Furies (The Merlin Legacy)

The Furies are the antagonists of the fantasy-supernatural book The Merlin Legacy by Stephen Davis and are the storm deities of Greek mythology.

Background
The Furies were created by the goddess Beltane along with her other creations; the Dragons, the Water Spirits, and humanity. Beltane created each of these so that they would uphold the Natural Order and protect each element of Nature. She gave special powers to each; the Furies were given the task of protecting storms and controlling them; the Dragons were given the task of looking over fire and time-travel to prevent or control disasters; and humans were given the task of looking after the earth. Beltane watched over her creations for many years and then left.

Sometime in this period, the Furies manipulated humanity into thinking that the Pagan ways were evil, having by now grown jealous and envious of Beltane's silence. The Furies appeared amongst humanity in forms they perceived as "angels." Humanity recorded the Furies' visits in a book called The Bible. The Furies appeared and told humanity to invent a new religion; Christianity, which would overthrow the Natural Order by having a masculine society, bent on war and conquest, and Chistianity would ignore and forget the Pagan ways of Beltane.

By the time of the book The Merlin Legacy, (set in modern times) the Furies had certainly been successful.

Conquest
The Furies set about manipulating nature, causing storms instead of preventing them, and abusing their power. The Furies caused all the Great Storms which happened along the coast of England in the 20th Century. The Furies planned to destroy humanity with floods, which then turned into global warming.

Their perpetual enemies were the Dragons, whom they encountered during time travel. One day, the Furies tricked a Dragon named Shola into time travelling, making Shola think it was urgent, and she travelled, but found nothing. When she returned to modern times she found the Furies had set up a large storm, causing blackouts across England, and when Shola returned she hit a pylon in the storm and was killed.

First downfall
The Dragons could not stand this and they all banded together to stop the Furies. They went back in time to the 1980s, when there was a great Storm all over England, and met the Furies, battled with them and finally killed most of them, causing great rainfall due to their defeat. The Dragons were with Wyverns too, and they killed the Furies' leader, who screamed loud as he was killed. Finally the remaining Furies fled and put off conquest for a while, rebuilding their society.

Role in The Merlin Legacy
In The Merlin Legacy, which concerns a young boy named Peter who has realized his abilities as Merlin the wizard, incarnated, along with an old man named Jules who was also Merlin incarnated, the Furies are causing global warming, warming up the planet. The Furies are worrying Jules because this interferes with the Natural Order so he recruits Peter, as his role as Merlin, to fight the Furies. Peter and three other incarnations of Merlin manage to meet regularly at Stonehenge where they communicate with owls, and they are able to use the Dragons to time travel, thus managing to stop the Furies' activities... for now.