Arnie, Mervin, & The Blood of Kings

by Pedliham, Luke

  “CARSELD ABERAN SYLFUM! REVEAL YOURSELF!”

  The clearing begins to shimmer with the same golden sheen that had enveloped Arnie’s house earlier. The ground begins to tremble as something starts to appear in the centre of the clearing.

  “I COMMAND YOU TO REVEAL YOURSELF!!” booms Mervin once more.

  Arnie takes a step back and watches wide eyed and open mouthed as gradually a small broken down wooden shack is revealed that is not much bigger than a decent sized garden shed.

  “This,…..is your home?” says a disappointed sounding Arnie.

  “Wow! I mean,…….it’s,…it’s - just wow!”

  “Don’t pass judgement so quickly young Arnie. Once more, all is not what it seems.”

  Mervin ushers Arnie forwards and they both walk towards the shack. As they approach the front door Mervin hops in front of Arnie to open the door for him:

  “Ready?” he says;

  “Oh I was born ready.” replies Arnie sarcastically.

  “Welcome to my humble abode.”

  Mervin pushes the door and to Arnie’s surprise reveals a vast mahogany clad entrance hall that has two identical winding staircases that meet directly in the middle of the hall on the first floor. At the top of the stairs there is a very shiny suit of armour holding a similarly shiny sword that casts an intimidating shadow over whomever enters, given that it is strategically placed to overlook the door. The dark wooden stairwells are lined with several framed portraits of what all appear to be Mervin striking different poses.

  “That’s a stealth spell of the highest quality I used here. There’s a bit of camouflage spell there too so it’s doubly effective. What do you reckon?” asks Mervin.

  Arnie shrugs his shoulders indifferently as the now large wooden door creaks and echo’s through the hall.

  “How come you have lots of paintings of you on the wall?” he asks;

  “HA! They’re not all of me! You see a man with a long grey beard and long grey hair and you just naturally assume it’s me do you?” replies Mervin

  Arnie squints to look closer at the paintings but they still all seem to be Mervin except in the first one at the base of the stairs he has glasses, in the second he is wearing a monocle, in the third he is smoking a pipe, in the fourth one at the top he has a hat on and so it goes on, with each painting differing only slightly from the last.

  “I’m not assuming anything. They are all you, just dressed differently or posing with different objects! I wasn’t born yesterday you know.” says Arnie

  “Actually, in a manner of speaking you were born yesterday. You were pulled from your mother and delivered by me into the unknown and mysterious world of magic and myth – yesterday! And that my boy, leads me nicely onto the fact that you are soooo wrong.” replies Mervin smugly.

  “Oh yeah. How so?” asks Arnie.

  “All of these paintings are of my ancestors going back several hundred years. Yes they all do look similar, but that’s a wizard thing unfortunately. We are all slaves to fashion, just like you “normal” people. You kids all want to have the same trainers and baseball caps – the ones with the peak at the back [which I can never find anywhere for some reason], whereas us Wizards all grow long hair and beards and wear colourful and smart clothes that wreak of prestige and gravitas. The reason we are all grey and haggard is because of people like you.”

  Arnie chuckles to himself and continues to scan the interior of the hall. He looks up to the ceiling which has a glass dome at its centre and a large chandelier that seems to be made of Deer antlers and bones, with at least a hundred lit candles hanging from it.

  “Whoa! Ok, now that is impressive!” he says.

  Lady whimpers slightly and looks up at Arnie expectantly. He pats his faithful companion on the head and says;

  “Ok, pooing a bone was also very impressive, but this takes some beating!”

  “Yeah,….it’s like my own personal Tardis.” says Mervin proudly.

  “Your own what now?” asks Arnie.

  “Really?” says Mervin as he becomes increasingly frustrated with Arnie’s lack of pop culture knowledge.

  “The Tardis! Doctor Who?”

  “Ooh!” says Arnie quickly as he points at Mervin knowingly as if he were playing charades;

  “I know that programme. Yeah, Dr Who, it’s on a Saturday evening. We don’t watch it though because it clashes with X-Factor. Have you seen it?”

