I am sure with your copious notes and catalog details they will have no problem at all. I assume you can get started right away?”

  “Of course, professor. Right away.” Jason wondered when, and how, he was going to deal with everything he had to do over the next few days. The answer was obvious. A lot of late nights.

  “Good. Good. Well, I think that’s all. And thank you for stopping by.” Jason knew he was being dismissed, but hesitated before rising to leave. Fortunately, Daniels took the hint. “Oh, you wanted to see me about something, didn’t you?”

  “Actually, yes. I did.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if it would be all right if I made copies of the photographs and drawings of the sphere. I just want to do some independent research to see if I can come up with any additional theories on what it might have been.”

  “Of course, my boy. I admire your initiative. You can make copies for yourself while you’re making copies for each museum on the tour.”

  “Will the remains of the sphere be going with the other artifacts?” Jason asked in a tentative voice.

  “I don’t see why not. It was one of the finest finds of the summer and even if it has been destroyed, the shards should make a compelling contribution to the exhibit, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.” This was just the opening Jason had been hoping for. With the pieces of the broken sphere on tour for months he could slip a few chips out while he was packing everything up. No one would ever know they were gone.

  “Good. Was there anything else?”

  Rising from his chair, Jason took a step toward the door. “Nothing, professor, I’m glad I can be of help. I have a few free hours between classes this afternoon, so I can get started right away.”

  “Excellent. I knew I could count on you, Mr. Carpenter. If you need anything, just let me know.”

  Returning from Daniels’ office, Jason felt like he was going to smother. Too much to do. Too much to do. Easy, Jason. Don’t have a panic attack. If he skipped his next class, he could print out most of the catalogs before he picked up Merlin for their meeting with Jimmy Lo-Pan. It would also give him an excuse to be in the archaeology lab and a chance to pocket a few pieces of the sphere. It had worked out better than he could have hoped.

  Just after four-thirty, Jason locked the lab door and sprinted around the corner of King’s Manor and ran to St Mary’s Terrace. As he approached the house he could see Merlin on the sidewalk, pacing up and down like he was trying to wear a hole in the pavement. As he dashed across the street, Merlin met him half way.

  “Did you get everything?” the old magician asked anxiously.

  “Got it. Chunks of your sphere, copies of the photographs and drawings, measurements, everything.” Then, taking the lead, he said “Come on, if we’re lucky we can catch a cab and get to the main campus before rush hour.”

  Stepping out of the cab in front of Jimmy Lo-Pan’s building, Jason glanced down at his watch. Five-twenty-five. Five minutes early. For the first time in hours, Jason took a breath without feeling like he was going to choke on it.

  The lab was in the starkly modern Houghton Physical Sciences building in the middle of an equally modern campus. Unlike the winding halls and cramped rooms at the manor, the corridors here were wide and straight. They passed dozens of identical metal doors before finding the one bearing the number Jimmy had given them. B134. Jason knocked, his knuckles ringing hollowly on the cold metal.

  From inside came a muffled voice. “Enter if you dare.”

  Once inside, they were confronted with a large, low ceilinged room with all four walls covered by ranks of filing cabinets, shelves filled with bottles and jars, banks of computer monitors and electronic equipment the purpose of which Jason could not even begin to guess. Merlin s
tood as still as a statue, his head twisting slowly from one side to the other, taking it all in. “Laboratories seem to have evolved a bit.” He whispered to Jason in a barely audible voice.

  Before Jason could say anything, Jimmy jumped up from his chair and crept toward them, his hands raised to the sides of his face making goofy claw-like movements. In his best Bela Lugosi accent he muttered “Velcome to da house of pain. I made you in da house of pain.” Then, giggling like a demented child, he reached out and tickled Jason’s stomach. “How do you like the place, dude? Pretty cool, huh?”

  Jason could only murmur his assent but Merlin was already wandering from table to shelf, peering intently at one strange object after another. “One day, Mr. Jimmy Lo-Pan” he said, “you’re going to have to explain all of this to me. I want to know how every piece of it works and what it does.” His brilliant blue eyes glowed with excitement.

