Chapter thirteen

The complaining went on for quite a while until I grew tired of their incessant whining and I created some duct tape to seal their mouths which finally gave me enough peace and quiet to explain my plan,

"Alright, now that both of you are willing to listen, here is my plan. I will be taking care of Merlin and the wards that surround the city remotely from here. Jules , you will be staying right here with me. Morgana, once I remove the wards, you will go in and destroy everybody in the city except for Merlin. Jules, if you feel left out after you see what happens, then I will do one thing for you ,no questions asked," I snapped my fingers and removed the duct tape from their mouths, "Any questions?"

Both of them looked furious that I had duct taped their mouths but Morgana seemed to get over it first, "So you really think that defeating Merlin is going yo be that easy?"

"Yes. Frankly it would have been very difficult normally. He protects himself from magic and physical attacks. He is even paranoid enough to protect himself with spells that are keyed to sense a person's intention but I have two things that can easily foil his defenses; number one is this baby," I used my powers to create a very simple remote controlled drone, "This is a purely mechanical device that has no magic and uses no mana so the anti-magic spells won't work on it plus it has no will of its own so it won't trip the intent sensing wards either."

Morgana looked at the little drone with curiosity but she was still unimpressed, "Alright , your little contraption might get close to Merlin but how are you going to incapacitate him? You have already said that he is protected by from both physical and magical harm."

"That will be my second ace up my sleeve, this little bottle right here," I took out a vial filled with a glittery substance and showed it to them.

Morgana looked at me like I was crazy,"Pixie dust? Really? Your grand plan is Pixie dust?"

"I think that you might have misunderstood what pixie dust is. It isn't actually all magic. The pixies don't create this dust intentionally, in fact it is the fairy equivalent of dandruff. What is really amazing about pixie dust is that each grain of dust is actually only one molecule. It's an incredibly complex chain of atoms that combine together to form a small ritual circle. Each speck is so small that none of Merlin's wards will be able to detect them. I can use the little drone to sprinkle some of this stuff on him and he will be out like a light. In fact you don't have to take my word for it, you can see me do it right now."

As I spoke , a tablet appeared in my hand with images streaming from the little drone. I used the tablet to pilot the drone and as they both looked on, I sent the drone to the largest tower in the city.

Through the images, we could see the people of the city going about their normal day to day activities. If we didn't know what was actually going on, we would have thought that it was just a normal city. The images of normal people was slowly replaced by knights clad in cold iron, the bane of the fay. When the drone finally reached the tower, I made it flit into a window and navigated through the abandoned looking tower until it reached a particularly bright hallway.

The walls, the floor and the roof of the hallway were all made from stones that emitted light. As the drone flew on, I had to adjust the brightness of the image so that we could see properly, "It seems that he truly fears you Morgana, his whole inner sanctum is made out of these light stones so that there wouldn't be any shadows."

Morgana remained mute and just continued to stare at the screen as the drone got closer to it's target.

Eventually, the little drone went into a large circular room. On the floor were concentric circles of different colors, each circle had indicate looking designs and were filled with magical symbols, each circle was also glowing ominously and was brimming with mana. The circles looked quite magical but the drone bypassed them like they weren't there until it reached the center of the room.

At the center of the magic circles, a man in a tattered and faded blue robe was floating in the air with his feet crossed and sitting in a common Lotus meditation position. He looked about thirty, medium build , well defined features but the really strange thing about him was that he had the gray hair of an old man even though he didn't have a single wrinkle.

Morgana looked at the image with wide eyes then whispered, "Merlin."

His eyes were closed and we could see his eyes moving around beneath his eyelids as if he was having a really intense dream. My drone hovered over his head and started to sprinkle the pixie dust onto him. He immediately fell from the air like a sack of potatoes. He then continued to lie on the floor, snoring loudly. The magic circles around him started to get dimmer and dimmer until all of them grew dark.

I turned towards Morgana and said, "There you go. Merlin and his wards are down , the rest is up to you."

This time, Morgana didn't argue, she just melted into her own shadow which then streaked towards Camelot. On the other hand, Jules was still unhappy.

"Why are you holding me back? Do you think I can't help?"

I just shook my head and handed the tablet controlling the drone over to her. The drone had zipped out of a window and it was hovering above the city so it showed a bird's eye view of Camelot. At first the was nothing to see but a few seconds later, there was a burst of red in the corner, then another burst of red, then another. Eventually these splashes of red color started to multiply. At first I could see that Jules didn't understand what was going on but then I zoomed into the picture for her and her face grew pale as she saw what was happening.

The shadows from all over the city had started to darken sinisterly and slowly they began to writhe and move with evil purpose. They were filled with claws, teeth, and unimaginable horrors. When the darkness struck, it was merciless. It didn't care if it was attacking women or even children, it left nothing behind but a splash of blood and shredded meat. In just a few minutes, the whole city was consumed by darkness and screaming until the screaming stopped and it only left the darkness behind. Eventually even that faded away leaving the city in absolute silence.

I looked towards Jules and asked, "Did you really want to be a part of that?"

Jules just shook her head and hugged me, her eyes still full of the horrors she had just witnessed. I held her close and hugged her back because I needed the hug too.

As for the city of Camelot, the once pristine white city was dyed a terrible red color.