by Tom Larcombe
Merlin ignored the voice and focused on the woman.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
There was no answer but she twitched slightly at the sound of his voice.
“Listen to me. We can get your body back for you. I'm here to destroy Ave. If I can imprison her then you can step forward and take your body back. She won't be able to fight you for it if I have her locked away.”
The woman tilted her face up towards Merlin. Hope and despair warred across it.
“You can't help me,” she whispered. “I'm dead, this is my hell or, if I'm truly unlucky, my purgatory.”
“You aren't dead,” Merlin said. “You're simply being held prisoner in your own mind. Ave has locked you away and is using your body for great evil. Her purposes hold no mercy for humankind. She wants to destroy us in the most painful ways she can envision.”
“Does that mean that all the things she's showed me are real? The bombs, the camps, the war?”
Merlin nodded.
“Yes, all that and more,” he said.
Madness still haunted the face of the woman but as Merlin watched, resolve took its place alongside of it.
“What can I do?” she asked. “I'm trapped here.”
Merlin opened the chains with a tiny surge of power.
“See, she isn't all-powerful. She can be beaten.”
“What do you want me to do? If I think I can, I'll try to help.”
“First, I'm going to try to imprison her. I'll call her here, to your cell...”
Merlin explained the plan he'd formulated. The woman expressed uncertainty until Merlin demonstrated that he could do the things he'd mentioned. Then Merlin sent her out.
“Remember,” he said, “wait until my signal, then exert your will and try to take back control of your body. Start by simply opening your eyes and once that works, you should be able to gain control over the rest of it easily. Ave should be in no position to resist by that point.”
The woman slipped out into the hallway.
I wonder how she sees all of this? For that matter who knows how Ave envisions the interior of her mind, he thought. For me it's a castle, but for them?
Merlin shook his head, deciding that it didn't matter so long as he could interact with his own visualization of her mind.
He set himself to work, creating the things he'd need for his plan. The first thing he did was create an illusion of the woman, still chained to the wall, but dead instead of alive. Then he very carefully set a spell on the doorway so that anyone coming into the room would be just fine. But when they tried to depart, they'd find themselves in the next cell down the hall. If the person passing through wasn't him, they'd also find their memories temporarily inaccessible and be willing to accept whatever they saw as reality.
Merlin's preparations for the next cell down the hall were more elaborate. He created a spell cage, like the one Ave had trapped him in. The memories he'd shared with Nimue provided an inhabitant for the cage. He powered the spell from the same source of magic he used to make his weight tolerable when he was in human form, thinking that the only way the power source of the spell could be broken would be with his own death.
When he decided that the woman was probably hidden as well as she could manage and he had his own preparations ready, Merlin paused for a moment. He relaxed, or tried to, and readied himself to do battle with Ave. After several minutes, he called out loudly.
“So Ave, now you'll need to actually tend to this body yourself if you want to keep it.”
Ave's vicious snarl answered him, echoing through the corridors of her mind. Several seconds later she came rushing through the door.
“What have you done?” she cried.
“I released her from your torture in the one sure way I could think of.”
Ave laughed cruelly.
“So, you've murdered an innocent. Perhaps I underestimated you. Although she may well have asked for it. She already tried to kill herself twice. She would've succeeded the second time if I hadn't intervened so I took over the body, and her life, since she obviously didn't want them.”
“You stole the body Ave. You're nothing more than a common thief. A powerful one, I'll grant you that, but a thief nevertheless. You need to leave this body.”
“I'm trying, but your bitch of a wife won't let me take up residence in my new one.”
At his core, Merlin remained calm. He let the rest of himself fly into a rage though. If Ave had any indication that he wasn't as furious as he was trying to appear there could be problems.
Merlin's eyes flashed red and he launched a bolt of raw magic at Ave. She sidestepped easily and the bolt struck one of the tapestries, destroying it. Ave winced and looked where the bolt had struck. After glancing at the chained corpse, she turned back to Merlin with anger on her face.
“You fool, you've destroyed one of my memories. I was only keeping it to torture her anyhow, it doesn't matter now. But you dare to strike at me in my own mind?”
Merlin was braced for a retaliatory strike but when it came it was far stronger then he'd thought it would be. His shield wasn't strong enough to keep out all the power she was hurling and a small portion of it struck him. The part that leaked through only hurt about as much as taking a punch to the head but he staggered and dropped to his knees anyhow.
He made a show of reinforcing his shields, trying to make it look as though he was having to dredge up the power from deep within himself. He drew a leg up and stomped his foot on the floor, then he drew the other one up so he was standing again. Now his shield was strong enough to protect him from the full force of the magic Ave was using.
“You should have stayed on your knees. I might have been merciful if you begged for a clean death,” Ave said. “Probably not though. I want to hear you scream your life away.”
