Two Boys from Kansas....4/? (Merlin/SPN crossover fic)
Title: Two Boys from Kansas in King Uther's Court 4/?
Rating: Gen (no pairing, just swearing)
Characters: Sam, Dean, Merlin, Arthur, assorted canon BBC Merlin characters, and a few OCs
Word Count: ~6.5K this part
Warnings/Spoilers: see part one
Disclaimer: not mine, no profit
A/N 1: thanks, as always, to my wonderful beta,
calamitycrow
A/N 2: more notes here
A/N 3: I'm sorry this is taking so long! Work...kids...laundry...SPN 5.01....not even necessarily in that order. It will definitely be finished in 6 or 7 parts, but they might appear at the same slow rate. My heartfelt gratitude for the patience of anyone who's still reading!
ETA: beautiful banner by ala_tariel
Summary: The title kinda says it all. And this:
For the second time that day, Dean heard the sound of giant wings, and felt the air shudder into life around him. He tensed. An enormous shape rocketed out of the darkness.
“Sammy,” he breathed, “that’s a-“
“Yeah,” Sam confirmed, equally awestruck, “that’s a dragon.”
Picture Credit by: ala_tariel
part one * part two * part three *
Part Four
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Dean sidled his horse up to Merlin’s. Arthur and the still unsteady Watt and Walter ambled along a good way ahead of them.
Merlin jerked his head around and stared at him wide-eyed.
“No, no, not like that,” Dean laughed, loose and relaxed after the successful hunt, “I just mean I’ll tell you the secret of my identity if you tell me how you did that trick with the arrow.”
“You have a secret identity?”
“I certainly do,” he said solemnly, “but you first.” Merlin hesitated, “Come on-I already know you can do stuff you don’t want your employer to know about, I just want details. So spill.”
Merlin looked fixedly at the reigns in his hands.
“I’m magic,” he said reluctantly, “and if Arthur or Uther finds out, they’ll have me killed.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got that part, don’t worry, I’m not telling. But, like, where does the magic come from? Are you some kind of supernatural creature? Do you use spells? Do you-“ Dean swallowed, “-have dealings with demons?”
“Well…sometimes I use spells, say words, but mostly it’s just something inside of me-- it’s always been there. Demons don’t exist,” Dean let that one slide for now, “and I’m certainly not anything other than human-there are a bunch of other people like me, we’re just all in hiding these days. Our magic is part of the old ways, ways Uther wants to leave behind.”
“Huh. Okay.” Dean let it go at that, “So what can you do? You can set things on fire, we know that-what else?”
“I can move things around without touching them.”
“Handy. Can you read minds?”
“Not usually.”
“Make people do stuff?”
“Hardly ever.” Merlin grinned, “and when I can, it’s not with magic.”
“See the future?”
“Never.”
“That’s lucky” Dean said, thinking of Sam’s visions, “that one hardly ever turns out well.” Merlin looked at him quizzically, but Dean had no intention of elaborating.
“Your turn: what’s your secret identity?” the younger man said.
Dean told him as best he could. Merlin, to his credit, took it all in without much fuss. Dean supposed that when you’d spent the first part of the day fighting a manticore, surviving an eclipse, and setting arrows alight with a blue unearthly fire, visitors from the future didn’t seem like anything special.
“But how did you get here?’ Merlin asked.
“No clue,” Dean shrugged, “Hopefully Sam’s found something out by now.”
“And how will you get back?”
“That, my friend, is the million dollar question.”
They rode on, both silently considering the problem.
“I may know someone-uh-something, that could help. Or give you some answers at any rate,” Merlin said after a while. “I’ll take you tonight.”
“Don’t tell me-another secret?”
“You have no idea.”
************************
Dean was just beginning to get sick of their slow, hot progress down the dusty road when five horsemen cantered into view. The one in the middle was the king himself, Dean realized with surprise as they rapidly approached, flanked by two pike-carrying men-at-arms on either side. Arthur had sent a boy on a fresh horse on to Camelot with a pared down version of the hunt as soon as they passed the village again, but Uther coming out to meet them still seemed-unexpected.
Ahead of him, the prince urged his mount forward to meet his father, and Dean’s horse took up the faster pace in sympathy. For a minute he had to give his full attention to just staying on board.
The two parties came together in a place where the road bisected a fallow, daisy strewn field. Arthur slid gracefully off his horse before it had even stopped moving, going to one knee in the dirt.
Dean almost smiled. Now that was a level of respect his own father would have enjoyed.
“My liege,” Arthur said, head bent, “We bring you the head of the manticore, the fearsome beast that has tormented our people these last weeks.”
Still astride, Uther surveyed his son impassively. If Dean hadn’t been an expert in the passage of imperceptible signs across hard faces, he wouldn’t have noticed the tiny movements as the king’s jaw unclenched and his shoulders fell a fraction of an inch.
Well, that explains the welcome wagon, he thought. The king had come to make sure his son was unhurt. Arthur had maybe left that little detail out of the message.
Uther dismounted, standing in front of the prince, who still had not looked up. The king made a small, awkward gesture with his hand, as if he had been about to reach out and touch his son’s head or shoulder but then thought better of it. If Arthur sensed the movement, he didn’t let on.
“You have done well, my child,” Uther said, “the kingdom of Camelot is grateful.”
“I am pleased to be of service to my king and country,” Arthur replied.
Dean stared at them, amazed they could keep up this degree of formality amidst the potholes and buzzing flies.
“Get up, Arthur,” the king said brusquely, “Was the beast magic? Did it cause the plague of darkness that befell us today?”
“I know not for certain, sire,” Arthur replied, rising and dusting off his knees, “but the sun reappeared soon after we killed it, so I can only suppose that there was some connection.”
Uther nodded, seemingly satisfied. “We will call off the search for other magicians, then.”
Now one large party, they set off again towards the castle, but not before Uther had them mount the manticore’s head on a pike, and instructed one of the men-at-arms to lead the way with it.
“Let the people see the might and skill of the Pendragons,” he proclaimed, “let them know who protects them from the foul deeds of magic.”
The citizens of Camelot cheered the impromptu parade as it passed through, delighted with the gory spectacle. But Dean thought of Merlin’s fear, and shivered a little in the warm afternoon air.
***********************************
When they passed through the castle gates, Dean imitated the rest of the group in giving the reins of his horse to a waiting groom, and gratefully, finally, got his feet back onto solid ground.
Arthur clapped him on the back, looking as happy and relaxed as Dean had yet seen him, and said, “It was a good hunt, Winchester. I would be pleased to have you continue in my service.”
It had been fun, but Dean kinda hoped they wouldn’t be sticking around that long. Still, he bobbed his head, trying to look appropriately grateful and respectful.
Arthur just laughed, “Go see Gwen,” he said, “she’ll get you some proper clothes. And a bow of your own.”
Sam fell into step with Dean as he made his way out of the crowd that had gathered around the returning hunters, following the directions Merlin had given him for reaching the mysterious Gwen.
“A manticore, huh?” Sam said, grinning, “Now who’s like a Disney movie? Saving the prince and everything?” Everyone in the castle seemed to know the story already. It was that kind of place.
“Wish you’d seen it, man,” Dean said, launching into a play-by-play, including the part about Merlin’s magic he had kept from Arthur. He streamlined the details but provided all the necessary sound effects.
“Whoosh,” he intoned, imitating the beautiful arc of Arthur’s sword across the monster’s throat. “Swords are awesome, Sammy-how come Dad never taught us to use swords?”
“Um. ‘Cause guns are better for killing shit?” Sam rolled his eyes.
“Killjoy.” Dean swung his hands through one last, enthusiastic whoosh, and then sobered. “How about you? You find us a way out of here? Because shiny killing sticks aside, the lack of indoor plumbing is gonna get old fast.”
Sam frowned. “The short answer is, no. Turns out that when they purged all the magicians, they purged all the books about magic too. So there wasn’t much in the library that could help us. No specific spells, anyway.
“And the long answer?”
“Well, I did find some references to time portals-stone circles rigged so that people can travel between different times just by stepping inside them. Then I looked and found descriptions of the same kind of thing in Dad’s journal.”
“Sounds good-let’s find the nearest one, and dis-fucking-apparate ourselves home.”
