by Daniel Diehl
“Sit down and relax, the only thing we can do now is wait.”
Jason thumped his flanks on the rocky ground a few feet from the wizard and pulled Beverley down after him. Sensing that Merlin felt the need to remain silent, they chatted between themselves in low tones, catching up on each other's lives during their nearly two months of separation. In the middle of their discussion of Jason's former professor and faculty advisor, Dr Carver Daniels, Beverley suddenly looked up and pointed toward the fuzzy outline of the fog-shrouded island.
“Jason,” her voice lowered to an almost inaudible whisper as she leaned close to his shoulder. “The fog on the island, it’s moving this way, across the water, toward the shore.”
Sure enough, as Jason refocused his gaze toward the misty surface of the Irish Sea, he could see a single, slim finger of fog creeping across the water toward the spot where the three of them sat.
“Merlin. I hate to bother you. But should that fog be moving toward us?”
“Yes, it should.”
Merlin's face morphed into a faint grin and his voice was distant, dreamy and detached in a way Jason had never heard it before. Within minutes, the tendril of mist had floated across the two miles of choppy water and was creeping onto the shore, swirling near the prone figure of Merlin. As the other two watched in uneasy fascination, the water vapor began to take form, shifting and condensing into a vaguely human shape. It was soon apparent that the solidifying figure was leaning low, reaching across Merlin's body. Slowly, slowly, the mist first shimmered and then dissipated to be replaced by the figure of a very young woman in a nearly translucent, diaphanous blue-green gown; her long white-blond hair streamed across her shoulders and back, nearly reaching her hips. When she lifted her head, Jason and Beverley could tell she was wearing a silvery band around her head. The circlet glinted and shimmered in the pale wintry light, but they could see it clearly enough to tell it was decorated with the forms of dozens of tiny fish, each one catching and reflecting the light so the fish almost looked like they were alive and swimming around her head.
“Merlin? Merlin, my love, is that you?” The woman's voice was distant, vague and musical, almost like a sound heard from far off, or down a length of hollow pipe. At the sound of her voice Merlin opened his eyes, hoisted himself up on his elbows and smiled.
“Vivian. My good lady. How lovely you look, child.” Scrambling to his feet, Merlin dusted the sand and dirt from his coat before laying his hands on the young woman's shoulders and staring hard into her face. Even from where Jason and Beverley were sitting, it was obvious that Vivian was hardly out of her teens. The flesh on her face, throat and arms still had that porcelain-like, nearly translucent beauty that blond girls on the edge of full womanhood sometimes manage to achieve. Her eyes were blue, like Merlin's, but where his were a riveting, electric blue, hers were pale and watery, so delicately colored that in the wrong light she could almost have been mistaken for being blind.
“Have you come back to be with me, my love? I have waited for you...how long has it been? Has it been a long time since I have seen you?”
“Yes, it has. Too long, far too long. But I’m afraid I can only stay here with you for a very little while. My friends and I need your help and then I must leave again.”
The woman scowled slightly in confusion as she laid a gentle hand on Merlin's craggy face and drew it down across his snowy white beard. “Are you old?”
“Yes. I am. Very old.”
“When will you be young again?” She was staring hard into his face, trying vainly to grasp a concept that was beyond her experience, knowledge or understanding.
“Never. I do not know how to be young again. It is the way of things in the world of men. When we age, it is irreversible. And now I am too old to be your lover, but I still love you, my child. I will always love you as I always have.”
Shaking her head slowly, she stared at her hand as two fingers plucked an invisible speck of lint from the front of Merlin's filthy coat. “Did you say you have friends with you?”
“Yes, they’re over there.” Merlin indicated Beverley and Jason with one hand, gently turning Vivian's head with the other. When she saw them, she smiled a strange, slightly vacant smile.
“Are you Merlin's friends, too?”
Jason nodded, but it was Beverley who stepped forward, extending her hand toward the other woman. “Yes. I’m Beverley McCullough and this is my friend Jason Carpenter.”
