A short while later, the little gathering broke up, and I returned to my room.

When I say ‘room,’ I mean massive fuck-off suite of rooms which I now occupy in Merlin's Tower.

The Big M had been a little bit leery in letting me move in here when I first settled into life at Tintagel. Apparently, he was worried that my tendency to "touch everything without thinking " might cause a timeline-concluding event or some such silliness. As I’d once had a T-shirt printed with those very words emblazoned across my chest, I didn't think I was in too much of a position to argue.

However, since the rather epic confrontation with Aurelius and, more importantly, the mammoth amount of time I had spent locked in a time loop, Merlin seemed to think I may be a little less trigger-happy.

To be clear, I wasn't necessarily sure that was the case, but I appreciated the vote of confidence.

Merlin's Tower - well, I guess my tower now - stood at the far corner of the castle overlooking the sea. Compared to Aurelius' Dark Tower, it was pretty average in height - it's not the size, my dear - but had far greater girth. The inside was divided up into three floors, up through which a stone spiral staircase reached towards the roof, which was open - via a wooden shutter - to the elements.

I thought of Floor One as “random shit which a hoarder would baulk at". It seemed Merlin had never seen an unusual-looking rock or piece of weirdly shaped wood without scooping it up and then putting it on a shelf. At first, I'd assumed everything must have some sort of special Qi-related significance, but as far as I could tell, it was all just, as my grandmother would have said, "fucking tut". Even Merlin was a little hazy about the details when I tried to pinpoint why he kept some of this stuff.

Life is long, my dear, he said airily, and you never know when— he considered the bunch of twigs I was brandishing— the hair of a giant lamprey may be useful.

The Second Floor was much more pleasant - in that every available surface was not cluttered with millennia of piles of crud. Here was what I charitably referred to as my ‘living quarters.’ As I did not really require food, drink, or even sleep much anymore, it was all still fairly spartan.

However, there was a comfortable chair that I'd learned was the focal point for all the Qi the tower channelled from the atmosphere, and that was a pretty decent spot to while away the evenings undertaking some cycling.

You know I died in that chair?

"Yes, Big M, I do."

Don't you feel awkward? Sitting in it?

Not especially

That's where I died, my dear. Surely you have some sort of... what do you people call it? an ick about taking up the same space as a dead body

I opened my mouth to explain that - when you’d spent a fair bit of time eating out of bins, sharing needles and always sleeping on the wet patch - the idea of sitting on a chair someone died in a few months ago really didn’t register on the old gross-out-metre. In fact, I'd be amazed if l’d owned a single item of furniture someone hadn't died in, on or under before I... acquired it.

Also, you know, I was literally squatting in the hollowed-out body of a British spearman that had passed away just before I took possession. I don’t know. Maybe it was just me, but it would have felt a touch arch to feel icky about a fucking chair when I was happily rocking this skinsuit.

However, with the power of my newfound cultivator maturity, I was learning quite how fucked up was my previous view of the world. So, I settled on, "it makes me feel close to you, Big M," and left it to that.

By the warm glow I felt down our connection, I sensed this was the right answer.

Personal growth, motherfuckers.

The Third Floor, could be opened to the sky if I so wished. Now, I know that sounds lovely, and if this were California, I'd be sunbathing topless with the best of them. Sixth-century Cornwall? Not so much. I'd opened it once, and it was like enacting a scene from the Titanic. It was also wall-to-wall books and scrolls which seemed to be treated with some sort of water repellent.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

If I thought my inventory could hold some shit, if it was nothing compared to these bookshelves,

Spacial storage, my dear. Each shelf cannot quite hold an infinite amount of material, but it's not too far off from that.

“Cool. So where do you keep your porn stash?"

My dear, I am a legendary cultivator. I do not need such things such as a 'porn stash'. I am shocked you even suggested it.

"So, there's no reason at all while you're trying to pull my attention away from the top right shelf in that corner?"

There was a pause. Would you like more information about Caeldfwich?

“Sure, why not horn-dog?"

