† Year Seven, Day 185 †
Whenever she reached a certain level of distance to her disastrous life to allow for self-mockery, Merlin liked to refer to herself as the worst team player of the land. She had earned this inglorious title through years of deception where she had either pulled the strings of her comrades behind their back or had gone about her research in solitude. Since isolation had filled the role of her most trusted friend for so long, Merlin had come to prefer working alone, far away from the curious eyes and clumsy hands of others. But in this particular case, she had to admit that a second mind might be of use. Ancient Goddess temples balanced somewhere between labyrinth-like and downright hazardous for unprepared travelers – a Goddess as company should come in handy for the exploration Merlin envisioned.
But this objective benefit failed to appease her disgruntlement over Nanashi's decision to tag along.
While Merlin eyed the temple carved into the mountain side opposite of the ravine, Nanashi chewed on a stem of grass and studied her with his trademark stoic silence. A character trait that should help him earn Merlin's favor, but the way he looked at her made her feel like a valuable experiment about to be dissected. Her father had worn this expression too often.
"He knows about what you're doing," Nanashi said with the monotone voice he used for all matters, regardless of whether his words concerned a war or the weather.
Merlin refused to take her eyes of the Goddess temple. "Does he now? And I imagine you had nothing to do with his insight?"
"The king isn't a child anymore. He understands you better than you realize."
And this was the exact reason why Merlin preferred to work alone – these sorts of inquisitions only hindered her thought process.
"After the destruction of Limors, I'm sure he has better things to do than to question my activities," she said with the most composure she could muster. "Have you visited this temple before?"
Nanashi still made no move to avert his eyes. "I have. Before the war."
Merlin raised a brow, but her unwanted companion gave no further explanation. With an internal eyeroll, she abandoned the overhang on which they had been sitting and levitated down to the stone bridge spanning the ravine. The ancient construct connected the rock-filled path winding up the mountain and the temple on the other side, and might have once appeared as a work of architectural genius to the human eye. But three thousand years had left their marks on the stone tiles and the many statues adorning the balustrade, and wherever the eye travelled, pieces of stone had split and crumbled.
By no means discouraged, Merlin relied on her levitation magic to reach the other side, and dropped down in the shadow of the gaping entrance to the temple. Nanashi traversed the obstacle on foot without a shift in expression and with surprising elegance, a quality of the Goddess Clan the loss of his wings had failed to drive out.
Merlin took no particular liking of Nanashi's character, both his disclosed demeanor and his mysterious past gave her more riddles than she had time to solve, but he belonged to a very small circle of people who she would trust with Arthur's life. His loyalty to Camelot and its people had convinced him to stay at court so far, hadn't it? And without a minimum level of concern for Arthur's future, he would have certainly found an excuse to let Merlin wander through the Goddess temple alone.
With the snap of a finger, Merlin conjured an orb of fire to hover beside her, and made her way through the great hall beyond the entrance. Nanashi followed her in silence. Forty feet tall marble pillars ran along the length of the hall, covered in detailed drawings, most of which depicted the Goddess Clan as saints or saviors. An inflated ego also belonged to the qualities of the Goddesses.
No wonder they had created this temple with the intention to attract pilgrims from across Britannia and listen to their songs of worship.
"What is it you hope to find here, daughter of Belialuin?" Nanashi asked, and Merlin stopped in her tracks due to the atrocious term of honor.
"I no longer consider myself a child of Belialuin." The name of her old prison tasted like poison on her tongue. "And if you have valuable knowledge on the Lady of the Lake to share, I will gladly leave this place before this journey is drawn out."
In her search for answers regarding Chaos' magic and the Lady of the Lake, Merlin had stumbled upon a fascinating mention hidden amidst a pile of old scrolls in a town too irrelevant to earn a spot on a map. This text, no more than a footnote in a compendium of Druid scriptures about the Goddess Clan, told of the temple of Dodonne, where the pilgrims once bore witness to the Saint of Chaos herself: The Lady of the Lake. If this tale had any truth to it, Merlin might find a clue here in these abandoned hallways as to the Lady's motivation or a way to break the spell of Salisbury without the involvement of Arthur. After so many fruitless days and nights of study, Merlin reached for every straw tossed her way.
