33 Lark's rise
Merlin was shaking all over, he was wet with his own sweat and before his eyes danced dark spots of exhaustion and despair.
Still, he heard Arthur screaming; not the howling storm, the roaring thunder or the blinding flashes of lightning could drown that sound of a human being screaming from extreme pain and terror. The warlock fought with all his remaining strength, but it was no use, his feet were stuck in the ground as in molasses. The sticky, stinking mud grabbed him as if it was a living, evil thing, and it didn't let go, whatever he tried.
The wizard cried Arthur's name, again, and again, but it was to no avail, he got no answer but the high-pitched, wailing sound that spoke only of defeat and looming doom. Merlin had no idea how they had come here, what they were doing here, whom they were fighting, or, even what and where "here" was. It was as if he'd been sleeping for ages, safe and sound, and then he'd awoke to a living nightmare of horror and grief.
Disoriented and terrified out of his wits, Merlin once more called for his magic – again, there was no answer. Inside his head was nothing but the voices. Besides Arthur's, that seemed the only real thing around him, there were Morgana's, the Druids', even Armand's voices screaming at him, but however hard he tried, he just could not make out what they were saying. It was as if the world was going down in a crescendo of images and words to which everyone had the key of understanding except him.
Merlin's legs gave in under him and he fell to his knees. He couldn't breathe; the ragging storm engulfed him, tore at him like a wild beast's claws.
In the distance, Arthur's voice weakened, faded away, then it was gone.
Merlin was alone in the chaos. Lost.
He felt his eyes close.
His last thoughts did not reach out to his friend. "Morgana" his soul repeated, over and over again. "Morgana….".
And at the very last moment, when his mind and body were ready to finally abandon him, he heard her answer: "Merlin. Merlin, my love…." A warmth filled his hand. Her palm… her slender fingers….. but even this warmth faded away, along with everything else, with the empty promise of hope and life, with the peace her voice had brought, if only for an instant…, it all sank, sank, deeper and deeper, until there was nothing left of anything.
And Merlin stopped breathing when darkness claimed him as its own.
"We're losing him!" Algernon shouted. Panic-stricken, he shook Merlin's limp body. As always the sun shone warmly on their heads as she bathed the Blessed Isle in her unchanging light, but underneath his hands, Merlin's skin was icy cold.
"I do not understand" the bewildered Druid Elder replied.
"And that" Algernon snapped back in furious rage "is the story of your life!"
"But….how dare you…."
"It's Armand!" Algernon screamed, Merlin still in his arms as the only thing that stood between them and the Elder's imminent demise. "It must be Armand. He's pulling us back! He's using Arthur to bring us back into the real world!"
"I cannot believe that" the older Druid said. And, indeed, it was hard to believe.
All around them the Blessed Isle was going about its business.
As a part of which a young scholar had entered the temple to pick up a new scroll with recipes for draughts and spells for the creation of pleasant dreams.
They were a peculiar matter, these dream-creating draughts and spells.
Perhaos that calls for some explanation.
At first, unlike Algernon, most people had taken their time grasping that Morgause's gift of immortality had been a poisoned apple. Laced with eternal boredom.
But once realization had dawned even on the somewhat slower, i. e. even on those who'd so far fought about leadership of a world that had no need of it, demand for prolonged and pleasant dreams had exploded. Exponentially.
People filled their empty days with pinkish-coloured stories, in which even the most horrible of mistakes did not lead to disastrous consequences for long. Where even the most catastrophic struggle was settled by punishment of the evil and rewarded by eternal bliss for the righteous ones.
All wars were just and good, and they always led to peace and better understanding, without too many corpses, and even these were aesthetically pleasing. Even the dead seemed to die happily in the certain knowledge that their death would lead to an even better world – albeit, alas, without them. But wise leaders, supported by heroes capable of extinguishing a city's population before they paused to smell the roses and rescue little dogs, would go on leading their people to an even greater happiness, without so much as one selfish thought, let alone a stupid idea or two.
