Merlin's Kiss

by Stephanie Burke

  "I cannot, little Brieana," Merlin sighed, his eyes looking sad as he stared at what he considered his one true miscarriage of justice. People were not meant to be pawns, and yet he had turned this delicate creature into one.

  "But why?"

  "I created a puppet king, Brieana. One the people could follow. And while I pulled the strings, the Britons prospered. Despite the guilt I felt for your fate, dear Brieana, I pulled the strings of my puppet until he decided to cut those strings free. Lust and desire are within us all, child. But lust and desire, running unchecked, started the downfall of the kingdom, your perfect kingdom, Brieana. And lust, desire and greed not only corrupted it, they brought it to its knees. The age of magic was lost, child. And with it the ideals of truth and justice, very lofty and proper goals, were ground into the dust."

  "And Arthur…?"

  "He died because of his unchecked lusts, Brieana. All that was right and good seemed to fade with him."

  "And the kingdom fell." Brieana sounded tired.

  "Camelot fell," Merlin repeated.

  "But this is not Camelot, Merlin. This is the Light Isles. You can make a difference here. Please! Advise me, My Lord. Help guide me on the right path. I am no puppet Queen to blindly follow your word, but I will gladly accept your advice. How can I make Excalibur live? How can I end the scourge that is threatening the land?"

  "And the skies," Dagon felt a need to add. This sickening sweet, touching, and oh, so moving moment, was making him ill.

  All turned to look at the demonically beautiful man.

  "What? Did you think I would not attempt to have every advantage? Air supremacy is the key, Woman of Legend," Dagon sneered.

  "We will stop you," Kerian snarled, drawing his big sword and stepping forward to meet Dagon.

  "You will try, you muscle-bound oaf. You will try and you will fail. Who do you think controls the people now? Shala with her fertile belly filled with my essence? This Woman of Legend with some unknown sword that is supposed to bring me low? This mysterious Man-Demon who can't stop making chum eyes at your woman? This is ridiculous," Dagon sighed as he turned to leave the room. "I will see you all dead." He turned to Shala. "You, after my offspring is born from your wasted body, but all of you will be dead soon."

  He chuckled as he calmly walked towards the door.

  A fierce roar made him turn on his heel, leathery wings drawn tight to his back, as Kerian rushed him.

  There was a clank and sparks bounded off of the magical shielding Dagon held around his person, as Kerian's sword slammed into it.

  "Fool," Dagon hissed as he raised his hand to summon his dark inner power.

  "Enough of this!" Merlin bellowed, and everyone froze.

  "Is this what has become of the world?"

  He turned to Shala, then to Tybo frozen with the drack heart powder, then to Dagon, a creature with some great inner strength but a dark core. To Kerian who was poised to lose everything in the defense of his woman and her kingdom. And finally to Brieana, who was once again confused, lost, and stuck in the middle.

  "It appears I have wronged you again, Brieana. Mayhap I was thinking like a Briton when I sent you to this place. But you need more than what I have given you in order for you to succeed. So I give you this. The key to controlling Excalibur has always been within you, in the decision you make."

  He turned to observe the room again.

  "In our time, my dear, perverted magic such as this didn't exist. There was no place for it to grow this strong, because the elementals kept things in balance. And I feel so very little of them left in this place. So I give you this."

  With a wave of his arm, Tybo began to lose the gray tint that held him imprisoned. He blinked rapidly and inhaled a deep breath while stretching like he was awakening from a long nap.

  "I cannot interfere with your destiny, my dear, I gave my word. But I can aid you in stopping those who would defile the natural order of things."

  Merlin stepped back and just as suddenly, the players began to move once again.

  "No!" Shala screamed and darted between Kerian and Dagon, out of the room.

  Her plans were in ruins! The Man-Demon would not aid her. That little bitch was the Woman of Legend. She had lost her chance to grasp real power. Now it was time to rely on brute force.

  Tybo started to dart after her, but instead turned towards his former mentor.