Nanashi spat out his stem. "The Lady of the Lake is better left forgotten. I have heard enough stories. The Supreme Deity had little more than revulsion to spare for her. All Goddesses were advised to keep their distance from both the Lady of the Lake and her master. She would sometimes visit humans in company with Chaos, but if the stories are to be believed, she did not share his love for them."
"Reason enough for him to bind her to Salisbury Lake, isn't it?"
"I cannot say what reasons motivated Chaos."
Of course he could not. Otherwise, Merlin's search for answers would lean close to an easy affair, and such luck had avoided her with painstaking persistence for some time.
"And what reasons motivate you?" Merlin asked. "What has kept you in Camelot when you could have found challenges and the honor of battle elsewhere?"
"Arthur."
"Arthur? Or more likely Chaos?"
"One is not whole without the other."
"Then you do believe he is Chaos' chosen vessel. I didn't take you for someone who cares about these sorts of things. After your divine ruler, the Supreme Deity, played such a crucial role in Chaos' downfall…"
Nanashi narrowed his eyes. "The deeds of the Goddess Clan are not my own."
"Indeed not. Otherwise, you would have lost your physical form alongside them. Then I reckon you understand why I no longer concern myself with the research and experiments of Belialuin. I have come here for Arthur's sake, and I intend to do my utmost to find the answers that will protect him from any threat that may come. Be that the Lady of the Lake or someone else. If you only intend to stand in my way, you may leave. I don't have time to deal with you."
Nanashi rolled his shoulders and said nothing.
In truth, Merlin barely had time to deal with anyone. More than six years since Lancelot's disappearance, two years after Arthur had revealed his vision of the White Knight to her, and Merlin still waited for the next breakthrough. The one puzzle piece, the one ancient text or inscription that would shine a little light into the dark. For this search, she had abandoned all her other duties, had avoided both Arthur and the court, and had turned a deaf ear to all the little concerns the people of Camelot liked to bother a mage of her caliber with. How many parents with ailing children, how many knights with horrid nightmares, and how many lovers in search for their vanished other half had she sent away? Too many, too often. Merlin needed a victory. She had gone through these demotivating days of research before. This time, the task might demand more than she had to give.
Merlin waved her hand, and the pile of rubble blocking her way teleported a couple miles southwards before Nanashi startled her by opening his mouth.
"May I ask you a personal question?"
She nodded. If he liked to trade the silence for the sound of his voice, she wouldn't stop him. People revealed all kinds of information about themselves while probing others. Now, whether she would give him an answer, she had yet to determine.
"What do you see in Chaos?"
An… unexpected question for sure. Merlin studied the orb of fire above her outstretched hand. The dancing sparks, the tips licking the air, and the orange stripes the light cast onto the siltstone walls.
"Chaos is the only one who can create everlasting peace," she said after a while. "His kindness and his mercy have forged Camelot into a kingdom that believers will rightfully call heaven on earth. In time, he and Arthur will create a world where no child has to cower in fear under the loveless hands of the powerful. Isn't that enough reason to admire Chaos?"
"Chaos is many things, some more admirable than others," Nanashi said. An answer as cryptic as they come. Merlin was about to drop the matter when he continued. "I have never met the first god in person, therefore, I cannot claim to hold his character or his values dear. As he is the creator of all living things, I cannot help but see the cruelty he has brought upon Britannia. To counter the light, he created the dark, but he did not concern himself with the perpetual war they carry out, chained to do battle until one destroys the other. And when Chaos saw the peaceful Fairy Clan, he forged from the earth a clan whose existence revolves around conflict. No more than a hundred years later, he forsook all of them in favor of humans. He loved them, but he made them so weak that the other clans could destroy them with little more than a thought. With the power he possessed, he could have prevented all bloodshed. But he chose not to. To answer your question, I have no reason to admire Chaos. All I have is the hope and the trust that Arthur will create a better legacy. For all creatures of Britannia."
Merlin had never heard these many words from Nanashi at once, and his earnestness both touched and unsettled her. Chaos was the epitome of perfection, the only one capable of creating a lasting paradise where all wishes would find fulfillment and all people would live without harm. Why should he desire conflict as Nanashi suggested? His argument had flaws, glaring holes of ignorance. Nanashi had no right to judge Chaos – Merlin had spent all her life in search for him, she knew more about him than anyone else, and Chaos was kind. Like Arthur.
