Chapter Twenty-Five: The Puppetmaster

Merlin stared at her for a second. Food?

He glanced down and realized his chains had vanished. He jumped to his feet, almost faceplanting in his enthusiasm.

Now that he took a closer look around, the clearing was nothing like the southern Earth Kingdom. The air was hot and humid, but the light was too sharp and bright to be anywhere natural. The plants were unusual as well.

Merlin turned around only to find the girl standing mere inches from him. He stumbled with a squawk. The slight smile on her face, combined with her earlier declaration, filled him with dread. Did some spirits actually eat humans?

"Who are you?" she breathed as he struggled to regain his dignity. "I thought I knew all the spirits here."

"I'm, er, I'm not a spirit," Merlin told her.

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes, you are."

"Well, in that I have left my body behind, yes, I suppose I am a spirit," he conceded. "But not like you."

She raised a hand towards him. "You aren't like me, true. You are a spirit and human bonded into one. Now, where have I heard of that before?"

Merlin felt a chill chase down his spine. Of course. How could he have forgotten. "Oh, you mean the Avatar spirit?" he asked, his voice trembling.

A slow smile grew on her face. "Yes. That's the one. Raava."

Merlin tilted his head. "That's the third time I've heard that name," he murmured. "Is Raava-?"

"The name of your spirit?" she inquired. "Why, yes! I didn't know you were so ill-informed!" She twirled a strand of golden hair around her finger. "My name is Sophia. What's yours? Perhaps I can help educate you."

Merlin swallowed. "Uh, that's alright. I'll survive."

"You sure?" Sophia asked. "I served in the court of Queen Mab herself! I know many things other spirits don't."

Merlin wasn't sure if she could have said anything that could make him want to get away from her faster. He backed away. "Nope, really, just looking around!"

Was he imagining the red glint in her eyes? "Why? What's wrong with me? I mean, sure, I was fired from my job and banished from her court, but really-what's not to like about me?"

"No-nothing-I mean everything-wait, nothing-" he insisted. "I'm just in a hurry, that all! No time for a history lesson."

Sophia grimaced at him. Her eyes were definitely glowing red now. "You're making me angry! Let me guess: you're a firebender. Firebenders always reject me!"

Merlin frowned and almost tripped over a root in his backwards quest. "Hey, don't generalize! Most firebenders are lovely people!"

"Not you, and not that Firelord I've been seeing around here," Sophia griped. "She wouldn't give me the time of day either!"

Merlin stilled. "Firelord?"

"Yeah! She comes here at least once a week; why can't she spend time with me?"

"Once a week?" Merlin darted to the spirit's side. "Sophia, she comes here? Why? What does she do here?"

Sophia raised her head and pouted. "Oh, now you're interested in me! Who is she, your girlfriend?"

"No!" Merlin sputtered. He could feel himself going red. "No! I just-"

Sophia grinned and shoved his arm playfully. "No need to play coy with me, Avatar! I see how it is."

Her sudden change in mood left Merlin completely bewildered. Merlin shook his head and tried again. "Can you-will you take me to where she goes?"

"Hmm." Sophia played with a strand of her golden hair again, smirking. "And what will you give me if I do?" She murmured, taking a slow step closer.

Merlin forced himself to hold still. Without bending abilities he might be in the Spirit World, but he was still the Avatar. That had to count for something here.

"I have a lot of influence with people in the human and spirit worlds," he bluffed. "I can talk with Queen Mab, get you your old job back."

Sophia's eyes glittered. "You would do that?"

"Of course!" I'll chat with her the next time she tries to kill me, Merlin thought.

Sophia's smile looked totally genuine this time. "I didn't think you were even listening when I said that," she murmured, slipping a hand up his arm. He almost fell over jumping back.

"Uh, well, let's not be too hasty," Merlin gulped, straightening his tunic as she giggled. "Aren't you going to show me where Mor-the Firelord went?"

The walk took longer than Merlin liked, all the way to the foot of a great rounded hill. He fretted, wondering if time passed the same in the two worlds. He had heard too many stories of spirit travelers dying while their bodies lay helpless.

"That's where she would go." Sophia pointed out a dark copse of trees not far from the path. The branches and leaves obscured whatever was beyond. "I will go no further." Her grave voice held no trace of mirth anymore.

"What is beyond?" Merlin murmured. Something about the situation prompted him to whisper.

"The beginning," Sophia answered simply. Merlin raised an eyebrow, but she shook her head. "We do not speak of it, Avatar. Spirits do not enter that place. Go on alone, or don't go at all."

He had no choice. "Thank you," Merlin murmured, then turned his back on the fair-haired spirit and walked into the copse.

The sun disappeared behind a thicket of branches and leaves. Thorns snared the edges of Merlin's uniform, and he had to fight his way through to a small clearing on the other side. A sheer rock face loomed up in front of him from the gloom. Barely visible, even as he crept closer, was a horizontal cleft in the rock, leading to a dark cave beyond.

