Even though he stayed invisible, Merlin let his voice carry. “I produced the blade. Now drop the spell on Viviane.”
Arthur nodded his head, and Merlin felt the power of the circle drop. Arthur stepped into the circle and quickly snatched the stone. Arthur tried with everything that he had, but he could not pull the blade out of the stone. Merlin knew that there was nothing Arthur could do to separate the blade from the stone without his help, so Merlin focused his attention back on Viviane.
She was still gasping for air, “It’s too late for me. They used magically-fused poison-tipped blades. Get the stone back, and go back to Avalon.”
Merlin, now angry, approached Arthur. Arthur must have heard Viviane’s words, because even though Arthur still couldn’t see Merlin, Arthur pulled a small blue flask off a chain hanging around his neck. He let the chain swing from his finger tips. “I knew you wouldn’t just hand over the stone. This is the antidote. You can save her, but you have to help me separate the blade from the stone.”
“Why would I do that? So you can go to Avalon?”
Arthur just smiled, “You have to think bigger than your world. Time’s wasting. Make your choice now.”
“Merlin, no…” Viviane was weakly saying behind him. Merlin used his magic to determine if Arthur was telling the truth about the Antidote. Of all the evil Merlin found in Arthur’s thoughts, the Antidote was the one truth. That small blue flask held the cure to saving Viviane’s life.
Hoping that once Viviane digested the blue liquid, Merlin would have time to take back the stone and blade before Arthur figured out how to use it.
“Five…” Arthur started counting down.
“Four…”
“Three…”
“Stop,” Merlin interrupted Arthur. “Set the flask down and put both your hands on the blade.”
“No…” Viviane said so softly that Merlin almost didn’t hear her.
Choosing this moment to make a physical appearance, Merlin grabbed the flask. He heard the sounds of swords being drawn, but it mattered not, as he was singularly focused on feeding Viviane the antidote. As she was digesting the liquid, Merlin used his magic to allow Arthur to pull the blade out.
Merlin looked back down to Viviane. He realized his mistake. He knew the poison left her body, but Viviane had taken too much physical damage to survive. He couldn’t heal her damage. For the first time in his existence, he couldn’t save her. He was going to have to watch his friend die.
Merlin turned back to Arthur as he celebrated being the one to obtain the blade. In his excitement, Arthur left the obsidian stone on the ground. Before Merlin could even make a move to get the stone, a blonde blur rand past him and grabbed the stone. In her last moments of life, Viviane used what small powers she had left to get the stone away from Arthur.
He heard laughter behind him. Lost in too much grief over Viviane, he didn’t bother turning around. He knew it was Arthur and his Knights. They had already done the damage.
“Look at how the mighty wizard has fallen.” He was surrounded by laughter, but he didn’t care.
He looked down at Viviane. She reached up and touched his cheek, leaving a sticky, bloody handprint. Her light green eyes stared up at him. “Watch after my family,” she whispered. She took a few more raspy breaths and then stopped moving altogether. After a few moments, her body disappeared in a white show of light. The intense feeling of the stone that was radiating from her scattered to feelings of the stone everywhere when her body disappeared.
He stood up and turned around to face Arthur. Arthur stood in the middle of the stone temple and held the small blade up. Arthur frowned.
“What did she do?” Arthur furiously spat each word.
“Nnnnoooo… you promised me he would give me all the magic of Avalon.” Guinevere pulled out of Lancelot’s grasp and ran toward Merlin with a knife in her hand. He could feel the uncontrolled power radiating out of her, and consumed with his own grief, Merlin pushed the air around Guinevere, inadvertently throwing her against one of the stones. The force of her hitting the stone caused her to fall to the ground. The angle of her neck was proof that he took her life. His interference took Guinevere’s life.
“She was mine, and you killed her,” Lancelot yelled as he tried to pull his sword out, but still controlling the air, Merlin held everyone in place.
