Blood of the Fallen. Book 1: Swords

The Sacrifice is Coming

   The two reappeared on the Lotus, a boat aptly named as it resembled a flower on the water. Devlin looked up. The vastness of the ocean stretched out in front of him. The Lotus bobbed and swayed endlessly. “I think I’m going to heave.”  

Devlin hated surprises. His mind wanted everything sorted and put in place, but his father relished throwing the unexpected at him. Think on your feet. In battle, the flow changes quickly. Your very survival hangs in the balance. You can’t be of any help to Arthur if you are not three, five steps ahead of his enemies, Merlin once said.   

“The leaping eye Mondo tried to steal,” Merlin said, interrupting Devlin’s thoughts, “enables me to leap from one eye to the next.”

“I see,” Devlin pointed to his eye as he tried to hold off the vertigo. At least I can still make a joke.

The Warden looked at him quizzically. “What I find humorous is that your element is water. Yet you do not seem fond of it.” Merlin tapped Devlin’s head with a forefinger. “That should cure it. I need your wits about you on this matter.”

Devlin rubbed his forehead. The nausea had disappeared.

“You’re welcome,” Merlin said. The wizard stretched his right arm and pulled a bouquet and a staff from the air.  

Devlin had seen Merlin do this trick a thousand times. It had something to do with making magical compartments in another dimension to store one’s belongings. However, like the other spells Merlin weaved, Devlin could not see the compartments.

Merlin stood leaning on his staff, the flowers resting on his chest, “I am waiting.”

“Oh, right,” Devlin sat straight. He needed to think of a question. Waiting meant his father wanted to impart a lesson and was waiting for the student to ask a question. Devlin wondered if all wizards taught in this manner. “Um, why do you have flowers in your hand?”

“Irrelevant. Think deeper Devlin.”

“Right,” he paused and pondered. Images floated in his head, Mondo, the battle, the eye, “Leaping Eyes!” He blurted out, “it makes you leap from one eye to the other. So there’s more than one. Which means you have an eye here in the ocean?”

“Correct,” Merlin tapped one of the boat’s bows with his staff, and then traced a line in the air in front of him, “You may not see it but I have tethered the boat to the gate so that you don’t float away while I’m gone.”

“Gate?” Devlin looked around. There was nothing but empty ocean around them. But if one of the leaping eye, no doubt rendered invisible by Merlin, was here, then it meant, “The Gate! The Gate to Gaeus is here?”

Merlin nodded.  

Devlin fixed his gaze on the area where Merlin traced the alleged tether. Even though he did not see the tethered rope, nor the leaping eye, nor the gate, his heart brimmed with excitement. Then, he realized what Merlin had just said, “Gone? You’re leaving me on the boat?”

“You know the laws governing Errt and Gaeus. I can’t just take you with me.”

“But… you’re the Warden. You can give me your exception.”

“Exceptions need to be granted by the Gaeus council. You know that.”

Devlin knew. Every law, every penal code, every page number was easily accessible in his memory palace. The bubbling joy in his heart popped and dissipated. “So, you want me to wait here? You previously said there were carnivorous sea monsters that roamed this ocean, with fangs bigger than a man. Surely, you are not leaving me here when I can’t even do magic to defend myself.” 

“I did not raise a spineless boy. And yes, there are monsters about, so do not leave the ship nor touch the water,” Merlin commanded, but Devlin swore his father was trying to contain a mischievous smile beneath the grey beard. “I initially brought you here to teach you about leaping eyes. Now, your next lesson is patience and reflection. So wait, rest your body, and ponder. When I come back, I expect answers born out of careful reflection and analysis. For instance, can I use other eyes to access the Errt eye?” Merlin said as he looked at the bundled flower. An oval light on the right side of his abdomen shone through his garments as he touched the air slightly above the boat’s bow. Then he disappeared.   

