“THE CYCLE RENEWS, FALLS THE GREAT TREE.”
It’s one thing to see it and know that it’s there. It’s a whole ‘nother ball game to see it coming right at you. The incoming tsunami of Change, of raw potential, pure random, writhing entropy, barreling down from beyond the sky like the implacable uncaring tidal wave of primordial power that it was.
It was beautiful, and terrible.
The twisting glut of magic crashed into the soft flesh of our world, almost forcing me not to notice a flicker shooting across space brightening the descending night sky as if it were day. The afterimages seared themselves into my brain . And in that half-second, I saw other worlds as if they were a short plane ride away, teeming with life and scenes that Hollywood couldn’t match in their wildest dreams.
“LIMITS UNBOUND, POTENTIAL REALIZED.”
I had felt it before, lived through its effects, and survived its toll, but I had never looked up and actually seen the naked Ripple in all its reality-altering glory. Watching it casually flick through our dimension without a care in the world was awe inspiring and yet demeaning at the same time. I never really knew, or inherently grasped on a deep level how infinitesimally small I really was until that moment. I was an ant, edging towards the biting lip of a cliff, trying to see a pod of whales in the distance, uncaring in their size, relaxed in their power, yet, so much bigger than me that they would never even know about me. I was small.
“THE GATES RETURN, THE BALANCE IS FREE.”
Cracks opened up in space, some cleanly split across the sky and others jaggedly broke up the earth as they splintered off in random directions. Through several shimmering gates that exploded into existence in the sky, islands floated out, chunks of land with their own alien ecosystems gently coasting on the wind, adrift to their new rhythm. Through other gates, sleek shapes glided through on lazy wings, roaring and chirping and screeching a welcome to their new home.
“EVERY END IS TRANSIENT . . . FOR ME.”
A sharp, cracking sound reverberated through all of Earth’s existence at the end of the last wave, the remnants of the seal keeping this planet away from the rest of the Cosmos falling off like a snake shedding its scales. Bright silvery shapes made themselves known on the horizon, flying around at angles and speeds that simply weren’t organic, quickly exploding from sight.
Back on my little section of earth, my surprise almost rendered my impromptu experiment impotent as I took it all in. Holding Gungnir to my chest with my left arm, my right arm was stretched out halfway with one finger carefully transmitting one multi-sided thought to my blood jar, that thought being my life/soul/consciousness/me. The act of focusing my thoughts was difficult, but I pictured one of those old Chinese acupuncture/pressure points and meridian diagrams.
That one idea itself, encapsulated with the entire concept of what makes up the core of a person, traveled down my arm, given power through desire, and resonated with the crimson part of me in that jar. Removing my finger in the nick of time, the crash was more seen than felt as the ritual circle did its job better than I expected, even with Gungnir greedily gobbling up whatever extraplanar energy that leaked through.
The Northern rune glowed a solid pearl white, and green incandescent runoff traveled down the siphoning circuits to the East and West runes where they turned a pulsing blue. The Southern rune under the blood jar glowed a deep, royal red, which was slowly overtaken by a softer gold mixed with white.
“IT’S ALIVE!” Gungnir cackled, the orb bouncing in my arm as if it had the body to actually laugh. “MWAHAHAHAHA!”
Turning to look at where Reeanth’s circle was, a soft boom shuddered through the air as the Ripple faded.
“Uh, you uh, might wanna, turn around. Slowly.” Following the advice of Gungnir’s suddenly quiet voice, I carefully turned while gently expanding my magical senses.
“Secure the jar!” and “Take him out!” rang out simultaneously right before a booted foot crashed into my face knocking me clear out of my earthen ritual circle and into a downed tree that was on fire ten feet away. Not taking even a second to catalog my injuries, I trusted my Flesh Sorcery to instantly start the regeneration process as I activated Svalinn’s defensive measures. Both gauntlets expanded and shielded my prone form with a secondary layer of conjured stone covering that unfortunately blocked my vision as well.
