"I wanted to go with you."
"You're not the only mother involved in this tale," Merlin said.
I glanced at Nammu. Wyrms aren't particularly expressive. But I could feel her anxiety and worry. "I know, Merlin."
Merlin extended his staff and traced a circle in the water. It was a massive circle formed from golden and green magic. The same magic he'd used when he left before.
"That's a big gateway you're making," I said.
"It will take you home," Merlin said. "After I do this... you need to go. All of you, including the wyrms."
I nodded.
"I love you, mom." Merlin hugged me and kissed me on the cheek again.
"A lot of hugs today," I said.
"For me, it's been long overdue," Merlin said. "I needed that."
I smiled. "Love you too, son."
"Stay here. Be ready to ride Nammu." Merlin made eye contact with me. He was expecting my confirmation.
"But what are you about to do, Merlin?" I asked.
"Trust me, mom," Merlin said.
I bit my lip and nodded. "I do trust you."
Merlin nodded back and swam toward Agwe and Cleo.
He joined hands with both of them.
Apparently, whatever he was doing, he needed more strength than even he, the most powerful sorcerer in all of history, could muster on his own.
I smiled. He was siphoning... I didn't realize he'd inherited that ability from me. I'd always figured he'd gotten more of his father's brand of magic.
I suppose it made sense. Siphoning more power... combined with what he got from his dad. That's why he was so powerful. A constant connection to magic, to Awen, to Druid magic... combined with my ability to amplify it.
And now he was borrowing a little Fomorian magic from the Old Fomorian firmament, too.
"What is he doing?" Tahlia asked, swimming up beside me.
"I haven't the slightest clue," I said. "But I'm impressed."
Tahlia smirked. "I'll let you have Agwe if I can have Merlin."
I rolled my eyes. "He's too old for you, Tahlia."
Tahlia shrugged. "For now, he is."
"Not the best time," I chuckled. "Is that all you ever think about? Shacking up with powerful men?"
"Pretty much," Tahlia said. "And powerful women."
I shook my head. "Good luck with that. At this point in Merlin's life, from what I understand, he's already in love."
"Nimue?" Tahlia asked.
I cocked my head. "How do you know about that?"
Tahlia looked at me blankly. "Hello, your son is Merlin. His story has been told a hundred different ways."
I snorted. "Yeah, I suppose so... but according to those stories, his love for her is his undoing."
Tahlia shrugged. "Well, if that's the case, she hasn't undone him yet."
I nodded. "Apparently not."
The tornado of water turning around Enki sparkled—blue Fomorian magic combined with the green Druid magic of Awen, the magic Merlin drew from the Tree of Life itself.
And Enki's eyes began to change... the wyrm opened his mouth and a cloud of black, of nothingness, poured out from between his jaws like smoke.
Merlin, Agwe, and Cleo released their hands, and the tornado dissipated.
Merlin extended his hand and inhaled deeply.
The smoke, the void spawn itself, shot at him, striking him in the chest like a dart.
"Merlin!" I shouted.
He squeezed his staff as he turned and looked at me.
His eyes were black for a moment. And then blue...
"Merlin, what did you just do?" I cried.
"I did what I must," Merlin said. "And I need you to do what you must. Follow me through the gate back to New Fomoria."
I cocked my head. "Merlin, you can't. The same soul can't be at the same time and place at once. If you try that, you'll end up..."
"I'll be back in the void, mom."
"No, Merlin!"
"Look at me, mother," Merlin said. "In your life, on your timeline, I still have a whole life to live. But now, this is what I have to do."
"Merlin!" I cried so hard I could barely see. My son put his hand on my shoulder. "You'll see me again soon."
"But you won't see me..."
Merlin shook his head. "I will not."
Merlin turned and went into the gate he'd made.
"No!" I screamed.
Agwe and Cleo came up behind me. Each put a hand on one of my shoulders.
I shrugged them off. "You two, you know he was planning this!"
"We've known a long time now, Joni," Agwe said. "Well, I did anyway. But not everything."
