Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

MORDRED

Realm of Atlantis

Mordred had become separated from Nate when part of the citadel had fallen, and Merlin had tried to use it as a distraction to escape. Mordred had spotted the attempt and given chase, which he had to admit might not have been the smartest idea he'd ever had.

He caught up with his father next to two large buildings, both of which were at least fifty feet high. Mordred noticed that there were no windows on either building. They were basically fifty-foot-high bricks.

"You like?" Merlin asked.

"What are you doing here?" Mordred asked him.

"We're going to finish what we started," Merlin said. "I can't stop now."

"You could have always stopped."

Merlin laughed. "The evil I've done for the cause, the methods I've used to put us where we are today—there's no coming back from that. I sent you to your death. I didn't know you were going to be tortured for a hundred years at the time, but I knew they were going to try and bring you over to our side."

"Your side?" Mordred asked. "I was turned into a weapon to murder everyone I cared about. You and your friends did that to me."

"I wasn't kept informed of the methods," Merlin said. "I wanted you beside us. Arthur was scared that you'd want to be king, which you were meant to be, but I convinced him that you could be brought around."

"Why create me?" Mordred asked. "Why bother?"

"I didn't know that Arthur was alive until after you were born," Merlin said. "He was more powerful; it was simple mathematics."

"I was tortured for simple mathematics?" Mordred asked and started to laugh. "That's both the most ridiculous and most evil thing I've ever heard."

"I did what needed to be done. Can you say the same?" Merlin snapped.

Mordred drew Excalibur. "Yes," he said softly. "I can. You want to know something? If you'd have just left me alone, I never would have been tortured, never would have come back and put Arthur in a coma. If you'd have just left me alone, you'd have probably achieved all of your goals centuries ago against a vastly underpowered me and Nate. We'd have been killed off or brought into the fold. You'd be in charge right now. All of this, all of the death and destruction on your doorstep—you brought this on yourself. You are responsible for your own demise. Good job, dumbass."

Merlin stepped forward, and the ground beneath Mordred's feet burst open. The rock snaked up, trying to grab hold of him, but Mordred had thrown himself aside, using ice to create a divide between him and the stone.

Mordred made his way toward Merlin, who continuously tore the ground apart, vines of stone trying to grab hold of Mordred and pull him underground. Mordred cut through those that got too close with Excalibur, and when there were too many to avoid, he activated the sword's power, and they collapsed as if their strings had been cut.

Merlin snarled as his magic was made ineffective and used his matter magic as a magical force, blasting it toward Mordred, who again activated the sword's power. The blast moved around him.

Merlin smiled.

Mordred knew that was probably a bad thing and sprinted to the side as huge chunks of the building behind him fell away, smashing into where he'd been standing only moments earlier. Unfortunately, that meant Mordred was no longer concentrating on Excalibur, and the power it held deactivated, leaving Mordred open for Merlin to close the gap between them and punch him with a matter-magic-enhanced fist.

Mordred spun in the air as he impacted with the partially crumbling building, Excalibur slipping through his fingers as more rubble fell around him. Mordred ignored the sword and kept moving, staying away from the pieces of stone that were now seemingly aiming themselves at him.

A shield of air stopped a large stone from crushing him, and another obliterated it. Mordred gathered up the tiny pieces of stone, spinning them faster and faster in a vortex of air and ice, and threw them back at Merlin, who quickly wrapped himself in his own shield of stone.

Mordred sprinted toward his father as the barrage of rock, air, and ice he'd created hit Merlin's shield and obliterated it. It left Merlin open for Mordred to drive a sphere of light right into his father's chest and detonate the magic immediately.

Merlin's matter magic activated once again, protecting him from the worst of the power Mordred had unleashed, but he was still thrown back several feet, his leather armor all but destroyed despite the runes that had been placed on it.

Merlin and Mordred stood apart, staring at one another, each of them breathing hard.

"You've grown as powerful as I'd heard," Merlin said.

"Go fuck yourself," Mordred said.

Merlin smiled. "You can still join us," he said.

"You know what, Darth, I'm good," Mordred said, rolling his shoulders.

Merlin sighed.

Mordred was readying himself for another fight when he was hit in the back by a bolt of lightning that took him off his feet and dropped him on the ground, leaving him gasping for breath.

