The Merlin Effect (24 page)

Kate bit her lip, as a rush of memory flooded her. She saw once more the helpless animal, golden in the moonlight, struggling to stay alive. She heard his mournful cry of death, felt his flailing tail.
So he did survive, after all.

Facing the sea demon once more, her brief sense of celebration vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Worse, she could no longer summon her courage, or even her anger. All she felt was fear. Fear as cold and deep as the eyes of Nimue.

Fast approaching, the sea demon growled vengefully. Its immense jaws opened, ready to devour its prey and claim its prize.

At that instant, a wave lifted around Kate. Then she realized with a shock that it was no wave. A gigantic mouth rose above the surface, and she was in its center. As swiftly as it carried her upward, the mouth closed around her.

Everything went black.

Her first impulse was to fight. Against the lack of light and air, against the fringes of baleen that pushed at her from all sides, against the fear of being eaten alive.

Futilely, she struggled. Countless rows of baleen, like the bristles of vast brushes, pressed tightly against her. She could hardly move, hardly breathe. She had been swallowed, like Jonah. Swallowed by a whale.

Then, all at once, it came clear. Like the sailors of an ancient ship, she was being borne by a whale who wanted to save her. Yet this time no land was near. And this time something else would pursue them. She ceased struggling, working her way into a small pocket of air above the whale’s tongue. For now, at least, she could breathe, though the air
stank of undigested krill. Her feeling of dread only deepened.

The whale’s angle changed sharply from vertical to horizontal. He dropped back to the water with a loud splash. In another instant he was diving again, bearing his human passenger.

A desperate race ensued, one that Kate could see only in her mind’s eye. Beyond the powerful thumping of the whale’s heart, beyond the constant whipping of his tail, she could hear the enraged growling of the sea demon, and beyond that, the ever-increasing rumble of the impending eruption.

For minutes that seemed like hours, the whale sped onward, swimming on a level keel. Then, unmistakably, the growling drew nearer, even as the chill in Kate’s bones grew stronger. A wrenching turn threw her hard against the whale’s jaws. The growling receded slightly.

The whale raced through the depths. More and more often, the pumping of his tail would slow for several strokes before speeding up again. Kate could almost feel his growing exhaustion. She wondered how long he could keep this up, how long before the sea demon’s own jaws would tear into them both.

She tried to picture where they might be, recalling visions of the cavern, the coral jungle, the undersea stars, the ruins of the watery castle. All the while, the volcanic rumbling around them swelled louder.

All of a sudden, the whale veered upward. Kate slid further down his titanic tongue, moist and reeking of krill. She realized they must be climbing back up through the abyss. She could only hope that no spiderlike monster would be waiting for them at the entrance. To the rear, the sea
demon’s growling grew louder. Faster and faster beat the heart of the whale. Faster and faster beat Kate’s own.

Was he going to try to carry her all the way to the surface? Even if they made it, how could they possibly stop the sea demon from getting them as well as the Horn? Fears rolled through her mind, one following the next, like waves on the beach.

Then came a new fear, more potent than all the rest. Her air was running out! She gasped, or tried to gasp. Panic seared her brain. She needed more air, needed it
now.
She could not breathe!

Her head started throbbing. Silently, she screamed. Her limbs and chest began to go numb. A shadow darkened her consciousness, made it hard to think. Hard to remember. Anything.

The shadow consumed her. She lay still.

Her head drooped a little, only as much as the fringes of baleen would allow. Yet that was just enough to bring her face near the curling Horn hanging from her neck.

The fragrance, the feeling, surged through her once more. She opened her eyes. She breathed again.

Her father’s first description of Serilliant came back to her, as though he were speaking right in her ear.
Emrys endowed it with a virtue. Anyone who held it near could smell the fragrant air of the mountaintop, even if he did so at the bottom of the sea.
She brought the Horn closer, inhaling gratefully.

With a lurch, the young whale swung sideways. He was swimming horizontally again, his tail working frantically. He was not heading for the surface after all. Where then was he going?