Indeed, demand for such dreams increased so excessively, that the most adept dream creators set up shop in one of the Isle's so far almost unused groves. A nice, well-kept path now led towards it, with tall, exotic trees to line it. It once had been a Holy Wood. The gate to the dream-selling world was crowned by a large sign that spelled out the name of the Blessed Isle's new intellectual centre:
The Principle of D. R. E. A. M. S. and H. O. P. E. S.
A smaller sign pointed to the most important subsection, the Department of the Highest Priority for the Prevention of Boredom. After a while, vernacular shortened that, too: It became known simply as PARAMOUNT.
After a while, the product line had been extended. The variety was impressive. Horror-dreams, nightmares (happy-ending guaranteed!), war-dreams, family-problem-dreams, kid-upbringing-dreams, animals-doing-cute-things-no-animal-would-ever-do-dreams, judges-passing-judgement-dreams, crime-solving-dreams, serial-killer-dreams, nature-documentary-dreams and, the latest hype, biopic-dreams of renowned wizards long-dead (lucky devils!). In the morning the shelves would overflow with new dream potions. Every evening the shelves would be empty.
The Council of Elders had had long debates on the new life-style, of course.
At first, the "o tempora o mores" faction had seemed to have the upper hand. The Under-Secretary for the Defence of Culture and Faith Against All Possible Evils had delivered a long, elaborated sermon that became very famous. For a while, his Axiom of Lament (oh-what-shall-become-of-us-my-brethren) had been on everyone's lips. But – the opposition leader, a younger, very ambitious man, had finally won through with a cutting repartee (as-if-we-did-not-know-what-is-going-to-become-of-us!).
Finally the Senior-Secretary for Internal and External Security had summarized the issue in one, striking argument: "People hunger after change. As change can only come to us either in a dream or by wilful murder, we are indeed, unless we invent genosuicide, faced with a situation somewhat deprived of equivalent alternatives."
And so, the dream-selling became not only legal, but a pet-instrument of politics. For, although in this world nobody would ever lead anyone anyhow anywhere, as there was simply nowhere one could go, the blessed human strife for power was as immortal as the Blessed Isle itself.
PARAMOUNT's D.R.E.A.M.S.'s ruled people's minds.
The fashionable denier cri was grit and sleep in the eyes, the more the better, together with crumpled pyjamas, untidy mops of hair and morning-breath in various flavours.
With insomnia being considered the only serious affliction one could possibly suffer from, the fashion was hardly surprising. Medical science was working overtime to come up with a potion to shorten waking hours. In a world where nothing needed production, productivity was focussed on abolishing it.
The philosophic, scientific, literary and artistic legacy of a millennium lay bare to rot. That is, it would have laid bare to rot, if anything on the Isle could have rotted at all. Only the few, precious scrolls with dream-creating draught-recipes became so very sought after, that they developed their very own version of a dust-collecting problem: They crumbled into it from use.
It was a matter of much more scientific debate how that should be possible - the only surviving piece of mortality in a bubble of immortality. In the end the scientists decided that human nature was more immortal than immortality. The desire to live one's dreams (or to think one did live them, even if it meant to become a sleep-walker) and to go down smiling in a place with nothing to smile about had always had a hidden destructive quality which was only now revealed. Case solved.
A young dream director created a new dream line from that axiom. He swept all the awards. His oeuvre became labelled 'the dreams noir'. His mother had once come from Gaul.
Anyways, the Council of Elders had to pass yet another urgent piece of legislation – The Law for the Protection of Our Most Sacred Scriptures. Under the LPOMSS, damaging a dream-creation scroll, deliberately or involuntarily, carried the capital punishment: Prolonged Deprivation of Dreaming, for no less than 20 years before any application for mercy would be at all considered.