“I said slowly!” Gungnir angrily whispered. “That wasn’t slow!”
“It was slow as fuck, like impress-the-mom-of-a-sloth-you-wanna-date kinda slow!” I growled back, struggling through a fucked up lip while shaking the cobwebs out of my head. “You know what? Screw this.”
[I’m no pansy, and I’m done rolling over and ‘being kind’.] I mentally snarled as I forced my brain to work. Pulling stored power from Svalinn, I stood up fully while using Earth Sorcery to make the conjured stone shield explode outward similar to a fragmentation grenade, my gauntlet shields suddenly sprouting long blades as my magical armor engaged now that the surprise was over. Except that it wasn’t, because I hadn’t gotten a visual of what had treated my face like a kick-in training door for the Army’s recruits.
Twenty dark silver futuristic guns pointed at me, each held by a hulking human form dressed in almost skin tight metallic glowing armor way too tall to be a normal human, easily almost nine-feet. Bladed weapons attached to their backs showed over their overly muscled shoulders, face masks obscured their features except for the biggest dude in the back. Hieroglyphic runes glowed a menacing red and sharp green as they softly crackled in the background of my thumping pulse.
Mr. Big and Tall was standing on a ramp that extended down from his cigar shaped… spacecraft, I’m guessing.
“You two,” He said, his deep voice cutting through my shock as he pointed at two of his soldiers in the rear of the formation. “Check the captain, make sure she’s all right, and secure her container as well.”
Initial greetings aside, I decided that I didn’t like these people. Simply put, their manners were lacking. Reaching out with my mind, I strengthened my link to Gungnir so that we wouldn’t have to talk to be on the same page. The orb rose and hovered two-feet above my head and quickly projected a pulsing magical shield over myself as I reached out with Earth Sorcery and sunk my entire ritual circle plus my blood jar twenty-feet down into the earth, neatly packaging it safely away from the coming conflict. With that prize out of the line of fire, I did the same to Reeanth and her jar, taking care to leave her a nice sized air bubble down there.
Feeling my pain recede as my Flesh Sorcery did its work did not in any way curb the earthquake of rage tremoring through me. A icy shiver of rationality worked its way up my spine, reminding me that these people probably don’t have too much intel on what’s going on right now, and that they or their main group also probably have my family. Taking a half second to pulse my magical senses around me, I saw that the one who booted my face was closer to me than the rest of his group, which meant he would serve as the perfect example.
Gungnir flowed into spear form and fell into my outstretched hand. Angrily slamming Gungnir’s base into the ground with a pulse of power, a minor earthquake shook the earth knocking everyone to the ground. Gathering even more power, I tilled the loosened earth underneath the face-booter and flooded the area with conjured water to turn it into grasping mud that reached up with earthen hands. The mud came alive, yanking and pulling him down into the mire until only his head was showing. As he sank down, I used Water Sorcery to make the mud as slippery and nasty as it could be, then pulled the temperature down so that it was just above freezing.
As the Centauri soldiers attempted to regain their feet, I walked forward and put Gungnir’s three-sided speartip to the mud-sunk idiot’s eye. “Move and he loses most of his face,” I said softly, rage sharpening my quiet tone. “Attack me and I’ll sink him and use him for all kinds of arcane experiments. Threaten me, and I’ll dissect every last one of you while keeping you just on the edge of life, and then maybe feed you to my pet alligator - who, trust me, is a brutally messy eater.”
As I spoke, I simultaneously used my power to conjure water near my feet. The living water lashed out, shackling the downed men with ice restraints. Holding the silence for ten breaths after a show of force made it clear who the top dog was. Nobody moved, they barely breathed. Looking down at the blue-lipped captive at my feet, I squatted down, tipping his head up with the speartip. Blood ran down his chin from where I deliberately cut him.
