Hi again! After a long waiting period, I bring you this new chapter! I am looking forward to your opinions!

I do not own Merlin.

THE BLOODY MENACE (PART 2)

Merlin knew perfectly well where he could find the information of those runes. Only that he hoped not to have to, because the place where that information was hidden was not pleasant at all. However, he had no choice.

So, before Morgana, Gwen and Arthur came to panic about who could be the cause of the wall full of blood, Merlin went nimbly to the lower floor with a candle but not before washing his hands full of dried blood in a bucket full of water.

Once on the lower floor, Merlin looked for anything that could tell him where the place he was looking for was. Well, it wasn't the first time he'd done it. It was a long time ago, when he was just a child, when he began to notice a certain magical presence in the house. It was in that way that he found a place that he knew Hunith had been hiding all the time.

After magically scanning the place, he found the entrance inside a shelf full of old books. From it appeared some descending stairs that seemed not to be in this dimension, but to have been transferred to another. Candle in hand, Merlin entered cautiously the secret passageway. Once inside, he took a deep breath and descended determinedly between the black stone walls.

On occasions of danger or uncertainty like this, Merlin had come to that place to seek information that he knew his mother would not talk about. He also knew (or at least thought so) that his mother was unaware of his discovery, as he was sure that otherwise she would not tolerate it. For it was no coincidence that that place was called "The Dark Corner of Hidden Truths", as indicated by the sign after going down the stairs until reaching a large door of polished black stone.

In his presence, the door lit up a magical blue light, from which a deep voice was heard saying:

"Oh, brave adventurer, do you dare to enter The Dark Corner where only the Truths hidden by humanity, proper to nature and life, are hidden, despite being denied and eluded by those who have the Power of Information?"

"Yes, I will dare to go in," Merlin replied in a determined voice.

"Oh, daring adventurer, you must first show your worth to know if you are really deserving of such a privilege, for it is true that this Information is not only hidden, but is potentially deadly to those who read it, so harmful that only someone with a strong heart can withstand the magical force that these truths exert on their bearers, being able to make even the most innocent succumb to madness."

"And what should I do to show my worth?" asked Merlin, knowing from the first time that as a child he went there that there was always a challenge for those who wished to enter, although not always the same, because it depended on the one who asked for it according to the circumstances that surrounded him.

The door did not answer, but continued to expel bluish light. Suddenly, the doorknob began to expel a dark smoke with silver shavings that quickly materialized into a human figure. Merlin felt the presence of that figure knock at the door of his soul, asking for the one that was once his beloved son.

"Father?" murmured Merlin astonished, not believing to see the physical incarnation of his father in that place.

"Son," the figure simply replied, with absence of any kind of tone, after which extravagant formations appeared in his outline, like tentacles made of shadows and darkness. "How dare you, son?" he said this time, noticing in his voice a great pain that flooded Merlin's chest with sadness.

"What's wrong, father?" – Merlin asked worriedly.

"You abandoned me," he replied sharply, in a tone of voice even deeper than any dragon longed to have, "That is what's wrong, son. You abandoned me the moment you didn't inquire into who your father really was. You abandoned me the moment you never thought of me or did anything to find me. You abandoned me the moment you forgot me…"

Merlin wanted to answer something, but he just couldn't. Cruel tears welled up in his eyes, forming rivers of water on his cheeks

"I tried, father, really. But..."

"But what?" blurted out the figure. "What justification is it that you offer me?"

Merlin was silent, with his head down, as he felt his tears run down his face.

"There you have it," the dark figure continued to speak, "the truth. Painful but irrefutable. Accept it, son. You don't care about me in the slightest. You never did. You already gave me to understand it the moment you left me."

An awkward pause hovered between them, during which Merlin could swear that, despite being a shadow without a defined face, he could observe an expression of deep sadness in him.

"You say that you tried to find me," continued his father's figure "but what I see in front of me is a boy who only pursues what concerns him, him and his doomed destiny. And that's how you decide to get into my land. A secret place that I consider sacred, and that you now wish to sully it, to collect information for your own interests and benefits. Well, know that this place bears my name, since I was its founder! All privileged and occult information that is hidden here is all thanks to my efforts, and is aimed at showing the truths that no one dares to proclaim, and therefore its objective is not to satisfy one's own interests!"

"Father, I don't..." Merlin tried to reply, but a tense lump in his throat choked him and prevented him from speaking. However, before he even tried to sort out his thoughts, his father's figure quickly approached levitating, placing his head in front of his in a sign of deep anger.

"I don't want to hear from you anymore, boy. From now on, don't consider yourself my son. You have disappointed me. Get out of here before I kick you out."

Hearing the words that his father's figure murmured with a furious whisper, Merlin was about to fall to his knees from the emotional thrust that this had caused him. He thought of nothing but to leave there with his head down without complaining, like a child goes to his room when he is scolded.

