by Hiatt, Bill
“They are…more than what they appear,” I replied.
“They would have to be a great deal more to justify bringing them here. Be that as it may, I did not come to argue with you, Taliesin; I came to help you.”
“We came here hoping you could help. I would be honored to receive your assistance.”
Merlin bowed in acknowledgment. “And help I shall. The ladies of the lake have told me of your current life and your…unusual nature. Indeed, I once foresaw how part of this might come to pass.” I recalled that Merlin had the gift of prophecy, though he never got quite as much from it as he would have liked.
“You never told me, uh, the original Taliesin.”
“The knowledge would have done him no good. He would have forgotten it all before his next reincarnation, and it would have been lost until your awakening in this life—after which it would have done you little good to know that I had foreseen your awakening.”
“Merlin, you obviously kept control of your demonic side even through a millennium and a half of imprisonment. I have come to you for advice on how to keep the darkness within me in check.”
“Yes,” said Merlin, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, your situation is not the same as mine. When you, or as you would say, the original Taliesin, still known as Gwion Bach, drank those three drops of wisdom from the cauldron of Ceridwen, his mind, and now yours, became different from that of anyone who has ever lived or anyone who ever will live—at least until you finally relinquish that gift to another. My own dual nature is simple compared to what you are. From what I have been told, and from what I can sense, your past- life memories originally functioned as separate personalities within you.”
“That is true, but the darkness is not a past-life memory.”
“You rush to conclusions as you rush into everything else, young Taliesin. I know the darkness is not a past-life memory. It is the evil inside of you, just as each one of us has a darkness within that is the embodiment of our own evil. My evil requires more self-discipline than usual to master, because of my demonic ancestry. In your case self-discipline alone will not suffice.”
“But why?” I said, my voice finally rising above a whisper but sounding far whinier than I intended. “What is it that makes mine so different?”
Merlin gave me an enigmatic smile that I remembered well from his encounters with the original Taliesin. “You know the answer to that question yourself.”
Oh, good! Are we going to do riddles next?
“But I don’t…wait! You’re trying to tell me my brain is treating my evil side like a separate personality, just as it originally treated each set of past-life memories as a separate personality. Nurse Florence and I both sensed that earlier.”
“Then you know what you have to do,” said Merlin, giving me another smile.
“But I’m not sure the problem is really that simple. If my evil side has really become a separate personality, then shouldn’t my regular personality be all good? Yet I don’t feel any different!”
“Your ‘evil side,’ as you call it, didn’t really split off and leave the rest of you all good. The reality is more like someone copied all of your evil impulses and gathered them into a separate personality. It is the way your mind dealt with the increased intensity and complexity of those evil impulses. Unfortunately, that leaves the evil both within you and outside you at the same time, both ready to subvert you from within and to take you over from without.
“But enough theory! Now it is time for action. The way you brought all of your past memories into your present life personality—it is that same way that you must master your dark side. Once you have done that, you will still need to resist temptation, as all of us do, but at least the darkness won’t remain a different being who could conceivably take over your body.”
“Are you strong enough to face that process right now, Tal?” asked Nurse Florence. “Should we lend you more energy?”
“I’m actually starting to feel pretty much like my old self. And somebody,” I said, looking inquiringly at Merlin, “fed me enough energy earlier to practically fry my nervous system.”
“I did help the ladies just a bit with your healing,” replied Merlin. “I momentarily lost sight of the fact that I could feed them far more power than they actually needed.”
“Full of surprises as always!” I said with a little grin. “Speaking of which, how are you suddenly fluent in modern English? I was expecting a chance to practice my Welsh.”
Merlin smiled a little. “Nimue trapped my body and my power within the tower, but I still retained the ability to observe what was going on in the world. Perhaps the fact that the tower was glass had something to do with that, or perhaps Nimue allowed me to see the goings on in Annwn and on Earth on purpose. Either way, I had fifteen hundred years or so with nothing to do but observe, so I learned as much as I could, including many languages. Unfortunately, you don’t have fifteen hundred years to solve your current problem, so perhaps you should start now.”
“Well, no time like the present!” I said, dreading this encounter but knowing that Merlin was right; this was the only chance I had of taming my dark side.
“Wait!” Merlin raised a restraining hand. “The ghost needs to come out first! Using him as a way to counter the darkness was ingenious, but the way your mind works, there is a good chance that he may get trapped in there, fused with your mind just like your past lives.”
“Jimmie!” I said urgently. “Did you hear Merlin? Out now.”
Jimmie flew out of me in a mist, then assumed a human-sized version of his angel form, his sword still clutched tightly in his hand. “Tal, are you sure?” he asked.
I could already feel the darkness pulsing within me at the realization that Jimmie was no longer protecting me.
“I’m sure, Jimmie. I’ll be all right.”
“As for the rest of you,” said Merlin, making a sweeping gesture that encompassed the whole party, “you need to stay out as well. Lending Taliesin strength under normal circumstances is still possible, but you would be wise to stay out of his mind right now. That means you, too, King of Israel.” I wasn’t sure why he singled David out, except that David had started moving toward me.
