fic: Dragonscape - part 5

[lasermignon]

Dragonscape - part 5
master list



The knights were already helping those who needed it. Gwen had already slipped away from Merlin's side, and he spotted her with a faint blush on her cheeks, buckling a breast plate on Lancelot who was blushing just as much as she. Merlin couldn't quell the smile that tugged on his lips. Then, out of nothing, Arthur grabbed his arm and propelled him away from the crowd to a smaller pile of metal that stood in a heap on its own.

"You can help get me accoutred, Merlin," he said, making assumptions as typical.

"I have no idea what goes where," Merlin objected. "Perhaps I ought to have asked Gwen for a demonstration," he muttered, observing her confident way with the metal. She finished with Lancelot and stepped up to her brother to help him with a buckle he couldn't reach, at the same time providing an explanation for Gwaine and Percival, who attempted to get each other's gear affixed.

Arthur cleared his throat, commanding Merlin's wayward attention with a playful frown. "As it happens, Merlin, I am sufficiently qualified to advise you, since I spend half of my life in this armour."

"Why do you need my help, then?" Merlin asked, and for a second, he thought he saw a faint flush on Arthur's face but in the next, it gave way to a smirk accompanied by a raised eyebrow which he could only have copied from Gaius.

"Because I don't have arms on my back," he said.

Only, on Arthur, the eyebrow looked more ridiculously supercilious than the quietly imperious which he had been going for. Merlin couldn't stifle a laugh and then he had to laugh more when Arthur's expression turned into a pout, which lasted until Merlin slapped him with the first piece of metal that he could grab and then they finally started dressing Arthur.

The large throne room was filled with a pervasive sombre atmosphere, filled with grave faces and gritted teeth, the precursor of a battle, but it felt as though the two of them were surrounded by a glowing bubble of lightness that was somehow separate to their surroundings and just for the two of them. The gloomy presences outside its reach felt like shadows of a different existence.

To his surprise, Merlin found that fastening the armour on Arthur was not as hard as he had expected it to be. His hands had the tendency to bump into Arthur's fingers as they attempted to work on the same buckle, but Arthur didn't seem to mind. Finally, they were making the last adjustments; by now Merlin could tell Arthur was only finding places to fiddle with so he could prolong having Merlin's hands on him.

A cough came from the side; the sudden intrusion from the outside burst their happy bubble, but traces of it still remained within Merlin's heart. Merlin turned towards the noise, his movement checked halfway by Arthur's fingers curled around his own, which were holding onto a strap.

The Lady Morgana had not left when the King had, but she had been keeping herself away from the bustle. Now she was standing beside them, outwardly calm, her inner turmoil betrayed only by the furious glint in her eyes. She speared Merlin with a sharp glare of annoyance that seemed to convey that his vulgar behaviour was entirely inappropriate for the circumstances at present, but it only lasted for a moment, then she blinked and her face smoothed out. She directed her words at Arthur.

"Please, save Morgause," she pleaded. "She didn't do anything, I know it." And then her brows narrowed and her glare turned thunderous. "If you kill her, I swear, Arthur, I'll never forgive you." It was clear she was not used to asking for things.

Arthur flinched away from her venomous ire. For a second, he looked entirely too young to have had this responsibility thrust upon him. Then he straightened his back and Merlin witnessed the familiar transformation take place which turned the boy into a soldier.

"Morgana," Arthur's tone was sympathetic but firm. "Morgause wasn't found anywhere inside the castle. Therefore, she must be inside the cave where Uncle Agravaine said she was." The conclusion that there was only one reason for which she could be in there remained unspoken but strongly implied.

"Oh, I don’t doubt he dragged her there himself," Morgana retorted sharply.

"Why ever would he do such a thing?" Arthur asked, bewildered.

"Well, he wants to be the Pendragon, doesn't he?" Morgana bit out. "See, he had this theory that he would be able to control the Dragon with Morgause's help. She might have awakened the crystal knights out of self-defence, but she's not responsible for the cold and the water from the sky. If it were down to Agravaine, he'd gladly let Uther condemn her for the plague before that as well."

Arthur stiffened. No wonder. Morgana, even while denying everything, as good as confirmed Agravaine's accusations. Morgause could only influence the Dragon if she was a sorceress. Yet Morgana still asked for her life. Merlin did not understand the glance that passed between the two. An unspoken conversation whose meaning escaped Merlin.

"He's known, then? Was he blackmailing you?" Arthur asked quietly.

"He promised he'd not let her come to harm." Morgana was seething. Yet, Merlin couldn’t help but feel there was something dishonest in her display of emotions. "I was naïve enough to believe he'd be a man of his word."

Merlin had not known her for long, but naïve was not a word he would have ever used to describe Morgana. She spoke in half-sentences, never outright saying anything condemnatory, just letting them make their own assumptions. Arthur's expression was fixed into a distanced politeness; Merlin couldn't tell whether he believed her.

Before Arthur could have been pressed into making a promise that might or might not have gone against his convictions the privacy of their little circle was broken by Gaius's well-timed appearance. Morgana nodded at him, her expression transforming into a charming smile in the time it took her to turn around. Gaius told her she needed rest and tried to foist some sort of sleeping potion on her, which she gracefully accepted and promised to drink it, a promise she clearly didn't mean to keep. But it gave her an excuse to extricate herself from the situation. She spared Arthur a last, meaningful glance and then she was gone.

"Gaius!" Arthur said, a little too loudly, a little too obviously relieved. No one held it against him. "Just the man I was looking for."

"Sire," Gaius nodded, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had happened just now. "I'm assuming you're seeking my advice."

"Is there any way to spare her life?" Arthur blurted, his eyes widening as though he had not intended to make such a direct inquiry. Gaius, too, looked surprised. Then he schooled his expression.

"I suppose it might be enough to subdue her. Or if you could try and convince her to let go of her control over the warriors." He did not sound very convinced.

"And what about the crystal knights? Is there a way to kill them?" Arthur asked.

"They aren’t alive, sire. They are merely pieces of the Dragon shaped by someone else's will. They don't have free will, only a kind of limited autonomy that makes them capable of mimicking the human form."

"Well, then, is there a way to destroy them?" Arthur asked a little more impatient.

Gaius sighed. "No, sire. They don't have a life you can end with your sword. Even if you should shatter them into pieces, they might reform. I suppose you could try separating them from her."

"Should I use my knights as bait, then?" Arthur asked, his voice rife with sarcasm but Gaius answered the question as though he hadn't heard that.

