Okay, this was an idea that grabbed me recently and demanded to be written. I figured, 'What do I have to lose?' The blame/credit for the mindset that caused this can be laid at the feet of the Camladerie community on LiveJournal, especially those in the Merlin Chat. Prepare for angst and other associated feelings.
It was the only way. Arthur wasn't going to like it, but it was the only way.
Merlin couldn't believe he was considering this. It was exactly the sort of thing Uther would have condemned him for, something that could be seen as someone destroying Camelot.
Although, if no one remembered it was real, would he really be blamed for destroying it?
Yes. Yes, he would be blamed for it. But they would be safe.
Merlin stared down at the page of the book. Idly, he wondered how it had escaped the Purge. This wasn't the book Gaius had given him, wasn't from the secret collection he'd discovered in the castle library. But it was exactly the sort of thing Uther would insist on being destroyed.
Instead, it had fallen into Merlin's hands, and he was just thankful it hadn't ended up with Morgana. She hadn't been in Camelot in years, but there were definite signs that she was coming back. The kingdoms around them were worried, in spite of Arthur's attempt to unify and ally with them.
He shouldn't be considering this option. Not when nothing bad had happened for years. Camelot was in the midst of a golden age, the people couldn't remember a time when everything was as prosperous and as good as it was now.
But there was that niggling doubt in the back of his head, the knowledge that things would change. He couldn't shake the feeling that everything was going to change soon, that the time of peace was going to end and they may not survive it. It was selfish of him, but he didn't want things to change. He didn't want to lose any of his friends.
He closed the book and set it aside for the time being. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and Arthur would be wanting his breakfast soon. There were times Merlin wondered why he had let Arthur dictate his own schedule so much. It wasn't just because he was the King's manservant, nor was it entirely because their destinies were intertwined. No, there was something else between them, an understanding of sorts he didn't know how to process.
It was not exactly like the relationships between the knights, but it was somehow deeper and more involved. Arthur worried about him when he got hurt, more than he worried about the knights, even those he was closest to. Of course, this went both ways, and Merlin was usually convinced that Arthur couldn't do the most basic things-like dressing himself-without his help. That he was often proven correct in this was often ignored.
Almost mechanically, Merlin went about gathering Arthur and Gwen's breakfasts, smiling at the scullery maids and avoiding the swinging ladle of the cook. The woman had had it in for him since he was first made Arthur's manservant. On one hand, she was adept at spotting trouble before it showed itself. On the other, it wasn't quite as fun to go about life playing by all the rules. And if he helped others get around her restrictions, maybe she should learn to relax them a little.
He was almost himself when he pushed open the door of Arthur's chambers and set the plates of food on the table. He grinned in the direction of the bed. "Good morning, your majesties."
"Good morning, Merlin," Gwen returned. She was already awake and dressed, her early rising a carry-over from her days as a servant herself.
Arthur was still in bed, though he was sitting up with the blankets around his waist. "Took you long enough, didn't it, Merlin?" he observed. "What did you do, come by way of the tavern? Sleep in an extra bell?"
Merlin shrugged. Even if he had been perfectly on time, Arthur would find something to complain about. Of course, he preferred to think it wasn't really complaining, just making observations in a mocking tone.
So perhaps it was complaining. "I was reading."
"Reading?" Arthur's face scrunched up in a way it did when he was restraining himself from saying something less than complementary. "What on earth are you reading at this hour of the morning? And why would Sir Geoffrey let you borrow it?"
"Oh, it's not from the castle library." Merlin crossed to the wardrobe and selected some clothes for Arthur. "It was just something I found in another village."
For all Arthur told him he was bad at lying, he never seemed to realize when Merlin was lying about the big things. Part of him wanted Arthur to find out about the book and the spell and his magic, just so he could ask some advice. He didn't want to take it to Gaius, and he wasn't about to call on Kilgharrah if he didn't have to.
"Well, if it's going to make you late, maybe you should read it in the time you usually spent at the tavern."
Merlin rolled his eyes. "Then I would never get to read it."
No matter how hard he tried to convince Arthur he didn't disappear off to the tavern, it never seemed to work. If he couldn't be found, that was the first place Arthur insisted they check. Not that he was in a position to know this, but he'd heard it from Gaius. Gaius was one of the ones who backed up the story, however accidentally. Even though Arthur believed he was a drunken sot when he wasn't at the castle, Merlin would never stop arguing the point as it actually was.