“Yeah. That’s the problem. No magic books, no magic maps-I couldn’t find anything that said where these things were. And the only thing Dad could say about them was that he was pretty sure there weren’t any in North America.”
They walked on glumly for a bit, Dean calculating how long he could realistically expect to survive without a car, a shower or a cheeseburger. But he tried to be optimistic, if only for Sam’s sake.
“Alright. Good.,” he said as heartily as he could. “It’s a start. We know these things are out there-we just have to find one. We can do that. How was the rest of the library?”
Sam put on a brave face, too, and threw himself into a description of the never-before-seen, and the long-thought-lost volumes of this and that he’d encountered. Turned out Sam felt about old books the way Dean felt about old weapons. Dean teased him about it, but only half-heartedly. It was good to see that look of geeky glee on Sam’s face, even if it had taken being sent back thirteen hundred years to spark it-it hadn’t been around much since Jess died.
******************************
Gwen turned out to be the curly-haired girl from the throne room yesterday. She was even prettier close up, in a low-cut, yellow dress that hugged her curves.
She cracked the door of her workroom open for them, and gave them a slightly moony smile that indicated that she too already knew the whole manticore story.
“Oh! Arthur sent to say you’d be coming by. We’ve been waiting for you.” She dropped her eyes and backtracked a bit, “well, not waiting, not that we don’t have other things to do, important things.” She blushed a little, which only highlighted the strong, clear lines of her face. She seemed to have forgotten about opening the door any farther.
“The prince said you might be able to find us some clothes, and, uh, weapons?” Dean prompted, though actually he would have been fine with hanging out in the doorframe, ogling each other like teenagers.
“Oh. Right!” Gwen opened the door the rest of the way, ushering them into the room.
It contained several long, low tables, piled with bolts of cloth, sewing projects in various stages of completion, and whatever you used to make clothes with in this century-no sewing machines, that was for sure.
The only other person in the room was the blond girl who had been standing beside Gwen in the throne room. Like Gwen, she wore a long, low-cut gown over some kind of under-blouse, pale blue in her case; her hair was piled messily on top of her head, strands of it coming loose and flopping into her face. She was busily sweeping, but swiveled her head around to see who had come in.
The broom clattered to the floor with a resounding thunk, and the girl gawped at them just like she had yesterday, her long, horsey jaw hanging open.
Dean marveled again at the effect they seemed to have on people here.
“Ruby!” Gwen reprimanded, “close your mouth and pick up that broom. You’re in Camelot now, and it’s not polite to stare at strangers. Even if they did just slay a fire-breathing dragon-lion,” this last bit was addressed to Dean, with a sly smile. “My cousin’s just arrived from the country,” she added apologetically, “and her manners could use a bit of polishing.”
Ruby shut her mouth, but her eyes were still huge. She wasn’t really looking at Dean, though, he noticed, but fixing an unwavering, hungry eye on Sam.
“No worries,” Dean said, looking warily at Ruby, “and it didn’t really breathe fire.”
If Sam noticed that he was the object of the girl’s unblinking attention, he didn’t let on. Maybe because he was puzzling over something else entirely.
“Gwen?” he queried, “Guinevere?”
“That’s right. It’s a mouthful, isn’t it? People hardly ever use it-don’t know why my mother saddled me with the thing.”
“And you…?” he gestured vaguely around the room, but Gwen seemed to grasp what he was asking.
“Well, mostly I’m Morgana’s lady’s maid,” The hot chick in the throne room, Dean concluded, “but I know where everything is in the castle, and I’ve got a knack with a needle, so I help Arthur-and Merlin, and, uh, sometimes Gaius-out with things. Oh, and my dad’s the castle smith, so I can fix you up with a weapon, too.”
Dean decided all the crazy time travel had probably been worth it, just to hear the sentence that popped of Sam’s mouth next. He would be busting his balls for it in perpetuity.
“So, you’re not-uh-not a-uh--not a princess?”
Gwen goggled at him for a moment, then gave a startled laugh. “No, I most certainly am not-and I never hope to be one. You really are from distant lands, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, we are,” Dean agreed, cuffing his brother on the back of the head, “Sammy-what have I told you about personal questions? My brother,” he said, trying to dispel Gwen’s discomfort with as blinding a smile as he could muster, “his manners could use some sandpaper themselves.”
“Don’t call me that,” Sam muttered. But at least he didn’t ask her if she was hooking up with her future king.
Trying to shift the subject, Dean continued, “Well, now that introductions are over…”
Gwen measured them both for clothes, fingers traveling the outlines of Dean’s body in a way that made him think he could finds things to like about Camelot after all. She kept Ruby busy fetching things and tidying up, because every time the girl stopped, her eyes went unerringly back to Sam like a magnet. Sometimes her distraction made her drop stuff, which meant that even Sam noticed, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.
Dean wiggled his eyebrows at his brother, in a way that he hoped said, See? You could get lucky in the Middle Ages. The girl’s vibe was more awkward and creepy than fun, true, but you never knew. Sam just tossed him an epic bitch face.
Gwen told them she would need to alter a few things, and would send them over to Gaius’s chambers later. Then she took them to the armory, which was everything that Dean could have hoped for. He got a bow, and one of those useful chain-mail hoodies, as did Sam-who declined a bow, but took a hunting knife.
********************************
What he really needed, Dean thought, as Merlin led them down a steep, winding staircase, the light of his torch bouncing crazily off the stone blocks of the walls, was a nap. Killing a monster before lunch tends to take it out of you, and the only thing keeping him awake on this after-dinner jaunt to the bowels of the castle was Merlin’s promise that whatever lived at the bottom of the staircase might have some answers for them. That, and the fear of tumbling down the worn, narrow steps if he blinked. He tried to focus on Sam’s back energetically descending in front of him.
A few twists of the winding staircase down and the air started to chill-he could almost believe they’d left June behind and gone back to November. Damp patches slicked the stone walls, as if the wet earth they were holding back were pushing its way through. Phantom scents kept catching him unawares-sharply mineral, cloyingly decaying-disappearing before he could pinpoint what they were.
At the bottom of the endless stair, Merlin took them down a short passage that opened into-nothing.
Well, not nothing exactly. Some kind of cave expanded out in all directions, the little bit of floor they were standing on sticking out over the inky abyss like a diving board. The pool of light cast by Merlin’s torch pushed a little way into the gloom, enough that Dean could see glistening rock wall curving out to enclose a huge expanse.
He glanced at Merlin but the boy didn’t seem ready to fill them in on why they were there. He was waiting-but for what, Dean didn’t know. Next to him, Sam caught his eye and shrugged.
Then, for the second time that day, Dean heard the sound of giant wings, and felt the air shudder into life around him. He tensed. An enormous shape rocketed out of the darkness.
“Sammy,” he breathed, “that’s a-“
“Yeah,” Sam confirmed, equally awestruck, “that’s a dragon.”
The beast flew directly at them, scaly bronze wings outstretched, long snout open to show rows of pointed teeth, eyes glinting fiercely. It was as big as the manticore, but rather than a grotesque collection of parts, it was all of one shiny, spiky, symmetrical piece, moving with a harsh grace. It swooped towards them so swiftly that he was sure it was getting ready to incinerate them, or at least rip them limb from limb. Some part of Dean shouted at him to get out of the way, to get all of them out of the way, but most of him was mesmerized by its strange beauty, the way people are said to be by approaching tornados, too compelled by the sight to get out of their deadly path.
At the last minute, however, the dragon pulled up short, emitting a low, piercing scream. It was chained, Dean realized, held in the cavern like a Rottweiler in a suburban yard.
The dragon perched on a spur of rock jutting out of the cavern wall opposite them, and folded its wings close to its body. It stretched its impossibly long, serpentine neck across the empty space between them, bringing its head right into Dean’s personal space. He felt like a rabbit with a rattlesnake, frozen, while the dragon sniffed him-or did the dragonly equivalent thereof.
Satisfied, the dragon turned its attention to Sam, doing a long, slow sniff up his body, and then cocking its head almost sideways to peer at his face, while Sam did his own rabbit impression. Apparently it didn’t like what it saw-or smelled-because it opened its mouth a little wider and emitted a nasty, reptilian hiss.
