[ WP ] `` Listen buddy , I 'm not leaving without my wife . '' The scariest words ever uttered by the most powerful wizard in Camelot .

`` The doors of death are sealed, Merlin. Banshees are but the creaking of their hinges, imagine the horrors within! The society of wizards simply can not allow you to go rushing, blundering about with death. It is the one finality.'' 
 
 I shot Cabimus a glare that froze a lake once. As he began brushing the frost off his clothes, I said, `` Listen buddy, I'm not leaving without my wife.'' 
 
 Cabimus shook his head sadly, and said `` All we are willing to do is maintain the circles. You will receive no further aid.'' 
 
 I was on my knees and did not care to look up. Our agreement was made, now I had real magic to do. 
 
 There are fourteen spirit realms between living humans and dead ones, and a gate must be constructed through each one of them in sequence. I was working on circle number twelve, Theth-morgoth, a brutal plain of icy wind that could tear flesh from bone and freeze blood before it hit the ground. It was a simple gate, a three-line plait of heat and tranquility surrounding the invocation. The simplicity was deceptive. Each line in the plait had to be perfect, hundreds of tiny words of protection without a single letter wrong, or the self-casting spell would falter and break. I would have doubled the protection, but time was running through my fingers faster than I would have liked. Cabimus was wrong- the doors take a full day to close, but that day was coming to an end. 
 
 I set the last two gates as fast as I could, with barely an hour to spare. I made my way to my circle of protection, two interwoven nine point stars surrounded by seven groups of seven lines of protection. I could take no chances, not without the other wizards. 
 
 They stood at the edges of the room. I nodded, and they came to take their six positions around what they had constructed in the past day- a destruction circle that could contain a failure for almost a second as they banished everything inside it, me included, to Kael-Megrim, the realm of the dead. My closest friends, tasked only with killing me should I fail. 
 
 `` We will begin now,'' I whispered. 
 
 `` So you shall,'' they answered, their voices full. 
 
 `` By the powers of the immortal earth, I command ye, gate to Sul-Andim, open!'' 
 
 The first gate opened in a flash of sunlight. Sul-Andim was a faery land, pleasant but for its denizens. 
 
 `` By the powers of the indomitable sky, I command ye, gate to Sul-Tuatha, open!'' 
 
 The second gate opened upon a vast sea, soundless because of the containment. 
 
 Each of the next ten gates went easily, until I felt a breeze from Theth-Morgoth. Not a wind, not even cold, but it was enough to make me pause before opening the next one. I could tell the others had n't noticed, because I was still alive. This meant it was my decision alone- let the doors close forever, or risk destroying the twelve worlds I had gates through? 
 
 I could not choose the former so I pressed on. I commanded open Yuf-Melagh by the twinkling of the stars, and finally Kael-Megrim opened by the aching of my heart, the only personal invocation I was sure could hold open such a large gate. 
 
 The doors themselves were before me now, perhaps forty feet tall and made of ice, carved with my wife's work in dazzling detail. A tiny crack still remained between them- I thumped my staff and bid them, `` Open, by the ache in my bones and the tears in my eyes, open, by the gnawing in my gut and cold of my bed, open, by the anger in my soul and the ringing in my ears, open!'' 
 
 A creak like the wailing of a thousand souls filled the air as they moved, and a chill that rivaled Theth-Morgoth seeped into the room, freezing my feet in place and making my clothes stiff as boards. 
 
 `` Who seeks to enter the realm of the dead?'' asked the most lovely voice I had ever known, my wife's voice. I wanted to call to her, to say I was coming, but this magic had rules. 
 
 `` It is the great wizard, Merlin of Earth on the plane Shem-Multis, who seeks to enter.'' 
 
 `` What price are they willing to pay?'' 
 
 `` Six lesser wizards, but all incredible talent.'' 
 
 This was my greatest daring- to build the circles so they could hear me open the gates, but not my conversation in the land of the dead, that they would not know my betrayal. 
 
 `` The payment is fair. Your wish is granted,'' answered the voice. My wife, my love, my life, was returning to me. 
 
 Her soul walked taller than even the doors, seventy feet of green fire in the vaguest outline of a person. She shrank as she passed through each gate, until we stood in the same plane, the spirit only ten feet tall now and fading. 
 
 `` I bid thee, to thy body!'' I pointed a finger to where her corpse lay, now cleansed of fever, in fine clothes within a series of complicated spells that would seal body and soul like she was born new. She lay down into it, and sat back up, gasping, alive. 
 
 `` Merlin,'' she called to me, `` what have you done?'' 
 
 `` What I had to, my dear,'' I said soft, then roared, `` you may take your payment now!'' 
 
 Six horrible arms, with too many joints and too many fingers, shot through the doors of death to grip Cabimus and the others. 
 
 `` Leave their powers,'' I shouted again, and light washed off the wizards and gathered in pools within their circles of protection, useless against the lords of death. 
 
 They stretched and twisted and were destroyed by the fourteen worlds, but still moved as they were squeezed in through the doors to unknowable fate. 
 
 I moved, and the power of my late friends rushed into my wife, and she began to glow with light arcane. 
 
 `` Merlin, what have you done?'' she said through tears, `` what have you done?'' 
 
 `` I brought you back to life, Morganna, and gave you powers even I could never hope to attain. We will live together, for eternity.''
