Inventory of a Shelf

INVENTORY of the flour shelf of Wydin, grocer of Port Sarim, taken by the Chronicler on the ninth attempt upon Merlin's Crystal, for entry in the Book.

Item one. Pots of flour: none.

Item two. Grocer: present. Shop: not opened. The Chronicler stood at the counter and waited for the shop to open. It did not. Two minutes passed. The record calls this a time-out. The Chronicler calls it a policy.

That is the whole inventory. The Book has kept longer lists of shorter things.

The declaration was made at thirty-four minutes past six, before witnesses. Merlin sleeps in a crystal at the top of his tower in Camelot. The Chronicler would find who put him there, bind the spirit that keeps him, and break it with Excalibur. Eight hours were allowed for this. He used about six minutes of them. The rest he returns to the Realm unopened, like the shop.

He did not reach Camelot. He did not meet Le Faye. He did not lift Excalibur, and he does not take the title of Knight of the Round Table. Nine times now the road to Merlin has begun at a grocer's. Nine times it has gone no further than flour.

Merlin, it is reported, did not stir. He has a crystal. The Chronicler has a shelf. Of the two of them, only one has an excuse.