Arnie, Mervin, & The Blood of Kings

by Pedliham, Luke

  “You heard them Mervin. They’re in. We’re all in.”

  “Not all. Not yet.” says Mervin ominously;

  “No. Not all. Not yet. Let’s go get our friends!” replies Arnie heroically as he sits himself up straight in preparation for the coming battle;.

  “Righto squire! I’m just going to create some cover first.” says Mervin as he twiddles a few knobs and buttons on the dash, making the Dragon disappear in a puff of golden smoke again;

  A moment later the Dragon reappears in the woods by Mervin’s shack silently as the golden shimmer is cloaked by a thick mist that has enveloped the surrounding area. Arnie turn to Mervin and whispers;

  “You’ve got that chanting thing to do now haven’t you Mervin? I tried to do it before when the crows attacked but I couldn’t remember it. You should do it in here just in case Morgan is around and hears you…..”

  “Carseld aberan sylfum, reveal yourself.” says Mervin quickly and quietly as he opens the door and gets out of the truck.

  He looks over to Arnie who he interrupted and who is looking a tad confused and says;

  “Oh, all that shouting and grand gesturing isn’t entirely necessary you know! Us wizards just do it for effect or if we need to give the spell a bit more ‘oopmph’. It’s kind of like how martial artists makes all those ‘Oos’ noises when they hit people. We really only need to say the words but it kinda takes away the fun of it, know what I mean? Anyway, come on lets go, quickly and quietly. Follow me…..”

  “Fraud!” says Arnie moodily as he exits the Dragon, closely followed by Lady and the rest of his companions.

  Once out, they all duck down beneath the mist that’s gently hanging about two feet off the ground like a huge silk bedsheet and just keep their eyes and tops of their heads above it. Mervin turns and whispers;

  “Be careful where you tread. These are the mists of Avalon and…….”

  “Don’t tell me! There are snarly, teethy beasts in it?” interrupts Arnie cynically;

  “Yes very funny Arnie, but actually, come to think of it - there may well be some teethy beasts in here with us.”

  They all look down and around their feet even though they can’t see anything below their knees and altogether spot something moving quickly through the mist towards Arnie like a sharks fin. Their hearts collectively jump into their throats and they all audibly gasp as Lady jumps up onto Arnie out of the mist with her new waggly tail dispersing the mist around her bottom;

  “IT’S O.K. It’s just Lady!” says a visibly amused Arnie as he rubs Lady’s head and she continues to wag her tail happily. Mervin then picks up from where he was before;

  “As I say, there may be other snarly, teethy beasts in here besides Lady,….but I was more referring to the fact you can’t see where you’re goi..…”

  As he is speaking, and right on cue, Vera loses her footing and drops like a sack of potatoes beneath the mist, springing back up almost immediately after to announce;

  “IT’S O.K. I’m o.k.....”

  “….going.” continues Mervin with more than a hint of ‘I told you so’ in his voice as Vera brushes herself down.

  “There she is.” says Mervin after a few more seconds of moving silently through the mist.

  Loui, Gwyneth and Vera all lay eyes on Mervin’s shack for the first time and it comes as something of a surprise to them.

  “What is this? It is a……how do you say….” says Loui as he searches for the right words.

  “Dump?” says Vera moodily.

  “Shed?” says Gwyneth sympathetically.

  “Magic!” says Mervin pompously as he pushes the door open to reveal his grand, mahogany clad entrance hall;

  “Quickly, quickly.” he says as he ushers them all out of the swirling mist and into his home.

  Arnie, Loui, Gwyneth, Vera and of course Lady all pile in through the front door and apart from Arnie and Lady, they all stand there completely aghast as they all attempt to get their respective heads around their current surroundings.

  “Welcome to my humble abode young people.” says Mervin as he holds his arms aloft, gesturing to them all to marvel at the interior of his home.

  “O.M.G! This is like, soooo weird!” says Vera.

  “Uh huh. It’s like….what’s it called, THE TARDIS! You know, from Doctor Who?” says Gwyneth excitedly.

