Mykonos 6/16
| Masterpost| Part Five|
“We shall devise some tests and training methods for you then Emrys,” Aglain said, shooting a dark look in Alvarr’s direction. He was obviously unhappy at how outspoken the man had been and Merlin wondered if the druids could scorn their own.
It seemed a strange thing to so when there were so little people left in the world, or more correctly in the same, direct world as you, but if what Alvarr wanted to do was true, he had to know and understand the risks. Mordred clearly didn’t want any part in the plan, but how far would Alvarr push if he could get what he wanted? Merlin was at a loss to explain why he wanted to be the one to save them all, yet if he could have handed it over, Merlin would have given the honour to Alvarr in the blink of an eye.
“I’m sure Gaius will be able to fill you in on some basics before we get started,” Aglain continued and Gaius nodded, his mouth thinning.
The druids stood then and, almost as one, bowed in Merlin’s direction. For the first time in a long while, Merlin felt a flush creep onto his cheeks, unused to the attention. A few people even approached him, shaking his hand with bright smiles and words of adoration that Merlin, no matter what any prophecy said, knew he didn’t deserve.
Gaius took him back to their tent, telling Merlin to sit down at the table and piling books in front of him.
“Read,” was all he said, so Merlin did.
The books themselves were basic tools of a wise man’s trade. There was one on anatomy and physiology, though the book was annotated to include the position of magic and its effect on the body. Another detailed local flora, hand drawn and bound by someone in the druid camp, lovingly created. The last one, though, was a thick tome with an elaborate front cover. The design swirled over the front and Merlin ran a finger over it tentatively, never having seen such a fancy book before.
Upon opening it, Merlin realised that it wasn’t an ordinary book. He looked over to where Gaius was using a pestle and mortar to grind some plant leaves in surprise.
“A book of spells?” he asked softly, eyebrows creeping up to his hairline. Merlin had never even considered the possibility that such things existed, let alone that Gaius would possess one.
Placing the pestle down in the bowl, Gaius smiled and nodded.
“It was given to me back in Camelot, but I don’t have much use for it. I’ve mastered the spells I’m capable of and they only equate to a small portion of the book.” He looked at the book with fondness in his eyes, clearly remembering better times than he’d landed with now. “Aglain will most likely just train you through meditation, but it’s not going to be enough.”
He quietened for a moment, thinking about something.
“I felt your power and even though you might not realise it, you could be the only warlock to never run out of magic. Quite frankly it scares me how much power you have and the fact that it seems limitless.” Merlin looked away, unsure what to say at that. “But it’s also amazing. When I felt your magic… it was energising. It’s almost as if you’re connected to the ancient magic itself, and if I’m honest, it would make more sense than anything else I can fathom.”
Turning back to the book, Merlin smiled and thanked Gaius sincerely. He spent the hours between lunch and dinner reading, committing the odd words to memory and testing them out with his tongue, silently.
As he read them, Merlin felt knowledge creep into him, as if just by reading the old language he could remember what the words meant. Odd letters begun to make sense, as if Merlin was reading his own tongue rather than one of ancient magic. He mentioned as much to Gaius, who looked at him with an amused smile.
“I wondered whether you’d understand the spells. I have another book that goes with that one with the translations of the spell and what they do.” He shook his head lightly, “You never cease to amaze me.”
Merlin threw himself back into reading and it wasn’t until he’d turned the last page of the book that he noticed candles around him, almost all of them burnt down to the last of the wick. Gaius wasn’t in his bed yet, but Merlin felt guilty all the same and pushed the book to the centre of the table, moving to his tent-room and crawling into bed.
It was here, without the book to distract him, that he thought about everything Aglain had said, about how much hope the druids had already placed in him when all they knew was his name. It was ridiculous and Merlin needed to get away, find something that didn’t expect him to split Camelot apart and return the world to how it was before the floods.
It was easy to sink under the influence of the stone after so long. His magic curled curiously over the Obsidian, greeting it like a long-lost friend, before the stone responded in turn, pulling Merlin in until he stood in the moon-lit gardens of the lost Queen Ygraine.
Now that he knew of the terrible truths behind the glorious Camelot, it was easy for Merlin to spot the artificial edge to the moonlight, the way it would occasionally flicker although the sky (again artificial) was clear of clouds.
Walking to the throne took longer than usual, but Merlin was paying more attention to the world around him this time. The garden was monochrome, flowers wilting as if realising that the whole of Camelot relied on magic dispelled any of the lies and trickery the city bestowed on onlookers.
Perhaps the rest of the city was blinding in its technology, flashy lights and strategic shadows, dimming the artificial edge to the world. Maybe the people of Camelot lived half-lives, buried inside their cyber-network and in too deep to pull their heads out to seek the truth.
When he reached the throne, it was as it had always been. It seemed as if this was the only point in the garden that was real, that actually existed outside of the forced magic and splendour. Queen Ygraine had sat here once, regal and beautiful as the stones had surrounded her.
He’d never noticed it before, but the columns that lined the garden fell in circular shapes. It was clear that the Obsidians had been mounted on the pillars, guarded and loved as was the duty of the queen, until they’d fallen to ruin, stolen down into the base of the tower as the smaller crystals failed in their job to collect sufficient amounts of power. Only Merlin’s crystal - to all knowledge - had ended up outside of the tower, and that was probably down to someone’s stupidity than Merlin’s destiny.
The dragon wasn’t there, but that was okay. Merlin had all the time in the world to wait for him and so he sat on the ground, closing his eyes and trying to feel the magic rolling through Camelot.
Although he was unsure the exact location of the queen’s gardens, Merlin thought that they had to be in the heart of Camelot. Listening to the world around offered no clues, though he could feel a slight, sluggish pulse of magic around him, clearly the magic Gaius and Eigyr had spoken of running as lifeblood for Camelot.
Merlin didn’t know how long he waited there, but he felt the change when the dragon appeared. It was as though there was an opening in the space before him, the magic parting to allow something else, something brimming with energy, pass through before closing again. He opened his eyes to see a blurred figure, definitely more human than of a dragon.
The image flickered, like a candle’s flame, and it was the dragon that stepped forwards, tilting its head to look at Merlin curiously.
“Emrys of the Ocean,” it said slowly, sitting down and curling its tail around its body. “I haven’t seen you for weeks.”
Though ‘weeks’ was probably an understatement, Merlin held the same sentiment. He smiled dryly and commented,
“Not for lack of trying.” It felt good to talk to someone he shared a connection with. The dragon hadn’t known anything about Ealdor or about Merlin in general, but he was still a link back to the small, drowning Island. He was still part of the past Merlin had lost and it just felt nice to have someone who could be linked back to that still here.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Merlin began, biting his lip. “It’s just… Gaius told me about the prophecy. I can’t… I mean they all expect me to be able to do something, but I can’t…”
Merlin looked at the dragon, shaking his head. He shouldn’t be thinking about something like that now, not when he had the chance to talk about something different. And, yes, the dragon had been the one in the first place to mention his connection to the prophecy, but they had moved past that.
“Gaius?” The dragon gave a little smile. “I used to have a doctor called Gaius. Nice man he was too, used to slip me sweets when my father wasn’t looking.”
Merlin didn’t know what use a dragon had for a doctor, but Camelot was full of endless curiosities that perhaps the art of a physician extended further than Ealdor had been able to teach Merlin.
“He was a good man. I don’t know what happened to him, but I heard he was banished for a crime against the Crown, though I don’t see how.” The dragon was mainly talking to itself now, probably not expecting Merlin to be interested, but at the mention that the man the dragon knew had been banished, a cold, unsettling feeling washed through Merlin.
“Maybe it’s the same man,” he offered tentatively. “After all I’m at the base of Camelot’s Towers and your Gaius couldn’t have gone far.”
The dragon shook his head slowly. “Maybe. Gaius was always a good friend to the queen and I doubt he’d want to leave all of that behind.”
For a woman Merlin knew nothing about, Ygraine held such a key role. Gaius had never indicated that he’d known her, never said that he’d even been around Ygraine unless you counted working for her, so it surely couldn’t have just slipped his mind.
But Gaius was always so careful with his words. About how the Queen Ygraine had vanished and those close to her punished and then about how they had chosen to leave Camelot after learning the horrific truths. What if… What if…
“What happened to the Queen?” Merlin asked suddenly, uncrossing his legs and shifting until he say on his knees.
There was silence for a moment, a large, blue eye studying Merlin as the dragon tilted his head slightly, before he rumbled out an answer. “She died,” he said simply.
“What did she look like?” Merlin pressed on, because the thought wouldn’t leave him and he had to know. If he was correct in thinking, then this would change a lot of things and Merlin would be able to get closer to the truth.
The dragon studied Merlin again before drawing itself up, waving its front legs around. Presumably the real-dragon behind this image was reaching for a picture to show Merlin, and he wasn’t disappointed when, with a small flash of blue light, a picture frame slid between the dragon’s talons.
“Oh,” Merlin breathed as the dragon turned the frame around, holding it out for Merlin to see.
She was beautiful, there was no doubt of that. With her hair curled expertly on the top of her head and a light coloured dress, Ygraine made for the perfect queen. It was hard to see the resemblance between her and Eigyr, but with squinted eyes and imagination, everything slotted into place.
Queen Ygraine hadn’t died or disappeared. When she’d discovered the truth behind Camelot, she hadn’t opposed the king or the court and had, instead, chosen to flee with Balinor and Gaius, to name the two Merlin was aware of. She must have taken stock in the prophecy and known that, one way or another, Balinor would help lead to their salvation, and the thought had been enough.
When she’d entered the druid camp though, and this was the most important point, she hadn’t come as Queen Ygraine of Camelot, but as Eigyr, a silent and shy woman.
“You’re down in the refugee camps?” the dragon said, interrupting Merlin’s whirling thoughts. The revelation was huge, but Merlin pulled his mind from the trail of thought to answer the dragon.
“I’m going to find a way to get into Camelot and then I’ll come and find you. No matter what it takes, I’m going to get my life back.” Merlin’s voice was firm. He stood up, the dragon watching him take a few steps back.
Magic coiled around Merlin once again and the dragon stood suddenly, as if he wanted to say something. It was too late though and Merlin nodded his head, sealing the promise he had just made aloud as he was taken away from Ygraine’s garden and hurled back onto his bed in Gaius’ tent.
“Merlin?” Gaius called out, head peering around the tent flap that divided their rooms. “I felt your magic,” he said, slightly disapprovingly.