He turned to fight the newcomer and managed to block a blade of lightning to the back of his head, then drove a blade of ice up into the chest of the red-armored Horseman and twisted it. He removed the blade, only to have the ground open up beneath his feet and smash around him as he fell forward.

Mordred wrapped himself in air and ice, pushing it out as the earth continued to crush him, pulling him down until his legs and lower torso were completely buried. He felt his legs break from the pressure and cried out in pain as he tried to force the earth back with his own magic, light breaking through the cracks in the ground.

The earth was torn apart and thrown up all around him as his light magic exploded outward. Mordred created a shield of air as he lay in the ditch he'd created, and he stopped the hundreds of shards of earth that Merlin had conjured out of the cloud of earth and thrown at Mordred.

Mordred's legs began to heal, but he was now at a serious disadvantage. He activated his blood magic, letting its power wash over him so he could heal, but Merlin kicked him in the legs, causing him to momentarily lose concentration.

Merlin stood above Mordred and tutted. "You always were a disappointment," he said, a blade of ice in his hand.

Necromantic power smashed into Merlin, who hadn't been anticipating an attack. "Get away from him, you son of a bitch," Hel said as she stood beside the injured Horseman and reached out, taking control of its spirit and tearing it out of its body. Hel's eyes rolled up into her head, and her necromancy swirled around her before being launched at a recovering Merlin, driving him into the building behind him, which partially collapsed from the impact.

Hel was beside Mordred a second later. She placed Excalibur beside him. "I think you dropped this. You okay?"

"Blood magic is healing me," he said. "I really wish I didn't have to use it, though."

Hel knew of Mordred's past with addiction to the power of blood magic, and despite the concern on her face, Mordred knew that she wouldn't judge him for its use.

Hel cut across her arm with a dagger from her belt and forced Mordred's hand over the wound. Her power crashed into him, making him gasp as he tried to steady himself. His legs healed, his body coursing with newly found energy. Hel sat on the ground and took a deep breath as Mordred released her arm.

"That was dangerous," Mordred said.

"So is fighting Merlin alone," Hel said. "Dumbass."

Mordred smiled as he got back to his feet and noticed that Hel's wound had already healed. He rolled his neck.

The building that Merlin had been thrown inside was torn apart as he exited. "You are not going to throw me into any more fucking buildings!" Merlin screamed at the top of his lungs.

"He seems mad," Hel said.

Mordred put up a shield of air that stopped the car-size boulder from pulverizing Hel and himself. "Yeah, a bit," Mordred agreed.

"I'm going to stay here and make sure no more of those assholes interrupt you," Hel said and immediately sighed when she saw several Horsemen advancing toward them. "Quit playing with him and finish it."

Mordred and Hel ran in separate directions, Mordred blocking and deflecting everything that his father threw at him. The look of concern on Merlin's face was compounded when he detonated a sphere of shadow magic that shot tendrils of darkness out like Cthulhu was trying to get into the realm and Mordred created a shield of light magic and started to hum the theme tune to The Legend of Zelda.

The shadows recoiled as they touched the light, and Mordred increased the intensity and power of the shield as he walked slowly toward his father. Occasionally, a tendril of shadow would devour part of the shield, but Mordred simply replaced it, never taking his eyes off his father.

"Stop with that infernal song," Merlin shouted.

"It calms me," Mordred said softly. "It makes me smile."

Mordred was five feet in front of his father, who had stopped the shadows and stood before his son, his mouth open in shock.

"I'm stronger than you," Mordred said. "Much, much stronger. We could be here all day trading power, but you created me to have your power and my mother's power. So we both know I'm stronger than you."

Merlin swallowed and suddenly looked nervous.

"Funny thing is, I don't want to kill you," Mordred continued. "I know I should. I know you're nothing but an utter bastard, but I still don't want to."

"Because you're weak," Merlin spat.

Mordred detonated the shield, forcing all the power directly in front of him. Merlin couldn't get his shield up fast enough, and the power smashed into him completely undefended, blinding him, burning his skin and hair. His cries of pain were lost in the maelstrom that Mordred had created, combining his light and air magic into a whirlwind of magical fury that Merlin had no answer to.

