The Once and Future Kingdom
Chapter 1—Lost
The sun streaks between the trees, pouring like liquid fire onto the armor of King Arthur's knights so they shine brightly. The rocky forest is very calm and even quieter. The wind touching the leaves and the rush of an invisible waterfall is the only sound besides the talking of the knights and the woman with the stern beautiful face riding beside the King himself.
"I wouldn't have the stomach to watch that again," Gawain declares. "If we hadn't been in a life or death situation I would have run for the hills."
"I believe you," Arthur laughs. "I was barely able to watch it."
"God help the man who tries to disarm Lara," Elyan laughs.
"Yea or she'll murder him to bloody hell," Dresban says rather bitterly almost to himself. He's learned to keep his lack of acceptance of Lara to himself—he's gotten too much hell for his insults.
"You all right, Lara?" Arthur asks.
"Yea," Leon agrees. "You've looked like you're waiting for an attack since we past the Valley of the Fallen Kings."
Beautiful ruins lie before them, crumbled from hundreds of years of erosion. Lara bites her lip. "She probably just misses Merlin," Gawain cries with a grin. "Even our lord King seems disillusioned by the manservant's flu in Camelot."
Lara doesn't dwell on that—Merlin began vomiting the day they were heading out on the tourney at Lord Odo's castle. Though Lara was not able to participate, she was Arthur's body guard due to Merlin's absence; though Arthur had no idea that Merlin was any sort of body guard. She doesn't worry for him because he is safe in Camelot, but now she worries for Arthur and his knights.
"It's too quiet," she says while eyeing the forest floor for any indication that people were nearby.
"Don't be so grim, Lara," Gawain says. He stretches his arms out while grinning so his face gleams in the warm sunlight. "Just enjoy the peace."
"Wait!" Lara hisses. As the men stop at her command Lara rides her horse forward over a bush. She stops Trinidad and dismounts onto the hard earth in the middle of the ruins. The knights look around.
"What's the matter?" Leon asks quietly.
"She probably smells blood!" Dresban cries roughly.
Lara walks forward as the knights glare back at the petty Dresban. She keeps her swords in their scabbards and walks carefully toward a queer-looking area where she feels the presence of humans.
Lara releases a scream from her throat when the earth underneath her collapses and she disappears into darkness. She hears Arthur and the knights cry out for her but she slides away, rocks cutting her leathers and dirt dusting over her while she slides through the darkness.
Lara cries out again when she erupts from a lighted opening at the end of her slide. She flies out of the tunnel into a body of water with a great splash. The water is cold and she can feel and hear the rush of a waterfall crashing into the water.
Lara erupts from the icy water, gasping for air and blinks the cold from her eyes. She's in a cave with an opening letting the sunlight inside with a waterfall cascading from what seems like nowhere. Lara chokes and her throat gurgles as she drags herself from the water.
Once on shore Lara pulls her heavy weapons from her person, breathing heavily and sets them onto the muddy floor. Breathing deeply Lara falls unconscious from the strain, the fall and the cold inside the sunny cave.
—Merlin is finally gaining color back into his face. He has pockmarks on his cheeks from vomiting to violently and dark circles under his eyes. He is bothered that he couldn't join them at the tourney and has been doing little work for Gaius once he recovered.
Merlin raises his hand lazily over the bucket of water so it turns to solid ice. He stabs it with a dagger and drops the ice splinters into his goblet of water. He sighs, satisfied as the heat is temporarily alleviated.
"Merlin," Gawain cries as he pushes the door open abruptly. Merlin stands as the knight comes in, setting his hand on the bucket of ice so it melts immediately by his magic.
"Gawain?" Merlin says with surprise. "What is it?"
—Merlin stands over the exact spot where they say Lara disappeared with his brow furrowed with worry and anger.
"She just slipped between the earth," Dresban says unsympathetically. He turns to Arthur. "I swear, there's magic at work here, Sire."
"No, Lara's immune to all magic," Merlin disagrees huskily.
"What if it's extremely powerful magic?" Dresban suggests glaring at the 'insolent' manservant.
"Not even that," Merlin says with certainty.
Dresban is affronted, touching the pummel of his sword. "How would you know, manservant?" he says between his teeth. "You have no magic to speak of."
Merlin pauses and turns on his heel to face the knight. Dresban blinks at the intensity and power Merlin's glower had. "I may not, Sir Dresban, but I certainly have enough brains to know that if one magic doesn't work the rest doesn't. Also I pay attention enough to know that Lara was sent here with a very powerful relic was she not? The most powerful relic in known magical legends, therefore if that was ineffective against our Lara then nothing a magician could do is."
Dresban's face turns red as a beet and he glares at Merlin with incredulous beady eyes. "You insolent—!"
"That's enough," Arthur intervenes, stopping Dresban short. "From both of you." Though he really meant just Dresban. He looks to Gaius. "Gaius, what do you think?"
"Merlin is right," Gaius agrees. There is less and less now that Merlin is wrong about. "This is nothing magical. Look." Gaius thumps on the ground where Lara fell. "It's not exactly hollow, but there's a rock or something hard between the surface and the hollow."
"What does that mean?" Leon asks.
"That Lara is nowhere near here," Gaius sighs sadly and gestures toward the ruins around them. "Chutes were used long ago to escape fortresses—even small ones such as this. But it seems as though the chute has been blocked sometime after Lara fell."
"Can we unblock the way and find her?" Elyan asks.
Gaius shakes his head, looking sadly at the young warlock. "I'm afraid not," he says. "There's no way to track where she landed even if we dug it out…and even then…I'm not sure if she would survive the fall."
Merlin looks up sharply at the solemn faces. "Well, Lara survives everything," he says with loud certainty. "She can't die—she's conquered death. It can't take her."
Merlin turns toward the rest of the ruins. "Look around," he orders, sounding like Emrys yet again. "See if there's any indication of where the chute continues."
The knights and Gaius do with their King, but all feel that even if they found the chute, they would also find a dead body.