The Legacy of Arthur

Part 2

Even Moran's eyes had suddenly widened, the man obviously not expecting to find anyone alive in the hole.

"Let's move." I said quietly, heading forward along the path.

"Who is that?" Hartley whispered.

"You have entered the realm of magic and death. Turn back and repent!" the voice wailed pitifully, and I felt like I could hear the sound of flailing limbs in the way his voice modulated.

"Shouldn't we listen to the disembodied voice warning us to leave?" Moran asked, a hint of nervousness creeping into his lazy tone.

"In my experience, no," I answered with a smirk, my boots scuffling along the gravel strewn path. We rounded the corner and found ourselves faced with a few decaying shelves that held a variety of unidentifiable objects. "They don't warn you if there's an actual threat."

"Who doesn't?" Hartley asked insistently.

"In the name of our lord and savior, I swear I will send a dragon to rend you limb from limb," the voice announced desperately before adding. "The dragon will be very frightening!"

"Disembodied threatening voices," I explained to Hartley, pausing to spin a silvered vial in my fingers. Something within rattled, and I set the object back down.

"Do you often find yourself dealing with disembodied voices?" Moran asked angrily. "As I feel that would be a sign of severe mental disease, Lieutenant."

"Moran!" Hartley gaped like a fish, his mouth opening and closing, shocked by the man's conduct towards an officer, I assumed.

"You've made it abundantly clear that you hear the voice as well," I responded coolly, stepping out into a large, stone room. A platform, roughly the size of a man, had been carved out of the far wall. What I assumed were personal belongings sat in decayed and barely identifiable piles about the chamber. "Maybe my 'mental disease' is contagious?" I added.

"Oh no!" The voice was somehow smaller now, and the source was far more identifiable. Perched on a rusted table in the center of the room was a small glass sphere, held aloft by a claw-footed silver bracket. Inside the sphere was a particularly ancient looking man. I could see a pointed hat on his head. The faded color could have been blue or purple, but the man was otherwise obscured by an absurd amount of gray hair. Flowing from both his face and the top of his head, the man's beard seemed to have long ago merged with his hair and dominated the small space within the sphere. Only his face was visible, pressed up against the side like a child peering through a window. "Leave me alone!"

"What the bloody hell is that thing!?" Moran cried out, taking a step back. He fumbled with his rifle, and I quickly lifted my hand, gloved palm out, to stop him.

"It's nothing that can harm you, soldier. Drop the gun," I said, looming over the glass ball. The man inside gave me a withering look before his face disappeared within the mass of hair. It reappeared in an entirely different spot on the surface, with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

"I am not a thing!" the man in the sphere cried out before disappearing within the ball of hair. "I am M--" His voice was far too muffled to hear the remainder of what he said. His face reappeared, smashed against the glass, with a palm to either side. "the king of England!"

"You are not the king of England!" Moran shouted back, and I rubbed my temples.

"That's not what I said!" The old man wailed, and I quickly silenced the escalating conflict with a fist on the table.

"He said," I began, turning to look at the two soldiers, "that he is Merlin, adviser to the court of Arthur, King of England."

"I don't believe that for a second," Moran announced.