  Dagon shook with shock. Despite his strongest shield, the mysterious creature managed to freeze him in place. Curious.

  He turned towards Tybo, and smiled.

  "It appears there are forces greater than me, my protégé."

  Before anyone else could move, there came a great hue and cry from the courtyard.

  "They are here!" Shala screamed as she ran. "They have invaded the castle! The Dark Isles monsters are here!"

  "Schlack!" Dagon hissed as he turned to the people in the room. "I guess it is time for me to take my leave."

  "You are going nowhere!" Kerian growled, but before he could move, a blinding light emanated from Dagon…and he was gone, all but his voice.

  "I left something to keep you occupied, Lord Kerian," the voice whispered as it faded. "Look to the skies."

  They all rushed to the windows, but Brieana and Merlin held back.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  "Small enough thing to do, My Lady," he replied.

  "That kiss…?"

  "Is better left between the two of us. Otherwise, who knows what may happen?"

  He began to fade. Just like that! No flashes of light, no blast of energy, just began to grow more transparent until there was hardly a shadow of him, like he was never there.

  "Where are you going?" Brieana asked urgently. "Where…."

  "To explore this new world of yours, my Queen. It feels of magic and it calls to me."

  "Schlack!"

  The curse made Brieana turn towards Tybo and Kerian at the windows, trying to see what had upset them. She glanced back at Merlin, but he was gone, not even the smell of him remained.

  "Thank you," she whispered, before turning back to the window to see what plague had descended upon them now.

  And plague was the perfect word, for the sky was filled with leather-clad winged men.

  "What Dagon does not keep, he destroys," Tybo hissed as he watched his fellow Dark Isles warriors fill the sky and begin to rain destruction down upon Mirage.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  "We've got to stop them!" Tybo shouted as he bolted for the door.

  "Wait!" Kerian screamed as he and Brieana turned to follow.

  "No!" Tybo yelled back. "I am second-in-command! They will listen to me!"

  Kerian, sword drawn, raced after his new friend, while Brieana gazed at Excalibur, said a brief prayer and tossed her bag, with the sword Kerian had given her, into the corner of the room.

  "Please, let me find the answer," she prayed, before turning to follow them.

  She managed to make it to the outer chamber when some instinct born of years on the battlefield told her to duck.

  As she did, a sword went soaring over her head.

  She dove into a roll, came up on her feet, and turned to face her attacker.

  Shala stood there, eyes blazing fury as she watched the child who stolen her dreams.

  "Whore!" she hissed. "It's time you die!"

  The sound of metal clashing against metal filled the room as the two powerful women met in open combat.

  * * * * *

  "Wait!" Kerian shouted as he followed behind Tybo. "My people will…"

  His voice trailed off as he saw a glittering jewel in the distance.

  Even Tybo halted his mad rush, as a rainbow seemed to appear in the afternoon sky.

  "What is it?" Tybo breathed as the feel of magic and power tickled his skin and made his hair stand on end.

  "True-mother," Kerian breathed as felt the warmth and love she projected to him fill his being with comfort.

  The drackoons had arrive
d, Gren and Dalis in the lead followed by a large pearlized purple being.

  "Zorn!" Kerian screamed, eyes wide in wonder as the drackoons filled the sky.

  But a fearful murmur from the courtyard drew his attention again to his people.

  "Trapped!" someone shouted. "The Dark Isles and the drackoons! We must fight!"

  And as the first icy blasts struck the Dark Isles menace, the first spears cast with fear and hatred struck the mighty drackoons.

  "No!" Kerian screamed as he fought his way towards the courtyards. "No! Not this! They are here to help!"

  All the while, Tybo was scrambling to get into a position to be heard by his people.

  "Halt this madness!" he roared as his fellow winged warriors began hurling sulfur bombs at the people of Mirage and the drackoons alike.

  Seeing Kerian wade amongst his people gave Tybo the idea to reach higher ground, to be seen by his people, to make them understand this attack was not wanted.

