Chapter 1
"I'm sorry; can you tell me how I get up to the castle?" Merlin swivelled around from the shelf he was stacking. A young family stood in front of him, the dad clutching a map, the mother with her hands on the shoulders of the boy and the girl in front of her.
Merlin smiled. "Yeah, if you go out and turn left, follow the path all the way up to the top. It gets a bit steep so be careful."
"Thank you very much!" The man beamed and the woman ushered the children out after him. They were typical of the type of people that visited the mount. They had matching waterproof jackets and backpacks and walking boots. Geography teacher parents subjecting their kids to walking around old buildings and castles at the weekend, when all they really wanted to do was watch telly and go in the park.
Sometimes Merlin would shut the shop early and follow the families and tourists up the path to the top of the mount. He would just stand there and look out at the sea and feel the magic pulsing through the stone. So many memories, so much power. Then he would look across and see people taking pictures mindlessly with oversized cameras without really taking in what they were looking at. They were only here because it was expected of them. Nowadays, if people were a bit smart or middle class it was just assumed that they should visit these places, the same places Merlin had once called home, and buy the guidebooks and take pictures of the statues and bits of pot. Then they would go home and tell their friends how nice it was, and more people would visit every summer, but they couldn't feel it like Merlin could. He knew it wasn't their fault. They were all so young, so naïve to what had once existed.
Merlin had taken advantage when the mount had first been taken over by the national trust. At first he despaired when the archaeologists moved in and started to turn the soil of the hill, taking what wasn't theirs. People started to build on the mount, cottages and shops. They turned the monastery into a museum, and then the people started to come.
He bought a shop, Kilgharrah gifts, for no reason other than to stay close to where Avalon once stood. He needed to keep an eye on what was going on, but these days, simply hanging around in the woods would not do. People asked far too many questions; people were all far too interested in the business of others. He saw a niche for selling tat that tourists lapped up. The tourists would always comment how beautiful and unusual the name was. He drew old maps of what Camelot used to look like and stained them in coffee and burnt the edges. He sold handmade quills and pots of ink and royal seal stamps and little jars of old medicine made from herbs. He used magic to carve little dragon candles that he would burn in the shop windows. The people that visited the mount often told him he had the best shop on the whole island, that everything he had seemed so real. Merlin would often just smile and say it was because he loved what he supposed was once a more simple way of living. He often had visitors that had been told by others that if they wanted to know anything about the mount and its history, they should visit him. History students writing their papers, writers working on their books, would all come in and ask him questions and marvel about how much he knew.
He enjoyed his life now, he supposed. It was far more comfortable than he had ever known. So much change over the past millennium, so much he had experienced and witnessed. But it was here, back near Arthur, where Merlin truly felt at peace. There was a dull ache that stayed with him constantly, a weight on his shoulders for all that he had seen and all that he had lost. The people over the past one thousand years that had come and gone, the places he had lived all affected him, but nothing more so than those he had left in Camelot, the one and only place had been able to call home. Here, on the mount, near where he had sent Arthurs soul to rest all those years ago, was the closest he was ever going to get to home again.
The rest of the day in the shop was slow. The season was coming to a close and the visitor numbers were starting to dwindle. Merlin was thinking about closing when he became aware of a person stood in the doorway.
"Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I've been told you know quite a bit about the history of this place… I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."
For a moment Merlin thought he was going to pass out. He was completely frozen, his eyes fixed on the man. He was wearing modern clothes, but there was no mistaking the soft blonde hair across his forehead, the piercing blue eyes, and the air of confidence. It was Arthur. He had returned.