by Shock is a strange experience. Events that are (arguably) positive, amazing and overall pretty great can be as much of a shock to the system as more unpleasant happenings. Who knew?
I say arguably positive, because I was by no means sold on the whole Merlin deal.
Why don’t we do pros and cons?
Pro number one: Power. Who isn’t just a little bit seduced by that, at one point or another? I’ve never been power hungry, but I couldn’t altogether resist the allure of that much magick at my disposal. That much arcane knowledge. All the things I could do… Jay was right. We could use it.
Pro number two: Respect. To be Merlin, the Merlin, would be to join the magickal insider club for real. And for good. No one would argue with my right to do, or know, pretty much anything I wanted. Plus, I’d get to hobnob with all the magickal greats. Surely? Ophelia might have chosen to hide, but that didn’t mean I would have to… right?
Pro number three: Long life, sort of. Was Ophelia any older than the average human woman, or was it merely that she’d skipped a lot of years? Either way, I might get to see what the world looks like in a century.
Con number one: Long life. If I am still kicking around in a century, then everyone I know and love today will be dead. Not for nothing was I struck by the loneliness of Ophelia’s existence.
Con number two: Power, and indeed respect. Look at that train of thought. I could do whatever I like! No one could argue with me! That, my friends, is the high road to Hell.
More cons: I’m truly not sure that I could handle that much magick. I wasn’t kidding when I said it might break me. Without Addie, I’d already be a gibbering wreck. What would Merlin’s powers do to me?
The only way to find out the answer to that little conundrum? Try it and see! And hope I don’t explode.
I know this has been my favoured modus operandi for some time now, but never with these kinds of stakes.
I, reckless Ves, am running scared. How’s that for an about-face?
Not that there has been much actual running involved. I’ve been holed up in House’s favourite room for a night and most of a day, and I can’t tell you that I feel any more inclined to emerge. I don’t want to face Milady, who spoke of my incipient Merlinhood as though it would be a lovely little promotion, no big deal. I don’t want to run the risk that our current Merlin herself will still be out there, waiting to coolly tell me more about how ideal I am for this doom.
I don’t want to face Jay, who accepted both Merlin’s existence and her mad proposition without a blink, and smilingly told me to go for it.
If anyone’s taught sceptical Jay to accept pure craziness at face value, it’s undoubtedly me, but that isn’t a reflection to make me feel any better right now.
To hell with it.
‘House,’ I said at one point. ‘How did this happen? I mean, how did I get here? I never wanted anything this big. Truly, I didn’t. I’ve just been doing my job.’
And later, ‘Okay, I developed a few gigantic dreams here and there, but they weren’t for me. They were for magick as a whole. I’m not legend material. Am I?’
Dear House let me ramble in peace. I wasn’t really expecting a response, of course. Just talking to the wall. Sometimes it helps a person achieve some measure of clarity.
Sometimes.
House did keep me well supplied, though. Three meals a day, served on the dot of eight o’clock, one o’clock and seven o’clock. Afternoon tea at three. An en suite bathroom just off the parlour, which I strongly suspect was not there before. A comfortably blazing fire, which may seem odd for the end of summer, but the parlour’s oddly chilly.
I studied the portraits on the walls at my leisure, without deriving any further clues as to the probable identities of the subjects. Or indeed, who had put them there. Were they the property of Milady, or had House preserved them for reasons of its own?
I did ask, but nobody answered.
‘One thing that interests me,’ I said, shortly after dinner (pancakes, of course. How well House knows me). ‘If there’s one hereditary magickal role derived from an ancient legend, are there more? If Merlin was, and is, real, how about Morgan le Fay? Circe? Hell, how about Gandalf?’
‘I knew you would ask those questions, sooner or later,’ came Milady’s voice.
After a solid day of silence, save only for my own voice, I near jumped out of my skin.
I may have sworn a bit.
‘Sorry,’ I said immediately. ‘I was startled.’
‘I do apologise. I could not think of a way to announce myself.’
‘Have you been here the whole time?’ I asked.
‘No. But occasionally I’ve looked in on you.’
I suppose if I’d wanted absolute peace and privacy, hiding in the heart of the House was not the best choice.
‘Jay is most concerned,’ added Milady.
‘Sorry,’ I said weakly, afflicted with a sudden rush of guilt. Poor Jay. I’d left him kicking his heels all day, and apparently he was kind enough to worry about me.
I checked my phone, but he hadn’t messaged or called. He’d been giving me space.
That, or my phone wouldn’t work in House’s favourite room. It did have a certain seventeenth-century air about it, after all.