  Mervin turns to Arnie at this point and says;

  “I like her Arnie. Have I ever told you how much I like her?”

  “Er,….no.” replies Arnie.

  “Well I do! I like her a lot. I like you Gwyneth, you’re alright!” says Mervin as he points and winks at her cheerfully;

  “Aww, thanks!” says Gwyneth who blushes and becomes shy all of a sudden.

  “Amazing! You are a great magician!” says Loui as he takes in a panoramic look around the grand hall, the chandelier, the paintings of Mervin and the suits of armour.

  “Well, you know….I don’t like to boast but you are right. I am indeed a great wiz….”

  “Who did the armour belong to?” asks Loui as he stares at the gleaming suit of armour at the top of the stairs;

  “Oh ok, that’s enough praise I guess then….” mumbles Mervin as he walks over to Loui, puts his hand on his shoulder and walks him slowly up the stairs so they can get a closer view;

  “This armour belonged to a great knight. The greatest knight! A knight so quick of both mind and body that his armour was barely ever touched during battle. He was a good man…….who made some bad decisions. Some very bad decisions - not least of all going into his final battle without his armour! All because he couldn’t keep it in his pant……er,…..I mean, because of temptation. But that was all a long time ago and today is a new day. This time it will all be different. It has to be…..” says Mervin whilst clearly reflecting on something from his past.

  Loui runs his hand gently over the smallest of scratches on the chest plate and then moves downward to the equally shiny and impressive looking sword that although very shiny, looks like it has seen quite a few battles in its time. As he touches the blade he cuts his finger;

  “Ouch! It’s still sharp!” he exclaims as he examines the small cut on his finger and lets a small amount of blood run down his hand and drip onto the swords handle.

  As soon as Loui’s blood touches the sword, the armour suddenly becomes weak and unstable and begins to collapse. The sword falls away and Loui quickly catches it, moving it out of the way very stylishly - like he had handled a sword many times before, as the armour crashes to the ground at Mervin’s feet.

  “Sorry!” says Loui awkwardly.

  “No, no, don’t worry. You’re a natural Loui!” says a visibly impressed Mervin as Loui spins the sword around in his hands, changing from one hand to the other and swinging it around his back seamlessly and without a hint of danger.

  He stops and looks at the blade once more, caressing it in an almost loving way before snapping himself out of his trance and offering it back to Mervin.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” he says, gesturing to the collapsed suit of armour.

  “No, it’s fine really.” says Mervin in a strangely chirpy manner as he takes the sword from Loui;

  “I’m glad it happened.”

  “Glad?” replies Loui perplexedly as the others arrive at the top of the stairs to see what all the commotion is.

  “Yes,….very glad. You are from France right Loui?” asks Mervin

  “Oui! Tuscany!” replies Loui.

  “And you’re surname is Elliot? Not very French is it?” jokes Mervin.

  “Well my father is English but my mother was French….” replies Loui.

  “And what was her name?” continues Mervin.

  “du Long! Lourene du Long!” says Loui.

  “du Long huh? Well, that’s close enough.” says Mervin cryptically as he hands the sword back to Loui.

  Loui looks back at Mervin in a way that says “for me? You shouldn’t have” as if he were a housew
ife who had been given flowers by her husband ad-hoc.

  “But why?” he asks.

  “Yeah, why?” reiterates Arnie jealously.

  “Because I believe.” replies Mervin;

  “I believe that we may well have more than just the one special bloodline to consider going forward.” he continues.

  Loui screws his face up and looks at Mervin in an even more bewildered fashion and simply says;

  “Who me?”

  Mervin shrugs his shoulders uncooperatively as Arnie steps in again and asks;

  “Yeah, who him? He hasn’t encountered any traps or beasts with teeth or….or ghosts made of flippin water has he? How comes he gets a sword just like that?”

  Gwyneth and Vera complete with Sir Jumpalot suddenly flank both Loui and Arnie and also look to Mervin for answers. Mervin looks at Gwyneth standing by Arnie and Vera standing by Loui and appears to see something that visibly calms his nerves.