“When Taliesin was in the hospital, unconscious, Stan held his hand,” said David sheepishly. I’m not sure Stan would have wanted him to announce that to the whole world, but there was no sense in worrying about that now.
“You may hold his hand while he works,” said Merlin quietly, “but do not under any circumstances try to use your position as the Lord’s anointed to ask God to give you the power to help Taliesin.”
David looked incensed. “Are you forbidding me to pray?”
“I am forbidding you to attempt what you are thinking, to drive out his dark side as if it were an evil spirit that could be exorcised. It is part of him, David, and if you attempt to deal with it in the wrong way, you could shatter Taliesin’s mind.”
David nodded reluctantly.
“You may pray,” Merlin continued, “but only in a general way, for God to support Taliesin. Do not ask God to empower you to do the job yourself, because you don’t understand what you are dealing with well enough.”
David nodded again, somewhat heartened, and took my right hand in his as I was preparing to lie back on the ground.
Jimmie, eying the situation suspiciously, jumped into Dan, who then came over and took my left hand. I wanted to pull my hand away, but I knew Jimmie was watching through Dan’s eyes, so I let my hand rest in his—but only for Jimmie’s sake.
By now everyone was gathering around me. Merlin directed them to sit around me in a circle and hold hands with each other, as well as with Dan and David. He did remind them again, however, that none of them who were able must enter my mind. “This is Taliesin’s battle. If anyone else tries to interfere, any victory won will be an incomplete one. What he needs to do can be done only by him alone.”
“Merlin, can you protect my friend
s from further attacks by the forest?” I asked. “I need to know they are safe in order to concentrate.”
“You need have no fear,” replied Merlin. “The trees look as if you and your friends have made them afraid of attacking again, but should they be foolish enough to try anything, it will be the last thing they try.”
“Thank you, Merlin. Now I can focus on what needs to be done.” I lay all the way down and closed my eyes.
It had been almost four years since I had integrated the memories of all my past lives into my present persona, but I could still remember how to find another personality inside of me, and the darkness was not exactly being subtle, so visualizing where it was and willing myself there was relatively easy.
I found myself in a dismal place crafted from my dark side’s imagination. The sky was like a photographic negative: leprous white, studded with black stars and a black moon that radiated shadow rather than light. Nor did the white sky actually radiate light either. I made myself able to see in the dark, just as I might have done in the real world, and I could discern ruins. Looking closely at them, particularly at the streets signs jutting crookedly from the rubble here and there, I could see I was looking at the remains of Santa Brígida. Clearly, my evil self was imagining what it would be like to level the place.
I wandered through the ruined streets, thinking to find my foe where my house would be in the real Santa Brígida, but the house was reduced to rubble just as thoroughly as everything else around it. Then I realized the futility of looking around. I could wander aimlessly in the wreckage for a long time, trying to find him—or it—based on where I would go, but I was not really looking for me; I was looking for the evil part of me.
I tried to ignore the visuals and focus on my psychic senses. Where was there a large concentration of power? That would be where my evil self was. Sure enough, I found a great, pulsing energy at what would have been the other side of town: at Awen, Carrie Winn’s “castle,” by far the most expensive residence in town. Where else would evil set up headquarters?
In the real Santa Brígida, I would never have dared to fly all the way across town, even invisibly, but in this imaginary shadow of the place, I had nothing to lose. Unfortunately, the view from the air was just as desolate as from the ground, but traveling was faster, and speed was essential.
When I reached Awen’s imaginary duplicate, it was even more magnificent than the real one—or would have been, if it was not shrouded in darkness. I flew to the roof, which on the real Awen had been the scene of the great battle on Samhain.
My evil self, seated on a massive black marble throne, was enveloped in throbbing, reddish power. He looked like me—if I had been chiseled out of shadows, and if my eyes had been carved from rubies soaked in blood and lit on fire. When he saw me, he jumped from the throne and drew his equivalent of White Hilt, a blade wrapped in sickly green flame.
“Surrender to me now,” he demanded in a B-movie villain parody of my voice, “and I will not have to break you completely. You can recede into some distant corner of your mind and live in whatever pleasant daydream you choose.”
“And what will you be doing while I am daydreaming my life away?” I asked, drawing White Hilt.
“I’ll be doing what you aren’t man enough to do. I’ll be with Eva, for example.”
“There’s only one way to be with Eva,” I pointed out, planning my strategy.
“Using dark magic,” he said in mock horror. “Well, what of it? She’ll never know the difference, and making love with her will feel the same, regardless of how she gets into the bed. But that’s just the beginning.”
I gestured in the direction of the almost-obliterated town. “Is it going to take destroying everything?”
At first my dark side looked puzzled. At that moment I realized he must be seeing a different reality than what I was seeing. Perhaps he was seeing what he wanted immediately, and I was seeing where his path would eventually lead. To test that theory, I projected my view straight into his head. He looked shocked, but his shock quickly turned to anger.