"That's an idea," he said, looking thoughtful. But from the determination writ over Arthur's face, Merlin could already tell he wasn't going to do that. "Or…" Gaius hesitated, his eyes avoiding Arthur's gaze and instead drifting until they halted on Merlin.

"What?" Arthur asked. Merlin felt his breath catch in his throat. From the way Gaius was looking at him - intense and apologetic - he knew what he was going to say. He wanted to shout, to stop him, but his throat was so dry, and then it was already too late. Gaius looked back at Arthur, right into his eyes and said in a tone full of meaning, "You should take Merlin with you, Sire. He could prove useful."

Arthur frowned, looking from Gaius to Merlin, who was still incapable of speech, and then back to Gaius again, probably thinking it a joke but he was the only one who laughed; Gaius was his usual inscrutable self and Merlin still too stunned from Gaius's betrayal to react in any way.

"Sire." Gaius bowed. "I wish you luck."

After Gaius's departure, Arthur's glance swept over Merlin from head to toe, going on about how Merlin would need some sort of protection but how he was probably too scrawny for the weight of a mail armour, and he didn't know why he was even giving any serious consideration to Gaius's proposal as Merlin was probably going to be useless for anything other than providing ballast for the boat. Then he was walking towards the dwindled pile of spare armour; Merlin followed him, confused at first and then relieved and strangely disappointed at once that Arthur had not caught on to Gaius's meaning.

Merlin was equipped with a heavy flail, a helmet that looked like a bucket with a hole on it to be able to see outside, and a large chainmail shirt which hung down almost to his knees. It was just as heavy as promised; Merlin staggered and almost fell from the weight pulling down on his shoulders until Gwen took pity on him and belted the metal around his waist, which distributed its weight better and Merlin could almost stand straight again.

"Well, I thought I'd have to leave you behind after all," Arthur commented, trying for nonchalant but Merlin heard uncertainty and worry underneath. He could tell Arthur would have preferred if Merlin hadn't been volunteered by Gaius for this endeavour. Merlin didn't know how to feel about this knowledge.

And then it was time to go.

Arthur led his knights in neat rows along the corridors. The freshly recruited men followed in less orderly ranks; there was a clear divide between the two groups.

Merlin marched in the back, trying to stay as far from Arthur as he could until he figured out how much Arthur had guessed about him and what he intended to do with it. He felt an arm descend on his shoulder. He turned his head and he saw Gwaine's grin, as unfaltering as ever, directed at him.

"Let's make a deal. You have my back and I'll have yours."

Merlin nodded. His throat was too constricted to speak. Gwaine misinterpreted it for fear of the coming battle for his grin widened until he looked maniacal and he shook Merlin by the shoulder.

"Cheer up. Arthur seems like a good sort. He knows what he's doing."

"Does he?" Merlin wondered.

He knew of no wars that had besieged Camelot after humanity's fight for freedom was won. The knights of Camelot were not used to fighting against human-shaped enemy. They were used to putting themselves against the Dragon's inexorable will, which did not require wielding weapons, and to hunting animals that could sometimes be vicious and dangerous but did not employ strategic thinking. He only hoped that Morgause - if indeed she was the one controlling the crystal warriors - possessed no mind for strategy either, or that her madness was far enough advanced to have discarded logic altogether.

The lower corridors they arrived to were the same ones that had been rid of their rat population, thanks to Merlin needing an excuse. The barricades were built not far from the place Merlin had been confronted that time by King Uther's disapproving glare. Merlin saw a large pile of broken furniture blocking the entire width of the corridor. It was taller than a man, so Merlin could not see behind it, but he was told there was a similar one a little ways down. The two barricades guarded a doorway. Merlin expected to hear the noise of fighting from the other side of the barrier but there was silence, nothing moved. A band of six knights stood guard on this side of the fence; they straightened with Arthur's approach when they had looked bored just moments before.

"Everything's been still, sire," the one apparently in charge reported.

"They didn't try to leave the cave?" Merlin heard Arthur asking; he did not sound surprised. Perhaps Gaius was right in presuming that the crystal warriors had to remain near to the source. Arthur ordered the guards to make a hole on the barricade through which he could lead his men into the cave while he gathered the others around him in a half-circle so that everyone could hear his voice.

"For those who haven't been inside yet, the crystal cave is a very large place but little of it can be reached by foot." He took the staff he had brought with him to be used as a weapon, but now he used it to draw a crude map into the dust on the floor to demonstrate what he was saying. "There is a ledge, here, right after the entrance." He dragged the end of his staff through the dirt, ending up with something that looked like a pointy hat with its point curved towards the left.

"Lord Agravaine said the crystal warriors chased them to the entrance, so if we're lucky, we'll find them right there. There are only seven of them but they are strong. Don't try to wound them, they don't get wounded like humans, and certainly don't die like humans. Agravaine claims he shattered one of them with a well-placed blow but it just reformed from its pieces. Our best strategy is to push them off the ledge. That will hopefully push them outside the range of whoever is controlling them."

"But how are we going to push them off?" Percival asked. "Sire," he added when he found Arthur's eyes - along with everyone else's - suddenly turned on him.

"That is a good question," Arthur said, hesitating. His eyes flickered as his mind went through possible solutions until he found the most promising one in the matter of seconds. "We are going to form a line. At least two men-thick, those with shields to the front, prongs to the back. The front line is going to hold them back, forming a wall of shields and not letting them break through. Those with the prongs push them backwards and when we gain some ground, the shield line is going to step forward and so on until we push them off the ledge."

"And what if they do break through the shields?" That one was Gwaine who was still grinning as though this was great fun, but the fact he asked that at all betrayed that inside, he took it very seriously.

Arthur thought again. "If they do break through, we try to re-form. If we cannot, we retreat into the stairway before the cave entrance, where they might not follow, if previous precedent holds. If they do follow, at least they're not going to be able to come at us from all sides as the stairway is too narrow for that."

There were no more questions and nothing more to be said. Everyone was well aware that Arthur's strategy was based not on experience but on pure speculation. There was no sense in going further into details as the entire concept might not work at all. Still, it was something to hold onto in the face of such great uncertainty, so hold onto it they did.

