As Merlin came closer, he began to make out exactly what the object was. It seemed to be made of bronze. It was tall, and wide, and stretched across the sea as far as Merlin could see. Merlin didn't have to get any closer to know what it was: a bronze wall.Merlin knew from experience that no wall continued forever. It had to stop somewhere, somewhere there had to be a way to get in. So Merlin sailed along the bronze wall's edge, and surveyed the intricate markings that were carved on the sides.
The first markings Merlin saw were of people. The people were doing things, like holding a torch or rolling a wooden wheel. Then the pictures started to become more descriptive, showing a man riding a horse, man floating on the sea by way of a piece of wood. The pictures continued to get more and more descriptive, and Merlin began to see pictures like a man stabbing a giant with one eye with a flaming sword, a mountain being stabbed by a sword, releasing the wind, and a great many other pictures of those likes. These pictures were so detailed, it looked as if a great artist had carved it. Yet, it was the pictures ahead that Merlin wanted to see.
Merlin saw pictures of men shooting each other, not with arrows, but tiny little balls, that caused a small boom when fired. He saw the construction of a great metal pyramid, except it was only the skeleton of a pyramid, not the skin. He saw a great hollow metal box on wheels, which rolled over the flattened metal string beneath them. He saw more metal ships, these not quite so fantastic. He saw a box with pictures moving. He saw something like the winged-thing he had seen a few days ago, except it was white, and it flew off to the stars. He saw a strange, cylindrical object rotating around what looked to be like a giant blue marble, as if hung there with a piece of string. He saw everything, and the drawings were so realistic, they looked as if time itself had made them. The pictures even had color, something none of the other pictures had!
Merlin watched the pictures pass in awe. Such wonderful things, things he would have never had imagined in even the wildest of dreams! Then came a picture that Merlin would remember forever.The picture was of a city. Above it was a giant cloud. Yet, it wasn't the puffy clouds Merlin knew lived in the sky. This one was gray, and was shaped like a mushroom. In the next picture, the city was nothing but ruins, a sad site. Over and over this picture occurred, and it was always the same, a destroyed city with nothing left but its ruins. The cause was always the same: a gray mushroom cloud above a city. Then suddenly, there was nothing. No more pictures. Just a bronze wall.
Before Merlin could take in what was happening, a gust of wind came, pushing the Eagle into the wall, and forcing Merlin's head against it, knocking him unconscious as great bronze gates opened, and the Eagle was blown inside.
***
When Merlin woke, he found he was on the beach of a place he had never seen before. Yet, didn't this place seem so familiar to Merlin? As Merlin thought about it, it occurred to him that he had seen this place before. In one of his more enjoyable dreams. This beach was exactly the beach he had dreamt of once, in the dream where he was running along the water beside his son, laughing and enjoying himself. Merlin had thought no place could be so perfect as that beach, yet, here he was.
The beach had the perfect shade of golden brown sand, its waters were a majestic blue-green, and the sky was without a cloud. Everything was so perfect, yet. . . something was wrong. But what?
Leaving the beach, Merlin walked to where he saw buildings poking out over the horizon. It was not a long walk, and despite the sun shining brightly high above, seemingly never moving, it was perfectly warm. Along with the sun, the weather was odd; the wind wasn't blowing, not a single cloud as far as the eye could see, and everything was exactly the way Merlin liked it.
Before long, Merlin found what seemed to be a path to the buildings. It was made of black stone, and had white and yellow lines going up and down its length in various patterns. Sometimes it was double line. Sometimes it was a dotted line. Sometimes it was an unbroken line. The path was very wide. If Merlin were to lay down across its short side, he would make it almost halfway across the path, and Merlin had become quite tall.
The buildings, as Merlin found, were part of the city that was in ruins. Just as shown in the picture. The big hollow metal boxes were everywhere, but unlike the picture, these had long tubes attatched to a rotating top, and were painted to match the forest. Strewn across the ground were tubes with a squarish base with a hole in it. In that hole was a stick, pushing out from the tube. Merlin, curious as he was, picked up one of the tubes and pulled the stick. He stumbled as he heard the thundering explosion and burst of light, and dropped it like an uncontrollable torch, and looked up to see a sign that said 'Welcome to Washington, District of Columbia!'.
Littered everywhere were tiny little metal balls, small enough to fit in to the tubes on the ground that was covered in blood. The buildings that Merlin had originaly seen were crumbling like bread rolled between someone's fingers. Exploring one of the buildings, Merlin saw some of the moving-picture boxes that had been on the wall. Merlin jumped when he heard a sound. It seemed to be coming from the room across the hall.
Merlin walked to the room cautiously, as if expecting ambush. Yet, all he saw was one of the picture boxes, this one moving. A man with white hair sat in front of a desk, holding papers as if to read them.
". . . is not going well," said the man as Merlin began to hear his voice coming from, the box, "Thousands have died and many more are at this very moment. It seems as though our great emperor has gone too far this time, declaring war on the Allied Chinese Republic, and the people are suffering. American troops are barely hanging on to survival in the Chinese Republic, and we have reports the Chinese are preparing an invasion of America and all who aided us in previous campaigns. I am sorry to say that the great empire we have forged since our emperor overthrew the failed democracy fifty years ago is looking into the sunset, watching the twilight of the American Imperialism. We have maybe weeks left. Enjoy them while you can." finished the man, a sad look in his eyes. Then the picture box went blank.
Merlin exited the building, his mind swarming with new information. He looked up and saw a building he hadn't seen before, this one untouched by the battle that had occurred here. It was a giant whit building and looked much like a futuristic castle, with many pillars, windows, and two long flights of stairs on either side. In the center of the building was something that looked very similar to the colleseum Merlin had seen in his travels. On top of the colloseum object was another one, this one smaller. Then was a giant dome, and on top of that, a small spire, with a statue resting on top.
By instinct, Merlin walked to the building, climbing the steep hill to get to it. Finding a door wasn't too hard. It seemed as though there was one every twenty or so feet. Merlin walked around in the building, looking at the many statues and pictures, presumably of people dead in the battle.
As Merlin walked, he began to hear voices. At first he had thought the voices were a hallucination, just something in his head. However, as he walked, they began to get louder and louder. Curious, Merlin walked towards the noise.
". . . must aid them! The Third War is going badly and it is time we come and fight along side the Light! They need us!" shouted an all too familiar voice.
Finding the room the voice was coming from, he walked in to the doorway and saw a rather tall man banging his fist on the table. "Why not?" he bellowed, standing up as he did so. The man's hood fell back as he swung around violently, and Merlin saw the graying hair, which told him who the man was, and that he had seen him only once before.
"Aurelianus?" whispered Merlin.
As soon as those words left Merlin's mouth, everything fell silent, and the man whirled around as if Merlin's words could harm him. As the man's green eyes rested on Merlin, they softened, and told of the emotions their master was experiencing.
"Merlin?" breathed Aurelianus, still in a fighting position, "Is that you? Is it really truly you, or are my eyes taking to playing tricks on me?"
"It's me." said Merlin flatly.
"Merlin? Oh it really is you!" yelled Aurelianus, running to Merlin and picking him up in his arms and swinging him from side to side. "What took so long?" Aurelianus sobbed, tears of joy streaming down his face.
"What do you mean?" asked Merlin.
"Oh, never mind! You're here now and that's all that matters," weeped Aurelianus, putting Merlin back on the floor, "My son has finally come back to me!"
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