  “No problem. If you got eight or nine years we can start right now.” Turning to Jason, he shrugged, saying. “Hey, I work on a fat grant, what do I care, right?”

  Then, turning back to Merlin, “Seriously, Mr. Carpenter, I have a little time, so if you brought the information on this crystal sphere you were talking about, we can have a look at it right now.”

  Jason handed the photographs to Jimmy while he fished through his shirt pocket for the envelope containing the shards of crystal. When he located it, he motioned Jimmy over to the long, black-topped table in the center of the room and shook five chips of glass, each slightly smaller than a thumbnail, onto the surface. Jimmy leaned down and picked one up, raising it toward the florescent light in the ceiling.

  “Mmm. Looks more like plain glass than crystal.” Turning his gaze to Merlin, he added. “Are you sure this is a crystal-based substance? If it’s just glass, any good glass blower could make you a perfectly respectable copy.” Then with a sideways wink to Jason “Who knows, it might even look better than the one I make.”

  “Oh, I guarantee you its crystal. Examine it further, please.”

  “Jimmy...” Jason interrupted, “look at it under black light.”

  “Ok. No probs. Got one right here,” he said, moving toward one of the cabinets lining the wall. “Let me just plug this puppy in and...Voila.”

  As the black tube flickered to life, Jimmy asked Jason to switch off the overhead lights. In the darkened room Jimmy lowered the light toward the small, rough-edged pieces of glass. The tiny shards glowed an eerie blue, each one seamed with crystalline veins, interconnecting and separating delicately. Jimmy let out a long, low whistle.

  “Damn, dude. That’s the funkiest thing I’ve ever seen. Where did you say this came from?”

  Obscurely, Merlin answered, “These pieces are the remains of a crystalline sphere; if that’s your question.”

  “No. I mean, where did the sphere come from?”

  “I think my grandson can answer that better than I can.”

  “Jason? Where’d you get this puppy?”

  “I dug it up. At the bottom of a sewage pit.”

  “Sewage? No shit, man!” After he quit giggling manically at his own joke, he shook his head, grinned and continued. “Too cool. Turn the lights back on, will you Jason?”

  When the lights flickered back to life, Jimmy was still staring intently at the glass chips. “I know this probably isn’t any of my business, but did one of you dudes break this thing?” Jimmy swung his head back and forth between Jason and Merlin.

  Before Jason could say anything, Merlin answered. “I broke it. Its loss was caused by a tragic, unavoidable accident which I must put right at all costs.”

  “Gotcha.” Straightening up, Jimmy arched his back with a loud crack. “This is going to take some time. I’m not completely sure how the inner structure of this thing hooks together...”

  At this point, Merlin broke in. “I think I can help you there.” Reaching into a pocket of his suit coat, Merlin produced a thick sheaf of papers, handing them to Jimmy. “I think this will tell you everything you will need to know. I’ve tried to translate the information into a language you can understand.”

  Jimmy shuffled absently through a few of the pages, glancing curiously at Jason as he did so. After a few seconds, he turned to Merlin. “You some kind of an archaeological biochemist, or what?”

  “Mostly ‘or what’.” Merlin answered with an absolutely straight face.

  “Ok, have it your own way, man.” Jimmy shrugged “Look, it’s going to take me four or five days to analyze the contents of the glass and look through these notes. By the middle of next week I should have everything set up to go. Why don’t you call me then? Say, Wednesday?”

  “That would be splendid, Jimmy. Jason, shall we leave Mr. Lo-Pan to his work?”

  As he showed the two men to the door, Jimmy leaned close to Jason’s ear and whispered “Your granddad is quite a piece of work, isn’t he?”

  “You have no idea, Jimmy.”

  Once in the corridor, Merlin turned to Jason with a broad smile. “I feel much better. How about another one of those pizza things? With lots of pep...pep...”

  “Pepperoni.” Jason clapped Merlin on the back with a laugh. “Anything you want, ‘grandpa’.”