But when they climbed down the stairs and came out at the end of the tunnel - which Merlin vaguely remembered from his dream-walking - they found no crystal warriors waiting. They found no sorceress. Instead they found a looping bridge of streams, flanked by a row of majestic standing crystals, that led straight to the dark pearl of Avalon, the floating Lake of the Dead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Merlin had never sat in a boat before, nor had he seen a river. His memories from when he had been summoned here by the Dragon concentrated on the pain of confinement that was caused by human devices and the need to remove those devices to gain freedom. Merlin only saw what the Dragon needed him to see, so this was the first time he was allowed to take in the awesome beauty of the place, with its brilliantly sparkling walls, the enormous standing, hanging, protruding crystal spikes which the knights of Camelot called the Dragon's teeth, and its labyrinth of freely flowing streams. When Merlin looked at the tall pillars from closer, he discovered that their crystal was not a uniform clear colour, but underneath the surface, it contained strangely regular shapes which had different colours and seemed to be connected with each other by darker veins.

There had been no streams in Ealdor. Water was present under the surface - large cisterns that were always full and kept clean for them by some hidden mechanism that had remained from the dead Dragon.

There were five boats, three smaller and two larger ones. Arthur divided his seven knights equally between four and filled the empty spaces with the remaining ten. This way, there would be an equal distribution of men who had experience steering and those who did not in every boat. Arthur himself undertook the task of steering the smallest one, which led the rest. Merlin was ordered to sit right behind him and Gwaine followed without being asked. The launch took only a slight drop by Arthur's reckoning. For Merlin it felt like an eternity while they were falling. But then the boat alighted on the rushing water and sped forward.

"You're not going to be sick, are you, Merlin?" Arthur teased when he noticed Merlin's white-knuckled grip on the gunwale. Merlin pried his fingers away and settled himself in a more dignified way. Even if it were so, he certainly was not going to give Arthur a reason to gloat. But to his great relief, he found that his nervousness was gradually replaced with exhilaration.

"Shouldn’t you be watching where we're going?" Merlin asked instead of answering. Not that Arthur made a thing out of it; he had probably prickled Merlin's pride on purpose to distract him from his discomfort, Merlin realised.

"Nah," Arthur shrugged, grinning. "It's a straight way until the lake." The stream - river by now - chose that moment to curve downwards, gravity following its shape a little belatedly, and Merlin felt his insides shift upwards with the change.

Gwaine whooped. "If this is what knights do all the time, I want to be a knight, too!"

Merlin heard Percival agreeing loudly from the boat behind them. When he turned back, he saw Sir Leon looking perturbed and Lancelot smiling at his normally quiet friend's enthusiasm. Arthur had turned back around, so Merlin occupied himself with watching the Dragon's teeth as they passed by one by one, towering over their heads like giants. And then his attention was commanded by the dark green waters of the lake, which was getting larger and larger in the distance. Their river flowed straight into the lake. Merlin's exhilaration turned into apprehension.

The sorceress was waiting for them by the lake.

She knelt on the shore, inside a circle of standing crystals, but these were only one and a half man-tall, as opposed to the mountainous giants that stood guard on their way here. She wore an elaborate dress in green, which must have carried some special meaning because it scandalized Merlin's companions. Over it she wore a hooded cape that hid her features while her head was bowed but fell back when she looked up as they pulled the boats up on the shore. The sight of her mangled face, the muscle burnt to the bone, covered by twisted scars which were raw red and waxy in turns, did not leave any doubts of her identity. It was the Lady Morgause.

The Lake of Avalon did not have a shore. Arthur had told him that while they were nearing their goal. It was a body of water as ephemeral as any other bodies of water in this place, not anchored by anything solid, drifting over the changeable gravitational fields inside the cave. Now there was solid ground attached to it: a small, smooth ledge of black, glassy rock - obsidian. Merlin had offered the name as there were many old corridors in Ealdor lined with the same material. It was no doubt the work of sorcery.

The shore was only long enough for three of the boats to be moored; the other two had to be tied to those. The ground sloped softly upwards, which would not normally have mattered but the rock surface was very smooth and slippery, especially where it met the water. With the lake to their back, even that small elevation meant they'd have to fight from a disadvantageous position. Merlin hoped it'd not come to a fight. Arthur must have hoped for the same, for he stepped forward, keeping his shield lowered and his long prong held like a walking stick by his side to greet the Lady Morgause. But in that moment, the crystal slabs surrounding her came alive and changed their shapes into something resembling human.

Arthur flinched, catching himself before he took up a fighting pose, and ordered the men to stay behind him and keep their weapons lowered. It was a good call for the crystal warriors did not move from their positions either. There was no attack just yet.

"Little brother," the Lady Morgause said; her twisted lips moved grotesquely in her scarred face. "Have you come to kill me?" There was no emotion in her voice past a lilting curiosity; Merlin couldn't decide whether it was truly how she felt or just a front."

"Morgana sent me," Arthur answered. "She wants you to come back to her."

"Sister," she whispered, her gaze drifting into the distance for a second before it focussed sharply on Arthur once again. "I would like to come back to her as well," she said, sounding wistful before sobering. "But that's not possible, is it? They've seen me. They know. Uther has no mercy for someone like me."

Merlin saw Arthur's body strain towards her, as though he wanted to deny her words but he didn't say anything. He knew it would be a lie.

It seemed like a stalemate. Neither party wanted to be the first to attack. Arthur did not wish to kill her and she was seemingly content to wait him out. Seemingly, as it became apparent very soon that this was not the case.

The crystal warriors attacked without warning. Merlin saw Morgause's face twist into a hateful grimace and then there was a loud clash as the crystal arm of a warrior collided with Arthur's hastily lifted shield. Merlin hadn’t even seen it move.

The knights were quick to react; within seconds, a wall of shields formed around Arthur. The small number of remaining knights was just enough to form a line in front of the shore. There was a momentary confusion in the back ranks; the volunteers were slower to react to the threat, but soon there was a row of prongs pushed forward between the shields. Merlin's own flail was of no use from the second row, so soon he put it away and stepped up to Lancelot, gripping his prong and helping him hold it against the inhuman strength of the enemy.

The crystal warriors weren't fighting particularly well. In fact, all they did was to rush forward, clash against the shields and push their opponents towards the waterline. Arthur's men soon discovered that one man with a shield was not strong enough to hold up against a warrior, let alone swing a weapon at them. The knights in the first row dropped their weapons and gripped their shields with two hands, leaned into them with their whole weight, and they still wouldn’t have been able to hold their place if not for the crush of other bodies from behind.

Lancelot soon abandoned his prong into Merlin's keeping and joined Arthur's efforts in holding up his shield against the enemy trashing against the thin barrier. But then the knight at his left stumbled, landing on his backside, his shield swept away. The crystal warrior that had been pummelling away at him, instead of concluding its victory, seemed to lose interest in its fallen opponent and turned towards Arthur, who was still engaged with his first attacker.

