Morgana’s Gift
by Corrupting Power
Interruption One — It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll)
Dinner was scheduled late, planned for 8 pm so that both Ashley and Elizabeth could join Kevin and Natalie. Elizabeth had tried to insist that he didn’t need to hold dinner time until she got home, but Kev had made it quite clear that he was going to, and if she didn’t like it, she could take charge from him. She thanked him for not backing down, and assured him she would be home by 8.
It was around 6 pm that things got weird.
“I’m going to go for a walk, Natalie,” Kev said. “This is my neighborhood now, so maybe it’s time I had a bit of a stroll around it and see what’s out here.”
“Sir? Are you sure?”
Kevin smiled, using an easy going charm that had gotten him out of more trouble than he could keep track of over the years. He’d used it to get his gear back after his bandmate had hocked it for drugs, he’d used it after the label guy said he didn’t hear a single in their first few sessions working on the album... shit, he’d used it to keep himself out of trouble as long as he’d been alive.
“Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta get the lay of the land by going out for a walkabout. I used to play with a drummer who said the only way to get to know the groove around you was to walk on it for a few miles in bare feet.”
“Please keep your shoes on, sir.”
“I’d planned on that much, Nat.”
Once he walked out past the gate, he was surprised at how little he could see of his neighbors. Everyone in the neighborhood lived behind their own fences, so it was impossible to see who lived there, to learn who the people in the neighborhood were. He would have to go knocking on doors, or rather buzzing on gates, to find out who was in the neighborhood around him. Somehow he felt like he should save that for another day. It was almost like he was compelled to keep walking.
After he got a few blocks down the hill, he realized he was starting to reach the edge of a commercial district. On the other side of the cross street, he saw a little tiny strip mall with an Irish pub on the end of it that couldn’t have looked more out of place.
That was where he was heading. He didn’t know why, but that’s where he was going.
The name of the pub, in decorative script that couldn’t have looked more out of place among the taupe walls, was “Geoffrey’s Gambit.”
To the left of it was Liquor Outlet that looked like it probably got robbed at least once a month.
As Kev approached the door, he started to wonder exactly what was going on. The facade for the Liquor Outlet was rusted steel and one of the windows must’ve clearly been partially shattered because there was an unfolded cardboard box over it. The door was partially open, which sort of amazed him, because the Los Angeles heat had baked the area into a pretty good desert bake.
By contrast, Geoffrey’s Gambit had a wooden facade on the storefront that looked impeccable, and the windows were stained glass that were pristine. The two building fronts couldn’t have been more different.
Kevin opened the door and headed into the bar, and looked around the inside. The floors were wooden strips laid out, and the wooden bar itself looked like it might have been brought over from Ireland at some point. There were only a couple of people milling around the bar, and the bartender looked like he absolutely had to be named Seamus Maddigan.
He was this big, burly Irishman who looked like he didn’t need a bouncer, because he seemed like the type of guy who would enjoy picking a fight with a drunk, like the idea of grabbing some drunk by the lapels and physically ejecting him from the bar would be the best part of his night. He had bright red curly hair cut short, and his arms were covered in tattoos, with his knuckles bearing the letters “H-O-L-D” and “F-A-S-T” across them. He had a waxed mustache that was curled on the ends, and a fiery red goatee with a skull ring binding the hairs together. It was a hell of a look, and Kev didn’t want to be the guy who pissed him off.
“Ah, Kevin, about time you arrived,” a voice said from the end of the bar. “You certainly took your time in getting here, didn’t you? No no, it’s fine. Come, come, sit and join me for a drink.”
Kevin found his legs moving on their own. He felt like he should have been worried, but he also knew that he wasn’t, and he felt like that should’ve also worried him. Since he couldn’t be worried, he decided to look at the man whom he was approaching.
The guy at the end of the bar appeared to be in his thirties or forties, of Middle Eastern lineage, with skin the color of teak wood, jet black hair with tiny streaks of silver in it. His eyes were an icy blue that seemed wildly out of place on his face. He was in a pin stripe suit that looked insanely expensive, blues and purples, with a bright red handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket, a silver pocketwatch chain leading from the one of the vest buttons to one of the suit coat pockets.
The man looked thin, but not excessively so, although the man’s left hand had some ornate tattoo work on it that disappeared up the sleeve of the jacket, dark but faded, as if the work had been done long ago, and the man had spent much time in the sun since.
On the man’s fingers, he wore multiple rings, gold and silver, littered with jewels. In front of his left hand was a Collins glass about half full with what Kevin would’ve guessed was expensive whiskey. Just off to the side of that was a well-read version of David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” with a bookmark about two thirds of the way through it.
Kev looked at the man’s face and found it long and gaunt, with a sharp, neatly trimmed black beard that almost made the man look like some sort of vaudeville villain, although the man had a sort of mischievous smile on it.
“I suppose you’re wondering why you came here,” the man said to him before looking over at the bartender. “Seamus? Get Kev a mojito. He loves mojitos.” The bartender’s name actually was Seamus. Kevin didn’t even know how his day could get much weirder.
“I’m wondering a lot of things. Maybe you could start helping me all make sense of this.”
The man lifted his glass to his lips, taking a sip from it as he nodded, before putting the glass down. “You’re being polite about all of this, even though I’m not compelling you to be. That’s an excellent start to our relationship.”
Kevin moved to slide up onto the barstool next to the man as the bartender brought a mojito over to him. “Maybe you could start with your name?”
