Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,37
“You know? Druid and wanderer. Healer and bard.”
Gray snorted. “I know who Merlin is.”
“Glad you’ve heard of me then.”
“But you’re not actually him!”
“Who else would I be?”
Isis shook her head. The way he’d appeared from nowhere, here among the trees, he did seem kind of supernatural. Except the unwashed smell coming off him – a pungent mix of sweat and woodsmoke – didn’t seem very mystical.
“Merlin’s just made-up,” she said. “And if he wasn’t he died a thousand years ago, so you can’t be him.”
“The king is dead, long live the king,” said the young man. “Merlin is dead, long live Merlin.”
Gray look puzzled, then said, “You mean it’s a title? Like the way being king passes onto the next person?”
Merlin made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger. “Peeeow,” he said, shooting at Gray.
“But the original Merlin was in the eighth century or whenever, so you’d have to be…” Isis paused, counting in her head, “… about the fiftieth Merlin. At least! How did you get even chosen?”
Merlin shrugged. “I just knew it was me.”
Isis and Gray exchanged a look, but Gray said, “My dad knows this man who says he’s an alien-human hybrid. I suppose being Merlin isn’t any weirder.”
Merlin smiled through his beard. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He paused, seeming to examine them both. “Look, you should be careful. An ambulance would take a long time getting in here if you broke a leg or whatever. Take the path instead of climbing, all right?”
“It was Isis’s idea,” muttered Gray. “She wants to get back to the car park.”
“Well you’re going the wrong way for that.” Merlin pointed up the path they were standing on. “Go up here, then double back at the fork, then the path dips down for a bit, and when it starts to head back uphill you take a left…”
“No.” The word was out of Isis’s mouth before she even knew it, her heart thrumming into anxiety just at the thought of going the way Merlin was pointing. “Not that way.”
“What is up with you?” Gray said. By the gathering of his eyebrows she could tell he was annoyed, but it didn’t matter – right now she didn’t care about anything except…
“This way,” she said, pointing. She was set on a direction into the trees, and up the slope. She had no idea what was there, or why she was so certain it was the right path. “That’s where we’re going.”
Merlin regarded her thoughtfully. “You can feel it, can’t you?”
“Feel what?” asked Gray.
“The energy,” said Merlin. “The ley lines, man. Seven of them intersect up that way.”
Gray groaned. “You as well? Look, Isis, let’s just go back. Find Dad and Cally?”
Isis knew that was the sensible thing to do, so why was she shaking her head? She couldn’t set aside this desperation to reach… whatever was that way.
“Cally will be worrying,” said Gray. “She’s probably phoned the police by now!”
He was right again, and still she didn’t care. “I want to go there, where the ley lines cross.”
Merlin inspected her. “You’ve got a calling, haven’t you? I can always tell.”
Gray grabbed Isis’s arm. “You can’t just go off!”
“I need to go there,” she answered.
“Why?”
She could only pull a face; she couldn’t translate the need to him, it was as if it were in another language. “I just do.”
“There’s something weird about this valley,” said Gray. “What happened at the quarry and now this. Something isn’t right, and you’ve gone all… Cally!”
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“I’m not…”
But Isis pulled out of his grip. Anger was the easiest, because it covered her own confusion. She ran towards Merlin, and then stopped. Through her anger, she knew Gray was right and she was being stupid, dangerous even. And yet the idea of not going… it was like giving up everything she’d ever wanted.
She turned around. “I can’t explain,” she said to Gray. “Will you come with me though?”
His feelings were clear in his face: annoyed enough to leave her, worried enough to tag along.
“All right,” he said. “But something’s wrong, and you know it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gray
The woods were full of little paths. Animal tracks wiggling through the trees, crossing and crossing again. Isis just seemed to be taking one turn then another, randomly, but we kept going uphill. And Merlin was with us, even though we’d never asked him to come along. He walked slowly, like he wasn’t in any hurry, but his legs were so long he was going fast anyway. I kept thinking