Merlin peered into the darkness. The beginning? He wondered what Sophia meant by that.

Slipping through the cleft in the rock was the work of only a minute. Unthinking, he tried to create fire in his palm to see, but of course nothing happened. Merlin paused, biting his lip as he considered what to do. He didn't want to blunder around in the dark and hope he found what Morgana had kept coming back to see.

After a moment, he realized he could see. The light was faint, but it was there. A look around told him the faint light was emanating from crystals growing out of the rocks.

He wondered if glowing crystals were normal in the Spirit World. He hoped so.

The cave was huge, but cluttered with boulders, leaving a thin path winding through the rocks and crystals into the gloom.

Merlin gulped. "Too late to turn back now," he muttered, and soldiered on.

Merlin's hand brushed one of the crystals and for a moment he saw something else: a white blizzard, and a dark-haired figure sobbing in the snow.

He jerked back, looking at his hand and then the crystals.

"Ok, no touching," he muttered, and walked more carefully after that.

An eerie, timeless sort of feeling stole over Merlin. He got the feeling he could have been walking for hours in this cave and not known it.

Some time later-he did not know how much later-the already large cave opened into a huge cavern. Crystals grew still from the soaring ceiling, but only in certain banded stripes down the walls. Merlin squinted around, wondering why the crystals only grew in certain places.

A thick stripe of crystals grew directly above him, and he examined the shape. Something familiar was emerging from the banded shapes.

He gasped. "It's a rib cage!"

And what an enormous rib cage it was! It was larger by far than any building Merlin had ever seen, and it occurred to him that the hill he had seen was probably just the remains of some gigantic animal with trees growing on it.

"What is this?" he murmured.

"Giant lion turtle."

Merlin about jumped out of his skin. A white-haired man stood among the crystals, facing Merlin. For a moment, Merlin thought it was Anhora, but a closer look showed he was not.

"Uh, what?" he asked.

"The skeleton," the man said, gesturing with a veined hand. "It is of a giant lion turtle."

"I thought they were a myth!"

The man shrugged. "That's all they are now. Once, however, they roamed in both the human and spirit worlds."

Merlin let out a sigh, eyes lingering on the enormous ribs and spine arching above and around him. "Incredible . . . It's sad though. The giant lion turtles are gone, and now the dragons are dying out . . ."

"Yes," the old man responded, his dry, cracked voice conversational like they were discussing dinner. "I know you'll try your best to save them, but I'm not sure it's possible at this point."

Merlin blinked and turned more fully to face him. What a strange thing to say. "Who are you?"

"My name is Taliesin," the old man whispered. His voice echoed around the cavern. "But I am called by many names. Morgana knows me as the Puppetmaster."

So, this was who Morgana would come to see. The title 'Puppetmaster' sounded familiar, and Merlin thought he might have overheard it as a guard in the Fire Nation. "Why does she call you that?"

Taliesin shrugged. "She's under the misapprehension-as are many people-that I control destiny." Merlin squinted at him. "I don't of course. I know the destinies' of others, but I do not control them."

"Are you trying to say you see the future?" Merlin asked slowly, wondering if he should make a run for it while he still could.

The corner of Taliesin's mouth twitched up. "You have nothing to fear from me, Avatar."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Merlin replied, taking a tentative step forward. Really, it seemed that every spirit knew who he was! "If you are an ally of Morgana's, I might have much to fear from you."

"I am no one's ally," the other said, beckoning him closer still through the crystals. "And no one's enemy. I only watch the crystals."

Merlin gazed around the cave, eyeing the glowing crystals. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Why was Morgana seeking you out?"

"I see what the crystals show me," Taliesin said, his voice dry as a cracked leaf. "I told Morgana her brother's destiny. She set out to stop it, never once realizing that by sending you after Arthur she had all but ensured it."

Merlin stared. "You told Morgana where to find Arthur." Taliesin nodded. "She tried to kill him! She's going to kill him!"

"And what would have happened if I had never told her?" Taliesin asked. "You would never have found him. Arthur would still be in the Earth Kingdom, hidden away as a chimney sweep. Perhaps the Air Nomads or the Northern Water Tribe would already be destroyed in Morgana's quest."

"What, you don't know what might have happened?" Merlin snapped.

"I cannot see the past that never happened, Merlin," the Puppetmaster responded, his expression unendingly patient. "Only the future that will be."

Merlin clenched his teeth. Fury burned through his veins. "Then tell me how to save Arthur," he demanded. "Tell what will happen, so I can rescue him, so I can rescue all of them!"

Taliesin rubbed a hand over one of the crystals. Merlin could not tell what he was thinking.

"And what," the Puppetmaster said, "will you give me in return?"

