"Think of the worst atrocity you can remember. Take that single incident and multiply it by a hundred a day and then multiply that by 365 days of the year. That was our world. It was a world of constant alertness and unexpected violence. We fought to stay alive and to keep our tribes alive."
Merlin took a breath. "But you do the same thing today but only in a more so-called civilized way. Your big powers enforce their will using weapons, but those weapons are often controlled from afar by young soldiers on a video terminal. The effect on those soldiers is the same as when we swung our swords. We lose our humanity when we kill. We did it to survive. You do it to enforce your economic system and keep the rich happy. Which is better?" asked Merlin breaking eye contact and looking at the floor.
Merlin stopped talking and took a deep breath. He released it as a long sigh and raised his eyes to Jeff's.
"Yes, I've been a soldier and yes, I've killed many people. And yes, I suspect those days are not over," said Merlin.
Jeff had no followup question but the two of them stared at each other and neither wanted to break eye contact.
Jeff did.
The Seventh Council
"Merlin, I'd like to ask a question about something called the Seventh Council. This Council is a vague rumour that has been circulating around the news desks, and I'd like to ask you if you would explain that to our readers," said Jeff.
Merlin looked thoughtful for a moment, made eye contact, and nodded. "The seventh Council is a formal declaration of war against humanity. And that's the simplest way that I can explain it," said Merlin.
"What happened to the other six councils?" asked Jeff.
Merlin nodded and said, "Yes, there have been six councils in the past. When humanity impinges on the fae world in increasing amounts of destruction resulting in more and more of us dying, it becomes a war of survival. For example if a lumber company clear cuts a forest and takes away all the trees, then the dryads who live in that forest are homeless and will wither and die. So by clearcutting and not allowing trees to survive, humanity is killing fae.
When humans drain a swamp for their golf course, the fae that live in that water and depend on it for survival die.
Humanity has not learned to husband its resources. And you have constantly and consistently denuded the landscape and built your monuments on top of the homes of fae. And either deliberately on the part of your churches or accidentally through ignorance, you have either directly killed fae or reduced them to homeless refugees.
This is not something that we can live with for very much longer and first six Councils were called to deal with a specific event or person.
There have already been six councils called and in all of these, the world of fae has lost the battle. Humanity has either ignored or directly and deliberately assaulted our world.
"I understand the examples you've given me and I think those are accidents because we don't understand that fae live in those areas. That's our ignorance, I agree. But, can you give me an example of humanity deliberately assaulting your world?" asked Jeff. "I have trouble believing we'd do that."
Merlin's face mirrored his incredulity. "Seriously?" And then Merlin took a second to wonder if humanity really was that stupid and thick-headed they couldn't recognize the magic and wonder around them.
"Ever hear of a church being built on a "formerly sacred spot"?" asked Merlin.
"Well, yes but…" said Jeff and he stopped. "You're saying when humans build their churches on top of formerly sacred spots, fae die?"
"What else did you think happens. And a spot isn't "formerly sacred" as you put it. It's either sacred or it's not sacred. And sacred spaces don't move and neither do the fae that inhabit them. They're just bulldozed or cut down by humanity. There's no "formerly" about it.
You people just don't understand there's no way to remove the sacred from life at your convenience," said Merlin. The disgust on his face and in his voice was crystal clear.
"But we've always respected sacred spaces by building our churches on them. Those are our sacred places," said Jeff.
Merlin's face didn't change. "Right, your sacred comes at the destruction and death of our sacred. How does that help us?"
Jeff responded to Merlin's scathing voice with silence.
Merlin shook his head slowly, dropped his eyes to stare at the floor. A long minute of silence passed before he softly explained.
"The seventh Council is the last and final Council where they will declare an ultimate war on humanity. It will be a war to the death.
We'll declare war - and crop harvests will be reduced in response to our summons.
Animals will have fewer young. They understand the stakes better than humans.
People will not have as many babies because love - the most magical of feelings - will be reduced or eliminated in humanity.
We're going to totally attack your civilization as you have destroyed ours.
We may not be able to totally stop you or deter you but we're going to try.
And if need be, we'll die in the process.
And if we die, the result of that will be a loss of magic and poverty of spirit in your world that will never pass.
The magic of life, the unexplained happiness you often feel, the laughter of a baby, the magic of blazing sunsets and starlit skies will disappear leaving your world the poorer for it," said Merlin.
He took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, looked Jeff directly in the eye and challenged him
"That is what the Seventh Council is," said Merlin in his softest, most dangerous voice.
Jeff could not and did not respond but sat silently staring at a different Merlin. The man sitting in front of him was no comic book character, no wizard from a child's story. Jeff suddenly realized he was staring into the eyes of this world's most dangerous, apex predator and he considered his next words as carefully as any he'd ever spoken.
"Can we avoid this?"
Merlin shrugged his shoulders. He stood, nodded his head at Jeff, walked to the door, turned and asked, "Do you want to?"
Merlin closed the door softly and gently behind him.
Afterword
I hope this short ebook gave you a better sense of Merlin compared to the myths and cartoons you may be more familiar with.
One of the interesting things to me is the "real-world" histories of people. For example, the Assyrians really did call these wandering tribes the Umman Manda.
And the development and spread of humanity did occur the way (as far as we know from archeology right now) it's portrayed as tribes expanding, splitting and moving to fresh resources.
They're still excavating the kurgans.
Ghengis Khan - apparently - was a ginger.
There were short, swarthy human males married to tall, blonde, blue-eyed women (found in the kurgans.)
The Helvetians did try to migrate and Julius Caesar cut them down without mercy or enslaved them to make himself rich.
Moving from a hunter-gatherer culture to a farming culture created massive disruptions in human civilization and was ultimately responsible for the development of organized warfare we're still experiencing today.
But somewhere in our history is room for magic.
And somewhere there exists room for hope and beauty amidst the news cycles that flood our minds and spirits.
Those are the stories I'm searching for.
CDS
ChristinaDuncanStewart.com
The Ages Of Merlin: Origins Page 3