“Do you want to live?” I asked, my voice light and carefree as if I didn’t have a worry in the world. “Or do you want to die, suffocating in the freezing cold mud a hundred yards below the tender rays of the sun?” Tendrils of muck under my control slowly climbed up his face, little fingers grabbing at the edge of his nostrils. The forced tone change pushed my agenda, that maybe I had a few screws loose and wouldn’t mind following through on some of my promises.
The world’s softest explosion went off behind me, all sound and literally no pressure wave. My armor’s shields were still active and didn’t register any kind of assault, so I took my time straightening up and turning around, but only part of the way so that I could keep my prisoners in sight.
“Hai! Or, alo! Or is it . . . ah . . bonjour mon ami!”
The most unassuming wrinkled old man wearing gray robes and holding one gnarled, polished old cane in one hand and a small green book in another. Glass balls filled with sloshing liquid clinked from a belt around his waist as he moved. Putting the tattered book in his pocket, he took off his small, pointed hat and executed a very formal bow. Standing up with a big smile, he took a deep breath to talk and I quickly cut him off.
“English. English. No Français!” I said, punctuating the French accent, doing my best to establish the language of communication as he’d given a greeting in multiple tongues.
“Oh! My sincerest apologies, my good man!” He tittered, the happiness never leaving his demeanor. “You must be terribly confused!” The man continued, suddenly adopting a thick Cockney accent. “Blimey! I know I am. But, all of us God’s children look alike yet Babel in different tongues.”
Understanding him took me a second as his accent was overly thick. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful . . .”
“Then don’t be!” He cut in happily. His eyes sparkled, hints of green, yellow, and blue cycling back and forth in his pupils. His dark green cloak flared back for a second revealing that his left arm was completely monstrous, a mix of some twisted animal connected to his shoulder by a living purple liquid that acted as a substitute joint.
“Right, well, fuck that, but, who the hell are you?” I said, my patience running short. “That’s the best Merlin costume I’ve ever seen, and since magic is real, might you be him?”
He reared back as if smacked. “The nerve! Merlin?!” The stranger spat on the ground as his accent changed again. “You mistake me, Monsieur Flamel, for that half rate trickster who bandied tricks to peasants?” The change from almost drugged up happiness to barely sane anger threw me for a loop. Engaging his evidenced bipolarity, the old man flourished his hat, waving it at himself. “I am Monsieur Flamel, philosopher king, maker of wonders, the Twister of Time, at your service.” At which point he bowed again. My puzzled look threatened to tip the fragile scale of his personality as he realized that I had no clue what he was talking about.
Since it felt like the combat part of my day had truly left, my mental connection with Gungnir relaxed just a little, so normal communication resumed.
“I don’t sense any kind of magic or power on this guy,” Gungnir whispered quietly, “which is kinda scary. Even Rath, who was way above us in terms of power, we could at least sense.”
“Yeah, the first time that I couldn’t sense anything about someone was a while ago.” I answered. “And I’m pretty sure that was a god.”
“I assure you, I am not a deity, merely a humble naturalist in pursuit of the greatest mortal goal.” Flamel cut in.
“Which is . . . “
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“Have we lost so much already?” Flamel said, shameful wonder undergirding his voice. Looking past me, he scanned the small platoon behind me, still on their backs and bound in ice with one mostly submerged in the ground. “But, how then?” he continued on. I was pretty sure that he was talking to himself at that point.
“Clearly some skill or lore remains. Knowledge my boy, knowledge!” At this point, it was clear his five-year old attention span was back on me. I snagged another glance underneath his cloak. Small bottles containing struggling faces made of screaming mist lined his shirt. “With knowledge we can turn back time, bring down the gods, create anew and even turn the heavens to the devices of men!”
[Uhm, I’ve seen that look before,] I sent to Gungnir. [That’s crazy, pure fuckin crazy right there. You see a chick with eyes like that, you run, and run fast.]