“Of course I saw that light,” Devlin said and sat with his shoulders deflated. The light given off by Merlin’s null ring and sigils were magic seen through the naked eye; the Pauper’s Sight. But Merlin said wizards could see the divine energy during casting through King’s Sight. Devlin wished he had King’s Sight to see the energy swirling around a wizard during spell casting. Or at least his dreams showed them swirling. Like all his other useless thoughts and ideas, he filed this in his memory palace, in a room he dubbed untested theories. He laid down on the floor of the boat. His gaze transfixed on the air in front of him. He pretended he had King’s Sight. He pointed, “There should be a tether, a leaping eye, and a gate there.”

He stood and moved to the bow, where Merlin tapped his staff. Devlin touched the surrounding air, but couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. No invisible rope or residue of magic. Is this part of Merlin’s test?

“A great wizard is not afraid to question the Universe,” the Warden once told him.  

Devlin alternately glanced at the bow and the ocean below him. The water current flowed Westward and yet the boat stayed anchored to its spot. “No, it’s moving against the current,” he mumbled. It proved Merlin tied the boat to something invisible which moved counter to the water current. He remembered Merlin saying the invisible gate moved constantly to prevent prisoners from escaping to Gaeus.  

Devlin clung to the pulpit with all the force he could muster lest he fell off the boat. He stretched his right hand forward. A part of him wanted to believe, “I’m touching Gaeus!”   

 Merlin appeared in the Ascran forest, a few meters before the clearing that led to the Living Gate. Gaeus had renamed the Living Gate to Pandora’s Gate thousands of years ago; after the first human who discovered King’s Magic or Sigil Magic. Merlin looked around to see if anyone witnessed his sudden appearance. Unsatisfied with Pauper’s Sight, he closed his eyes and felt the invisible energy around him, feeling each living thing a few hundred yards away from him. There was no one around, save for the usual animals foraging for food. He nodded in approval. He waited for the Gaeus Eye embedded in the tree to close its eyelid to become invisible once more. As he turned, his clothes changed from meager robes to a common traveling merchant. He put up the hood to hide his face; though he doubted anyone can recognize him on this side of the world. The legendary War Mage had not appeared publicly in Gaeus for eighteen years. During that absence, layers of wrinkled skin had buried his face underneath, wild grey hair took over, and an even wilder looking long beard. He sighed. The wizard always reminisced when he made this annual trip. Merlin looked at the bundled flowers in his hand. “Always at your beck and call.” That was your greatest magic. He arranged a loose flower or two before walking towards Pandora’s Gate.  

Merlin stepped out of the clearing. The Gate a thousand yards away. He could leap to cover the distance, but today he was only a merchant. He looked at the ancient ten-story structure before him. A beating heart in the middle of the ancient gate; the Heart Lock, kept the metal monolith locked and secured. Pandora added the Heart Lock because of his own foolishness. Thank you Pandora, but damnare Pandora was a normal phrase that wizards learn in magic school. 

The gate breathed as Merlin got closer. Its heavy doors rose and fell to the beat of the lock. Merlin shook his head; reminded of the life sacrifice made to make a lock, and all the locks before it. He slowed his walk when he saw a figure hovering near the Gate’s Heart Lock. He squinted his eyes. A dark blue dress uniform? What is an elder..?

The Elder turned his head slightly. Merlin knew his presence had been detected. Don’t arouse suspicion, the Warden thought. He moved forward, bringing the bundled flowers to his chest, while subtly masking his magic presence. 

The Elder landed to the ground as Merlin reached the bottom of the Gate. 

Merlin bowed. “Forgive me, Elder, if I have disturbed you.” He looked at the man’s face. He is young? Younger than me when they invited me to join the wizard council. “I am Roan, a merchant,” Merlin said.

“I am Kellan, and not at all. You did not disturb me,” the Elder bowed. “Not all travellers are brave enough to go near this Gate. What brings you here?”     

“Just paying my respects, sir.” Merlin showed the bundle of flowers. “A friend died in the last war to close the Gate.”     

“Was your friend a wizard?”

