Merle trilogy

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The Merle Trilogy is a three-part series of novels by Kai Meyer that was published in 2001 and 2002. The Merle novels are among the author's most successful works and have so far been published in around twenty languages.

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The flowing queen

Volume 1, 2001, ISBN 3-7855-4015-9

The first band takes place in a fictional Venice . The Egyptian Pharaoh was resurrected by his high priests and is now conquering the whole world. Only the tsarist empire and Venice, where Merle and her friends live, are left. But Venice is in danger of being conquered by the Pharaoh. Merle and Junipa come from the orphanage as apprentices to the mirror maker Arcimboldo. During a nocturnal foray with Serafin, the two discover a conspiracy with the aim of destroying the flowing queen. Merle and Serafin manage to save the essence of the flowing queen, but Serafin is arrested. Merle escapes and drinks the flowing queen. She sends them off to save Venice. When a messenger from the underworld makes a proposal to Venice, Merle succeeds in freeing the stone lion Vermithrax and on him to flee through the siege ring of the Egyptians and across the sea. Serafin is able to free himself and finds out that Arcimboldo is meeting with messengers from Lord Light and selling him his mirrors. He also learns that Lord Licht and Arcimboldo have negotiated a pact that involves Merle and Junipa.

The stone light

Volume 2, 2002, ISBN 3-7855-4278-X

In volume two, Merle, the flowing queen in her and Vermithrax fly to Lord Light, the ruler of Hell. In the meantime, a resistance movement develops in Venice, which is conquered by the Egyptians without the presence of the flowing queen, to which Serafin and the apprentices of the mirror workshop also belong. This movement is led by Lalapeja, a sphinx who, as it later turns out, is Merle's mother. She plans an assassination attempt on the Pharaoh. In the meantime, Merle, the flowing queen and Vermithrax have arrived at Lord Licht, who has put a stone heart into the Junipa delivered to him by Arcimboldo. Lord Light shows them the stone light that can control people through the stone hearts. In an experiment by Lord Licht, Vermithrax is thrown into the stone light, but comes back unharmed and transformed. The assassination attempt on the boys fails. They flee across the sea on a turtle shell. Merle, the flowing queen and Vermithrax escape hell with Junipa.

The glass word

Volume 3, 2002, ISBN 3-7855-4403-0

Merle and her companions find themselves in completely snow-covered Egypt. Together with the Egyptian high priest Seth they go to the Iron Eye, the fortress of the sphinxes. In the meantime, Serafin and Unke dive into the depths of the ocean to ask a sea witch to take them to Egypt. All friends meet there. For Merle, Junipa, the flowing queen, Serafin, Unke and Lalapeja, a fight begins against an Egyptian sphinx forefather, the son of the flowing queen.

Persons and peoples

  • Merle is the main character in the books. She grew up in an orphanage and came to Arcimboldo's workshop with Junipa as an apprentice at the age of 14. Her only relationship with her parents is her mother's magic mirror, whose mirror is made of water instead of glass. She falls in love with the weaver apprentice and former master thief Serafin.
  • Junipa (13) is Merle's best friend and, like her, comes from an orphanage. She is blind, but Arcimboldo uses her mirror eyes with which she can see. In the second volume, a heart from the stone light is inserted into her. At the end of the last volume, she and Merle go on a search for Merle's biological father.
  • The flowing queen / Sekmeth is the protector of Venice, she is the water of the lagoon. She is said to be destroyed by Egyptian alchemists so that the resurrected Pharaoh can conquer Venice, but Merle saves her and drinks the essence of the flowing queen. In reality, however, she is Sekmeth, goddess of lions and sphinxes, and an immortal lioness who shed her body.
  • Arcimboldo owns a workshop where he makes magic mirrors. Arcimboldo was expelled from the craft guild because of allegedly dark machinations. He often takes in apprentices from orphanages, including Merle and Junipa. On the orders of Lord Light, Merle's grandfather, he takes in Merle and Junipa.
  • Unke works as a housekeeper at Arcimboldo, but her relationship with him is not an ordinary one. Toad is a mermaid with legs.
  • Serafin is an apprentice to Arcimboldo's archenemy Umberto, a weaver. Merle sees him for the first time in a fight between the apprentices of the mirror workshop and those of the weaver workshop. As the story progresses, he falls in love with Merle. At the end of the third volume he gives his life for her.
  • Vermithrax is an obsidian lion that can fly and talk. He was incarcerated for years until Merle freed him. He accompanies Merle. In the second volume he falls into the Stone Light and is then stronger, larger and shines like the Stone Light itself.
  • Seth is the Pharaoh's vizier and the highest priest of the Horus cult . He is the real ruler of Egypt until he is succeeded by the Sphinx and the one who kills Amenhotep.
  • Dario is an apprentice at Arcimboldo who eventually joins the resistance movement with his two friends Tiziano and Boro. He was always hostile to Merle, but especially to Serafin.
  • Lalapeja is a sphinx and, as it turns out later, Merle's mother. She is the guardian of the mother's son and can take on human form. She leads the resistance movement.
  • Winter is a season come alive. In the second volume he is in hell in search of summer, whom he loves immortally. There he meets Merle and helps her until Lord Licht gives him a tip and he goes to Egypt.
  • Professor Burbridge is a scientist who was the first to explore Hell. He is Merle's grandfather and at the same time Lord Light, the ruler of the underworld.
  • Steven is Merle's father, but he doesn't appear in the trilogy. He fled from hell and later also from Lalapeja and Merle. He has gone through the mirror into another world, at the end of the trilogy Merle wants to look for him.
  • Amenophis is the pharaoh revived by the priests of Horus. In the last volume he is killed by Seth.
  • The mother's son is the forefather of the Sphinxes. He carries the Stone Light within himself. Sekmeth begat the sphinxes with him, but killed him twice. He is a mountainous, misshapen sphinx with diabolical intelligence.
  • The tsarist empire is the only area apart from Venice that still offers resistance to the pharaoh empire . It is under the protection of the witch Baba Jaga .

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