Merlin slept peacefully on Nimue’s breast after they had made love. The cave that King Arthur’s old wizard called home was dark, the only light being the moon light coming in through the cave entrance and the perpetual blue illumination from the cylindrical gem that Merlin always wore around his neck, even while making love.
Nimue was not asleep, but was holding the blue jewel in her hands. The old wizard had taught her much of his craft, but had refused to tell her anything about this object. Merlin was usually eager to satisfy her curiosity, but when asked about the blue jewel he said, "No, love, this isn’t important."
It was a lie, she knew. Nimue could always tell a lie; as one of Ladies of the Lake, she had certain powers. Those powers enabled her to allure the chaste and asexual old man.
The jewel had to be some talisman of great power. Why had he lied about it? She had even asked him right after making love, but the answer was the same. She pulled on the loose-fitting gold chain which held the jeweled cylinder to examine it more closely.
The glowing talisman was about an inch long and as wide as Nimue’s smallest finger. The stone was a blueish jewel unfamiliar to her with a golden top which a attached to the chain. Tiny characters were carved into the blue stone, but she could not recognize them in the faint light.
Nimue decided to remove the necklace to study the characters in the moon light. She moved Merlin off of her, being careful not to allow the wizard to lay on the necklace. He was sound asleep and easy to move; he slept deeply after making love and would not wake even if the brutish Gawain were to shout at him. Nimue pulled the necklace off without difficulty.
Once it was removed from his neck, the wizard’s appearance changed, changed into a monstrous form. The old man was transformed before her eyes into a creature unlike anything she had ever seen or imagined. His wrinkled white skin became smooth and bluish-green. The fingers on his hands grew hairy tentacles and sharp claws. His mouth became wide, stretching out the lower portion of his face. His eyes glowed red, growing larger and closer together.
Nimue jumped away and suppressed a scream. She immediately put the necklace back around the now much larger neck on the creature in the bed. As quickly as before, the monster transformed back to Merlin, wizard to the King of Britain.
Nimue put on a long cloak and stepped outside into the cool night air to consider what she had seen. Two questions entered her mind: what was this being and was it a danger to herself or the kingdom. To answer the second she knew she must first know the first, Merlin’s true nature.
Some of the Christians, dismayed at Merlin’s powers, had claimed that he was the son of the devil. She had never believed it; they had made similar accusations about the Ladies of the Lake. But was it perhaps true? It didn’t seem likely to her. The Christians’ devil was evil and fiery. Merlin, although cranky, was not evil and he liked the cold far more than fire.
Was he a monster in disguise? She knew of no monster similar to the being into which Merlin transformed. That was no form of a dragon, no minotaur, no satyr, nor anything else familiar to her.
Were wizards, real wizards, something not human altogether? He had seemed human enough, even in bed, especially in bed. Nimue concluded that none of these possibilities were likely. The answer was altogether different.
Nimue’s thoughts returned to Merlin’s lie about the crystal talisman. She remembered only one other lie he had told her. He had once told her the inner chamber of the cave was not important and she need not explore it. That was odd, since he encouraged her explorations of the country-side, her magical powers, and, of course, his body. She had assumed that the chamber contained his laboratory and that he would show it eventually. Nimue had obeyed him, until now, and stayed away from the inner chamber. She actually had no choice but to obey him since it was bared by a locked door. But after seeing the transformation from old man to monstrosity, she needed to know what this creature was hiding, what this creature was.
Nimue returned to the cave determined to find out and, if needed, how to deal with the threat it posed to her and her country. The hollow within the mountain that Merlin and, of late, Nimue, called home was a large, roughly circular cavern. The sparse furnishing included a bed, table and chairs, and hundreds of books and scrolls, some on shelves, most stacked on the floor. At the end of the cavern was the doorway to the inner chamber.
The door was a seemingly ordinary wooden one which fit perfectly into the round opening. She pulled on the door’s handle, but to no avail. She had expected this; she knew it was locked, locked by magic.
Merlin had taught her door-opening spells, including those to counter magically sealed doors. She decided to use the strongest of these, knowing that the old wizard must have used powerful magic here. After a moment of reflection, she quietly articulated the words that he had taught her.
The door began to shake back and forth softly, but showed no signs of opening. Simultaneously, Merlin awoke and sat up. "Who is disturbing my lair?" screamed the old wizard as he threw on a cloak and raced toward the doorway. Nimue pressed herself against the still tightly closed door; she knew the potency of his wrath.
"Nimue," he shouted when he saw her, "what are you trying to do?" Before she could answer, he was moving his fingers in a spell formation.
