The Merlin Effect (5 page)

She was badly injured, but alive. Emrys carried her in his arms all the way back to the castle, singing continually to ease her pain. Upon seeing them, Merwas raced to join them. Although the old emperor worried how a shark had managed to enter the realm, he chose not to dwell on such concerns, overcome with relief that his dear Wintonwy was safe. In gratitude for saving her life, he asked Emrys to make a wish—any wish.

“To spend the rest of my days at your court,” answered Emrys without pause.

“Then you long no more for eternal life?”

“No, my king. I long only to live my life anew at Wintonwy’s side.”

Bowing his head, the emperor declared: “If my daughter agrees, your wish shall be granted.”

Soon the castle came alive with the announcement of their wedding. While Wintonwy prepared for the ceremony, Emrys labored to make a wedding gift of unrivaled elegance. On the eve of their marriage, he unveiled it, a drinking horn whose beauty surpassed anything he had ever made. It was shaped like a spiraling shell, and it glimmered with the light of stars seen through the mist. And, remembering his mountain home, Emrys endowed the drinking horn with a special 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. He named it
Serilliant
, meaning
Beginning
in the mer people’s tongue.

Emrys offered it to Wintonwy. “I give you this Horn, the most lovely of my Treasures, as a symbol of our love.”

“Our love,” she replied, “is all we shall ever need to drink.”

The Emperor Merwas then came forward. “I have decided to give to Serilliant a special power, the greatest I have to bestow.”

“What is this power, my father?” asked Wintonwy.

“It is…a kind of eternal life, but not the kind most mortals seek. No, I give to this Horn a power far more precious, far more mysterious.”

“Can you tell us more?”

Merwas lifted the Horn high above his head. “I can tell you that the Horn’s new power springs from the secret of the newly born sea, the secret we mer people have guarded for so long.”

As he spoke, the Horn swiftly filled with a luminous liquid, as colorful as melted rainbows. Then Merwas declared, “Only those whose wisdom and strength of will are beyond question may drink from this Horn. For it holds the power to—”

Merwas never finished his sentence. The castle gates flew open and Nimue, leading an army of sea demons, drove down on the helpless mer people. The sea demons, growling wrathfully, slew anyone who stood before them.

As Nimue aimed her black dagger at Merwas himself, Emrys raised the sword of light in wrath and charged. But just before he could strike her down, Nimue held up one vaporous hand. On it rested the ring that Emrys himself had once worn.

“Look into thissss ring,” commanded Nimue. The ring flashed with a deep ruby light.

Emrys froze.

“Now,” she continued. “Drop your ssssword.”

Unable to resist the power of the ring, Emrys shuddered, then dropped the sword of light.

“Good.” The enchantress laughed. “I could kill you, but I will not becausssse you have been quite usssseful to me. You wounded the sssspider monsssster, allowing me at lasssst to enter the realm of Shaa.”

Emrys wanted to pounce on her, but he could not find the strength to move.

“Go,” ordered Nimue.

Haltingly, Emrys turned and left the castle.

When at last the invaders departed, both Merwas and his beloved Wintonwy lay dead. The few mer people who survived fled the castle, leaving it abandoned forever. They scattered far and wide, becoming the most elusive creatures in all the sea.

Yet Nimue’s triumph was not complete. The Horn somehow disappeared during the battle, and neither she nor her sea demons could discover its whereabouts.

Emrys, stricken with grief, eventually made his way back to his alpine lair. There he resumed the life of a recluse, but never again did he create any works. He did not even try. For the rest of his life he bore the pain of the love he had found and so soon lost. Worse yet, he bore the pain of knowing that but for his own folly, fair Wintonwy would still be alive.

W
hat a sad story,” said Kate, swaying with the rocking of the boat. “But what does it have to do with Merlin? Or the sunken ship?”

Her father poured hot milk into the mugs and handed one to her. “I told you that the story of the Horn has two parts.”

“You mean…Serilliant…became the Horn of Merlin?”

“Yes! Merlin, in his search for the Thirteen Treasures, finally found it, the most precious Treasure of all. He kept it with him for a time—though for some reason he didn’t take it to the Glass House with the others. And then, somehow, he lost it.”

“Lost it? How?”

“Nobody knows.”

Kate’s eyes fastened on her father.

“Losing the Horn must have been a terrible blow. So terrible that I’m convinced it finally killed him.”

She squeezed some of the water from her braid, then leaned forward. “So what happened to the Horn?”

“I’ve been trying to answer that question for years.”

She watched his face, anxious but determined. “And you think finding the
Resurreccíon
will help you do that.”

“That and more.”

Clasping her mug with both hands, she inhaled the rich, chocolate aroma. The memory of the whirlpool’s icy waters now seemed far away. “Dad,” she asked quietly, “what is this all about?”

He ran a hand through his bristly hair. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. We’re almost out of time. And unless I can get a sonic picture that shows something, this whole project is as sunk as the
Resurreccíon.
”

“Maybe Isabella can talk the government into an extension.”

“I doubt it,” he said dispiritedly. “She did phenomenally well to get us a permit in the first place. They have strict rules against people coming down here, you know. Whirlpools and killer shoals don’t fit the tourist paradise they’re trying to promote. It was only because of Isabella’s stature as a scientist that they let us in at all—and then only for a month, with no extensions possible. Still, I was certain that would be enough time to find some hard evidence about the ship. Then, with the prospect of all that gold bullion, they’d be sure to change their tune and grant an extension. But here we are, with just three days left.”

