by Daniel Diehl
“A little.”
“Then the police will tell us everything they know.”
Chapter Fourteen
For more than two days Merlin had kept an almost constant vigil on the comings and goings of Morgana le Fay. Anxious not to miss any important developments that might take place in the matter of the communication device, he alternately tuned the scrying glass to pick up the harmonic vibrations of Peter Haskell, Jerry McGuire and a short, bald man who appeared to be in charge of assembling the security gate. Consequently, every additional step the maintenance workers made toward completing the big iron door, each time members of the engineering team came or went from the Hellfire caves with a van load of tools or equipment, and everything Morgana herself did were scrutinized by the wizard on an almost minute-by-minute basis.
While Merlin was busily tracking activities at Excalibur Holding Company, Beverley kept tabs on Jason and his efforts to find out whether the murder of the hotel clerk was simply an astoundingly improbable coincidence or if Morgana really had discovered his whereabouts. Two days after the incident the only thing the Addis Ababa police seemed to have learned, or cared to learn, was that three unidentified men had stormed into the Hotel New York, murdered the desk clerk, broken into room 216 and thoroughly ransacked it before leaving without disturbing any of the other rooms. This last bit of information convinced the police that the two men who were registered in room 216 were involved in some illegal activity which had obviously gone sour. Their efforts to locate the two men which the desk registry identified as – one male American named Jason Carpenter and one male Djiboutian named Ras Araya Melekot – had come to a dead end. These facts, which Ras had wormed out of a fat police sergeant with the aid of a British twenty pound note, pretty much confirmed that the murder had been committed by some of Morgana’s thugs. It also made it painfully obvious that Jason was now on the police radar and his escape from Ethiopia seemed less likely than ever.
It was late in the afternoon of the third day of Jason’s enforced isolation that Merlin watched Morgana and Peter Haskell lead a group of workmen into Morgana’s library. One of the men was dragging a low furniture mover’s trolley behind him. Merlin’s concentration on the scene was interrupted by the sound of Jason’s front door being opened and closed.
“Beverley, is that you?”
“Hi ya. Just me. I just got back from class, what would you like to have for tea?”
“Can you come in here?” Merlin’s deep voice drifted out of the bedroom to the place where Beverley was hanging her coat by the door. “I think you need to see this.”
Sensing the urgency in the wizard’s tone, Beverley hurried to position herself next to him, brushing her hair back with her fingers and leaning forward to stare at the images moving across the crystal mirror.
“Oh, dear. They’re moving the communicator, aren’t they?”
“I’m afraid they are; which means we’re out of time.”
“Damn. Oops, pardon my French. It’s just that Jason told me this morning that his Ethiopian friend was trying to get him a forged passport. Looks like there won’t be time for that.”
“Unfortunately, I think your assessment is correct. I believe that that man,” Merlin pointed to Peter Haskell’s tall, gaunt figure, “is Morgana’s chief engineer. He has overseen each step of the disassembly and packing of the communicating system. And now, as you can plainly see, they are finally removing the crates from her office. I think we have to assume they’re moving them to the cave.”
As Beverley and Merlin stared at the mirror, the workmen loaded the trolley with the first four wooden crates - including the large, flat box containing the disk - and began pulling it carefully toward the door. Peter Haskell was close on their heels. Behind them, Morgana stood tapping her foot while staring pensively at the remaining ten or twelve crates scattered around the perimeter of the room. Merlin and Beverley followed the men’s movements to the elevator, down to the ground level of Excalibur Holdings and through a maze of hallways to a loading bay at the rear of the building where two white vans sat with their noses pointed toward a pair of overhead doors that were lowered and padlocked. After one of the men opened the back doors of one of the vans, he and his companion carefully slid the wooden crates inside until they touched the back of the driver’s seat. The first crate to go in was the one containing the communicating disk. After it was strapped securely to the wall of the van the other three, smaller crates were nudged up against it.
