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“Where are you?” Merlin’s roar echoes through the cave. Nothing answers.
“Come on!” He feels the heat grow behind his eyes. The very walls seem to tremble. “I’m here! Come out and face me!”
“Silence!” comes an answer at last.
Cold air slices at his face and then the great dragon is there, folding his leathery wings as he alights before Merlin, orange eyes smoldering.
“Why are you here? You are not meant to have completed your mission yet.”
“And I won’t. I’ve come here to refuse it.”
The dragon snorts. “You cannot refuse. You do not have that power.”
“I have more power than the world will ever know,” Merlin retorts, the heat growing behind his eyes again. The walls begin to quake. “You have always told me so. I am Emrys. I am magic itself. And I refuse to be used by you.”
Kilgharrah’s growl rolls like thunder through the cave, a flame kindling behind his scaly chest. “So,” he hisses, “they have taken you in. You are enamored of them. Or are you simply afraid? Is it strength you lack to do what must be done, or is it heart?”
“I lack neither. I only lack your blind conviction that killing the Pendragons is ‘what must be done.’”
“Foolish,” he spits. “All that I have taught you, throughout your life, the history, the information I have imparted to you! The innumerable cruelties the Pendragons have inflicted upon magical folk, the heartless, merciless people they are –
“Your information was wrong.”
“You deny Uther is a monster?” the dragon beats his wings, furious, “A murderer, an executioner of our people! Our children!”
“Uther is a vicious tyrant! He deserves no mercy. But his son, Arthur –
“There will be no peace in Albion until the Pendragon line is ended!” Kilgharrah roars. “That is your purpose!”
“Arthur Pendragon,” Merlin insists, “is not his father. He has taken no innocent lives, nor would he. I refuse to kill him.”
“Foolish boy –
“To kill the prince, beloved by his people, would be foolish! It would only prove what Uther has been preaching all along, that magic is a threat to the stability of the kingdom. It would only harden the hearts and minds of the people against us. Instead of peace, we would have further strife.”
“Kill Uther then!” Kilgharrah howls. “His people fear and curse him! His death would not even begin to pay for the lives he took –
“But Arthur,” Merlin cuts him off forcefully, “It would break his heart, and in mending he would harden it. Against magic, and all our kind. Against me. I refuse to do that to him.”
“You would weigh one man’s heart against justice for thousands?”
“I place my hope for justice and for peace in that one man’s heart! Arthur is not a tyrant. Killing his father would all but ensure that he becomes one. How could any justice come from that?”
“You are defending the honor of a Pendragon –
“I’m defending the honor of a great man!” Merlin bellows, and a rock crashes to the ground. The walls begin to crack. “Not only a great man, but a good man. A man I trust. A man I love.”
“You love,” the dragon sneers. “You don’t want to break his heart. I am the one who raised you! I gave you everything, and you would throw it all away –
“You gave me nothing but this twisted purpose!” Merlin takes a deep breath, and the rumbling of the cave stills. “Well, I’m giving it back to you. I refuse to be your weapon.”
Merlin turns his back on Kilgharrah and walks away, toward the dawn breaking at the mouth of the cave.
“And whose weapon would you be instead?” the dragon mocks behind him.
He turns one last time as he reaches the cave’s entrance. His old master’s eyes burn with rage.
“I would be his.”