  Spying a lookout tower, he spread his wings, pale gold with frustration, and launched himself upwards into the air.

  As he landed and opened his mouth to shout instructions to his people, he heard a voice scream, "The Dark Isle menace has breached the castle!"

  The voice carried and several stout warriors turned in his direction.

  Just as he felt hands grasp the muscles below and above his wings and twist them painfully and a knife sliced through tendons, immobilizing him, a voice hissed in his ear.

  "What is mine, I keep or destroy as I see fit. You were mine, Tybo. And your destruction begins at my hands."

  "Dagon," he breathed before he was shoved off of the tower.

  The sky, the one thing that sustained him for all these years, his one source of freedom and his true love, for once in his life, rejected him.

  He tried to scream as the wind rushed past his face, blinding him as he plummeted down, through the fingers of wind that for once refused to catch him.

  He managed to throw his hands in front of his face, but his wings were paralyzed, refusing to spread wide and capture the current that usually caressed them.

  Down he fell, the wind tearing at his clothes, his useless wings, his pride, and all that he was, down into the arms of the enraged Mirage warriors.

  * * * * *

  "Stupid girl!" Shala hissed as she drew back her sword and thrust again at Brieana, attacking her with the flying steel, keeping her on the defensive. Her warrior skills coming back to her after so may years as Lady of Mirage.

  "Old hag!" Brieana hissed back as she blocked thrust after thrust from the pregnant woman.

  "Old enough to know better, little girl, than to mess with another woman's castle!" Shala screamed as she continued her frenzied attack, driving Brieana back towards the halls that led to the outer courtyard.

  "And see what your wisdom has brought you?" Brieana asked as she blocked a blow, knocked Shala's sword to the side, and curved her blow inward, trying to strike the woman's wrist.

  But she missed by a hairsbreadth and had to leap backwards to avoid getting a slice to the side or the neck.

  "It brought me a child of power, little girl. It brought me knowledge that I will use to rule this Isle."

  Brieana retreated, moving further and further back, until her she heard the roar of the crowd fighting in the courtyard.

  She closed her mind to what was going on around her, failing to see the drackoons knocking the winged warriors out of the sky, or the spears cast by the fighters gathered on the ground, wounding the Dark Isles men and drackoon alike.

  "It brought you destruction!" Brieana screamed as she pushed a running servant out of the way of Shala's frantic sword blows.

  This caused Shala to step to the right against the castle wall, and for once gave her a glimpse of all that she had wrought.

  "No!" Shala screamed as she saw her people, her castle, her land being destroyed.

  Chunks of stone were falling, turned into solid ice by the blast of the drackoon's breath while those she would have ruled fell dead and injured to the cobbled stones of Mirage's courtyard.

  "This is all your fault!" the woman screamed, returning to her attack, determined to make Brieana, the Woman of Legend, pay for making her dreams fall.

  * * * * *

  "Stop this!" Kerian bellowed as he waded through the piles of people, kicking weapons out of their hands. "Cease this at once!"

  A few warriors, recognizing who was speaking, stopped in confusion. The Warlord was dead, wasn't he?

  More and more of his people lowered their weapons and stared in awe at the man, seemingly back from the dead.

  "Cease!" he bellowed, shoving one archer aside as he took aim at a drackoon and knocking him off of his feet.

  A murmur began to fill the vast courtyard, and gradual silence as more and more of the warriors stopped and looked around to see what was happening.

  "True-mother!" Kerian bellowed.

  Even the Dark Isles forces seemed to freeze for a moment, then a large scream rent the air.

  The large platinum-white drackoon swooped through the sky, knocking winged men aside as she raced towards her human son.

  Kerian cried out in gladness to see at her side, Zorn, fully transformed and large as the female who had spawned him, racing along.

  The warriors of Mirage gasped and ducked as the angry avian lizards swooped over their heads, yet no one thought to lift a weapon as the magical lizards swept through the skies.

  "Zorn!" Kerian shouted, a smile growing on his face as the drackoon swooped down and hovered over Kerian.