The amount of power that Mordred had used left him drained, and when the magic subsided, he had serious issues remaining upright and decided to just drop down to one knee instead of collapsing in the scorch-mark-stricken street.

Merlin lay prone before him, his skin red and raw, his hair all but gone. Changing his light magic to create heat was something that Mordred found to be difficult but effective. Unfortunately, it was also hard to control, so he'd had to wait until there were no bystanders around before using it.

"How?" Merlin asked, his voice raspy.

Mordred forced himself back to a standing position. "I told you, Dad. I am better than you. You made me better than you. That was the whole bloody point."

Merlin nodded. "You and Nate were what Arthur feared," Merlin said, his magic already working overtime to heal his voice.

"I know," Mordred said. "I think that was partially because you made sure of it." Mordred crouched beside his father and drew Excalibur. He activated its power to remove magic and lies and placed the blade of it against Merlin's chest.

Merlin smiled. "I joined him because I thought I could control him. Because I thought he was right, and I figured that with me by his side, I could point him in the right direction. I said that I'd never cross a line. And then that line moved. Slowly, over time, it moved further and further away. It takes a strong person to say no and not move with the line. I was not a strong man. I was a cruel, vindictive man. I did evil because I thought it was for the greater good, and then it was too late to go back.

"When I thought that Arthur was in a coma, I wanted to save him, to make him realize that his way was misguided. I'd invested so much in him as our savior; I refused to see him as anything else."

"I know," Mordred said.

"You know that without my magic, I will die?" Merlin asked.

Mordred nodded. "I don't want to kill you, but I also know you need to die."

Merlin smiled again. "Killing me by removing my power and just letting me die. I always thought I'd live forever."

"No one lives forever," Mordred said. "Not even Arthur."

"He wants his enemies crushed," Merlin said. "I can't lie, can I?"

Mordred shook his head. "For the first time in millennia, you can't hide behind tricks and lies. You can't convince yourself of anything that isn't true. What's Arthur's plan?"

"These buildings—they have hundreds of monsters in them," Merlin said. "Actually, it's probably thousands of monsters. Magically resilient monsters. They used to be human. They were taken and experimented on. Some were forced to learn the dwarven runes. They made bracelets. You've seen them before."

"I have," Mordred said. "Where do they go?"

"Shadow Falls," Merlin said and chuckled. "Damn you for making me say all of this."

A cold pit of fear started inside of Mordred. "Thousands of monsters are being sent to Shadow Falls to kill everyone there."

Merlin nodded weakly. "Not just Shadow Falls. They're going to Washington, DC, too; Gawain was meant to make sure the entire area around the White House was turned into a realm gate, but he got caught. So I sent Lamashtu and the elves there to get it finished. Once Arthur knew that Poseidon was no longer an option, he sent word to your brother to stay in Washington and allow himself to be captured. He said not to make it look too easy, though. I promised Gawain we'd get him out when the invasion started.

"Arthur wanted you all here. Once you're here, you're trapped; you'll never get back to Shadow Falls in time to stop the massacre there."

"When does it start?" Mordred asked, stopping himself from running off to warn everyone.

"There's a signal."

"What is it?"

"The collapse of these buildings," Merlin said. "Each one has tunnels under it that lead to chambers, much like the one that was under the realm gate, except everyone in these has bracelets on that take them to Shadow Falls or Washington. The power needed to make them work will destroy the buildings above them. You can't kill Arthur before he gives the signal. You should run, Mordred. Take everyone you love and run as far and as fast as you can. It's the only way you can survive what's coming."

Mordred stared at the windowless buildings, wondering how close he was to a mass of monstrous chaos right then. "We'll stop Arthur before he does anything."

"No, you won't," Merlin said.

"I'm sorry you were too weak to stop Arthur," Mordred said, getting to his feet. He looked over at Hel, who had been joined by Orfeda and several others. They were engaged in kicking the shit out of anything that was stupid enough to come and fight them.

"Your Horsemen weren't that strong," Mordred said mockingly.

"They're fodder," Merlin said. "They needed years more to be what we needed them to be. You forced our hand. You forced us to destroy Asgard, and you killed so many of our forces we didn't have a choice. They're fine for what we need."

"How do I remove the curse from Tommy?"

Merlin chuckled. "Same way as you."