She increased the level of power that she was throwing at him. Merlin smoothly increased the power of his shield to match. The vast quantity of magic being used in the room caused everything in it to start glowing. The light level increased quickly and spots began to show in Merlin's vision. When he was nearly blinded from the spotting, he anchored his shield to the floor and dashed through the doorway.
“Coward!” Ave called, “You can't run from me in my own mind and you can't leave unless I let you. I've closed my mind off so no-one gets in or out.”
* * *
Chapter 19
Merlin stood in a lightly forested clearing. The cottage nearby was familiar to him from Nimue's memories. The dragon that stood in a nearby clearing was also familiar, both from a picture in Nimue's journals and her actual memory of him.
Ave just needs to chase me, he thought. If she does, she'll end up here as well and I'll let her have what pleasure she can find from her old mate during her imprisonment. That will, hopefully, keep her docile and unaware that she's imprisoned.
Moments later Ave appeared in the clearing. She was still in human form but now she was in her own human form, assuming that was the one Merlin had seen in the first set of tapestries he examined. She shook her head in confusion and looked around. She caught sight of the dragon first but saw Merlin shortly after.
“You,” she roared, “I've waited for this a long time.”
Ave began to shift into her dragon form, her gaze locked on Merlin.
Demon shit! I can't believe I forgot about killing her first mate, he thought. I should've taken her all the way back to him instead of her second one. But if she can shift shapes in her own mind when her dragon body has been destroyed then I can certainly shift to my existing one.
Merlin willed himself to change into his own dragon form.
“Ave, what are you doing?” the other dragon called. “Merlin can help you. That's why I came here, to help free him and cure you.”
Ave finished her shift.
“The only way that human spawn can help me is by dying under my claws,” she spat.
She charged at Merlin but before she arrived he completed his shift as well. Ave pull
ed up abruptly when her target changed from human to dragon.
“What magic is this?” she asked.
Merlin simply stared at her, waiting for her to either break off or continue her attack.
“Are you Merlin?” she asked.
He thought about lying but refused to deny himself.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then you can die in this form instead.”
Ave charged. Just before reaching Merlin she sprang into the air, claws the size of broadswords at full extension. Merlin leaped up to get above the level of her claws and the two collided in mid-air. Ave gave a grunt when she struck Merlin's well armored scales. He was hurled through the air, out of control.
He landed hard, taking several trees with him. Ave took fully to the air, her wings extending and snapping down to drive her upwards. Merlin staggered to his feet. Although he could control his change and many things were instinctive, fighting another dragon was evidently not one of those things.
Ave gained enough height for her plans and began a power dive aimed at Merlin. He arched his neck and waited for her to get close. Then he let loose with a blast of flame from his mouth. Ave ignored the flames, diving straight through them. Just before she struck, Merlin noticed that the flames hadn't damaged her at all.
Of course, he thought. She's another dragon. Dragon fire probably won't affect other dragons.
His musings were cut short as she struck him with all claws extended. Merlin was sorely wounded by the strike but three of Ave's claws snapped off when they encountered his armored scales. He rolled over to put her underneath himself but she outweighed him. When he succeeded in positioning her under his body she hurled him skywards off of her.
He took to the air as she had, using the time to close his wounds with magic. When the bleeding was stopped, he scanned for his opponent. Ave had also taken flight but she was lower than he was. Merlin took the chance to dive at her, his own claws extended. He struck her hard, and the two of them were entangled, bound together, neither able to free their wings. Claws slashed and raked as they plummeted in an uncontrolled fall.
Merlin fought to break free of her but she was venting her fury on him. Despite all the strikes she connected with, few of them were getting through his scales. He changed tactics and instead of trying to break free, he squirmed and rolled so he would be on top when they struck the ground.
Their fall was broken by trees splintering under their combined weight. Splinters three times the size of a dragon claw flew in all directions. Despite the trees slowing their fall, when the two dragons struck the ground it was still hard enough to leave a foot-deep indentation.
Merlin's breath was knocked out of him from the impact but Ave was in worse condition still.
I didn't intend to fight her here, he thought. Maybe I should just change back to my human form and leave while she's incapacitated.
Merlin moved towards the cottage, where he'd placed the door that would return him to the hallway outside of the cell. Before he reached it he heard Ave take to the air again.
When the sound of her wings ceased he was only halfway to the cottage. He turned and looked up to find Ave plummeting at him again.
Enough is enough, he thought.
He scanned the nearby ground looking for any of the massive splinters from the trees. Instead he found two of Ave's snapped off claws lying nearby. With a mental command he lifted them and sent them flying upwards with as much force as he could manage. Ave didn't see them until it was too late. Their points penetrated her breastbone and she lost control of her dive.
Merlin gauged where she would land and moved as quickly as he could in the opposite direction. Once again Ave slammed into the ground. This time she wasn't moving. Merlin sent a sliver of awareness towards her to make sure she was alive. The mental prison he'd created would cease to be with her death and he wanted to be out of it before then.