“I used the Obsidian stone.” The look Gaius gave him was still disapproving, but Merlin didn’t worry about that right now. He had bigger issues to call the old man out on. “And the dragon showed me a picture of Queen Ygraine.”
He didn’t have to say anything else and Gaius came to sit on his bed, slowly shuffling over.
“I want to know everything,” Merlin said firmly, sick of the twisted words and the half-truths that had built around him since entering the Wastelands.
“Of course,” Gaius said softly. He then told Merlin the full truth, of how Uther had condemned Camelot for good, and of the role the last sorcerer played in the unfolding demise of Camelot.
.
Training, by Aglain’s standards, was largely compromised of sitting down on the ground (thankfully the whole of the druid camp set upon on stone floor, most likely from an ancient building that had crumbled down over time) and waiting. Or, as he called it, meditating. Merlin was taught how to breathe, how to feel for his magic and strengthen its power, but it wasn’t much help.
He didn’t have a problem in feeling his magic or strengthening it. He could feel it with his eyes open and mind fixed on something else if he had to and knew that it was already stronger than anything the druids had experienced before.
Still, he didn’t tell any of this to Aglain, instead following the man’s instructions. He already trod around Merlin carefully, as if he had to pander to every whim of the great Emrys and Merlin really didn’t want him learning about his abilities. He didn’t need that added onto everything else at the moment.
In the evenings, after calming sessions with Aglain - they were useful for that and Merlin got time to think, time to process what had happened to him - he went back to Gaius’ tent to practice spells and incantations.
Merlin could now understand the words without needing to translate between them. He no longer had to read the word, convert it and then understand, but could look at the old language and instantly grasp at its meaning. He’d asked Gaius what that meant, but his mentor had merely smiled and clapped him on the back.
“You are a creature of the old magic,” he said, pouring a goblet of water for Merlin and handing it to him. “It’s only natural that the words translate themselves for you using your magic.”
He took a sip of his own drink and Merlin settled the book in his lap, waiting for Gaius to continue.
“Magic wants to be used. People often forget that and just assume that sorcerers stole it from the land, but that’s not true. The magic wanted to be taken and it still does.” Gaius smiled, “Magic hasn’t had a proper person to go through before you; you just need to learn how to channel the energy properly.”
Their sessions usually carried on well past nightfall (measured by the slight sliver of light that drifted in from the edges of the camp) and left Merlin humming by the end, as though his magic penetrated through every pore on his skin, wanting to be seen and wanting to be noticed.
Gaius had given another smile when Merlin mentioned it and shrugged. They didn’t have any knowledge to fall back on other than myths and legends of great sorcerers. They didn’t know if Merlin’s power was becoming equal to those rumoured magicians or whether he had blown their powers out of the water completely.
They had no other way of knowing, though, so Merlin simply kept his head down, followed Aglain’s meditation techniques and followed Gaius’ teachings. He kept out of the way of Alvarr and his followers, still wary of the man despite Gaius’ verbal dressing down of him.
During his time with the druids, Gaius tended to the Wild Children three times, once with each seven passing days. Merlin was never allowed to go with them, Aglain saying his training was at a too crucial stage, but Merlin knew he wasn’t missing much. He would have liked to see Mordred again, to thank him and perhaps talk to him properly, but overall, Merlin hadn’t lost anything and he was more content to stay in the druid camp where people were kinder than those outside of the fence.
So it was a surprise when Aglain dismissed him from training one day, only halfway through - if that. Merlin had turned from their training ground, the same circled area that held the druid’s council, to see Eigyr - Ygraine he corrected himself - standing off by the side, clutching a bag to her side and wide eyed.
Even though he knew she was Queen Ygraine, it was still hard to refer to her as such when she remained unchanged. Even though he knew the truth about her, and of Camelot and the Floods, she hadn’t changed from the shy woman he knew as Eigyr. She still hardly spoke and flitted about like a terrified bird, never resting in a place more than a few moments.
Merlin followed her quietly. They passed through rows of tents and stopped to greet a few other members of the clan before making for the Wastelands, away from the camp entirely.
“Where are we going?” Merlin asked, not expecting an answer. For a moment he thought that Eigyr - Ygraine - was going to answer, but she just shook her head balefully. Merlin didn’t press her, instead focusing on where he was treading through the muddy land, careful not to slip into the water.
She took them closer than Merlin had ever been to the inner fence. They were so close that Merlin could pick out individuals along the fence lines and at the lock positioned on the canal leading back out to the refugee gates. Ygraine tugged him down lower until they were both hunch-backed and lolloping over the ground, running slightly.
There was a gnarled tree nearby and Merlin knew it was their destination. It was a scrubby thing, thick trunked and spiky leafed, ugly and seemingly useless. It didn’t matter to Ygraine though and she moved up to stand against the tree, straightening under its swooping branches.
Beckoning Merlin to her side, her eyes darted to the tree and Merlin got the hint that she wanted him to watch. Ygraine pulled a knife and a glass bottle out of the bag at her hip and looked to Merlin to ensure he was watching.
She had a little difficulty in piercing the bark of the tree, but the knife didn’t take too long to sink through, guided by Ygraine’s careful hands. Tree sap seeped from the wound in the tree and she held the bottle to the trunk, collecting the thick sap expertly.
“Gaius uses it to heal,” she said softly, eyes fixed on her work.
Merlin could finally see it. As Ygraine tilted the bottle slightly, pressing her lips together and smoothing part of the gnarled tree with her free hand, he could see why she had been such a good queen for her people.
When Gaius had revealed the full truth behind their exile, he had spoken of how the people loved Ygraine. She was fair and just where Uther might have been harsh and cold, and she’d tended to her people like they were her children. Camelot had been prosperous under her reign and, Gaius had added, it was a good thing they couldn’t see what Uther had done, in case he had shattered everything Ygraine had helped to build.
He could also see how she had cared for the Seeing Stones and, as he thought about them, Merlin’s hand strayed to his pocket, where he kept the stone at all times aside from when he slept. It was his only connection to the dragon and he couldn’t afford to lose it.
Ygraine’s attention drew to him as he slid the stone from his pocket and her eyebrows lifted in slight surprise. Merlin knew she couldn’t have seen one this well since she’d been exiled, some twenty-odd years ago. He offered it gingerly to her, taking the glass bottle from her hands and cupping it under the oozing sap as her fingers closed over the dark surface.
“They were never originally black,” Ygraine whispered after a while.
The bottle was almost full now and Merlin looked over to her, waiting.
“Gaius probably told you of all the circumstances,” she said, eyes focused on the stone. “So you’ll know everything, but around the time of the Great Floods, the stones turned from white crystal to this, changing in their nature. They used to hold the secrets of time, but now they’re used for so much more.”
Her eyes looked to Merlin, wide and honest.
“How did you know who I was? I can’t think of anyone who might keep a picture of me, though I know of a few who might know of me.” Merlin noticed that the more she spoke, the more Ygraine was distancing herself from the meek Eigyr she had forced herself to become.
“When I use the stone,” he began, taking the bottle away from the tree and letting the sap harden and the tree heal itself. “When I use it, it takes me to your gardens.”
Ygraine’s face softened and she closed her hands around the stone, shaking her head softly. “It’s not my garden anymore Merlin. I relinquished any entitlement to Camelot and her luxuries years ago.”
“The dragon said it was your garden,” Merlin persisted. “It’s been untouched ever since you left, except the dragon guards it.”
A line appears between Ygraine’s brows as she frowns. “The dragon?”
Merlin nodded. “He’s helped me, though I didn’t have anything to offer in return. Though considering the connection he had with my father, it’s not that impossible to imagine he’d help me.”
Merlin could remember that part of the tale well. Balinor was one of the last Dragonlords left and had trained directly under the Kings of Camelot. When Uther came to power, he had chosen Merlin’s father to oversee the Dragonlords and Balinor had accepted with ease and a smile. Uther had been his friend and even Balinor hadn’t learnt of the truth then.
There was a story in the Sky City of Camelot. It was painted in pixels and electrical banners throughout the city. It was their history, that the gates of Camelot were open to any and all, including the greatest creatures in existence.
The official histories said that, when the world flooded, the dragons had died. They had been slumbering, deep under the earth or hidden in mountains, eyes closed tightly and they hadn’t been able to wake before the Flood hit. There had been one dragon left and he’d sought out Camelot as a safe beacon.
It was Merlin’s dragon, the last of his kind. The Great Dragon slept in the base of the Sky City, below even the miles of slaves and below the Wastelands, buried into the earth itself. The dragon stayed there because it was safe, because it was protected, and people had forgotten, pushed the story aside as a myth or a fairy tale, never looking past the pages of books to discover more.
The truth, though, was a far cry from anything out of the pages of a book. The dragons hadn’t been sleeping, but had been hunted into extinction centuries before the floods. The dragon race had died even before the Sky Cities were thought up, before the world had choked and died, and certainly before the golden age of man. The Great Dragon was the last of his kind, but he hadn’t sought out Camelot either.
Gaius had explained that the dragon was chained to the base of the Sky City. The stones, though able to pull an individual’s magic from them if used incorrectly, did not have the capability to take so much magic from so many people. The magic in those taken during Pickings was weak, buried deep, deep down, and the stones would never have been able to harmonise to drain even an inkling of the magic to the surface.
Except with a creature born directly from the Old Religion, the strongest and the oldest of its kind to boot, the Obsidian circle that had been created by the weak sorcerers under the king’s command had something to lock on, a bigger power source to boost their power.
A Dragonlord had been needed to command the dragon to drain the energy from the children and adults taken during the Pickings and the king had plenty to pick from. The stones then acted like a conduit, channelling the magic from the human bodies and into the Sky City itself, providing energy and protection for the Tower and Camelot.
When Balinor had been asked to renew the orders placed upon the dragon, after his predecessor had died just over twenty years ago, his refusal had drawn the subject under scrutiny. Whereas before the process of taking the magic had been known only by the sorcerers involved, the Dragonlord and the king, the refusal Balinor gave drew attention and Ygraine and Gaius had discovered the truth.
“Why was he in the garden?” Ygraine asked, a troubled look crossing her face as she drew Merlin out of his thoughts.
“It wasn’t him,” Merlin said, “I mean it was the dragon, but it was… as if he was projecting his image. It wasn’t a perfect image, it flickered out of focus a few times and there was one point where it looked a bit human-like, but it’s definitely the Great Dragon.”
