The Merlin Effect (23 page)

In a flash, Nimue vanished. In her place lay a simple sea anemone, its black tentacles as long and flowing as her hair had once been. Fixed to a rock, unable to move, it was swept downward into the chasm as the chunk gave way completely.

No sign of Nimue remained, not even a scream.

H
olding tight to Kate’s wrist, Merlin pulled her away from the hole. His cape torn, his hair disheveled, he looked more like Geoffrey than the great wizard.

He gazed at her solemnly before speaking. “You resisted the ring. That took enormous strength of will, enough to break Nimue’s hold on you. I am grateful.”

She bowed her head. “It won’t bring back my dad, though. Or the others.”

Placing his hand upon her shoulder, he said, “You did your best.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“It was enough to keep the Horn from Nimue.” Merlin then turned and walked, a bit shakily, past the flaming chariot to what remained of the throne of Merwas. There, amidst the rubble, rested the Horn itself. He carefully picked it up, watching it reflect the firelight. Then he said, with the sadness of centuries, “I have lost so much, so very much. But once again, for a brief moment at least, I hold you, Serilliant.”

And he recited:

He pivoted to face Kate. “It may make little difference to you now, but you are, from this day forward, a member of the Order of the Horn.”

“This day is probably my last,” she said somberly.

“All the more important, then, that you receive your due.” He offered her the Horn of Merlin. “Drink.”

“Me?” she sputtered.

He slipped the coral necklace over her head. “Merwas decreed,
Only those whose wisdom and strength of will are beyond question may drink from this Horn.”

“I—I don’t know if I should.”

“Perhaps you would like first to smell its special fragrance. Then you can better decide whether you want to drink.”

Hesitantly, Kate lifted the Horn’s gleaming rim to her nose. She sniffed gingerly at first, then closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

Strange sensations swirled through her. A meadowlark singing. A book opening. First morning light. Tasting fresh melon, tart and tangy. Joining hands! Pearls of dew in a lupine leaf. A winged creature, emerging from its cocoon. Warm hearth. Cold lemonade. A baby colt, struggling to stand. An infant garbling his first words. Practicing piano, finally getting it right. Tossing the pitch, starting the game. Subtle sunrise, setting fire to fields of snow. Fresh water, chilling tongue and teeth. Diving in,
splash!
Blueberry muffins, still steaming, oozing butter. A first kiss. An inspiration. A young sapling, shading the stump of a fallen elder. Shooting
stars. A dream to start the day. And, underlying all, the fragrant air of the mountaintop.

Kate opened her eyes.

“Well?”

“It’s…wonderful.”

A spare smile appeared on Merlin’s face. “Drinking will be even better.”

“I have the feeling that, when I take a drink, it will be as if my life is…starting over somehow.”

“Easier said than done,” cautioned the wizard. “But, yes, that’s the idea. After you drink, your grief will be no less than before. But your ability to make choices may be a bit greater. And if you can choose, you can create.”

Kate looked again at the gleaming Treasure. A magical Horn, a whirlpool, a strand of DNA. It seemed right that they should all possess the same spiral shape. She pondered Merlin’s words.
If you can choose, you can create.
In a way, creation itself was shaped like a spiral. A vast, continuing, unending spiral.

She moved a step nearer. “I think I understand.”

Merlin trained his eyes on her. “Understand what?”

“The power of the Horn. It’s not about living forever, stretching your life on and on like a rubber band. It’s about living
young.
Starting your life over, all the time.”

Showing no expression, Merlin said, “Go on.”

“That’s why the ship, the fish, the whirlpool, even Geoffrey—I mean you—all stay so young.” She twirled her braid, thinking. “It’s almost like a kind of…creation. The power to create your own life, to make new choices, to begin again.”

“Serilliant. Beginning.” Merlin gazed into the curling Horn. “The Emperor Merwas knew that renewed life is the
most precious kind of eternal life. For despite all the sorrows and losses of living, each new day is freshly born.”

Then the wizard gestured at the once-magnificent castle. “Come now. Take your drink, while you still can.”

