Chapter 2: In which Merlin prefers to keep the shadows at bay
Merlin left the room, his trunk floating along after like a devoted puppy. For a few moments no one said anything, then the man they had seen on the upper battlements entered.
"How are our new arrivals?" he asked, his eyes almost hidden beneath bushy gray brows. "Hm. Don't tell me. I can see well enough the Trollhunter's condition has drained all happiness from the occasion. Do not be troubled, though. If anyone can help your friend, it's Merlin. We are headed north for now."
"Thank you, sir knight," Blinky said, inclining his head a little toward the stout elderly man as he left. He turned to the hulking troll and placed one hand on his arm. "My old friend, I have located a particularly decent set of rooms I'm sure you would find comfortable."
"Blinky!" Claire exclaimed. "I told you before that dungeons are not living quarters!"
"They are most umbrageous and welcoming, Claire," he protested. "I do not see the dilemma. Come, Aarghaumont, you may decide for yourself."
"It's been about forty years since I last saw Galahad," Douxie commented as the two trolls ambled away to review the dungeon. "He lets me hitch a ride and stock up the library a few times a century. Seems he's taken good care of the place considering he's been the only living person here for centuries. Don't know how he avoided going loony all this time, though. I never would have wanted this task."
"You mean that guy was Galahad? Like the one from the King Arthur stories?!" Toby gaped, staring back over his shoulder at the doorway the old man had disappeared through. "How is he not dead exactly?"
"Galahad is the only one who ever drank from the Holy Grail, making him an immortal," the wizard explained. "Immortals are always magic-kind, like me, so he's the only exception I've ever heard of."
"How many immortals are there?" Claire wondered, curious too. She'd attempted to ask Merlin various questions over the last couple months, but the old man was as open as a door bricked over, and Galahad (though friendly) was not overly sociable either. It was nice to meet someone who volunteered information without having it pried out with a crowbar.
He shrugged a bit sadly. "I couldn't say. There used to be many, but I haven't met any in years. I don't know if the rest died or just decided they were done with all the conflict and responsibility that comes with the job."
"Whoa," Toby said, walking around him with a scrutinizing eye, "so you're saying the reason you look so young and chipper is because you have eternal life?"
"Well… I may have cheated."
Douxie raised his bracer, spinning it until a set of characters lit up. A green flare made them shut their eyes, but a moment later it paled and they could see a shard of green crystal floating above the wizard's wrist.
"You saw the great glowing rock that keeps this castle in the air, right? The Heart of Avalon can suspend us in time as long as we're in close proximity to it. Took me months to craft a powerful protective spell so that I could get close enough to chip this off the big one supporting Camelot. Dangerous business. I've been keeping this little bit handy for the last nine hundred years."
Toby gave a laugh. "Keeping it 'handy'? Oh, you're fun!"
The centuries-old wizard rolled his eyes. "It's the sort of pun that gets old quickly."
"So what would happen if you lost it?" the boy wondered, reaching out to touch the very tip of the glowing crystal and prompting Douxie to hold it slightly higher in order to protect it. "Would you dissolve into a pile of dust like a sunburned vampire?"
"No. I'd just start aging normally." He hesitated, looking thoughtful. "I'm pretty sure that's how it works, anyway. I can't be entirely certain since I've never tried it."
"Awesomesauce!" Toby piped. "Think you could hook me up with one of these babies?"
Archie pranced up, adding, "Ordinary humans usually get sick and die horrible, pain-ridden deaths after less than a year's exposure. Physical contact accelerates the process astronomically."
Toby shot away from the gem in alarm as Douxie cast his familiar a chastising look. "That's not funny, Arch."
"Is so," the cat insisted, changing into a dragon and sailing off toward the exit.
Douxie shook his head after the creature as Claire stifled a laugh and Toby assumed a hurt countenance.
"Don't worry. Ordinary humans aren't affected. It can be harder than you'd expect, though." The floating crystal vanished into mist to get inhaled by his charm bracer. "Not aging isn't all it's cracked up to be."
Before Claire could ask what he meant, Douxie followed Archie from the room and they had to hurry to catch up, though she delayed a moment to bid a tender goodbye to Jim.
Empty suits of armor clanked as they marched past, going about their mysterious duties without a word like busy ghosts. Claire had long since gotten used to them in her time here, but Toby initially thought they were real people and greeted one as such. His exuberant handshake and introduction jostled the armor so much that its helmet fell off, then he became engrossed in it even more.
"Have you really been fighting off attacks all this time?" Douxie asked as they waited on the parapet for Toby to finish his excited scrutiny of the suit.
The Mexican girl shook her head. "Mostly we've been traveling with the trolls. Nothing particularly exciting happened even after Merlin transported them all to New Jersey. Jim was healed from the fight with Morgana too. He barely needed to wield Daylight except to clear out a pack of tieflings in the underground tunnels, but then yesterday that strange knight appeared…"
She looked so tearful that Douxie automatically put a hand on her shoulder while behind them Toby and the suit grappled for its fallen helmet. "Hey, it's going to be alright."
