The Power of the Mighty Sidhe
Chapter 4
Arthur picks his head up sharply and looks around to see who called him. No one there but Leon standing next to him intently watching the squires and knights sparring. He catches sight of Gaheris in the distance approaching the training field from the citadel gate. "So where is he?" Arthur impatiently shouts out to Gaheris as he walks out onto the field.
"Gaius said he sent Merlin to pick herbs," Gaheris says as he nears Arthur and Leon.
"Pick herbs," Arthur repeats, shaking his head. He signals to Gaheris to join the other squires in their practice exercises.
After Gaheris walks away Leon says, still watching the squires, "oh? No, Sire. I saw Merlin not too long ago. He was walking through the courtyard with a beautiful young woman."
"Merlin?" Arthur asks incredulously. "With a woman? Where was he going?"
Leon glances at Arthur and nods yes, a woman. "He said he was going to the lake. They walked out of the citadel hand in hand." Arthur looks at Leon with a raised eyebrow. "He looked rather dreamy-eyed, if you ask me." Arthur and Leon share a laugh.
"Well, I've got to see this!" Arthur chortles. "If he's not back by the time we're done with training, let's go find him at the lake and see for ourselves this girl who has enchanted our Merlin."
xXx
The water recedes again, and Merlin is left gasping for air before the next onslaught. He clings to the staff with his arms and legs wrapped around it as the water batters the interior of the cave relentlessly. His eye catches the writing on the staff in the language of the old religion. "To hold life and death in your hands," Gaius had said it meant. Merlin focuses his magic on that phrase, and thinks, "I will not die here. If I hold life and death in my hands, then I choose life." It's the only way he can save Arthur's. His eyes glow gold with power, and he removes one of his hands from the staff. He raises his hand out in front, palm forward, spreading his fingers wide. The water calms and the tide turns back draining from the cave.
He leaves the cave and staggers around to the spit of sand under the cliff. He bends down and picks up a seashell, putting it in his pocket. He climbs back up the cliff face the way he had come down, soaking wet but breathing, just breathing with relief.
He walks down the green slope to Beann, who is waiting where he had left her, dozing in the sunshine. She opens her eyes and smiles when he collapses next to her. "You did it? You did, didn't you?" she says, grinning.
He grins back, and swipes his wet hair back off his forehead. "Yeah, I did."
xXx
Beann is in in her human form again when they arrive back at Avalon, with a smoother landing this time. Merlin reaches into his pocket to pull out the seashell he had picked up on the spit of sand on the little island. He holds it out to show the Elder. "It is done," he says.
With a nod, the Elder indicates his acceptance of Merlin's gift of the shell from the sea and motions to Beann to take it from Merlin. She fills the shell with water from the lake and the Elder can scry that the staff is now once again secure in the cave on the island under the ancient fortress on the cliff.
"Well, young mortal man, you have succeeded," the Elder says. He looks around at the others hovering in the air nearby and nods. "You have earned the right to decide your fate."
Merlin stands, shivering in his wet clothes on the shore of the isle in the middle of the Lake of Avalon, once again captive in the silver cage of Sidhe magic. "Thank you," Merlin says. "All I want is to save the life of the prince."
"Yes, but it will come at a awful cost. Are you prepared?" Merlin nods uncertainly, unable to speak, holding his breath.
"Here is your choice, Merlin: You can lose your prince or lose your magic."
Merlin gasps and staggers as if hit with a physical blow, stunned. "No, please! Not that! The prince must live! I need my magic to protect him."
Merlin looks around frantically, but the Elders wait patiently, impassive.
"Beann, please! You understand why." She looks at him with pity. The Elders had made their offer. They are unmoved by his pleas. He bows his head in surrender, and chooses to give up his magic.
"So be it," the Elder nods to Beann and gestures to her. "Proceed."
She moves to face him reluctantly. "Merlin, I'm sorry." Beann takes Merlin's face in both her hands. "Close your eyes," she tells him softly. He is still held by the magical bonds of the Sidhe, and cannot move away. He trembles at the magnitude of what is going to happen to him. He is afraid.
She raises her face to his and gently places her lips on his, and kisses him. Their magic meets with their lips. It swirls around them, his gold and the Sidhe silver twining wildly. He feels the power of the Sidhe magic. His own magic thrums within, growing, absorbing the magic offered by the Sidhe. At the moment their magic joins, visions, sounds and scenes, flash through Merlin's mind. "Have faith," he hears himself say looking at Arthur, who appears to be glowing in the shaft of sunlight piercing through the canopy of trees in the forest, as he reaches out his hand to pull a sword from a stone . . . he sees the lake, a small coracle fading into the mist of Avalon with the island in the distance, and hears inconsolable sobbing with Beann Sidhe's quiet keening echoing profound grief . . . he sees an old, old man walking down an empty path along the lake, when suddenly a large blue noise whizzes by, splashing up dirty water from a puddle. He hears Beann call out, "Emrys," as she breaks the kiss; he knows she'd seen his visions as well.
As Beann lifts her lips from his, dropping her hands, she gasps, whispering, "You are Emrys. You will be the one left behind."
He falls bonelessly to the ground, freed of the magical bonds that had held him. Behind his closed eyelids, his eyes glow with a golden silver light. His magic pulses within, stronger with an endless energy.
Beann sinks to her knees to crouch near him, and touches his forehead. Slowly he opens his eyes, silver gold fading to blue. "You are Emrys," she repeats, awed.
"That is what the Druids call me," he mumbles, dazed and overwhelmed by the power of the magic he's experienced. He sits up slowly, fighting his dizziness and nausea.
"I cannot take your magic away, Emrys. You are magic." She looks at him, stunned by the power she sensed. "I am sorry, but I fear that I have given you a terrible gift."
Merlin looks at her with his eyebrows raised in a question. What does this matter? Arthur's life has been spared; he still has his magic. "What?" he says finally. She looks at him with pity.
"Immortality."
xXx
Immediately after training, Arthur, Leon, and Aurelius pick up horses at the stables and mount up to ride out to the lake. When they get there, they can see two sets of footprints leading to the shore, but they stop at water's edge. The lake is shrouded in mist and they cannot see anything far beyond the lakeshore. As they watch, a small boat comes silently out of the mist and approaches the shore, with Merlin sitting in it, bent over, with his forearms on his knees, head down. The boat glides in smoothly to the shore.
"Merlin!" Arthur calls out, teasing. "So where's the girl?"
"What girl?" Merlin says, looking up dazedly.
"The one Leon saw you with. You told him you were going to the lake."
"I have no one." He stands slowly when the coracle reaches the shore, and carefully steps out to clamber up onto the grass, to reach the three men on horseback.
"Why are you soaking wet?" Leon asks.
"What'd you do, fall into the lake, you clumsy idiot?" Arthur chimes in.
"What? No. . . Maybe?" Merlin looks confused. "I'm sorry I've been gone so long, Sire. There was something I had to do."
"No matter, it's only been a couple of hours." Arthur laughs.
"Yeah," adds Leon. "We'll be home in time for supper."
"Hop on up, Merlin," Aurelius says, bending over to lend Merlin a hand to mount his horse. "You can ride with me." And they turn their backs to the lake and ride back to Camelot, laughing in high spirits. Merlin glances back only once.
Merlin never does tell anyone about what happened at the lake. Who would even believe his encounter with the fairies? He's not even sure himself that it took place at all. It was all so dreamlike. But when he looks beneath the floorboard in his room under his bed, the Sidhe staff is no longer there.
END