  Mervin is suddenly stopped in his tracks at this latest revelation;

  “X-Factor? Arnie, you and I need to talk. This is not acceptable. Not acceptable at all. We shall begin your training immediately.”

  Mervin closes the front door and ushers Arnie to a room just off to the side of the entrance hall, that has a large open fireplace as it’s focal point and an old large brown leather sofa and a matching armchair in front of it. The room is untidy and has books and loose papers scattered around the place as well as a plethora of different coloured candles and incense sticks most of which are burnt down or melted.

  “Excuse the mess. It’s the maid’s day off!” he says as he snorts at his own joke.

  Arnie laughs and changes the subject back to the training that Mervin had mentioned. He jumps up and down on the spot and starts breathing like a boxer might.

  “So what sort of training are we gonna do then? A bit of boxing?”

  Arnie starts to punch the air;

  “A bit of Karate maybe?” he says as he kicks more thin air and follows it up with a double punch and a high pitched scream that sounds like a cat being strangled.

  His faithful hound Lady who was bouncing around with Arnie until his cat impression quickly darts away from Arnie while giving him a look of confusion and fear.

  “Oops. Sorry Lady. There are no Cats. She’s scared of Cats.” says Arnie switching his focus from Lady back to Mervin.

  “It’s either Cats or Bruce Lee she’s scared of!” replies Mervin light-heartedly.

  Arnie then spots another suit of armour, complete with sword in the corner that is in considerably worse condition than the one at the top of the stairs. He stops what he is saying mid-sentence and walks over to said armour, grabs the sword (that is far too big for his fourteen year old frame) and says;

  “Ooh, or are we gonna do sword fighting?”

  “Be careful with that!” says Mervin as Arnie eventually manages to lift the sword above his head, grimacing all the while as he pushes his little muscles to the limit.

  “That sword is very old and very…”

  “Rusty?” interrupts Arnie facetiously as he loses balance and stumbles backwards, nearly trampling over his already unnerved Dog with the sword wobbling about dangerously above his head.

  As he stumbles backward he stabs the sword straight through an old wooden cuckoo clock that’s on the wall. He flinches, ducks and lets go of the sword - the weight of which pulls the cuckoo clock off the wall. He and Lady jump out of the way as the clock crashes to the floor and springs, cogs and an ill sounding wooden Cuckoo fall out onto the floor.

  “Dangerous I was going to say! And we will be doing none of the above.” says Mervin as he removes the sword from the clock, kicks the debris to one side and carefully places it back with the suit of armour.

  “We are going to start off easy and work our way up.” he continues;

  He walks over to the old fireplace in the main ‘living room’ and flips some sort of a switch on the side which seems to set off a mechanism inside that slides the wooden panelling to one side revealing a very large flat screen TV that is at least eighty inches wide.

  “Crikey!” says Arnie as he sits down on the old leather couch with Lady, obviously impressed with the visual behemoth that has just appeared before them.

  Mervin continues and firmly lays out the timetable for the rest of the day;

  “Right, it’s just after 8.00am and….oh, we travelled forward in time a bit while we were in the Ethereal plain by the way, I should probably have mentioned that before no
w in case you’re feeling a bit time-lagged. I couldn’t find a safe spot in time to land yesterday you see. These woods come alive at night, literally!”

  “Oh. Well yeah, naturally!” says Arnie flippantly.

  Mervin ignores Arnie’s comment and continues;

  “First we’ll watch Star Wars episode four - A New Hope. Then Empire, then if we have time we’ll watch Jedi.”

  “We’re going to watch TV all day?” asks Arnie with a slightly disappointed inflection in his voice.

  “No, you’re going to watch three of the best and most relevant films ever made so we can at least begin to communicate on some sort of an even keel. This is what Sunday’s are all about anyway, sitting down in front of the Star Wars trilogy. A hundred years ago we had to make do with reading Charles Dickens by candlelight for entertainment and let me tell you, even though people go on and on about Charles Dickens being great and wonderful and everything, he’s no George Lucas – and here you are moaning! Most kids would jump at the chance of watching TV all day. There’s just no pleasing some people.” replies Mervin.

