The Merlin Effect (6 page)

“What was it?”

“Some papers that appeared to be the original ship’s manifest for an unnamed galleon that sailed from Manila in 1547. When I checked through all the details, it matched to a tee the other surviving descriptions of the
Resurreccíon.
There was one thing odd about it, though.”

A large wave splashed against the hull, jostling them both. Kate leaned closer. “Odd?”

“Yes. Along with all the other items on the list—gold and
silver, jewelry and tapestries, spices and ivory—there was some kind of strange marking. Like nothing I’d ever seen before.”

“What did it look like?”

He took his clipboard and drew a design. Tearing off the page, he handed it to her.

“Like this.”

Kate puzzled over the mysterious marking. “Somebody’s signature?”

“More like a code,” her father replied. “Look at that spiral in the middle.”

She looked up at his lanky form swaying with the movement of the boat. “A code for what?”

“That’s what I wondered, too. I tried to find a way to decipher it, not really expecting I’d succeed. The trail got incredibly complicated, and I got involved with other projects, but something kept me from giving up completely.

“Then one day I was doing some research on a little-known language that is said to have been developed by some of the followers of Merlin in medieval times. They were a strange bunch, many of them doubling as monks, and they had some sort of secret society. Their language is related to Ogham, an ancient Druid alphabet, with some important twists. Suddenly I realized that it looked a lot like the marking on the manifest. So, for the heck of it, I tried to translate it.”

She twirled the page in her hands. “And?”

Jim turned the page right side up. “It said…
Serilliant.
”

“The Horn? So it really was on the ship?”

Jim stroked his chin. “It could be nothing more than a hoax, a medieval prank of some kind. Yet, if it’s true, and if the Horn could be recovered…”

As his words trailed off into the sound of splashing waves, Kate felt again there was something else, something about the Horn, that he was not telling. She folded the page and slid it into the pocket of her wet cotton shirt on the floor. Still, what did it matter? He had told her more than anyone else about his dreams. Even if they were destined not to come true, he had shared them. With her.

“Dad, what did Merlin look like? Sometimes I try to picture him in my mind, but it’s hard.”

“How do you picture him?”

“Tall,” she answered. “Even taller than you. With a bent, pointed hat that made him look even taller. Straight, white hair, flying in all directions, like hay. Probably a big wart on his nose.”

“That’s the archetypal form, all right. But the evidence suggests he looked different than you think.”

“No pointed hat?”

“No pointed hat. The only two things he wore constantly were the Horn—for the years he had it—and the blue cape, the one decorated with stars and planets that he used to bring light to dark places.”

Kate ran her finger along the rim of her mug, considering the image. “You said losing the Horn killed him in the end. How did he die, anyway?”

“He was entombed in a cave by the sea, somewhere on the British Isle of Bardsey. That’s about all we know, that and the date: 547
A.D
.”

“Hey, that would have been exactly one thousand years before the
Resurreccíon
set sail.”

“So it would,” acknowledged the historian. “Another coincidence, no doubt.”

“What happened to him?”

“Most people think he sealed himself in the cave permanently because he was so distraught at losing the Horn. Yet that’s by no means clear. My own view is that he was sealed in the cave by someone else, someone who wanted him out of the way forever.”

“Who?”

“His greatest rival, who tried for years to steal his power, and finally, the Horn.”

“Who was he?”

“She.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Yes. I mean Nimue.”

“But…couldn’t he stop her?”

Jim turned toward the window and the moonlit waters beyond. “Apparently not. Perhaps Merlin was so angry at himself for losing the Horn and jeopardizing Arthur’s return that he allowed Nimue to finish him off, as the ultimate punishment. Perhaps he had grown arrogant while he had the Horn and underestimated her strength. Or perhaps…she had some help.”

“Help?”

“Some sources indicate that Garlon, a legendary seaman of the time who seemed to have had a personal grudge against Merlin—I have no idea why—teamed up with Nimue.”

Kate sighed heavily. “She and Merlin must have really hated each other.”

“That’s an understatement. I imagine, though, that beneath their bitter rivalry, there was some mutual respect. Maybe, even, a kind of admiration. After all, they did share
some things in common, like their fascination for the sea.”

“Sounds like that’s about all they shared.”

“I wish I knew! You have no idea how many conflicting theories there are surrounding Merlin. For example, there’s a mountain of good evidence that he died in the cave. Yet there are some people who still maintain that he descended into the sea at the end of his life. They point to an old ballad:

“Searching still in mystery,”
repeated Kate. “For the Horn, I guess.”

“I guess.”

“You said Merlin was fascinated by the sea.”

“That’s right. He spent a good deal of time there. The name Merlin itself comes from the old Welsh word
Myrrdin
, meaning ‘Sea Fortress.’”

A vague recollection stirred in her. “And wasn’t the first name of Britain something that meant ‘Merlin’s Isle’?”

Jim’s eyes gleamed.
“Clas Myrrdin.”

Placing her mug on the counter next to a pile of printouts, Kate thought of the others, probably still hard at work back at camp. “How did you get Isabella and Terry to come along on this project? They’re not interested in Merlin.”

“Not in the least! It’s a marriage of convenience, that’s all. Our interests don’t overlap one bit. Isabella is studying one fish in particular that was supposed to be long extinct, but was found recently in the catch of a local fisherman.”

“And Terry?”

“I didn’t really know him when I asked him to join us, which was risky. But I knew he is a leader in sonic imaging technology, even if he is only in his twenties. He was the first person to merge sonar, much like whales use to communicate underwater, with the same thermal sensing devices used by satellites. I thought, naively, that getting him meant getting to use his equipment. Was I ever wrong. He’s been using it to study the unusual volcanic activity off this coast. And he’s—”

“A total jerk.” She touched the black cable with her bare foot. “Too bad you can’t just get Isabella to take you down in the submersible. Then you wouldn’t need to use Terry’s stuff to get a picture.”