The suggested threat snapped Dean out of his paralysis. He shouldered his way between the dragon and his brother and shooed at it, as if it were just some overgrown lizard. “Alright,” he said, “that’s enough now-back off!” He realized suddenly that he was unarmed, and wondered what he’d do it the dragon decided to snap at him. Luckily, however, it took the suggestion amicably, and retreated to its rocky seat.
“Why are they here?” it said, looking at Merlin, its deep, disgust-laden voice reverberating in a weird way that made it hard to tell whether it emanated from outside Dean’s head or inside it.
“We were hoping you could tell us that,” Merlin said, as unabashed with this giant scaly creature as he had been with the one earlier today.
“It is wrong,” the dragon insisted, “they are out of place. They upset the balance.”
“I’m sure they do,” Merlin continued, their official spokesperson, since Dean and Sam were panting beside him in uncharacteristic speechlessness. “But who or what brought them here? Was it done by magic?”
“Yeesss,” it hissed, “But not our kind of magic. Not through the old ways. We abhor such displacement. It was done with newer methods.” The dragon turned the word into a sneer.
“But why-why would someone do it?”
“They hope to wreak great evil with what he carries with him,” the beast jerked his head in Sam’s direction.
Dean found his voice, even if it was a bit croaky. “Why him? He’s not carrying anything.” But the dragon only emitted a low, unnerving keening noise in response.
“They must go back. The longer they are here, the worse the imbalance.”
“Right-I got that. But how? How can they get back?” Merlin grew insistent.
“You must seek help from your own kind,” the dragon answered sepulchrally. Then it spread its wings and glided back into the darkness.
*********************************
Dean was beat by the time they got back to Gaius’s chambers. He didn’t know how Sam and Merlin could still be yammering on, rehashing the big load of fuck-all the dragon had told them.
Dean had tuned them out after Merlin explained what the dragon was doing down there (imprisoned by Uther, natch-‘cause imprisoning shit was pretty much his M.O.). Because, yeah, seeing a dragon was pretty cool-kinda a lifelong dream, to be honest-but in terms of practical help for getting them out of there-- not so much.
But Merlin and Sam were united in the belief that they could winkle more information out of the encounter, and went on comparing and contrasting different kinds of magic, different kinds of potential evil, tangible and intangible things Sam might be carrying, all the way back.
“Nice visit?” Gaius said when they came in, barely lifting his head from the dusty tome he was perusing (Merlin had given him some vague story about meeting his mates to explain their absence).
“Yeah,” Dean muttered, “a regular laff-riot.” He trudged over to the cot still made up near the hearth, only half-hearing Sam and Merlin delving into the political history of Camelot with Gaius. Maybe if he fell asleep on the bed now, Sam wouldn’t have the heart to make him move to the floor later on.
It was like someone had drawn an invisible line on the floor around the cot. On one side of it, he was weary in an ordinary, end-of-a-long-day kind of way; on the other, he felt like someone had cut the sinews in his legs. And arms. And neck. With no warning or build-up, he found himself descending to the floor, boneless, like a heap of spaghetti sliding out of a pot.
Luckily, he was close enough to the cot that it broke his fall a bit, and he came to rest propped up a against it, legs sprawled out in front of him, head lolling like a broken marionette’s.
“Dean?” Sam said urgently, alarmed by his undignified collapse. “What’s going on with you?” He started towards him.
Dean tried to tell him not to come any closer, to stay away from the bed, but his tongue and lips were as useless as his other muscles, and all that came out of his mouth was incoherent “nnnhg.”
Sure enough, the minute Sam crossed the unseen barrier around the cot, he too turned into Gumby, rapidly subsiding into a pile of long, floppy arms and legs on the floor.
Suddenly Dean wished he’d paid more attention to the different kinds of magic duking it out in Camelot.
Gaius and Merlin stared at them, aghast. They clearly wanted to help, but were understandably hesitant about getting any nearer after what had just happened to Sam.
Dean tried to take stock of the situation, and found, to his relief, that the muscles powering his brain still worked. Most importantly, whatever spell it was-and it had to be a spell-wasn’t designed to kill them-because otherwise, they’d be dead already. Just to incapacitate them for some purpose. Furthermore, it hadn’t been in place when they’d left to visit the dragon-he was sure he’d sat on the bed for a moment to retie his boots before walking out the door. Which meant that it wasn’t intended for Gaius, since he’d been here the whole time they were gone: just him and Sam, and possibly Merlin.
So, both localized and personalized. Which meant only one thing: witches. And someone needed to find the hex bag involved, or else he and Sam were going to spend the rest of their lives on the floor as puddles of goo.
Christ, he hated witches.
Sam had landed with one cheek mashed into the floor, facing Dean, and he swore he could hear the same gears turning behind his brother’s slack face. Sam, though, was having better luck getting his word-making equipment to function.
“…iii…” Sam got out faintly. “…ags….ur….” Dean knew he meant, witches, hex bags, burn them , but Merlin and Gaius, needless to say, looked baffled.
Finally, Merlin threw caution to the winds and moved towards Sam, murmuring words that Dean sincerely hoped were a warding spell. And either his magic worked, or the spell wasn’t meant for him, because he was to able move into the kill zone of the bed without being reduced to jello.
Merlin crouched down next to Sam, and awkwardly got his face close to Sam’s mouth.
“Rags?” he asked, after listening again, “hags?” Sam managed to squeeze his facial muscles in a way that clearly indicated no. “Bags?” Merlin tried, and this time Sam’s eyebrows lifted in minute, happy, assent.
“Ahh,” Gauis exclaimed, joining them now, and not suffering any ill effects either. “I think I’ve read of this practice. It’s a lower form of witchcraft. The witch takes something from the victim, and crafts a spell through placing it in a tiny bag with other magical objects-it only works on the person it’s intended for, and then only in close proximity.”
Yeah, thought Dean, that.
“Right,” Gaius was saying, “it-they-must be near the bed.” With Merlin’s aid, he proceeded to strip the covers, shaking them out thoroughly. Nothing. They poked around in the ashes of the hearth, and among the objects on the mantle above it. Still nothing. Dean felt a wave of frustration at his own helplessness rise, crest and break inside him without having the slightest effect on his useless limbs.
“Oh,” Merlin said, looking at a pile of fabric in different colors that had separated itself out when they disassembled the bed. “Your new clothes.”
He and the older man went through them, pushing their hands inside the shirts, and into the trouser pockets. Still nothing. Then, Merlin ran his hand along the seam of a pants leg, and his fingers come to rest on a suspicious lump. Ripping the stitches, he removed a small, black bag, tied with a piece of darning thread.
“What now?” he asked Gaius.
“Burn it.”
Merlin placed it carefully on the floor and raised his hand. The hex bag exploded in a burst of sickly green flames.
With a gasping intake of breath, Sam came back to life, pushing himself up off the floor, breathing out a heartfelt thanks, and looking kind of impressed with Merlin's fire starting abilities.
If Gaius hadn’t known about Merlin’s magic before, he certainly did now. But since he mostly just looked relieved at Sam’s revivification, Dean thought he probably had.
A brief investigation of the other clothes revealed another bundle similarly hidden. Merlin gave it the same treatment, and Dean suddenly found his body back within his control.
“Like I said, handy,” he told Merlin, struggling to his feat and clapping him on the back. He appraised Sam, who seemed as good as new. “You okay?” he asked anyway.
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine. Except for how my butt is numb. Fucking witches.” He grimaced apologetically at Gaius, but the physician just nodded his agreement.
“Okay,” Dean went on, dusting himself off, “so now we know someone brought us back here for some kind of nefarious purpose, and they’re using black magic to do it. Unfortunately, we still don’t know what that purpose is, or who they are.”
“Oh, we know something,” Sam put in, “We know they had access to those clothes. They arrived after we left, right.”
“Yes,” said Gaius, “a page brought them, with Arthur’s compliments, he said.”
“But it must have been someone who was around while they were being altered, to sew the bags into the seams like that,” Sam continued, “Someone who could have gotten hold of a strand of hair or two. Gwen-“
“No, not Gwen-she would never dream of doing something like that,” Merlin protested.
“Okay, then, the other girl, her cousin,” Dean said, “what’s her name-Scarlett?”