“She wished,” he chuckled, “but she was only a fellow traveller. Went to this gate because a person she loved fought in the war. In the end, she ended up being killed.”

“And now you follow her into this scary place? We do a lot of things for love or friendship,” said Kellan.

“That we do,” Merlin nodded in agreement.

The Elder smiled, “I will leave you then to pay your respects to your friend.” Kellan bowed and floated to the gate’s heart lock five stories above.

Merlin bowed in return. He felt a flash of new magic, looked up, and saw a monocled butler beside Kellan, and a flying ship a hundred stories above. 

“Sorry to intrude, sir, but there’s a message from the council,” the butler said as he gave Kellan a sealed folded note on a tray. “The ship is ready to take you to the station.”

Merlin saw Kellan’s demeanor change after reading the note, but the Elder quickly regained his calm composure.

“Alright then,” Kellan told his butler. The Elder looked at Merlin below and nodded his goodbye. “We don’t need to land the ship,” the Elder instructed his butler. “We’ll just leap.” The butler instructed the ship’s captain to open the ship’s door. Once Kellan saw the doorway empty, he tapped his butler’s arm. Both disappeared, then reappeared in the doorway. 

A textbook look before you leap moment. “But that was considerate of him.” Merlin knew Kellan did not want to disturb his prayers, so the Elder directed the ship not to land. There is hope for this new generation. As the flying ship sped away, Merlin laid the flowers at the feet of the Gate, bowed and clapped thrice. Hello, Kushina. Yes, he is doing well. No, as usual, he does not know that I visit you. You made me promise, after all. Merlin’s thoughts wandered a bit to the past. He imagined Kushina in front of him and answered questions she would ask him if she were alive today. If only there were magic spells to conjure a person’s spirit. That would be something.

After paying his respects, Merlin looked up to the Heart Lock. Thank you Pandora, but damnare Pandora. The first user of King’s Magic, deluded by the few drops of sigil magic power, made him curious to open the Living Gate. Pandora used King’s Magic to break the gods’ seal. He opened the Gate and saw the evils beyond it, evils that would lay Gaeus to waste. Pandora tried to close the gate, to repair the gods’ seal, but he was no god. The seal too ancient and too advanced for him to understand. He realized he needed to sacrifice his own life to close the gate, binding his heart and life force to the gate to lock it. The gate remained closed until Pandora’s heart died, and the Wizard Council quickly replaced Pandora’s heart with another sacrifice. Immortal hearts did not work and Gaeus realized more than a hundred years later that a Memitim’s heart lasted two or three times longer than any heart. Merlin remembered Iphigenia, the last sacrifice. He looked at Iphigenia’s Heart above and paid his respects. He clapped thrice. You were a great Head Memitim. I believe you left behind one or two young children? I hope they are well. And I pray they spare your daughter of your fate. 

It was getting late, and Merlin needed to go back to Errt. Thoughts of monsters are probably distracting Devlin on the Lotus. Might as well save him from his misery, he thought. But before that, he had to check and see. The Elder piqued his curiosity. Something was brewing. Merlin opened his mind and let the energy flow through him. He extended his sensitivity to more than a thousand yards.  Checking if anyone was in the vicinity. All clear. He hopped to let the air catch and move him up. He hovered to the exact spot as the Elder. 

The War Mage found a circle of flowers steeped in magic surrounding the pulsing Heart Lock. The magic rendered the flowers invisible from the ground, but not at this height. He inspected the spell with King’s Sight. No traps, no alarms. Just a spell to hold the lilies of the grim for a few hours.        

He shifted his attention to the Lock. It beat as a normal heart should. And then the heart thumped erratically. The Gate expanded, contracted, and creaked. A hairline opened through which Merlin heard cackling and growling. Familiar sounds last heard in the war.  

Du-dum, the heartbeat went back to its regular rhythm. The small crack disappeared, along with the voices.      

Merlin put his hand on his mouth and gasped. The Elder came to inspect the Heart.  It was dying. “The sacrifice is coming.”