The rumbling rose to a crescendo. Though she could no longer hear the wrathful growling, she still could feel the
creeping chill. She knew the sea demon was almost on top of them.

The whale changed course again. Now he was turning in tighter and tighter circles. He seemed to be spiraling downward. As though he were entering the whirling wall of…

In an ear-shattering blast, the sea floor erupted. The force of the explosion knocked the whale savagely, tossing him about like a tiny seed in a gale.

Then, with terrible suddenness, his jaws opened. Out spilled Kate.

S
he landed, dizzy and disoriented, on a hard surface. She could feel the Horn, still tied around her neck.

Half stunned, she stretched out her arms. A wooden deck! Could it be? She sat bolt upright. Her eyes viewed the ragged sails, the iron cannons, the weblike rigging. Her lungs drank the misty, sulphurous air.

In the next instant, several things happened at once. Things that convinced her that she had indeed returned to the
Resurreccíon
, that she was indeed alive.

The ocean floor shuddered, heaved and broke apart. Streams of molten lava and superheated gases burst into the water, hissing and roaring like thousands of turbines. The
Resurreccíon
rocked and pitched as if caught in a ferocious storm, forcing her to cling to the rigging to keep from flying overboard.

At the same time, the whirlpool slowed dramatically and contracted, bringing the whirling wall within a few feet of the ship. Curtains of water rained down on the deck.

As the whirlpool contracted, Kate caught sight of a gray
streak circling in the vortex. The whale! Suddenly she understood the final few seconds of her wild ride. In those sharp, successive turns he had entered the whirlpool; in that downward spiral he had moved into its spinning core. Then, to keep her out of the sea demon’s reach, the whale had hurled her onto the deck.

With a pang, she recalled Terry’s prediction that no living creature could survive the whirlpool unless it slowed down significantly. She wished she could tell him that he had been right. And, with deeper regret, she thought of how much her father would have loved to see this very ship. Even lashed by such a raging storm. Even for an instant. Even if the slowing whirlpool would soon collapse on itself, drowning the ship and anyone aboard under an ocean of water.

Then she glimpsed, near to the whale in the spinning wall of water, the blurred, twisted form of the sea demon. The sight made her cringe. She had eluded those jaws, at least for now. But what of the whale, who had given his all for the small chance she might be spared? There was no way she could possibly help him. She could only clutch the rigging and watch, water pouring down on top of her.

At that moment a cluster of new shapes in the whirlpool caught her attention. She could not be sure what they were, or whether she had really seen them spin past. Yet they seemed to be there, grappling with the sea demon, where they had not been only a split second before. And the sea demon seemed to be locked in battle, lashing out at these strange creatures that combined the bodies of people with the bodies of fish.

An enormous wave struck the hull, pitching the ship to one side. Water flowed under the ship, dislodging it from the sandy bottom. Simultaneously, the whirlpool slowed substantially,
and then—for the briefest fragment of a heartbeat—it stopped spinning altogether.

In that instant, time itself froze. The whirlpool did not move, the ship did not pitch, Kate did not breathe. Her only sensation was the certainty of imminent death.

Then, just before the sea came crashing down upon her, the whirlpool started rotating again. Yet this time, something was different. At first she could not pinpoint precisely what had changed.

In a flash she comprehended. The whirlpool was turning
in the opposite direction.
Wrenched by the force of the volcanic eruption, the whirlpool’s torque had reversed itself.

More water flooded underneath the ship, surging, pushing, lifting. And then a strange phenomenon occurred.

The ship began to rise.

Like a corkscrew that reverses and lifts upward, the whirlpool twisted toward the sky rather than the ocean floor. Higher and higher it carried the ship, in a slow and stately spiral, climbing gradually to the surface.

Kate’s heart leaped. Might she actually see land again? Might she actually bear Merlin’s Horn to safety? She craned her neck to look at the swelling circle of light above. Pastel pink and gold painted the sky. A new day was dawning.

