“What is your business here?” he intoned in that same eerie, reverberating voice he’d used earlier.
The protesters mumbled to each other and moved away from the building. One brave soul stepped forward and said, “You’re Merlin, aren’t you?”
“That is what some call me. That was my name in the Latin tongue in the days of Arthur, and that is my name in legend.”
An awestruck gasp fluttered through the crowd, and a few people snapped pictures with their cell phones. “So, it’s true?” one woman asked skeptically. “You’re
the
Merlin, brought back to life from the Dark Ages?”
“Yes, it is true,” Merlin said with a little less booming reverberation. “I was brought back a year ago to help face a great threat to the magical world.”
“What threat is that?” another person asked.
“You would have to ask Mr. Ramsay, as it was he who saw a threat and made the decision that it was time to awaken me.”
That brought a little more muttering from the crowd, and I was tempted to slip among them to act as an audience plant and ask pertinent questions. Just when it looked like they might be reasonable, about half the crowd suddenly froze and then surged forward, practically trampling those who weren’t moving with them. I suspected that those amulets had kicked in again, but not everyone in the group was affected. Some had apparently joined the crowd because they honestly believed in the cause, or at least because they wanted to see what was going on.
The unaffected people tried to push back, and a few fights broke out in the mob. Merlin raised his staff over his head and shouted some words, then calm descended. “You may have heard that I am from an ancient era that has no relevance in our time,” he said, “but peace is timeless. Sadly, so is strife. But I bring peace while there are others who create only strife—or incite others to strife.”
That set off the amulet zombies again as they surged toward Merlin. A couple in the front row looked like they were primed for attack, but before they reached him, Merlin aimed his staff at them and they slumped to the ground as if they’d fainted. The people who weren’t in lockstep with the others got out of the way, and even the ones under the influence hesitated.
“I will not harm you,” Merlin said, “but I will not allow you to harm me or my people. You should also know that those charms you carry protect you only from specific spells, and none of those spells are in my arsenal. I fight with different weapons.”
A few more people dropped out of the mob, but the rest pressed onward. Merlin raised his staff again and shouted more magic words, and then the mob was pressed against an invisible barrier. Merlin watched them for a moment, then turned around to face us. “That should give them something to think about,” he said as he came into the building. “And now I need to go impress some customers. Perhaps they will think twice about withdrawing their business after a friendly discussion.”
“Have we lost that many?” I asked.
“There have been a number this morning, and I would imagine several more since Ramsay’s announcement. So it would be good if you could find anything you can about Ramsay as soon as possible.”
I hadn’t even made it to my office, but I turned to head out again. Sam flew escort, magically shielding me from the ongoing demonstration.
When I got to Owen’s place, a small mob of protesters had formed on the sidewalk. They were chanting about how he should stop using evil magic, and I doubted they’d let me pass. Before they noticed me, I ducked back around the corner and went to the tavern where they’d held my birthday party, bought a meal to go, a souvenir ball cap, and a T-shirt, then put on the T-shirt, pulled the hat down over my eyes, and acted like I was delivering food. Wearing something that looked like a uniform and doing a menial task was even better than magic for making a person invisible, so the crowd didn’t pay any attention to me.
I let myself into the stairwell, then knocked on Owen’s door before I unlocked it. “Lunch delivery!” I called out as I came inside.
The living room was even more of a mess than normal. Every book Owen owned was out, and a snowfall of paper lay on top of the books, full of scribbled notes that actually looked scribbled, for a change. Owen was equally untidy, still wearing the white shirt he’d been wearing the day before, but now with the tail untucked. He hadn’t shaved, and he was wearing his glasses. His eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles under them. I got the impression he hadn’t slept and that he was running on a wave of manic energy.
He looked up as I entered and said, “I think I’ve figured out who’s been behind Spellworks.”
“Ivor Ramsay.”
His enthusiasm deflated a little. “Oh, you knew? Of course you knew. You’ve been telling me all along. I should have listened to you. But is it anything more than a suspicion?”