Nimue guessed that he was casting an obedience spell and she cast a couter-spell.
Her surmise was correct and the counter-spell blocked his attempt. "I’m not that easy to push around, old man," she boasted. Nimue had prevented his first attempt, but she knew that she could not win a long battle with Merlin; she needed to disarm him by distraction before he could cast a more powerful spell. All she could think to do was to ask, "What sort of monster are you without your blue jewel?"
It worked. The wizard’s anger was replaced with shock. In a tone between the two emotions, he asked, "What do you mean?"
She took the initiative. "You know exactly what I mean. Without your talisman, you’re some horrible beast. Tell me what you are," she said forcefully as she faced the startled old man.
"How do you know this?" he asked.
"I took it off you to get a better look at it, and you became a creature unlike anything I’ve seen before. What are you?’
"I am . . . a," Merlin started and then paused, pointing his finger as if to explain.
Nimue knew that expression; he was preparing to cast another spell. She quickly cast a hand freezing spell and stopped Merlin’s second attempt to control her by magic. The spell’s affect ended, and Merlin limply put his hand against his side.
"Tell me," she directed, "and stop trying to treat me like a fool at Arthur’s court who can be easily manipulated by magic."
"I’ll explain," said Merlin plaintively, "if you promise not to tell another person."
"I make no conditions," she replied coldly. Nimue was enjoying seeing him so flustered.
"Alright," he said resignedly. "No one will likely believe you anyway, so there is probably no harm in it."
"Now tell me what in the devil you are," Nimue commanded.
The Wizard of Britain walked to the bed in obedience and sat down. She sat facing him on a chair.
"As you have guessed I am not what I seem, I am more than an old man with magical powers. I am alien here."
"Alien? Not from Britain? You’re from where? Greece or Ethiopia or . . . ."
"No," interrupted Merlin, "from much farther away. I’m from another world, another planet."
"Another what?" she asked, not understanding.
"This world, this earth, is a planet. Let me show you." Merlin moved his hands and created a magical brown and green image of Britain in the air between himself and Nimue. "You know what this is, of course," he said. Merlin had taught her to read maps, so she recognized it at once.
He then attached images of Europe to the floating vision. As he kept adding green and brown images, all unfamiliar to her, the vision become a rotating ball. Merlin concluded the image with blue that covered most of the spinning sphere.
"This is what earth looks like," Merlin said when he finished. "Most of the planet is covered by water, that’s the blue. And you see that Britain is a small part of it. You are the first human to see what the entirety of your world looks like."
"Earth is part of a system of planets, all of which rotate around the sun," Merlin said as he stood up and made several colorful balls of varying sizes appear which circled around a large yellow fireball.
"Rotate around the sun?" she asked.
"Yes, despite what the Christians believe, the earth rotates around the sun, not the other way around."
"You are from one of these worlds?" Nimue asked.
"No," he answered, "my home world doesn’t rotate around your sun, but around a distant star. The stars you see at night are far away suns." He made the image shrink until only the yellow ball was visible. He then added hundreds of little lights until they filled the entire cavern. "Many of these stars have their own planets rotating around them. I came from a planet rotating around this star." He dimmed all the illuminations except for one not far from the sun. Then all the lights faded to nothing and he sat back down on the bed.
Nimue did not fully understand the brief astronomy lesson. She was not sure she even believed him but couldn’t sense any lies. Her understanding of the stars was a secondary goal to discovering Merlin’s true nature. "What I saw when I took off the blue talisman is what you really look like on your world?" He nodded.
"But you seem to be so much a man," she remarked.
"The longer I am here, the more I become like a human. After years of being here," he continued grinning, "I have the sexual urges of an 18-year old."
"How did you get here? It seems so far way."
"We have means to travel great distances quickly, as well as tools and devices that allow us to perform tasks that seem impossible, or even magical to you. The blue stone is but one of these tools."
"Show me more of these devices," she said in a tone expressing both curiosity and control.
Rising from the bed, Merlin announced, "I’ll show you what I have in the inner chamber."
He led her back to the closed doorway. It opened easily when he pressed his hand against the door. "This door is set to open only to my touch. No magic, yours or anyone else’s, nor the strength of Lancelot and all the knights of the Round Table could open it. Nonetheless I have placed on it a spell that alerts me of any efforts to open it," he explained as he helped Nimue through the now open door.
Behind the door was a round passageway that appeared to be cut out of the rock, except that is was perfectly smooth, such as not even the stone masons who built Camelot could create. Both Merlin and Nimue had to crouch as they walked through the narrow passageway to the long forbidden inner chamber.