‘Are you perhaps ready to emerge?’ said Milady. ‘Merlin has left us for the present.’
‘I suppose I must,’ I sighed. ‘It’s childish to hide from my problems, isn’t it? As though if they can’t see me, they’ll go away.’
‘It is natural enough, at times of great stress. I myself once spent two days complete in this very room, quite alone.’
‘Really?’ I sat up a bit. ‘Why did you do that?’
She hesitated long enough that I wasn’t sure she would answer. But then she said, ‘I had been offered the role I now occupy, and I did not know whether or not to accept.’
‘Wow. Offered by whom?’
She chuckled. ‘I cannot provide too many details, of course. Not at this time.’
At this time. That meant: not now, but maybe someday.
‘I need hardly ask whether or not you regretted it,’ I said.
‘For the most part, I have not. I have been able to achieve far more than I ever dreamed possible, and it is worthy work.’
Worthy work. Yes. What these kinds of choices came down to, in essence, was: were we willing to devote everything we had to our work, at any price?
And I suppose I was frightened because I already knew the answer to that question. I’d been saying yes for years.
I would say yes again.
I just didn’t know whether I was up to the cost.
My hands were shaking again, so I clasped them tightly together and tried to appear unconcerned.
But the shaking spread to my whole body, and when my teeth began to chatter I gave up on trying to hide it. ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘We never know what we can do,’ said Milady gently. ‘We never feel ready. All you can do, dear Ves, is decide whether you’re willing to try.’
Giddy gods. I gritted my teeth on a rising tide of nausea.
‘If it helps, I have complete confidence in you,’ Milady continued. ‘So does your excellent friend Jay. So does Val; indeed, I have no doubt that the entire Society would support you without question. To us, the question is not can she do it, but what will she achieve when she does?’
‘I appreciate that,’ I said tightly. ‘Really, I do. But I’m also seeing the dark side. Like, how many people are going to be disappointed when I burst like rotten fruit?’
‘Ves…’
‘Though if that happens I’ll be a goner, so I suppose I won’t care anyway.’
‘I am one hundred percent positive it will not kill you.’
‘Really? That certain?’
‘To partially answer your earlier question: yes, there are other such roles in this world. Or, there have been; I am not sure myself how many yet survive, or who now embodies each archetype. But I have never heard of anyone’s dying in the attempt of it.’
A flicker of excitement rose, somewhere in my beleaguered soul. ‘Who are the other ones?’
‘Some of your guesses were rather shrewd.’
‘Gandalf wasn’t one of the shrewd ones?’
‘Not that one, no.’
‘Curse it.’ I’d been hoping for Gandalf. ‘But Morgan le Fay? And Circe?’
‘Again, I do not know if either of those still walk these worlds. But they are certainly past archetypes, and may still be current.’
‘I bet Merlin knows.’
‘I imagine she might, yes.’
And my traitorous curiosity betrayed me.
All the things Merlin knows.
All the things I would know, if I became the next Merlin-archetype.
‘Sideline,’ I said. ‘All those three names are from ancient times. Are there new archetypes? I mean, has anybody from a more recent era become such a legend as to qualify?’
Her silence was… eloquent.
‘I cannot discuss that,’ she finally said.
Milady being cagey meant… I’d stumbled over something.
‘You’re one of them,’ I gasped. ‘A newly minted archetype. Or an old one?’
‘Ves, these are things I cannot discuss.’
‘I respect your right to conceal anything you choose, of course, but… why can’t you?’
‘For the same reasons Merlin has chosen to hide herself. Morgan and Circe may be doing the same. Legends loom especially large in this modern world, Ves, and that has its drawbacks as well as its advantages. Anonymity grants me a degree of safety and freedom that I might not otherwise enjoy.’
‘I think I understand.’
‘I am sorry for it, sometimes. Secrecy has its costs as well.’
I thought of Ophelia/Merlin’s lonely abode, and nodded.
‘Well,’ I said briskly, and hauled myself out of my comfortable chair. ‘It’s time I stopped bemoaning my fate and got on with it.’
‘I have always admired your courage, Ves,’ said Milady quietly. ‘I realise this is not easy for you.’
I bowed my acknowledgement of this vote of confidence. ‘Where might I find Jay?’
‘He’s in the library, with Valerie.’
‘Right.’ I made it halfway to the door before I was halted by an appalling thought. ‘Wait. These archetypes. Nicolas Flamel… he isn’t one of them, is he?’ The words I’d scrawled in my notebook not long ago floated behind my eyes. Nicolas Flamel sucks.
Milady laughed. ‘To my knowledge, he is not.’
‘Thank goodness for that.’