Without warning, a burly arm reached out and tore the Horn from her neck, snapping the coral necklace in two. She stared, aghast, refusing to believe what she saw.

“So,” sneered Garlon, standing before her on the deck. “Did you think you could escape me that easily?”

“Give it back!” she demanded, releasing her hold on the rigging. “It doesn’t belong to you.”

The sea captain laughed raucously. “The Horn belongs to whoever has it! And I intend to keep it for a long, long time.”

“Don’t, please. King Arthur will—”

“Never see it!” He laughed again, wiping his nose on his shirt. “Nor will my brother, the great Merlin. He is the stupid one, after all! So stupid he won’t even leave a castle that is falling in.”

“Merlin’s not stupid,” retorted Kate. “He just cares about others.”

“Better to be alive,” answered Garlon. With that, he lifted the Treasure toward his face. He gazed at it in satisfaction, twirling it in his hands. He seemed captivated by the golden light playing on its surface, light that grew stronger with every turn of the spiraling ship.

Suddenly he lurched violently, tackled from behind. The Horn slipped from his grasp and skated across the deck, coming to rest by a case of cannonballs.

Kate rolled out of her tackle and crawled madly toward it. But Garlon grabbed her by the calf and yanked her backward. Raging, he picked her up and shook her as though she were a rag doll.

“I should have broken your neck long ago,” he fumed.

Just then the first fragile ray of sunlight, reflected off the brass door latch to the captain’s quarters, touched his brow. Though a more gentle blow could not be devised, it seemed to strike him like a hammer. He staggered under the impact.

Nimue’s curse
, realized Kate, though she could not tell whether Garlon had felt the effect of the curse or merely his fear of it.

Frantically, Garlon threw her to the deck and ran to the Horn. He snatched it up and brought it to his face, ready to drink.

A
t that instant, the ship burst above the waves. It began to circle the rim of the whirlpool, buoyed by the water rising through the funnel.

Garlon’s eyes, so like his brother’s and yet so different, danced with victory. Even as he raised the Horn to his lips, he seemed poised to release a long-awaited cheer.

Then his face contorted in a spasm of uncertainty, evolving slowly into terror. He dropped the Horn as his body convulsed, falling to the deck. A subtle perfume of apple blossoms blew past. The ship’s bell tolled one time, echoing eerily. Garlon looked at Kate in horror, started to cry out, then vanished into the salty air.

The dead will die
…Kate recalled the final words of the ballad, as she stared at the spot.

She glanced toward the east. The orange sun had barely begun to peek over the horizon. She lifted herself to her feet, only to witness a staggering sight.

Drawn upward by the reversed spiral of the whirlpool, an enormous volume of water lifted like a great wall around the
Resurreccíon.
This circular tsunami, spinning slowly along with the ship, raised itself to a great height. It blocked the ascending sun, covering Kate and her vessel in shadow.

For a long moment, the towering wall of water hung there, ringing the ancient ship. Kate felt sure it would collapse any second, smashing the galleon to splinters. And she hardly cared if it did, now that Garlon had been destroyed. For the briny air of the surface reminded her more of what she had lost than of what she had won.

Collapse it did, but gently, smoothly. The wall of water melted into the sea, while the whirlpool, its power spent at last, started to merge with the prevailing currents of the Pacific. As the volcanic rifts far below finally quieted, giving the ocean floor a new geography, the whirlpool itself came to rest, returning the ocean surface to its geography of old. In a matter of minutes, the waves grew calm.

Remolino de la Muerté
was no more.

Kate scanned the expanse of water, deep green with flecks of gold, surrounding the ship. The sun, now well above the horizon, beamed down on her warmly. Yet, for her, this was a day without a dawn, a day when the sun did not rise, either for her or for those she had lost beneath the waves.

No longer supported by the surging water of the whirlpool, the ship floated like a stick of driftwood, jostled by every wave. Kate reached for the Horn, lying near her on the deck. Again she studied its lustrous surface, its radiant liquid, its spiral design. And again she heard the voice of Merlin, saying,
It is up to you to choose its rightful home.