Merlin called his name but Arthur was too busy to pay him any attention, and Lancelot's sight was impeded by the shield and Arthur himself. Merlin gripped the prong, which he had been only holding uselessly, and aimed its sharp, pointed end at the new attacker's shoulder where the crystal looked its most vulnerable, and drove it forward, putting all his weight into the thrust.

He succeeded to chip the shoulder and to unbalance the warrior, but little else. It recovered within a couple of heartbeats, but at least now Arthur was made aware of its presence. He was also aware of Merlin's presence behind his back, for he took the time to order him back and help whomever he could, but not to die in the process. And seeing how little he had accomplished with his abortive move, Merlin obeyed.

Sir Leon flanked the left side of the row, with Percival helping him push from behind, but even they struggled. Merlin moved to help but he was pre-empted by Gwaine who was already crouched down behind them. Gwaine stabbed forward between their legs with a prong, succeeding in tripping their opponent. The heavy-set crystal warrior slipped on the smooth obsidian surface and clattered against it, the crystal breaking down its middle and shattering into large chunks. Leon stepped over the chunks to help the man on his right but that move exposed his back. The crystal warrior recovered almost as quickly and came at Sir Leon from the side. He would have pushed Leon off the ledge into nothingness, if not for Percival catching his arm in the last minute. Leon had lost his shield, but the balance of the encounter was still in Camelot's favour; Leon gripped onto a crystal ankle when he fell and dragged his attacker over the edge.

Their first victory of the day remained their only victory.

After the loss of one of their numbers, the warriors changed tactic. They formed a tight ball and charged the middle of the shield line as one.

"Don't let them through!" Arthur yelled for he recognised the danger of being trapped on that small ledge with the enemy pushing them from the direction of water and Morgause behind their backs. The men shifted closer together as well, many bodies crushed together holding up better against the concentrated attack than a two-man thick line.

It was no use, though. Camelot's little battalion was no match for the crystal warriors' strength, and soon the brutal force of the attack broke through their line. There was yelling as the close press of bodies scattered, the crystal warriors trampling over the fallen. Merlin saw Arthur slip, heard him yell out in alarm, the clatter of his armour colliding with the obsidian lost within the clamour of similar noises.

"Regroup!" someone shouted. It was not Arthur, because Arthur lay still on the ground while others who had fallen had already stood. Merlin rushed to him. He was unconscious but did not seem gravely injured. His heart was beating normally, he was breathing and he was not bleeding anywhere Merlin could see.

Merlin alone was not strong enough to lift Arthur wearing full armour. Thankfully, Elyan grabbed Arthur's other elbow and they dragged him uphill. Merlin looked behind them, to see what Morgause was doing, but she was no longer there.

"Where is she?" Merlin shouted but no one paid him any attention. When he looked back to the lake, he saw why.

Morgause was sitting in one of the smaller boats, floating over the lake, already a long stretch away and getting farther away with every passing beat. The lake's surface was no longer smooth as when they had arrived, and she did not use anything to propel herself forward. Nonetheless, she was already nearing the stream that had brought Camelot's knights here, only now it was flowing in the opposite direction, away from the lake.

The crystal warriors were standing in the shallow; they were busy destroying the two bigger boats; one of the smaller ones was already in two pieces, the other one sunken to the bottom with a hole the size of a crystal warrior's footprint in its hull. The men charged the warriors in a disordered hurdle. They were lucky the warriors were only interested in destruction, not in fighting back. The attack did not do any harm to them, although it slowed them down somewhat. Then Lancelot and Percival managed to snatch one of the boats. They pushed it out onto the lake. Lancelot stood in the prow, poling it farther out with his prong.

The other boat was soon rescued the same way, though by the time it was on the water, two knights had to bail with their helmets to keep it afloat.

The warriors were charging after them, unmindful of sinking deeper and deeper into the water. They did not need to breathe. But they were slowing down - had already slowed somewhat or else the scheme would never have succeeded - and soon they stopped, standing motionless, half-submerged in the lake like strange pillars of quartz.

"It seems Gaius was right; the sorceress does need to be close to control them," Merlin heard Arthur's voice coming from his left. His head turned sharply and he saw Arthur blinking up at him. Conscious then.

"Are you injured?" Merlin asked. Arthur tried to get up but couldn't. His face went pale and drops of sweat slid down his temples. Merlin guessed he was in considerable pain but controlling himself for the sake of his men.

Arthur grimaced. "My leg is broken, I think. And a couple of ribs. Nothing major. What happened, where is Morgause? I'm assuming she isn't dead?"

"Took one of the boats," Elyan answered in a quiet, controlled voice. Merlin grabbed onto Arthur's forearm and helped him sit while Elyan felt along Arthur's shins, finding the likely place of the break easily as the leg had already started to swell inside the boot. "You're lucky. It is broken, but the bone hasn't moved so it doesn't need to be set. You should leave the boots and I'll put back the greaves for support."

Merlin sat supporting Arthur's torso with his own, so he his hands were free to check on the ribs. None of them were broken, but probably badly bruised if Arthur's painful hisses were any indication.

"What do we do now?" Gwaine asked.

But before Arthur could answer, Leon strode up to them, worry written over his features. "Sire, she's probably heading to Camelot."

"Can we follow her?" Arthur asked, momentarily forgetting about his pain.

"We rescued two of the boats, the large ones. But they cannot carry eighteen men; we have to leave some behind."

The decision was swift and brutal.

"The boats can seat six men comfortably; they can each fit two more if you are careful not to move around too much."

Sir Leon looked down. He could count as well. "That leaves only two. Perhaps we could…"

"I'm staying here," Arthur interrupted. "I'll be of no use in a fight with a broken leg."

"But Sire-"

"I will hear no arguments. I'm staying and that's final. Are there any more injuries?"

Merlin knew the latter question was asked to help determine the other person who would be left behind.

"I'm staying with Arthur," Merlin said. For him, the question had already been decided, for there was no way he would return to Camelot without Arthur by his side. It was a decision he did not make consciously but after he said the words, they felt right.

"Merlin…" Arthur looked hesitant to accept his offer. Sir Leon did as well, but likely for a different reason. The look in Arthur's eyes said he wanted Merlin safe, while Sir Leon wanted to entrust someone with Arthur's safety who looked better-suited to defend him if it came to a fight.

