Chapter Five: League

As it turned out, the interiors of Nanda Parbat were no less gorgeous than their exterior counterparts. Their visual style simply deviated, emulating the monasteries of China and Japan but imbuing them with a rustic, archaic feel. The entire place felt like it predated the planet, an ancient and humbling aura pressing down on Malcolm as he walked through the long corridors. He passed under a pillar bearing the head of a drake, a fiercesome creature with teeth sharper than swords and almost as large. It stood there almost as if to impose upon its visitors; a reflection of the characters which it overlooked.

Finally, when he was certain that the hallway had carried on for infinity, Malcolm found himself face-to-face with a tall, robust set of doors engraved with a symbol that he did not recognise, but recalled great feelings of foreboding for. Cautiously, he rapped his knuckle against the wood, awaiting an answer.

Many minutes passed.

The silence was unbearable. Malcolm felt like he was standing in the inside of a coffin; the way that the slightest of sounds he made ricocheted violently against every wall. He couldn't break out of the image of himself being buried alive, with tonnes of soil crashing down upon his head like a barbarous waterfall. He felt his shoulders quiver at the thought, and knocked again.

A shadow passed above Malcolm, but he did not see it until it was far too late to evade it. He felt a pair of legs crash into him like a log, and his knees buckled, sending him crashing to the ground. His eyes, dazed by a black murk could only see the basic outline of a man standing over him, but his ears functioned perfectly well, catching their words.

"Who are you, and what is your business with the league?"

The man had a deep voice, but it was also strangely smooth and silky, reminding Merlyn of an aristocrat named Earl Fiennes that he had once attended a fine arts ceremony with. Certainly, it was not the voice he would have expected from a master assassin, although - without a shadow of a doubt - that who was it belonged to.

The man grew impatient with Malcolm's silence. Releasing a long and viciously-symmetrical sword from it's sheathe upon his back with the agility of a striking viper, he drew up close to Malcolm.

"What is your business here? Don't force me to ask thrice."

"Al-Owal sent me," Malcolm gasped, his eyes fixed upon the elongated point of the sword.

The man, who was wearing the same balaclava as Malcolm's mysterious benefactor, tore it from his face, revealing a middle-aged man with greying hair and beard, strongly-defined cheekbones, and a callous smile of bemusement. His peepers narrowed at the sight of Malcolm cowering on the floor. His weapon was not withdrawn from Malcolm's face.

"I don't think I believe you. You have the face of a liar, and the eyes of a coward."

Malcolm swallowed hard. He had to think hard to evade this now. "Al-Owal wanted me to come here. He spent a lot of effort getting me to this point. If you kill me now, his effort will be for nothing. He won't be pleased about that."

The man snorted. "Let him come. I do not fear Owal. I am a Seventh Man of Ra's Al Ghul. I could dispatch him without a single blink of my eye."

Suddenly, the sword was removed from in front of Malcolm's head. The assassin shook his head dismissively, smiling gently. "But out of respect, I will leave his punching bag intact until he gets here."

After replacing the weapon in its sheathe, the assassin pulled Malcolm from the floor and forced their hands into a firm shake.

"The name is David Cain. If you haven't heard of me, then you really are new around here."

Merlyn nodded quickly, his breath struggling to circulate after his ordeal. Cain smiled widely, demonstrating a whole row of silver teeth on his upper jaw.

"This way, Mr…. Mr. What?"

"Merlyn."

"Oh, yes. Malcolm Merlyn."

Malcolm was surprised at Cain's revelation. "I thought you didn't know who I was?"

"Of course I do; I only wanted to make sure that you do. This way, now, Mr. Merlyn."

On their way to what he was calling - rather ominously - his 'induction' - Cain led Malcolm back through the exterior pavilions of Nanda Parbat. This time around, he no longer felt quite as encapsulated by their beauty. A woman sitting underneath a hedge blossomed by thorny roses caught his eye.

But not in the way women used to catch his eye. She seemed to radiate aggression, her lips curling into a cruel smile when she was certain Malcolm was looking. He definitely didn't want to find out what would happen if he got close enough to have a conversation with her. If he let his tongue out near her, he feared she would rip it out with her bare hands.

Cain seemed to notice Malcolm's gaze, and stopped him abruptly with a firm hand. "That lovely thing over there... That's my wife," he explained.

"I swear, I wasn't looking!" Malcolm exclaimed.

"Oh, I'm not concerned about that. She would dispatch you without breaking a single drop of sweat. She can look after herself. I was simply issuing a warning."

Malcolm frowned, and Cain threw his head back and laughed amorously. Merlyn wasn't taking to his new host very much; he crossed the boundaries between friendly and antagonistic to a greater extent than he felt comfortable with.

The pair reached a small building that seemed somewhat isolated from the rest of Nanda Parbat. It was much more humble than any of its counterparts, bearing few fanciful decorations and favouring grey slabs of concrete over wooden struts. The doors, imposing towers of stone, were engraved with brass dragons, great metal beasts that reached out to Merlyn, lashing with forked tongues.

Cain stopped just short of the entrance, turning to Malcolm with a smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

"I go no further," he explained.