  Chapter Eight

  Having solved the immediate problem of finding someone to rebuild Merlin’s sphere, Jason should have been able to relax, but the added work of packaging more than a thousand archaeological artifacts left him more manic than ever. Although he would not have asked her to help, when Beverley volunteered her services, he was happy to accept. Not only did the work go faster, it gave them more time together.

  For most of the next two evenings they were buried in the lab, surrounded by boxes filled with bits of pottery and metal, drawings, photographs and copies of the catalog. There were piles of empty boxes waiting to be filled, rolls of bubble wrap, cartons of tissue paper, plastic envelopes and rolls of packing tape. The lab looked almost as disorganized now as it had on the evening of the explosion, but Jason and Beverley doggedly worked their way through the mess.

  Just after six o’clock on Saturday evening, Beverley straightened up after placing yet another sealed box on the ever-growing pile near the door. Turning to Jason, she pushed aside a mass of hair and said “Were we supposed to go out last night?”

  “Oh, shit, Bev”, he replied from the filing cabinet where he was removing trays to be packed. “I’m sorry. I completely forgot. You want to go now?”

  “You mean right now?”

  “Sure. Why not? We are making good headway. Everything can still be ready in plenty of time.” With a wan smile he added, “I hope.”

  “I’m all dirty. I need a shower and a change of clothes. I can’t go out like this.”

  Turning around, Jason dropped to the floor, crossing his long legs Indian style. “What’s the matter? Afraid to let your new boyfriend will see the real you?”

  When she turned to look at him, Beverley saw a big grin creeping across his tired face.

  “You sure you don’t mind?” she said walking over to where he sat.

  Reaching out, he grasped one of her hands, signaling for her to pull him up. Once on his feet, he brushed the dust off the seat of his pants and leaned close to her. Placing his mouth close to her ear, he whispered “I’m sure,” before gently kissing her on the neck.

  “Whatever you say, guv'nor. Let’s get out of here and go explore the big, wide world.”

  Grabbing their coats, they switched off the lights and headed into the autumn twilight.

  “Do you feel like eating? I’m starved.” Beverley said, huddled close to his down filled jacket for warmth. She had decided the silvery color of his coat made Jason look like a medieval knight and found the thought both oddly comforting and more than a little exciting.

  “You know that place down by the river that does American food?” Jason mused.

  “The Old Orleans, you mean?”

  “That’s the one. I think I need some barbequed chicken.”

&n
bsp; Snuggling closer, she mumbled “You can take the boy out of his country...”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. But you have to admit, it’s really good eats.”

  Inevitably much of their dinner conversation revolved around the upcoming exhibition tour and how they would set up the displays if they were in charge. Finally, Beverley changed the subject between bites of steak salad.

  “So, when does your grandfather get here?”

  “Oh, um, he comes in tomorrow. I guess I forgot to mention it, what with all the excitement.”

  “Which excitement was that?” It was obvious from her tone of voice that she was mocking him. “So when do I get to meet him?”

  “Whenever you like, I suppose.”

  “Will he need to relax for a few days first?”

  “No. He’s already been in England for quite a while.” Longer than you can possibly imagine.

  Beverley nodded, changing the subject again and letting it ramble from one topic to another through the rest of the meal. As they walked along the river toward Lendal Bridge, she took his hand gently pulling him to a stop.

  “Since you’ll be busy with family stuff for a few weeks, this is sort of your last night on your own for a while, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think he is going to chain me in the apartment, or anything, but, yeah, sort of. Why?”

  Positioning herself directly in front of him, she stared up into his eyes. Jason pulled her so close he could feel the soft touch of her breath on his lips.

  “I just thought...” she said, breaking eye contact for a second before continuing. “Maybe you would like to come over tonight.”

  Jason raised one hand and laid it gently on her cheek. The tips of his fingers reaching around the back of her head and pulling her toward him until their lips met. No other answer seemed appropriate or necessary.

  Jason returned to his apartment just after nine the next morning to find Merlin at the computer. Jason explained that he had to go back to the lab for a few hours, but that they would be meeting Beverley later for drinks.