“Ruby,” Sam corrected, an undercurrent of menace in his voice, “Her name was Ruby.”
**********************************
Merlin tapped softly on the door to Gwen’s family chambers, while Sam and Dean hung back in the shadows. After some convincing, Gaius had agreed to stay behind. Dean was glad-he didn’t want the physician to see the kind of thing that he thought was about to go down. Didn’t really want Merlin to see either, but they needed him. He had briefly considered trying to get Arthur in on the venture, but decided the less any of the Pendragons knew about the magic going on around them, the better.
The boy knocked again, a little harder.
With a creak, the door swung open, and Gwen peered through the opening. When she saw Merlin, she opened it wider and stepped outside. She wore a long, white nightdress, her hair falling loose over her shoulders.
“What is it?” she asked, alarmed, “had something happened to-“ The end of her sentence was cut off as Dean slipped behind her and got a hand over her mouth. She struggled a little under his arm, staring wide-eyed at Merlin and Sam.
“Gwen,” Merlin began, in the kind of strained, tightly controlled voice Dean recognized from a lifetime of crisis situations. “It’s okay-no one’s going to hurt you. It’s just-Sam and Dean ran into some trouble tonight-er-magical trouble-Someone tried to hurt them.” He let that sink in for a bit, Gwen’s eyes getting even bigger, and then dropped his bombshell. “And we think your cousin might be involved.” Gwen shook her head in protest, jiggling Dean’s arm.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin continued, “but, yeah. So, we need to go in and talk to her, and we can’t have you warning her. Trust me on this, okay, and help us out?” Gwen was still for a minute, then nodded, though Dean could sense her reluctance. He slowly released her, but stood ready to gag her again if she raised the alarm. She threw him a look over her shoulder at him, sad rather than pissed-off, as if she were disappointed he wasn’t the loveable monster-killer she had taken him for. His chest tightened unexpectedly.
“Ruby?” She whispered, turning back to Merlin and Sam, “Magic? You must be mistaken. I mean, the girl’s family and all, but to be honest, she doesn’t have the wits to be mixed up in something like that.”
“Like that ever stopped anybody,” Dean snorted. Sam made a face at him, then turned his attention to Gwen, reasonable-and-reassuring voice dialed up to eleven.
“We’re not saying she’s done anything. We just need to ask her a few questions. Is she inside?”
“Asleep,” Gwen confirmed.
“And your father?” Merlin asked.
“Shoeing horses at the border stations-won’t be home ‘til the end of the week.”
“Right,” said Dean, “Merlin, stay here with Gwen. Sam, let’s do this.”
They found Ruby snoring peacefully under a pile of untidy bedclothes, blond hair tumbling over the pillow. She looked like a kid, Dean thought, and wondered how old she was-sixteen, seventeen at the most. Steeling himself against the wrongness of what he was about to do, Dean slipped a hand under her face and over her mouth. He pulled her, none too gently, into a sitting position, holding her against him.
She woke abruptly, in a flurry of flailing limbs, thrashing against him like a giant salmon caught by a bear.
“Hey! Calm down-we just want to talk,” he said, tightening his grip. Sam unwound the rope they had brought, and got a few lengths around the girl, securing them as tightly as possible. The relatively flimsiness of the restraint made Dean nervous-he would have preferred a few lengths of iron chains-who knew what kind of witch-tricks she had up her sleeve?-but they needed to get some information from her, and they needed it fast. He cautiously took his hand off her face. She struggled against the ropes some more, but the look on her face was one part resentment to nine-tenths astonishment, as if she couldn’t figure out what they were doing here.
Sam sized her up. “Ruby,” he said, voice stripped of all warmth or reassurance. He might have been a different person now, all business, and it never failed to freak Dean out a bit, seeing his little brother turn on a dime like that. Still, in this kind of situation, it was a useful trait to have.
“Someone tried to hurt us earlier tonight,” Sam went on, “Hurt us with magic. Which we did not appreciate at all. And that someone managed to sew the hex bags into the clothes that were made up for us today. So, since we’re pretty sure it wasn’t Gwen, we’re thinking that someone might have been you. Was it you, Ruby? Did you try to cast a very nasty spell on us?”
She glared at him. Then futilely tried to deny it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she spluttered, “I don’t know anything about magic.”
“Oh, I think you do, Ruby.” Dean answered her, “And I think you’re going to start telling us what you know and how you know it, or things are going to get real unpleasant for you real fast.”
She flipped over from false innocence to fury with startling ease. “Damn you,” she hissed.
Dean raised his fist, hoping pretty hard that he wouldn’t have to drive it into her face. Because, yeah, he’d hit girls before, and he was sure he’d hit one again, in the right set of circumstances, but that didn’t mean he had to feel good about it.
Luckily, her defiance collapsed as quickly as it had flared up, and she burst into tears as soon as she grasped his intention.
“I thought it would work,” she sobbed, “She told me it would work.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, sweetheart. Nice try, but your timing was a little off.”
Sam, as determined as ever, kept up the questioning.
“What would work?” he said, “what did you think would happen?”
“The hex bags, the spell, it was supposed to im--, immob--, make it so you couldn’t move, couldn’t wake up, and then I was going to sneak in before dawn, and just prick you,” she jerked her chin towards Sam, “just get a tiny bit of blood from you, not so it would hurt you, you wouldn’t even’ve noticed. That’s all. But it was the whole reason we-“ Her confession skidded to a halt.
“The whole reason--?” Sam said, startled, “Did you-did you and she--? Were you the ones who brought us here in the first place? Did she give you a spell for that too?”
Seemingly defeated, Ruby nodded, hanging her head, a curtain of hair hiding her face.
“But why? Why bring us here?” Dean was caught between outrage and curiosity.
“We had to cast our net wide-“ Ruby’s voice was faint now, “my mistress said we needed to cast our net wide-to find someone whose blood would be powerful enough. The spell found you. I had no idea it would bring you from as far away as Impala.”
Dean shook his head-how could she know that it had brought them from so much farther away than that? He looked at Sam, and they silently agreed to take up the question of what made Sam’s blood so powerful later on.
“Your mistress,” Sam pressed, taking a different tack. “Who is she? Can we speak to her?”
Ruby raised her head at that, some of her former spitefulness returning. “Her true name is not for the likes of us. But she is beautiful and powerful-and will soon be more so. You do not speak to her-she speaks to you.”
Dean rolled his eyes. What guff.
“She found me,” Ruby continued, caught up now in some satisfying memory, “out of all the girls in our village, she chose me. She said I was ripe for better things, that she could help me get all that I desired.”
“And what was that, Ruby? What did you desire?” Sam asked, in a voice that you might have called gentle if it hadn’t been so cold.
“Geoffrey,” she said, “the Miller’s son. And she got him for me too.” Dean could hear the want in her voice, the unrepentant joy of victory.
“And what did she ask for in return?” Sam asked.
“Nothing, she did it to help me. Because she had chosen me.” Sam raised his eyebrows at that, and Ruby amended her statement. “She told me she would come for my soul in ten years time. But what’s that to me?” She looked at them, and the bitterness radiating from her smooth, unlined face was chilling. “I won’t live to see twenty-five-I’ll be dead of plague, or in childbirth, like my mother and half the women in our village. Twenty-five!” she spat it out like a curse.
A surge of fury went through Dean. Fucking demons, he thought, taking advantage of a teenager’s crush. Fifteen, for chrissakes .
“Where’s Geoffrey now?” he said.
“Taken by raiders. He won’t be coming home again.” Ruby admitted, with the callousness of youth, “But my mistress said to forget him, that better things were waiting for us in Camelot. And when I saw you two, I knew she was right.”
“But how did you know-how did you know we were the ones the spell had brought?” Sam asked.
“She told me,” Ruby replied, with a crude giggle of delight, “she said she could smell you a mile off.”
His skin crawling with disgust, Dean plucked at Sam’s sleeve, drew him a bit away.
“Okay-way to freak me the fuck out. What’s our next move here?”
