AN: Back at it! Thanks for your encouragement, as always, Gingeraffeane! "I think I found myself a cheerleader." lol You should be glad you don't have to actually listen to me sing.Anyway, here we go, finally into the meat of the story. Enjoy!
CHAPTER 13: Impact
I rode up the escalator of Watertower Place on the Magnificent Mile with a dozen other giggling 13-year-old girls. We gossiped, stared in awe at all of the stores around us, swiped our hands at the famous fountains that flanked the escalators, and tried to pretend the tired adults trailing us weren't actually with us. I'd made it on a prestigious traveling volleyball team, and we were in Chicago – the farthest I'd ever been from home – to compete in a tournament. Although they couldn't talk to us yet, sometimes college coaches came to tournaments like this, and I knew I was one of the players they were watching. Volleyball was the first thing I was really good at, and my parents were excited at the thought of scholarships. I prayed every night I'd get to be 6 feet tall. Right now, though, I was loving every moment of the Windy City with my friends. I wanted to stay here forever!
We were almost to the top of the escalator and in a heated discussion about which store to hit next when I saw a man going down three escalators over. He caught my eye and smiled with such malevolence that I shivered. A scar at the corner of his mouth twisted the smile into a strange half-frown. As I looked down at him, he pulled a wicked-looking knife and stabbed the man in front of him, pushing the body off the side of the escalator into the fountain. Nobody else seemed to notice. He stabbed a second man, and I belatedly realized that the people he was stabbing were dressed like they belonged at a Rennaissance Fair.
The murderer was almost to the two I somehow knew were his ultimate target – and they looked so familiar. One was blonde and wore an actual crown; the other was dark-haired and wore a neckerchief. I opened my mouth to yell and warn them, but instead tripped over the ridge at the top of the escalator, to the laughter of my teammates. I looked back, confused, but there were only normal passengers on the escalator now, and no bodies.
I let the horde of girls drag me into a store that sold nothing but mismatched socks, figuring I was imagining things. I was settling in to enjoy the trip to...were we in San Fransisco? Yes, that's right. It was the junior Olympic team. I was only visiting, hoping to try out after my next birthday, but the older girls embraced me like one of their own. We were at a famous seafood restaurant. The PA system crackled to life. "Lady Mina, you are needed on the second level." Slightly weirded out, and feeling like that was the wrong name, I walked up the steps to the bar area, where I really shouldn't be allowed. In the middle of the tables was a small dance area, where a few well-dressed couples twirled slowly. A beautiful black-haired woman smiled at me over her date's shoulder. "An associate of mine is looking for you," she purred, pointing at me with one impossibly long fingernail. "Once she has you, Camelot is mine."
The couple turned so I could see the man instead. He gave me a charming smile. "Hello, dumpling. I think she stabbed me!" He looked like he was, indeed, bleeding from his abdomen, but he never stopped dancing or smiling.
"Stop – " I called but my voice was drowned out by the cheering crowd as I hit a kill for match point. Screaming, my teammates mobbed me. We'd done it! We had Arizona State's first ever volleyball national championship and I, just a sophomore, hit the final shot. My teammates were hugging and crying and basically losing their minds, but I felt removed somehow. I was happy, but it was like a remembered happiness, softened by time, instead of the sharp happy of right now. My coach grabbed me and hugged me so enthusiastically that he lifted me right off the floor, though he was two inches shorter than I was. He was talking but I couldn't hear him over the noise, so he pulled my ear close to his mouth.
"You have to give an interview," he said. "Take the mic."
Someone shoved a microphone into my hand, and I turned to the interviewer, who proved to be an older man with a white beard. He was, oddly, dressed in a brown robe. But instead of asking interview questions, he began to lecture me. "I don't know what it is about you, but you can't seem to let go. These memories are supposed to fade as you integrate into your new reality. I don't like interfering, and I won't do it again. But listen, if you don't let go of your old reality, everyone you're learning to care about in this one is going to die. Everyone."
"Wait, what? How do I let it go? I can't control my dreams!"
He spoke into the mic again, as if he really were doing an interview, even though the crowd had disappeared. "You have to figure it out. I'll give you and your friends a push. Be careful, Mina. There is an ancient power here that can sense my magic, and is looking for me...well, looking for you, because she can't comprehend me. She has enchanted an army of kobolds and other creatures to be her eyes, and now she's working on enchanting the men that Arthur sent up north to look into her actions. Merlin is the only one who has any chance of stopping her, so stay out of her way."
"You're confusing me!"
"It's about to get a lot more confusing, although some things will be cleared up too. I'd answer more of your questions, but we're running out of time. How many dreams do you have in a night, anyway? It's almost dawn, so no more time for questions."
"But..." my questions piled up in my head like a logjam, and I could only remember one. "Why are you still holding a microphone?"
"It makes me feel important. And I said this before but, this is gonna hurt." He smacked my forehead and a bunch of things happened at once. First, my mind filled with so many memories and so much knowing from this reality that I thought my head might pop like a balloon. Second, everything around me rippled like the shock wave around a bomb. I woke up with a gasp, in time to see a scarred face leering over me and a fist come at me. "Son of a – !"
At the same time,the first soldier from Leon's group who had been released suddenly stopped dead from where he was skulking through the lower town, his eyes turning back to normal. The man, Maximus, stared around in horror, then ran toward the citadel.
Deep below the earth, an ancient force stirred, sightless face turning up. Its long-limbed army moved as one toward Camelot.
Across the keep, the impact of Taliesin's magic hit Merlin like a tackle, knocking him right out of bed. Scrambling to his feet, Merlin threw on clothes, his mind spinning. He could hear Gaius putting on tea and started talking as he walked down the stairs pulling on his shirt. "I had a vision like the ones in the crystal cave. The dochraid is after Mina and using mag --" Merlin froze as he finally got the shirt pulled on the rest of the way. The person pulling the kettle from over the fire wasn't who he'd expected.
"Gaius got called away overnight," said Gwaine, setting the kettle carefully on the table. "But I'd really like to hear the rest of that sentence."