Chapter 10: The Dark One
9494 BC - Camelot
Merlin lies in bed thinking about the past year. He remembers the tales told of the ruthlessness of Vortigan. The people were terrified of him before, but now that he had magic, they don't know what to do. Merlin of course knew the truth, Vortigan is dead. The being people knew as Vortigan, was really Nimue, who had taken on his identity. Not a day goes by that he doesn't replay their last meeting in his head, wondering if there was something he could have done differently.
"Merlin" an all too familiar voice said and he turned over to see Nimue. She did not look like she did the last time he saw her, rather she looked like the Nimue he knew "I need your help"
"Why would I ever help you?" Merlin said, sitting up
"Because you were right" Nimue said "I'm doing things that I don't want to do. I thought I could use this magic to control the world's evils, but it is controlling me"
"Give me the Fire of Prometheus" Merlin said "I can use that to make the Sword whole and cut away your magic. I will then cut away mine and we can live out our lives together"
"I'd love nothing more, Merlin" Nimue said "but the Darkness in me won't let me give it up"
"Then I'm not sure I can help you" Merlin said "I will check with the other Original Powers, they may have an idea. Wait for me at the site of the Promethean Flame"
"I will" Nimue said and she teleports away
Hall of Legends
"She wants to give up her magic?" Ninjor said "I'm not sure whether to believe her or not"
"I'm not either" Merlin said "if she really wants to give it up, she should be able to just hand over the Promethean Flame and we could end this with the Sword"
"She can't give up the Flame for the same reason True Love's Kiss won't work" Reul said "while part of her may indeed want to lose her magic, another part refuses. Until she is completely ready to give up her magic, the Darkness will prevent her from taking any direct action in giving it up. If we are to get rid of her magic, the initiative must come from a source external to her, not internal"
"I thought you weren't going to help" Merlin asked "that it would be interfering?"
"That was when she wanted to keep her magic" Ruel said "we are not going to interfere in free will nor are we going to directly interfere… but if she wants to be rid of it, even if it is only part of her, we can teach you a spell that should be able to separate her magic from her and contain it. From there we may be able to develop a spell to extract the Flame from her magic"
"But be warned, Sorcerer" Nyx said "this spell has not been tried before on magic of this magnitude. You must be willing to do whatever needs to be done to contain the magic if the spell should fail"
"I understand" Merlin said
"Go and tell her the news while we finalize the spells" Simultaneous said "do not tell her the location that you plan on performing the spells until you have them down and are ready"
Site of the Promethean Flame
Merlin arrives to see Nimue, one of hands beginning to turn scaly again
"I have good news, my love" Merlin said "the Original Powers believe they have a way to help. Meet me back here in one week and I should be ready to help"
"I can't wait" Nimue said and she kisses Merlin
A week later, Merlin and Nimue meet, Nimue looking more scaly than she had the previous week, but her head with still normal
"I'm ready" Merlin said "are you?"
"Ready as I'll ever be" Nimue said
"Then hang on" Merlin said and he offers her his hand and she takes it. He twirls his other hand and they teleport away
Elsewhere, Merlin and Nimue arrive at the site where Merlin is to perform the spell. Nimue notices on the ground a metal plate with many symbols on it
"What is that?" Nimue asked
"A vault" Merlin said "I can separate you from the Darkness, but I can't destroy it, at least not yet. The vault will contain the Darkness until I can find a way to destroy it" and he waves his hand and three more objects appear, the two pieces of the Sword and a box
"What is that?" Nimue asked looking at the box
"Even I don't alone have enough magic to perform this spell unaided" Merlin said "the Original Powers poured more of their magic into an object to amplify my magic. When the stars in the hat align with the starts in the sky, my magic will be increased a hundred-fold. We are going to have to act quickly, as the stars are about to align and they won't stay like that long" and he takes the boxes and waves his hand over it, revealing a hat, which he puts on
"I'll ask you one more time" Merlin said "are you ready to give up your magic. I understand you may not be fully ready, but if you're not even partially ready, this will not work"