The chamber was a small, rectangular room stretching back about 30 feet and 10 feet across. Merlin touch the wall and lights appeared from the ceiling of the room. What she saw overwhelmed her.
Nothing in the room was familiar to her. Nimue felt as if she were standing on Merlin’s distant home world. The walls and ceiling were made of a shiny metallic surface, almost like plate mail. Attached to the walls were several square structures, resembling painting frames, but containing monochromatic squares rather than paintings. There were many smaller, presumably hand-held, devices, but Nimue had no comprehension of their purpose. Many of the devices had knobs on them, as did the walls. At the chamber’s rear was a large box, resembling an open, standing coffin. A man could fit into this box, even the fat Sir Kay.
Merlin said, "What you see here are a few of the machines that my people have developed. It would take me years to explain what they do, let alone how they do it. Humans are, well, technologically backwards in comparison to other worlds. These devices allow me to watch people elsewhere and listen to what they say, to control the weather, calculate probabilities of actions, even help me read minds."
Nimue was startled by the powers listed, especially the last. "You can read minds?"
"Not perfectly, but I can determine what most people are planning; it allows me to be a most useful advisor to the King," he added with a smile. "But you and the other Ladies of the Lake are immune. Your thoughts are a mystery to me."
‘So he doesn’t know what I’m planning,’ she thought to herself. ‘I must keep that in mind.’ Pointing to the coffin-like structure at the end of the room, Nimue asked, "What’s the large box?"
"This is our greatest technological invention yet and how I came here. It is a portal between worlds, a doorway between earth and my home planet."
"You walk in and you are on another world?" she asked, looking to see this other world. She could see nothing but the three feet into the structure.
"Not immediately," he answered, "the process is quick compared to other forms of travel, but it still takes years."
"You have to walk for years?" she asked.
"No, the machine takes you. This button here," he said pointing to a red knob just inside the entrance of the portal, "activates it. I can also send items to the home world, such as reports of my progress, by placing them in the portal and pressing the button, making sure I pull my hand back before it activates."
Nimue stood in front of it and thought about this for a while. She then asked, "If you arrived here through the portal, how did the portal get to be here?"
"We sent a ship here from another planet to build it and to study the people of this world. That way I could be sent here looking like a human, which, as you discovered, is not my natural appearance."
"So why did you do travel so far and so long to come here?" she inquired. "Did your king exile you?"
"No," Merlin answered, "we don’t have a king there. I was sent on a mission. I came to help you."
"To help me?" Nimue asked in surprise.
"No, no," he replied, "not to help you in particular. Your entry into my life and heart was the biggest surprise I’ve had here. I was sent to help your people, humans, in general, England in particular."
"But why come all this way to help us, a people which you call backwards?"
"Precisely because you are so backwards. Humanity has great potential, but we have seen how societies with potential can destroy themselves with a lack of order and justice."
"And for that you are helping Arthur?"
"Yes, of course," Merlin answered, "from arranging his conception, to orchestrating the drawing of sword from the stone and creating the Round Table. That way he is not only a great leader, but a leader who can spread progress. Without a leader like Arthur, England, and indeed all of Christendom, will face a dark age lasting centuries. That is why I came here, to assist humanity, through Arthur, reach your proper goal."
"Proper goal? What’s our proper goal?"
"We have determined that humanity would be an excellent addition to the collection of worlds that has been created to foster scientific and commercial exchange, a round table of planets in effect. Our studies have shown that being in the collection of worlds would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Humanity has much to gain from joining our universal round table.
"I will show you more and answer any questions, my love, if you only swear not to tell anyone," offered Merlin as he held out his hands for Nimue.
"Of course," Nimue said as she went toward the wizard’s outstretched hands. Merlin laughed as she put her hands around his neck. As she did so, she grabbed the necklace holding the blue jewel and pulled it off his neck.
"Humph!" Merlin shouted as he turned again into the horrible bluish-green monster she had seen earlier. She shivered at the sight of the creature. "Give it back to me," the monster growled in a deep reverberating voice.
"Never!" shouted Nimue. The Merlin-Monster was between her and the doorway, the chamber’s only exit; she could not escape that way, but quick glance around the room gave her another possibility. "I cannot let you continue with your dominating scheme," she announced.
"It is important," the beast shouted. "Humanity needs it." It growled with tentacled hands extended but made no effort to cast a spell. She hoped that it had lost its magical abilities when she took the talisman.
"Perhaps," she replied, "but it is for humanity to decide, not for some collection of other world monsters to dictate, or to trick us into becoming a trade colony subject to your will."
