by Luke Gasiden
Merlin – The Legacy
(Rise of the Dark)
By Luke Gasiden
Copyright Luke Gasiden 2013
Chapter 1
He mumbled incoherently. Sweat pouring off his brow as his hands gripped at the coarse covers over his frail body. Tossing from side-to-side, he felt a rough hand shake him, and became aware of her shrill tone,
“Cursed boy! Wake up I tell you!”
Merlin awoke with a start, the specter that had just a few moments before been all around him, gone in an instant. Yet the foreboding he had known ever since he could remember remained. Opening his eyes in the dimly lit room, he watched his mother hobble over back to the open fireplace, her dirty cloak and weary worn face grimacing in the reflection of the flames. She shook her head, as if thinking about the years of bitterness and poverty she had suffered. Merlin had often felt she had taken her pain out on him. The pain of his fathers absence, and the still-born future that had never emerged for her, although an unwanted pregnancy had.
Many times, his mother had recounted the story of the refusal of the witches of the woods to induce his death. That coven had forbade it for some whispered out of earshot reasons. And so she had traveled far, to find others that would give her the concoction that would rid her of a future without benefit. Yet still, they forbade it. Both times had been the same, his mother had said, as the priestesses hand was placed upon her by then swollen belly, they had recoiled and shooed her away, a look of fear so great that it had startled the then young woman.
“Evil blood is in you boy.” She said, beginning to whittle on a piece of wood without looking over at him.
Merlin sat up, his legs not quite reaching the dirt floor over the side of the makeshift bed. He gave no response. It was common for her to be like this. He knew it was especially strong every year when the leaves began to fall, and the wind began to hiss through the trees. That had been when Carcigan had left. Merlin had once asked if his father had known she was bearing his child, but her terse reply had shone no light upon the subject for him,
“Spilled his seed into me, so he did. What do you think bane of my life?”
Her laugh mocked at Merlin's desire for the love he so often prayed for from his father, stinging him. He had never asked about him again.
“Mother, I'm hungry.” Merin half pleaded.
“Hungry? Then why don't you go back to sleep and dream about food,” she tutted, “those dreams of yours are proof that you are a Godless creature, from a Godless coupling. This is my punishment.”
“But mother,” Merlin got up and walked over to her, his cold feet scraping on the bare soil, “I'm so very hungry. Please mother.”
Merlin knelt down in front of her, she took her eyes away from the dancing flames and clipped the back of his head with her palm in a sudden sharp movement, making Merlin lose his balance and fall to the sodden soil floor barely covered in reeds.
“Get older! Get older and work and then bring coin so that we may eat, foolish boy!”
She stood up, and through the shadows of the room, went over and opened the wooden box that had been fashioned just so the rats couldn't get at what little fare they possessed.
She tossed a half eaten crust of bread at him, and he reached forward to catch it, not wanting to taste the dirt that often accompanied his food due to her temper. He missed. It landed before him, rolling several times forward and picking up a tiny black insect in the process that then tried to scramble off of the husk. Merlin gently took the creature off and place it down, and it crawled away as he took a bite, watching it go back to its life of obliviousness.
...
As the seasons past, moon after moon, sweat ridden night after sweat ridden night, the boy grew. Home was no sanctuary, so he spent much of his time in the wild. There was a kind of kinship there. The animals scampering below him unable to see him perched up the oak trees, and his tiny village a seeming world away. His mother had taken to receiving male 'guests' - as she referred to them as - and each time, Merlin would be told to leave the mud-brick thatch house. It had gotten so he didn't even need to be told. He knew when they were coming, he didn't know why, it was just a kind of tension that would build in him, until he realized elsewhere was a better place to be. 'Elsewhere' had become the place that gave the most peace, the most calm.
Horses and carts with their wares would pass by on the near path, but Merlin would remain silent, his piercing eyes watching all below like a hawk poised. There was a sense of power to it, a sense that his all seeing eyes could see life in a way others couldn't.
The pitter-patter of rain sounded on the leaves next to his head, like the intermittent chimes of the holy druids that would pass through on procession through the sacred dragon lines it was said they had control over. No one walked on those lines. No one but the druids. It wasn't forbidden; only, the stories were if you were not initiated, the lines under the ground would take you to the depths of Gramoden, the place of the beast.
Looking upwards, the rain began peppering his plain sack tunic, and he felt the first drops of Spring rain arrive on his forehead. All would be inside by now Merlin realized, but still, he should not go home. The tension in his chest told him so. No, he must find shelter elsewhere. Merlin leaped onto the sturdy branch beside him, swinging his body once around it - the way the traveling tumblers had taught him - and back somersaulted, his feet arriving with his knees bent and his hands touching the forest floor. The shower gained strength, and he tried futilely to avoid the big drops that where then attacking him. Not long, he was soaked, and pushing past the foliage, toward the river where there was a wooden shelter, he brushed his hands back through his wet thick dark hair and moved it from his eyes.