Beverley removed one hand from the side of her head where it had been holding her mane of ginger hair from tumbling into her face. Extending her index finger she touched the face of the scrying mirror.
“That’s the crate we need, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid it is. Inside that box is the communicating disk which both Jason and I believe will open the Ark of the Covenant and reveal the Urim and Thummim. If we could get our hands on that crate, we could effectively keep Morgana from contacting the Dragon Lords and, simultaneously, be provided with the means of permanently closing their means of entering our world.”
Merlin dropped his chin to his chest, pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes and shook his head slowly back and forth in utter frustration.
“So, why, exactly, aren’t we on our way to the caves to intercept the van?”
Merlin lowered his hands, blinked and turned to stare blankly at Beverley.
“My dear, I’m here in York, the van is still being loaded two hundred miles away in Cardiff and Jason is trapped half-way around the world.”
Beverley reached behind her, pulled up an old kitchen chair that stood near the wall and sat down so she and Merlin were at eye level. Leaning forward, she held up one finger calling for his complete attention.
“Ok. Let’s pretend Jason were here. What would your next move be then?”
Merlin pointed to the scrying glass where a second group of boxes were now being loaded onto the trolley in Morgana’s library.
“I would wait until I knew if they were leaving for the caves tonight, or going in the morning, and then Jason and I would immediately head to West Wycombe and try to intercept them as soon as they began unloading.”
“And how would you get to West Wycombe?”
Merlin blinked twice and rubbed his head before answering. “I assume we would take your little car.”
Beverley patted him on the shoulder and leaned back, smiling. “Then the only difference between the way things actually are, and the way things would be if Jason were here, is that I’ll be the one driving.”
“No.” Merlin flailed his hands furiously back and forth as though he were erasing a chalk board. “Absolutely not. I appreciate your desire to help but I cannot allow you to take that kind of risk. This could be dangerous.”
“Merlin.” Beverley smiled, stroked the old man’s shoulder and kept her voice as calm and even as she could. “Have you seen any of Morgana’s people with guns?”
“In Mongolia, all of them were armed, but here, I must confess, none that I’ve seen.”
“Then there’s a limit to just how dangerous this is.”
“Beverley, if we were to be taken prisoner…”
“If we were to be taken prisoner I wouldn’t be in any more danger than if you and Jason were taken prisoner, she killed the two of you and then opened the dragon gate and let those…those things lose on the world.” Merlin lowered his eyes and shook his head but she could see that her point had been made. “Seriously, Merlin, would I be in any less danger if Morgana killed you than I would be if she took both of us prisoner tomorrow?”
“No. But that is still no reason for you to risk your life trying to steal that disk.”
“I think it’s the best reason in the world to help you steal the disk.”
Merlin stared hard at Beverley, locking his intense blue eyes with hers.
“If I allow you to come along, do you promise to follow my instructions to the letter and under no circumstance take any u
nnecessary chances of any kind?”
“I’ll get my coat.”
Jumping up to follow her out of the room, Merlin almost shouted. “Beverley, we don’t even know when the van is going to leave.”
“Cardiff is a LOT closer to West Wycombe than we are. If we leave at the same time they do, they will arrive at least an hour, maybe two, before we do. If we leave now, we can be there waiting for them.”
“Are you aware that you can be a very difficult woman?”
“Yes I am. Thank you. Now, are you coming?”
“Wait.” Merlin dashed back into the bedroom, grabbed his ratty old bearskin coat and the little jar of anti-scrying lotion before looking around the room, shrugged once and returning to where Beverley waited by the door. Holding the jar between a thumb and forefinger, he showed it to Beverley before dropping it into her pocket, smiling and saying “Now we’re ready.”
“I just put some of that stuff on this morning.”