Even so, fear of losing the precious scrolls and their knowledge continued to haunt the community, sunny day and moon-lit night after sunny day and moon-lit night, after sunny day and moon-lit night, after sunny day and moon-lit night, until…
"Brethren" the Assistant Art Director of Love and War Section in the Holy Wood had decreed for all he was worth (as usual he forgot about the "sisters" until his wife's punitive glare reminded him); "Brethren…. and beloved sisters" he'd said back then, "as I'm responsible for the mental health and the cultural education of our people (and so he was, for the Senior Art Director had taken a sabbatical in search for the inspiration necessary to create a new feature-length dream-format for the History-Dream Channel) "as I'm responsible for the future of our community, I can no longer shrink from my sacred duty to freely admit that we're facing a serious economic and social crisis here."
"Indeed" the white-haired sages had agreed. "Indeed!"
"I therefore suggest – and I say, dear brethren… and beloved sisters, please hear me out even if my next words might border on the unthinkable…" here the Assistant Art Director of Love and War Section in the Holy Wood had observed a well-placed, well-rehearsed dramatic pause before he continued "we have to wake them up. Both of them!"
There. It had been said.
A consternated silence answered him. Pale faces turned to each other, for comfort or advice where both could not be found. "I do beg your pardon?" the youngest sorcerer's apprentice finally dared to stammer (as the Senior Art Director's second cousin's favourite step-nephew he had a certain amount of latitude with the Elders).
"Merlin and Morgana!" the Assistant Art Director of Love and War Section in the Holy Wood had said that what could not be said. What perhaps should not have been said. But he said it, in the Blessed Isle's darkest, almost dreamless hour he somehow found the courage.
And the spark of fire alive in his lion-heart was strong enough to inspire the others. They started to nod approvingly, and they went on nodding until their necks ached and they had to stop.
Naturally, there was also the one doubtful voice of caution, which is always found amidst the brave and thoughtles….,
Pardon – fearless.
"Didn't the Council of Elders decree for all time that The Destroyer must not walk amongst us?" the sorcerer's apprentice said. "What if the spirits that we cited will not obey our bidding?" But – this was too much, even from the Senior Art Director's second cousin's favourite step-nephew. He was hissed and scowled down until he withdrew from the august panel's presence with tears dwelling in his shamefully grit-free eyes.
And so the Assistant Art Director of Love and War Section in the Holy Wood appealed to the PARAMOUNT's board of educational advisors, who in turn appealed to the Secretary for the Defence of Culture and Faith Against All Possible Evils who brought the case before the Council of Elder's Grand Jury, who decreed that the case was just and full of merit as it fostered the Commonwealth of the Good People of the Blessed Isle and their Pursue of Happiness.
And so, on a unsurprisingly sunny morning, that foretold another sunny day after another moon-lit night, a procession of the Blessed Isle's finest and wisest sorcerers had made their way to the Temple of the Full Moon.
There, around the massive altar, carved out of one piece of black marble, the grave warlocks had gathered, the whole assembly of Priests and Druids, twice the dozen, as the ancient ritual demanded it. On the altar two still figures, hand in hand, a man and a visibly pregnant woman; both sleeping. Encased in glass. At their side, lifeless yet undead, Khilgarrah's mighty head was resting.
A gold plaque read that,
"Supported by 24 magicians, the last of the High Priestesses here sentenced these two, her sister Morgana and Emrys, the warlock born of legends, to eternal sleep in the realms of dream, banished from the outside world as well as from the remaining world of magic, until the day the stars would fall from the sky or the Isle was to return to the outside world."
A collective sigh went through the gathering when the Elder read out the words "in the realm of dreams".
"Oh beloved" a sarcastic voice had griped from the background in exactly that solemn moment. "Doesn't that pose a certain amount of problem?"
"Be quiet, Algernon" the Elder had sternly retorted. "You're no longer a member of our community."
"Because I study the texts that you no longer care about? Think the thoughts that nobody else finds interesting enough? Because I take my dreams as nature sends them? Or because I ask the questions that may yet stir your mind from sleep one day?"
"No, Algernon. But because your doubts and questions tarnish the purity of our dreams. You lack understanding of our visions!"