Reaching the clearing, already drenched, he raced under the four beam posted structure the washer women used on just such occasions, or when the beating mid-day Suns' strength would coerce them under it.
Slightly breathless, Merlin sat on the wooden log that had been halved for the sake of its usefulness as a rudimentary bench. The clouds sent wave after wave of rain that punctured the waters surface. He heard a groan coming a short distance away. Looking around a bush, he saw a man beside the waters edge, his leg wounded, by the look of it at least. His plate armor and broadsword placed down beside him could mean only one thing. He was a knight, yet no colors or insignia marked his allegiance. Merlin was unsure of approaching him. Rogue knights were well known for pillaging and random violence, one of the villagers had even lost an arm in an altercation with a drunk one that had refused to pay coin.
The knight scooped up some water in his hand, drinking it and gasping at his own pain. Merlin knew this chance was too good to miss, and he began to will his feet forward. Knights always saw and heard of things the common folk never did. Moving slowly, so as not to alarm the knight, he moved from around the bush and into the still pouring rain. The knight heard the rustle of branches and instinctively went for his sword, stopping Merlin in his tracks, fear at once overcoming him. But the knight saw it was just a young man, and beckoned to him over,
“Boy, come here.”
Merlin felt as long is he didn't go too close, he'd be okay, incapacitated as the knight was.
“Come, don't be afraid. I won't hurt you.”
Merlin sat beside him a distance away, the rain still beating onto them both.
“What's your name boy?”
“Merlin.”
The knight laughed, and then thought better of it when the phlegm from his lungs found it's way into his throat, and he began to cough almost uncontrollably. Merlin scooped up a handful of water, getting closer to the knight without realizing it, and ho
lding it up to him; but the knights' raised hand signaled that he didn't need it.
“Have any food on you boy?”
“No sir.”
It was as if the knight suddenly realized the stupidity of his question, as he looked the scrawny boy up and down.
“Who do you fight for?” Merlin asked.
The knight leaned back on his elbows trying to get comfortable, the armor scraping and his voice still slightly rasping,
“I fight for whoever gives me coin boy. I cannot stomach servitude to idiots... unless they pay me handsomely.”
Merlin suddenly saw the knights wound and ran off into the treeline.
“Boy, hey boy, where are you going?”
Merlin didn't reply, and focused on the Forrest floor, scouring it for the vegetation he was looking for.
“Curses!” Darius let out, imagining at any moment the whole town would be there to ogle him, like the village idiots that they no doubt were.
Merlin rushed back, going at once to the waters edge and wetting the soil and plants he had in his hands, and kneaded it in his palm.
“Is that your lunch boy?” Darius asked, not really believing it was.
“No sir, it's a poultice.” Merlin moved the armor to the side, and placed the poultice firmly on the knights gashing wound.
Darius roared in pain,
“Heavens above boy! Can you not be more gentle?”
“I must pack it tight sir, otherwise it won't heal.”
“Useful little bugger, aren't you.”
Merlin didn't know what that word meant, but the knight was stroking his red beard, and grinned at him.
“Don't suppose you have some ale do you boy?”
“No sir.”
“Can't you just steal some?” Darius sighed.
Again, Merlin rushed off, leaving Darius to wonder if Merlin was really planing to do so.
By the time the rain had stopped, Merlin had returned with a pitcher of ale and some meat.
Darius' eyes looked over the boy's spoils,
“Where did you get them from?”
“I did like you said, I stole them from the tavern.”
Darius rolled his eyes,
“Give it 'ere then, don't let a chivalrous old knight go hungry and without ale in his blood!”
Darius drank and ate like a famished man, as Merlin watched him intently, and wiping some ale off his beard, Darius asked,
“Why aren't you at home? It's raining. Do you like to get wet or something?”
Merlin looked down at the grass ashamed.
“Speak up boy!”
“My mother is with someone.”
“What do mean 'with' someone? Your father? A goat herder? Or who?”
“A man.”
“Oh,” Darius suddenly realized, “well, we all have to make our way in the world somehow. No father boy?”
“No sir?”
“Never?”
“He left before I was born.”
As Darius looked at the young man, he couldn't help but wonder how many bastards he himself had sired. Some may even have been Merlin's age. War had always called him away, no woman could hold him long. The warm touch of their ample breasts soon faded when there was a cry of war from one of the kings that hailed across the land. And now, he had no one. No one to pass on all he had learned, no one to give the wisdom of his years. Alcohol was beginning to dull his senses, and old age, his speed; but the fire was still there. Yes, the fire inside was what could never be taken, or even given. It was something that was either intrinsic in a person or not.