  “You’ll thank me later Arnie – trust me. The more men……er, I mean, the more people we have with swords the better.” he says;

  “Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.” says Arnie cynically.

  “Yes, well Tintagel and the ethereal planes don’t really have much of a knife problem to speak of thankfully.” replies Mervin facetiously.

  “Do we get swords then?” asks Gwyneth hopefully.

  “No. No swords. You two have other skills which will become apparent later on.” replies Mervin.

  “What about the armour?” asks Loui hopefully, trying to get a mile out of the inch Mervin just gave him.

  “Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves! I think you have a way to go before it will fit you anyway.” replies Mervin.

  Loui frowns with disappointment briefly before going back to admiring the sword that he has just acquired and adjusting his hair vainly in his reflection from the blade. Arnie shakes his head disapprovingly.

  “Oh give it a rest Loui. That won’t help.” he says.

  “Hmm?” replies Loui obliviously as Vera chimes in and unintentionally reinforces his vanity.

  “I like your hair. I think you look very handsome.” she says.

  “Oh, merci! Thank you!” replies Loui as he blushes slightly.

  “Alright, alright. That’s quite enough of that. You need to keep an eye on that side of your personality Loui - trust me! And anyway, we have things to do.” says Mervin impatiently.

  Suddenly they hear a crash from another room in the house.

  “The boys!” exclaim Arnie and Mervin in unison as they both stop what they’re doing and make a beeline for the small medical room down the hall.

  Arnie runs ahead of Mervin without realising it, his face filled with an unassuming look of concern for his feathered friends. He barges in through the door to the room and is suddenly faced with Archie and Alfie covered in bandages and in a similar position to how he met them initially, except this time it appears that Archie has actually been hurt quite badly. Mervin and the others arrive in the doorway just behind Arnie as he asks Alfie;

  “W…what happened? Is he ok?”

  Mervin barges past, picks up a damp cloth from a large wooden bowl on the side and starts gently tending to Archie’s wounds as Alfie recounts what happened;

  “Well after you decided to show and tell everything to your NEW friends after five minutes of meeting them, Archie decided we should follow you just to make sure you weren’t being followed by Morgan, which it turns out you were. You remember that Crow’s ‘Caw’ you heard? Well she was watching! Anyway, we weren’t sure where you would go so we looked at a few other places like the beach before we realised you had come here. We got there just after you’d left I guess because by the time we got there all we saw was a char-grilled forest with a bunch of dead animals that had somehow been shattered into a million pieces. It was horrible!” says Alfie as he begins gently sobbing…

  “We thought you had been,…we thought you were in amongst all the carnage and I just lost control! I saw Morgan was still there and I could have sworn she had taken one of you hostage or something because I thought I saw someone else with her,…..but I must have been seeing things. Anyway, I saw red and went for her! She didn’t see me coming either and just as I was about to really get medieval on her backside I hear this scream,….but not from her and not like a normal ‘scream’ either - it was….weird, like it created like a sound wave or shield or something and just as this shieldy, wavey thing was about to knock me out of the sky Archie flew down and barged me out of the way. I hit a tree which must’ve knocked me out because when I came to I saw Archie on the ground….and he wasn’t moving! He,…..he’s going to be ok right?” asks Alfie as Mervin tends to Archie’s wounds;

  “I don’t know.” says Mervin as Arnie and the other all pile into the small room.

  Mervin puts down the cloth and starts rummaging through drawers and shelves erratically, pulling out powders and potions, bowls and chalices, glass vials and surgical tools. While he is getting it all together Arnie walks over to Alfie and gently strokes his little head and offers some words of support;

  “Don’t beat yourself up Alfie. You were only trying to do what you thought was right. Archie is bigger so of course he was going to try and get in there first and stop you from getting hurt.”

  At this point a confused looking Gwyneth leans over to a confused looking Vera and whispers;

  “Is it me or are they talking to an owl?”

  “Er….nope it’s not you, they are definitely talking to an owl - and understanding him too apparently!” replies Vera.

  Loui then also leans over to them and opens his mouth, presumably to say something along the same lines before Vera stops him in his tracks;

  “Yes Loui. They are talking to an owl!”