Vivian took Beverley's hand in her own and smiled again. “Do you know Merlin's other friend? Arthur? Did Merlin tell you that I once gave Arthur a sword?”
Stunned for a moment, Beverley did not know quite how to answer and she was relieved when Merlin stepped between them and put a protective arm around Vivian. But when he spoke, it was to Beverley that his words were directed.
“Vivian has no concept of time, you see. To her, past, present and future are all the same, she can remember the future as easily as we can remember the past. That’s why she wasn't sure whether I was old or young. We could never explain to her why it would be impossible for you to know Arthur.”
Beverley and Jason, who had now stepped forward to meet this strange figure, nodded in acknowledgement of Merlin's words but they could not understand how the Lady of the Lake could exist outside of time any more than she could understand how the rest of the world was bound by it. Most amazing of all, Vivian seemed not in the least perturbed by the fact that she was being talked about as though she was some aberration, some freak of nature.
“You really should meet Arthur some time. He and Merlin are very good for each other.”
At this point Merlin interjected himself back into the conversation. “Vivian and I first met when I came back to Arthur's court while I was still trying to recover my sanity after seeing the dragons wipe out Uther's army. She was very kind to me and gave me sanctuary here on her island while my mind healed itself. Didn't you, my dear.”
“Yes, I helped you then, too. Just like I did in the before time.”
“Before?”
“It’s ok, Jason, there was no earlier instance. Time confuses her. I think she means years later when she helped me locate the best place to bury my sphere so I could be safe from Morgana's soldiers while I sought a way to permanently close the dragon gate.”
“I don't want to talk about that, Merlin. I think it will make you afraid...or it did... I can't remember which.” She touched her forehead gently, in concentration, then, changing the subject in mid thought, the stared hard at Beverley. “Would you like to see where I live?”
“Oh, yes, if you don't mind, I...” When Beverley looked up toward the island, she realized that it was no longer there or, rather, they were no longer on the rock-strewn Welsh coast. The entire group was now standing on Ynys Enlli and in the distance, in front of them, was the far shore with its rocky shingle, the hawthorn bush and, in the distance, the path leading to the car. “What...? How...?”
The fog had disappeared and the entire landscape was now washed with a soft, melon-colored light. By contrast, the shadows cast by the ancient trees and low shrubberies were nearly blue, making the entire scene look as lush and surreal as an illustration created by the hand of Maxwell Parrish.
Vivian smiled, reached out and took Beverley's hand. Before leading her guests deeper into the island, she removed the sparkling circlet from her head and tossed it toward the sea. In mid-arc, before it began falling toward the water, the delicate diadem broke apart, each of the tiny, shimmering fish that had comprised it flopping and twisting through the air and landing in the water with a series of tiny, silvery splashes before swimming away.
“Oh. Oh, my God, that was so beautiful.” Beverley said, squeezing Vivian's hand with a shiver of delight. “How did you do that?”
Vivian only looked at her as though she did not understand the question and giggled, covering her mouth with her free hand and averting her eyes. “Come. See my garden.”
As the sylphan figure wandere
d across the low grass toward the center of the island, Merlin caught up with her and took her gently by the arm.
“We really do need your help, my dear. Do you think you can try to help us?”
“It’s still her, isn't it? Arthur's sister. Morgana, I mean.”
“I'm afraid so.” Merlin shook his head, lowering his eyes sadly.
“You know you can be safe from her here. You can stay with me and we can be together always. Nothing changes here.” Glancing over her slim shoulder at Beverley and Jason, she added “You're friends can stay too, if they like. Then everyone will be safe.”
“I am afraid it’s not that easy, my dearest. Morgana has become very dangerous. Jason and I must find a way to stop her before she can bring back the dragons.”