Turning my attention to Flamel, I said in my most soothing customer service, “Then let me apologize for my rudeness. I truly didn’t know who you were, or what you were. Earth has only recently regained magic and I have had it for about two months now. Not sure as time gets away from me too. Whatever knowledge I have surely pales in comparison to yours.”
[Got it, got it!] Gungnir mentally whispered, the sound of flipping pages softly ringing in my head. [Flamel, Nicholas Flamel, better known as the dude who turned lead to gold. Took me a minute to sort through your memories, damn they’re unorganized, but he was mentioned in the freaking Harry Potter series as the guy who made the Philosopher’s Stone. Then you spent a day looking him - the real him - up. According to whatever accounts you read, he really wasn’t much, just some guy ahead of his time in search of an impossible goal.]
[Clearly humanity got some things wrong man!] I sent back, mentally whispering as if I had gotten caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
“Fiction! You know me from tall tales and erroneous fables!” The old man’s eyes were bulging, threatening to explode out of his head and cause some serious damage. “With my potions I have escaped the ravages of time! With my tinctures I have removed ailments from the masses. With my solutions I have brought down an empire and raised another!”
[How the fuck did he . . . ] I thought.
“And with my knowledge, I expanded my mind! Your tittering words don’t go unheeded by me, even if you don’t speak them aloud. Pitiful, simply pitiful.”
Following my gut instinct that combat was in fact, not over for the day, I mentally synced up with Gungnir again and took a step back, preparing for the worst while trying not to escalate this situation any further.
“Better, that’s a bit better,” Flamel said, his demeanor bouncing back from erupting indignation to thoughtful examination. I got the feeling that this man was literally looking through me as his sharp eyes took in every detail. “Also, no genetic enhancement for the young sorcerer? Smart, smart. Recombinator treatments stripped the Centauri of the Chaos in their strands, removing their sorceries and displacing them from the halls of power. Anyways, streams of consciousness are much harder to discern than individualized thought fragments, and combining the two of yours creates a variable of indefinite chaos of sensations shielding you from intrusion. Brilliant! Oh, I must study this!”
Dropping his study session of my thoughts, he reached into the folds of his coat and pulled out an amorphous blue blob, then tossed it in the middle of the downed Centauri. The gelatinous blob popped on contact with the ground and billowed out like a pressurized cloud that was set free. The soldiers’ wide eyes and sudden frantic efforts to escape my bindings told me that this was probably not good.
Leaving them to their fate, whatever that might be, I fell backwards, using my Earth Sorcery to swallow me up and pull me down into the dirt to where I had stored my blood jar. Taking another moment to sense and orient towards Reeanth, I traveled through the dirt as if it were water. Hopping into her bigger bubble by merging it with my own, I grabbed her blood jar and her ankle and prepared to use Earth Sorcery to get us the hell outta there. A quick kick from her knocked me into the dirt wall.
I grunted in surprise. “It’s me dumbass, stop kicking.”
“My lord! I’m sorry, I couldn’t see.” Her fumbling around with her hands was a little awkward, as I had just a little light from Gungnir to show my face.
“Forget it. Some guy named Nicholas Flamel showed up, and . . “
Reeanth blanched. “And you escaped?!”
Turning to her, I willed Gungnir to glow a bit brighter. “Yeah, but he didn’t really . . “
“We need to go, my lord. NOW!”
I began making our makeshift magical bubble in the earth go down, till we were sitting a hundred meters down. “Ok, we’re pretty far down here now,” I reassured her. “So, who the fuck is he? I mean, delusions of grandeur got nothin’ on him.”
Reeanth shook with fear. She looked even more afraid than when I ‘rescued’ her from Kong. Barely able to take a deep breath, Reeanth spoke as if relating the most vile horror story she could think of.