Feeling the pull of the Horn’s power, Kate pursed her lips to take her first swallow. But even as she smelled its fragrance again, something made her stop.

The power to create your own life
…She remembered being a water spirit, so full of possibilities. How had Isabella put it?
All the future lies within the present.
She remembered that every cell in her body can replace itself over time. And she remembered Nimue’s ring, which would not let her make choices, would not let her be human.

She lowered the Horn.

Merlin scrutinized her. “You don’t want to drink?”

“No. Not exactly. I don’t
need
to drink.” Seeing his puzzlement, she fumbled for some way to explain. “I, well, I don’t really need the power…from somewhere else. I…already have it.”

Merlin observed her, as he played with his beard. “Wise you are, Kate. Drinking from the Horn will renew your body, but not necessarily your soul. That part is up to you. And you possess that power, here and now.” Somberly, he reflected for a moment. “But…tell me. Wouldn’t you like to live forever?”

“Sure I would. But even more, I guess, I’d like to grow. And change. Maybe the Horn, by making your body stop growing old, makes it easy to stop growing in other ways, too. Like…Nimue. Or Garlon. Or the whales.”

The wizard nodded sadly. “I feel for the whales. Their pain is as great as the ocean itself! They need something more, something beyond the power of the Horn to provide.
They need…hope. That is my wish for them. It might come from any number of sources, even something as small as an isolated act of kindness. Or it might never come at all. Time will tell.”

Hearing his voice, so much like Geoffrey’s, Kate could not resist asking a question. “All that time you were in the whirlpool, did you look like yourself or like Geoffrey?”

“Like Geoffrey, to be sure! The last thing I wanted to do was to alert Nimue that Merlin had returned. That is why, when I finally escaped from the cave, I arranged the elaborate ruse of smuggling myself on board the
Resurreccíon.
The ship, I knew, would pass near the whirlpool. So after ensuring the sailors would be saved by the whales, I sank down to the bottom—hoping, perhaps, that someday a friend of Arthur’s cause might find my clue on the ship’s manifest and follow me.”

Despite herself, Kate blushed.

Merlin straightened up proudly. “All Nimue ever suspected was that a bumbling old monk had been sucked down the whirlpool. Knowing that she watched me constantly, I remained disguised as Geoffrey so she wouldn’t get alarmed and try something…drastic. As it was, she ran out of patience before I expected.”

Kate cringed as a chunk of the ceiling slammed to the floor, spraying her with water. “So for all those years she couldn’t get in, and you couldn’t get out.”

“Not until you gave me the idea.” He smacked his lips as if remembering something tasty. “Fortunately, the ship was loaded with a good supply of…necessities.”

“As well as your little red book.”

At that moment, another tremor tore at the castle, ripping away an entire wall so that the gleaming stars of the cavern
shone down on them directly. Kate, like Merlin, barely kept her balance. As the tremor subsided, she drank in the sight of the stars.

She thought of the world above the waves she would not see again. Of the people whose voices she would not hear again. Viewing the chasm where her father and Isabella had disappeared, not far from Terry’s bloody body, she shook her head. “I only wish your little red book had some way to bring the dead back to life.”

Merlin started. “How stupid of me!”

Before she could ask what he was doing, he pawed through some rubble and snatched up the knife that had rested on the glassy table. Then he ran to Terry’s side and bent low. Ever so gently, he touched its tip to the wound in Terry’s chest.

“The knife that can heal any wound!” exclaimed Kate, comprehending at last.

“It may be too late to help,” warned Merlin. “If he has but a flicker of life still within him, the knife may revive him. But if he is gone, there is nothing more I can do.”

Kate watched Terry’s face for any sign of life, but saw none. “How long,” she asked hoarsely, “before we know?”

“It may take some time.” His expression grave, he added, “More time than we have left.” With his free hand he scratched the point of his nose in the way Geoffrey often did. Then he declared, “Escape is still possible.”

Dumbfounded, she scanned the crumbling walls of the castle. “Escape?”