While Merlin tried to explain the urgency of his mission, Jason and Beverley realized that their short walk had carried them to the edge of a massive knot garden. Scribing a huge circle that must have covered nearly five acres, the maze was incredibly intricate, with openings that led onto twisting pathways, cork-screwing into each other, most of them leading to dead ends and only occasionally did one of them offer a way toward a large, open grassy area at the heart of the maze. Strangest of all, the shrubs forming the walls of the maze were trimmed so they were only calf high. It would have been impossible to get lost here; one need only step across the tops of the hedges and walk straight to the center. Still, the Lady of the Lake led her visitors into the maze, picking her way carefully from intersection to intersection, path to path, pausing now and again to consider which way to turn next. All the while, Merlin was explaining to her the contents of the confused, prophetic passages from the Gnostic gospel, hoping that with her powers of innate knowledge and second sight she could help them unravel their mystery. Finally, he drew her to a halt and stared hard into her eyes to hold her attention.
“Lady, have you been listening to me? Have you heard what I said?”
“Yes, my love, every word. And it pains me deeper than you can ever know to tell you that I cannot help you. I know nothing of these holy men who are not holy nor of knights who are not knights. Nor do I know of any water which induces a state of oblivion.” Giggling, she added, “Although it does sound very pleasant.” Finally, shrugging her tiny shoulders she said, almost as an afterthought, “And of course you already know all about the cave.”
Gently, Merlin took her by the shoulders and turned her so she was facing him full-on. “What do you mean, I know about the cave? I don’t know what you mean.”
“You were there, or will be, and I will be there with you. We will go there when you are a boy.”
“My dear, I didn’t know you when I was a boy. We only met when you brought Excalibur to me.”
“No. The cave is where the dragons live. You told the king about them. Don’t you remember?”
“I know the dragons come out of a cave, Vivian. What I need to know now is where the cave is located so I can keep the dragons from coming out and getting loose into the world. Please, tell me where the cave is.”
Growing silent and obviously frustrated, she pulled away from Merlin and rubbed the end of her tiny nose with two fingers as a single, huge tear ran down one cheek. Finally, she looked up at Merlin and studied his face before turning to Beverley. “Men always want to know things. Have you ever noticed that? They want to know things and then they take the knowledge and go off and do things with it. Why can't they just accept things as they are?”
Beverley stepped forward and said quietly “I know that sometimes it must seem like that, but this really is important. If there is anything you can tell us that might help, we will be very grateful.”
Vivian stared at her, and then back at Merlin. Then she let out a large, ragged sigh that seemed bigger than she was. “I had hoped” she said in a tiny voice, “that Morgana would go away, or simply stop bothering people with her ambitions and schemes, but she hasn't, has she?”
“No, my dearest, she hasn't, and I fear she never will until someone stops her. And it would seem that the someone who has inherited that duty is my friend Jason. Can you help us?”
“Possibly.” She moved on through the maze, staring at the ground in an attempt to distract herself from what she was saying, but continuing to talk. “The dragons are the children of darkness and Morgana has fallen under their spell completely. She has become one of them, in spirit at least, if not in body. The only way to defeat their darkness is with the pure light of perfect truth which can only be found in the physical reality of God's promise.”
“I don't understand, child. What is this physical manifestation of God? God has no physical form.”
“That fisherman was looking for it, too, you know.”
“What fisherman?” Now, even Merlin was confused by this new riddle which Vivian thought must, somehow, be connected to the enigmatic puzzle of Morgana, the dragon gate and the Gnostic gospel.
“The one with the keys. Oh, what was his name? I can't recall...”
“The fisherman with the keys? You don't mean St. Peter, do you?” Beverley was grasping at straws, but it was the only thing she could think to say.
Vivian smiled and her eyes brightened with remembrance. “Yes. That was his name. Peter. He had two keys, didn't you know that?”
Merlin looked back at Beverley and Jason, both of whom were as confused as he was. Jason stared back, shrugged and shook his head, while Beverley tried to piece Vivian's fragmented thoughts into a coherent whole. After a pause, she held up a hand to get the others’ attention.