“It’s raining out there, my dear, and we have no idea how long it might be before we come back. This journey won’t end in West Wycombe, you know. If we obtain the disk we may well be in Ethiopia for days or weeks and Jason doesn’t have any ointment. Always better to be safe. Now, are you certain you’re prepared for this?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
As Beverley and Merlin drove southward, they left Yorkshire’s mizzling rain behind and entered and area where mile after mile of wispy fingers of fog skittered across the roadway to play hide-and-seek in the hedgerows before running away into the gathering darkness. By the time they arrived in West Wycombe the fog had settled across the landscape with a will, reducing their speed to a crawl and obscuring the scattered lights of the village until they looked like tiny balls of soft, yellow fuzz strewn across an endless gray carpet.
“Can you still navigate, my dear?”
Beverley was hunched over the steering wheel of the Mini, craning her neck as though pressing her face to the windscreen would somehow make the miasmic fog dissipate.
“I’m fine. Besides, we’re almost there.” Pushing herself even further over the dash she released the steering wheel with one hand long enough to point toward a tiny, horizontal smudge of grayness mounted on a faint, white signpost. “That’s it. That’s the road to St. Lawrence’s Church.”
Merlin suggested that the safest place to leave the car would be in the little parking area at the rear of St. Lawrence’s. Since the church was further up the hill than the overgrown lane leading back to the caves it would be unlikely that Morgana’s people would discover it; and even if they did they would most likely assume it belonged to a night watchman or the parish verger. From the car park they hiked back down and around the long hill to the point where the deteriorated lane to the cave diverged from the main road. Even through the fog it was evident that much of the undergrowth that had obscured the lane during their last visit had been removed and a pair of black steel bollards now flanked the entrance to the lane. Between the bollards a length of stout iron chain, securely padlocked in place, barred the way against unwelcomed guests. As they walked around the barrier, Merlin stopped long enough to extend his arms out to the left and right as far as they would go.
“What are you doing?” Distorted by the water in the air, Beverley’s whispered voice sounded both loud and yet very far away.
“I’m trying to decide whether we have room to drive a van between this post and that tree. The only way to get the disk out is going to be to steal a van and if they replace the chain when they come in…” The sentence was left incomplete but his meaning was clear enough: Getting in was going to be easy, the problem would come when they tried to leave.
Between the gentle way the lane curved around the hill, the darkness, and the swirling fog it was impossible to see more than five or six yards down the road. Having no way of knowing whether the vans might have arrived ahead of them, or whether Morgana had stationed guards at the cave’s entrance, Merlin pulled Beverley gently out of the center of the road and into the forested verge where the combination of darkness and fog would ensure their safety. Creeping as silently as possible through the entangled underbrush, Merlin took the lead, occasionally stepping out of the shadows and into the roadway to check their progress, a process constantly hampered by the tangled briars, wild ivy and nettles covering the hillside. “Merlin.” Beverley’s shouted whisper sounded thick and heavy on the still, fog-soaked night air. “I’ve tangled my foot in these bloody creepers and I can’t get it loose.”
“Wait, wait. I’m coming.”
Merlin turned around, starting to back-track the dozen or so strides that separated them, but before he had gone more than a few steps he heard Beverley’s panicked scream followed by the unmistakable thud of someone falling into the underbrush. Immediately after the sound of the fall, Beverley’s screams turned to terrified shrieks. Mingled with her horrified cries were the sounds of something being dragged across the woodland floor. Running wildly through the dark forest, just as Merlin got close enough to see Beverley’s prone form being pulled along the ground by invisible hands, he felt something make a grab at his ankle. As he tried to jerk his leg free, another and then another tendril of ivy snatched at him. With the speed of a striking snake the vines entwined his feet and shot up his legs, wrapping themselves around and around, jerking him off balance, dragging him to the ground and pulling him forward, deeper and deeper into the bracken. Desperately attempting to reorient himself and collect his thoughts, Merlin remained acutely aware of Beverley’s frantic cries for help.
“Hold on, Beverley. Try not to panic.”