“Beats me,” Sam replied. But before they could decide what to do next, they heard Ruby chanting a rapid-fire string of somewhat garbled Latin words. The sequence tugged at his memory, but Dean couldn’t quite place it--
“Dean,” Sam said, grabbing his wrist hard, “that’s a summoning spell!”
part five
Rating: Gen (no pairing, just swearing)
Characters: Sam, Dean, Merlin, Arthur, assorted canon BBC Merlin characters, and a few OCs
Word Count: ~6.5K this part
Warnings/Spoilers: see part one
Disclaimer: not mine, no profit
A/N 1: thanks, as always, to my wonderful beta,
calamitycrow
A/N 2: more notes here
A/N 3: I'm sorry this is taking so long! Work...kids...laundry...SPN 5.01....not even necessarily in that order. It will definitely be finished in 6 or 7 parts, but they might appear at the same slow rate. My heartfelt gratitude for the patience of anyone who's still reading!
ETA: beautiful banner by ala_tariel
Summary: The title kinda says it all. And this:
For the second time that day, Dean heard the sound of giant wings, and felt the air shudder into life around him. He tensed. An enormous shape rocketed out of the darkness.
“Sammy,” he breathed, “that’s a-“
“Yeah,” Sam confirmed, equally awestruck, “that’s a dragon.”
Picture Credit by: ala_tariel
part one * part two * part three *
Part Four
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Dean sidled his horse up to Merlin’s. Arthur and the still unsteady Watt and Walter ambled along a good way ahead of them.
Merlin jerked his head around and stared at him wide-eyed.
“No, no, not like that,” Dean laughed, loose and relaxed after the successful hunt, “I just mean I’ll tell you the secret of my identity if you tell me how you did that trick with the arrow.”
“You have a secret identity?”
“I certainly do,” he said solemnly, “but you first.” Merlin hesitated, “Come on-I already know you can do stuff you don’t want your employer to know about, I just want details. So spill.”
Merlin looked fixedly at the reigns in his hands.
“I’m magic,” he said reluctantly, “and if Arthur or Uther finds out, they’ll have me killed.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got that part, don’t worry, I’m not telling. But, like, where does the magic come from? Are you some kind of supernatural creature? Do you use spells? Do you-“ Dean swallowed, “-have dealings with demons?”
“Well…sometimes I use spells, say words, but mostly it’s just something inside of me-- it’s always been there. Demons don’t exist,” Dean let that one slide for now, “and I’m certainly not anything other than human-there are a bunch of other people like me, we’re just all in hiding these days. Our magic is part of the old ways, ways Uther wants to leave behind.”
“Huh. Okay.” Dean let it go at that, “So what can you do? You can set things on fire, we know that-what else?”
“I can move things around without touching them.”
“Handy. Can you read minds?”
“Not usually.”
“Make people do stuff?”
“Hardly ever.” Merlin grinned, “and when I can, it’s not with magic.”
“See the future?”
“Never.”
“That’s lucky” Dean said, thinking of Sam’s visions, “that one hardly ever turns out well.” Merlin looked at him quizzically, but Dean had no intention of elaborating.
“Your turn: what’s your secret identity?” the younger man said.
Dean told him as best he could. Merlin, to his credit, took it all in without much fuss. Dean supposed that when you’d spent the first part of the day fighting a manticore, surviving an eclipse, and setting arrows alight with a blue unearthly fire, visitors from the future didn’t seem like anything special.
“But how did you get here?’ Merlin asked.
“No clue,” Dean shrugged, “Hopefully Sam’s found something out by now.”
“And how will you get back?”
“That, my friend, is the million dollar question.”
They rode on, both silently considering the problem.
“I may know someone-uh-something, that could help. Or give you some answers at any rate,” Merlin said after a while. “I’ll take you tonight.”
“Don’t tell me-another secret?”
“You have no idea.”
************************
Dean was just beginning to get sick of their slow, hot progress down the dusty road when five horsemen cantered into view. The one in the middle was the king himself, Dean realized with surprise as they rapidly approached, flanked by two pike-carrying men-at-arms on either side. Arthur had sent a boy on a fresh horse on to Camelot with a pared down version of the hunt as soon as they passed the village again, but Uther coming out to meet them still seemed-unexpected.
Ahead of him, the prince urged his mount forward to meet his father, and Dean’s horse took up the faster pace in sympathy. For a minute he had to give his full attention to just staying on board.
The two parties came together in a place where the road bisected a fallow, daisy strewn field. Arthur slid gracefully off his horse before it had even stopped moving, going to one knee in the dirt.
Dean almost smiled. Now that was a level of respect his own father would have enjoyed.
“My liege,” Arthur said, head bent, “We bring you the head of the manticore, the fearsome beast that has tormented our people these last weeks.”
Still astride, Uther surveyed his son impassively. If Dean hadn’t been an expert in the passage of imperceptible signs across hard faces, he wouldn’t have noticed the tiny movements as the king’s jaw unclenched and his shoulders fell a fraction of an inch.
Well, that explains the welcome wagon, he thought. The king had come to make sure his son was unhurt. Arthur had maybe left that little detail out of the message.
Uther dismounted, standing in front of the prince, who still had not looked up. The king made a small, awkward gesture with his hand, as if he had been about to reach out and touch his son’s head or shoulder but then thought better of it. If Arthur sensed the movement, he didn’t let on.
“You have done well, my child,” Uther said, “the kingdom of Camelot is grateful.”
“I am pleased to be of service to my king and country,” Arthur replied.
Dean stared at them, amazed they could keep up this degree of formality amidst the potholes and buzzing flies.
“Get up, Arthur,” the king said brusquely, “Was the beast magic? Did it cause the plague of darkness that befell us today?”
“I know not for certain, sire,” Arthur replied, rising and dusting off his knees, “but the sun reappeared soon after we killed it, so I can only suppose that there was some connection.”
Uther nodded, seemingly satisfied. “We will call off the search for other magicians, then.”
Now one large party, they set off again towards the castle, but not before Uther had them mount the manticore’s head on a pike, and instructed one of the men-at-arms to lead the way with it.
“Let the people see the might and skill of the Pendragons,” he proclaimed, “let them know who protects them from the foul deeds of magic.”
The citizens of Camelot cheered the impromptu parade as it passed through, delighted with the gory spectacle. But Dean thought of Merlin’s fear, and shivered a little in the warm afternoon air.
***********************************
When they passed through the castle gates, Dean imitated the rest of the group in giving the reins of his horse to a waiting groom, and gratefully, finally, got his feet back onto solid ground.
Arthur clapped him on the back, looking as happy and relaxed as Dean had yet seen him, and said, “It was a good hunt, Winchester. I would be pleased to have you continue in my service.”
It had been fun, but Dean kinda hoped they wouldn’t be sticking around that long. Still, he bobbed his head, trying to look appropriately grateful and respectful.
Arthur just laughed, “Go see Gwen,” he said, “she’ll get you some proper clothes. And a bow of your own.”
Sam fell into step with Dean as he made his way out of the crowd that had gathered around the returning hunters, following the directions Merlin had given him for reaching the mysterious Gwen.
“A manticore, huh?” Sam said, grinning, “Now who’s like a Disney movie? Saving the prince and everything?” Everyone in the castle seemed to know the story already. It was that kind of place.
“Wish you’d seen it, man,” Dean said, launching into a play-by-play, including the part about Merlin’s magic he had kept from Arthur. He streamlined the details but provided all the necessary sound effects.
“Whoosh,” he intoned, imitating the beautiful arc of Arthur’s sword across the monster’s throat. “Swords are awesome, Sammy-how come Dad never taught us to use swords?”
“Um. ‘Cause guns are better for killing shit?” Sam rolled his eyes.
“Killjoy.” Dean swung his hands through one last, enthusiastic whoosh, and then sobered. “How about you? You find us a way out of here? Because shiny killing sticks aside, the lack of indoor plumbing is gonna get old fast.”
Sam frowned. “The short answer is, no. Turns out that when they purged all the magicians, they purged all the books about magic too. So there wasn’t much in the library that could help us. No specific spells, anyway.
“And the long answer?”
“Well, I did find some references to time portals-stone circles rigged so that people can travel between different times just by stepping inside them. Then I looked and found descriptions of the same kind of thing in Dad’s journal.”
“Sounds good-let’s find the nearest one, and dis-fucking-apparate ourselves home.”