Her steps missed their usual confidence when Merlin wandered deeper into the temple. The open rooms left and right of the great hallway offered none of the information she had hoped for. Alcoves and small altars covered the walls, some with offerings in front of wooden figures, others littered with candle stumps. The smell of wax hung in the air, even after millennia. Along with the remains of incense and wet stone, it created a tapestry not unlike the deepest dungeons of Belialuin. And if Merlin hadn't suffered from a sting of unease in her limbic system before, she did now.
When Nanashi took the lead, perhaps reminded of the layout from his last visit, the lump in her throat eased. Odd. On other occasions, an ancient temple filled with forgotten knowledge had enticed her more. But on other occasions, Merlin had not been as desperate for answers.
Nanashi slowed his steps as they neared a light source, a soft glow on the ornate wall decorations. "Here," he said and stepped aside to let Merlin have a look for herself.
Twelve arches crowned the circular room beyond, and they leaned inward to create a vault similar to the ceilings found in Camelot's grand hall. But here, the space in between the arches opened up to the sky; they had to have traversed the entire length of the mountain without Merlin's notice. A basin of water filled the majority of the floor, and small platforms led across the artificial lake towards an island at the center of it all. On this island sat enthroned the marble statue of a young woman, perhaps a patron saint of the temple. Or more likely a vengeful spirit if the human skulls at her feet proved anything.
Merlin killed her orb of fire and turned around. For a temple older than her, the decorations were in marvelous shape. Weather and small critters should have left marks on the bones at the very least. Either the pilgrims had known outstanding preservation spells, or the memorial of long-dead Goddesses had attracted worshipers for longer than Merlin had believed. As for the mysteries surrounding the Lady of the Lake, she once again stood at a dead end. Not even a trace of Chaos magic in the air.
Her father's voice filled her head with words like failure and wasted potential. Whenever Merlin had reached an impasse, had struggled with a task for too long, or had failed to find an answer to one of his plentiful riddles, he had hurled these words at her until she did better. He knew how to make the most out of the children given into his 'care' – the warmth of a parent had no place in this calculation.
Merlin swallowed the taste of burned flesh on her tongue, silenced the cries of the nameless child experiments who had shared her pain, and strode towards the wall to her right. Runes ran across the length of the stone, a collection of lines and rectangles most people would view as nothing more than an element of decoration. But in their defense, most people lacked the three thousand years' worth of experience Merlin had on the field of non-human cultures.
Goddesses shared an interesting connection with humans, a practice Giants, Fairies, and Demons saw little use for: written language. But since Goddesses valued their status as superior creatures, born out of the simple fact that the Supreme Deity held the honor of Chaos' first creation, they had ensured that their script would never reveal its secrets to outsiders. A most annoying barrier.
Merlin waved for Nanashi to step closer. "Will you lend me a hand here?"
He hesitated, and his fingers hovered above the letters as though the runes frightened him. What had convinced him to undo his ties to the Goddess Clan, if he had truly been the one to sever the connection? Had he fled from the war or from the cruelty of his brethren? No matter what series of events had led him away before the rest of his clan sacrificed their physical shells, the rift ran deep. Not so deep that he had willingly played with the lives of his people in exchange for the gifts of gods, but then again, few embraced a true sacrifice for their wish.
Perhaps she expected too much from him.
But in the end, Nanashi did call forth the light of his Goddess magic. The skin on Merlin's arms prickled under the warmth, and had she not experienced the effect before, she might have given into the feeling of comfort in her chest. When the brightness touched the runes in the wall, specific sections began to glow, parts of the rectangles lid up and gave birth to golden letters. The true alphabet of the Goddess Clan.
With a small smile, fueled by the sense of wonder not even a situation as dire as hers could drive out, Merlin edged closer to the inscription. The name Chaos jumped at her a handful of times, but due to a lack of recent practice, many words refused to unveil their meaning to her.
She threw Nanashi an expecting glance, but his face seemed congealed to stone. Only his eyes moved and hurried across the text.
"Does it say anything about the Lady of the Lake?" Merlin asked in a low voice. Her excitement had vanished. She knew how to read the faces of others, the need to turn her own features into an expressionless canvas had forced her to perfect this ability. Nanashi's face spoke of only one emotion: horror.
"More than you want to know." He turned as if to step back, but the glowing runes held his eyes captive.