A chill swept through Merlin from head to toe. "I have nothing to give you," he murmured.

"Perhaps," Taliesin mused. "Perhaps not." He drifted closer. Merlin forced himself to hold still. "The Firelord paid dearly for the information I gave her, as have all who visited this cave. What will you give me, however?"

Merlin thought of Arthur, Gwen, Lancelot, and the others and took a deep breath. "What do you want?"

"Look into the crystals and tell me what you see."

Merlin blinked. "I thought you-"

"Tell me what you see," Taliesin repeated.

Merlin frowned and glanced down at the crystals. He saw nothing and glanced back up to Taliesin in question. The spirit gestured at them again, face as unreadable as Thomas'.

At first, Merlin saw nothing. Something flickered at the edge of his vision, and he looked: water lapped around him, filling up the edges of the cave, rushing around with a roar that echoed in Merlin's ears. Merlin gasped, but the water was suddenly gone, replaced by fire. A golden, scaly hide filled Merlin's whole vision, and he could hear the roar of it breathing fire. The ground shook, and his limbs trembled.

Kilgharrah? he thought, but there was not enough time to make sense of it all. The fire swept away to reveal a desert, and Merlin jumped to see himself and Leon standing before him, tan, sweaty, and barefoot in the endless sand. The sand morphed into a familiar brown, gold, and green throne room where Mithian sat, pale and alone with her mother's crown on her head.

The flashes came faster, barely allowing Merlin time see who, where, what. He stood in the snow, eyes glowing white, icy wind pouring around him. Gwen raising her hands and widening her stance to prepare for battle.

Water surrounded him again, only higher: it now reached his waist.

Merlin blinked. The water vanished. Lightning flashed around him. An old man with a white beard, clothed in a red robe, raised a staff above his head. There was something familiar about his eyes . . .

The man vanished and Merlin was surrounded by water again. It filled the whole cave. He could see Taliesin's wavy outline through the dark, murky depths.

A splash: someone had fallen into the water. Merlin's mouth gaped open in horror, only saved from drowning because the water was an illusion. Arthur sank into the depths, weighed down with ball and chain. His eyes were closed and his face was quietly accepting.

Merlin fell away from the crystal and scrambled backwards, gasping and coughing even though there had not really been any water. Taliesin watched with calm, knowing eyes.

"It was like-it was like-"

"Like you were there?" Merlin nodded jerkily. "An illusion."

"And all those things . . . They'll really happen?"

"Somewhere, somehow." Taliesin bowed his head, dry voice deep and endless. "Even I cannot stop the futures I see."

"Is that all you wanted me to do?" Merlin demanded. "How do I save Arthur?"

"No, that was merely a test," Taliesin said. "You proved that you can see in the crystals; a rare enough trait, I assure you. Here is my bargain, Avatar: I will tell you how to save the Firelord, and you may come at any time in the future to ask me questions. In exchange, you will come to this cave after your death and take my place as the seer in the Crystal Cave."

Silence. Merlin thought he might have even stopped breathing for a moment. "How long have you been here?" he whispered. "How long would I be here?"

"Take it or leave it," Taliesin said.

"If I ask you more questions, you'll answer them?"

"They may not be the answers you want, but yes, I will answer them."

It wouldn't take effect until after he was dead. Not a bad deal, Merlin supposed. He gulped. "Alright, I'll do it. Tell me how to save Arthur and the others."

Taliesin smiled. He looked intensely relieved, which was the most emotion he had shown so far. This did not set Merlin's mind at ease. "It is not Arthur's destiny to die, but he might," the Puppetmaster said. "When the opportunity presents itself, you must kill Firelord Morgana."

Merlin clenched his teeth. "Before she kills him?"

"Or kills you, for Arthur cannot fulfill his destiny without you," Taliesin said. "Arthur is the Once and Future King. He is destined to bring peace and unity to the Four Nations."

"Kilgharrah said the same thing," Merlin murmured. "But what do you mean, 'Once and Future King'? Arthur is the Firelord!"

"It is an old, old prophecy, older even than me." Taliesin bowed his head. "'In the lake look thee; there ye shall find he: The Once and Future King.'"

The image of Arthur drowning sprang to Merlin's mind. "The lake . . .?" He struggled to think of lakes around the Fire Nation capitol and could not. "Could you not talk in riddles?" he begged.

"Then listen to this; perhaps you will find it straightforward." The Puppetmaster leaned forward, his light eyes gleaming in the glow from the crystals. "You must learn to control the Avatar State as soon as possible. If you are caught unawares again, all will be lost."

Merlin gulped. "Got it," he said, remembering the destruction on the airship. He shivered to think that he would have to go back into the Avatar State again some time.

Taliesin smiled slowly. "That's all I can tell you for now, unfortunately. You're needed back in your body. Execution morning is here."

welp, we're getting near the end, folks! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!