"I'm not going without you. You can't make me." Arthur's gaze locked on Merlin's. By all odds, Merlin should not have been the one to win a contest of wills between himself and Arthur. But Arthur had trouble concentrating his vision, he frequently blinked and his balance was off, and suddenly he closed his eyes and all the fight went out of him.

"All right," he said weakly. Merlin felt no triumph, only relief.

"Someone will come back for you, Sire, as soon as possible," Leon said; he was stalling. He found it difficult to part from Arthur. But time was of essence and he had a sorceress to catch. The boats were filled up with people; the one with the hole had been repaired to the extent where the leaking was no longer life-threatening, just inconvenient. They followed Morgause over the lake and then over the reversed stream that led back to Camelot. Merlin watched their progress until they turned into small black dots and then disappeared entirely from view.

Arthur grunted and tried to find a more comfortable position. Merlin let him stretch out on the ground, with his head resting in Merlin's lap. There was nothing to do but to wait.

Merlin's fingers were idly combing through Arthur's hair. Arthur let him. They watched the lake and what used to be the crystal warriors, now a slightly irregular circle of sparkling megaliths standing in the shallows, their sides gently lapped by the dark waters. It was nice here. Although they only had the hard rock for bed, it was not cold here and Merlin was not yet hungry, although he was a little bored.

"Can't you do something?" Arthur whined feebly.

"Are you thirsty?" Merlin was getting thirsty. "Do you want some water? I could bring some in your helmet."

Arthur did not seem very enthusiastic of the idea. "It's the Lake of the Dead, Merlin! You don't drink from the dead."

"Well, I'm going to," Merlin said just to spite Arthur. But then he didn't move. He told himself he did not want to disturb Arthur's rest.

"At any rate, that's not what I was talking about." Arthur spoke again a little while later.

"What were you talking about?"

"Us." Arthur's arm moved in a broad gesture encompassing the two of them, the little ledge and almost the entire lake as well, before he laid it carefully down on his chest, because he had forgotten that he was hurting. "Being stranded here. With no way to escape except to wait for someone to come get us. Can't you do something?"

"What would you have me do, Sire?" Merlin asked but his attention was only half on the conversation. The Dragon's song was filling his mind with its sweet, seductive melody. Merlin played with the thought to let it claim him to see what would happen but then he shook his head, dismissing it in favour of focussing his concentration on Arthur.

"I don't know… something." Merlin waited. He was right to, for more was about to come.

"Well," Arthur said, sounding, for the first time of their short acquaintance, uncertain. "That's what Gaius was trying to tell me by not actually telling me anything, right? You are a sorcerer. Can't you magic us out here?"

"I…" Merlin was bowled over by the directness of Arthur's words. He felt light-headed and for a few seconds, he had trouble making a sound. But there was no mistrust or accusation in Arthur's tone so Merlin's pulse soon calmed enough for him to regain his ability for speech. "Sort of? It's complicated. And magic isn't real," he added as an afterthought.

Arthur scoffed at that. "Of course, I know that. It was just an expression." But he did not let himself be diverted from his original question. "And what could be complicated about it? You either are or aren’t one. It's simple. Do you hear the Dragon?"

"I do," Merlin said, quiet. "But I'm not a sorcerer. I'm a Dragonlord."

"Don't be daft, Merlin," Arthur said. However, Merlin heard a slight tremble of uncertainty in his voice which suggested he had not dismissed Merlin's words. He was just trying to make a conversation and apparently being a prat was an essential part of it. "There haven’t been any Dragonlords in Camelot for generations."

"I'm not from Camelot."

"Well, obviously, I didn't just mean Camelot but also…"

"No. I am not from Camelot." Merlin repeated, emphasising each word.

And when he said that, the distant crystal walls of the cave blinked out and they were surrounded by the night sky with its myriad of little stars. There was the blue planet, its own star hiding behind it so that its rings were lit up, sparkling like a diamond-studded coronet, and there was the irregularly shaped moon which sheltered the little colony Merlin called home. The tunnel that still connected it with the Great Dragon looked like an umbilical cord drifting through space.

"See, I'm from there," Merlin whispered, a little awed, and pointed a finger towards Ealdor.

"Oh." It seemed Arthur had been robbed of speech as well. But the way he looked at Merlin when he could finally take off his eyes from the view, it was not a look of distrust and hate; it was a look of shock and wonder and amazed delight.

"All right," he said, his voice scratchy and intimate. "I believe you."

"It's strange," Merlin mused. "You cannot see the planet from Ealdor. The first time I saw it was right before I left. It's so much bigger than the sun, and almost brighter as well!"

"It's not bigger," Arthur said. "It's just closer. I've seen a dozen suns in my life. Most of them were yellowish and seemed more radiant but Gaius teaches that these blue ones are the largest and hottest of them all. Never before had a Blight destroyed life outside the castle so completely."

"It happens a lot, then?" Merlin asked, disturbed by the possibility of something similar befalling in Ealdor. Even if human lives were not in danger, for they only worked the fields at night, by the light of glowtorches, they would still lose an entire season's produce. Everyone would starve to death.

"We make it happen."

"Whatever for?" Merlin asked, finding the idea outlandish.

Arthur looked at him, thoughtful. "People in Ealdor must be fortunate," he finally answered, "to live in a stable environment. In Camelot, nature changes fast. It continually spawns new species of plants and animals, but the plagues are the worst. Illnesses come and go, and most of them are nothing more than an annoyance. Some people die but those who survive are stronger for it. There are times, though, when the latest disease cannot be stopped and no cure can be found. That's when we have to ask the Great Dragon to make a Blight. Radiation kills the disease. Without the Blights, there would be no more people living in Camelot."

Merlin nodded, shaken by what he had heard. For a while, they stayed silent, following with their eyes the tiny rock that was Ealdor as it wove its way between the rings, and then they watched as the blue sun rose behind the planet and lit its turbulent surface with its unforgiving light.

"But if you can command the Dragon like that, why can't you get us out of here?" Arthur broke the silence when he got bored with the watching.

"I did not do it. At least if I did, I was not aware of doing it." Merlin grimaced to himself, wishing it were not so, or at least that Arthur hadn’t asked, so he had not had to tell that to him. "I don't command the Dragon yet."

"Then what use are you?" Arthur grumbled. His voice was slurred. The injuries were probably taking all his strength. Merlin was not doing him a favour by keeping him from his rest.

"Only fully matured Dragonlords have the ability to command the Dragon," Merlin defended himself. That was what both Balinor and Gaius had told him.

Arthur stared at him, slightly appalled. "Are you saying you're a child?" Merlin blushed.

