Merlin 2:40 “The Grand Conjuration”
Troy walks while picking up dead snakes in the violent aftermath with his sword and drops them into a bag, his sacrosanct phoenix wanders eating the replete of deceased reptiles in a grazing trend with twilight as its guide. Ana and Nick walk from the trees, she, straitening her hair and tying it behind her head, and he, straitening his trousers and tying his cord belt shirtless.
Nick: “I don’t suppose you have a tunic in your saddle?”
Troy: “I do, I don’t suppose you have any herbs?”
Ana: “We need to find Merlin, and learn how to end this foolish war.”
Nick: “That’s simple, a man will raise his child from birth to fight what he believes is evil, a coward will wait till the child is grown then teach it to fight his petty battles for him, when they dance we cut the strings and bury the master of puppets.”
Ana: “I want to carry your children.”
Nick: “You don’t mean now?”
Merlin: “That sounds like something kismet for later!”
Merlin shouts from the distance of morrow, stepping over the scorn foliage of scorned jungle, taking caution not to singe his cloak.
Ana: “My wars lead with suffering and fire.”
Merlin: “I can see that.”
Troy: “How many guards are down there, what’s the attack plan?”
Merlin: “Those caves are empty, and we’re not going down there.”
Nick: “How pray tell empty?”
Merlin: “Those caves lead to Muspelheim, they are always empty, and if they’re not, be somewhere else. By the by, what happened here, and where is Quinn?”
Ana: “He left when the horses didst, whence snakes came.”
Merlin: “Then we shall have meat without him.”
Merlin turns behind himself and holding his hand to the landscape summons a wind that pushes fallen flyleaf and debris into a gathered pile, he pulls a branch and scrapes it across his hand, with sparks of metallic arcs the branch quickly ignites as if his hand were sharp steel and the tree bark were flint. Troy disembowels the serpents, one by one, by a sliding knife slice and strips their skins before laying them on the burning branches. The wayfarers, all, sit with daggers and contentious desires to seek the third witch and garner dominion.
Merlin: “I want to travel to Myrkwood, to stay with the men of colors. It is a warmer kingdom thence, and by spring we can cross the range of Lyfja, and down to Jarnvidur.”
Ana: “Good, we can visit Menglod, maybe visit close to Vanaheim.”
Nick: “Ljossalfheim is nearby it; perhaps Troy could visit the Huldru folk.”
Merlin: “The more respites, the better.”
Troy: “To finish rapacious enemies like threshing scythe, be it cardinal sin or common crime, the freedom to learn where only learning is free, clashes to clashes, rust to rust.”
Merlin: “Invective, but it is tantamount to impetus, complacency for oneself creates ashes and dust. Come now, we shall make anon wayfaring, so I can see a man about a horse.”
They begin their walk leaving the jungle and entering the perennial forest, but before the pines as their feet cross the grass the skies return to grey as the shortened day by season clings to the earth whilst carrying the clouds. The rain falls thin and fog grows over many things, the tired leaves and cold weeds, the road tho damp is without mud and remains simple, rutted tracks of wagons and the silent steps that have passed over time to make a wide single lane aside an aching chilly forest. The fog grows strong and surrounds them along their journey, the road behind them is hidden over a stone’s throw, afore them solid obstruction of vision, lost in a circle of clouds on the ground the wind ne’er blowing. Soon the fog keeps them from seeing each other leaving them connected by only sound, Troy rides through the lowly clouded skies meeting with the rain.
An opprobrious magic lists in the air, Ana and Nick wander at arm’s length but are separated by nefarious deception, as he calls to her and she to him their voices are muddled, perceived to come from places they are not, they wander and separate further. Troy cannot see well in the fog and Alerion decides to make a landing before concurrence, but they cannot. On brace of a phoenix, he looks over saddle’s edge to an open circling cover of mist, but before he can make landing the fog covers the enclosure, together he and phoenix crash on the cloud and slowly he walks across the clouds in the expansive presence of obstruction. The grounded cloud act as billows keeping them atop unable to find the ground, the phoenix laughs giddy and plays on pillows of overcloud as he insists Alerion behave silently.