"I just wish I'd been able to do something! Back when I had my shadow staff I felt like a real member of the team. I was able to help. Now… I just stand back and watch."
During the confusion, Toby lost his grip on the helmet and sent it over the edge of the castle to plummet toward the ground. The teenage boy gave the suit of armor an apologetic shrug and then took off running. The other two hastened after, Douxie using a glow of blue magic to shut the door solidly behind them and keep the irate armor from unleashing its revenge, then turned to face her.
"You're talking about the Skathe-Hrün, right? Well, it takes time to learn skills from scratch. What's Merlin been teaching you so far?"
"Teaching me?" she nearly scoffed. "Sorry, but all my powers came from the shadow staff and I sacrificed it to banish Morgana. Now that it's gone, I've got nothing."
Douxie looked even more puzzled. "From the staff…? Claire, are you telling me you had no idea non-magic people cannot wield magical items?"
Still puffing from his recent escape, Toby suddenly looked excited. "Whoa! You're saying my Warhammer means I can—!"
"I said 'wield', not 'use'. Pushing a button and swinging a mallet around isn't the same as accessing wizardcraft," Douxie interrupted, patting the boy on the back in mock-sympathy. "Someone else put magic into an object that only requires to be triggered, that's all."
Ignoring Toby's crestfallen expression, the black-haired girl was still trying to come to grips with his words. "I can really use magic?"
"Of course. You must have had latent magic all along, but your encounter with the Skathe-Hrün drew it out. I'm just surprised Merlin didn't—" Douxie broke off, looking suddenly uneasy. "If Merlin didn't say anything to you about it, then I probably wasn't supposed to either. Just do me a favor and pretend this conversation didn't take place?"
He pressed his hands together in a pleading gesture, but the glitter of rising anger in Claire's eyes did not bode well.
She tried. Truly. But the revelation that Merlin had deliberately kept something so important from her marinated in her mind for an hour until she simply couldn't stand it any longer. Claire strode into his workshop situated in the main tower of Camelot where Merlin stood poring over tomes, eyes flicking from one to another in quick succession. Snapping his fingers, a writing quill immediately scribbled onto a loose sheet of paper without a hand to guide it.
Crossing her arms, she stood opposite him. "So when were you going to tell me the shadow staff isn't what gave me magic?"
Without looking up at her he sent a book drifting to the far side of the room and summoned two others, speaking as he flipped through them. "So the cat is out of the bag, is it? You'd do best to forget about that for the present."
"Why?" she demanded, violet armor glowing darkly to match her temper.
"It is to my grief that you oriented yourself toward shadow magic. Hopefully if you steer clear of it for a year or two, you will gravitate back toward the less detrimental form you were born with instead. It is near impossible to identify since shadowmancy dwarfs it, but it still lingers."
"A year or two?!" Claire repeated, disbelieving. "Jim doesn't have that long! I'd rather learn shadow magic and help him today than let him die just so I could learn some other kind of magic later!"
"Young lady," Merlin brushed aside the levitating books in order to gaze at her seriously. "I have trained three shadow sorcerers in my life. Would you like to take a gander at how many I've fought?"
"More than three?"
"More than a hundred!" he shot at her, one hand lashing out with a savagery that was surprisingly frightening. "Shadow magic is seductive and warps the mind to a far greater extent than any other kind, requiring a will of solid steel to keep it from taking over. I had to destroy my own apprentices even after years of assuring myself they were strong enough to withstand the power they wielded. Do you really believe I did so on a whim?"
Claire averted her eyes.
"Be grateful you are still at a stage where you can be realigned," he said offhandedly, turning back to his notes. "Hisirdoux, where are those other tomes?"
On the other side of the room where more books and wizardry knick-knacks overflowed from shelves, Douxie had been flattening himself against the wall to presumably avoid being seen. Now caught, he shot her an apologetic smile and gathered a stack into his arms.
"Yes, Master," he said, bringing them over to the table. "These are all the Persian and Byzantine texts I could find."
"What about the ones from the Library of Alexandria?" Merlin asked irritably. "We can't do these things by halves."
"There aren't any here."
"Then get upstairs and check the third atheneum. Do I even have to say it?!" His blue eyes swept back to Claire. "Do you not understand the nature of a dismissal, young lady? The general idea is that I end a conversation and you leave."
"I was just going," she said with a sullen edge.
Douxie rushed from the workshop, Claire hot on his heels. When she deemed they were far enough away from Merlin's room, she put her hand out to stop him.
"Look, I know we hardly know each other," she started, "but you know magic and I need to learn it. Do you think you could possibly—?"
"Sorry." Trying not to be rough, he pulled out of her grip. "I can't. I have work to do."
Fiery resentment flared up, making her fists clench, and she suddenly shouted, "Fine! Go back to your fetching and bootlicking! I'm sure he'll throw you a bone if you're good."
The blistering mockery made his jaw tighten, but he continued on his way without looking back.
It was well after midnight and Toby was in the middle of a reenactment depicting events of the last few days and all the Akiridion-related excitement for Claire and Blinky. Aaarrrgghh meandered about the throne room, poking at anything that looked interesting and occasionally adding a one- or two-worded comment to support Toby's account.