Merlin stared at the words that caught his gaze the longest and maltreated her memory until she produced sufficient translations. Deception. Hunger. Consumed. Ripping, tearing, eradicating. A face without features. Human blood…
Her legs threatened to give in. The cold of defeat, the cold of pointlessness invaded her body, and her thoughts ran to that day over three millennia ago, when the Lady of the Lake had revealed her true nature.
She didn't want to hear more of this, she dreaded for Nanashi to fill the last holes of doubt with the truth, but he had no mercy to comfort her with.
"In the early days, the world was lush with colors," he read, with a voice so distant and monotone it might belong to someone long dead. "A man all in white, the creator of the world, descended from the stars to watch his creatures. He loved them all, the smallest critters and the strongest gods. But before all else, he loved humans. Within these very walls he walked among the pilgrims and believers. One day, he brought with him a lady all in black. She who wore a face without features was the Lady of the Lake, and she held control over the element of water. All ponds, rivers, cascades, and even the ocean adhered to her will. The lady in black watched the humans with the man in white, but she did not share his love for them because her heart was full of shadows. When a child laughed, she frowned, and when a couple fought, she stirred their conflict. The more she snickered at their struggles, the more they shunned her presence. And so, ended her first visit.
"The second time, the man in white sat amidst a crowd of humans and listened to their stories. The joys they found and the struggles they faced delighted him, and he would not quit their side while the sun arced across the sky many times. He did not take notice of the lady in black, her pleas and gestures failed to touch him. While she could not persuade him to leave, he could not evoke any fascination for humans in her. She remained blind to their perfection. A hunger grew within her, a hunger for the attention Chaos granted his other creatures. And so, ended her second visit.
"The third time the man in white and the lady in black visited this temple would also become their last. A feast took place to honor Chaos, and the human pairs turned on the dance floor. The lady in black waltzed with the man in white, and everyone admired her beauty, the beauty of a lake under a clear sky. But inside, she was dark like the roaring sea. When the man in white once more abandoned her to marvel at the perfection of his newest creation, she restrained him with one hundred hands. The man in white, however, could not be chained by such foolish attempts. With a voice loud enough to shake the mountains to the foundation stones, he reminded her of her flawed nature, a laughable failure next to the perfection of humans.
"But he underestimated her evil. The shadows in her heart broke free, and the humans paid the price for Chaos' love. One hundred and more pilgrims and believers met their end through her hands, and their blood assembled to create a crimson lake at her feet." Nanashi paused and passed over the most graphic section of the text. "She devoured them all to gain their perfection. And when the deed was done, she turned to the man in white, convinced he now had no choice but to love her above all other creatures. He banished her, locked her away from the world in a prison with bars through which she could not slither. So that the lady in black might never again bring harm to humans."
Merlin trembled. Others refused to make sacrifices for their wish. Others hesitated to put the lives of others on the line to win a god's favor. But not the Lady of the Lake.
"There is no reasoning with her," Merlin said, and the weight of her words drove into her stomach with blunt punches. "She doesn't have a plan for the humans she abducted. They are like animals to her, and the only fate that awaits them in Salisbury is death…"
And every single soul the Lady had pulled into her depths was long gone. Merlin had wasted her time. Every hope she had held onto, every blissful scenario in which she would reclaim her place among the Sins, every last source of motivation went up in smoke. She had played the game and had failed to realized that she had lost before she had placed her first card.
Lancelot was already dead.
All the humans who disappeared were dead.
Eaten alive by the Lady of the Lake, whose only purpose in life was the search for Chaos' perfection.
Nothing Merlin had done had made a difference. When she had offered the magic of the Sins to Salisbury Lake, she had signed the death sentence of every last one of these souls. The game was over, the curtain had fallen, and at the end of it all, Merlin had failed. If an afterlife existed, her father laughed at her from there. He had known her potential, but he had also seen how she would throw all of it away in a desperate struggle to reach for the unattainable while she chased after wishes and illusions.
Her father had seen her failure. Now Merlin did too.
⸸ † ⸸
"Please, in the name of King Arthur, have mercy!"
The knight raised his hands, a universal sign of surrender. His companion gurgled as the blood climbed his throat. He wouldn't make it long; his twitching hand lacked the strength to hold the red liquid at bay which mingled with the muddy puddle beneath him.
Both their hearts revealed their failure and all the dead they had sent into their grave. A forest of wooden crosses on a nameless hill.
