The Invisible Tower Read Online Free

You’ve got a royal name, I think. An old name. English. Not Charles. Not Henry or James. Edward? No, no. I think it starts with A .” Artie felt his palms clam up. Then the man stopped rocking, opened his hands and his eyes, and leveled a gaze on Artie that made his knees buckle. “You’re Arthur!”
    Artie couldn’t believe it. Then suddenly the message from the Otherworld game, the one he’d forced himself to forget, hit him like a bolt of lightning: Arthur. In one week’stime you will come to me at the IT. You are special, Arthur, and I have need of your service and power. I have been waiting so long for you. Your humble servant, M .
    The IT. Invisible Tower.
    Which made this old guy M.
    Artie took a small step backward as he realized that the Easter egg had not been a coincidence at all.
    Then a silly notion sprang into his mind. He said, “Yeah, and I guess that makes you Merlin, huh?”
    The words, while his own, sounded utterly ridiculous. Arthur and Merlin, together alone, in some geek-fest comic-book-collectors’ shop called the Invisible Tower.
    The old man smiled and took a deep breath before he spoke. “I’ve gone by many names, dear Arthur, some kind and some horrific. Lately I’ve been known as Lyn. Many of the children who enjoy my shop just call me “dude,” which is a little absurd but fine by me. Merlin, though. My goodness.”
    Artie developed a lump in his throat the size of a tennis ball. He choked it back and asked, “So wait. You are , like, Merlin?”
    â€œAha! There you go again. So easily you say it! Part of the spell has already been broken. The first stones have begun to crumble. So soon I am in your debt.”
    Artie was thoroughly confused, and a little scared. Heasked, “What are you talking about, mister?”
    The man ignored Artie’s trepidation and said, “Arthur, my boy, you may find this hard to believe, but there is magic at work here that has kept me from my proper name for nearly as long as I can remember…” The old man looked at the ceiling then at the huge desk. He looked back at Artie. “Merlin! Not even I have been able to say it! Merlin. Mer lin!” Each time he said it, he got quieter and quieter, until he was whispering, “ Merlin .”
    Artie asked weakly, “So what exactly are you saying?”
    â€œWhat I’m saying is that you are special, my boy. You see me as I am. Most people look at me and maybe they begin to think of Merlin, but then that idea is dashed from their mind. But you! You see me as I am,” he repeated with wonder. “Tell me—what is the strangest thing about the way I look?”
    Artie felt supremely uneasy, but this was a simple question to answer. “Your tattoos, sir,” he said.
    The old man beamed. “Exactly. Come here, I want to show you something.”
    Artie didn’t want to go anywhere with this old freak, yet something about his tone enraptured him. He had to hear the old guy out. He said, “All the same, sir, I’d like to stay where I am. If you have something to show me, you’ll have to show it to me from over there.”
    The man waved his hands through the air comfortingly and said, “Of course, of course. Here. Look.” He bent downand lifted a small color TV onto the great desk. It took Artie a second to realize that he was looking at live surveillance images of the store. The bookshelves, the toy cases, the front door, the desk. There he was, and there was the old man. The man took off his hat. Something was different. Artie took a step forward and looked closely. The man in the monitor was bald but didn’t appear to have a single tattoo on his head. Artie turned quickly to the man. He nodded. His head was definitely crisscrossed by a swarm of lines and runes and shapes, all in dark ink. Artie looked back at the monitor. It was as if the man on the screen had been washed