  “But how is this ‘training’? I mean this is hardly going to get me ready to fight,….whatever it is I’m meant to be fighting is it? I’m assuming I am expected to fight something at some point?”

  Mervin looks down his nose at Arnie and replies;

  “Oh,…so you don’t think this is training? Well let me tell you something, Daniel Larusso didn’t think he was training when he was waxing on and waxing off did he?”

  *An animated Mervin does the hand movements of waxing on and waxing off to illustrate his analogy*

  “….nor did he think he was training when he was painting the fence or sanding the floor did he? But he still went on to win the All Valley Karate Championship against the Cobra Kai didn’t he Arnie? Hmm, Didn’t he? I’m Mr Miyagi here and you’re the Karate kid - so if I tell you to watch Star Wars then by God you’re gonna sit there and watch Star Wars! Understand?”

  “Erm,…no, not really - but I’m really looking forward to doing some Karate!” says Arnie obliviously whilst pretending to do a Karate chop on Lady who wags her stump happily in response.

  Mervin mutters something about heathens to himself moodily before picking up the remote control from behind some papers and an assortment of coloured bottles on the table next to him and switching on the TV.

  “Anyway, shouldn’t we be starting with episode one rather than episode four? Seems a bit silly otherwise.”

  “Don’t even go there Arnie. Seriously! Don’t even go there. Just be quiet and watch the film.” says Mervin as he turns the TV on.

  As he switches it on they get a brief glimpse of the news which is reporting a landslide off the coast of Dorset and a mini Tornado in Surrey as well as a slew of unseasonably bad weather, even for Winter in England.

  “This sort of thing seems to be happening a lot lately. Terrible stuff!” says Mervin as he prods at the remote with his index finger, quickly trying to change the channel.

  “Yeah I’ve noticed that. It’s quite nice here though!” says Arnie agreeing with Mervin’s sentiment as he finally gets to the channel he was looking for.

  Mervin turns the sound on the TV right up and watches Arnie as the THX sound advert that precedes all Lucasfilm movies blasts out from the TV’s sub-woofer and pins Arnie to the couch as if he were training in a fighter jet at supersonic speed. As the advert finishes Arnie attempts to expresses his delight;

  “Whoa! That was aweso…..”

  Before Arnie can finish his sentence, the scrolling title cards for Star Wars makes a grand entrance with it’s well known overture, pinning Arnie back down on the couch so much that he actually grabs onto the arms for dear life out of fear of literally being blown away by it.

  Mervin laughs and walks over to an old dusty liquor cabinet on the other side of the room and slides up the wooden slatted shutters that covers it to reveal a cupboard full of chocolate, crisps and sweets and a very high tech looking microwave of sorts. Mervin turns to Arnie who is still pinned down but is now double taking between the audio visual marvel of the Star Wars’ opening credits and the cupboard full of sweets Mervin has just revealed.

  “Sweet or salted?” shouts Mervin.

  Close to eight hours later the credits for Star Wars Episode six: Return of The Jedi begin to roll. Mervin discreetly turns away from Arnie and wipes a single tear away from his cheek. He composes himself as much as possible before turning to Arnie, emotion slapped all over his wrinkly face and says;

  “So,….what did you think?”

  Still fixated on the TV, Arnie attempts a reply;

  “….well,…it was….so,…..I mean……wow!”

  Mervin interjects knowingly and places a hand on Arnie’s shoulder;

  “I know. It has that effect the first few times. For me it does it every time.”

  Arnie continues still fixated on the screen;

  “I mean,…..after all that - the Jedi’s, the Empire, the rebel alliance all fighting with spaceships and laser’s and the force and everything else, after all that the Empire is brought crashing down by a bunch of walking teddy bears with sharpened sticks and stones?”

  Mervin quickly removes his hand from Arnie’s shoulder and says;

  “No! I mean, well yes but,……I mean, they helped, but it wasn’t just …. listen Star Wars is a metaphor right,…. the BEST metaphor, for the age old battle between good and evil, light and dark, heaven and hell or whatever you want to call it, and it is relevant to us all - especially me and you!”