“He announced this morning that he was severing his association with MSI to join Spellworks as their new chairman and to usher in a new magical era, or something like that.”
“Wow. Yeah, I guess that’s proof. But do you know
why
he did it?”
“That’s the part that has us stumped,” I admitted as I set the bag of food on the coffee table, pulled off the ball cap, and took a seat on the sofa. “Do you know?”
“I think so. The pattern’s been there all along, if I could have just seen it. Why didn’t I see it?”
“Merlin says he was using a spell—like Rod’s old attraction spell—to make everyone like and trust him.”
“Oh. I should have seen that. I’ve spent enough time with Rod to know what that looks like, and of course you’d be immune to it.” He looked up at me and winced. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I was a real jerk about that, too.”
“There are sometimes real drawbacks to having magical powers,” I said with a smile I hoped was soothing. “I may not be able to do all the amazing stuff you do, but I can see the truth.”
“And you’d think I’d remember that. Now, about Ramsay. I think he did the same thing with my parents that he’s doing with Idris. He found someone young, promising, and gullible, then encouraged and supported them behind the scenes to challenge the magical status quo. The Morgans were his protégés, just as Idris was.”
“Owen,” I said softly, ready to tell him that there was no proof that they were his parents.
“Don’t worry,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m not fooling myself into thinking they were good people who were misled. If they were good, they couldn’t have been used that way. But I do think Ramsay was using them. Their story looks a lot like what happened with Idris. They worked for MSI, had some big, unorthodox ideas, they were fired, and then they reappeared in a way that would have required more backing than you could reasonably expect someone like them to have.”
“That does sound familiar. But why would Ramsay bother? What did he get out of it? As hobbies go, there are probably better options.”
“I don’t think he got what he wanted out of it, other than maybe a step up in the magical world. That situation made him a hero, but he didn’t achieve his goal, so he had to do it again.”
“Again I ask, why?”
He scrambled around in the pile of books on the floor by the sofa and handed one to me, dropping it in my lap. He’d opened the book to a page describing Merlin going into magical retirement, to be brought back at a time when he was needed by the magical world.
I looked up at Owen, who stared expectantly back at me. “It was all about Merlin,” he said with a triumphant grin.
“Yeah, I didn’t think Idris was an opponent worthy of Merlin, so I’ve been wondering. But why?”
“The very idea of Merlin has always been a deterrent to anyone who wanted to make a bid for taking over the magical world.” He gestured toward the books scattered on the floor. “Over and over again, that’s come up, throughout magical history. They know that even if they do take over, that will trigger Merlin’s return, and they couldn’t hope to win against him. It’s used as a threat, like ‘Give yourself up now, and we won’t bring Merlin back.’”
“So Merlin is the nuclear bomb of magic.”
“Precisely. And that means that if you want to rule the magical world in a way that isn’t hampered by the checks and balances set up within MSI and the various councils, you’ve got to get Merlin out of the way, permanently.”
“And that’s impossible to do while he’s safely snoozing in a crystal cave somewhere.”
His face lit up in a huge grin, and he patted me on the knee. “Exactly!”
Taking a stab at completing his thought, I ventured, “And so the way to deal with Merlin is to manufacture a situation designed to require him to be brought back. Then you could fight him head-on and get him out of the way once and for all.”
“I knew you’d get it!”
“But that would require a lot of confidence. You’d have to believe you could beat Merlin head-to-head, or maybe that you could cheat well enough to win.”
“People with low self-esteem seldom try to take over the world.”
Suddenly, I realized exactly why Owen’s foster parents had practically encouraged his nearly crippling shyness. Someone who had to psych himself up to have a conversation wasn’t likely to try to take over the world. I couldn’t imagine seeing Owen as a potential threat, but then I wasn’t the person entrusted with a frighteningly powerful kid whose early years sounded like the kind of life that often breeds serial killers—even if they didn’t know about his parents being evil.