Ygraine took the bottle of tree sap from Merlin’s hand, slotting the stone back into his hand. The Obsidian was warm where she had been holding it and Merlin smiled, knowing that the magic inside of the stone had missed Ygraine as much as she had it.
On the way back to the druid camp, Ygraine showed Merlin a few other places to collect plants that Gaius would need, and then to the edible plants. None of them tasted very nice - usually they were added to the stews and soups the druids favoured - but they were edible and able to fill a belly when needed.
The druid camp was getting closer by the moment, about half an hour’s walk now, when the startling sound of gun fire rang. Ygraine clutched Merlin’s arm as he turned to look behind the way they’d come and, sure enough, a rabble of Urchin Children were fleeing across the Wastelands, ducking their heads as the Police warned them away from the lock.
“They can’t just do that!” Merlin protested, but Ygraine just clutched his arm tighter, shaking her head. Her face was drawn and pale, eyes wide. She tugged at the material on Merlin’s arm, trying to draw him away, but Merlin had to see, had to know that at least one of the children had made it.
The crackle of gun fire sounded again and Merlin saw the Urchins duck, only a handful coming back up. One of them was limping and Merlin wrenched his arm from Ygraine’s clutches, making to help the child.
“Merlin, no!” Ygraine hissed, tugging at his arm with her full strength. Perhaps once she would have been able to stop him, but she was frail and small now, wasted away almost, and Merlin was able to shake her off and stride across the slippery land, headed to the child.
“I have to help,” he called over his shoulder, despite the pleading Ygraine was making.
The gun fire had tapered off now and the Wild Children were backing away fully, creeping over the marshes and clearly heading to the nearest part of the fence that they could. It was a trek, but they were out of the reaches of the guns now and safe, aside from the slick mud and pools of rancid, bog-water.
It happened slowly, Merlin’s foot slipping on the marsh ground at an odd angle. His ankle gave a twinge of pain before giving, just enough that Merlin had to put his weight down hurriedly on his other foot. His other foot slipped too and Merlin’s hip hit the ground, then his shoulder, before the mud gave way.
The water he fell into was murky. There were clumps floating about in it and Merlin scrabbled with arms and legs, trying to kick out of the pool he’d slipped into. As before, in the Ocean and the channel outside the fence, Merlin couldn’t think. He was sinking, lower and lower, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He closed his eyes against the water and thought. He tried to remember everything Aglain and Gaius had been teaching him, everything that he had read; there had to be something that could save him from drowning.
He felt the magic building without his command, wrapping around him like a blanket. It tingled and Merlin shifted uncomfortably, paddling his feet and scraping through the water with his fingers. Unidentified clumps of something hit his cheeks, but Merlin remained focus on the magic and what it was doing.
Gaius had been right when he’d said that magic wanted to be used, Merlin could feel it drawing through the water from beneath the Wastelands, from the Old World. It built up around Merlin until it was pushing him, urging him up out of the water and forcing him to paddle his arms and legs. It took a while and Merlin’s lungs begun to burn, but the magic was there, pushing him up and out of the water.
He scrambled at the bank as he broke the surface, gasping in bog-water and air. Ygraine was there and she grasped Merlin’s arm. Between her and his magic, Merlin managed to slide out of the pool and onto the mud. It coated him thickly, smelly and full of Wasteland decay, but Merlin couldn’t bring himself to care. He was safe and, more importantly, he was still alive.
“Thank you,” he said breathlessly when he could, looking up at Ygraine standing over him. She still wore a shocked expression, mouth opened slightly as she stared at Merlin.
“What did you do?” she demanded, changing completely from the woman Merlin knew her as. Her eyes flickered with something uncertain.
“I used my magic and…” Merlin trailed off, unsure whether he would sound mad or if she’d believe him.
“Merlin, you glowed.” Ygraine grasped his arm, tugging him up and walking away from the pool and the injured child. Merlin didn’t resist, lost in the past, back to when he’d thought he had stopped the sea and Will had said the same words.
Lost in a daze, Merlin hardly noticed where they were going, focusing on placing one foot in front of the other and following Ygraine’s steps. She never once let go of his wrist, pulling him along like a mother with a disobedient child. It was obvious that Merlin’s fall and subsequent glowing episode had unnerved her, but he couldn’t offer any words of comfort.
They entered the druid camp silently, Ygraine leading the way to Gaius’ tent. A few druids were around, but they didn’t bother with pleasantries this time, instead simply passing them by and entering Gaius’ tent. The man looked up at them in surprise before his jaw slackened as he noticed the state Merlin was in.
“Gaius, he fell in the water,” Ygraine rushed to say, moving to the physician’s side. “He was drowning and then…” She sent a glance in Merlin’s direction, disbelieving look on her face. “He was glowing and then he was pushed from the water.”
It was the most Merlin had ever heard Ygraine say, though as soon as the words were out of her mouth she seemed to draw in on herself again, looking away from Merlin and Gaius and down at the floor.
“Merlin?” Gaius questioned softly, turning his gaze from Ygraine to look at him curiously. “What happened?”
Merlin told Gaius how they’d seen the children being attacked, and how one had been injured.
“The Sky City people kill all who aren’t from their world so it doesn’t surprise me,” Gaius said sadly. “If the injured one has a chance of surviving, they’ll come to me when we next give out supplies. If they don’t come, there would have been no hope anyway. The Wild Children are hardy sorts, the kind who can walk around with a gaping wound for weeks and not notice.”
Though it was hard to imagine, the children weren’t able of communicating properly, having been raised alone. They were a pack of wild animals more than humans and Merlin could believe that they were hardy and strong. Still, it didn’t ease the discomfort he felt and it certainly didn’t excuse what the Police had done.
“I slipped and I was drowning,” Merlin continued, moving over until he sat on one of the benches, hands clasped together between his knees as he leant forward slightly. “I tried to calm down and feel for my magic like Aglain had taught me, but the magic I used wasn’t just mine.”
Merlin noticed Gaius look to Ygraine for confirmation and her responding nod.
“What do you mean it wasn’t just yours?” he asked a beat later, moving over to his bookshelf anyway and pausing with a hand hovering over one of the tomes.
“It was the magic from the Old World, way beneath the Wastelands. I could feel its power like nothing I’d ever felt before and it helped my own magic to push me out of the water.” It was strange to think that a few weeks ago, a sentence like that would have been madness to Merlin if he’d even thought it, let alone said it aloud to someone.
Gaius didn’t say anything, just turned to the row of books on his shelf, hand resting against them. Ygraine was still too, eyes downcast to the ground, though occasionally she’d look up at either Merlin or Gaius for a moment. Merlin waited nervously, refusing to take his eyes away from his hands, focused in the line of his thumb as it curled over his other hand.
“And you glowed?” Gaius asked, voice flat.
Merlin nodded slowly, “It happened before on Ealdor. I was trying to stop the Ocean.”
The air shifted and, if possible, both Gaius and Ygraine’s looks drew more shock and confusion, both looking to Merlin.
“I didn’t,” he added hastily, uncomfortable by their reaction. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but Will asked me if I could just stop the Ocean and I’d just discovered my magic, so I had to try.”
Merlin knew he sounded as if he was trying to defend himself against a serious allegation. While there was nothing wrong with what he’d done - that Merlin knew anyway - the reaction from Ygraine and Gaius frightened him a little. Had he finally shown that he could do something that even they were afraid of, or was there something more terrifying under his words? What did they know that he didn’t?
“There is a legend, written in the Chronicles of Beltane.” Gaius slid a book free of the shelf in front of him and walked slowly to the table where Merlin sat. “It speaks of the Old Magic, primarily its manifestation in the four base elements.”
Gaius flipped through the book until he found a page, pictures dominating the spread. It showed image representations of earth, air, fire and water, all draw in four quarters of a circle. Below that image was a drawing of a person, arms and legs stretched out and lines radiating from their body.
“They spoke of a great sorcerer, one who could tame the elements by a simple wish. He or she could create flames with the snap of their fingers, create a wind by lifting a hand, dent the earth with a footfall and still the ocean with a tilt of their head.” Gaius’ voice took on a fairy tale story quality, lost in the myth and wonder of the tale.
No doubt even the strongest sorcerers had thought this tale just that, not seeking to find any truth in their words further than a bedtime story and a smile for the child they were whispering it to.
“It was said that when perfect harmony with the elements was achieved, the magician glowed with an ethereal light, magic pouring off of them so strongly that it was visible even to non-magic folk.” Gaius slid the book further over to Merlin, tapping his finger at a small paragraph of scripted writing. It was, predictably, in the Old Language, but a simple scan on Merlin’s behalf showed the words clearly, proof of what Gaius had just told him.
“But what does it mean for me?” Merlin grated out, not wanting to hear about legends or amazing deeds of the past. He wanted to know what the glowing issue meant for him, what the repercussions were.
Gaius was about to reply when Ygraine spoke, jaw tightened and hands clenched tightly.
“You can’t let Nimueh near you,” she said hurriedly, shaking her head slightly. “If she gets you, she’ll chain your magic and then it’ll all be over.”
Ygraine had every reason to fear Uther’s court sorceress. She was the woman who had sold Ygraine out, whispered that the Queen knew the darkest, terrible secrets behind Camelot into the King’s ear. She was the reason Ygraine and Gaius had had to flee their homes under the cover of night, escaping to the Wastelands and living a life of poverty and scavenging. Merlin didn’t want anything to do with Nimueh, especially not when he was uncovering ridiculous amounts of power by the week.
Shushing Ygraine gently, Gaius turned to Merlin, lips thin.
“It means,” he began, “That you’re the only one who is powerful enough to take on all of Uther’s sorcerers and win, most likely with your eyes closed.”
Ygraine made a startled noise, somewhere between a squeak and a groan before she spoke. “You don’t know what Nimueh’s capable of Gaius!” Her voice was loud, panicked, and there was something in the way she held herself that made Merlin wonder whether there was more behind her relationship with Nimueh.
He didn’t have to wait to find out though, for Ygraine turned to him, ignoring Gaius’ suggestion to talk about it at another time.
“Nimueh isn’t afraid to do terrible things,” she began, seeking Merlin’s eyes out with her own, desperation shining through in her gaze. “After what she did-“
“My lady,” Gaius said quickly, voice harder than Merlin had ever heard it before. There was also the way in which he’d addressed Ygraine, most likely in the way he’d addressed her when she was queen and certainly not how they’d been for the years in the Wastelands.