“Nicholas Flamel is certifiably insane, my lord. He is a wanted criminal in every known system, but almost no one can take him down, and those that are powerful enough to do so will not as sometimes he is the only one who can help them with problems on their scale. For us mortals, he is an uncaring sociopath who deals out blessings and curses at a whim.” Reeanth’s voice broke as she continued. “Rumor has it that he once saved a planet of the Fae from a horrible plague that had wiped out all of their younger generation, and his cure made them stronger. Centuries after that, we found out that he was the genesis of that plague! And if he has his eyes set on you for any reason, then we are not long for this Earth!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, something ripped us both out of the ground, not gently. It was as if the Earth had suddenly gained a mind of its own and spit us out. I landed on my shoulder, my armor softening the impact as I attempted to roll with it while gingerly curling my body around the blood jars. The ringing in my ears from the ejection was making concentration impossible.
“My good lad! You’re back!” The shriveled old man’s excitement would have put any two year old’s birthday jubilations to shame. “Oh hush now Granidorth, here’s a snack. Do me a favor and restrain them both, gently!”
Not so gentle hands made of constantly moving earth and rock hoisted me up, then hugged me to a wide body of even less comfortable dirt and sand. In the two seconds I had to make my eyes focus, I saw that my captor was a golem or some kind of earth elemental. Its pale yellow crystal eyes communicated no emotion as it forcefully sank me inside of its body, only leaving my head exposed, facing forward. Out of the corner of my eye, Reeanth struggled with the outstretched arm of the golem, its fist wrapped around her waist. Her kicks and punches were useless, and even the bursts of magic bleeding from the weaponized runes on her suit did nothing.
[Yup, she’s screwed. Nothing we can do to save her. But our asses on the other hand . . . ].
[What the fuck? Gungnir, where the fuck are you?]
[Hmmm, guess that hit to the head musta’ been harder than I thought. I’m stuck to the backside of your shoulder. Forget about me, your Flesh Sorcery will fix your head in a minute. I’m working on this hunk of rock right now. Distract the old fart.]
Lucky for me, it turns out I didn’t have to. In my haze, and the conversation with Gungnir that took all of my brainpower to focus and work through the minor head injury, I didn’t notice another old man currently taking up all of Flamel’s attention.
This new guy was old, but not the frail kind of old that everyone fears they will be when year 80 hits. This man was that kind of old that makes you afraid just by looking at him, like the proverbial old man in a young man’s profession. An old soldier. He had the marbled physique of a dedicated powerlifter or a well-fed lumberjack from his old days, and apparently did his best to stay in the kind of shape that Vikings would drool over.
Veins stood out on his massive forearms like steel cables, and his ice blue eyes crackled with anger. Loose gray pants that would not be out of sorts at a Buddhist temple clashed with a rainbow short sleeve shirt and steel shod boots attached to tree trunk legs. But what made this man scarier than his own visage, was the expression of fear and petulance that Flamel wore, his hands shaking as his knees began to knock together.
“But, you’re on vacation!” Flamel screeched, waving his arms and gripping extravagant glass vials in his hands. “You weren’t supposed to be here yet!”
The large old man stalked towards Flamel, steady and confident in his power, each step reminding the mountains how frail they are. Trees shuddered in his wake.
“Another step and I’ll end them!” I almost wished he would. Flamel’s voice was grating on my ears worse than Gungnir’s endless early morning renditions of Bowling for Soup’s song ‘1985’.
Mountain man paused, his gaze smoothly taking in my predicament and then resting where Reeanth continued to struggle. A small smile quirked the left side of his face. Raising his left hand, he snapped his fingers, light glistening off of a thick golden ring. The golem holding Reeanth and I blew away softly like an ocean wave dragging a sand castle back to its composite parts. Falling to my knees, I used Flesh Sorcery to forcefully reengage my limbs that had fallen asleep so that my face wouldn’t hit the ground. A second snap rang out and the entire world twisted in on itself.
