Round 1: Merric vs. Elin

Come. Come. Come. Come. Come...

As Merric walked towards the light, the voice echoed down the tunnel. The same word, purposefully chanted for what seemed an eternity. The word felt untainted, as though the voice had captured the essence of the word, the basest and purest form, untarnished by speech and accent. It was a delight for the ears, an exquisite sensation for the senses. A gourmet, aural feast. Nothing compared. The voice was musical; like a lute; like a piccolo; like an entire orchestra with every piece playing perfectly. Behind the beauty of the voice was a certain commanding force, a power which Merric was completely unable to resist – not that he’d want to. He’d come this far, there was no way that he’d turn back now. The pull that the voice had was not unlike that which he’d experienced in the Grimore’s chamber, though it would be like comparing a kitten to a tiger - one could say it was the difference between being tied behind a running horse and having a slight wind at your back. Whoever – or whatever -owned the voice had a firm grip. Not only did it want Merric to go wherever he was going, it needed him to.

Merric ignored his concerns. However eerie the voice was, there was nothing to worry about. They both wanted the same thing. With the same look of grim determination on his face as when he stepped through the mirror, Merric marched on to the rhythm of the voice.

Come. Come. Come. Come. Come...

The tunnel appeared to go on forever. The light that he was heading for never got any closer, it simply remained perpetually out of reach. Merric didn’t know exactly how long he’d been walking, it could be one hour, or two, or more. It hardly mattered, for time was irrelevant in a place like this. What was relevant was the end of the tunnel, though there was another concern that had been steadily growing since entering the mirror-portal – his thirst. He’d stepped through the threshold with nothing but his knives, the servant’s tunic, and a small container of skin-coloured powder. The rest of his gear was hidden outside the palace. His water-skin was among that gear. He’d figured that he’d either be out of the palace – or dead - before he’d need it, as taking it with him would have been an unnecessary burden. He regretted the decision, as the tunnel just kept going on and on, and he kept getting thirstier and thirstier.

Come. Come. Come. Come. Come...

Determined to remain calm and in control, Merric continued forward towards the light. He was faithful that whoever had drawn him here wouldn’t allow him to die. He’d reach the light soon – he was sure of it.

Come. Come. Come. Come. Come...

Half an hour passed, still nothing.

Come. Come. Come. Come. Come...

An hour more. Merric’s resolve was wavering. There was no possible way that he could turn back and survive now. His survival rested upon a hope.

Come.

The voice had stopped. It took Merric a few minutes to realise, as he was focused on stumbling ever forwards, trying hard to stay upright. He looked up into the light, swaying slightly.

It was then that it happened. The light receded, and in its place stood a single wooden door. It appeared to be set into the stone, and intricately carved. Merric approached it steadily, with the deliberate tread of an old man striving to avoid a fall. As he reached the door, he realised that the door wasn’t set into the stone as he had previously thought. It was set into nothing; freestanding. Etched into the door, in a language that Merric could read, even though he had never seen it before, was one word. Turiel.

Merric tried to suppress a dry, rasping cough. His throat was like sand-paper. With a shaky hand, he reached out and fumbled with the doorknob. It opened easily, and he stepped through.



As he had expected, the door was another portal. What he stepped into was not the stone wall behind the door, but a voluminous, extravagant, and extensively decorated room. Directly ahead of him, a massive, gaping archway stood, blocked by an equally large grille. In front of that, there was an intrinsically disturbing statue. Pillars filled the antechamber, but none of those things interested him. Water was the only thing on his mind.

Due to this insatiable obsession, Merric was, for the first few moments, oblivious to a fact that should have been aware of the second he stepped through the door. Merric wasn’t alone. Like the tunnel, he shared the antechamber with a voice, though this voice was different to the one in the tunnel, though it was almost as beautiful. It was feminine, whereas the other one was masculine. There was one other glaring difference. This voice was singing .

The acoustics in the antechamber did the song justice. It was a flowing, vowel driven soliloquy of a sonnet, not just floating upon the air, but commanding it. Merric understood none of it, though one thing was clear – the song was born of sorrow.

Searching for the source of the voice, Merric shifted his weight to lean against one of the pillars to ease the pain of his exhaustion. Doing so put pressure on the pillar, which dislodged a small chunk of stone from near the roof. It fell, and shattered noisily upon the floor. The sound echoed throughout the room, and the singing stopped instantly. A swift movement to Merric’s right betrayed the position of the singer. Merric drew a dagger with a shaky hand as whoever it was approached.

