How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I looked up. The blue eyes, fierce as a fox, stared down into mine. I held it [the apricot] out to him. "I don't want it. It's black inside. Look, you can see right through." (I.2.110)
This is really the first time that we get a sense of Merlin's power. Up until now, we might think of him as an odd kid, a bit of a loner, perhaps a little sensitive. But when his "kindly" uncle offers him a sweet and beautiful apricot—which is so much nicer than the fruit he's normally allowed—Merlin literally sees right through the surface of the fruit to the poison underneath. It's a sign of exciting things to come.
Quote #2
[…] it should have been the slow-growing beam of a candle flame that I saw, but instead there was a flash, a sparkle, a conflagration as if a whole pitch-soaked beacon was roaring up in flames. Light poured and flashed, crimson, golden, white, red, intolerable into my cave. I winced back from it, frightened now, heedless of pain and cut flesh as I shrank against the sharp walls. The whole globe where I lay seemed to be full of flame. (I.5.21)
Merlin's sneaking around where he shouldn't be: he's in the crystal cave inside Galapas' home. Turns out that the crystal cave is the perfect place to see mystical visions, if you've got the head for that sort of thing. Here we learn for sure that Merlin's life will be extraordinary, filled with visions and contact with the powers of the universe. Sweet.
Quote #3
"Be careful. It matters whether this is true. Your mother told you?"
"No."
"Slaves talk, then? That's all?"
I said desperately: "I heard him myself."
"Then where were you?"
I met his eyes. Without quite realizing why, I told the simple truth. "My lord, I was asleep in the hills, six miles off." (II.5.91-96)
Ambrosius recognizes that the child Merlin is something special, but he doesn't know the extent of it until they have this little chat. Merlin tells him that Uncle Camlach meant to side with Vortimer in a future rebellion against Vortigern. It seems that Ambrosius' kindness to the little prophet will pay off pretty quickly.
Quote #4
I had never since I was a child felt so helpless, so naked of either knowledge or power, so stripped of God. I knew, with bitter failure, that if I were in the crystal cave with fires blazing and my master's eyes on me, I should see nothing. I remembered suddenly that Galapas was dead. Perhaps, I thought, the power had only come from him, and perhaps it had gone with him. (III.7.47)
This is the downside to having phenomenal mystical powers: they don't come for the asking, even when you're in a desperate situation. Poor Merlin stands before Vortigern with a sword to his side, and he just can't do anything about it. He still doesn't really know how his power works, so he has plenty of room to doubt himself. Merlin's also only seventeen, so confidence in his abilities is low.
Quote #5
"I was never alone in my chamber, but he came through doors and windows and walls, and lay with me. I never saw him again, but heard his voice and felt his body. Then, in the summer, when I was heavy with child, he left me." (III.8.11)
Niniane feeds Vortigern the same old story she used to tell her dad about how she got pregnant with Merlin. (Basically: a demon did it.) She's trying to protect both Ambrosius (the real dad) and Merlin by clinging to her supernatural conception story. The funny part? This is exactly what Vortigern wants to hear, because he needs a supernatural solution to the problem of his tumbling tower walls.
Quote #6
"Does it not occur to you, King, that the son of a spirit of darkness might have a magic that outstrips the spells of these old fools? If what they say is true, and if my blood will make these stones stand, then why did they watch them fall not once, not twice, but four times, before they could tell you what to do? Let me but see the place once, and I will tell you." (III.9.31)
Merlin decides to play up the old story about being fathered by a demon in order to save his skin. Vortigern wants to sacrifice Merlin (because he thinks the boy doesn't have a human father) and use his blood to help his tower walls stand.
Yeah, it's pretty whack. But Vortigern is getting his engineering advice from a bunch of "priests." Merlin knows that his solution will be more scientific, but you can bet he's going to dress it up in magic to make it seem more legit to these people. Go figure.
Quote #7
My hands tore in pain at the rock, and my eyes were open, but all I could see was the whirl of banners and wings and wolves' eyes and sick mouths gaping, and the tail of a comet like a brand, and stars shooting through a rain of blood. (III.10.44)
Merlin has his first grown-up vision in the mineshaft beneath Vortigern's failed tower. He's not aware of what he says here, but he does learn one thing: magic hurts. And it hurts because the magic isn't something he owns—it belongs to the "god," and when the god comes by with info, it isn't always a pretty experience.
Still, it does the trick. Vortigern gets his mystical experience and the knowledge he needs to repair his walls. Not that it does him any good.
Quote #8
What I had done at Dinas Brenin, I had not done of myself. It was not I who had decided to send Vortigern fleeing out of Wales. Out of the dark, out of the wild and whirling stars, I had been told. […] The voice that had said so, that said so now in the musty dark of Camlach's room, was not my own; it was the god's. (IV.2.89)
Merlin slowly begins to understand the power that sets him apart from other people. It really isn't about him. He's more like a vessel for the power of the divine. That's pretty humbling—and also a little scary. Merlin's never really sure if his power will be useful or good for him or the ones he loves. He literally has one job: to obey the god in all things.
Quote #9
I had felt something of the same thing in Brittany as I first passed among the avenues of stone; a breathing on the back of the neck as if something older than time were looking over one's shoulder; but this was not quite the same. It was as if the ground, the stones that I touched, though still warm from the spring sunlight, were breathing cold from somewhere deep below. (IV.7.6)
Merlin encounters the "Giants' Dance" (a.k.a. Stonehenge) for the first time and realizes that the ancient stones have the same kind of creepiness as the standing stones he'd encountered on his first desperate night in Less Britain. There's definitely power in those stones—and Merlin likes power—but it's not friendly at all. He understands that he has to grapple with the forces at Stonehenge, to put it back to order, but there's something really scary and unsavory about some of the ancient stones.
Quote #10
Then suddenly, directly overhead, the clouds parted, and there, sailing through them like a ship through running waves, the star.
It hung there among the dazzle of smaller stars, flickering at first, then pulsing, growing, bursting with light and all the colours that you see in dancing water. I watched it wax and flame and break open in light… (V.8.22-23)
Merlin has just literally had the worst night of his life: his plan to sneak Uther in to Tintagel to hook up with Ygraine has gone disastrously wrong. Cadal is dead, along with several others. He's wondering just what good these powers of his really are.
But then he understands that one huge thing has been accomplished: the conception of the fabulous King Arthur. The king-star, which grows and dances in the sky as a sign of King Arthur's rise, reassures Merlin that all the suffering has been worth it.