“Flamel is not one to be taken lightly, young sorcerer.” Only the sound of Reeanth’s retching several feet away from me kept me grounded as I heard what easily could have passed as the voice of Santa himself speaking perfect English. My own stomach threatened to rebel, but another flex of Flesh Sorcery kept it at bay even though my eyes would not agree with what my sense of logic dictated should be true.
We were back in my under-tree hideout. The stone table had food displayed in nice china dishes, and a big covered pitcher wafted the thick, heavenly smell of coffee towards me.
“Wait, how, what?” I stuttered, swiveling my head to take in the unbelievable view. Reeanth was hurling her breakfast next to the chair Sally sat in not too long ago, and the huge old man whose presence felt like a burgeoning thunderstorm was leaning on the wall where the Yggdrasil sapling’s roots cut through the stone.
“Mastering wild magic has its perks.” I could hear the raised eyebrow that I knew accompanied that statement, the calm self-awareness of his power and the confidence that it gave while trying to gently explain a complex subject to a child. Reaching out with Flesh Sorcery, I calmed Reeanth’s ill constitution and quickly checked her for injury as I tried to wrap my mind around what just happened.
“So,” I started, taking measure of what the Norse deity Odin must have looked like before his bargain for wisdom. “If that was Nicholas Flamel, and he’s not what I would have ever pictured, then who does that make you?”
“Merlin.” Reeanth croaked from where she sat on the ground, scooting herself away from her mess. “Supposedly the last Sorcerer - and the first.” With a flick of Earth Sorcery, I made the rock floor swallow up the stinky puddle of her mess.
“Not anymore,” Merlin chuckled while setting his large frame into the stone chair I had made for the big, southern man Jimmy. “Besides, letting that rat bastard get his hands on you is not something I would want to deal with down the road. His mind is sick.”
Resting his chin in one giant hand, he leaned forward, looked deep into my soul and asked, “Which begs the question, why you?”
“Why me what?” I asked back, trying to make sense of this damn confusing day. “Blood jars, Centauri soldiers, a legendary Alchemist who turns out to be real, the last Ripple? Me being a Sorcerer? Where the hell do you want me to begin, or even how much should I be telling you?!” My voice got louder and louder as my list went on, but not loud enough to be considered actual yelling. Reeanth’s wide eyes and slightly shaking head were my warning signs that maybe I was going a bit too far, to which Gungnir stridently agreed telepathically.
“First, the Centauri have been removed to Asia where they are currently hunting for Reeanth and they have no memory of you. And second, how about you tell me all of it?” He asked calmly. My silence spoke volumes. “Seriously,” Merlin said, easily adopting normal American colloquialisms as if putting on a new shirt. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have just left you with that lunatic. And I don’t want anything from you, trust me on that one.”
“Let’s say that I do, just for a moment,” I began.
“Can I speak with you for a moment, my lord?” Reeanth asked, conveying with her eyes that I was about to make some kind of idiotic blunder. It was the look that wives give their husbands who meet their sensitive friends for the first time, the ‘shut the hell up and be polite’ look. I had barely gotten my excuse out and Reeanth had whipped me into the adjacent room, slammed the door and began berating me with all the frantic energy of a starving pitbull, but quietly.
“What are you doing? This is Merlin, THE MERLIN, the last Sorcerer! The first Sorcerer for that matter! This man, this demi-god, is not someone you want to piss off!”
“I uh, hold on . . “
A light slap cut me off. “Do not hem and haw right now. Merlin is the barely mortal Sorcerer/mage king of wild magic. He is the only reason humanity as a whole still exists. He travels at the whim of his magic to wherever it takes him and works miracles, ends wars, diverts disasters, saves the lives of commoners and royalty alike. Flamel is the most insane individual you will meet outside of the gods, and Merlin scares him!”
Mental whiplash all over again, which led to my usual eloquence. “Huh?”
Reeanth’s eyes bored into my own as every word she said hit with the force of a sludgehammer. “Treat. Him. Like. A. God!”