Prepared to accept his punishment, Merlin flashed back to Avalon. Before he was completely grounded, he heard Arthur shout, “This isn’t the end. I will figure out what she did, and I will make Avalon mine!”
It took Anne a few moments before she realized that she wasn’t still lost in Merlin’s memories. Her forehead was still pressed against his, with one of his hands grasping the back of her neck. His eyes were closed, still lost in the memories. Anne’s heart went out to him. Anne understood what it was like to be alone in the world. She had nothing on him. He had been alone for at least a thousand years, maybe longer.
His eyes slowly opened. His eyes widened quickly, like he had forgotten how closely he was holding Anne. He leaned a little closer to her, and Anne expected him to press his lips to hers. She closed her eyes again. Her heart stopped in anticipation. The moment she thought she would feel his lips press against hers, he abruptly let her go and stood up.
He moved to the far end of the kitchen. “Do you understand?” he asked as he walked closer to the exit of the kitchen.
Anne followed him to the exit, “You are stuck here until you return the blade to the stone?”
He turned back around with a small smile and a nod.
“We could start at my family’s storage unit.”
He left the room, leaving Anne nowhere else to go except back to his bedroom. She picked up her clothes from earlier, but they were dirty from the scuffle earlier and too dressy for anything practical. Remembering his statement from earlier, she said to the air, hoping he would hear, “Although you have some very nice clothes, if you want me to take you to the storage unit, I’m going to need some clothes that fit.”
“You are not going.” It was eerie to hear his voice as if it was next her, but there was no physical body in sight.
Anne lifted her shoulders in a show of defiance, “That’s fine. I won’t tell you where the unit is located.”
She heard a heavy exhale, “I could put a spell on you and make you tell me.”
Anne sat on the bed with her arms crossed. She didn’t want to pout like a child, but he was right. Merlin was the most powerful magician in the world, and what was stopping him from putting a spell on her and making her talk. She smiled as she thought about his words earlier. “That would be interfering.”
There was another heavy exhale of breath, and instead of just hearing it, she felt it. The wispy hair on her neck moved, and her whole body was covered in chill bumps. As soon as she felt the breath, she heard what sounded like a book slamming shut behind her. She jumped and turned around. The sound was a box packed full of clothes, ranging from jeans, shirts, dresses, to fancy underwear, hitting the floor. At the very bottom was a pair of tennis shoes and dress shoes of different colors. The amazing thing was, everything was the right size.
“I don’t want to know how you know what would fit,” Anne said more to herself than to Merlin, but she did hear laughing somewhere in the house.
Anne chose simple jeans and a hooded t-shirt, and it took her no time get dressed. Hoping that Merlin would hear, as Anne was pulling her hair into a quick knot on top of her head, she asked out loud, “The love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot…where’d that story come from?”
“Arthur made it up as he used some of the magic to reshape history,” Merlin sounded winded, like he was running.
“How did Lancelot feel with Arthur concocted the triangle? I know I wouldn’t have liked it.” Once again, Anne was saying this more to herself as she was digging out the tennis shoes and socks. With Merlin not being physically here, she found it easy to forget that he could still hear everything.<
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Merlin sounded even more out of breath when he finally answered, “It is still a rift between them. Whether Arthur knows it or not, one day Lancelot is going to break.”
Satisfied that she looked somewhat presentable, Anne left the room with the intention of exploring the house until Merlin was ready. So much for intentions, she couldn’t stop her feet from following the sound of banging at the other end of the house.
No wonder Merlin sounded winded.
The sound was coming from a room that had life size dummies set up throughout the space. Merlin was barefoot and only had on a pair of jeans. His back was to Anne as he was going through a set of moves, ranging from kicking to hitting the dummies. At times, he moved so quickly that all Anne could see was a blur.
After a few punches, he stopped and rested a forearm against one of the dummies. The muscles on his back became shiny with perspiration and more defined with each breath he took.
