Of course, the shotgun above the fireplace could be a baby pacifier of exotic design. However, if you look up the relationship between Nimue and Merlin in the Arthurian cycle, the rational interpretation is that Nimue will trap Merlin in the cave, in a dream world in which Merlin may recover from all of his traumas. When Merlin is again needed, in a thousand years or whenever, he will be released from the cave. And perhaps, in between, he will be performing his function as an athrawes, except the receiving people in his dream will be real people.
ryndieum wrote:If you are talking about this book, then the previous posters have good arguments.
If you expand the speculation to the entire series, I would be shocked if Merlin survives the last book.
Three reasons:
1) There is significant text evidence showing that Nimue is the "clean" version of the human character.
2) RFC likes Nelson. Nelson didn't survive Trafalgar.
3) I believe that some of the foreshadowing, especially in the later books, indicates that Merlin will be sacrificing himself for the human race. Perhaps to take out whatever is hiding under the temple, although that is pure speculation on my part.