Week 12 Storytelling: Nimue Seizes Excalibur

“In marble walls as white as milk,

Lined with skin as soft as silk,

Within a fountain crystal clear,

A golden apple doth appear;

No doors there are to this stronghold,

Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.”

Nimue lifted her eyes from the book of riddles and looked at Merlin expectantly.

“What?” he asked.

“Well, guess the answer.”

He sighed, resting his chin on hands clasped together. The pair lounged by the low outer wall bordering Merlin’s hometown of Carmarthen. Merlin’s back rested against the brown cobblestone while Nimue lay across the top, the breeze carrying her loose hair just far enough to tickle Merlin’s ear every few minutes. A book lay on her chest, which she lifted periodically to read aloud from.

Merlin jiggled his leg for a minute, staring off into the distance.

Finally, Nimue pushed herself up to sit. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just thinking.”

“You’re not thinking about the riddle, are you? You would’ve guessed it already.”

Merlin half-shrugged.

“Did you have another vision?” Nimue slipped down to sit beside him. Her book, forgotten, fell over the other side of the wall with a dull thud. “What was it about?”

“My death.”

“Oh.” That was so much more serious than his regular visions of meeting knights and finding treasure. “What are you going to do?”

“I think I know something I can do to keep myself alive for now. But I just don’t want to do it.”

“I can help. Just tell me what to do.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it. Do you still have that old sword we found by the river?”

“Sure. I’ve been polishing it.”

“Bring it to the lake down east of here.” He paused. “An egg.”

“Huh?”

“That’s the answer to the riddle. An egg.”

~

The chill of winter had long since set in, but Arthur’s own court in Camelot was not so deeply frozen as this glade.

“Has it always been this way?” Arthur asked Merlin, holding his arm in front of his face to block the sharp wind as the pair dismounted their horses and approached the lake’s edge.

“Not as long as I remember,” Merlin answered.

The flowers that, Merlin recollected, had been on all sides of the lake were now long buried under a frozen white sheet. The long grass that had swayed at the water’s lapping edge was now whipped by the blizzard that swirled around them. The lake that stretched out before Merlin and Arthur was the same one Merlin had come to forty years ago with Nimue—he could see its same shape, how it was framed by the same trees, but now their barren branches were spindly and crippled by ice. Frozen over by cobalt-blue ice, the lake’s surface was marbled with arctic white. A single shape jutted up from the ice: the sword Nimue and Merlin had enchanted together. Excalibur.

“That’s the sword you promised?”

Merlin nodded, swallowing dread. If only he hadn’t made that promise to Arthur’s father when the boy had been born. “Mind what I told you about what’s under the ice.”

The pair bravely made their way across the crackling surface of the lake, but Merlin hung back as Arthur’s bare hands closed around Excalibur’s silver hilt.

This sword was not as easily dislodged as the sword in the stone had been. This sword was embedded into the ice as though there were some force underneath keeping it there. Arthur stood on the ice for minutes. The young king’s determined growls grew in volume until Merlin couldn’t discern whether it was the ice rumbling and crackling, or Arthur himself. Finally, with one final pull, he wrenched the blade free.

To Merlin’s horror, the blade was not the only thing liberated from the ice. Shocked, Arthur let go of Excalibur’s hilt and stumbled backwards, barely catching himself on the slippery ice.

Attached was a black, frostbitten hand clamped around the frosty blade like a vice. From a rupturing crack in the ice rose the form of a woman, frostbite staining her arms and feet. Her frayed dress whipped around her ankles like a snowstorm, and then suddenly the wind died down.

“My Lady of the Lake!” Arthur called. His voice echoed in the still air. “I pray you tell me who owns this sword. I wish her permission to take it.”

Her eyes remained closed, but Merlin recognized her. She hadn’t changed, hadn’t aged a day since he had sealed her into the lake with that old sword now imbued with magic. “The sword belongs to me,” she answered, “and I will give it to you, if you grant me something in return.”

“By my faith, whatever you ask,” Arthur answered.

“I want the blood of the man who betrayed me. Merlin.”

Arthur’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Merlin is one of my dearest friends! You’ll never have him as long as I—”

Merlin put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “My boy, you don’t stand a chance. Let me go. I’ll get you the sword.”

As he approached, she watched him with frigid poise. The only thing about her that marred the memory of his childhood friend was the black frostbite that covered her like a shadow.

“You must have known time would bring you back to me,” she said.

He nodded, humbled. “A little more time was all I needed. I saw it in that vision—you would have been the death of me.”

As she let the sword fall, Nimue wrapped her arms around Merlin and whispered, “We will see who escapes death this time.”

And she pulled him under the ice, where it crackled and sealed itself shut, locking them both under the frozen lake once more.

Author's note:

In the original story, the Lady of the Lake gives Excalibur to Arthur and Merlin in exchange for a favor, but doesn't tell him what she wants yet. Later on, she ends up learning a sealing spell from Merlin and uses it to seal him away.

 I knew I wanted to write a story about the Lady of the Lake, but wasn't sure what her role should be. She's usually a force for good in other Arthurian works, so I thought it would be interesting to make her a villain. I drew on a few other stories where Nimue causes Merlin's death, but wanted to make it much more deliberate.

I want to take a week or two to revise the story and make the following changes: add a scene where Merlin and Nimue enchant the sword, or perhaps forge it; give young Merlin more time to agonize over the decision of sealing Nimue away to prevent his death; provide a reason for Arthur to need the sword, and thus a reason for Merlin to sacrifice himself; re-read the source stories to make this story a more proper and specific reversal.

Sources:

"The Sword Excalibur" and "The Passing of Merlin" from King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang

Wikipedia: Merlin

Image:

Flickr: Frostbite by Phil Dolby