A little different this story.
I wrote it as part of an idea I had to ‘warm up’ for Nanowrimo 2007. The idea was I’d ask a friend for a title or theme for a story and I would turn out a story in about a night
This didn’t last very long, the first idea I was given was ‘something to do with merlin’, which is the story below. Sorry no downloadable version for this one, it’s very short!
The second idea I was given was the title ‘drawing the short sword’ which never got written, after that I stopped asking for the ideas.
However the title ‘drawing the short sword’ did serve as a seed which grew in to something else…
Anyway here is the Merlin Artifice
The side of the valley towered above me. I had crossed almost all of the known lands to reach this far, but the final barrier between me and the help I sort was the valley side.
It started as a gentle grassy slope, but the climb quickly became steep and before long the grass gave way to an almost vertical climb up the rock face. I could see in the distance above me, the object of my quest, Merlin’s cave. I was a good climber, I could reach all but the heights branches of the trees in the great forest, but the highest of the trees would only reach half way up this rock face and I had never climbed rock before. But I should not let that deter me, my fellow villagers had chosen me as the strongest and wisest in the village, they had placed their faith in me for this most important of quests.
I started the climb up towards the craggy rock face. I needed to get to Merlin’s cave, my village and all that I knew depended on this. I could not fail. Merlin had helped us many times in the past, he was the oldest, wisest and most powerful of all men. He did not need the fineries that village chieftains had to show his power, the villagers of the Vale of Avalon knew this and came to him when they needed help. It was said that he lived here in the rock face, so that the peoples of the Vale, would only come to him in there most desperate of hours.
Now was such a time for the village.
I had now reached the rock face. I had never faced such a climb, but I knew it was possible, others before me had climbed this face and met with the great and powerful Merlin, so I would too. I found some hand holds and started to climb. The rock was cold and unyielding, not like the trees I was used to climbing.
The beast men had come from the north. The arrived in our fields 3 days ago. Nothing like them had ever been seen in the vale before. They looked like men, but men which had been mixed with the bears and wolves that roam the forests of the north. They where bigger and stronger than us and savage too. Our cautious but friendly greetings had be met with brutal blows.
The farmers fled their fields. The beast men did not follow. The elders of the village met that night. They decided that we would watch those fields, but not try to force the beast men back. There where other fields we could farm and if they didn’t come any closer we would leave them alone.
The light was beginning to fade now and I was already in the shadow of the opposite wall of the valley. I would have to make it to Merlin’s cave before night fell. My arm with it’s fresh wound throbbed with pain. But the wound only served to remind me of what I was defending here.
Looking down I could see I was already higher than any tree I’d climbed before. The cool wind tugged at my tunic and the valley seemed to twist around me. Quickly, I closed my eyes and pulled my self in to the cold rock face.
This was all part of the test. I would not fail, I could not fail, the village was depending on me to get Merlin’s help.
The beast men had not been content to stay where they were. Maybe they had seen us watching them, maybe they had always planned to take our village and the artefact. The wise woman had foreseen that it was the artefact that they wanted. The artefact and our families where the two things which we would fight to the death for.
The next day we met the advancing beast men with our best hunters. The battle was short but fierce. The beast men had both greater numbers and greater strength. There was no cowardice in our retreat. We where not going to stop them there in the open fields. We needed a place where their greater numbers did not matter, a place where we had the greater strength.
So it was that, we withdrew to the village and started to fortify our homes and that I was chosen to seek the help of the wisest and most powerful of men, Merlin. His help would tip the scales in our favour. His help would ensure our village and the artefact would stay safe.
The light was now fading rapidly, the sun had set behind the hills on the opposite side of the valley. The sky was a vivid shade of red where the sun had set and it faded to a deep purple above me. The rock face was now a dull grey wall, with the cracks I needed for hand holds an inky black. I must reach the cave, quickly now. If the light goes completely before then both I and the village are lost.
In the sky above me, the stars begin to show. And below them, for the first time, I see the ledge. It’s this ledge that will lead me to Merlin’s cave. My limbs now feel as heavy as the stone that I climb, but the ledge is now so close.
My hand touches on it and I pull upwards, but my cold fingers fail to grip and my hand slips. Again the valley seems to spin around me. I’m so close now, I can not fail here.