As Darius looked into the boys green flecked eyes, he saw an almost extinguished ember. Grabbing his shoulder, he felt for the boys muscles through his tunic, and found scant little.
“What do they feed you? Ants?”
Merlin shrugged, the discomfort of an empty stomach being something he'd gotten used to.
“I eat when I can eat, and when I can't, I don't.”
Merlin's matter-of-fact response made the knight raise his eyebrows, and he handed the boy some bread, and Merlin began to pull it apart with his teeth.
“What do you eat?” Merlin asked Darius, his eyes watching him.
“Anything and everything I can get my hands on.”
“But what if you have no coin?” Merlin questioned.
Darius laughed,
“Then I take it boy. Who will stop me? I am a knight!”
Looking at the large knight, Merlin estimated he was at least nine heads tall. He could well believe that no one except another knight could stop him.
Merlin took a look at the poultice on Darius' leg, making sure it was still firmly on him,
“It will take several days for your wound to heal, we must move you, if you do not want to be seen. The washer women will be down here later.”
“Where do you suggest?”
Merlin pointed over yonder, to a covered semi-circle of trees and undergrowth down river,
“Over there you'll be safe, come, I'll help you up.”
Merlin tried lifting Darius, but it was an impossible task until Darius himself forced past the pain and began to hobble beside Merlin, with his hand supporting itself on Merlin's shoulder. After what seemed like an age to Merlin, but which couldn't have been longer than a few minutes, Darius plonked himself down on the grass with his back up against a tree, heaving a sigh. With Darius breathing heavily, Merlin asked the question he'd wanted to ask when he'd first seen him,
“How did you get that wound?”
Darius did a double-take at Merlin,
“Well how the hell do you think I got it? I didn't trip over and hurt myself on a stone, now did I?”
“I mean, what battle? Where?”
Darius scratched his head,
“Why is it young boys always want to know these things? Killing people is nothing special, you know?”
“We never hear about anything in my village. Nothing ever happens, the owls hoot at night, the stoats gather their food for the winter, and nothing exciting ever happens or changes.”
“Oh, it's excitement you are after is it?”
Merlin shrugged. It wasn't everyday he came across a knight of the realm, whichever realm that might be.
Darius conceded defeat, judging that by the intense look in the young lad's face, that his curiosity was going to be satiated that day, one way or another.
“Your green eyes are very disconcerting boy... okay,” Darius sighed, “well, there's a bit of a story to it, so I hope you don't mind.”
Darius could see Merlin really didn't mind, and had a feeling that the longer the story, the better, in this boy's case anyway.
“Well, once upon a time, in a land far far away... “ Darius said, and then realized that his sense of irony was completely lost on Merlin, who was looking at him like he'd just uttered the most interesting sentence in the world, “Oh balls, okay boy, do you know how many Kings in the land there are?”
Merlin shrugged. He'd heard of the one in the South and figured there must be one in the North, but Kings seemed to change every year, and his village was so small and far off the beaten-track, that the Kings' men never even bothered picking up tribute from them.
Darius picked up three stones from the ground beneath him, and placed them down relative to where they were in the land,
“Here,” said Darius pointing to the one at the top, “is King Aron, the bastard King of the North.”
“He has no father?”
“So the King in the South says anyway,” said Darius, “the King in the South is Rakellian, his family line is the longest... you have heard of him right?”
Merlin nodded, everyone knew of Rakellian.
“To the west is King Taranis, not really a King as such, more of a wild dog with followers. Only those followers mark in the thousands.”
“So who do you fight for?”
Darius sighed,
“I used to fight for Rakellian, who King Taranis to the west is now allied with... �
��
Darius seemed deep in thought, and he began to shake his head,
“These are dark times boy, dark times indeed... ” Darius trailed off, leaving Merlin with a stifling sense of suspense, and he mentally willed Darius to continue, but Darius' mind seemed elsewhere and Merlin had no choice,
“Why? Why are these dark times? Tell me.”
“Huh? Oh, yes, dark times,” Darius brought his attention back to Merlin, “Rakellian's men rape, pillage and murder, but that's not the worst part.”
“What could be worse?”
“That's what I thought... until I saw it.”
There was a look of fear in Darius' eyes, one that Merlin found hard to reconcile with the brave knight in front of him.
“Saw what?”
Darius looked at Merlin and thought better of telling him,
“Nothing, nothing you should know about anyway. I need some rest, come back tomorrow and we'll talk more. Bring some food and ale with you too Merlin, there's a good lad.”