Without bothering to turn around, he asked, “Are you done watching?”
Even though Merlin couldn’t see her face, he could hear her heartbeat speed up and feel the warmth radiating off her skin. He didn’t mean to pick at her, but he hadn’t been this entertained in a long time. He felt his lips involuntarily lift in a grin as Anne stammered to find a word. The more she stuttered, the more he was amused.
“Um…Jesus…no…I mean, yes…holy heck, can’t you shut a door?”
Curiosity peaked in him, and he turned around to face her, “Why do you substitute words?”
Merlin walked to her slowly as she started backing out the door, “I…uh…don’t know what you mean.”
Merlin reached her and tucked a stray hair that fell out of the knot behind her ear, “Your use of words.” He leaned so close that he could see his breath moving the stray hairs off her neck, “Or should I say non-use of words.”
Anne put both her hands on his bare chest. His chest stiffened under her hands, but he didn’t walk away. He was still positioned close to her neck, so when she spoke, he could feel her breath on his skin, “Words have meaning. Why destroy something beautiful with an ugly meaning. When I use the word…trust me sometimes the action merits the word…there will be a darn good reason behind it.”
She backed completely away, and for once, Merlin wasn’t sure if Anne had any clue what she had just done to him. He was not sure that he had any clue what she had just done to him.
Merlin followed Anne to the living room—hell, more like stalked Anne to the living room. He could still hear her heart beating erratically and smell her scent, but he would never have known judging by how calmly she was put together. She just sat down on the couch and never once looked in his direction.
“I am going to clean up and get dressed.” He heard her exhale when he left the living room.
Taking a shower was probably the worst thing for Merlin to do. He could easily clean up and get dressed by using his magic. However, he was trying to give Anne some time. So Merlin decided to do things with no magic. The shower gave him alone time. The alone time gave him too much time to think. The thinking was what confused him.
Since Viviane’s death, and if he was honest with himself, probably long before her death, he hadn’t bothered with much of anything. After her death, his only drive was the singular quest of finding a way to stop Arthur without interfering.
“This is the last thing I need,” he said out loud as he watched himself harden in carnal need for the first time in over two thousand years.
Chapter 5
Anne jumped up from the couch as Merlin walked back into the living room.
“If I am going to be out there,” Anne pointed beyond pointed to the door leading outside, “How long until Arthur and his men find me?”
He smiled at Anne’s question. “Nothing gets by you, huh?” She just shrugged, but remained quiet, waiting for his answer. “They are probably scrying for you now, so as soon as you leave my protection…I’d say no more than ten minutes.”
She tilted her head to the side in confusion, “Scrying?”
“Using magic to track you. I have been following Arthur since the beginning, and he is nothing if not consistent. He uses that damn…darn…blade as a channel to find the stone. The blade wants to be sheathed back in the stone.”
Anne stewed over his comment before she spoke, “You make it sound like the blade is living.”
His blue eyes looked back over to Anne, “It is full of wild magic. It is almost alive.”
She sat back down on the couch, fiddling with her shoe strings, “Why can’t you just do the invisible thing again and steal the blade back from Arthur?”
He smiled again, showing teeth and all, “Yes, the blade is important. But Arthur controlled the magic of separating the two. As it stands now, Arthur gained magical ability from the blade when he pulled it out of the stone. But his powers are finite. He can manipulate things here in this world like greed, lust, war. Even if I just take the blade back, Arthur will still have the magical ability. The only way to completely stop him is to find the stone and reconnect the two. All of his magic gained would be lost. The flip side to this is if he finds the stone first and figures out how to reconnect the two, then he and his powers will no longer be finite.”
“I will show you the storage unit, and then can you send all of the stuff back here before the ten minutes is up?” He didn’t say a thing. He barely lifted a head in acknowledgement of what she had just said. If she wasn’t obsessively memorizing him, she wouldn’t have noticed his minute movement. Anne didn’t understand the many moods of Merlin. He could flip on a dime. He had gone from smiling a few seconds ago, to looking seriously upset.