"But we have spent centuries studying what is good for you and peoples like you."
"So have we, don’t you see?" Nimue retorted. The monster had shown no signs of using magic, so she concluded that it was unable to in this state. "We have been working for centuries to improve the situation of humanity ourselves. It is the way we are and must always be. I don’t give a damn what your non-human studies say is our proper future. It is not for you to decide."
"But there is much for you to gain from being part of the world collective."
"That may be, but it is not for you to manipulate us into joining. None of Arthur’s knights were tricked into joining his Round Table, we’ll not be tricked into joining yours."
The being continued, trying a different tack, "What I came to do is no different than what the Ladies of the Lake have done, attempt to improve society by influencing the king. I arranged the sword in the stone, the Ladies provided the magical scabbard that protects Excalibur and its bearer. Is there any difference?"
"Yes," answered Nimue, "We’re humans, trying help our king. You are from another world attempting to control him."
"But I came to help," protested the monster.
"Yes, you are trying to help," replied Nimue, "just as Heingest and his Saxons came to help old King Vortigern. And the Saxons controlled Vortigern as you control Arthur. It was not right for the Saxons to rule England and it’s not right for beings from another planet either!"
"Now, my love," pleaded the old wizard.
"Don’t call me that. The love that we shared was based on your deception. You have tricked me, tricked Arthur, and tricked humanity. Humanity must decide what is its destiny. You must go back and stop your interference."
"But if I leave now, my mission will be a failure. Arthur will fall and chaos will descend on England and all mankind. It will take centuries to recover."
"But we will recover as surely as the phoenix rises from the ashes. And we will do it ourselves, without your meddling."
The Merlin-Monster charged at her. Nimue turned and ran toward the back of the room, but the creature was quicker than her. She could feel the beast’s hot breath on her back, and she knew it would catch her. But her plan may yet succeed. Just as tentacled hands grabbed her left shoulder, she flung the talisman at the inter-planetary portal with her right hand.
The blue jewel landed inside the portal, but not as far as she had hoped. The Merlin-Monster released its grip on her and raced toward its lost talisman. The monster leaned over to pick up the medallion, with its torso in the portal.
Nimue ran toward it and kicked the monster squarely on its rear. It fell over, all of it now in the portal. She pressed the button that activates the inter-planet transfer and pulled her hand back.
"No," the thing shouted. It stood up and faced her. The portal began to make a soft grinding sound; it had been activated. As the creature’s image started to quiver, it pleaded, "Please try to protect Arthur. I did love him, and I did really love you." Then the being who had once been Merlin, the power behind the throne of King Arthur, disappeared forever from earth.
She wondered if she had done the right thing, whether the future Merlin had worked for might be better. But she had made her choice; she must complete what she started and make certain he never returned. She used the axe they kept for chopping wood to destroy every thing in the room, starting with the portal. It was difficult work but she was a strong woman with a good axe, and the destruction was soon compete and thorough.
She then rode back to Camelot and told King Arthur that Merlin had needed to depart. This was poorly received at Arthur’s court, even by those who had despised the old wizard. Most blamed her, some claiming she killed him, others saying she used love and magic to trap him in the cave. Merlin’s reputation as a prognosticator was so great, however, that he was soon credited with predicting his own imprisonment, despite never saying any such thing. Arthur never said a word against her, but the King’s displeasure was obvious, so she soon left Camelot, returning only when Arthur needed her protection.
Despite the King’s animosity for taking away his chief counselor, Nimue followed Merlin’s last request and tried to protect Arthur, saving him in his fight against Sir Accolon when Morgan Le Fay stole Excalibur.
Nonetheless, she could not fulfill the role of Merlin and his incredible powers, even had Arthur permitted it. Arthur’s kingdom began to crumple, albeit slowly, after the old wizard’s departure. The disastrous grail quest caused the strength of Britain to be scattered, many knights never returning to the Round Table. Then the King suffered from his inability to see the love between Sir Lancelot and Guinevere and his long failure to act on it once he had discovered it. And finally, Arthur’s calamitous dealings with his son Mordred lead to Camelot’s fall at the Battle of Camlann. There Nimue did her last service to Arthur, assisting in his passage to Avalon.
Nimue also kept her last agreement with Merlin and never told anyone about that fateful night, not even Sir Pelleas, her new lover. Merlin had been right about that after all, no one would believe her.
Nicholas Perry's last story in Aphelion was "The Bargain" which appeared in issue number 20.
E-mail: nicholasperry@earthlink.net
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