“Gaius,” Ygraine said firmly, eyes full of fire. “I have to tell him.”
Merlin didn’t know how many secrets Camelot had been built upon, but each was more shattering than the last. Humanity was doomed if these were the kinds of people running a kingdom. If they resorted to slavery and chaining a creature against its will, what hope was there for the kindness they showed for their people? Those in the Sky City were ignorant, blind and foolish and it made Merlin want to give up his half-baked idea of saving them all, somehow.
Were they worth it? All those people who didn’t stop to think about what they were living on, not looking further than their noses at a government and monarchy they followed. Were they worth sacrificing everything Merlin had to offer salvation?
Merlin was beginning to think less and less of the plan, if not for the dragon. He needed to see the dragon and he would, only then could he decide which path he needed to take.
“Very well,” Merlin heard Gaius mutter, before his mentor moved away into the back of the tent, distancing himself from the conversation.
“Nimueh was my friend, one of my closest friends in fact. She took an oath as High Priestess when we were teenagers, but our friendship never dwindled because of that.” Ygraine’s voice was strong, as if she’d been holding all of this in and had needed to let it out. “She was a natural at magic, stronger than anyone we’d known for years.”
There was a wistful glint in her eyes as Ygraine remembered a lost friendship. Merlin waited, unsure if he should say or do anything.
“When I married Uther, she was happy for me. Even in matters of Court we got to spend time together so it wasn’t as if we saw each other less.” She smiled. “In fact, our relationship as Queen and Court Sorceress probably improved our friendship… or at least until Uther begged her to help us conceive a child.”
In all the stories Gaius had told, he’d never even hinted that Ygraine had so much thought of children, let alone conceived one. Had the babe died, Nimueh taking the child still in its afterbirth? Or had it died inside of Ygraine, a cursed product of a cursed kingdom?
“I became pregnant and everything was fine, good, until your father turned down position as Court Dragonlord.” Ygraine’s hand rested on her smooth stomach for a moment, lost in memories. Merlin waited, eyes averted. “He told Gaius and I about the truth and I foolishly assumed Nimueh was as clueless as I was.”
She closed her eyes, smiling bitterly this time. “She knew. In fact she was the one who suggested renewing the spells on the dragon every month to strengthen the magic being drawn from him. I’d just assumed I could trust her, that because she was my friend she’d agree with me…”
Ygraine tightened her jaw. “I wanted to tell everyone, ask our City what they thought of their noble Camelot. I wanted Nimueh and Uther to see what they’d done, to know the pain and suffering they were causing without telling anyone. All those people up there, living life happily without any cares, not knowing that their careless lives are powered by so many forced sacrifices.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin noticed Gaius shift uncomfortably where he stood.
“I didn’t know that Uther had asked Nimueh’s help to conceive our child. I didn’t know he had told her to use any magic possible to create his heir. If I had known…” she trailed off, biting her lip.
“I didn’t know,” she repeated, looking away from Merlin with shame in her eyes. “I didn’t know that to create a life, a life must be taken. I didn’t know that my son was born of magic. I didn’t know that his birth meant that a child from the Pickings would be cremated, that I caused the death of someone else’s child.”
Anguish resided in Ygraine’s voice and there were tears in her eyes now. Merlin wanted to comfort her, somehow, but he knew any words he could offer would be useless and fall limp around her.
“I’m not saying I don’t love Arthur,” Ygraine whispered, a tear falling onto her cheek as she named her son. “And I would do anything, even now, to keep him out of harm’s way…”
“Which was why she had to leave,” Gaius interrupted darkly, arms crossed over his chest. “When we discovered the truth, we threatened to expose it to the people. Nimueh threatened to kill Arthur, just days old. She told us that we had to run or she would do it.”
Merlin’s eyes widened, thinking of all the hope and the dreams everyone back on Ealdor - even in the refugee camps - had placed in the Sky Cities. Where were the shining turrets of safety and honour in these stories?
“I don’t know what Uther told Arthur about me,” Ygraine said softly, brushing tears off of her cheeks with her fingers, sniffing slightly. “But you cannot let Nimueh near you. She will destroy you, no matter how powerful you are Merlin. She gets under your skin, claws into you until you can’t do anything but back down to her wishes.”
She was scared, Merlin realised. Scared of a woman who had been her closest friend and then betrayed her, consumed by greed and the power of magic.
The thing was, though, that Merlin could see how she had been so consumed by the magic. He kept being told that he was special, that his powers far exceeded anything anyone had ever managed in centuries, but Nimueh was the strongest witch Camelot had seen. How much better did that make her than the others, how much control had it given her?
Nimueh would have had to work the spells to bind the dragon’s magic and the stones together and then force them to power the City. And although she would have the command of sorcerers, ready to reinforce the spell, the original incantation had to be her magic alone or else it would never have worked. She had to have power and knowledge to be able to do that and it was easy to let such things corrupt you.
Merlin also knew what magic felt like, what it tasted like. Back on Ealdor, once he’d gotten over the shock of the stone, he’d craved it. At night he’d lie in bed and run a hand thoughtfully over the surface, sometimes wishing that he could have complete power over it and control where it sent him.
Unlike Merlin, Nimueh had no limitations. Power wasn’t even a limitation when she had her own sorcerers. If she so wished it, she could borrow their power, drawing on it through the Obsidian circle if it was a large amount. And, because she was the most powerful, the most feared, no one stood against her. Nimueh could do whatever she wished whenever she wished.
Perhaps Uther had some control over her to begin with, but Merlin knew that it would have been shredded the moment Uther had let her take away his queen, or perhaps even the moment the king had caved and come to her for an heir.
Kind-hearted and fair though she was, Ygraine wasn’t the woman Camelot needed. A cruel City such as that deserved Nimueh, a product of its own making. With Uther the only person with a slight shred of hope to control her, Nimueh was free to do as she willed in the City, to control the magic pouring in, as an example.
In his books, Merlin had always read about how magic could be a consuming force and how it could corrupt. He’d only known pure magic and, besides, his own strength was seemingly endless. It couldn’t consume Merlin because he never had to crave more; it was simply there. But, with this knowledge, now-common facts about Camelot slot into place, facts that he’d need to discuss later with Gaius.
By taking the power of life and death in her hands, Nimueh had altered the balance of the Old Religion. When Ygraine’s son had been born, another son’s life had been taken, shattering the fragile connection Camelot had held with the earth magic. There was only so much damage that connection could have withstood, through the damage the Pickings caused and then the enslavement of the Great Dragon, but Nimueh altering something she should never have even considered touching had been the final straw.
That connection hadn’t just affected Camelot though, it couldn’t have. A break in such a connection would have had terrible effect, drastic effects, on the rest of the world. Or, in other words, in a common tongue, the final push of the Flood, the one that had wreaked the most havoc when everyone assumed the worst to be over.
By breaking that connection, Nimueh had damaged the balance. Waters had risen faster, hurtling towards whatever land it could cover, and the people below had suffered, yet again. But there were also the decaying Towers, the non-refutable evidence that Camelot was crumbling and it was all Nimueh’s fault.
“I don’t have a choice,” Merlin heard himself say, before he’d thought the words out fully. “It doesn’t matter about Nimueh; I still have to go to Camelot.”
Gaius was silent, still away from them, but Ygraine shook her head, trying to plead with Merlin, to make him promise not to go to Camelot.
“You can’t! If she finds out your strength then she’ll hurt you.” She clutched at Merlin’s hand, desperate and almost-crazed. “You don’t understand her, she’ll tear you apart.”
Merlin placed his free hand over Ygraine’s, stilling her movements as he spoke.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said softly. “I survived the journey from Ealdor. I don’t know how I did it, but there’s a chance my mother and my best friend are still alive. I need the dragon to tell me where they are; I can’t just abandon them.”
“I can help you there,” Gaius spoke again and Merlin’s head turned sharply. “On why you survived and no one else did.”
Beginning to shake his head, not wanting to hear what the physician had to say, Merlin did listen as Gaius spoke again, though the words were hard to stomach.
“I’m sorry. There is a chance that they’re alive, but you have to be realistic Merlin. You survived because of your connection to the Old Magic. You said that you tried to stop the Ocean back on Ealdor and I’m willing to bet that you almost did when you glowed.”
Merlin wanted to shake his head and dismiss Gaius’ words, but he remembered the rush of magic, the tingling of power and the moonbeams dancing on the surface of the waves around him. They’d never learnt to swim - none of the Islanders that was - but when he’d been waist-deep in the Ocean, Merlin had felt peaceful and serene, two words that he’d never have had considered in relation to the Ocean before.
“You were washed up on the shores of Camelot because the Ocean wanted you here. The Old Magic needs you, Merlin, no matter what you might want to think.” Gaius sighed before he spoke heavily, not wanting to say the words, Merlin knew. “And while your connection to your family is strong, I don’t think it was strong enough to save them too.”
Suddenly, Merlin didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t need to know about Nimueh, or the self-induced madness Ygraine slipped into with desperation. He didn’t want to hear Gaius’ reasonable truths or the possibility that the Old Magic had selected him of all people, saved him when it had let so many people die…
So Merlin left, walking from the tent swiftly without another word. Thankfully both Gaius and Ygraine let him go, silent back in the tent. The few druids Merlin met on his way out of the camp eyed him suspiciously, curious as to how he’d become so dirty, but they backed away when he glared at them, scuttling back to their half-lives hidden under the shadows of a corrupt City.
He marched in the opposite direction to that he’d taken with Ygraine, heading away from the refugee camp, away from the inner Fence and support Tower. He walked away from the druids without second thought, unsure where exactly he was headed to, but knowing that he needed to clear his head.
It was incomprehensible to think. Before, he’d hoped with every fibre of his being that his mother and Will were still alive somehow, had survived against all odds. After all, Merlin had survived, so why shouldn’t they have?
And though Gaius had mentioned about the will of his magic perhaps saving them too, what did the Old Religion want with Hunith or Will? Merlin was the one with the ability to use its magic, the one with magic of his own and the one ruined by a prophecy. Will and Hunith were useless in the eyes of the Old Religion and so it didn’t need to save them. Why cling onto hope that they were still out there when it was useless?