"I'm not a werewolf," Mordred said. "Tommy doesn't have a one-up waiting for him to pop him back to life. He dies, he stays dead."

Merlin tried to shrug and started to cough up blood. "You'll have to figure that out, I guess."

"Still a dickhead to the end," Mordred said with a shake of the head.

"I am what I am, son," Merlin said.

"You might have been my father, but I'm not your son," Mordred told him, his voice cold.

"You really think they're going to accept you as king?" Merlin asked with a smirk. "After all the horrors you inflicted on the world?"

Mordred stared at his father for a few seconds, and instead of a powerful man to be feared, he saw a sad, pitiful man who was going to die having never achieved the thing he wanted the most: Arthur in complete control.

"It's taken me a long time to realize it," Mordred said wistfully. "But I am their king. I might not be great at it, I might make a lot of errors along the way, but I will try my damnedest to be a good king. A good man. I want future generations to know that we did something important and that we stood up for what was right. And I'm going to make sure that no one like Arthur or you or Hera or any of those pieces of crap you surrounded yourself with will ever be able to push their agendas on people again. Partly because they're all going to die."

"You really want me dead?" Merlin asked, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

Mordred nodded. "I really do; I just didn't think it would be me doing it. My only sadness is that you ruined so many lives before you died."

"You're not man enough to just put me out of my misery."

"You misunderstand me," Mordred said softly. "You're going to die a human. You're going to die powerless, pathetic, alone, with nothing and no one to mourn you. You're an evil fuck, and you don't get to go out in a blaze of glory, Merlin. You get to die on a field of mud and stone, while the plans that you put so much of yourself into are burned away. Your name won't matter to those in the future, because you never did anything that might last long enough to have an impact on their lives. You wasted your potential, you wasted your life, and you wasted my goddamn time. You don't deserve anything else."

"Maybe you're more like me than I thought," Merlin said, his eyelids fluttering.

Mordred kept the sword on Merlin's chest and bent forward to whisper into his ear. "I'm nothing like you, Merlin. I never was; I never will be. If there's one thing you've achieved in life, it's to show me how not to behave like, in the words of my good friend Remy, a hoofwanking cockwomble."

Merlin kept his eyes open for another second, and then he died.

Mordred stood above him, looking down, just to make sure, and then he created a sphere of light magic and poured every bit of magic he could inside it, heating it to a level he'd never tried before. The sphere was six feet long by the time he dropped it over his father's body, which was incinerated.

Mordred staggered back and found himself sitting on the ground again. He was exhausted, but he couldn't have left his father's body. Not for Merlin's supporters, who might use it as a sort of shrine, or for those who would defile it just to let out their anger. It needed to be removed from the equation.

Mordred sat there for some time as a large group of his allies appeared not too far from the citadel, all of them giving him the space he needed.

"You okay?" Hel said from behind him.

"I'm okay," Mordred said. "Weak. Took a lot to do what I just did."

"Emotionally or physically?" Hel said, sitting beside Mordred and taking his hand in hers.

"Both," Mordred said. "We need to get to Shadow Falls or kill Arthur, whichever one comes first."

Mordred stood, and with Hel beside him, he walked over to the increasingly large group. He told Hades and Persephone everything that Merlin had divulged.

Hades turned to Zamek. "Get that realm gate working to go back to Shadow Falls as soon as possible."

"On it," Zamek said. He stopped by a large group of dwarves. "All of you—with me."

The nearly forty dwarves set off at a run through the city.

"Anything else?" Persephone asked.

Mordred looked around. "Where's Nate?"

"He took off up there," Irkalla said.

Mordred took a step toward the citadel, and there was a rumble beneath his feet as the ground shook violently. Before anyone had time to react, building after building collapsed all across the city, the plumes of smoke and dust threatening to cover everyone.

"Anyone with air magic, get to it," Mordred commanded and started to push out the dust coming toward the group of nearly a hundred people.

The soldiers with air magic capabilities encircled everyone else, Mordred shouting commands as needed.

When the buildings were all down and the earth stopped rumbling, Mordred looked around the ruined city.

"What just happened?" Irkalla asked.

"The monsters are all gone," Mordred said, the fear in his voice something he couldn't hide. "We need to get to Shadow Falls, now."