“My name,” the man mused. “Now that’s a long tale in itself, but let’s see. I have had many names. The aboriginal people of Australia called me He Who Walks With Darkness. The Chinese called me The Endless Water. There’s a tribe of people in southern Africa who referred to me as the Caged Thunder. But those are never any of the names that anyone ever remembers. So perhaps we should stick to the one that everyone knows, hm?”
“Sure,” Kevin said, “let’s go with that. So what is that?”
“Hm?” the man said, almost as if he was lost in his own thought for a moment. “Oh yes. About a thousand years ago, a writer took two of my better known names—Ambrosius and Myrddin—and combined them into one.”
“You need anything else, Merlin?” Seamus asked.
“We’re good, Seamus. Thank you.”
Kevin looked at the man with a new level of respect, and suddenly the ring on his finger felt a thousand times heavier. But his other hand grabbed the mojito and brought it to his lips, hoping the liquor would cushion his system a little bit. “Not too long ago, I would’ve thought you were fucking with me, but these days, I’ve learned I no longer have that luxury,” Kevin said. “So I’m guessing you brought me here?”
“I did, lad, I did.” Merlin turned to look at Kevin more intently. “You may not realize it, but you have quite a gift there on your finger, the kind of magic that isn’t lightly given out these days.”
“I’m fairly certain I couldn’t give it to you, even if I wanted to.”
Merlin laughed quietly. “Nor would I ask you to, boy. I have plenty of my own magic, and so have no need to go pilfering from others. But it’s quite the artifact. It’s been quite some time since that much magic has been baked into a single item. I know I certainly haven’t focused that much into a single enchantment since, oh, Excalibur, if I’m honest.” The man arched an eyebrow at him. “How did you get it?”
“What makes you think I didn’t make it myself?”
The mage chuckled again. “The bravado on you, scrapling. I like it, though. Most people find my presence terrifying, and yet, here you are, almost challenging me to tip my hand without giving me anything. But you’re playing checkers while I’m playing a dozen games of chess all around you. You aren’t a mage. You don’t know a thing about magic, and you’ve never cast a spell in your life. You don’t have any of the markers. Hell, your soul has barely a scratch on it, none of the usual wear and tear us real sorcerers get along the way.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“So let me ask again, where did you get it?”
“I don’t know that I’m allowed to say?”
“Why don’t you try and see what happens...”
“I saved the life of Morgana LaFey after an accident, and she felt the need to repay me, so some six months later, she gave me this.”
“Oh really? I can’t see that being true. Let’s just have a root around, shall we?”
The wizard brought a fingertip up to Andy’s temple and tapped it, and suddenly the memory came flooding back in perfect detail—the car crash, his pulling the unconscious body from the car, Morgana’s awakening in time to see the vehicle on fire. Then the memory jumped to just a few days ago, when Elizabeth and Ashley had entered his life, and the video from Morgana LaFey replayed in his mind.
Merlin withdrew his hand and nodded. “Well, I’ll be dipped in Gaul’s blood and called a Pigt. What a truly wild and unusual story. Let me look at this gift of hers.” The man took Kevin’s hand in his own, bringing it up to his icy eyes, considering the ring for a long moment.
“Truly a remarkable piece of enchantment, full of all sorts of twists and turns, but almost too uncomplicated, if you ask me,” he said with mirth. “You see, you’ve done me quite the favor in saving Morgana’s life. I would’ve been heartbroken had she died in something as meaningless as a tire blowout, so her gift isn’t enough purely on its own. Because you didn’t just do her a solid, you did one for me as well. Which means I need to add to this. But, on the other hand, Morgana has also been a rival of mine from time to time, and I do so love meddling with her magics when given the chance. So let me introduce a bit of my own magic into her gift.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“Oh, but I assure you, Kevin, I do. And it won’t be all bad.” Merlin brought his hand to move over the ring, and Kevin could feel the metal heating up on his finger, not so hot that it burned, but enough that it was a little uncomfortable. “What day of the month were you born?”
“August 3rd.”
“Alright, the 3rd of every month it is, then.” There was a green light glowing beneath Merlin’s hand before he started to lift it away, the light gone, the ring seemingly unchanged. “So every month, you will find the third day of it to be Midas Day. My first gift to you. I’ll have to consider it, because it looks as though Morgana left you multiple gifts in your future, and I wouldn’t want her to show me up. That’s a few weeks away, though. And don’t think about trying to reach out to Morgana to ask her about it. When she asks about it, and believe me, eventually she will ask about it, then you can tell her, but until then, it’ll be our little secret.”
“Should I be mad or say thank you?”
“Oh, why limit yourself? You’ll have a lot more to say next time we see each other.”
“When will that be?”
“I’ll tell you what, Kevin,” Merlin chortled. “Why don’t you come back here on the 4th, and we’ll have ourselves a conversation then, alright? I do want to see how you’re progressing with the little path that our mutual friend has laid before you. It’s quite the majestic gift she has planned for you, so you should enjoy it. Her end barely has any chaos in it at all, so I’ll have to be the chaos bringer for your little journey, and that’s something I’m quite adept with. Go on, now. Scoot. I’ll see you again next month. I’ll cover your drink.”
Kevin felt he had control of his own body again, and reached into his pocket and pulled out a fiver, leaving it on the counter. “You always leave a tip, even if someone else is buying,” Kevin said before making his way to the door.
Just before he walked out of the bar, he looked back over his shoulder, and Merlin was gone.