Caeldfwich was another of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. It was also the one most associated with the legend of King Arthur and - in many ways – could be seen as the embodiment of his rise to power

In my own timeline, there were various ways in which Excalibur was supposed to finally end up in Arthur's possession, but I was a particular sucker for the tale of The Sword in the Stone.

It was quite a downer when Merlin poopooed that.

And it was just lying around waiting for someone to pull it out?

“Well, no. Only the ‘true’ King of England could free it, so when he could, it was a key sign that Arthur was the right guy.”

So, did it flame-fry anyone who pulled it and failed to release it?

I looked down at the quiet form of my own sword. Since failing to destroy Aurelius, it had been extremely reticent of late. Even lending it to Lancelot for his daily sparring seemed to do little to get Drynwyn’s heart racing. I was worried I might have broken it.

“No, Excalibur didn’t hurt anyone who tried to draw it from the stone. It just wouldn't be pulled out.”

What's the point of that?

I sensed I wasn't going to be able to get Merlin on board with the mystical joy of the tale of the Sword in the Stone. "What about Caeldfwich? How is it supposed to be recovered?".

Ah, just a standard Neriad-gifting ceremony. You find her, ask for it, and providing she doesn’t take against you, you are suddenly the proud owner of a Treasure of Britain. But what's interesting about Caeldfwich isn't how you get it. It's what it can do once you own it.

"Which is what?"

Caeldfwich destroys Qi.

*

In the dim and distant past, when the world was still young - or my early twenties, as Merlin put it - a tribe of giants became fed up with the way in which cultivators were throwing their weight around.

I chose not to ask Merlin to fill in the blanks around exactly what he meant here. We had an understanding that the adventures of "young Merlin” were not going to be made into a heartwarming CBBC special anytime soon.

So, in order to buy themselves a bit of room to - you know - not be slaughtered, these giants sought to forge a weapon that would even-up the score somewhat. They took the metal from a meteorite, quenched it in the blood of as many cultivators as they could round up, and crafted a sword.

They called it Caeldfwich - Mage Killer - which when drawn from its scabbard - which they imbued with significant healing properties - it would create a void around its bearer that no Qi or Qi-empowered technique could breach.

Now, when I was the only cultivator of substance around, it was obviously not an ideal implement to have floating around.

"But with Aurelius Ambrosius kicking ass and taking names, it suddenly seems a more attractive option?"

I see we are on the same page

“So how do we find it?"

Caeldfwich has a bearer. She'll be a water-based nymph, a Neriad, and if I know anything about that particular Sword, she'll be desperate to hand the snotty cow over to the most righteous man she comes across.

"And we want that to be Arthur, I guess?"

We do. But it needs to be more than just Arthur riding into Tintagel swinging around around a nice, shiny new toy. If that was all it took, we'd have given him Drynwyn, my dear, and called the Witan a month or so back. No, we need the other British kings to go on this quest with him, so when Arthur obtains Caeldfwich, we can show he has been chosen above all of them. That's how he becomes the Pendragon.

"And how do we ensure the . . . the Neriad gives the sword to Arthur and not one of the other Kings? Assuming they ever agree to join the quest."

That's easy, my dear; we cheat.

And so, the call went out to the other British Kingdoms that still resisted the Saxons. To Gwent. To Powys. To Deheubarth. To Gwynedd. The message went out far and wide, but it was to those four that Merlin insisted on the most persuasive messages of missions.

We get those four Kingdoms behind Arthur, and it won't matter what anyone else thinks.

"And they're not behind him already?"

In theory, sure. All pledged fealty to Uther, which included that they would honour him as the Pendragon and accepted Arthur as his heir. However, my dear, since the Saxons destroyed Isca and reached Tintagel's gates, there is disquiet. I may be a spectre of what l once was, but even I can sense the ambition of the rest of those sworn to follow Arthur. They will not be able to resist a chance to unseat him. And a quest for Treasure of Britain? That is a very good chance indeed.

It was three weeks before messengers returned and another month on from that before we saw clouds of dust in the distance that spoke of the arrivals of entourages.

For a Witan had been called. And it looked like we had visitors.