"Shut up. Being a Dragonlord is different. And I'm probably twice as old as you are," he grumbled and swatted Arthur playfully on his side, forgetting about his ribs. Arthur hissed and grabbed his hand, but he did not let it go, instead he held it over his chest. Merlin felt his heartbeat through the prickly barrier of the chainmail. Then Arthur broke the moment by moving his head in an attempt to get more comfortable, and putting it back down in the exact wrong place.

"What was that?" Arthur jumped, probably because, under Merlin's trousers, he felt a hidden part of Merlin's Dragonlord anatomy slide curiously against his cheek.

"Sorry." Merlin blushed.

"You are quite a bit different, aren't you?" Arthur grinned at him. Merlin thought he had sounded interested, rather than intimidated. He expected Arthur to draw away, but he just laid his back in Merlin's lap, this time more careful about where he put the weight.

Then a few heartbeats later, Arthur rolled his face into Merlin's thigh and groaned. But he did not seem to feel comfortable that way either, so then he resumed his earlier position.

"Are you all right?" Merlin asked and then scolded himself for asking stupid questions.

"I feel dizzy," Arthur said, shutting his eyes against the pale light of the blue sun; due to the lack of an atmosphere outside the Dragon from where its image was projected inside the cave, the sky around it remained dark and it failed to give them daylight. It was barely even larger than the other stars. "And I'm a bit nauseated."

"You must have hit your head when you fell." Merlin frowned.

Arthur answered with a sigh, this time careful of his aching ribs. "I hit my head all the time, Merlin. It's nothing."

"You could always try to sleep," Merlin suggested after a pause. Arthur's eyelids were already dropped halfway. "I'm going to keep watch."

Arthur yawned. "That is actually the first good idea you had today."

Merlin did keep watch, lounging under the starry sky and listening to Arthur's even breaths. It was a quiet time, good for introspection, but the Dragon was keeping quiet as well. But from the place in his mind where the Dragon normally existed, a peculiar feeling of dread crept up on him. Something wasn’t quite right; something somewhere was going horribly wrong.

It was still quiet; nothing had disturbed the silence, it had been no noise that had scared him. The view of the dark sky slowly faded and the many-faceted walls of the crystal cave were slowly regaining their substance. There was still only just the two of them, Arthur's head heavy on Merlin's thigh.

At that thought, the vague feeling of directionless anxiety intensified and gained focus: Arthur. There was something wrong with Arthur!

Merlin shook him awake.

And then shook him again, with a bit more force, calling out his name. Arthur did not stir. His breathing was shallow; Merlin no longer heard it over the lapping of the waves swirling against the obsidian, only when he leant very close. His heartbeats were weak under Merlin's palm which Arthur had pressed to his own chest before he fell asleep, but now his fingers were loosened; they slid limply from Merlin's hand.

"Arthur!" Merlin cried again, choking on fear. "Arthur!"

But whatever he tried, Arthur remained unconscious.

Merlin was thinking frantically, but all he could think of was what they ought to have done, what they could have done but did not do. Taken Arthur on one of the boats, send someone back as soon as they arrived at the other end, or Merlin could have done something, tried harder to reach the Dragon, be of some use, but now it was too late! He couldn’t think of anything he could do now, either, apart from calling Arthur's name and reaching for those hidden depths in his mind where the Dragon's presence hummed with oblivious contentment.

Arthur was dying, Merlin suddenly understood. He was dying, and Merlin could do nothing to stop it.

Merlin had never prayed in his life; he had always been quite content to ignore the existence of higher beings as, he believed, they ignored his. But now he found himself praying to the only higher force he knew: the Dragon. Even as he did it, he knew prayers were of no use.

This was not the way to ask the Dragon for help. There was another way, the right way, and his legacy as Dragonlord should provide him with the knowledge. But if it did, it was buried somewhere deep in his mind. He knew the Dragon was capable of healing Arthur; he had read about it in Nimueh's book. She even wrote down a mnemonic for it. Merlin remembered it well, and now he found himself distractedly saying the words under his breath.

For a second, pain unlike anything he had ever felt assaulted his senses. He did not know what was happening but it felt like being caught in an explosion that had happened inside his skull. He couldn't see; his ears rang and he couldn't find his balance. There was only the smell of burnt flesh and the taste of blood in his mouth from where he had bit his tongue. His flesh felt as though it had been set on fire. He heard someone scream.

A heartbeat later all sensations ceased; Merlin felt disconnected from his body. Another beat and his senses took leave of him as well. Merlin fell into darkness.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Lady Igraine was one of the ones blessed with the longevity of the Aboriginals, although in every other sense she seemed human. Uther was her third husband; she had been married to two kings before him, but out of those marriages her marriage to Uther was the only love match. She was Greenwitch, of course, when she was just a princess, and then when she married, the Lady Nimueh took over that post. The first marriage of Igraine had no issue; then from the second she had the Lady Morgause and the Lady Morgana. Igraine was expected to live for many more years, perhaps to even survive Uther and marry a fourth time.

Alas, that was not to be. She was determined to give Uther a child. Perhaps she was getting too old, perhaps her previous pregnancies had weakened her too much to carry a child to term. She had two miscarriages and a stillbirth before she got pregnant with Arthur. By then, both she and Uther were desperate for just one child. She was very sick during that pregnancy. She lost weight and had been forced to bed rest from quite early on. It was clear she'd lose that child as well; the only thing uncertain at that point was whether she would survive giving birth.

But she persevered, clinging to life until her child could be born. When she was so weakened that she was on the verge of just slipping away, the High Priestess Nimueh visited her in her sick bed and they talked. No one knows what was said, but Nimueh later came back when everyone was asleep and took the Queen with her into the Crystal Cave. The King went after them with his men, but he was too late. They saw Nimueh walk into the Lake of the Dead with the Queen and disappear in its depths.

It is said the King sat vigil by the lake for a long time, hoping against hope that it would give him back his wife. And after a while, her body floated up to the surface, naked and with her big belly bulging upwards. But every time he tried to pull her out, the lake closed around the body and hid it from his eyes. So the King did not try again and just waited. He waited for almost a whole cycle. Once he fell asleep and when he woke, Igraine's body was gone and he heard the cries of a newborn kicking in the shallows, with the umbilical cord and the afterbirth still attached.

The child was Arthur.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Merlin woke still feverish and weak, but his body bore no evidence of injury. That last memory of the explosion must have been part of a fever dream.