Just like that, he smiled again and held out his hand to her, “Lead the way.”
Merlin never really like this part of the world, as it was hot in Atlanta. A better word is humid. The air was so thick that a knife could cut through it. The storage unit was small, but packed full of organized boxes. He could feel the moment when Arthur zeroed in on them from the scrying. Merlin grabbed Anne’s hand, and the moment they started to fade away, Arthur showed up.
As soon as Anne and the boxes became more solid in the living room, she flipped around to him to ask, “That was him. He looks the same from Viviane’s memories, but cleaner and more modern. He radiates evil, though, like darkness surrounds him. What did Viviane see in him?”
Anne, at this moment, looked truly innocent. Her big, green doe eyes forced eye contact from him, just waiting for an answer.
“Viviane was a good person. She saw the light, even in darkness. Many times she was blinded by the light. She wanted to love so badly that she easily fell into his hands. She let Arthur manipulate her.” Anne walked away and started opening boxes.
“It doesn’t make sense, though.” Anne started opening the boxes.
The first couple of boxes were full of paperwork, nothing important. Yet as Anne looked through it, she looked surprised. Curiosity got the better of Merlin, “Have you looked at any of this stuff?”
Anne’s green eyes flipped up to him, “Not at all. My grandparents died when I was little. My parents were…um…distant to say the least. When I finished high school, I left for college and never looked back. They died two years ago in a car accident, and I think I was more upset about them not being there for me as a child than about their death. I sold their house and donated their clothes and furniture. Everything else, I hired movers to put in that storage unit. You want to know a secret?”
Merlin didn’t know if she wanted an answer to this question or if she was speaking rhetorically, so he just nodded.
“I couldn’t find it in me to care enough to go to their funerals.”
She started to go through the boxes again, and Merlin stopped her by lifting up her chin. “I didn’t have parents. It was more like I was created. But I know what it is like to be alone and not finding the appropriate emotions to bring myself to care. Never for one moment think that that makes you a bad person. Arthur is a
bad person, and you are nothing like him.” He threw her question back at her, “You want to know a secret?”
Just like what he did a moment ago, she just nodded.
He smiled, trying to relax her sad face, “I don’t know how old I am.”
Her mouth twitched, fighting a smile, so he continued, “Do you know what it’s like to continue the same actions over and over again, expecting something different to happen?”
She shook her head no, “I don’t know where you are going with this.”
Merlin kept his ‘I got a secret’ smile, “Here goes… I enjoyed life a whole lot at first. A. Whole. Lot. The parties…the people, both human and magical… the women...” He paused and dropped his smile. “It never matters how many events you attend. How many woman you sleep with. It became all the same…you could say I got uninterested. Life never changed. So I changed life. Avalon became my life, until Viviane.”
He stopped because Anne held her hand over his mouth, “Shut up! You and Viviane were lovers?”
Merlin moved her hand, “Absolutely not. I haven’t been interested in intimacy in a long time.” He pointed down to his lap, “Even if I were, my body was not in the least bit interested.”
He took a deep breath before continuing, “Viviane had such a passion for love. Her passion was so unadulterated…so pure.”
He stopped talked when she started to gasp. She repeated, “Shut up! You haven’t had…you know…sex,” she whispered while her face turned bright red, “in over fifteen hundred years?”
Merlin shrugged, “Longer than that. As I said, I don’t know how old I am, and I stopped counting years a long time ago. So the last time I had…sex,” he whispered back to her, “has to be at least two thousand years ago, maybe longer. But that wasn’t my secret.”
She held her hand up for him to stop, “I don’t think I can take any more of your secrets tonight, let me wrap my head around what you just told me.” She stared at him like he had grown a third eye out of his forehead and gasped, “How do you handle your urges?”
Promise Forever: Fairy Tales with a Modern Twist Page 58