They had just gotten to the part where the Warhammer sent a hundred-foot-tall alien staggering back when a loud alarm bell clanged, interrupting them. Everyone rushed to the windows, spotting what appeared to be a host of luminous birds.
"Niffins!" Blinky cried, picking up a long-handled fishnet and two clubs.
"They look kinda pretty," Toby complimented as he observed what almost looked like angelic little figures.
"Just wait until they try to tear your face off," the girl said grimly, grip tightening on her own heavy club. "They're about to reach the barrier. We have to protect Jim at all costs."
The multitude of fluttering things were now clearly visible and Toby reconsidered his first assessment. Wings and feminine humanoid bodies aside, there was nothing he could see in them resembling angels anymore. They were all long teeth, whipping tails and knifelike claws. The one advantage the Trollhunters had was that the creatures were a third the size of a human.
At least fifty slammed into the magical barrier at once, piling up in a screaming, howling mass. The foremost ones ripped at the invisible wall until it broke open with a crackle of shattered magic. Then they were swarming everywhere and the fight began.
Blinky snagged two in his net and smashed the clubs down, reducing them to puddles of glowing guts.
"Eeeww!" Toby moaned as more of the sticky mess coated his swinging hammer. "These things are like air goblins!"
Aaarrrgghh thundered a roar as twenty niffins descended on him at once. Claire couldn't help because she was busy defending Jim from another dozen at least. The entire room had filled with frenzied, flapping nightmares. Wings beat against their faces and claws scratched their limbs, all dominated by shrill shrieks of wrath.
Blue bursts of magic broke into the swarm, scattering niffins and making their cries turn from rage to bewilderment. Douxie dashed inside, hands aflame with magic. Behind him tramped a score of living suits of armor which immediately set out to destroy the invaders.
"Make sure to get every single one," Blinky warned. "We don't want them returning to their masters and giving away our position."
"I've got it sorted," Douxie called, installing himself at one of the broken windows and zapping any niffins that appeared to be fleeing.
Though the attack couldn't have lasted more than fifteen minutes, by the time the last fluttering creature had been pulverized, everyone was beyond exhausted. Toby had sadly gotten the worst of it since he hadn't brought his armor, so Claire insisted on bandaging him up. Douxie surveyed the place, which had turned from an ancient, awe-inspiring throne room to a quagmire of glowing goo.
"Merlin probably would insist we clean this up the old-fashioned way, but I think we deserve a break after that tussle."
With a wave, his bracer gave a click and a chime, then the mess coating walls, floor, parts of the high ceiling, and even themselves accumulated into a single levitating sphere.
"Wow, that looks kinda cool!" Toby remarked just before he caught sight of a few dismembered body parts shifting among the slimy, glowing guts. He then had a fit of nausea and pulled the roll of bandages away from Claire to cover his mouth.
"Hate niffins," Aaarrrgghh repeated, this time more forcefully.
"Indeed," Blinky agreed with him as Douxie deposited the offensive slop outside. Hopefully it wouldn't land anywhere too conspicuous. "Niffins are vicious. It is no accident their nickname is 'glow-harpies'. They will feed off Heartstone if they can find it and attack trolls out of pure spite. They can scent a troll miles away. We have long had an agreement with the wizards living in Arcadia to protect us from them."
Claire perked up at that. "You mean there are wizards in Arcadia too? Besides Douxie, I mean."
"Naturally. Kanjigar dealt with them exclusively, and I was not privy to their identities or conversations, but they did keep the niffin population regulated quite well. Aside from five swarms that made their way into Trollmarket during some of the worst breeding years, that is." The four-armed troll sighed as he stood beside the stone containing the Trollhunter. "Still, I've never seen them run in packs larger than thirty, and we dealt with at least a hundred tonight. If this keeps up, I doubt it will be long before we are far too weary to protect ourselves or Master Jim."
"I'll speak to Merlin and Galahad," Douxie offered, heading for the door. "They have authority over the knights and can order them to be stationed here. Personally I think it's something they ought to have thought of earlier, but I'll chalk it up to their age."
"I don't get why Merlin can't just make a barrier that will keep them out. He got his staff back after—" Toby stopped grumping to let out a hiss of pain as Claire put some ointment on his arm.
"Regrettably, it is only meant to slow them down," Blinky explained. "If we did not kill them all, more and more niffins would be drawn to us by their incessant shrieks, so Merlin purposely cast a barrier that can be fractured. It may be vexing, but it is also necessary in order to maintain our secrecy."
Claire finished bandaging Toby but remained uncharacteristically silent. The battle had not gone well to her mind. She had perhaps managed to kill two or three niffins with her club before being overwhelmed. The dark purple armor may have given her more protection, but it also slowed her down.
If only she could have done more.
A/N: For a series named "Wizards of Arcadia" we really didn't get that good a look at wizards in general or their history. Yeah, Douxie was the main character of this arc, but even after watching the season multiple times, I felt there were just way too many holes in his personal story. This here again is my imagination at work, attempting to contribute a little bit to the cohesiveness of the story and what we might have gotten had they secured two seasons instead of one plus a half-baked movie.