Merlin walked, clothes itching against his skin as the bog-mud began to crust over. He smelt awful and knew he looked hideous, but so what? No one was there to see him and Merlin certainly didn’t want to go back, at least not yet.
| Part Seven|
“We shall devise some tests and training methods for you then Emrys,” Aglain said, shooting a dark look in Alvarr’s direction. He was obviously unhappy at how outspoken the man had been and Merlin wondered if the druids could scorn their own.
It seemed a strange thing to so when there were so little people left in the world, or more correctly in the same, direct world as you, but if what Alvarr wanted to do was true, he had to know and understand the risks. Mordred clearly didn’t want any part in the plan, but how far would Alvarr push if he could get what he wanted? Merlin was at a loss to explain why he wanted to be the one to save them all, yet if he could have handed it over, Merlin would have given the honour to Alvarr in the blink of an eye.
“I’m sure Gaius will be able to fill you in on some basics before we get started,” Aglain continued and Gaius nodded, his mouth thinning.
The druids stood then and, almost as one, bowed in Merlin’s direction. For the first time in a long while, Merlin felt a flush creep onto his cheeks, unused to the attention. A few people even approached him, shaking his hand with bright smiles and words of adoration that Merlin, no matter what any prophecy said, knew he didn’t deserve.
Gaius took him back to their tent, telling Merlin to sit down at the table and piling books in front of him.
“Read,” was all he said, so Merlin did.
The books themselves were basic tools of a wise man’s trade. There was one on anatomy and physiology, though the book was annotated to include the position of magic and its effect on the body. Another detailed local flora, hand drawn and bound by someone in the druid camp, lovingly created. The last one, though, was a thick tome with an elaborate front cover. The design swirled over the front and Merlin ran a finger over it tentatively, never having seen such a fancy book before.
Upon opening it, Merlin realised that it wasn’t an ordinary book. He looked over to where Gaius was using a pestle and mortar to grind some plant leaves in surprise.
“A book of spells?” he asked softly, eyebrows creeping up to his hairline. Merlin had never even considered the possibility that such things existed, let alone that Gaius would possess one.
Placing the pestle down in the bowl, Gaius smiled and nodded.
“It was given to me back in Camelot, but I don’t have much use for it. I’ve mastered the spells I’m capable of and they only equate to a small portion of the book.” He looked at the book with fondness in his eyes, clearly remembering better times than he’d landed with now. “Aglain will most likely just train you through meditation, but it’s not going to be enough.”
He quietened for a moment, thinking about something.
“I felt your power and even though you might not realise it, you could be the only warlock to never run out of magic. Quite frankly it scares me how much power you have and the fact that it seems limitless.” Merlin looked away, unsure what to say at that. “But it’s also amazing. When I felt your magic… it was energising. It’s almost as if you’re connected to the ancient magic itself, and if I’m honest, it would make more sense than anything else I can fathom.”
Turning back to the book, Merlin smiled and thanked Gaius sincerely. He spent the hours between lunch and dinner reading, committing the odd words to memory and testing them out with his tongue, silently.
As he read them, Merlin felt knowledge creep into him, as if just by reading the old language he could remember what the words meant. Odd letters begun to make sense, as if Merlin was reading his own tongue rather than one of ancient magic. He mentioned as much to Gaius, who looked at him with an amused smile.
“I wondered whether you’d understand the spells. I have another book that goes with that one with the translations of the spell and what they do.” He shook his head lightly, “You never cease to amaze me.”
Merlin threw himself back into reading and it wasn’t until he’d turned the last page of the book that he noticed candles around him, almost all of them burnt down to the last of the wick. Gaius wasn’t in his bed yet, but Merlin felt guilty all the same and pushed the book to the centre of the table, moving to his tent-room and crawling into bed.
It was here, without the book to distract him, that he thought about everything Aglain had said, about how much hope the druids had already placed in him when all they knew was his name. It was ridiculous and Merlin needed to get away, find something that didn’t expect him to split Camelot apart and return the world to how it was before the floods.
It was easy to sink under the influence of the stone after so long. His magic curled curiously over the Obsidian, greeting it like a long-lost friend, before the stone responded in turn, pulling Merlin in until he stood in the moon-lit gardens of the lost Queen Ygraine.
Now that he knew of the terrible truths behind the glorious Camelot, it was easy for Merlin to spot the artificial edge to the moonlight, the way it would occasionally flicker although the sky (again artificial) was clear of clouds.
Walking to the throne took longer than usual, but Merlin was paying more attention to the world around him this time. The garden was monochrome, flowers wilting as if realising that the whole of Camelot relied on magic dispelled any of the lies and trickery the city bestowed on onlookers.
Perhaps the rest of the city was blinding in its technology, flashy lights and strategic shadows, dimming the artificial edge to the world. Maybe the people of Camelot lived half-lives, buried inside their cyber-network and in too deep to pull their heads out to seek the truth.
When he reached the throne, it was as it had always been. It seemed as if this was the only point in the garden that was real, that actually existed outside of the forced magic and splendour. Queen Ygraine had sat here once, regal and beautiful as the stones had surrounded her.
He’d never noticed it before, but the columns that lined the garden fell in circular shapes. It was clear that the Obsidians had been mounted on the pillars, guarded and loved as was the duty of the queen, until they’d fallen to ruin, stolen down into the base of the tower as the smaller crystals failed in their job to collect sufficient amounts of power. Only Merlin’s crystal - to all knowledge - had ended up outside of the tower, and that was probably down to someone’s stupidity than Merlin’s destiny.
The dragon wasn’t there, but that was okay. Merlin had all the time in the world to wait for him and so he sat on the ground, closing his eyes and trying to feel the magic rolling through Camelot.
Although he was unsure the exact location of the queen’s gardens, Merlin thought that they had to be in the heart of Camelot. Listening to the world around offered no clues, though he could feel a slight, sluggish pulse of magic around him, clearly the magic Gaius and Eigyr had spoken of running as lifeblood for Camelot.
Merlin didn’t know how long he waited there, but he felt the change when the dragon appeared. It was as though there was an opening in the space before him, the magic parting to allow something else, something brimming with energy, pass through before closing again. He opened his eyes to see a blurred figure, definitely more human than of a dragon.
The image flickered, like a candle’s flame, and it was the dragon that stepped forwards, tilting its head to look at Merlin curiously.
“Emrys of the Ocean,” it said slowly, sitting down and curling its tail around its body. “I haven’t seen you for weeks.”
Though ‘weeks’ was probably an understatement, Merlin held the same sentiment. He smiled dryly and commented,
“Not for lack of trying.” It felt good to talk to someone he shared a connection with. The dragon hadn’t known anything about Ealdor or about Merlin in general, but he was still a link back to the small, drowning Island. He was still part of the past Merlin had lost and it just felt nice to have someone who could be linked back to that still here.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Merlin began, biting his lip. “It’s just… Gaius told me about the prophecy. I can’t… I mean they all expect me to be able to do something, but I can’t…”
Merlin looked at the dragon, shaking his head. He shouldn’t be thinking about something like that now, not when he had the chance to talk about something different. And, yes, the dragon had been the one in the first place to mention his connection to the prophecy, but they had moved past that.
“Gaius?” The dragon gave a little smile. “I used to have a doctor called Gaius. Nice man he was too, used to slip me sweets when my father wasn’t looking.”
Merlin didn’t know what use a dragon had for a doctor, but Camelot was full of endless curiosities that perhaps the art of a physician extended further than Ealdor had been able to teach Merlin.
“He was a good man. I don’t know what happened to him, but I heard he was banished for a crime against the Crown, though I don’t see how.” The dragon was mainly talking to itself now, probably not expecting Merlin to be interested, but at the mention that the man the dragon knew had been banished, a cold, unsettling feeling washed through Merlin.
“Maybe it’s the same man,” he offered tentatively. “After all I’m at the base of Camelot’s Towers and your Gaius couldn’t have gone far.”
The dragon shook his head slowly. “Maybe. Gaius was always a good friend to the queen and I doubt he’d want to leave all of that behind.”
For a woman Merlin knew nothing about, Ygraine held such a key role. Gaius had never indicated that he’d known her, never said that he’d even been around Ygraine unless you counted working for her, so it surely couldn’t have just slipped his mind.
But Gaius was always so careful with his words. About how the Queen Ygraine had vanished and those close to her punished and then about how they had chosen to leave Camelot after learning the horrific truths. What if… What if…
“What happened to the Queen?” Merlin asked suddenly, uncrossing his legs and shifting until he say on his knees.
There was silence for a moment, a large, blue eye studying Merlin as the dragon tilted his head slightly, before he rumbled out an answer. “She died,” he said simply.
“What did she look like?” Merlin pressed on, because the thought wouldn’t leave him and he had to know. If he was correct in thinking, then this would change a lot of things and Merlin would be able to get closer to the truth.
The dragon studied Merlin again before drawing itself up, waving its front legs around. Presumably the real-dragon behind this image was reaching for a picture to show Merlin, and he wasn’t disappointed when, with a small flash of blue light, a picture frame slid between the dragon’s talons.
“Oh,” Merlin breathed as the dragon turned the frame around, holding it out for Merlin to see.
She was beautiful, there was no doubt of that. With her hair curled expertly on the top of her head and a light coloured dress, Ygraine made for the perfect queen. It was hard to see the resemblance between her and Eigyr, but with squinted eyes and imagination, everything slotted into place.
Queen Ygraine hadn’t died or disappeared. When she’d discovered the truth behind Camelot, she hadn’t opposed the king or the court and had, instead, chosen to flee with Balinor and Gaius, to name the two Merlin was aware of. She must have taken stock in the prophecy and known that, one way or another, Balinor would help lead to their salvation, and the thought had been enough.
When she’d entered the druid camp though, and this was the most important point, she hadn’t come as Queen Ygraine of Camelot, but as Eigyr, a silent and shy woman.
“You’re down in the refugee camps?” the dragon said, interrupting Merlin’s whirling thoughts. The revelation was huge, but Merlin pulled his mind from the trail of thought to answer the dragon.
“I’m going to find a way to get into Camelot and then I’ll come and find you. No matter what it takes, I’m going to get my life back.” Merlin’s voice was firm. He stood up, the dragon watching him take a few steps back.
Magic coiled around Merlin once again and the dragon stood suddenly, as if he wanted to say something. It was too late though and Merlin nodded his head, sealing the promise he had just made aloud as he was taken away from Ygraine’s garden and hurled back onto his bed in Gaius’ tent.
“Merlin?” Gaius called out, head peering around the tent flap that divided their rooms. “I felt your magic,” he said, slightly disapprovingly.