  “…and understanding them too as well!” says Loui obliviously.

  Arnie then looks at the size difference between Alfie and Archie as Mervin shoves him out of the way again and starts grinding something in a mortar and pestle.

  “How did you get him back here anyway?” asks Arnie.

  “Erm….ok, don’t get upset Mervin, but I had help.” replies Alfie sheepishly.

  “Help?” asks Mervin looking up from the Mortar and Pestle he is frantically mixing something in for a second.

  “Yeah, well I couldn’t have gotten him back here on my own could I, and the whole Dragons fire thing kind of drew a lot of attention to the area so long story short, I asked a Seagull to help. He was scavenging in the area at the time and I said he could have as much food as he could carry if he helped me carry Archie back here, which he did.”

  “A Seagull?” asks Mervin curiously;

  “Yeah, sorry.” replies Alfie even more sheepishly.

  “You know they can’t be trusted. Greedy brutes the lot of ‘em.” says Mervin;

  “Yeah, well I kinda needed a bit of ‘brute’ at the time and I’m not one to stare a gift horse in the mouth so there you go.” replies Alfie defiantly;

  “Ok,…..so where is he then?” asks Mervin impatiently;

  “He’s in the kitchen. Actually, saying that - when I left him he was in the fridge!”

  Mervin rolls his eyes and ‘tuts’ to himself despondently before suddenly clapping his hands together loudly, causing the contents of the mortar to burst into a deep red flame. Mervin lets the contents of the mortar burn for a second before placing a heavy looking lid on it to supress the flames. He lifts the heavy iron lid a second later revealing a smoking mortar full of what look like tiny rubies.

  “Gwyneth, Vera, do me a favour? One of you mix one granule of this in a small bowl of warm water, then take this feeding syringe and fill it to the first line only! Then one of you will need to hold Archie’s mouth open while the other squirts the liquid into it. He should wake up immediately! I’ll be back in a mo.”

  Vera takes the syringe from Mervin carefully while she and Gwyneth both share the same look of apprehension as he picks Alfie up, pops him on his sh
oulder and says;

  “Right you brave little scallywag, take me to this ‘gull that’s in the fridge then. He had better not have been at my Chorizo I tell you. I was saving that.”

  “No, no he definitely won’t Mervin! I said to him I did, I said ‘there’s cheese and humus and potato salad in there and there’s also some chorizo, but don’t touch the chorizo – that’s Mervins’ and he was like ‘ok I won’t’……’” replies Alfie nervously.

  Mervin raises an eyebrow at Alfie’s over zealousness and without even addressing it he turns to the twins and says;

  “Just one granule remember girls. And only fill the syringe to the second line!”

  “First line!” whispers Alfie, correcting Mervin.

  “FIRST LINE GIRLS, first line! What did I say?….” says Mervin obliviously as he blindly corrects himself.

  “You said the second line.” confirms Alfie quietly as they walk down the corridor and into the kitchen, leaving the two confused girls to tend to the wounded owl.

  Arnie quickly double takes between Mervin and Alfie going off to see the seagull in the fridge and his three new best friends tending to a poorly owl and subsequently announces;

  “I’m gonna go and check out what’s what with this ‘gull then, seeing as I’m one of only a few people who can actually understand them. Birds I mean…….”

  On that bombshell Arnie begins to walk away but just as he does he pops his head back round the door and says to his discombobulated companions;

  “Oh yeah, I can speak to birds by the way! I probably should have mentioned that before, that I speak birdish. You probably thought I was weird or something haha…..” he says as he leaves and continues onwards to the kitchen.

  “Birdish? What the…..YOU ARE SO WEIRD IT’S UNBELIEVABLE!” shouts Gwyneth as Arnie disappears down the corridor.

  “MERVIN?” shouts Arnie from the end of the hall.

  Mervin stops and waits for him to catch up;

  “Do you think you ought to…I dunno, tune them in somehow to understand Alfie and Archie too? I mean, they have proven themselves trustworthy, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep letting them look at me like I’m an absolute nutter!” says Arnie despairingly.