"I'm ready" Nimue said
"Very well" Merlin said "then let us begin. I'm going to stand on this side of the vault, you stand on the other" and they do. He grabs the two pieces of the Sword and taps into both his own magic and the magic in hat and channels them out through the two pieces of the Sword and magic whirls around Nimue, drawing the Darkness out. Merlin notices as the magic comes out of Nimue, she looks more and more human until, finally, the Darkness is gone from her and she looks completely human. The Darkness looks exactly like that, a liquid black ink flying around, trying to escape his grasp. He fights it, trying to force it down into the vault. However, the Darkness manages to break away from his grasp
"No!" Merlin screams as the Darkness breaks away and knocks him off his feet, knocking the Sword pieces out of his hands. He summons a nearby branch to his hand and pours light magic into it, turning it into a wand. The Darkness senses what Merlin is trying to do and pours dark magic into it at the same time. Merlin then uses raw light magic against the Darkness, knocking it away and it flees into the dark
"What happened?!" Nimue asked
"I wasn't strong enough to force the Darkness into the Vault" Merlin said "and now the whole Omniverse is in danger. When the Darkness was in you, whatever good remained in you restrained it. Additionally your body physically contained it, it could only be in one place at a time. But, now it can spread as far and wide as it wants to. Sooner or later, it's gonna find a portal and jump to other words, multiplying itself until there's nothing left"
"Then put it back" Nimue said
"What? No!" Merlin exclaimed
"If the choice is me or the Omniverse, it's your duty to put it back in me" Nimue said
"Even if I wanted to, I can't make it go anywhere" Merlin said "if I could, I'd just put it in the Vault"
"Don't you know a tethering spell?" Nimue said
"Yes, but why…. No" Merlin said "no, I will not tether it to your soul"
"You don't have a choice" Nimue said
"You'll be worse off than before" Merlin said "before, if you had somehow died, you would have a chance of moving onto a better place. If I tether it to your soul and you somehow die, you'll be stuck in the Underworld, forever"
"I know" Nimue said "but we don't have a choice" Merlin pauses, not wanting to do it, but knowing there's no other way
"I will find a way to save you" Merlin said and he sets down the wand and picks up the pieces of the Sword and channels the magic from the hat and his own through the Sword pieces into the Darkness in the wand and then into Nimue and the vault. Nimue and the Darkness are sucked into the Vault
Inside the Vault, the Darkness swirls around Nimue, showing her the darkest parts of her life, of Vortigan destroying her village, of her killing Vortigan, the weakness of when she briefly lost her magic moments ago, along with countless other moments
Outside the Vault, Merlin watches as liquid Darkness pours of it and forms a person, Nimue, in her scaly form.
"I'm sorry Nimue" Merlin said
"You said that before, Merlin" Nimue said "and this time, I'm not. I will fight the Darkness until you can find a way to save me"
"I do foresee a Guardian one day being able to use Darkness for good" Merlin said "but we both know that's not you. You're already eyeing the Sword pieces, the wand, and the hat. You have no intention of letting go of the Darkness"
"No, I don't" Nimue said "but that doesn't mean I can't be the one to use it for good"
"Yes, it does" Merlin said "the Guardian will only hesitantly take on the Darkness, not embrace it like you. And if you are thinking about fighting me for these magical objects, know that you will lose. I've had this power much longer than you have"
"I know" Nimue said "and if you are not going to give them to me, there's nothing more for me here" and she teleports away in black smoke
Hall of Legends
"Well, that went well" Simultaneous said
"We're worse off than we were before" Poseidon said
"Not true" Ursula said "Nimue is certainly worse off than before, we are not. If Nimue had some died before, the Darkness would have gotten loose and consumed the Omniverse. Now, if she dies, it will be contained in the Vault"
"And I may have a way to control her as well" Merlin said "I believe I can cast another tethering spell to tether her to one of the pieces of the Sword"
"A spell like that may even be able to kill her" Daimyo said
"I'm not killing her" Merlin said "if I can control her, we shouldn't need to kill her, right?"