Jim set aside his mug and stood up, his frame almost filling the cabin. He stepped to the counter and punched a few commands onto the computer keyboard. With a scowl, he studied the screen. “Nothing yet. We’ll give it just a bit longer, and if there’s still nothing, we’ll fix up the buoy and try again.”

“After you tell me what’s going on.”

Returning to his chair, he said, “All right, you win. But first, you’ve got to promise me
never
to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. Not even your mother, not even Isabella. The risks are too great. Do you understand?”

Kate swallowed, but not her cocoa. “Yes.”

Jim stared into his mug for a moment before speaking. “For starters, if the Horn of Merlin could be recovered, it would put to rest all the doubts about whether Merlin himself really existed.”

“But how?”

“There is only one Horn of Merlin, and its life was so closely intertwined with the wizard’s, at least for a time, that from the standpoint of history they have become inseparable. If one existed, so did the other. And if the Horn still exists, it will be simple to recognize—not so much by its spiral shape and rainbow fluid as by its power.”

“You really believe it has some sort of magical power?”

“I do.”

She scrutinized him. “This is about more than just history, isn’t it?”

“Right you are. We’re talking about the Horn of Merlin! Many people—and many forces beyond our comprehension—would go to enormous lengths to get it if they knew it still existed.”

Kate looked at him skeptically. “You mean like that enchantress Nimue?”

He nodded gravely. “They could have human forms. Or others. I’m talking about forces that thrive on pain, injustice, chaos. It makes me shudder just to think what they might do with the Horn…although the true nature of its power remains unclear. Merlin must have known what it was, but he never shared the secret with anyone else.”

“Emperor Merwas, in your story, said the Horn’s power had something to do with eternal life.”

“He said it was
a kind of eternal life, but not the kind most mortals seek.
”

She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t ask me. But it does give you an idea of the magnitude we’re dealing with.”

Swallowing some more cocoa, Kate couldn’t shake the feeling that her father knew more than he was revealing. Yet she felt reluctant to press him too hard, since he was being so uncharacteristically open with her. Better to try an indirect approach.

“There are lots of legends about the Horn, aren’t there?”

“Plenty,” he responded. “In the centuries since it disappeared, the Horn of Merlin has popped up in all manner of folklore, all over the world. I’m up to thirty-seven languages, and I’ve been looking hard for only a few years. But none of the references says anything specific about the Horn’s power. It’s always
the mysterious Horn, the marvelous Horn, the wondrous Horn
, and the like. And none of the references talks about the Horn actually appearing again. None…except one.”

“Which one?”

Peering straight at her hazel green eyes, he said, “That reference came from right here. It was an old ballad, known only in the fishing villages in this part of Baja, about the wreck of the
Resurreccíon.
It was Isabella who first told me about it, more than three years ago. Over coffee in the faculty lounge. She thought it was just another bit of Merlin trivia, having no idea that the reference to the Horn was so unusual. But I checked her translation, and there it was.”

Kate took a final slurp of cocoa. “Can you remember how it goes?”

“Can I remember? I haven’t been able to get it out of my head now for years.” He cleared his throat. “Starts like this:

Kate listened, feeling the boat surging on the swells.
“The Horn that Merlin lost.”

“Yes, but note that it says
the rumors said.
Not a very reliable reference! It could mean that the Horn was on board, or that the ship was destined somehow to encounter the Horn, or something else entirely.”

“The
Resurreccíon
has plenty of its own legends, doesn’t it?”

“More than its share,” he agreed. “You’ve got to remember, not many sunken ships are surrounded by so much controversy. Some people think that it never existed, or if it did, that it carried nothing of value. But if you ask the villagers around here, they’ll swear it went down off the coast, although they can’t give you any proof. And a few historians agree, saying that when it set sail from Manila it was carrying enough treasure to wipe out the entire war debt of Imperial Spain. That’s more than ninety million dollars in today’s currency.”

“So why hasn’t anybody tried to find it before?”

“I guess no one was crazy enough. First, it’s hard to raise money to pay for an expedition when the very existence of the ship is in doubt. Second, the ocean bottom is deep around here, averaging half a mile. Third, there is the matter of the whirlpool. I don’t need to elaborate on that.”

“No,” she said weakly.

“I will say this, though,” he continued. “The whirlpool itself has been rather elusive. Since it’s almost always covered with mist, and since these waters are so dangerous for sailing, very few people have ever actually seen it. Or have lived to tell about it.”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

He gazed at the steamy window of the cabin. “Come to think of it, the shroud of mist is a little like Avalon. It was the mist more than anything else that made Avalon seem to King Arthur less a real place than an enchanted dream, less part of his own kingdom than the Kingdom of Faërie.”

When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “Some of the villagers had another name for the whirlpool besides
Remolino de la Muerté.
They called it
el lugar donde empieza el viento
, which means
the place where the wind begins.
”

Despite her visceral feelings about the whirlpool, Kate found herself slightly intrigued. “That makes me think of the realm of Shaa. You know,
the place where the sea begins.
”

“Sounds similar, I admit,” said her father, adopting a professorial tone. “But just because two things sound alike doesn’t make them related. It’s like a billion other coincidences throughout history.”

“But you jumped on a coincidence when you heard Isabella’s ballad,” objected Kate. “You put this whole project together on the basis of one little reference to the Horn.”

“Not quite,” Jim answered. “The ballad was my first clue, to be sure. But I didn’t get really serious about this thing until I discovered something else.”

“What else?”

“You might recall I went to Spain a couple of years ago for a conference. Well, I took the opportunity to search through the Spanish archives in Seville, hoping to find something that would help me determine whether the
Resurreccíon
really existed. Eventually, I did turn up something—although, strangely, it was filed in the wrong place.”