"Oh my beloved Elders, it is only because your visions lack the understanding that I crave. But let's not argue about trifles. Not when you're about to undo Morgause's greatest sacrifice."
"We need the warlock born of legends!"
"But you're going to waken The Destroyer, too. If you can waken anyone, that is."
"Be silent, knave. We are the two dozen. Of what use is all your wisdom without the power we do wield?"
"One might doubt the good use of power wielded without wisdom. But – let not me deter you. Awake my friends, so that my lonely days are over. Let's wait and see what Merlin Emrys makes of what the Blessed Island has become!"
And for the rest of the ritual, all endless 24 hours of it, Algernon, although he'd come back from the coastal forest furthest from the village exactly for this moment, had kept his silence, until, finally, the glass had melted away.
When Merlin and Morgana had opened their eyes, their look of hurt and betrayal cut into his heart.
For this awakening had nothing whatsoever to do with the Elders' dreams, commercial or otherwise.
The magic wielded here today was powerful enough to reverberate in the outside world, through every fibre that had once known its tremor. The Druids would stir in their magic-deprived sleep. The spirits and fairies banned from the real world into the realms of living non-existence by Morgause's spell would rattle their cage.
And the last of the High Masters would know that his time had finally come.
So, from this moment on, Algernon had been silently waiting.
Through the first weeks of Merlin's and Morgana's disbelieving fascination with the world they'd awaken to, through the weeks and months of endless quarrel, as the "narrow-minded" warlock born of legends (unwilling to give birth to new entertaining legends) had constantly refused to make himself useful in the dream-industry.
And finally through the weeks and months Merlin and Morgana and Khilgarrah had spent with Algernon in his forest refuge, far away from the maddening (and increasingly maddened) crowds.
Mercifully, Algernon and the Great Dragon invented some stories about Morgause's motives for banishing her sister and her closest ally into a magical death-like sleep. As her pregnancy proceeded, Morgana convinced herself only too easily that all the legends about The Destroyer were just that, and nothing else: Legends. Fairy Tales. Like the dreams the Elders were so keen to produce.
But the currents and streams of magic moved and stirred in their sleep. Algernon and Merlin avoided talking about the past or future, both knowing without so many words that the presence was all they'd ever have. The four of them lived blissfully in their fool's paradise.
As the moon changed from full to black, and back again, as Morgana's belly grew and grew, so grew the villagers' need to eat, to warm oneself, and to think about tomorrow. There came a rainy day. There came a day with ice on the puddles.
The Elders neither acknowledged nor denied any significance to the fact that time had once more become a reality on the Blessed Isle. They just kept quiet about it. Very quiet. As quiet as they finally kept about the four in the forest.
The villagers were far too busy thinking of themselves and of their bellies. Their beloved dreams would not fill them. More and more the dreams became a luxury, as people lacked the time to spend all day on them. Once molested by boredom, as all need for strife was obsolete, they were now molested by constant strife, with little time for boredom.
Meanwhile, behind the veil the life of day-to-day is in the habit of creating, a Destiny long foretold, once forced unto another path, slowly but surely retook the road it had been meant to take. And it gave a damn about the people or their motives that had so whimsically called it back into existence.
The hurt he felt when he saw Merlin's and Morgan's happiness, which he knew was not to outlast the summer of a year so long postponed, – this hurt was Algernon's self-inflicted punishment.
Until the day a High Master came to the cross-roads and brought with him the reckoning.
When Merlin became restless without cause, and Morgana's bliss was ended by dreams that took no artifice to make her scream, Algernon knew that the dark clouds gathering were not a weather change.
"It is time" he told Merlin. "We must go!"
So they had come back to the Temple of the Full Moon; Algernon and Merlin, leaving Khilgarrah and The Destroyer behind in the forest, with her little girl Dindraine; two big blue eyes, two big knees, one long black mane, a huge warm smile and not much more and yet enough to fill Merlin's heart until it almost burst.
And here, in front of the temple, Merlin had felt Armand's very first attack that sent him to his doom.