  Arnie looks on at Mervin, waiting for him to elucidate;

  “Look, you have a troubled young man in Luke Skywalker, a good boy if a little bit of a wimp to begin with - who has this important destiny to fulfil but doesn’t really know it yet. There is a guiding force in the universe, a powerful one at that - that can be used for good or evil, and there are two powerful figures representing both who are trying to turn Luke to their own cause. It deals with love, hate, friendship, betrayal, family issues [big family issues] and a belief in a power much bigger than anything they can imagine. You may not see it now, but the situation you currently find yourself in is not altogether dissimilar! Some of it may have already rung true, where as some of it is yet to make itself apparent.”

  Arnie sits back and stuffs a handful of popcorn in his mouth while he thinks.

  “Ok” he says as he swallows what is in his mouth;

  “But the minute a seven foot skeleton-robot thing with chronic asthma tries to convince me he’s my father – I’m gone!”

  Mervin laughs at Arnie’s nonchalance. He reaches for the remote control and turns off the TV which seamlessly recesses back into the fireplace from whence it came.

  “Ok, time for bed I think. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow!” he says;

  “What’s on the agenda tomorrow then?” asks Arnie;

  “Harry Potter? Twilight maybe....” he continues;

  “Don’t you swear in this house!” says Mervin quickly, firmly and through gritted teeth before becoming very animated, gesturing in between Arnie, himself and where the TV was;

  “This house, that TV, and this brain will NEVER be subjected to a bunch of angst ridden, teenage vampires running around with their shirts off - IN DAYLIGHT NO LESS - because they all fancy the same miserable, sulky looking tart who constantly looks like she’s about to vomit! Not EVER! Understand?”

  Arnie nods, eyebrows raised defensively as he acknowledges Mervin’s over-aggressive statement.

  “Ok, alright. So what are we going to do tomorrow then?” he asks cautiously.

  “Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the boys and work on your communication skills.” replies Mervin as he ushers Arnie and Lady off the sofa. out of the lounge area and up the stairs.

  “Oh yeah! Your flat,…er, house……er whatever-mates. I forgot about them! Are they going to help train me or they just gonna watch Toy Story one through three with me?” asks Arnie facetiously:
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  Mervin just rolls his eyes and continues with Arnie up the stairs.

  “You do know sarcasm is the lowest form of humour right?” says Mervin;

  “Yeah I know, but I’m so good at it…” replies Arnie

  As they approach a slightly haggard looking wooden door with no varnish and obvious signs of termite and woodworm, Mervin opens it and welcomes Arnie to his new room:

  “Welcome, young Arnie, to your sanctuary! This is where you will process and try to make sense of all of the wonderful things you will see, hear and do while you are here. This my boy, is your fortress of solitude.”

  Arnie takes a panoramic look around his new room which doesn’t take long as there is not a whole lot in there to see. He looks at the exposed floorboards, the un-papered walls with peeling paint and rough patches of poly filler. The single glazed window with no curtains and a wooden frame that is in the same state as the door. There is a rickety wooden framed bed with a mattress that is not much thicker than the off-white duvet that sits on top of it and a small bedside table with a bed pan and jug on top of it. The room looks like it belongs in the broken down cabin Arnie first thought he saw as opposed to the magical mansion it later turned into!

  “I,…I don’t know what to say.” says Arnie taken aback. Lady pokes her head through Arnie’s legs to also get a view of the room and whimpers slightly as she marvels at its distinct lack of….anything.

  Mervin puts his hand on Arnie’s shoulder and reassuringly says;

  “I know it’s a little less than what you are used to…”

  “Actually I am more used to this than you know.” replies Arnie.

  Mervin acknowledges this with a sideways glance and a little nod, and continues;

  “…but as you’re training progresses and you acquire more skills, you shall also acquire more possessions. Think of it as an incentive to focus.”

  Arnie looks up at Mervin to question him but as he does Mervin quickly says;

  “Well – see you tomorrow!” and gives him little more than a gentle shove into the room, slamming the door behind him.