"I just learned of the plan myself," Cleo added. "But it was the only way."
"I could have siphoned it myself!" I insisted.
"And it would have consumed you," Agwe said. "If it did, and the void spawn took you over..."
"I would have found a way!" I shouted. "We'd find a way together!"
Cleo shook her head. "It would be inevitable, Joni. If you took the void spawn, you'd only save us for a short time. But the end would be the same. Merlin did what he had to do. He saved all of us."
I wiped a tear from my eye. "He did, didn't he..."
"Not all of you," Balor said, swimming up from behind. "He only saved our Fomoria. And for that, I am a grateful king. You must return home. You must save New Fomoria."
I bit my lip. "I suppose you'll be seeing me again soon, Balor."
Balor nodded. "So you've told me. But the fates will align as they must."
I snorted. I looked at Agwe, Cleo, Tahlia, and our wyrms, who'd gathered behind us.
I sniffed. I was still in tears. This wasn't a pain that was going to fade quickly. "I have a few questions, Agwe. About what Merlin did..."
"I'm sure you do," Agwe said. "And I'll answer them for you. But this gateway won't last forever, and if it dissipates before we get through..."
I nodded.
Nammu, are you all ready to go? I asked.
We are...
"Alright, everyone, Mount up. We're going home."
34
THE GATE TOOK us back to the modern-day ocean, somewhere in the Caribbean, a long way from Fomoria. Not an insurmountable problem. With the wyrms, we could easily use one of their literal "wyrmholes" to transport ourselves closer.
I sighed as Agwe rode, atop his wyrm, coming up beside me. "Looks like my son has lost a bit of his touch in old age," I said. "If y'all want, I can have Nammu take us back to Fomoria a bit faster."
"Wait," Agwe said. "I don't think Merlin sent us here by accident. It was most likely intentional."
"Intentional?" I asked. "Why in the world would he want us to have to travel extra distance before we arrived to take on the voidbringer?"
"Because," Agwe said. "I think he wants you to know the truth."
I nodded. "Yeah, I have some questions, mister."
Agwe laughed, "I'm sure you do."
"Don't we all?" Tahlia asked as she pulled up beside me, riding Enki. Cleo was on her wyrm just below us but within speaking distance.
"Merlin is the reason I'm here," Agwe said.
"Well, duh," I said, rolling my eyes. "He cast the gate that sent us here."
"No," Agwe said. "I mean here at all. In this host. In Fomoria. Playing second-fiddle to a merking..."
I furrowed my brow. "I don't follow. I mean, I knew it was a little strange you were following his orders and not the other way around."
Agwe took a deep breath. "Merlin appeared to me... before I came to Fomoria. I can't say for certain when it was. But it was a Merlin around the age he was when we first arrived in Old Fomoria. I'm guessing it was after he left. Before he returned as an older man."
"So he's the reason you went to Fomoria, to begin with?" I asked.
"Yes," Agwe said. "Well, no. Not exactly."
"Which is it, yes or no?" I asked.
"This host, the body I now inhabit, was previously the king's nephew, Cahel. H
e was seriously injured... had an encounter with rogue hunters."
"Hunters?" I asked.
"Humans who seek us out to capture us that they might prove our existence and, more than likely, find a way to harness our power."
"And he was hurt trying to escape these hunters?" I asked.
"They'd gotten too close to Fomoria," Agwe said. "He meant to sabotage their vessel, pierce their hull and force them to return to shore. But they saw him. Caught him with a harpoon. Straight through the back and out his chest, narrowly missing his heart. Some of the legionnaires retrieved him, saved him before the hunters could abscond with his wounded body."
"I don't see any scars," I said, looking up and down Agwe's chiseled torso.
"Magic," Agwe said, smiling. "Aided by my possession. But his injuries were significant. While the harpoon missed the heart, it did puncture a lung..."
"And he summoned you, asked you to mount him, to save him?" I asked.