“Yeah. That’s the problem. No magic books, no magic maps-I couldn’t find anything that said where these things were. And the only thing Dad could say about them was that he was pretty sure there weren’t any in North America.”
They walked on glumly for a bit, Dean calculating how long he could realistically expect to survive without a car, a shower or a cheeseburger. But he tried to be optimistic, if only for Sam’s sake.
“Alright. Good.,” he said as heartily as he could. “It’s a start. We know these things are out there-we just have to find one. We can do that. How was the rest of the library?”
Sam put on a brave face, too, and threw himself into a description of the never-before-seen, and the long-thought-lost volumes of this and that he’d encountered. Turned out Sam felt about old books the way Dean felt about old weapons. Dean teased him about it, but only half-heartedly. It was good to see that look of geeky glee on Sam’s face, even if it had taken being sent back thirteen hundred years to spark it-it hadn’t been around much since Jess died.
******************************
Gwen turned out to be the curly-haired girl from the throne room yesterday. She was even prettier close up, in a low-cut, yellow dress that hugged her curves.
She cracked the door of her workroom open for them, and gave them a slightly moony smile that indicated that she too already knew the whole manticore story.
“Oh! Arthur sent to say you’d be coming by. We’ve been waiting for you.” She dropped her eyes and backtracked a bit, “well, not waiting, not that we don’t have other things to do, important things.” She blushed a little, which only highlighted the strong, clear lines of her face. She seemed to have forgotten about opening the door any farther.
“The prince said you might be able to find us some clothes, and, uh, weapons?” Dean prompted, though actually he would have been fine with hanging out in the doorframe, ogling each other like teenagers.
“Oh. Right!” Gwen opened the door the rest of the way, ushering them into the room.
It contained several long, low tables, piled with bolts of cloth, sewing projects in various stages of completion, and whatever you used to make clothes with in this century-no sewing machines, that was for sure.
The only other person in the room was the blond girl who had been standing beside Gwen in the throne room. Like Gwen, she wore a long, low-cut gown over some kind of under-blouse, pale blue in her case; her hair was piled messily on top of her head, strands of it coming loose and flopping into her face. She was busily sweeping, but swiveled her head around to see who had come in.
The broom clattered to the floor with a resounding thunk, and the girl gawped at them just like she had yesterday, her long, horsey jaw hanging open.
Dean marveled again at the effect they seemed to have on people here.
“Ruby!” Gwen reprimanded, “close your mouth and pick up that broom. You’re in Camelot now, and it’s not polite to stare at strangers. Even if they did just slay a fire-breathing dragon-lion,” this last bit was addressed to Dean, with a sly smile. “My cousin’s just arrived from the country,” she added apologetically, “and her manners could use a bit of polishing.”
Ruby shut her mouth, but her eyes were still huge. She wasn’t really looking at Dean, though, he noticed, but fixing an unwavering, hungry eye on Sam.
“No worries,” Dean said, looking warily at Ruby, “and it didn’t really breathe fire.”
If Sam noticed that he was the object of the girl’s unblinking attention, he didn’t let on. Maybe because he was puzzling over something else entirely.
“Gwen?” he queried, “Guinevere?”
“That’s right. It’s a mouthful, isn’t it? People hardly ever use it-don’t know why my mother saddled me with the thing.”
“And you…?” he gestured vaguely around the room, but Gwen seemed to grasp what he was asking.
“Well, mostly I’m Morgana’s lady’s maid,” The hot chick in the throne room, Dean concluded, “but I know where everything is in the castle, and I’ve got a knack with a needle, so I help Arthur-and Merlin, and, uh, sometimes Gaius-out with things. Oh, and my dad’s the castle smith, so I can fix you up with a weapon, too.”
Dean decided all the crazy time travel had probably been worth it, just to hear the sentence that popped of Sam’s mouth next. He would be busting his balls for it in perpetuity.
“So, you’re not-uh-not a-uh--not a princess?”
Gwen goggled at him for a moment, then gave a startled laugh. “No, I most certainly am not-and I never hope to be one. You really are from distant lands, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, we are,” Dean agreed, cuffing his brother on the back of the head, “Sammy-what have I told you about personal questions? My brother,” he said, trying to dispel Gwen’s discomfort with as blinding a smile as he could muster, “his manners could use some sandpaper themselves.”
“Don’t call me that,” Sam muttered. But at least he didn’t ask her if she was hooking up with her future king.
Trying to shift the subject, Dean continued, “Well, now that introductions are over…”
Gwen measured them both for clothes, fingers traveling the outlines of Dean’s body in a way that made him think he could finds things to like about Camelot after all. She kept Ruby busy fetching things and tidying up, because every time the girl stopped, her eyes went unerringly back to Sam like a magnet. Sometimes her distraction made her drop stuff, which meant that even Sam noticed, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.
Dean wiggled his eyebrows at his brother, in a way that he hoped said, See? You could get lucky in the Middle Ages. The girl’s vibe was more awkward and creepy than fun, true, but you never knew. Sam just tossed him an epic bitch face.
Gwen told them she would need to alter a few things, and would send them over to Gaius’s chambers later. Then she took them to the armory, which was everything that Dean could have hoped for. He got a bow, and one of those useful chain-mail hoodies, as did Sam-who declined a bow, but took a hunting knife.
********************************
What he really needed, Dean thought, as Merlin led them down a steep, winding staircase, the light of his torch bouncing crazily off the stone blocks of the walls, was a nap. Killing a monster before lunch tends to take it out of you, and the only thing keeping him awake on this after-dinner jaunt to the bowels of the castle was Merlin’s promise that whatever lived at the bottom of the staircase might have some answers for them. That, and the fear of tumbling down the worn, narrow steps if he blinked. He tried to focus on Sam’s back energetically descending in front of him.
A few twists of the winding staircase down and the air started to chill-he could almost believe they’d left June behind and gone back to November. Damp patches slicked the stone walls, as if the wet earth they were holding back were pushing its way through. Phantom scents kept catching him unawares-sharply mineral, cloyingly decaying-disappearing before he could pinpoint what they were.
At the bottom of the endless stair, Merlin took them down a short passage that opened into-nothing.
Well, not nothing exactly. Some kind of cave expanded out in all directions, the little bit of floor they were standing on sticking out over the inky abyss like a diving board. The pool of light cast by Merlin’s torch pushed a little way into the gloom, enough that Dean could see glistening rock wall curving out to enclose a huge expanse.
He glanced at Merlin but the boy didn’t seem ready to fill them in on why they were there. He was waiting-but for what, Dean didn’t know. Next to him, Sam caught his eye and shrugged.
Then, for the second time that day, Dean heard the sound of giant wings, and felt the air shudder into life around him. He tensed. An enormous shape rocketed out of the darkness.
“Sammy,” he breathed, “that’s a-“
“Yeah,” Sam confirmed, equally awestruck, “that’s a dragon.”
The beast flew directly at them, scaly bronze wings outstretched, long snout open to show rows of pointed teeth, eyes glinting fiercely. It was as big as the manticore, but rather than a grotesque collection of parts, it was all of one shiny, spiky, symmetrical piece, moving with a harsh grace. It swooped towards them so swiftly that he was sure it was getting ready to incinerate them, or at least rip them limb from limb. Some part of Dean shouted at him to get out of the way, to get all of them out of the way, but most of him was mesmerized by its strange beauty, the way people are said to be by approaching tornados, too compelled by the sight to get out of their deadly path.
At the last minute, however, the dragon pulled up short, emitting a low, piercing scream. It was chained, Dean realized, held in the cavern like a Rottweiler in a suburban yard.
The dragon perched on a spur of rock jutting out of the cavern wall opposite them, and folded its wings close to its body. It stretched its impossibly long, serpentine neck across the empty space between them, bringing its head right into Dean’s personal space. He felt like a rabbit with a rattlesnake, frozen, while the dragon sniffed him-or did the dragonly equivalent thereof.
Satisfied, the dragon turned its attention to Sam, doing a long, slow sniff up his body, and then cocking its head almost sideways to peer at his face, while Sam did his own rabbit impression. Apparently it didn’t like what it saw-or smelled-because it opened its mouth a little wider and emitted a nasty, reptilian hiss.