Next to him was only an empty space where he could still feel Arthur's heat, half-remembered how, lying next to him, Arthur's brow was too hot to the touch as though he were burning up, but Merlin did not have enough strength to do anything about it, just as he couldn't help himself. The only cause Merlin could think of was that they must have eaten something off before coming to the cave and Arthur's injury-weakened state hastened the illness, but it seemed he was also the first one to recover.

Then Merlin spotted his body floating in the water, right in the centre of the standing crystals. He must have been driven delirious by the fever and waded out there to gain some relief in the cold water, but there his strength must have left him and now he was about to drown. Merlin jumped after him into the surprisingly deep water, his fever-sore muscles suddenly filled with vigour, and managed to reach Arthur before he submerged too far for Merlin to spot the shadowy outlines of his body under the dark, rippling surface.

"Arthur, are you all right?" Merlin asked when he finished dragging him back to land.

"Merlin?" Arthur turned his head blindly in the direction of Merlin's voice; his eyes were glassy with fever still. And then he slipped back into unconsciousness.

Merlin stayed awake, keeping close watch over Arthur's sleep until he spotted the lone boat drifting over the lake. Sitting in it he could make out two figures paddling. Then it got close enough for Merlin to recognise Sir Leon and Elyan. Merlin woke Arthur and they watched it get nearer. They waved at them to signal they were all right and Sir Leon responded by lifting one of the paddles into the air.

"Why are my clothes wet?" Arthur asked idly.

"You fell into the lake earlier when you got up to relieve yourself," Merlin told him in jest. Arthur looked at him aghast. "The real question is," Merlin continued, his eyes probably alight with mischief, "why you're still wearing any, as you seem to have a propensity for losing them whenever you get into an altercation with water."

"Don't be absurd, Merlin," Arthur said. Of course, Merlin knew he had a set that would endure an exposure to water to be worn inside the cave. "One gets the impression that you let me fall into the water on purpose."

Merlin gulped, hard. In that second, the boat slid onto the shore. Arthur kept his eyes on Merlin for one more beat, as though he had a hard time tearing them away. Then he turned, visibly composing himself, to greet his knights.

Sir Leon was the first one who stepped over its rim and began to speak right away a nervous babble of apologies for not coming sooner.

"I don't suppose you have any food with you? Or water," Arthur interrupted.

Sir Leon blinked, struck speechless but Elyan rose to the occasion, presenting them with a full waterskin and some hard boiled eggs. Arthur took a large gulp of the water first. Merlin let him, for he had refused to drink from the lake, no matter how thirsty he was. They decided to eat on the way back.

"You shouldn't put weight on your leg," Elyan warned when Arthur was about to get into the boat. "You don't want that break to get worse."

"It feels all right now," Arthur said. He limped a bit but Merlin thought it was an act, for he seemed to have forgotten about his injury until Elyan reminded him of it. "Must have only been a bad sprain." He shot a speaking glance in Merlin's direction when he said that, then let himself be helped into the boat by Elyan, and pretended not to see his disbelieving looks.

Leon and Elyan paddled on the way back; they did not let Arthur help, even though he tried to insist. In the end, the argument was decided by the fact that there were only two paddles.

"You must be starving," Elyan injected, mostly to stop the squabbling. "You should eat before we reach the stream; we've got a rocky road before us."

"You got here just in time for me to work up a bit of hunger," Arthur assured Sir Leon and at the same time pre-empting further apologies that he saw coming.

Sir Leon looked taken aback. "Sire, a fourth of a cycle has passed since we had followed Morgause back to Camelot." And even Merlin, with his hasty introduction to Camelot's chronometry, could tell that was a long time. He did not know how they would explain that, but to his surprise, the explanation had already been provided by the Old Religion.

"The Dragon was protecting you, Sire," Sir Leon told them with conviction Merlin had not expected from him. "It made time go faster for you so you wouldn't starve. Even those in agreement with Lord Agravaine's views cannot doubt now that you're deserving of the title of the Pendragon."

The stream they were paddling towards was a different one that had carried away Morgause and Camelot's knights. And, Merlin noticed when they got close, it was flowing in the wrong direction! How they planned on travelling back to Camelot on it was a mystery to him since the current was too strong to paddle upstream.

Arthur grabbed Merlin's belt and knotted it onto one of the ropes whose ends were fastened to the boat's bottom. "It's best you grab onto your seat," he said and before Merlin could have asked what he meant, there was a great lurch and the boat went over the side of the lake, not where the stream connected to it but a little to the side where the currents drove some of the stream's water down the lake's side and carried the boat with it. Merlin squeaked and held onto the flat board with white knuckles as the vessel tipped over and slid down the outer curve of the lake.

It did not last long but for those few heartbeats, Merlin thought he was going to die. The world turned upside down, the rope tied to his belt went taut as his backside separated from the seat. He heard Arthur's delighted laughter from very close.

"Don't be afraid!" Arthur yelled.

Merlin wanted to yell back an insult but was prevented from doing so by his teeth clashing together as they landed on top of a stream which flowed near the lake and for which Leon and Elyan had been aiming. From then on, it was a smooth ride back to Camelot, although a longer and more circuitous one than the path they had taken to the lake.

"What happened to Morgause?" Arthur asked around halfway. They were drifting slowly over a broad, gently curving stream. Arthur had taken up one of the paddles and played with it, dipping it into the water and pulling idly. It did not do much good; paddles were only effective on top of the streams when they pulled upstream. Do the same thing downstream and it would only gain them a few minutes and sore arms.

"She disappeared," Elyan said, the bitterness so foreign from his usual non-judgmental calm tones. "We found the boat berthed but we found no trace of her. No one saw her leave the cave."

"She might be here, still," Arthur mused, although Merlin could tell he himself did not really believe that.

"People reported sightings of them leaving Camelot," Leon broke his self-imposed silence.

"Them?" Arthur asked. But he answered the question for himself. "Morgana?"

Sir Leon gave him a sympathetic look. "We don't know for sure; no one saw the face clearly," he said but then admitted, "it is likely. She, too, cannot be found, even though the beginning of the new cycle is near." Sir Leon looked hesitant; it was clear there was something he was not saying, perhaps he did not know how.

In the end, Elyan said it for him. "And Agravaine's body was found in her chambers."

Upon their return to Camelot they were assaulted by a cold so bitter that it turned the moisture soaked into their clothes into hard, brittle chips of crystal that crunched at their movements and prickled their fingertips when touched.

"It's called ice," Sir Leon told them. "Gaius says it only forms in extreme cold."