"That was what he'd hoped to do," Agwe said. "But his attempts failed. Legba refused his petition to grant me passage."
I scrunched my brow. "Why would Legba refuse? I met him. He's kind enough."
"To simply save a life... we have rules about possession, when, and why it is acceptable to claim a host. And Cahel wasn't conscious. He couldn't consent. Legba disapproved."
I bit my lip. "I suppose that makes sense."
"But King Conand wasn't dissuaded. If Legba wouldn't allow me to enter his nephew through the crossroads... he believed he could bypass the crossroads entirely. There are darker forces that can be used to bind a Loa to a host."
"And so he turned to the bokors?" I raised my eyebrows.
Agwe sighed. "Had he summoned me that way, my will, my disposition would be bound to their darker magic... not unlike the Baron was when you encountered him before, in your youth. Though, perhaps, not as obviously so. After all, I am no Ghede."
"I'm presuming that wasn't what happened," I said. "Because you aren't a total douche bag."
Agwe grinned. "Merlin got to me first. Convinced me to appeal to Legba directly, which I did. While you and the baby Merlin were still in the void before he returned, Merlin came with me, and we managed to heal Cahel just enough to wake him. Not enough to save him. We discovered quite quickly his wounds were too extensive. Not so extensive I couldn't heal his body over time. Obviously, I did. But traumatic enough that we wouldn't be able to heal him in time to spare his life. So, realizing he was on his deathbed and believing he could do something good if he consented, he agreed to offer me his body. He knew his uncle, in desperation, had turned to the bokors, and he was convinced that this was the only way. Because he knew that whatever he'd promised the bokors, they'd come to cash in on their end of the bargain eventually."
"Did they?" I asked. "Ever come to cash in?"
Agwe shrugged. "I suspected as much. When the void was opened. But now I'm not so sure. I think that might have been a part of Conand's plans to bring you about, to create the Wyrmriders. Even if things got out of hand. I'm afraid the bokors might still be coming to him, still expecting him to meet some side of a bargain yet fulfilled. Which is why we must closely examine his every move, his every motive."
"And Merlin convinced you to do this, to spy on Conand?" I asked. "Why was he so interested in the merking?"
Agwe smiled wide. "Well, I can't say Merlin foresaw everything that would unfold. But he knew the void spawn would happen. He said it would find another host. He knew the king would likely have something to do with it, even if his motives were in the right place. And he wanted me to find who it was so that he could claim the void spawn again so he could bring it back to the void... even if it be the last thing he'd ever do."
I cocked my head. "So Merlin knew, for the better part of his adult life, that eventually, he'd have to die this way?"
Agwe nodded. "But he also got to live an incredible life... and he insisted that there was no other way. He'd have to claim the void spawn in time."
I shook my head. "Why couldn't it be cast into some other vessel? Why did it have to be him?"
Agwe shook his head. "I can't say for sure, Joni. I wish I could tell you."
"Nammu," I said. "Are you hearing all this?"
I am...
"Were you aware of all this, too?"
I knew nothing... I only knew that my child had been pulled from the void...
"But I still don't understand. How was the void spawn a part of Merlin? What I passed on to him... it came from a dragon's essence. It should have been a dragon's essence that possessed him, too."
Agwe shook his head. "Dragons, like the wyrm, are creatures of the void."
The voidbringer was once one of us... That a part of his essence, his spawn, infected my child... it was his attempt to take him over, to steal my child from me that he might weaken my resolve...
I cocked my head. "Nammu, what do you mean? He used to be a wyrm?"
Or a dragon... the only difference between dragons and us is the elemental magic we first encounter when we come from the void. A dragon manifests from the elements of air and fire—a wyrm, from the elements of water and earth.
I bit my cheek. "Why earth? I mean, air and fire make sense..."
As wyrm, we might also bore through the ground even as we swim through the seas...
"But if the magic you encountered brought you into touch with air and fire, you'd be dragons?" I asked.
Yes, Joni La Sirene.