“She guards the submersible with her life! Being the director of the Institute’s deep-water research program is not nearly as important to her as being the submersible’s chief pilot. And she’s reluctant to take it down anywhere near the whirlpool, for fear it might be damaged. So unless I can come up with something very convincing, she won’t risk it.”

Giving the counter a pat, Jim rose from his chair. “It’s time.” He punched the commands into the computer once again, then waited.

Nothing.

Lips pinched, he shrugged. “Looks like I struck out.” He turned toward the door.

“Look,” exclaimed Kate, pointing to the screen. Slowly, a hazy image was beginning to form.

He whirled around. Instantly, he activated the printer. For several agonizing seconds, they waited for the hard copy to emerge. At length, a single sheet of paper edged its way out of the printer.

He snatched it up, his face alight, and studied the hazy image. “It’s there!” he announced buoyantly.

Kate took the paper, and her heart sank. “It doesn’t look like anything,” she lamented. “Just a weird gray blob.”

“You could call it that,” agreed her father. “Or you could call it an underexposed picture of the area below the whirlpool. Here, look closely. Imagine it with five times the resolution, if I had been able to make a complete image. Can you see those three lines? Could be masts. See? Mizzenmast, mainmast, and foremast, with the mainmast broken. And maybe, just maybe, the hull of a ship, viewed from an angle of about forty-five degrees.”

She shook her head.

“And look here,” the historian went on. “That patch, could it be…sails?” Poring over the picture, he muttered, “No…no. They couldn’t still be intact after four hundred fifty years! The pressure alone down there would have ripped them to shreds.” He focused again on Kate. “Forget the cocoa, we should be drinking champagne! There’s something down there, no doubt about it.”

“If you say so,” she answered uncertainly. “Are you sure it’s not just a smudge?”

“I admit it’s not clear enough to prove anything. It does fire the imagination, though. Even this quality isn’t bad for three thousand feet down! I’ll give Terry this much. He knows his stuff.” His expression darkened. “But he didn’t count on the fact that the buoys’ sonic beams seem to attract the local whales. It was probably one of them who wreaked havoc on the buoy.”

Kate cleared her throat. “Dad, there’s something—”

“I still can’t believe it,” he interrupted, tossing the page on the counter. “By itself, this picture is worthless. Just a
smudge, as you said. But a longer shot is going to show us something. Maybe something amazing. I just need to hook up the transmitter dish, and we’ll find out.”

As he started for the door, she caught him by the pant leg. “Dad, I’ve got to tell you something.”

“Tell me after I reconnect the dish.”

Rising under the shroud of blankets, she stood before him. “The dish isn’t there.”

He grunted as if he had been punched in the chest. “Not there?”

“That’s right,” she said tentatively. “I saw it…dragged off by a whale.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“No whale could have done that. Not unless he had hands to untie the net.”

He reached for the door handle, when Kate placed her own hand on his.

“The whale didn’t untie it,” she confessed. “I did.”

He stared at her in amazement. “You what?”

“And I broke the dish, too. Trying to rescue the whale! He was all tangled up in the net, and I thought he would die for sure unless I did something.”

“Did something!” roared Jim. “Kate, how could you be so stupid?”

He flung open the door and pushed past her. She watched helplessly as he strode to the stern, almost tripping on the mass of cables dangling from the metal stand in the middle of the deck.

He leaned over the railing by the buoy and began fishing for any sign of the nylon net or the lost transmitter dish. The splashes grew louder, as did his cursing.

Kate turned away, unwilling to watch. Angrily, she threw her wet braid over her back. She was certain that her father’s cherished project was dead. As dead as their brief moment of closeness. And she was certain that she had killed them both.

G
rounded from using the kayak, Kate found her only solace exploring the shoreline along the promontory, especially when low tide unveiled a band of beach, a hundred feet wide, stretching between the black lava rocks and the rim of the sea. On one such foray, she pulled off her sandals and loped along the sand, her feet slapping into puddles and sinking into soft depressions.

Her eye caught a tidal pool, and she kneeled to examine this miniature ocean, frightening an orange crab who skittered away sideways. Shoots of eel grass waved in the water, undulating, sheltering the tiny blue fish who zipped in and out of the comely groves. Snail tracks flowed like ski trails down the sloping stones.

Spying a gnarled barnacle as big as her fist, Kate reached into the pool to grasp it when a small explosion burst in the water. She jerked back her hand as a sting ray lifted off the sandy bottom and floated to the far end of the pool. With a mixture of fear and fascination, she watched it move, flapping in slow motion like an underwater bird.

Then, from beyond the mouth of the lagoon, from behind the bank of fog resting on the water, she heard distant voices wailing. Eerily strange, yet hauntingly familiar, the songs of the whales filled the air for a few seconds, then died away.

Kate thought back to when she and her father had returned to camp in the
Skimmer
two days ago. No sooner had they dropped anchor than Isabella had met them on the beach and informed Jim that, despite all her pleas, the government had rejected her request for an extension. In three short days, she had said, they would have to leave the lagoon.

An explosion of activity, and of tempers, had ensued. After much ranting on both sides, Jim had finally convinced Terry to help him attempt to take one more picture. The young geologist had agreed, although he had expressed serious doubts it would be possible without the missing transmitter dish, and even more serious doubts they would find anything at all below the whirlpool. He had made it clear that he would cooperate only because the group’s sole hope of remaining past the deadline would be to produce a recognizable picture of the sunken ship. As they had set to work, Isabella had sequestered herself in her makeshift lab, trying to complete her own experiments.