“I used the Obsidian stone.” The look Gaius gave him was still disapproving, but Merlin didn’t worry about that right now. He had bigger issues to call the old man out on. “And the dragon showed me a picture of Queen Ygraine.”
He didn’t have to say anything else and Gaius came to sit on his bed, slowly shuffling over.
“I want to know everything,” Merlin said firmly, sick of the twisted words and the half-truths that had built around him since entering the Wastelands.
“Of course,” Gaius said softly. He then told Merlin the full truth, of how Uther had condemned Camelot for good, and of the role the last sorcerer played in the unfolding demise of Camelot.
.
Training, by Aglain’s standards, was largely compromised of sitting down on the ground (thankfully the whole of the druid camp set upon on stone floor, most likely from an ancient building that had crumbled down over time) and waiting. Or, as he called it, meditating. Merlin was taught how to breathe, how to feel for his magic and strengthen its power, but it wasn’t much help.
He didn’t have a problem in feeling his magic or strengthening it. He could feel it with his eyes open and mind fixed on something else if he had to and knew that it was already stronger than anything the druids had experienced before.
Still, he didn’t tell any of this to Aglain, instead following the man’s instructions. He already trod around Merlin carefully, as if he had to pander to every whim of the great Emrys and Merlin really didn’t want him learning about his abilities. He didn’t need that added onto everything else at the moment.
In the evenings, after calming sessions with Aglain - they were useful for that and Merlin got time to think, time to process what had happened to him - he went back to Gaius’ tent to practice spells and incantations.
Merlin could now understand the words without needing to translate between them. He no longer had to read the word, convert it and then understand, but could look at the old language and instantly grasp at its meaning. He’d asked Gaius what that meant, but his mentor had merely smiled and clapped him on the back.
“You are a creature of the old magic,” he said, pouring a goblet of water for Merlin and handing it to him. “It’s only natural that the words translate themselves for you using your magic.”
He took a sip of his own drink and Merlin settled the book in his lap, waiting for Gaius to continue.
“Magic wants to be used. People often forget that and just assume that sorcerers stole it from the land, but that’s not true. The magic wanted to be taken and it still does.” Gaius smiled, “Magic hasn’t had a proper person to go through before you; you just need to learn how to channel the energy properly.”
Their sessions usually carried on well past nightfall (measured by the slight sliver of light that drifted in from the edges of the camp) and left Merlin humming by the end, as though his magic penetrated through every pore on his skin, wanting to be seen and wanting to be noticed.
Gaius had given another smile when Merlin mentioned it and shrugged. They didn’t have any knowledge to fall back on other than myths and legends of great sorcerers. They didn’t know if Merlin’s power was becoming equal to those rumoured magicians or whether he had blown their powers out of the water completely.
They had no other way of knowing, though, so Merlin simply kept his head down, followed Aglain’s meditation techniques and followed Gaius’ teachings. He kept out of the way of Alvarr and his followers, still wary of the man despite Gaius’ verbal dressing down of him.
During his time with the druids, Gaius tended to the Wild Children three times, once with each seven passing days. Merlin was never allowed to go with them, Aglain saying his training was at a too crucial stage, but Merlin knew he wasn’t missing much. He would have liked to see Mordred again, to thank him and perhaps talk to him properly, but overall, Merlin hadn’t lost anything and he was more content to stay in the druid camp where people were kinder than those outside of the fence.
So it was a surprise when Aglain dismissed him from training one day, only halfway through - if that. Merlin had turned from their training ground, the same circled area that held the druid’s council, to see Eigyr - Ygraine he corrected himself - standing off by the side, clutching a bag to her side and wide eyed.
Even though he knew she was Queen Ygraine, it was still hard to refer to her as such when she remained unchanged. Even though he knew the truth about her, and of Camelot and the Floods, she hadn’t changed from the shy woman he knew as Eigyr. She still hardly spoke and flitted about like a terrified bird, never resting in a place more than a few moments.
Merlin followed her quietly. They passed through rows of tents and stopped to greet a few other members of the clan before making for the Wastelands, away from the camp entirely.
“Where are we going?” Merlin asked, not expecting an answer. For a moment he thought that Eigyr - Ygraine - was going to answer, but she just shook her head balefully. Merlin didn’t press her, instead focusing on where he was treading through the muddy land, careful not to slip into the water.
She took them closer than Merlin had ever been to the inner fence. They were so close that Merlin could pick out individuals along the fence lines and at the lock positioned on the canal leading back out to the refugee gates. Ygraine tugged him down lower until they were both hunch-backed and lolloping over the ground, running slightly.
There was a gnarled tree nearby and Merlin knew it was their destination. It was a scrubby thing, thick trunked and spiky leafed, ugly and seemingly useless. It didn’t matter to Ygraine though and she moved up to stand against the tree, straightening under its swooping branches.
Beckoning Merlin to her side, her eyes darted to the tree and Merlin got the hint that she wanted him to watch. Ygraine pulled a knife and a glass bottle out of the bag at her hip and looked to Merlin to ensure he was watching.
She had a little difficulty in piercing the bark of the tree, but the knife didn’t take too long to sink through, guided by Ygraine’s careful hands. Tree sap seeped from the wound in the tree and she held the bottle to the trunk, collecting the thick sap expertly.
“Gaius uses it to heal,” she said softly, eyes fixed on her work.
Merlin could finally see it. As Ygraine tilted the bottle slightly, pressing her lips together and smoothing part of the gnarled tree with her free hand, he could see why she had been such a good queen for her people.
When Gaius had revealed the full truth behind their exile, he had spoken of how the people loved Ygraine. She was fair and just where Uther might have been harsh and cold, and she’d tended to her people like they were her children. Camelot had been prosperous under her reign and, Gaius had added, it was a good thing they couldn’t see what Uther had done, in case he had shattered everything Ygraine had helped to build.
He could also see how she had cared for the Seeing Stones and, as he thought about them, Merlin’s hand strayed to his pocket, where he kept the stone at all times aside from when he slept. It was his only connection to the dragon and he couldn’t afford to lose it.
Ygraine’s attention drew to him as he slid the stone from his pocket and her eyebrows lifted in slight surprise. Merlin knew she couldn’t have seen one this well since she’d been exiled, some twenty-odd years ago. He offered it gingerly to her, taking the glass bottle from her hands and cupping it under the oozing sap as her fingers closed over the dark surface.
“They were never originally black,” Ygraine whispered after a while.
The bottle was almost full now and Merlin looked over to her, waiting.
“Gaius probably told you of all the circumstances,” she said, eyes focused on the stone. “So you’ll know everything, but around the time of the Great Floods, the stones turned from white crystal to this, changing in their nature. They used to hold the secrets of time, but now they’re used for so much more.”
Her eyes looked to Merlin, wide and honest.
“How did you know who I was? I can’t think of anyone who might keep a picture of me, though I know of a few who might know of me.” Merlin noticed that the more she spoke, the more Ygraine was distancing herself from the meek Eigyr she had forced herself to become.
“When I use the stone,” he began, taking the bottle away from the tree and letting the sap harden and the tree heal itself. “When I use it, it takes me to your gardens.”
Ygraine’s face softened and she closed her hands around the stone, shaking her head softly. “It’s not my garden anymore Merlin. I relinquished any entitlement to Camelot and her luxuries years ago.”
“The dragon said it was your garden,” Merlin persisted. “It’s been untouched ever since you left, except the dragon guards it.”
A line appears between Ygraine’s brows as she frowns. “The dragon?”
Merlin nodded. “He’s helped me, though I didn’t have anything to offer in return. Though considering the connection he had with my father, it’s not that impossible to imagine he’d help me.”
Merlin could remember that part of the tale well. Balinor was one of the last Dragonlords left and had trained directly under the Kings of Camelot. When Uther came to power, he had chosen Merlin’s father to oversee the Dragonlords and Balinor had accepted with ease and a smile. Uther had been his friend and even Balinor hadn’t learnt of the truth then.
There was a story in the Sky City of Camelot. It was painted in pixels and electrical banners throughout the city. It was their history, that the gates of Camelot were open to any and all, including the greatest creatures in existence.
The official histories said that, when the world flooded, the dragons had died. They had been slumbering, deep under the earth or hidden in mountains, eyes closed tightly and they hadn’t been able to wake before the Flood hit. There had been one dragon left and he’d sought out Camelot as a safe beacon.
It was Merlin’s dragon, the last of his kind. The Great Dragon slept in the base of the Sky City, below even the miles of slaves and below the Wastelands, buried into the earth itself. The dragon stayed there because it was safe, because it was protected, and people had forgotten, pushed the story aside as a myth or a fairy tale, never looking past the pages of books to discover more.
The truth, though, was a far cry from anything out of the pages of a book. The dragons hadn’t been sleeping, but had been hunted into extinction centuries before the floods. The dragon race had died even before the Sky Cities were thought up, before the world had choked and died, and certainly before the golden age of man. The Great Dragon was the last of his kind, but he hadn’t sought out Camelot either.
Gaius had explained that the dragon was chained to the base of the Sky City. The stones, though able to pull an individual’s magic from them if used incorrectly, did not have the capability to take so much magic from so many people. The magic in those taken during Pickings was weak, buried deep, deep down, and the stones would never have been able to harmonise to drain even an inkling of the magic to the surface.
Except with a creature born directly from the Old Religion, the strongest and the oldest of its kind to boot, the Obsidian circle that had been created by the weak sorcerers under the king’s command had something to lock on, a bigger power source to boost their power.
A Dragonlord had been needed to command the dragon to drain the energy from the children and adults taken during the Pickings and the king had plenty to pick from. The stones then acted like a conduit, channelling the magic from the human bodies and into the Sky City itself, providing energy and protection for the Tower and Camelot.
When Balinor had been asked to renew the orders placed upon the dragon, after his predecessor had died just over twenty years ago, his refusal had drawn the subject under scrutiny. Whereas before the process of taking the magic had been known only by the sorcerers involved, the Dragonlord and the king, the refusal Balinor gave drew attention and Ygraine and Gaius had discovered the truth.
“Why was he in the garden?” Ygraine asked, a troubled look crossing her face as she drew Merlin out of his thoughts.
“It wasn’t him,” Merlin said, “I mean it was the dragon, but it was… as if he was projecting his image. It wasn’t a perfect image, it flickered out of focus a few times and there was one point where it looked a bit human-like, but it’s definitely the Great Dragon.”