“Before the eruption. But you must hurry! I would guess it is only seconds away.”

“What do we do about Terry?”

“I will stay with him.”

She realized that he meant her to go alone. “Forget it. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“You must,” the wizard insisted. “And take with you the Horn.” He glanced toward the shattered table of Treasures. “I would like to go with you.
Benedicite
, I would. But I cannot. Whether or not I can heal this young man, I might yet be able to find some way to shield the Treasures from being completely destroyed. If Arthur is ever to return, he will need them.”

She turned the Horn in her hand. “But this is one of the Treasures, too.”

Merlin shook his white head. “That may be true, but I have learned one thing in finding it, losing it, and finding it again. The Horn Serilliant deserves a life of its own. Its power is too great to be locked away, hidden from all the world. If it is to be one of Arthur’s Treasures, then Arthur must one day find it himself.”

“It should be kept somewhere safe. So someone like Nimue—or her sea demons—doesn’t get it.”

“It should go with you.”

She looked from the Horn to Terry’s still-motionless body. “I’m not leaving without you!”

Merlin gazed at her soulfully. “You must try to save yourself. That is what your father would want.” He lowered his eyes. “And what I want.”

“No.”

“I will miss you, Kate Gordon.”

“But I wouldn’t have any idea what to do with the Horn!”

A low rumble shook the floor, almost drowning out Merlin’s reply. “It is up to you to choose its rightful home.”

He reached, it seemed, to touch her cheek, but never did. A jagged hole opened in the floor beneath her. She dropped into darkness.

W
ith a splash, she plunged into the water.

The lake felt both warmer and darker than before. It stung her eyes. Murky spirals of sediment swirled around her like miniature maelstroms. Fighting her way back up, she wished she could still swim like a fish, moving with her spine instead of her limbs, breathing with gills instead of lungs, craving only water instead of air.

Bursting above the surface, she gasped for breath. The air reeked of sulphur, burning her throat. Clouds of mist obscured any view of the castle, let alone the starry cavern. Rumbling surrounded her, growing louder by the second, punctuated by the sound of the castle collapsing. Every few seconds, pieces of its structure dropped into the lake.

She wondered whether she would die by drowning or by boiling in the lava that she knew would soon spew forth, turning this undersea lake into a pot of boiling stew.
I’d rather drown
, she thought dismally.
It’s quicker.

A sudden chill gripped her. Like an eclipse passing over the sun, the chill extinguished her own light and warmth. She shivered, doubly so, for she knew what had caused the
change. And she knew that there was one way to die even worse than boiling in lava.

She whirled around to face the sea demon.

Murderous teeth exposed, the huge sea demon drew nearer. Slithering through the water, it approached steadily, but relaxedly, as if savoring its moment of final revenge.

The Horn. It wants the Horn.
Anger flared inside her, pushing back the chill. The Horn belonged to the world, as Merlin had said. Not to a demon.

She flipped a splash of water. “Try and get it,” she taunted. “Just try.”

The sea demon halted its advance, a look of sudden doubt on its face. Kate thought at first that her spurt of defiance had worked. Then she realized that another creature, even larger than the sea demon, was approaching from the opposite side.

Spinning her head, she found herself staring straight into a massive face. A face she had seen only once before, at equally close range.

It was the face of a whale.

The great creature spouted, spraying her with humid breath. Abruptly, he rolled to one side, sending a wave washing over her and his own barnacled back. Waving his pectoral fins aggressively, he made a sharp clicking that echoed and reechoed in the underwater cavern.

Great
, thought Kate, blinking the stinging salt from her eyes.
A sea demon on one side, an angry whale on the other.

Then the whale fell still. He watched her intently, his round eye not wavering. Although Kate could not be sure, he seemed to regard her with something other than malice. Something more like…recognition.

At that moment the sea demon released a deep, fierce growl. She felt cold again, colder than before. She turned to see the sea demon swimming toward her again.

Another wave rolled over her as the whale, bending his enormous back, dived into the lake. As he submerged, he raised his tail high into the air—a tail whose fluke had been recently severed.