Lancelot raised his sword. A crimson line ran down the ridge. "You have no right to ask for mercy. Because of your ignorance, the people of the town you were supposed to guard were slaughtered. Because you lacked the courage to stand against the robbers, innocent people died. Do you deny this?"
The knight looked back and forth between Lancelot and his dying companion. Neither would help him. "I confess that we failed to do our duty. But what else were we supposed to do? Those weren't ordinary robbers, they stationed their men like soldiers. It was Edinburgh, on my life, the knights of Edinburgh caused the death of these people, not us!"
"And did your esteemed King Arthur send his best men to investigate this occurrence? Did he confront Deathpierce and his loyalists? Did he raise his hands to work his magic and fortify the neighboring villages?"
The rain ran down the knight's face. Almost like tears. He brushed the drops away. "No, but no one expected him to go to such lengths. He pardoned us. That's more than we could have asked for. Are you from one of the neighboring villages? Belforet? Limors? Is that why you want to kill us?" He stumbled backwards and slipped on the wet tiles. "Look, we're just ordinary knights, the best we can do is follow orders. I don't have a magical ability or a noble lineage to save my life. If you have a problem with the big strategies, you will have to face the king himself."
"I will. And like you, he will pay for his refusal to act."
With these words, Lancelot stepped forward and carried out his sentence. One clean cut and a quick death. It was more than the people of Belforet and Limors could have hoped for. The second knight, although his pained breaths rattled, and his eyes shifted in and out of focus, still held onto life. Lancelot ended his suffering.
Another duel won, another step closer to the King of Chaos.
Lancelot held out his hand and let the raindrops beat against his palm. More and more splashed against the ivy tendrils above, and what little cover the remains of the hall had offered crumbled under the force of the storm. A few months ago, a similar storm had lashed Avalon – or had he dreamt the magnificent sound of droplets on the well-trodden ground around his campsite? Thanks to the magic of the lake, he could make rain appear whenever he liked. When he had first discovered this ability, he had run around the ruins with a childish grin, and a ghost of this smile flickered on his face.
The red marks on his hands vanished with the rain.
"Did their deaths please you? Have you become fond of these executions because they underpin your superiority in battle?"
Lancelot spun around. Sir Jonathan entered the hall, a shadow against the light entering through the destroyed window above the doors. His mentor had abandoned his armor and he was missing energy in his posture. With an empty expression to make him look fifty years older, Sir Jonathan studied the dead knights.
"They have sinned. For their betrayal against the people in their protection, they had to atone," Lancelot said.
"Every human has done wrong at some point in their lives. It is our nature to make mistakes and learn from them. Will you punish every last knight in Britannia before you have enough?"
"If I must? You taught me not to hesitate. If these knights had returned to their positions as if nothing had happened, how many more innocent villagers would have met their end under their watch? Sixteen people died where they were stationed. Forty-four died in Belforet. Fifty-nine in Limors. And yet these knights would have gone about their duty with the same carelessness as before. They had to pay, and their king refused to raise his hands against them."
"No one entitled you to be the judge of all humans. Whatever stories Morgan whispered into your ear, you have to break with her. Can you recall the knight's creed?"
Lancelot didn't hesitate for a heartbeat. "Your eyes will judge the wicked. Your mouth will speak the truth. Your heart will be filled with justice. And your sword will crush all evil."
"And do you still think you are in the right? You know the words, but you don't understand them. My young friend, you are no better than any of these knights, and when you lose yourself in missteps and the violence you have sown, I hope for your sake that others will show more forgiveness than you."
The raindrops hammered onto the steel of Lancelot's sword. He expected no pity from others, least Sir Jonathan. The King of Chaos awaited him at the end of his path. Not forgiveness.
Lancelot pointed his blade at his old mentor. "Then face me. Prove that you still outclass me, that my word still has no power over you. Put an end to this hell. Stop me before I can hurt anyone else. DO IT!"
But Sir Jonathan's sword remained at his side. "May the gods have mercy on your soul, my young friend."
Then he stepped past Lancelot to bury the dead.
1/15/21 - Some fascinating reveals about the nature of Chaos and the Lady of the Lake, if I do say so myself. I hope you enjoyed this chapter despite, or exactly because of, the higher emphasis on the story's themes. We are nearing the end of the story, with only two or three chapters to go. I hope to manage another update soon, but I can't promise anything. Till then, stay safe.