"Wait," I said. "You still aren't telling me how Eiku got possessed by this thing."
"We're still unsure," Agwe admitted. "It's why we struggled to locate the void spawn in Old Fomoria."
I am the vessel of existence. I was the one Bondye called from the void when he ordered all of creation when he made the earth and all its creatures. But the one you call the voidbringer... he is my opposite.
"The yin to your yang?" I asked.
The darkness to my light...
"Then why isn't the voidbringer a wyrm like you? If he's basically one of you, but he hopes to destroy creation..."
Because he rejects the elements. He despises existence, and the elements are the building blocks of your world. So, he comes here as nothing but nothingness itself... He was forced into a dragon's form once before, by one of this world's gods... which is how you first met him.
"Wait," I said. "Are you telling me that this dragon's essence inside of me... it's actually..."
It's a part of the voidbringer, La Sirene... and the void spawn, the child of the voidbringer. And you are its mother.
35
I SHOOK MY head in disbelief. The voidbringer? Inside of me? My stomach turned at the thought. That meant, in some bass-ackwards way, the void spawn was the same dragon's essence I'd exorcised from Merlin as a baby.
The bokors hadn't created the void spawn...
I did. When I gave birth to Merlin...
I wanted to dig my nails into my chest and rip it out of me, somehow. It was no wonder I felt so... empty... so hell-bent on destruction. Why the urges I had didn't reflect the character of these wyrms at all...
"So, I'm basically your opposite. What is inside of me... it doesn't make sense. It's that part of me that connects me to you. You'd think it would make us enemies."
We are more alike than you might realize... you're a siphon, are you not? What is a siphon but a vessel, a void... capable of drawing in the magic of the elements and projecting them... this is precisely how I was used to create existence itself. And what you possess, it may be a part of the voidbringer, but it is normed by you... your will... your desire. He will not consume you unless you allow him to.
I nodded. "Not planning on doing that any time soon."
"I think I see what Merlin did," Agwe said. "The voidbringer has no way of knowing his child is back inside the void... he is not the void itself, he is an extension of the void, more like an ambassador for nothingness."
"So the voidbringer still thinks his child is working to consume anc
ient Fomoria..."
"But once he sees us," Agwe said. "He'll know his spawn either failed, or we fled."
"And Nammu, you can send him back to the void?"
The voidbringer is a breach unto himself... we can bind him. But if we open another breach, it may make things worse.
"It will start sucking the world into itself?" I asked. "Like the one that Julie Brown said she opened in the swamp?"
Yes, La Sirene. Our best chance is to bind the voidbringer and leave him no choice but to return to the void of his own accord.
"But he's patient," I said. "Coming from a realm outside of time, he isn't under any pressure to act quickly."
The same might be said of us wyrms...
"True," I said, patting Nammu on the side. "But I was born in this world. And if he refuses to leave, and you cannot let him go unbound..."
Then we will hold him indefinitely...
"Indefinitely? As in... forever?" I shook my head. "Not acceptable, Nammu. And you said it yourself. You were the vessel of creation, the instrument the creator used to make everything that exists. Doesn't that make time, itself, something of your child?"
An interesting way to put it, Nammu said, her voice calm and steady. And you are not wrong.
"Then how can you be sure you will be able to outlast the voidbringer?"
We do not need to outlast him... we only must match his resolve.
"If that isn't outlasting him, you're talking about staying here and binding him in place forever."
I am...
I put my hands on my hips. It was more difficult than I expected, steadying myself on the back of my wyrm without my hands. I mainly had to drape my tail to one side and couldn't wrap my legs around her. I quickly put one hand back on Nammu's side. "It's not acceptable."
It must be...
"Well, I won't stand for that. There has to be another way!"
Perhaps we will be lucky, and the voidbringer will retreat willingly... maybe he will decide it is better to pursue a different strategy than succeed this time...
I huffed. "A big if. And if we did that, what would happen to Fomoria? Would the whole city, and the merfolk within it, be trapped, too?"
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 47
