Merlyn's Arc

Chapter 16 of 19

The sealed slab held, but not for long. Merlyn heard the pale beast strike it again. A crack split the dressed stone. Water hissed through and pooled at his knees. He had walled the thing off with a wedge-sign, but the stone was gray and dead now, all its strength spent. He needed a killing sign to end the beast for good. His arms would not lift the hammer. Every source he had touched lay burned out around him. "It's breaking through," Kjell said. He crouched by the slab, one hand flat on the shivering stone. "You carved this. Can you carve the thing that kills it?" "I've got nothing to pull from," Merlyn said. His tattoos lay dark. "No live rock. No iron. The stone's dead." Thorgar set his feet at the gap, both axes ready. "Wrong shape," he said, watching the pale body roll behind the crack. "Steel won't hold it. But I'll slow it." Thorin planted his father's axe beside him. His knees shook under him. "Slow it for what? He's got no power left." Then Gunnar dropped to a knee. He unlaced a small pouch from his belt and spilled it into his palm. Old Viking coins, edges worn, faces stamped with runes and knots. "Forged," he said. He pressed one into Merlyn's hand. "Struck by a hammer, same as your iron. They hold the memory." Merlyn closed his fingers on the coin. It was warm from Gunnar's body. Worked metal, cut and stamped by some long-dead smith. A thread of gold woke in his tattoos, thin but real. He spread the coins on the wet floor in a row. "How many?" "Nine," Gunnar said. "All I carry." "It'll be enough for one sign." Merlyn raised the hammer. His arm burned. He struck the first coin, then the next, cutting a killing-rune across all nine faces. Each blow rang. Each coin darkened as the power bled out and crept up his arm. The row went dull, one after another, spent. The slab cracked wider. A pale limb pushed through the gap. Merlyn pressed both palms to the broken stone and drove the killing-sign into it. Gold flooded his tattoos, then guttered. The rune bit deep. The stone glowed white where the beast touched it. The creature shrieked and thrashed. Then it went still. Its long body slid down the far side of the slab and sank in the flood. "Dead?" Thorin asked. Gunnar struck the slab. It rang solid. "Dead," he said. Merlyn slumped against the wall. Nine dead coins lay scattered at his knees. His hands would not stop shaking. The beast was gone, but so was the last forged thing they carried. He had spent Gunnar's coins, his iron, his worked stone. Ahead the tunnel ran dark and empty. He could read his master's tome with his own eyes now. But when the next wall rose, he would have nothing left to break it with.