“St. Peter is always shown holding the keys to the kingdom of heaven. I've always wondered why he is shown holding two keys. According to the church, there is supposedly only one way to salvation, so why is he shown with two keys rather than just one?”
Vivian worked her way a few yards back through the maze to where Beverley and Jason stood and looked up at Beverley, searching her face. “Because” she whispered in a low, conspiratorial voice, as though she was sharing some great secret, “one is for good and one is for evil. They work together, yet against each other, two halves of a whole. Do you understand?”
“I think I see what you mean. Like the yin and yang, light and dark, positive and negative. But what does this have to do with Morgana and the dragons and the cave?”
“The fisherman never had the keys. He wanted them, God told him to find them and the Christian people believed he had the power the keys contained, but he didn't. The keys had already been lost ages before…or possibly ages later.” She stared off into the nothingness, trying valiantly to separate past from future. Finally giving up, she sighed a tiny sigh, shook her head and smiled at Beverley. “Anyway, the keys he holds in the pictures are just symbols of the real keys, so it doesn’t matter.”
By now, Merlin and Jason had clustered around Vivian and Beverley, clogging the narrow pathway between the hedges, listening to the strangely youthful woman who was far older than even Merlin could imagine. She looked around at them, her eyes wide with anxiety, knowing that they expected things from her and unsure of what she should say.
“The real keys, the ones he never found, are still in God's covenant with the humans. That is where you can find them, along with the other parts of the covenant; inside its physical manifestation. The coffer...the box where they put them...don't you understand?”
“No. We don't understand. Please, Vivian, can't you be just a bit clearer? Can you just concen...”
Beverley excitedly cut Merlin off. “Wait. Wait. Vivian, look at me. Do you mean the Ark of the Covenant? Is that what you’re trying to describe?”
“Yes. The big gold box the Hebrews carried around with them.”
“Oh, my God. I am not going after the Ark of the Covenant. This is starting to sound way too much like an Indiana Jones movie. I can see the headlines now: ‘Young archaeologist discovers Ark of the Covenant: George Lucas Sues for Copyright Infringement’.” Jason was mumbling to himself and only stopped when Beverley scowled at
him. “Sorry, Bev, but after all the crap I have already been through this is just way too weird to deal with.”
“Jason, after all the crap you and Merlin have already been through, this should sound almost logical.”
Jason rubbed his chin, alternately nodding and shaking his head. “I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to say. I guess I'm just a little slap-happy from lack of sleep.”
Only inches away, Vivian had continued talking over their exchange. “…and there were two birds on the lid. Did you know that? Lovely golden birds with their wings spread up over their heads.”
Now it was Jason’s turn to interpret the Lady's vague ramblings. “Birds? You mean the angels that are supposed to be mounted on the lid of the Ark?”
“Is that what you think they are?” Vivian broke out laughing; the sound was like some bright, tinkling, fairy music that rang as clear and true as a sparkling glass bell. “No. They’re birds, silly. Sometimes you Christians are so confused. But yes, you are right. That is where the keys are. In the box. The Ark of the Covenant. All you have to do is take them out and they will allow you to seal the doorway against the children of darkness.”
“The dragons?”
“Yes, of course, the dragons.”
“Why didn't you tell me this before?” Merlin had grabbed Vivian's arm and swung her around to face him. His pain was obvious, at once heart wrenching and terrible.
She smiled sadly, clutching the greasy fur of his coat in desperation. “Because I didn't want you to leave me. I love you and I knew if I told you where to find the keys to the gate you would leave me to find them.”
“Oh, you poor thing. So instead you helped me lock myself in a crystal sphere for fifteen centuries.”
“Is that a very long time?”
“Yes, my dear child.” He reached out and stroked her hair sympathetically with one hand. “It is a very, very long time. Had you told me then, if I could have found them, I might have been able to close the gate and come back to you while I was still relatively young. Now it’s too late. I’m old and closing the gate is the last thing I will have the strength to do.”