Again my hand finds the ledge and I pull. This time my grip holds firm and I’m level with the ledge. I clamber on to it and lay there, looking at the stars as they appear in the dark purple sky. Despite the chilly air I am sweating and my body shakes from the effort of the climb, but I have made it.
I lay there for some time, recovering my strength. The sky above is fully black when I sit up again. Only the faintest of purple glows can be seen where the sun has set. But in the valley below me, I can see the fires of the village. There will be little sleeping there tonight, every one will be helping prepare for the battle that is to come.
And not far from the fires of the village I can see another set of fires. The beast men’s camp. It seems the night is for them as it is for us a time to huddle in the warm and light of the fire. Their firers are large messy, smoking piles of wood, as befits those wild men.
The ledge ahead of me is narrow as I slowly and carefully feel my way along it. But I can see the glow of the fire in Merlin’s cave. His fire does not flicker as does ours, the light is steady and constant.
I stop at the cave mouth and prepare my self for a few moments. What would Merlin look like? What would a man of such power be like? How should I act?
I realised such matters where trivial with the future of village at stake. Others had come to Merlin in the past and they had always received the aid that they needed. I took a deep breath and entered the cave.
The light that filled the cave was coming from a sphere of fire floating above a small pit in the middle of the cave. The fire gave off a fierce bluish light and a lot of heat. I had never seen such a fire, but there was no time to ponder such wonders. I needed to bring the villages plea for help to Merlin.
I approached the strange fire. My shadow was cast on the domed cave walls, but I was not a lone, there was another shadow beside mine. Merlin! I turned to face the man. And froze.
He was not like any man I’d seen. His arms and legs where to long and his skin was withered and black. The eyes where large and all wrong.
“You are surprised by my appearance?” His voice was quiet and soothing. “I would have been surprised had you not been”.
He moved with a strange and unnatural grace. He sat down on a rock by the strange fire. “You are quiet for one has come to ask for help”.
“I…I am sorry. I have…come…”.
“You have come to ask for help in defending the village from this new threat. Yes?”
“I have yes”. I needed to show my strength now. Merlin needed to know that we are not helpless, that we had done every thing that we could. “You are the only one that can help us. There are too many of these beast men for us. We need your help”.
Merlin shook his head. “No, no, you don’t”.
I was stunned. “But we…”.
“You don’t need my help, you have already that which you need to fight this scourge, all you need me for is to tell you that. I know you will not understand my words but I will tell you why don’t need my help. In fact it is the very opposite”.
Was this another test? What should I say to make Merlin understand we needed his help in this most desperate hour. “Merlin please you must help us”.
“You misunderstand me, it’s not that I won’t help you, you do not need my help. You and your father and you fathers, father have lived in the valley living the simple life that we laid out for you in the distant past. All of the time you where absorbing from the metagenic emitters we placed there. You know these as the artefacts. The artefact at the centre of your village has slowly been altering your genetic and metagentic make up for nearly 20 generations now. Which makes you very powerful weapons by this stage”.
Merlin’s words where meaningless to me. He stood up and walked towards me. “More than powerful enough to deal with these beast men. Powerful enough to fight and to win against my enemies. This is where you can help me”.
He stood before me and lifted his hand. “I can show you how to use your power to defend your village and in return you will fight my battle for me”.
“But…” Merlin’s hand touched my head…
The battle was done and we had won once again.
All around me where the broken and battered bodies of both friend and foe alike. But the difference was that some of my friends where sill alive and moving. None of the opposing side where left alive. Merlin and is strange tools, which I still did not understand had prepared us well for these battles. And the battle at the village, which I have since learned he set up, trained us in the arts of war. All of the survivors of that first battle went beyond the valley in to Merlin’s strange world of metal ships and fighting machines, where we now fight his enemies.
It seems that our whole existence was planned by Merlin and others of his kind to make us these powerful warriors. We unlike his kind, can use our minds as weapons projecting energies with strange names to burn Merlin’s enemies where they stand. They have no defence against us and so it seems that we are helping him win this war.
Our numbers grow fewer with each battle, but Merlin promises us that soon the war will be won and on that day we will be able to return to the Vale of Avalon and live our lives out as we please. But I’m not sure I could return to those ways now. I’ve seen and done too much that has changed me. I’m not the man that climbed that rock face so many years ago. I now know of strategy and tactics and I know that while Merlin wields some strange and powerful machines he to would be defenceless against us. He must know this too, so I suspect we will never be allowed to return once the war is over.
