HISTORY V: THE PENDRAGON LEGACY

Do you believe in magic, class?

Magic means different things to different people. To me, magic is a Saturday afternoon in the nineties, surrounded by other screaming kids, while a man in fading clown makeup wonders why he’s making a picture look like it’s coloured in then blank, then coloured in then blank, over and over again. He watches the parents, purposefully ignoring that one of the kids is emptying out his suitcase of tricks and spilling the secrets everywhere. That was magic in my childhood. For that man in the makeup, I’m sure his idea of magic was the peace and quiet on a Saturday evening when the costume was packed away for another week, no more kids wrecking his hard worked act for at least a few days.

For others, card tricks rule the roost. I once saw a man make all four jacks jump to the top of the deck. It was incredible. The people watching him went wild. Others prefer street magic. Up close and personal, with every day items. It feels grittier and more real because it can’t be staged, surely, not in public? There’s also been a rise in recent years of something called mentalism. Mind reading and manipulation and leading answers, which is an art form in itself.

There are many different kinds of magic, class, but one thing that all of these kinds of magic share is that they are a form of escapism. The parents escaping from their rowdy kids, the clown escaping from those same rowdy kids once they’re back with their parents. Card tricks and street magic can take you away from your problems, and suddenly all that matters is the prop that is in front of you, and figuring out just how they did it.

But magic has not always been about escapism. Magic has a dark past. A past where people who were accused of practising it were burned alive at the stake. Unless they had special protection…

You all know of Merlin, of course, one of the most famous wizards in all of history. Merlin was King Arthur’s appointed magician. But Arthur and the other Pendragons did not use Merlin as a form of escapism, they used Merlin as a show of power. Whilst others who performed magic where shunned and stoned, Merlin made the King and his family look good and feel more powerful. King Arthur’s legacy depends on Merlin’s magic.

But Arthur, now in modern day, finds himself alone, Merlin long buried in the ground. And he struggles to find his place in the new world. Without Merlin’s magic making him look like a million dollars, he is rather ordinary. Arthur thinks he has found his new Merlin in Danvers, but Danvers is no magician. Danvers is a psychopath. Danvers is cunning. But Danvers is no wizard, and he can’t do what Arthur needs from him.

King Arthur needs a Royal Guard, but Danvers could not guard a locked door in an empty room.

There is no Merlin here to save you now, Arthur.

Your move.