The singer was abnormally fast. All Merric saw before his dagger was sent skidding along the floor was a blur of white and a flash of steel. He pushed away from the pillar, and drew the other dagger. That one suffered the same fate as the first. He reached for his last blade, but the singer kicked him in the centre of his chest, sending him sprawling.

Within seconds of hitting the floor, Merric had a boot on his chest and a sword at his throat. It was over; in his condition, there was nothing he could do. He glared up at the woman who had disarmed him so effortlessly, who glared back with a piercing and contemptuous gaze. In her spare hand was a scroll and a quill.

“Finish it.” He croaked.

“No. Why would I want to waste my time doing that?” The woman sneered, her voice flowing like velvet. She waved the scroll in front of her. “Sign this and we get to go through that archway up ahead. Those are the rules.”

Merric said nothing. He simply continued looking into her eyes. He noticed that they were a shade of purple, and that her skin was a dull – and yet incredibly radiant – grey. The tips of her ears poked out from her shortly cropped hair. They were somewhat pointed. Whatever this woman was, Merric figured, she probably wasn’t human. Or at least not any sort of human he had seen before.

He stared into her eyes, unblinking. He could see something there, a fear of some kind. And something more. Her eyes broke contact with his briefly, darting to a nothing to the left and then snapping back. Whatever she was, she shared many things with humans. All the signs of lying were present and accounted for.

“No,” said Merric. He refused to give her what she wanted. He had no idea what would happen if he signed, but from her reaction he could tell that she would be the only one to benefit.

The woman snarled. “Damn.” She removed the boot and the sword, and lashed out at the nearest pillar, searching for something to break. “Damn these rules! What the hell am I meant to do!”

The woman continued to rant, and during her monologue Merric crawled to another pillar and propped himself against it. Just keeping his head upright at this stage was difficult.

“Hey!” he yelled as best he could.

She stopped and turned, snarling.

“Tell me what’s going on here.” He said.

“I –“

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth, and we’ll see about signing that scroll.”

The woman sighed. “Fine. Let’s do this the hard way. Only one of us can go forward from here, and it’s going to be me.”

“So kill me already. I’m defenceless.” Merric said, raising his hands out at shoulder height. He was bluffing. If the woman had meant to kill him, she would have done it at the start.

“I’d love to, you worthless bastard. The rules say I can’t. One of us need to sign that scroll, and then the other one can go on to get the wish. The one who signs it can go back to where they came from.” She walked up to Merric and dropped the scroll at his feet. “I’m giving you a choice: either die here to deny me my right, or live. Go back to your filthy little burrow with your monkey family, and revel in your own stupidity. Seems like a logical choice to me.”

Merric laughed. “No, you’re giving me the choice between dying here and dying there. I like the option of dying here more.”

“And why’s that?” she said, kneeling to be at eye level with Merric.

“Notice how clumsy I am? How weak I am? I haven’t had anything to drink for a very long time. If I go back, there’s a very long tunnel I need to get through. Even if I make it through there, there are hundreds of people who’ll kill me without a second thought. Even if I make it past that, there’s a man who will kill me and the woman I love if I return empty-handed. See how that’s a problem for me?”

The woman’s eyes lit up. “Let’s make a deal, then. I can give you water, and in return you can sign the scroll. You can recover here, and make your way back. You’ll figure something out back there.”

“No. Give me the water, and I’ll consider signing the scroll. Otherwise, I’ll die, and then you’ll have to go back. Looks like you’re the one with only two options here.”

The woman’s gaze gained a murderous glint. “Humph,” she said, pouting as she fumbled inside a pouch at her belt. From it, she drew a tiny vial of what appeared to be water and a small bowl. She put a drop of the water into the bowl and replaced the vial. After placing the bowl on the ground, she began to sing softly with her hands positioned over the bowl. A few stanzas later, and the bowl was filled with water. She brought the bowl to Merric, not looking him in the eye as she did. It was obvious that she resented this.

Merric took the bowl cautiously. “Thank you,” he said.

