Merlin “Excalibur”

We now return to another installment of “Uther Ruins Everything”.

Well, Nimueh isn’t done yet, and she has a new plan when she resurrects a dead knight.  The Black Knight charges off to Camelot, plowing his horse through a stained glass window to throw down a gauntlet.  It’s Arthur’s Coming Of Age Ceremony, and while Arthur would normally grab that gauntlet, some other guy does instead.

The other guy does get his sword through the Black Knight in their fight to the death, but the other knight keeps on going.  He kills the first knight, and another the next day because, well, dead men can’t die.

Now, Gaius recognizes the emblem on the Knight’s shield and alerts Uther after checking with Geoffrey of Monmouth.  Yeah, the older guys know exactly who this Black Knight is.  And Nimueh comes in to tell Uther what’s going on.

See, once upon a time, Uther’s wife Ygraine was pregnant with Arthur, and she wasn’t doing well.  Uther asks Nimueh to keep his son alive, and she tried to explain there was a price to be paid, but this is Uther, and Uther doesn’t listen, and yeah, Nimueh uses magic to make sure baby Arthur lives, but Ygraine dies instead.  Uther then doubled-down on his anti-magic feelings and one of Ygraine’s brothers swore revenge on the obvious cause of Ygraine’s death, namely Uther.  There was a trial by combat to the death, Uther prevailed, and Nimueh resurrected the dead man as a wraith, a being that can’t be killed until it fulfills its purpose, in this case killing Uther.

And then Arthur volunteers to fight the Black Knight against the advice of, oh, everybody.

Now, Merlin knows he can’t let Arthur die, and so he tries to use magic to take out the Black Knight who apparently just stands in one spot all night not raising any suspicions at all.  But no, ring of fire doesn’t work here.  Merlin looks into wraiths himself, learns a weapon with some dragon fire can kill one if he can just find a dragon.

Oh wait, he can!

Getting the best sword Gwen’s father had in inventory, Merlin convinces the Great Cartoon Dragon to enchant the blade with dragon fire.  Great Dragon doesn’t care if Uther dies, but if Arthur does, well, bad things will come.  With the new sword that, you know, is Excalibur, the Dragon explains that Arthur, and only Arthur, can weld it.

Then Uther drugs his son, insists on taking the magic sword he doesn’t know is magic, and actually manages to kill the wraith, even though he expected to die.

Yeah, the Dragon ain’t happy Uther had the sword, but Merlin does toss it into a large lake to be used later.

But this has been another installment of “Uther Ruins Everything”.