  Returned to you, I have ! his voice thundered in his mind. Woman of Legend, I protect!

  "More purple hide for my leggings," Kerian responded, though all could see how happy he was to see the no-longer-small purple drack.

  Because you needed me, I come, my son! Gren's majestic voice filled his head, making his eyes water with the love he felt for his True-mother.

  "True-mother…" he began, "I have news."

  But before he could continue, the winged warriors got over their shock at seeing this puny magic-less man speak to a fellow winged creature.

  Silently and deadly, they began their attack again, raining sulfur and illusion down on the crowd as well as at the lizards in the sky.

  Kerian's people instantly retaliated, striking at the Dark Isles soldiers, leaving the drackoons alone.

  "Stop!" Kerian bellowed, as pandemonium began to take over the courtyard once more.

  "We can make them stop!" a voice screamed from behind him. "We have their leader!"

  Kerian turned and horror filled his face as he watched the beaten and bruised body of Tybo being carried towards him.

  "Tybo! No!" he bellowed as he watched his friend, body being propped up, blood running from his various injuries, nose and mouth. But what horrified Kerian the most, what made his blood turn cold, what made him bellow to the heavens in anguish, was that Tybo's wings were gone.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Silence filled the courtyard at Kerian's bellow.

  The joyous people carting around Tybo froze as Kerian drew his sword and raced towards the fallen man.

  Even the Dark Isles soldiers paused, eyes horrified as they looked upon what was left of their second-in-command.

  And in that silence, a new sound began to ring.

  Curious, several people looked up towards the courtyard entrance.

  What they saw made even the most battle-hardy warriors pause.

  Shala and Brieana were oblivious to the attention they were gathering as they each fought for what they believed in.

  "You killed my people!" Shala was shouting, as she seemed to fight the strange dark-haired woman back. "You caused all of this!"

  "You fucked that thing with wings who started all of this!" Brieana countered. "You tried to kill Kerian and you invited the invaders into the castle! This is your doing, Shala!"

  Screaming out her rage, Shala brought her sword up and rushed Brieana again.<
br />
  "Your pitiful sword is no match for me!" she hissed as Brieana wielded the rusted Excalibur. "You will fall and this land will be mine!"

  "This land already has a Master!" Brieana hissed in response as she ducked a blow and leapt over a knee strike. Where did the pregnant woman get her energy, her strength?

  "You dare to take what is mine?"

  "It's Kerian's!" Brieana shouted…and Excalibur began to grow warm in her hand.

  "It's mine! You are stealing it away from me!"

  "It's his, by right and might!" Brieana screamed again. "It is his, and as rightful Queen, as the Woman of Legend, I rule it by his side!"

  Excalibur grew almost hot to the touch, but Brieana was too busy parrying Shala to make much of it.

  "You mean you will rule it! You took him to your bed and now you rule through him!"

  Shala took another mighty swing, drawing on the energy that Dagon gifted her with, but that would soon be used up.

  "I mean to rule it with him! Do not paint me with your brushstrokes, Shala! This land was meant to be ruled by someone who understands right and justice as well as might with a sword! That person is not you!"

  "It is mine!" Shala screamed. "Justice decrees it to be!"

  "What do you know of justice?"

  Both women were panting now, sweating heavily with their exertions.

  Shala's gown was torn and dirtied from her movements. Even the baby within her was silent, seemingly listening to the words that Brieana spoke.

  "This place is mine! I fought for it! I protected it from those accursed lizards! I brought the people together to subjugate themselves to me!"

  "You lied! You schemed! You brought destruction!" Brieana declared, her voice growing more majestic and her sword arm strengthening as she suddenly went on the attack.

  "You brought death and misery! You destroyed the land you tried to rule! You murdered innocents! You are not fit to rule! You are not fit to live!"

  As she took a mighty swing, Shala brought her own sword up in a defensive position, only to have it snapped in two.

  Shala looked up and screamed as Excalibur seemed to take on a life of its own.