"Careful, Merlin" Flora said "remember magic always comes with a price. Forcing someone to do something against their will, against their nature, will take a toll on your soul"
"So I shouldn't cast the tethering spell?" Merlin asked
"I didn't say that" Flora said "Cast it, but only use it when you have no choice, and be careful what you ask her to do"
"Then I will go and cast the spell" Merlin said "I will hang onto the piece that will control…" he couldn't bring himself to say her name "this Dark One. I will then seal away the remaining piece into a stone, only able to pulled out by the pure of heart. The man who pulls it out will be king of Camelot and will make a broken kingdom whole. Through his actions the Sword, which will then be called Excalibur, will be made whole and the Darkness will be defeated"
"Did you say Dark One, Sorcerer?" Reul asked
"I did" Merlin said
"I have my own prophecy about the Dark One" Reul said "after the Dark One finds eternal love, the dark powers can be removed only when the sun is at its brightest and that it sets in the Edge of Realms"
"So a king will pull the Sword from the stone, unite it, the Dark One will find eternal love at the Edge of Realms, and then we can remove and destroy the Darkness?" Zeus asked
"And what about the Guardian Merlin spoke of?" Ninjor asked
"Merlin is Nimue's True Love" Flora said
"Maybe the prophecies means that I'm to take Nimue to the Edge of Realms, where we can live apart from the rest of the Omniverse. There we can build our lives together, and one day she will finally be ready to let go of the Darkness and use it for good, making her the Guardian. She will then be able to hand over the Promethean Flame and we can return to Camelot, where a man will pull the Sword from the stone, become king, turn Camelot into a proper kingdom, and then I can reforge Excalibur and use it cut the tethering spell tying the Darkness to Nimue's soul and then use it to destroy the Darkness once and for all?"
"But if that was the case, why bother putting the Sword in the stone at all?" Poseidon asked "you could destroy the Darkness as soon as Nimue hands over the Promethean Flame"
"Prophecies are a funny thing" Simultaneous said "they never seem to be quite what they seem to be. Trying to stop them from coming true or forcing them to come true will end badly. Just do what you were planning on doing and don't worry about the future, what will happen, will happen"
"Lord Simultaneous is right" Nyx said "do not let your desires override the Fates. What will be done will be done. You cannot interfere with Fate and even if you somehow succeed, there will be a heavy price to pay"
Outside of Camelot
Merlin and the Apprentice find a stone in an area not many travel. He uses his magic to put the larger piece of the Sword in the stone. Unless someone knew better, the sword looked whole
Camelot
Merlin fashioned the remaining piece of the Sword into a dagger and casts a tethering spell between the dagger and Nimue, which makes her name appear on the Dagger
"Too bad you couldn't see her future" the Apprentice said "you could've not talked to her in the first place
"No, no, my boy, no" Merlin said "You must never think that. Even now I would live through it again. Life is made of moments and I had the best moments of my life with her"
"Forgive me" the Apprentice said "but wouldn't it be selfish to allow the Darkness to exist just so you could be happy for a few years"
"Perhaps" Merlin said "but that is missing the bigger point. Trying to evade Fate will always make things worse. If I had never met her, sooner or later someone would have stumbled across the Grail and would've drank from it. They could've been much worse than her. Imagine if while we were out Vortigan had found the Grail and drank from it"
"But what if…" the Apprentice began but Merlin cut him off
"We can dwell on the past and the what if's and the could've beens forever. Or we can keep moving forward. I know I've neglected you this past year obsessing over the past. I'm ready to move on to the next step of your training"
"You mean you'll finally teach me magic?" the Apprentice asked "no more running errands and sweeping with brooms?"
"Well, I will still need you to do that, but yes, I will finally teach you magic. We'll start with magic wands, and I can think of no better wand for you to use than the one I just made" Merlin said and summoned the wand he created when battling the Darkness "this wand was forged with my light magic and the Darkness's dark magic. So it requires both light magic and dark magic to wield. It is currently charged with both. As the charge fades, you'll be able to recharge the light side with your own magic, but you'll need to find another source for the dark"
"Thank you" the Apprentice, taking the wand from him and examining it. Merlin is glad the Apprentice didn't ask if he could ever use dark magic for good without being corrupted by it. The fact that he didn't ask means he didn't even consider it, which ironically means he might actually be able to pull it off. Maybe he is the Guardian he prophesied. Regardless of whether or not he is the Guardian, he chose well in choosing an apprentice.
The Vault of the Dark One
Nimue returns after Merlin leaves. She will make this her base for now, maybe later she'll conquer a castle. She then feels something wrong, it almost feels like her heart is in someone else's hand, not that they're trying to control her, but they could at any point.
"Merlin" she thinks "Merlin tethered her soul to something, probably one of the pieces of the Sword. She'll need to be careful, if she goes too far he'll put her back in line. She'll need to rely less on brute force, and more on manipulation for now. She'll need to find a way to untether herself. She'll need the object he tethered her to of course, and she'll need a way to amplify her magic. Merlin's hat… that will work, she'll need to get the hat and wait for the stars to align… but she can wait… she has all the time in the world…"