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And now for the penultimate chapter of Dark Origins: Tales of the Scarlet Knight Volume 0 as we get to the final throwdown between Merlin and Isis. Who will win? Who will survive? You'll find out in less than 1000 words!
From afar, a war of magic looks
like a thunderstorm. At least that’s
what the nearest people to the Hunting Grounds think. Except instead of only white flashes, those of green, blue,
purple, and other colors light up the sky.
There are booms like thunder while other times loud screeches like
someone screaming.
The reason my master insisted on
facing Isis in the Hunting Grounds was because a war of magic is also terribly
destructive. Not so much to those with
the magic; it’s the landscape and those who happen to be nearby who suffer the
most. Stray bolts of energy evaporate
whole stands of trees in an instant. A
pool of water turns to ash in a heartbeat.
Anyone stupid enough to be close to
ground zero wouldn’t see Merlin or Isis.
At best they would see two vague shapes glowing with light. The figure made of white light would be
Merlin while the dark smear with red eyes would be Isis.
Bolts of energy erupt from the two
figures. They absorb these before
generating new ones. When a bolt
misses, the ground shakes and a good chunk of it disappears. On it goes for hours and then days.
Merlin is losing. While for now he’s managed to hold his own
against Isis’ power, he knows he can’t last much longer. She might have usurped her god powers, but
they are still the powers of a god.
His own are more limited.
When another bolt strikes him, he
feels the pain. His glow fades a
bit. A few more hits like that and
he’ll be dead. Isis senses her
advantage and presses the attack. It’s
as if Merlin is at the center of an electrical storm from all the bolts of
lightning raining down on him.
He does the smartest thing: he flees.
He zips away at supersonic speed, into a mountain. He merges his molecules with those of a vein
of crystal while he gathers his strength.
Isis will probably find him in a few minutes, but at least it will give
him some time.
Back in the village, I’m sleeping
next to Beaux when I see my master. He
looks sadder than I’ve ever seen him.
“I’ve failed you,” he says.
“That’s impossible,” I say. “You can’t fail.”
“Her power is too great, even for
my own.”
“Bollocks,” I say. I put a hand on his shoulder. Though it’s a dream, it feels real
enough. “You’ve always told me the real
power doesn’t come from Anubis or any of them blokes. It comes from the heart.
There’s no one I know with a stronger, purer heart than you. Look at all you’ve done here for me, Artr,
and the whole village. If not for you
that brute Elgar would have taken over.
But now we have Artr. That boy
is really going to be something, you wait and see.”
Merlin nods to me. “You speak wisely, my friend.” He pats my shoulder. “If I don’t see you again, know that you’ve
been a great apprentice and an even better friend.”
“Thank you, my master.”
“Farewell.”
Then he’s gone. I wake up, but all I see is the hut Beaux
and I share. She groans and then sits
up. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I say and then go back
to sleep, unsure if I’ll ever see him again.
***
Spurred by my words, Merlin leaves
the mountain. He finds Isis waiting for
him outside. She probably knew he was
there; she just wanted to give him more time to suffer. “Are you ready to finish this?” she rumbles.
He doesn’t give her the
satisfaction of a reply. Instead, he
zips right into her. I know a
certain young scientist who could explain the chemical reaction of positive and
negative charges. All I know is when
Merlin merges with Isis, it generates an explosion greater than anything the
planet has seen since that big asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.
Merlin had chosen the Hunting
Grounds because of its distance away from any population centers. That didn’t prove to be enough
distance. The explosion of white light
eradicates first the Hunting Grounds and then spreads across much of northern
Africa. Thousands of people, their
homes, possessions, and livestock disintegrate in moments. There’s no trace left of them.
All that remains are miles and
miles of sand. Later on someone would
decide to call it the Sahara. A
desert. That’s all that’s left of
Merlin and Isis’ war. In time, even the
legends of it would fade away, except for me.
And yet in all that desert, a man
gets to his feet. Much of his skin is
red and steaming, as if he’s just survived the electric chair. He staggers around to see what he’s
done. Then he screams.
Hundreds of miles away, there’s
another figure in the sand. This one is
of a beautiful woman. She appears to be
carved entirely out of glossy black stone, but the level of detail surpasses
anything possible in that time.
She lies there in the sand, in that
shell, and waits for her time to come again.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Tomorrow, the series wraps as we learn the fate of Merlin...
4 comments:
I like the idea that this is how the Sahara Desert was formed. Once again good action.
That's an interesting mythological take on the Sahara desert. Brilliant I might add and totally unexpected.
BTW, I also have the iPad which supports Kindle and iBooks. So I have the ability to read all file formats depending on which app to use. I haven't decided if I'm going to invest in an iPad mini, but am tempted to do so.
Yeah, it was too much for me to read on such a regular basis. I reads my Internets for short bursts!
I read as much of those as I could fit in; they were great flash fiction pieces. Although calling something "flash fiction" I find is a turnoff for me. "Short stories" is better, I think. Or maybe "Novel Minis," if we could call them that without getting sued by Apple.
Anyway: they were really good.
As was this pre-history. The Saharan desert, created by a wizard duel. Nice touch. What's neat to see is that you created this full-fledged world that just lets you write story after story to fill it out. Very Tolkienesque.
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