“So, Ramsay comes along, and he thinks that the only thing in the way of his ambitions is Merlin,” I said, thinking out loud. “He creates a threat, getting a couple of bright people who work for him to play evil genius. But it must not have worked, since he had to try again, nearly thirty years later. What went wrong?”
He reached for a book lying facedown across the arm of the sofa. “For one thing, he wasn’t in charge then. He couldn’t bring Merlin back. He had to convince his predecessor that the threat was great enough, and his predecessor wasn’t known for being excitable.” He pointed at a picture of a stern, gray-bearded man. Remove the beard and give him a pair of glasses, and you’d have had my high-school principal. “That meant he had to escalate the threat. And then—” he blanched and had to swallow hard, as though he was in some discomfort “—it seems my parents rather liked the idea of taking over the magical world and became a
real
threat, one that had to be dealt with immediately, before Ramsay had a chance to make a case for reviving Merlin.”
He paused and frowned. “It sounds really weird to say ‘parents.’ I’ve never had any, so it’s a new concept for me. It’s even weirder to say ‘parents’ in this context. I mean, I’m talking about Mom and Dad trying to take over the world.”
I got a sense of imminent unraveling, as though he’d taken about as much as he could and was in danger of losing it at any minute. “Owen, there’s something you should know,” I hurried to say while he took a breath. “They may not be your parents. It could just be Idris or Ramsay messing with you. Merlin didn’t know about who you were. He did suspect this was a possibility, and I’m sure if he did, then James and Gloria also suspected, but there doesn’t seem to be any official proof.”
“I think it’s true,” he said softly. “It
feels
true. I should have suspected, if I’d even bothered to think about it or had done any research. But I thought it was healthy for me not to worry about where I came from.”
“Even if it is true, no one lied to you. They weren’t keeping deep, dark secrets from you, just suspicions. I guess Ramsay suspected, too.”
“Or he knew. He was the one who killed my parents, so he could have been the one to drop me off at that fire station and hope I’d be lost in the system. I suppose I should be grateful that he didn’t kill me. Anyway, Ramsay had to stop the Morgans before they could be caught by anyone else, interrogated, and be linked to him. He bides his time, builds power, makes good alliances, and then Idris comes along, giving him the perfect opportunity to set up a new patsy, and then we need Merlin, and now the stage is set for Ramsay to take out Merlin.” The words spilled out of him like bullets from a machine gun, and when he was done, he let out a deep breath.
“Then he could rule the world,” I finished. “Even better, he’s got things set up so that if Merlin fights him, Merlin’s the one who looks like the bad guy. We’ll have to prove to the magical world that he’s evil before we can even oppose him.”
“It’s rather brilliant, when you think about it.” He suddenly sank against the sofa, like the mania had burned itself out, leaving utter weariness. “And how do we prove it?”
“You may be the key.” I explained what Merlin, Rod, and I had discussed earlier. “So,” I concluded, “our next step is to play ‘Owen Palmer, This Is Your Life.’ You said you were left at a fire station. Do you know which one? Or would James and Gloria have that information?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t see how helpful digging into it would be. If Ramsay really was trying to hide the Morgans’ baby, would he walk right into a fire station and say, ‘Hey, I found this on my doorstep’? He’d have probably left the baby where it would be found and where nothing could be traced back to him. That’s if he didn’t just kill it.”
“But we won’t know until we ask.”
“It’s a waste of time. There’s someone out there trying to take over the magical world, and I don’t think you can stop that by having a few nonmagical firefighters—if you can even find anyone who was working there then—say that someone who kind of looked like a younger version of Ramsay dropped an abandoned baby off at a fire station thirty years ago. Ramsay would probably spin it so he looked like a hero, anyway. We need a better plan than that.”
“In other words, you aren’t ready to deal with James and Gloria. Or with who you might be.”
“No, that’s not it at all. I just don’t think digging through my nearly nonexistent baby book is going to do any good.” But he had turned bright red, so I knew I was on to something.
“Then do you have a better plan?”
“I’m working on it.” Making an obvious attempt to change the subject, he said, “And how are things at the office today?”