However, as he turned around slowly, he felt a spark of rebellion in his chest that made him stand up like a cane, direct his gaze back to the shadow of his father and, with a twinkle of great power in his eyes, exclaimed softly but powerfully:

"You have no idea what I have been able to do to get to know your identity and find you. Well, I don't know a son that I, as a father, would be prouder of. You are hardly able to conceive with all the impetus I long to see and know you. For the reason for my presence here is really none other than to achieve a greater knowledge about you. So don't judge my behaviour before you even know my intentions, for you have no idea who I really am."

The blackened figure of his father emitted a terrifying roar as Merlin raised his hands above his head, radiating a great beam of golden light that concentrated on that shadow that deplorably imitated his beloved father. Seconds later, the shadow faded, leaving as the only evidence of its presence silver shavings that fell lightly on the black stone floor.

"Oh, brave adventurer, you have been able to show your true worth," the grave voice of the door rang through the walls.

That said, the light surrounding the door frame flickered for a few moments and then changed to a scarlet colour. That caused the door to open slowly followed by a squeak, being dragged the old wood on the irregular black stone floor.

Merlin looked curiously into the room behind the door, where after brief periods of impenetrable darkness, several bluish lights allowed him to observe the vastness of that strange place. Once inside, Merlin let out a sigh of astonishment without being able to prevent it as he observed the immensity of the place astonished. Huge shelves full of dusty books expanded throughout the room, whose height seemed to easily reach seven meters, which greatly surprised Merlin when he wondered how it could be so high being in a kind of dungeon inside his house. Magic, surely, thought Merlin. He never thought magic could be able to do that.

After the period of observation and astonishment ended, Merlin headed as if in a dream through the long corridors surrounded by stacks of books placed on its high shelves. Long stairs were placed in front of the shelves in order to facilitate the acquisition of books located in the upper areas.

Gently dragging a finger along the backs of the books he was passing through, Merlin suddenly seemed to remember the reason for his presence in that place, after which he went to a section whose sign indicated "Written Languages", finding a more concrete shelf of "Runic Writing System" next to another that caught his attention called "Hieroglyphs of Antiquity".

He hurriedly went to that shelf, where for half an hour he was leafing through books in which all kinds of illustrations appeared that just by seeing them Merlin seemed to drown in panic. It was apparently true that what those books taught was not for everyone. And he was lucky not to have read it, in which case certain truths that he may never have wanted to discover would have prostrated themselves before him like demon-possessed insects.

After rummaging through texts and illustrations of all kinds of runic writings that Merlin never thought could have existed, he managed to detect certain runes that seemed to resemble those he had seen both on his bedroom wall and on the mirror frame. In one part of that book it was talked about the uses that it was thought that kind of runes could have had and the possible origins of its writing on trees. Apparently, as Merlin could read, little seemed to be known about that writing system, for all that was indicated seemed to be mere speculations, intuitions of an extremely remote era, of which hardly any vestiges of the mysterious civilization of which those runes were said to belong could be observed.

However, it was not until he found a page scribbled with symbols and annotations that Merlin managed to draw accurate conclusions from his inquiries. What seemed most impressive to him at first was the fact that that ancient and dusty book, hidden among a sea of thousands upon hundreds of other dusty books, could have been so used by someone on that page. Seen this way, it might have seemed coincidental that Merlin had found the answers to his questions for certain scribbles in one of thousands of books. But upon thought, Merlin's perception changed drastically. He felt that this encounter with those notes was not mere chance, but something more. As he seemed to feel, that book had been placed at will in that place so that he could read it. It seemed irrational, he knew it, but simply... he seemed to feel it, as when the bonds of fate seemed to guide his actions. That book was predestined to be read exclusively by him and at that precise moment.

It was thus that, with great confidence and enthusiasm, Merlin quickly gobbled up with great interest, along with a horror that seemed to increase with every word and symbol he read, those mysterious notes. However, what struck him the most and was the reason for his most visceral doubts was what he found surrounded with red ink at the bottom of the page, in a corner, and underlined with the word "IMPORTANT":

"Once runes of great power used by the Ancients, I fear that certain beings have managed to discover their usefulness, inheriting their Ancient Magic... in which case the Balance of Magic is in danger... only the Prince of Light can save us..."

Among those annotations certain strange words and symbols seemed to have been written in such haste that Merlin could not decipher them correctly. After that and a tiny space, Merlin could understand an annotation that said with a calligraphy that seemed to have been demanded a great anguish:

"Beware, Children of Light, for Fire and Darkness are approaching... faster and faster... Beings of fire and darkness will attain a power that not even the Light will remember... They are everywhere... We are lost... Help us, Emrys..."

The only thing Merlin remembered before he collapsed to the ground was the faint silhouette of a symbol he knew all too well: a beast with the body of a snake and the head of a dragon. Next to it, the following signature: Thyrs, a Son of the Undead.

Hope you liked it and see you next time!

LegolasHV