Ygraine took the bottle of tree sap from Merlin’s hand, slotting the stone back into his hand. The Obsidian was warm where she had been holding it and Merlin smiled, knowing that the magic inside of the stone had missed Ygraine as much as she had it.
On the way back to the druid camp, Ygraine showed Merlin a few other places to collect plants that Gaius would need, and then to the edible plants. None of them tasted very nice - usually they were added to the stews and soups the druids favoured - but they were edible and able to fill a belly when needed.
The druid camp was getting closer by the moment, about half an hour’s walk now, when the startling sound of gun fire rang. Ygraine clutched Merlin’s arm as he turned to look behind the way they’d come and, sure enough, a rabble of Urchin Children were fleeing across the Wastelands, ducking their heads as the Police warned them away from the lock.
“They can’t just do that!” Merlin protested, but Ygraine just clutched his arm tighter, shaking her head. Her face was drawn and pale, eyes wide. She tugged at the material on Merlin’s arm, trying to draw him away, but Merlin had to see, had to know that at least one of the children had made it.
The crackle of gun fire sounded again and Merlin saw the Urchins duck, only a handful coming back up. One of them was limping and Merlin wrenched his arm from Ygraine’s clutches, making to help the child.
“Merlin, no!” Ygraine hissed, tugging at his arm with her full strength. Perhaps once she would have been able to stop him, but she was frail and small now, wasted away almost, and Merlin was able to shake her off and stride across the slippery land, headed to the child.
“I have to help,” he called over his shoulder, despite the pleading Ygraine was making.
The gun fire had tapered off now and the Wild Children were backing away fully, creeping over the marshes and clearly heading to the nearest part of the fence that they could. It was a trek, but they were out of the reaches of the guns now and safe, aside from the slick mud and pools of rancid, bog-water.
It happened slowly, Merlin’s foot slipping on the marsh ground at an odd angle. His ankle gave a twinge of pain before giving, just enough that Merlin had to put his weight down hurriedly on his other foot. His other foot slipped too and Merlin’s hip hit the ground, then his shoulder, before the mud gave way.
The water he fell into was murky. There were clumps floating about in it and Merlin scrabbled with arms and legs, trying to kick out of the pool he’d slipped into. As before, in the Ocean and the channel outside the fence, Merlin couldn’t think. He was sinking, lower and lower, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He closed his eyes against the water and thought. He tried to remember everything Aglain and Gaius had been teaching him, everything that he had read; there had to be something that could save him from drowning.
He felt the magic building without his command, wrapping around him like a blanket. It tingled and Merlin shifted uncomfortably, paddling his feet and scraping through the water with his fingers. Unidentified clumps of something hit his cheeks, but Merlin remained focus on the magic and what it was doing.
Gaius had been right when he’d said that magic wanted to be used, Merlin could feel it drawing through the water from beneath the Wastelands, from the Old World. It built up around Merlin until it was pushing him, urging him up out of the water and forcing him to paddle his arms and legs. It took a while and Merlin’s lungs begun to burn, but the magic was there, pushing him up and out of the water.
He scrambled at the bank as he broke the surface, gasping in bog-water and air. Ygraine was there and she grasped Merlin’s arm. Between her and his magic, Merlin managed to slide out of the pool and onto the mud. It coated him thickly, smelly and full of Wasteland decay, but Merlin couldn’t bring himself to care. He was safe and, more importantly, he was still alive.
“Thank you,” he said breathlessly when he could, looking up at Ygraine standing over him. She still wore a shocked expression, mouth opened slightly as she stared at Merlin.
“What did you do?” she demanded, changing completely from the woman Merlin knew her as. Her eyes flickered with something uncertain.
“I used my magic and…” Merlin trailed off, unsure whether he would sound mad or if she’d believe him.
“Merlin, you glowed.” Ygraine grasped his arm, tugging him up and walking away from the pool and the injured child. Merlin didn’t resist, lost in the past, back to when he’d thought he had stopped the sea and Will had said the same words.
Lost in a daze, Merlin hardly noticed where they were going, focusing on placing one foot in front of the other and following Ygraine’s steps. She never once let go of his wrist, pulling him along like a mother with a disobedient child. It was obvious that Merlin’s fall and subsequent glowing episode had unnerved her, but he couldn’t offer any words of comfort.
They entered the druid camp silently, Ygraine leading the way to Gaius’ tent. A few druids were around, but they didn’t bother with pleasantries this time, instead simply passing them by and entering Gaius’ tent. The man looked up at them in surprise before his jaw slackened as he noticed the state Merlin was in.
“Gaius, he fell in the water,” Ygraine rushed to say, moving to the physician’s side. “He was drowning and then…” She sent a glance in Merlin’s direction, disbelieving look on her face. “He was glowing and then he was pushed from the water.”
It was the most Merlin had ever heard Ygraine say, though as soon as the words were out of her mouth she seemed to draw in on herself again, looking away from Merlin and Gaius and down at the floor.
“Merlin?” Gaius questioned softly, turning his gaze from Ygraine to look at him curiously. “What happened?”
Merlin told Gaius how they’d seen the children being attacked, and how one had been injured.
“The Sky City people kill all who aren’t from their world so it doesn’t surprise me,” Gaius said sadly. “If the injured one has a chance of surviving, they’ll come to me when we next give out supplies. If they don’t come, there would have been no hope anyway. The Wild Children are hardy sorts, the kind who can walk around with a gaping wound for weeks and not notice.”
Though it was hard to imagine, the children weren’t able of communicating properly, having been raised alone. They were a pack of wild animals more than humans and Merlin could believe that they were hardy and strong. Still, it didn’t ease the discomfort he felt and it certainly didn’t excuse what the Police had done.
“I slipped and I was drowning,” Merlin continued, moving over until he sat on one of the benches, hands clasped together between his knees as he leant forward slightly. “I tried to calm down and feel for my magic like Aglain had taught me, but the magic I used wasn’t just mine.”
Merlin noticed Gaius look to Ygraine for confirmation and her responding nod.
“What do you mean it wasn’t just yours?” he asked a beat later, moving over to his bookshelf anyway and pausing with a hand hovering over one of the tomes.
“It was the magic from the Old World, way beneath the Wastelands. I could feel its power like nothing I’d ever felt before and it helped my own magic to push me out of the water.” It was strange to think that a few weeks ago, a sentence like that would have been madness to Merlin if he’d even thought it, let alone said it aloud to someone.
Gaius didn’t say anything, just turned to the row of books on his shelf, hand resting against them. Ygraine was still too, eyes downcast to the ground, though occasionally she’d look up at either Merlin or Gaius for a moment. Merlin waited nervously, refusing to take his eyes away from his hands, focused in the line of his thumb as it curled over his other hand.
“And you glowed?” Gaius asked, voice flat.
Merlin nodded slowly, “It happened before on Ealdor. I was trying to stop the Ocean.”
The air shifted and, if possible, both Gaius and Ygraine’s looks drew more shock and confusion, both looking to Merlin.
“I didn’t,” he added hastily, uncomfortable by their reaction. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but Will asked me if I could just stop the Ocean and I’d just discovered my magic, so I had to try.”
Merlin knew he sounded as if he was trying to defend himself against a serious allegation. While there was nothing wrong with what he’d done - that Merlin knew anyway - the reaction from Ygraine and Gaius frightened him a little. Had he finally shown that he could do something that even they were afraid of, or was there something more terrifying under his words? What did they know that he didn’t?
“There is a legend, written in the Chronicles of Beltane.” Gaius slid a book free of the shelf in front of him and walked slowly to the table where Merlin sat. “It speaks of the Old Magic, primarily its manifestation in the four base elements.”
Gaius flipped through the book until he found a page, pictures dominating the spread. It showed image representations of earth, air, fire and water, all draw in four quarters of a circle. Below that image was a drawing of a person, arms and legs stretched out and lines radiating from their body.
“They spoke of a great sorcerer, one who could tame the elements by a simple wish. He or she could create flames with the snap of their fingers, create a wind by lifting a hand, dent the earth with a footfall and still the ocean with a tilt of their head.” Gaius’ voice took on a fairy tale story quality, lost in the myth and wonder of the tale.
No doubt even the strongest sorcerers had thought this tale just that, not seeking to find any truth in their words further than a bedtime story and a smile for the child they were whispering it to.
“It was said that when perfect harmony with the elements was achieved, the magician glowed with an ethereal light, magic pouring off of them so strongly that it was visible even to non-magic folk.” Gaius slid the book further over to Merlin, tapping his finger at a small paragraph of scripted writing. It was, predictably, in the Old Language, but a simple scan on Merlin’s behalf showed the words clearly, proof of what Gaius had just told him.
“But what does it mean for me?” Merlin grated out, not wanting to hear about legends or amazing deeds of the past. He wanted to know what the glowing issue meant for him, what the repercussions were.
Gaius was about to reply when Ygraine spoke, jaw tightened and hands clenched tightly.
“You can’t let Nimueh near you,” she said hurriedly, shaking her head slightly. “If she gets you, she’ll chain your magic and then it’ll all be over.”
Ygraine had every reason to fear Uther’s court sorceress. She was the woman who had sold Ygraine out, whispered that the Queen knew the darkest, terrible secrets behind Camelot into the King’s ear. She was the reason Ygraine and Gaius had had to flee their homes under the cover of night, escaping to the Wastelands and living a life of poverty and scavenging. Merlin didn’t want anything to do with Nimueh, especially not when he was uncovering ridiculous amounts of power by the week.
Shushing Ygraine gently, Gaius turned to Merlin, lips thin.
“It means,” he began, “That you’re the only one who is powerful enough to take on all of Uther’s sorcerers and win, most likely with your eyes closed.”
Ygraine made a startled noise, somewhere between a squeak and a groan before she spoke. “You don’t know what Nimueh’s capable of Gaius!” Her voice was loud, panicked, and there was something in the way she held herself that made Merlin wonder whether there was more behind her relationship with Nimueh.
He didn’t have to wait to find out though, for Ygraine turned to him, ignoring Gaius’ suggestion to talk about it at another time.
“Nimueh isn’t afraid to do terrible things,” she began, seeking Merlin’s eyes out with her own, desperation shining through in her gaze. “After what she did-“
“My lady,” Gaius said quickly, voice harder than Merlin had ever heard it before. There was also the way in which he’d addressed Ygraine, most likely in the way he’d addressed her when she was queen and certainly not how they’d been for the years in the Wastelands.