The vines now ensnared Merlin’s right hand and were working their way up the old bearskin coat toward his throat before he realized the exact nature of their situation. Raising his left hand he pointed his fingers toward his feet and the encircling vines, tracing runic designs in the air and muttering to himself. As he worked, his head bounced across the stones and fallen limbs littering the ground. In a matter of seconds the vines began to retreat but it was a full two minutes before they loosened their grip enough that he could scramble to his feet and start searching for Beverley, whose terrified screams were now little more than muffled, distant cries. Crashing wildly through the undergrowth, turning first left then right, it was nearly another five minutes before he quite literally stumbled over Beverley’s prone body.
Now wrapped from head to foot in a cocoon of ivy, her huge brown eyes were filled with panic and terror. Rising to his full height, Merlin pointed the palms of his hands toward each other and curved his fingers, pressing his palms toward each other as though he were squeezing a ripe melon. As he compressed the empty space between his hands the vines began to wither, first losing their strength and then, slowly, one by one, falling away to the ground until there was nothing left except a slimy brown goo mixed with the occasional withered gray leaf. As the vines lost their grip, their prisoner regained mobility, and by the time they were gone Beverley had rolled onto her side gasping for air with great, ragged breaths. Dropping to his knees, Merlin raised her head gently, laying it in his lap while cleaning the plant debris from her face.
“Are you alright?”
“Oh, God. Thank you.” Beverley flailed her hands helplessly, picking at her clothes and skin. “I couldn’t breathe. I think it was trying to choke me.” Then, finally focusing her attention on Merlin; “What the hell was that?”
“That, my dear, was a spell of protection. Just a nasty little thing Morgana installed to keep out unwanted visitors.”
Finally pulling herself upright enough to get reoriented, Beverley shook her head in disbelief. “How does she do that?”
“Never underestimate Morgana’s power; she is nearly as skilled at wizardry as I am. But believe it or not, this little trap tells me that she still doesn’t know I am alive.”
“How’s that?”
“If she even suspected that I might be here, the spell would have been many, many times more powerful.”
>
Merlin pulled Beverley to her feet, helping her pick the remaining tendrils of dead ivy from her clothes and brushing the dirt from her back where she had been pulled across the wet, loamy ground.
“Do you think there are any more surprises like that out here?” Beverley cast suspicious, fearful glances in all directions, straining to see what other bogeymen might be lurking in the night.
“I doubt it my dear, but we need to stay together and I promise to be extra vigilant.”
Leading Beverley back down the hill toward the edge of the road, Merlin was careful to steer her away from the prone forms laying only feet from the spot where he rescued her. He had only seen two of them, but there could have been more. All he could tell for sure was that the vines covered them as completely as an Egyptian mummy’s wrappings, that they were both human and that they were very, very dead.
“Did things like this happen to you and Jason while you were in Mongolia?”
Merlin leaned close, speaking softly into her ear. “Don’t ask questions to which you really don’t want to hear the answers.”
“Oh, Lord, I should never have made such a fuss about him not ringing me.”
Fifteen nerve-grinding minutes later they nearly stumbled against the fog-shrouded stone walls of Francis Dashwood’s faux monastic ruins. Merlin had already concluded it was unlikely that there would be a guard present; if one had been, it was inconceivable that he wouldn’t have come running at the sound of Beverley’s screaming. Still, there was no such thing as being too cautious. Signaling Beverley to stay where she was, he crept along the wall until he reached the entrance to the courtyard. Obscuring his image so anyone who might be in the courtyard would be unable to see him, Merlin leaned around the corner. Ahead of him all was dark, calm and fog shrouded. Apparently they were the first ones here and that, Merlin knew, would give them the element of surprise as well as the luxury of choosing the most opportune time to make their move. Returning to where Beverley stood waiting, he explained the situation and suggested that the best place from which to observe activity in the courtyard would be on the hillside directly above the cave entrance, at the top of the folly’s main wall.