The first mouthful may as well have been acid. His throat was so dry that he couldn’t swallow, and he choked. The rest, however, was perhaps the sweetest drink he had ever had. With every draw, he felt life returning to his body, like the water was seeping into his veins. He finished it all, but it wasn’t enough - he felt as though he could drink a lake. He was about to ask for more when the bowl began to get heavier. The bowl was refilling as it had when the woman. He drank seven more bowlfuls before he stopped.

“Are you done now?” the woman asked from the other side of the room.

“Yes. Thanks for that, that’s quite a handy trick you have.”

The woman oozed smugness. “It was minor. You don’t want to see my other tricks. Now, are you going to sign the scroll, or what?”

“Maybe. I told you I’d consider it, and I’m considering it. While we wait for me to decide, you may as well tell me who you are.”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me. If I’m going to sign that scroll, I need to know who, and what, I’m giving up my place for.”

The woman sighed, flicking dust off of her white dress. “Fine. My name is Elin. I was, up until recently, a slave. I’ve been one all my life.”

“A slave, huh? I know the feeling. So why are you here, Elin?”

“Retribution.”

“Against who? The slavers? Your master?”

“All of them. Against everyone. Everywhere I look, I see a veritable shrewdness of humans, the dirty apes that they are. I want that to change. Humans don’t deserve what they have now, they took it from my people. I want to take it back.”

“Humans? So I guess you aren’t human after all...”

Elin laughed bitterly. “There’s a clever monkey. I’m an Elf. And before you ask, I’m older than I look.”

“An elf... I’ve only ever heard about your kind in children’s tales. To be honest, I was sure your kind wasn’t real – though I was sure that magical books and mirrors weren’t until today, too.” Merric studied her almost undeniably human physique. “I heard you’d be shorter. And greener.”

“I’m obviously not.”

“So, you hate humans. Does that mean that you hate me?” Merric asked.

Elin paused, and smirked at Merric. “Yes.”

“Do you hate me because you hate humans in general?”

“Partially. I also hate you because you’re an arrogant, stubborn git.”

Merric paused to consider Elin. She was obviously a tough customer to deal with. One false move, and there was no doubt that she’d live up to her promise of killing him. He also faced the problem of her losing patience and killing him simply because he happened to be human. He had considered lying to her, but her caution rendered that option useless. Merric figured that there might be another way, and that way would be his only chance.

“Fair enough,” he replied, “So you hate all humans based upon your experience with a few? That hardly seems fair to the good ones.”

Elin smiled. “There are no good ones. Sixty years, and I can’t recall ever meeting one. Either they’re downright evil, or too cowardly to do anything about those who are.”

“You were a slave. Forgive me if I say you had a limited exposure to the full scope of humanity. I won’t deny that there are many who’re like what you’ve said, but the majority are good. The majority don’t want war, it’s always the minority that wants that. I doubt that you’ve ever seen that majority, Elin.”

Elin was silent, and angry. It wouldn’t take much more goading before she would be quite happy to remove Merric’s head from his shoulders, from what he could see. He felt that he was on the right track, but he needed to be careful.

“Listen. That majority only goes along with the majority because they fear them. Trust me, if the leaders of the place you were kept are as evil as you say, none of those in the majority would hold any loyalty to them if they were... removed. I think that you’re going for the wrong angle here. How long did you say you’ve been a slave?”

Elin’s anger had faded somewhat, replaced by a deep, devastating sadness. Merric could see tears welling in her eyes. “S- Sixty years.”

“And the fall of your people happened at that time, yes?”

“Yes.”

“None of the people who were responsible for that are likely to be alive now. You know this. Because of this, no one could possibly remember what had happened other than you and your kind. There will be no grudges on the human’s part. There’s something you can do that doesn’t rely on this wish.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Replace the minority. I’ve seen you fight, if you can – assuming there are more of you - free more of your kind, it’s more than possible. Extend kindness to the majority, and they will do you no harm. I’ve seen coups like this happen. For humans to have overthrown your kind, I assume that the two must have lived together for some time. Returning the balance may be easier than you think.”

“How can you possibly know that?” she cried, “You don’t know those people!”

Merric shrugged. “Politics is politics, and people are people. An eagle and a hummingbird may look different, but deep down they’re both birds. The people from where you come from will do what I’ve said. You, Elin, know tyrants, whereas I know people. Trust me.”

Elin regarded Merric with teary eyes. “That still sounds risky. Tell me why I shouldn’t just take my chances here.”