The suggested threat snapped Dean out of his paralysis. He shouldered his way between the dragon and his brother and shooed at it, as if it were just some overgrown lizard. “Alright,” he said, “that’s enough now-back off!” He realized suddenly that he was unarmed, and wondered what he’d do it the dragon decided to snap at him. Luckily, however, it took the suggestion amicably, and retreated to its rocky seat.
“Why are they here?” it said, looking at Merlin, its deep, disgust-laden voice reverberating in a weird way that made it hard to tell whether it emanated from outside Dean’s head or inside it.
“We were hoping you could tell us that,” Merlin said, as unabashed with this giant scaly creature as he had been with the one earlier today.
“It is wrong,” the dragon insisted, “they are out of place. They upset the balance.”
“I’m sure they do,” Merlin continued, their official spokesperson, since Dean and Sam were panting beside him in uncharacteristic speechlessness. “But who or what brought them here? Was it done by magic?”
“Yeesss,” it hissed, “But not our kind of magic. Not through the old ways. We abhor such displacement. It was done with newer methods.” The dragon turned the word into a sneer.
“But why-why would someone do it?”
“They hope to wreak great evil with what he carries with him,” the beast jerked his head in Sam’s direction.
Dean found his voice, even if it was a bit croaky. “Why him? He’s not carrying anything.” But the dragon only emitted a low, unnerving keening noise in response.
“They must go back. The longer they are here, the worse the imbalance.”
“Right-I got that. But how? How can they get back?” Merlin grew insistent.
“You must seek help from your own kind,” the dragon answered sepulchrally. Then it spread its wings and glided back into the darkness.
*********************************
Dean was beat by the time they got back to Gaius’s chambers. He didn’t know how Sam and Merlin could still be yammering on, rehashing the big load of fuck-all the dragon had told them.
Dean had tuned them out after Merlin explained what the dragon was doing down there (imprisoned by Uther, natch-‘cause imprisoning shit was pretty much his M.O.). Because, yeah, seeing a dragon was pretty cool-kinda a lifelong dream, to be honest-but in terms of practical help for getting them out of there-- not so much.
But Merlin and Sam were united in the belief that they could winkle more information out of the encounter, and went on comparing and contrasting different kinds of magic, different kinds of potential evil, tangible and intangible things Sam might be carrying, all the way back.
“Nice visit?” Gaius said when they came in, barely lifting his head from the dusty tome he was perusing (Merlin had given him some vague story about meeting his mates to explain their absence).
“Yeah,” Dean muttered, “a regular laff-riot.” He trudged over to the cot still made up near the hearth, only half-hearing Sam and Merlin delving into the political history of Camelot with Gaius. Maybe if he fell asleep on the bed now, Sam wouldn’t have the heart to make him move to the floor later on.
It was like someone had drawn an invisible line on the floor around the cot. On one side of it, he was weary in an ordinary, end-of-a-long-day kind of way; on the other, he felt like someone had cut the sinews in his legs. And arms. And neck. With no warning or build-up, he found himself descending to the floor, boneless, like a heap of spaghetti sliding out of a pot.
Luckily, he was close enough to the cot that it broke his fall a bit, and he came to rest propped up a against it, legs sprawled out in front of him, head lolling like a broken marionette’s.
“Dean?” Sam said urgently, alarmed by his undignified collapse. “What’s going on with you?” He started towards him.
Dean tried to tell him not to come any closer, to stay away from the bed, but his tongue and lips were as useless as his other muscles, and all that came out of his mouth was incoherent “nnnhg.”
Sure enough, the minute Sam crossed the unseen barrier around the cot, he too turned into Gumby, rapidly subsiding into a pile of long, floppy arms and legs on the floor.
Suddenly Dean wished he’d paid more attention to the different kinds of magic duking it out in Camelot.
Gaius and Merlin stared at them, aghast. They clearly wanted to help, but were understandably hesitant about getting any nearer after what had just happened to Sam.
Dean tried to take stock of the situation, and found, to his relief, that the muscles powering his brain still worked. Most importantly, whatever spell it was-and it had to be a spell-wasn’t designed to kill them-because otherwise, they’d be dead already. Just to incapacitate them for some purpose. Furthermore, it hadn’t been in place when they’d left to visit the dragon-he was sure he’d sat on the bed for a moment to retie his boots before walking out the door. Which meant that it wasn’t intended for Gaius, since he’d been here the whole time they were gone: just him and Sam, and possibly Merlin.
So, both localized and personalized. Which meant only one thing: witches. And someone needed to find the hex bag involved, or else he and Sam were going to spend the rest of their lives on the floor as puddles of goo.
Christ, he hated witches.
Sam had landed with one cheek mashed into the floor, facing Dean, and he swore he could hear the same gears turning behind his brother’s slack face. Sam, though, was having better luck getting his word-making equipment to function.
“…iii…” Sam got out faintly. “…ags….ur….” Dean knew he meant, witches, hex bags, burn them , but Merlin and Gaius, needless to say, looked baffled.
Finally, Merlin threw caution to the winds and moved towards Sam, murmuring words that Dean sincerely hoped were a warding spell. And either his magic worked, or the spell wasn’t meant for him, because he was to able move into the kill zone of the bed without being reduced to jello.
Merlin crouched down next to Sam, and awkwardly got his face close to Sam’s mouth.
“Rags?” he asked, after listening again, “hags?” Sam managed to squeeze his facial muscles in a way that clearly indicated no. “Bags?” Merlin tried, and this time Sam’s eyebrows lifted in minute, happy, assent.
“Ahh,” Gauis exclaimed, joining them now, and not suffering any ill effects either. “I think I’ve read of this practice. It’s a lower form of witchcraft. The witch takes something from the victim, and crafts a spell through placing it in a tiny bag with other magical objects-it only works on the person it’s intended for, and then only in close proximity.”
Yeah, thought Dean, that.
“Right,” Gaius was saying, “it-they-must be near the bed.” With Merlin’s aid, he proceeded to strip the covers, shaking them out thoroughly. Nothing. They poked around in the ashes of the hearth, and among the objects on the mantle above it. Still nothing. Dean felt a wave of frustration at his own helplessness rise, crest and break inside him without having the slightest effect on his useless limbs.
“Oh,” Merlin said, looking at a pile of fabric in different colors that had separated itself out when they disassembled the bed. “Your new clothes.”
He and the older man went through them, pushing their hands inside the shirts, and into the trouser pockets. Still nothing. Then, Merlin ran his hand along the seam of a pants leg, and his fingers come to rest on a suspicious lump. Ripping the stitches, he removed a small, black bag, tied with a piece of darning thread.
“What now?” he asked Gaius.
“Burn it.”
Merlin placed it carefully on the floor and raised his hand. The hex bag exploded in a burst of sickly green flames.
With a gasping intake of breath, Sam came back to life, pushing himself up off the floor, breathing out a heartfelt thanks, and looking kind of impressed with Merlin's fire starting abilities.
If Gaius hadn’t known about Merlin’s magic before, he certainly did now. But since he mostly just looked relieved at Sam’s revivification, Dean thought he probably had.
A brief investigation of the other clothes revealed another bundle similarly hidden. Merlin gave it the same treatment, and Dean suddenly found his body back within his control.
“Like I said, handy,” he told Merlin, struggling to his feat and clapping him on the back. He appraised Sam, who seemed as good as new. “You okay?” he asked anyway.
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine. Except for how my butt is numb. Fucking witches.” He grimaced apologetically at Gaius, but the physician just nodded his agreement.
“Okay,” Dean went on, dusting himself off, “so now we know someone brought us back here for some kind of nefarious purpose, and they’re using black magic to do it. Unfortunately, we still don’t know what that purpose is, or who they are.”
“Oh, we know something,” Sam put in, “We know they had access to those clothes. They arrived after we left, right.”
“Yes,” said Gaius, “a page brought them, with Arthur’s compliments, he said.”
“But it must have been someone who was around while they were being altered, to sew the bags into the seams like that,” Sam continued, “Someone who could have gotten hold of a strand of hair or two. Gwen-“
“No, not Gwen-she would never dream of doing something like that,” Merlin protested.
“Okay, then, the other girl, her cousin,” Dean said, “what’s her name-Scarlett?”
“Ruby,” Sam corrected, an undercurrent of menace in his voice, “Her name was Ruby.”