Even though my Flesh Sorcery had fixed my ails by now, finding myself back in the main room, sitting in a chair in front of Merlin who was calmly sipping coffee prompted me to do another scan of my brain just to make sure that this wasn’t some crazy hallucination. Reeanth was standing behind me just off to the left a bit, her hand on my shoulder.
“Mr. Merlin, sir,” I started, not really knowing where to begin as Reeanth’s grip tightened on my armor, making it creak audibly. “Before I tell you anything, just tell me why you even ask.”
I saw him suppress a small chuckle. “Truly, not knowing is ecstasy,” he said.
Chewing that over for a second, I realized what was going on. “Uhm, ignorance is bliss?”
“Yes! That’s the one!” He roared with laughter. “Ah, how I love idioms. The English language is so stuffed of them.”
“Full of them?”
Laughing way too hard for this situation, Merlin hit the table hard enough with one bear-sized hand to put a few cracks into it while his other hand was wiping away tears.
“Not to spoil the mood, Merlin sir,” I carefully interjected, making sure to chew over each word slowly, “But are you maybe a little bit crazy too, or is that just a normal side-effect of immortality?”
I noticed the magical strain on my armor as Reeanth was putting out an incredible amount of force gripping my shoulder.
“A fair question, several fair questions in fact,” Merlin said, downing the rest of his coffee in one thirsty pull, casually disregarding the searing heat. “The first, I simply want to know. What was it like to suddenly have Sorcery, to meet deities when they’ve been myths to your culture for so long? And as for the second . . .” he said as he leaned in, small strands of green lightning crackling in his eyes and down his cheeks. “We’re all mad here.”
As the pucker factor shot through the roof, I quickly began to tell this imposing mountain of a yoked Santa my tale, leaving nothing out. Gungnir illustrated my autobiography holographically in the middle of the table, often portraying me as a bumbling idiot, victoriously stumbling blindly in such a way that Lady Luck herself must have had both hands on the wheel.
“I had no idea,” Reeanth said as show and tell ended. “What pain you must be in…“
“Fuck off,” I said, stopping her short. Turning to face her, I stood up and stuck a finger in her face. “I don’t need your pity. I don’t need your sympathy. I don’t even need this fucking oath you gave me. All I need right now is knowledge, and I have a copy of your brain.”
[Ouch.] Gungnir told me mentally. [That came off a little harsh.]
I didn’t care. Reliving the past brought a little too much up right now for me to be kind.
“And you!” I said, whirling around to give Merlin the same treatment. “Almost eight billion humans were on this planet before the Ripple, and now most of us are gone, kidnapped by freaking aliens and weird-ass futuristic humans that might as well be aliens. Where were you?! And then, you come to visit like some long lost uncle, just bouncing in here with your belly full of jelly? What are we, related?”
“Well . . .” He started.
“Oh fuck no,” I laughed. “Bullshit! Out of everyone, I’m the descendant of the great Merlin?! What are you trying to pull?”
“It’s not as you imagine, young sorcerer . . . “
“Then ‘de-imagine’ it for me!”
Nervously looking between Reeanth and I, Merlin spoke slowly. “I’ve watched humanity through the seal since the Divide. Your capacity for stories is as unmatched as your tendency towards distortion. The one you call Zeus, he is real, but the Greeks attributed some stories to him that were really about me.”
“Uh huh, and which stories would those be?”
I looked back and forth between Merlin and Reeanth as she blushed slightly. “My lord, I believe he is referring to the accounts of randy encounters.”
My surprise took a while to catch up to my face, but as it did, Merlin continued, “In fact, a large portion of your population is actually related to me in some regard. Arthur was one of mine in fact, but the best example is from your own history. Ghengis Khan, a significant percentage of humanity has some of his genetic markers due to him procreating with so many women in his time. Well… my appetites of old make him look like the humble Taoists.”