Malcolm gazed at the pair of dragons, imagining them as flesh and blood, scorching him with great plumes of flame.

"Why?" he replied.

"This is your test, and your test alone," Cain elaborated, before striding away from Merlyn in the direction from whence they had came.

Malcolm returned his attention to the entrance, swallowing the lump in his throat, and tentatively raising a hand to knock upon the rock. He froze just inches away, his fingers unfurling. He took another look at the dragons.

Something was not right.

It was as though... he were being watched somehow. Even though the ornamental serpents had glassy brown eyes, Merlyn could've sworn that they were focused directly upon him; perhaps sizing him up.

After what seemed like aeons, a sudden rush of cold wind made the hairs on the back of his neck go rigid, like soldiers standing to attention before an authority. Malcolm exhaled deeply, and pounded his fist thrice upon the stone.

There was a peculiar clicking sound, and then the two doors rushed inwards, slowly revealing a long passageway. The light from the outside crept along the brown-carpeted floor, weaving between the fabric and paving a pathway to a distant structure. With a crash, the doors met the wall and stopped, leaving the entrance wide-open.

Malcolm stepped across the threshold and into the mouth of the building, cautiously putting his feet upon its carpeted tongue as the stone teeth closed behind him.

With the exterior light extinguished, the room was now barely-visible, but dancing around the edges of Malcolm's vision were tiny little flickers of light, which he quickly identified as candle wicks. Their fragrant scents wafted through the air; teasing him; drawing him forward.

He began to walk along the carpet. All around him, he felt the burn of thousands of watchful eyes singing every pore, and judging the very slightest of his movements.

At the end of the hall was a large, silver chair. To be accurate, it appeared more like a throne, gilded with jewels and in a state of perfect, glittering upkeep. After a few seconds, where Malcolm's eyes attuned themselves to the gloom of the room, he realised that there was a man seated upon it. Almost at the exact moment that Malcolm noticed him, his head slowly began to rise.

Almost immediately, Malcolm was struck by the man's pupils. They were barely resemblant of eyes, taking the appearance of floodlights. When the two oculus' met with Malcolm's, it was like his soul was being drawn from his body. His gaze seemed akin to a solar flare, and in that initial moment of meeting, Malcolm wanted nothing more than to throw himself at the man's knees, and whimper for his life.

"Malcolm Merlyn," the man boomed. Judging from the commanding tone of his voice and the blazing intensity of his glare, it was less of an acknowledgment or a question than it was an order.

Malcolm nodded quickly, and the man stood up from his chair, reaching a height of nearly seven feet.

"You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Merlyn," the man announced. "I really wasn't expecting a visitor. When I told Al-Owal that I wanted you taken off the map, I didn't expect that he would bring you here... just about as far off of the map as one can get. Now, whose fault is it that these instructions were not heeded?"

Malcolm did not answer. In hindsight, he was unsure of whether that was because he didn't know the answer, or that no amount of inner-coercion could have found his voice.

The man, whose face was still somewhat shrouded by the dark, took a few steps forward. Each one sent shockwaves through Merlyn's body, like literal seconds were ticking off of his life.

"That's fine, I already know the answer," he continued. "But what I don't know, is how you survived the mountain... unless, you were supposed to."

"A man... called Boston Brand saved me," Malcolm spluttered. "He said that he was a test... I didn't pass, but he said that nobody ever has!"

The man chuckled slightly, advancing again. "That is true... except for one... The man who set up this city... The man who presides over this league of exiles... And, if you were wondering, that person is me."

Stepping into Malcolm's frame of vision, the man extended his greetings.

"My name is Ra's Al Ghul," he said.

Merlyn froze, his blood transforming into liquid nitrogen. He had never heard the name before, but all of a sudden, it was like he had known the man all of his life. The power exerting from his words physically shook him to the core, and for a moment, he thought he was about to vomit.

Smiling, Ra's thrust one hand into the Malcolm's palm, shaking it as though it were made of paper.

"If you prefer, you may call me the Demon's Head."

Malcolm was not sure what to make of this grandiose title. He was at a loss for words entirely as it were, his tongue numb and unresponsive. The silence would likely have become an unbearable torment, if it were not for the arrival of Al-Owal, who came walking out of one of the shadows in the corner of the room, his black robes disentangling themselves from the camouflage of the darkness.

Nodding towards Malcolm, he said. "You survived."

Ra's turned to Al-Owal. "You have brought this man to Nanda Parbat. To the League of Assassins. As such, you will be responsible for his training."

"I will make a weapon out of him," Al-Owal replied, bowing respectfully to the Demon's Head.

"Ensure that you do," Ra's exclaimed, before looking one last time at Malcolm. "I'm expecting great things out of you, Merlyn. You will live up to your namesake. You will be... the Magician."

For those few people who may remember this story from earlier in the year, I took a long break from it, as my interest had started to wane. But now, with Merlyn a pivotal character in Arrow Series 3, I felt compelled to take this story back up and I thought I'd start by rewriting Chapter 5, easily the weakest of the five I had originally released. I'm back now, so expect updates coming MUCH faster than five months.