**********************************
Merlin tapped softly on the door to Gwen’s family chambers, while Sam and Dean hung back in the shadows. After some convincing, Gaius had agreed to stay behind. Dean was glad-he didn’t want the physician to see the kind of thing that he thought was about to go down. Didn’t really want Merlin to see either, but they needed him. He had briefly considered trying to get Arthur in on the venture, but decided the less any of the Pendragons knew about the magic going on around them, the better.
The boy knocked again, a little harder.
With a creak, the door swung open, and Gwen peered through the opening. When she saw Merlin, she opened it wider and stepped outside. She wore a long, white nightdress, her hair falling loose over her shoulders.
“What is it?” she asked, alarmed, “had something happened to-“ The end of her sentence was cut off as Dean slipped behind her and got a hand over her mouth. She struggled a little under his arm, staring wide-eyed at Merlin and Sam.
“Gwen,” Merlin began, in the kind of strained, tightly controlled voice Dean recognized from a lifetime of crisis situations. “It’s okay-no one’s going to hurt you. It’s just-Sam and Dean ran into some trouble tonight-er-magical trouble-Someone tried to hurt them.” He let that sink in for a bit, Gwen’s eyes getting even bigger, and then dropped his bombshell. “And we think your cousin might be involved.” Gwen shook her head in protest, jiggling Dean’s arm.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin continued, “but, yeah. So, we need to go in and talk to her, and we can’t have you warning her. Trust me on this, okay, and help us out?” Gwen was still for a minute, then nodded, though Dean could sense her reluctance. He slowly released her, but stood ready to gag her again if she raised the alarm. She threw him a look over her shoulder at him, sad rather than pissed-off, as if she were disappointed he wasn’t the loveable monster-killer she had taken him for. His chest tightened unexpectedly.
“Ruby?” She whispered, turning back to Merlin and Sam, “Magic? You must be mistaken. I mean, the girl’s family and all, but to be honest, she doesn’t have the wits to be mixed up in something like that.”
“Like that ever stopped anybody,” Dean snorted. Sam made a face at him, then turned his attention to Gwen, reasonable-and-reassuring voice dialed up to eleven.
“We’re not saying she’s done anything. We just need to ask her a few questions. Is she inside?”
“Asleep,” Gwen confirmed.
“And your father?” Merlin asked.
“Shoeing horses at the border stations-won’t be home ‘til the end of the week.”
“Right,” said Dean, “Merlin, stay here with Gwen. Sam, let’s do this.”
They found Ruby snoring peacefully under a pile of untidy bedclothes, blond hair tumbling over the pillow. She looked like a kid, Dean thought, and wondered how old she was-sixteen, seventeen at the most. Steeling himself against the wrongness of what he was about to do, Dean slipped a hand under her face and over her mouth. He pulled her, none too gently, into a sitting position, holding her against him.
She woke abruptly, in a flurry of flailing limbs, thrashing against him like a giant salmon caught by a bear.
“Hey! Calm down-we just want to talk,” he said, tightening his grip. Sam unwound the rope they had brought, and got a few lengths around the girl, securing them as tightly as possible. The relatively flimsiness of the restraint made Dean nervous-he would have preferred a few lengths of iron chains-who knew what kind of witch-tricks she had up her sleeve?-but they needed to get some information from her, and they needed it fast. He cautiously took his hand off her face. She struggled against the ropes some more, but the look on her face was one part resentment to nine-tenths astonishment, as if she couldn’t figure out what they were doing here.
Sam sized her up. “Ruby,” he said, voice stripped of all warmth or reassurance. He might have been a different person now, all business, and it never failed to freak Dean out a bit, seeing his little brother turn on a dime like that. Still, in this kind of situation, it was a useful trait to have.
“Someone tried to hurt us earlier tonight,” Sam went on, “Hurt us with magic. Which we did not appreciate at all. And that someone managed to sew the hex bags into the clothes that were made up for us today. So, since we’re pretty sure it wasn’t Gwen, we’re thinking that someone might have been you. Was it you, Ruby? Did you try to cast a very nasty spell on us?”
She glared at him. Then futilely tried to deny it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she spluttered, “I don’t know anything about magic.”
“Oh, I think you do, Ruby.” Dean answered her, “And I think you’re going to start telling us what you know and how you know it, or things are going to get real unpleasant for you real fast.”
She flipped over from false innocence to fury with startling ease. “Damn you,” she hissed.
Dean raised his fist, hoping pretty hard that he wouldn’t have to drive it into her face. Because, yeah, he’d hit girls before, and he was sure he’d hit one again, in the right set of circumstances, but that didn’t mean he had to feel good about it.
Luckily, her defiance collapsed as quickly as it had flared up, and she burst into tears as soon as she grasped his intention.
“I thought it would work,” she sobbed, “She told me it would work.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, sweetheart. Nice try, but your timing was a little off.”
Sam, as determined as ever, kept up the questioning.
“What would work?” he said, “what did you think would happen?”
“The hex bags, the spell, it was supposed to im--, immob--, make it so you couldn’t move, couldn’t wake up, and then I was going to sneak in before dawn, and just prick you,” she jerked her chin towards Sam, “just get a tiny bit of blood from you, not so it would hurt you, you wouldn’t even’ve noticed. That’s all. But it was the whole reason we-“ Her confession skidded to a halt.
“The whole reason--?” Sam said, startled, “Did you-did you and she--? Were you the ones who brought us here in the first place? Did she give you a spell for that too?”
Seemingly defeated, Ruby nodded, hanging her head, a curtain of hair hiding her face.
“But why? Why bring us here?” Dean was caught between outrage and curiosity.
“We had to cast our net wide-“ Ruby’s voice was faint now, “my mistress said we needed to cast our net wide-to find someone whose blood would be powerful enough. The spell found you. I had no idea it would bring you from as far away as Impala.”
Dean shook his head-how could she know that it had brought them from so much farther away than that? He looked at Sam, and they silently agreed to take up the question of what made Sam’s blood so powerful later on.
“Your mistress,” Sam pressed, taking a different tack. “Who is she? Can we speak to her?”
Ruby raised her head at that, some of her former spitefulness returning. “Her true name is not for the likes of us. But she is beautiful and powerful-and will soon be more so. You do not speak to her-she speaks to you.”
Dean rolled his eyes. What guff.
“She found me,” Ruby continued, caught up now in some satisfying memory, “out of all the girls in our village, she chose me. She said I was ripe for better things, that she could help me get all that I desired.”
“And what was that, Ruby? What did you desire?” Sam asked, in a voice that you might have called gentle if it hadn’t been so cold.
“Geoffrey,” she said, “the Miller’s son. And she got him for me too.” Dean could hear the want in her voice, the unrepentant joy of victory.
“And what did she ask for in return?” Sam asked.
“Nothing, she did it to help me. Because she had chosen me.” Sam raised his eyebrows at that, and Ruby amended her statement. “She told me she would come for my soul in ten years time. But what’s that to me?” She looked at them, and the bitterness radiating from her smooth, unlined face was chilling. “I won’t live to see twenty-five-I’ll be dead of plague, or in childbirth, like my mother and half the women in our village. Twenty-five!” she spat it out like a curse.
A surge of fury went through Dean. Fucking demons, he thought, taking advantage of a teenager’s crush. Fifteen, for chrissakes .
“Where’s Geoffrey now?” he said.
“Taken by raiders. He won’t be coming home again.” Ruby admitted, with the callousness of youth, “But my mistress said to forget him, that better things were waiting for us in Camelot. And when I saw you two, I knew she was right.”
“But how did you know-how did you know we were the ones the spell had brought?” Sam asked.
“She told me,” Ruby replied, with a crude giggle of delight, “she said she could smell you a mile off.”
His skin crawling with disgust, Dean plucked at Sam’s sleeve, drew him a bit away.
“Okay-way to freak me the fuck out. What’s our next move here?”
“Beats me,” Sam replied. But before they could decide what to do next, they heard Ruby chanting a rapid-fire string of somewhat garbled Latin words. The sequence tugged at his memory, but Dean couldn’t quite place it--
“Dean,” Sam said, grabbing his wrist hard, “that’s a summoning spell!”
part five