“Gaius,” Ygraine said firmly, eyes full of fire. “I have to tell him.”
Merlin didn’t know how many secrets Camelot had been built upon, but each was more shattering than the last. Humanity was doomed if these were the kinds of people running a kingdom. If they resorted to slavery and chaining a creature against its will, what hope was there for the kindness they showed for their people? Those in the Sky City were ignorant, blind and foolish and it made Merlin want to give up his half-baked idea of saving them all, somehow.
Were they worth it? All those people who didn’t stop to think about what they were living on, not looking further than their noses at a government and monarchy they followed. Were they worth sacrificing everything Merlin had to offer salvation?
Merlin was beginning to think less and less of the plan, if not for the dragon. He needed to see the dragon and he would, only then could he decide which path he needed to take.
“Very well,” Merlin heard Gaius mutter, before his mentor moved away into the back of the tent, distancing himself from the conversation.
“Nimueh was my friend, one of my closest friends in fact. She took an oath as High Priestess when we were teenagers, but our friendship never dwindled because of that.” Ygraine’s voice was strong, as if she’d been holding all of this in and had needed to let it out. “She was a natural at magic, stronger than anyone we’d known for years.”
There was a wistful glint in her eyes as Ygraine remembered a lost friendship. Merlin waited, unsure if he should say or do anything.
“When I married Uther, she was happy for me. Even in matters of Court we got to spend time together so it wasn’t as if we saw each other less.” She smiled. “In fact, our relationship as Queen and Court Sorceress probably improved our friendship… or at least until Uther begged her to help us conceive a child.”
In all the stories Gaius had told, he’d never even hinted that Ygraine had so much thought of children, let alone conceived one. Had the babe died, Nimueh taking the child still in its afterbirth? Or had it died inside of Ygraine, a cursed product of a cursed kingdom?
“I became pregnant and everything was fine, good, until your father turned down position as Court Dragonlord.” Ygraine’s hand rested on her smooth stomach for a moment, lost in memories. Merlin waited, eyes averted. “He told Gaius and I about the truth and I foolishly assumed Nimueh was as clueless as I was.”
She closed her eyes, smiling bitterly this time. “She knew. In fact she was the one who suggested renewing the spells on the dragon every month to strengthen the magic being drawn from him. I’d just assumed I could trust her, that because she was my friend she’d agree with me…”
Ygraine tightened her jaw. “I wanted to tell everyone, ask our City what they thought of their noble Camelot. I wanted Nimueh and Uther to see what they’d done, to know the pain and suffering they were causing without telling anyone. All those people up there, living life happily without any cares, not knowing that their careless lives are powered by so many forced sacrifices.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin noticed Gaius shift uncomfortably where he stood.
“I didn’t know that Uther had asked Nimueh’s help to conceive our child. I didn’t know he had told her to use any magic possible to create his heir. If I had known…” she trailed off, biting her lip.
“I didn’t know,” she repeated, looking away from Merlin with shame in her eyes. “I didn’t know that to create a life, a life must be taken. I didn’t know that my son was born of magic. I didn’t know that his birth meant that a child from the Pickings would be cremated, that I caused the death of someone else’s child.”
Anguish resided in Ygraine’s voice and there were tears in her eyes now. Merlin wanted to comfort her, somehow, but he knew any words he could offer would be useless and fall limp around her.
“I’m not saying I don’t love Arthur,” Ygraine whispered, a tear falling onto her cheek as she named her son. “And I would do anything, even now, to keep him out of harm’s way…”
“Which was why she had to leave,” Gaius interrupted darkly, arms crossed over his chest. “When we discovered the truth, we threatened to expose it to the people. Nimueh threatened to kill Arthur, just days old. She told us that we had to run or she would do it.”
Merlin’s eyes widened, thinking of all the hope and the dreams everyone back on Ealdor - even in the refugee camps - had placed in the Sky Cities. Where were the shining turrets of safety and honour in these stories?
“I don’t know what Uther told Arthur about me,” Ygraine said softly, brushing tears off of her cheeks with her fingers, sniffing slightly. “But you cannot let Nimueh near you. She will destroy you, no matter how powerful you are Merlin. She gets under your skin, claws into you until you can’t do anything but back down to her wishes.”
She was scared, Merlin realised. Scared of a woman who had been her closest friend and then betrayed her, consumed by greed and the power of magic.
The thing was, though, that Merlin could see how she had been so consumed by the magic. He kept being told that he was special, that his powers far exceeded anything anyone had ever managed in centuries, but Nimueh was the strongest witch Camelot had seen. How much better did that make her than the others, how much control had it given her?
Nimueh would have had to work the spells to bind the dragon’s magic and the stones together and then force them to power the City. And although she would have the command of sorcerers, ready to reinforce the spell, the original incantation had to be her magic alone or else it would never have worked. She had to have power and knowledge to be able to do that and it was easy to let such things corrupt you.
Merlin also knew what magic felt like, what it tasted like. Back on Ealdor, once he’d gotten over the shock of the stone, he’d craved it. At night he’d lie in bed and run a hand thoughtfully over the surface, sometimes wishing that he could have complete power over it and control where it sent him.
Unlike Merlin, Nimueh had no limitations. Power wasn’t even a limitation when she had her own sorcerers. If she so wished it, she could borrow their power, drawing on it through the Obsidian circle if it was a large amount. And, because she was the most powerful, the most feared, no one stood against her. Nimueh could do whatever she wished whenever she wished.
Perhaps Uther had some control over her to begin with, but Merlin knew that it would have been shredded the moment Uther had let her take away his queen, or perhaps even the moment the king had caved and come to her for an heir.
Kind-hearted and fair though she was, Ygraine wasn’t the woman Camelot needed. A cruel City such as that deserved Nimueh, a product of its own making. With Uther the only person with a slight shred of hope to control her, Nimueh was free to do as she willed in the City, to control the magic pouring in, as an example.
In his books, Merlin had always read about how magic could be a consuming force and how it could corrupt. He’d only known pure magic and, besides, his own strength was seemingly endless. It couldn’t consume Merlin because he never had to crave more; it was simply there. But, with this knowledge, now-common facts about Camelot slot into place, facts that he’d need to discuss later with Gaius.
By taking the power of life and death in her hands, Nimueh had altered the balance of the Old Religion. When Ygraine’s son had been born, another son’s life had been taken, shattering the fragile connection Camelot had held with the earth magic. There was only so much damage that connection could have withstood, through the damage the Pickings caused and then the enslavement of the Great Dragon, but Nimueh altering something she should never have even considered touching had been the final straw.
That connection hadn’t just affected Camelot though, it couldn’t have. A break in such a connection would have had terrible effect, drastic effects, on the rest of the world. Or, in other words, in a common tongue, the final push of the Flood, the one that had wreaked the most havoc when everyone assumed the worst to be over.
By breaking that connection, Nimueh had damaged the balance. Waters had risen faster, hurtling towards whatever land it could cover, and the people below had suffered, yet again. But there were also the decaying Towers, the non-refutable evidence that Camelot was crumbling and it was all Nimueh’s fault.
“I don’t have a choice,” Merlin heard himself say, before he’d thought the words out fully. “It doesn’t matter about Nimueh; I still have to go to Camelot.”
Gaius was silent, still away from them, but Ygraine shook her head, trying to plead with Merlin, to make him promise not to go to Camelot.
“You can’t! If she finds out your strength then she’ll hurt you.” She clutched at Merlin’s hand, desperate and almost-crazed. “You don’t understand her, she’ll tear you apart.”
Merlin placed his free hand over Ygraine’s, stilling her movements as he spoke.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said softly. “I survived the journey from Ealdor. I don’t know how I did it, but there’s a chance my mother and my best friend are still alive. I need the dragon to tell me where they are; I can’t just abandon them.”
“I can help you there,” Gaius spoke again and Merlin’s head turned sharply. “On why you survived and no one else did.”
Beginning to shake his head, not wanting to hear what the physician had to say, Merlin did listen as Gaius spoke again, though the words were hard to stomach.
“I’m sorry. There is a chance that they’re alive, but you have to be realistic Merlin. You survived because of your connection to the Old Magic. You said that you tried to stop the Ocean back on Ealdor and I’m willing to bet that you almost did when you glowed.”
Merlin wanted to shake his head and dismiss Gaius’ words, but he remembered the rush of magic, the tingling of power and the moonbeams dancing on the surface of the waves around him. They’d never learnt to swim - none of the Islanders that was - but when he’d been waist-deep in the Ocean, Merlin had felt peaceful and serene, two words that he’d never have had considered in relation to the Ocean before.
“You were washed up on the shores of Camelot because the Ocean wanted you here. The Old Magic needs you, Merlin, no matter what you might want to think.” Gaius sighed before he spoke heavily, not wanting to say the words, Merlin knew. “And while your connection to your family is strong, I don’t think it was strong enough to save them too.”
Suddenly, Merlin didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t need to know about Nimueh, or the self-induced madness Ygraine slipped into with desperation. He didn’t want to hear Gaius’ reasonable truths or the possibility that the Old Magic had selected him of all people, saved him when it had let so many people die…
So Merlin left, walking from the tent swiftly without another word. Thankfully both Gaius and Ygraine let him go, silent back in the tent. The few druids Merlin met on his way out of the camp eyed him suspiciously, curious as to how he’d become so dirty, but they backed away when he glared at them, scuttling back to their half-lives hidden under the shadows of a corrupt City.
He marched in the opposite direction to that he’d taken with Ygraine, heading away from the refugee camp, away from the inner Fence and support Tower. He walked away from the druids without second thought, unsure where exactly he was headed to, but knowing that he needed to clear his head.
It was incomprehensible to think. Before, he’d hoped with every fibre of his being that his mother and Will were still alive somehow, had survived against all odds. After all, Merlin had survived, so why shouldn’t they have?
And though Gaius had mentioned about the will of his magic perhaps saving them too, what did the Old Religion want with Hunith or Will? Merlin was the one with the ability to use its magic, the one with magic of his own and the one ruined by a prophecy. Will and Hunith were useless in the eyes of the Old Religion and so it didn’t need to save them. Why cling onto hope that they were still out there when it was useless?
Merlin walked, clothes itching against his skin as the bog-mud began to crust over. He smelt awful and knew he looked hideous, but so what? No one was there to see him and Merlin certainly didn’t want to go back, at least not yet.
| Part Seven|