Nick kneels to bind the laces of his boots then stands ready to fight, as he wanders feeling invisible and silent, the fog joins the regions of vision between Merlin and himself. It begins to solidify in obfuscation around them. Nickolas feels the high contrast cloud wall, rough and like sand, he looks dismayed to Merlin.
Merlin closes his eyes as he stands waiting and summoning emotive strength, witting the sudden fog slowly closing. Ana prepares in the like, her hand holds a fire that does not kindle well in the moisture of air, her clothes damp and her throat readily filling of water vapor. Their foe wanders the mist, while in the clearing Merlin and Nickolas wait incontrovertible, Merlin curiously, Nick haplessly inspecting the boundary, cool and solid, coarse and dense soon of solidity with the texture of stone. Merlin aversely waits for tyranny with apprehension. Ana’s fiery hands alight begin to sparsely flake shards of glass and flickering powder. Above, Troy loosely draws an arrow and holds it by the phoenix’s eyes, Alerion shakes flippancy in shudder and the arrow begins to burn, Troy lets the arrow into the fallen firmament to mark the ground for safe landing, absurdly it sinks with a smoldering whisper.
Into the arena of fog enters the domain incarnate the queen of tres brujas, Lynn, the priestess of the mist. The smoke on the ground parts for her as she paces the harkening vapor, hands of smoke grab Nick and tear him through a wall of endless needles as she commands the steam to quell all fires created by intrigue magic. The fog lifts Nick, forcing him to twist and fight, pulling him through the paused deluge, perforating and shredding him, pushing fingers thru him as the smoky mist consumes him, smoke rolling over his shoulders as his skin emaciates and blood begins to slowly roll until finally consuming him until he vanishes.
Merlin: “Come out you, I've seen your ways, show yourself, better than what
you make believe.”
Lynn: “Turn back Merlin and I will let you live.”
Merlin: “Could I have this dance?”
Lynn: “Terrible business, this elation, none can penetrate the groundling clouds.”
Merlin approaches her but she quickly becomes dissipating smoke fading in the air, as he approaches her previous position to inspect, she is elsewhere.
Lynn: “I am not like the others.”
Merlin: “Heavy is the heart that stands solidly on hallowed ground beneath an empty moon.”
Lynn: “The situation is now on the brink of its last, the alabaster bastard and the southern girl can leave if you do, I hold no quarrel with our kind.”
Merlin: “Kind is not a word I would imply of you.”
Lynn: “Admittedly, though a humble modest and bewildered reverential of upcoming magic, in fear I would necessitate to silence their reprimands, or any better worse.”
Imminence into battle hex, with great power and aggressive stance, strong shoulders and hands forward, Merlin produces an electric storm, woefully determined, her radiant magic diffuses his assault with a slow wind of dark magic. Insulted with reinvigorated sincerity he slowly paces with white eyes and bright lines over his skin, carrying a reed that glows with vengeful synergy. He blows its powdery contents into the air, he throws many branches of lightning to her again but this time as they arch thru the falling ashes they multiply in force and breadth, striking and killing several of her henchmen that were approaching him invisibly, camouflaged by cloud. She laughs maniacally but aversive, determined but recursively, she discretely walks backward from Merlin who again paces, guarding his time and biding his thoughts of solemnity.
Merlin: “It seems we have the war of the storms.”
Lynn: “Your inability to steal keeps you from providing aid, you won’t take my compromise, and your friends will die.”
Merlin: “If they’re not already dead.”
Lynn: “Indeed, wickedly astute, but I shall not be stopped.”
Merlin: “The compromise is only mine, and you expect me to abandon my family, I am no use to you.”
Lynn disappears again by turning herself to smoke and thinning into the air, reappearing behind him and waiting patiently for him to turn, when he does she is negative to his onset magic, whereas her skin glows with dark and evil radiance, her eyes blackened and dull, with the wrinkles of her skin unaffected and human. When he turns, she puts her hands on his throat, she drives him to the solid wall of their war and squeezes tighter still, causing him to fall of desperate merciless pain, shaking him again not releasing his neck.
Attrition, thunder and breeze of colliding storms, an old wind turning over the pale side of the sky beneath the constant lightning, the thunder echoes following every silence.