“What trick is this?”
“No trick! Just what I am seeing of the world you have made.”
My dark side, whom I was just deciding to think of as Dark Me, laughed then, but it was a joyless sound. “You are seeing what you want to see. You want to think I am pure evil, but I’m not. I’m just willing to look after myself, not always be the martyr like you want to. You felt my thoughts as I took control in the dungeon. Was I plotting mass destruction?”
He had a point, actually. His initial plans just involved winning Eva and punishing Dan—and he was going to wait until Jimmie was gone for that second part. So he really wasn’t absolutely evil…just more evil than I was.
“Maybe you aren’t yet as destructive as the surroundings I am seeing would suggest—but I bet this is where your plans will lead.”
“How, exactly? I get the girl I love, and I get other things I deserve…we deserve. We are an epically great musician, Tal. Only a live audience can feel the power of our ability to put magic into the music now, but with our technological know-how, we can figure out how that magic effect can be transmitted even if the music isn’t live, and then the whole world will soon be under our spell. We’ll be the leaders of the greatest band in history. And that will just be the beginning.”
I had to admit I had had a fantasy like that…when I was twelve and first realized what I could do. I was wiser now. Maybe I would end up as a musician…but because of my musical talent, not my magic.
“The rulers of Annwn will never tolerate that kind of widespread, semi-public use of magic,” I protested. “They don’t want anyone in the mortal world to realize that magic is out there. You know they will shut us…you…down.”
Dark Me snorted derisively. “The rulers of Annwn won’t dare to interfere if they know what’s good for them. We can reduce our need for them by figuring out how to forge magical weapons and such. I’ll bet all we have to do is spend some time watching Govannon. Then we won’t need them, and if they are daring enough to try to get us in this world, we will have a big surprise for them—the ability to make technology work in Annwn!
“You know we can do it. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll send an army into Annwn, and we’ll see how well faerie archers fare against machine guns. Then we’ll see how well faerie castles stand up to nukes!”
Where he was going to get nuclear weapons I didn’t bother to ask. Start controlling the minds of key U.S. military personnel, probably. Not pure evil, huh? Well, maybe not yet, but it was clear he would do whatever he needed to get what he wanted. His desire to be a rock star wasn’t innately evil, but what he would do if anyone got in his way certainly was, though he couldn’t see that it was.
“Don’t you see? That kind of thinking is what brings about all this destruction.”
Dark Me stared at me as if I were an idiot. “I wouldn’t really destroy Annwn. I wouldn’t have to. The fact that I could would be enough.”
“Perhaps the fact that you could would be enough to convince the faeries to launch a preemptive strike. Yeah, maybe they would strike first, and that’s what wipes out the whole town. Or maybe your plan works, and you nuke them. Maybe creating a nuclear holocaust in Annwn poisons our world. Or maybe you dodge that bullet, and this devastation comes from something else.”
“You’ve made military preparations yourself,” pointed out Dark Me. “We have swords. We fight. Sometimes we kill.”
“When we have to! All of my preparations have been defensive. What you want to do is invite an attack. That’s completely different!”
“What I want to do is have what I deserve, what we deserve. We have a combination of talents no one has ever had in the history of the world. I want to use those talents, just like anyone uses theirs. You, you want to hide them. You want to let the likes of Vanora and Nurse Florence order you around. You want to play by stupid rules that make no sense. No, you know what? It’s even worse than that. R
ather than developing to your full potential, you want to mope around all the time about problems you could solve with just a little magic. You want to die, in fact. What was that stunt with Khalid about today? And that’s just the most recent one. How many times have you thrown yourself right into death’s jaws, even when it wasn’t even remotely necessary? Well, you may want to die, but I want to live, and I want to be a big success, and I want to have my love at my side!”
His pitch shouldn’t have been that convincing, but as he talked, the world around us morphed more and more into the way he saw things. He looked more and more like me with each passing second, and suddenly we were standing on the roof of Awen in bright sunlight, with Santa Brígida restored, even enhanced. Eva was there too, with her arm around his waist, gazing at him adoringly.
“Suicide is a sin,” observed Dark Me. “Has it occurred to you that maybe I’m not the evil one—you are! Maybe you see devastation everywhere because you are going to bring it about!”
Now it was not just that Dark Me looked like me. I was beginning to look as he had in the beginning. I could feel shadows taking the place of my flesh.
As a creature drawn from my own mind, Dark Me knew I felt guilty about the consequences of some of my actions and was using that guilt against me. I also knew that if I continued to doubt myself I would be lost. No, I wasn’t perfect, but he was far worse—and if I didn’t stop him in the next few minutes, I never would.
I raised White Hilt then, and with a considerable effort, I willed my appearance to return to normal. Dark Me raised his sword as well, expecting to meet fire with fire. He was not expecting me to shoot from the blade, not fire, but the most plausible imitation of Jimmie’s light that I could produce. I think there was also a touch of the light that shone from any sword that David was holding.