She lived but was unconscious. Merlin moved to the door of the cottage and shifted back to his human form. The aches and pains he felt told him that there was no healing when he shifted forms and the wounds from one form would be present in some manner on the other as well.
“Curse you Merlin!” he heard as she regained consciousness. He was so intent on leaving the prison that he never noticed the slender purple strand of magic that accompanied her words and fastened onto him.
He sent a mental command to the portion of the construct that was the other dragon, telling him to bind her wounds and to draw as much power as necessary to appear real to her. Then Merlin ducked into the cottage and passed through the doorway that was the portal back to Ave's mind. The magic that allowed him passage dissipated once he was through.
* * *
“Go,” Merlin hollered. “She's out of the picture.”
He hoped that the woman was ready to regain control of her own body. He was in bad enough shape already and wouldn't be able to help her much beyond words of encouragement. He moved slowly up the stairs, fearful of re-opening some of his recently healed wounds. When he reached the top he found the woman standing in the middle of the entry hall.
“I can't find myself,” she cried.
“Let me help,” Merlin said.
He walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He looked for the connection to the body that he knew had to be here. When he found it, he nudged her awareness with a touch of his own.
She's become so accustomed to the mental body that she's forgotten what the real one feels like, he thought.
He pushed her awareness until it was immediately adjacent to the connection.
“See that? Take hold of it. Draw it into yourself and push yourself into it,” he said. “It's part of you. Once you start the process it will finish by itself.”
With his hands on her shoulders he could watch as she took back control of herself. She blinked several times and the room he'd seen earlier appeared in her vision.
“I know all of this,” she said in her mind only. “She showed it to me. That man is a monster and something needs to be done.”
“Leave it be for now. Just keep control of your body and she can't come back,” he replied.
“I have a better idea.”
She stood her physical body up from the couch it was lying on and walked to a low table. A bowl of something that looked like candies rested in the middle of it. She picked up two of them and walked towards the man at the table.
“Cyanide,” she thought. “I'll make sure she never gets my body again. I'll also make sure this monster is stopped.”
“No,” Merlin called. “You don't need to do that!”
“I want to. I wanted to die ten years ago but I was prevented from killing myself. If I thought death was like what I just went through then I might change my mind but I believe it will simply be a relief, a surcease of everything. You've no idea what I've seen, what my body has done.”
She popped the cyanide capsules in her mouth just before she reached the man.
“Good-bye, and thank you,” she thought.
She also spoke aloud.
“Dear?”
The man turned and Merlin got his first look at his features. The man's face was pasty white, topped with dark hair trimmed in a simple bowl cut. A small rectangular mustache, the width of the man's nose, adorned his upper lip.
“Yes?” he said.
“Kiss me?” she asked.
He leaned in to give her a gentle peck but she grabbed him and drew him closer. Her tongue forced its way between his lips and when he opened to receive her, she drew her tongue back, bit down on the cyanide capsules, and spat one of them into his mouth.
Her hand was on his pistol in its holster, drawing it out when he pulled back with a look of horror on his face. He stood motionless, frozen by shock, as she reversed the pistol so she was holding it correctly and calmly shot him in the temple.
“I wanted to be sure,” she thought. “The cyanide takes several minutes so I wanted to be sure.”
> Merlin was silent, in shock himself. The woman dropped the gun.
“You'd better go. I don't know what would happen to you if you were with me when I died.”
Merlin fled her mind, returning to his own body. He checked the spell tie to his prison and found it intact. He drew the entire thing out of her mind; prison, contents, and all.
She was right, he thought. I just did that because I want to be sure that Ave dies. I can't judge her, I don't know the whole of it. But if that was who I think it was, she had good reason.
* * *
Merlin ensured that his concealment spell was still functioning and climbed out of the structure that housed the ventilation intake. A brief look around told him that, as of yet, the Germans were unaware of the recent events in the bunker. The few people in sight were moving as though they had urgent tasks, but they weren't in a panic.
He walked back out to the street and turned to retrace the route he'd come by. Inside he ached from the wounds received in his recent fight but his physical body was in better condition than the rest of him.
If by some chance Gunter is still alive, I can get both of us out of here, he thought.
He spied the pile of rubble that Gunter had used for cover. It was larger now and the individual pieces that made it up were all smaller. The wall behind it was a shadow of its former self and the fragments of wall that remained were buried in rubble.
Merlin glanced down the road and saw that the barricade was manned again.
He hurried to the pile and, impatient, used his magic to remove the rubble, creating a tunnel to where Gunter had been. As he crawled into his tunnel he found the mangled remnants of Gunter's grenade launcher. Next he found hundreds of small lead discs. It took him a moment to recognize them as bullets that had flattened themselves against a shield. Farther in, he spied the barrel of a rifle. He gently tugged on the rifle but it wouldn't move. Clearing the last bits of debris manually revealed Gunter's hand, still on the storm rifle. He grasped the hand but it was cold, and there was no response. He slipped his fingers farther in and felt Gunter's wrist for a pulse. Nothing...