Merlin felt sorry for Elyan who out of everyone seemed the most affected by it. He was a blacksmith, as his father before him, and worked deep down in the Dragon's guts where the heat was so enormous that it melted down even rock.

After the long journey back, all of them were hungry. They started walking to the kitchens so that they could be fed only to be accosted by a group of knights delivering summons from the King. Uther had immediately sent for Arthur as soon as he had learned from the guards that he was back.

"Sire!" One of them went up right into Arthur's face and the rest crowded the corridor so that no one could pass. "You need to come urgently!"

"I suppose, whatever it is, it cannot wait until I had my meal." Arthur sighed tiredly.

"A strange woman was caught," the knight answered him, looking contrite. "The King thinks she's the sorceress responsible."

"Not Morgause?" Arthur asked, letting himself to be diverted onto the path to the throne room. Merlin followed him without a word, Sir Leon and Elyan as well. No one tried to stop them.

"Not her," another one of the new arrivals answered. "No one knows who she is and she is clearly insane, only speaks gibberish." Arthur nodded his tired features hardening with grim resignation.

Before the throne room's entrance, they found Gaius waiting for them. He must have been summoned as well.

"A word, Gaius," Arthur caught Gaius's elbow and waved their entourage onward, directing Sir Leon to make his report to the King while Arthur talked with Gaius. "Go on, we'll only be a short while."

He pulled Gaius and Merlin, who at first wanted to follow the knights, and waited until they were alone. "Gaius, what's been happening?" he asked then.

"You've surely heard about Morgause by now?" Gaius inquired.

"And Morgana and Agravaine," Arthur confirmed. Gaius nodded; he looked troubled.

"Apart from that," Gaius took a deep breath as if to fortify himself against what he had to impart. "The temperature grows colder each day. I must warn you, sire, not to fall asleep in an unheated room on your own, you as well, Merlin." Merlin nodded when Gaius turned to him. "Sharing body heat is the best way to prevent freezing to death in one's sleep, but I suspect neither of you is going to find it hard to scrounge up a bed mate."

Merlin felt himself blush and Arthur cleared his throat and quickly found another question to ask. "And what about this woman? Do you think it might be the sorceress?" It was more likely, Merlin thought, that the poor woman was merely another innocent victim of the King's obsession. From Arthur's tone, Merlin thought Arthur suspected that, too.

Gaius lifted a customary eyebrow which eloquently expressed his doubts on the matter but he only said he had not seen her yet as he had just now been summoned as well.

"Has this ever happened before?" Arthur rubbed his arms for warmth; ice chips crunched and flaked off from the movement.

"Only once that I can remember," Gaius said. "But then it only lasted for a very short time."

"How do we combat it? Isn't there something in one of your books?" No one had told him, but Merlin had worked out by now that Arthur was one of the few people who knew of Gaius's true nature. Thus, when he asked about books, Merlin was fairly certain Arthur usually meant in Gaius's experience. Not now, though.

Gaius looked pained for a second. "Dragonlords were not in the habit of writing books. All I have is from secondary sources and is, effectively, guesswork."

"Why not?" Arthur's voice was full of reproach, as though those dragonlords had only existed to inconvenience him. "Did they want to keep their knowledge a secret?" Arthur looked bewildered.

"There would have been no point, Sire," Gaius lectured gently but hurriedly, not having forgotten that the King was waiting for them. "Even knowing how dragonlords controlled the Dragon would not make someone who is not a dragonlord able to do the same. Dragonlords are not made; they are born."

"But wouldn't they need to write down their knowledge to pass it to the next generation?" Arthur wanted to know.

"Dragonlords inherit their knowledge passed down from their predecessors in the same way your mother passed the colour of her hair onto you." Gaius explained, his eyes softening when he mentioned Igraine; Arthur, Merlin noticed, only stiffened with discomfort.

Arthur scratched his head, and stole a tentative glance at Merlin. He seemed genuinely curious but, Merlin realised, it was, for once, not only because Camelot was in danger and he wanted to know how to combat that danger, but because he wanted to know more about Merlin.

Then he came to a decision. "Gaius, I'll be frank," he said, lowering his voice just shy of a whisper. "Isn't there a way to help Merlin gain control over the Dragon?" Arthur asked, serious, leaning even closer to Gaius.

If Gaius was surprised at the directness of the question, he did not show it. Of course, Merlin thought, he was the one who had as good as betrayed him to Arthur.

"We've already tried that," Gaius confessed. "We tried to nudge that knowledge but…" He looked at Merlin, silently inquiring.

Merlin's mouth was dry. "I- I tried one of those mnemonics," he muttered weakly. "I don't think it did anything." He shrugged.

"Of course it did," Arthur interrupted. "My leg was broken." They looked down where Arthur was standing on two perfectly healthy legs.

Gaius opened his mouth to further inquiry Merlin, probably about how it happened, but in that moment, Sir Leon stepped out of the throne room, looking nervous.

"Sire," he called, his voice full of repressed urgency. "The King…"

Arthur straightened his back, suddenly remembering their original purpose of being here. "I'm coming," he said and strode forward, Merlin and Gaius following in his wake.

The throne room was even colder than the corridors; it was more spacious and large, windowless arches connected it to the outside world which also let in the moisture still sporadically falling from the sky. It froze over the long pillars surrounding the windows, their intricate decorations were hung with long, sharp icicles.

The throne was covered with furs, but the King was not sitting in it. He was striding up and down the throne room. The woman was surrounded by a circle of knights who hovered over her kneeling form. She shivered in her thin clothes and said something to Uther who looked at her with disgust written over his face. Merlin did not understand her words for they were meant for the King's ears only and not for a greater audience, but from her tone he thought she was pleading with him. Uther looked unmoved.

And then they got closer and one of the knights stepped out of Merlin's line of sight, and Merlin recognised her.

"Mother!" he shouted and ran to her. The ring of knights opened to him, and Merlin was on his knees, hugging her thin form and asking why she was here.

"Merlin," she said, her voice shaking with relief. "It's good to see you. I tried to tell them I was looking for you, but they didn’t understand."

But before he could ask what she meant, Arthur was there, calling his name, and the King yelled orders to restrain him.

"What's the meaning of this?" Uther bellowed. "Arthur!" For Arthur was already there, shoving aside the crossbows aimed at Merlin and Hunith's huddled forms.

"Merlin?" Arthur asked.

"It's my mother, Arthur," Merlin said, beseeching Arthur. He knew not even to try it with the King, for he had no mercy for alleged sorceresses in his soul. "She's not a sorceress. Please, don't hurt her!"

part 6