“Because there will be more after me. Maybe hundreds. And if you die here, nothing would change. Your people would remain slaves forevermore. The other option is the more cautious approach. It will take more time, but it’ll rely less on chance.”

Elin didn’t reply. She simply covered her face with her hands, and wept.




Merric left her to her sorrows for an hour or so. He spent the time examining the room and recovering from his dehydration. To his surprise, he found the Grimoire laying at the base of the statue. It confirmed what Elin had said: only one could go through; the other must go back.

In the same language as the writing on the door, it read: ‘One of you two mortals must sign the scroll in blood and place it in the statue’s forehead. That mortal will be removed from my domain but will come to no further harm. The other child of Adam may continue through the gate.’

With a sigh, Merric returned to Elin. She was curled up in a foetal position, still weeping. In between the sobs, she was repeating the same word.

“Kehi...”

Merric kneeled next to her. “Elin, who’s Kehi?”

“Kehi was my lover, and my friend,” she said, turning her sorrowful violet eyes to Merric.

“What happened to him?”

“He died protecting me,” she said, wiping tears with her palm, “Protecting me from the very people you want me to save.”

“I see. What was this Kehi like, Elin?”

Elin smiled. “He was perfect in mind, body, and soul. He was kind, a good person.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Elin. Have I told you that I have someone like Kehi? The woman I mentioned before, she’s in trouble, and it’s all my fault. I left her in a very compromising position when I left. I don’t deserve someone like her, but I want to set things right. I want to fix everything, and this wish will allow me to do it. This is why I can’t sign the scroll. I could return, and I could save her myself, but we’d be hunted forever, and she’d... she’d learn things that’d shatter her. She deserves better, just like Kehi deserved better than he got.”

Elin looked away. “I see,” she said.

“I want to save lives with my wish, Elin, whereas you want to end them. There’s a better path for you to take. Tell me, what would Kehi do?”

“I’m not Kehi,” she said, standing and reaching for the scroll, “I could never be. He was so perfect, and so good. It’s because of him that I’m alive today. You’re right, he deserves to have his legacy play out in a manner that he would choose.”

With the same blinding, feline swiftness as when she’d disarmed Merric, she drew the quill from within the scroll and drew it along the back of her hand. Deep, radiant blood oozed out, and she collected it on the nib of the quill. She looked to Merric, the sadness gone. In its place was hope, and it was beautiful.

“Kehi would choose the better path.” she said, signing the scroll with long, elegant swoops.

With the last stroke of the quill, the thunderous sound of mechanical part grinding against mechanical part filled the room. Merric didn’t need to turn around to know that the grille was being raised. He had done it; he had won the right to continue.
He smiled at Elin, and for once it was an honest smile, not a painful facade. She smiled tentatively back as she walked to the statue and placed the scroll in its forehead. As she did, the door she had come through swung open, revealing a shadowy tunnel much like the one Merric had gone through.

“Thank you.” Merric said as the grille reached the top of the archway and was still.

“No, it’s I who should be thanking you,” she said, walking slowly towards the open door. “You saved me from making a terrible mistake – from dishonouring Kehi - and I’m grateful.”

As she reached the doorway, she stopped and turned. “You never told me your name.”

“I’m Merric, but... I think one day I’ll be Crys.” Merric said.

Elin raised an eyebrow. “Is that so. Well, I wish you luck, Merric. Don’t let this opportunity I’m giving you go to waste.”

“I won’t. Goodbye, Elin. May Kehi’s legacy be a glorious one.”

“I’ll make sure of it. Oh, Merric?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a good man.”

“Don’t.” Merric said, smiling widely.

“What?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Elin grinned. “I’m not. Goodbye Merric.”

Without looking back, Elin stepped through the door. It slammed shut behind her, and faded until there was nothing but wall in its stead.

Merric sighed as he turned to face the archway. His future lay onwards, so onwards he went. On the way, he passed the bowl that Elin had given him, which had refilled with water. He picked it up. Such a useful tool could come in handy, especially if he were placed in a situation like the one in the tunnel. A part of him, a part that he could feel growing within himself, took it for another reason. Elin had thought that he was good, and this bowl belonged to Elin. That part of himself took the bowl sentimentally, as a reminder.

A reminder that people can change, and that Crys may be less of a lie than he had thought.