It would have been so much easier if he could just tell Arthur he had magic.
The weight of the admission was heavy on his tongue, and he could have opened his mouth and let it out right then. But he didn't. He was still afraid of what Arthur would think, how he would take the news and what it would mean for their relationship, whatever it was. He didn't want to bias Arthur even further against magic.
But he was still considering the spell.
He helped Arthur dress, ensuring his shirt was tucked in properly and the laces of his boots were tied. His thoughts kept straying back to the spell and he wondered if this would be the last time he would help Arthur dress. If nothing changed, the day would still come when Merlin dressed his king for the last time, when he helped him into his armor, when he told him good luck.
Merlin didn't like those thoughts. He wanted advice, but he wasn't about to get it without telling someone about something he'd rather not mention.
With Arthur fully clothed and moving over to the table to eat with Gwen, Merlin had a moment of disorientation, when the world seemed subtly different. It was like everything had shifted two finger widths to the side and nothing looked the same anymore. The man in front of him was Arthur, but he wasn't his Arthur. And Gwen was still Gwen, but not his Gwen. When he blinked, the sensation was gone.
Merlin removed himself from the room, knowing that Gwen and Arthur preferred to have the quiet morning to talk about things they didn't want to discuss in mixed company. And if Merlin stayed, they usually asked him to step out if it was particularly personal. He had gotten into the habit of doing this before they asked him. Arthur knew how to find him if he needed him.
He usually did it by shouting.
There was something in the air, some heavy anticipation that pulled at Merlin, settling in his lungs and making it hard to breathe. He needed to make his decision soon, very soon. He needed to cast the spell before the end of the golden age was upon them and there was nothing he could do to stop the spiral into darkness he could feel just steps away.
He left his quarters, careful not to awaken Gaius, and he took the book with him. He still needed to understand the spell. It promised safety, a refuge beyond the world they knew. Something that shared a border with Avalon, but wasn't quite within it. All he could be certain of was that it would be safe.
He wandered down to the cavern where Kilgharrah had been chained, more out of habit than out of conscious thought. He did want to consult Kilgharrah, but he wasn't sure he had the time.
Gaius was able to tell that something was off with him, as was Arthur. Every time they ran into one another in the halls, Arthur would ask if there was something wrong. Every time, it got harder not to ask for his advice, but he would have known something was up. They knew each other too well these days, in spite of the fact Arthur still didn't know he had magic. In the end, he didn't need to know about that to understand Merlin's moods.
Merlin could only hope Arthur would see it that way if he ever found out about it.
He took a torch from the wall on his journey down beneath the castle and lit it with a whisper of magic. The cavern was smaller than he remembered, and he realized how unbearable it must have been for Kilgharrah. He'd been able to hide in it at times, able to surprise Merlin by flying out from some ledge higher up, but it wasn't a lot of room at all, barely enough to make that flight. Merlin tried to imagine what it must have been like to live underground for over twenty years, never seeing the sky. It sounded horrible.
He sat against the cold bit of melted stone that had once held the chains binding Kilgharrah to the cavern. He had taken his revenge on the chain, melting it down until it mingled with melted stone and couldn't be used to bind him again. Merlin, using the space sometimes when he needed to get away from everyone else and study a bit of difficult magic, had created a small divot in which he could place a standard torch. This was near a bit of stone which hardened smooth and raised like a bench. Setting the book down and slotting the torch into place, he began studying the spell again.
It was a fascinating bit of magic, more complicated than anything he had ever attempted before, as it involved several steps. First, he needed to mark out the area he intended to safeguard, creating a perimeter of white stones that would guide the magic in protecting the proper area. Each of the stones required a bit of his blood to distinguish them from regular rocks found in the ground.
Once he had marked out the perimeter, he needed to chant the incantation from beginning to end without stopping while standing beyond the border. That, he knew, was the most difficult part of this decision. He could not be in Camelot while casting the spell to protect it, and he would not be able to enter it after he raised the barrier. Nothing from the outside world could affect it, but neither could he help Arthur or anyone inside.
The world was shifting again, and the sensation of urgency filled his gut. He needed to make the decision now. It was going to change everything else about this, the whole course of destiny and fate depended on his decision right now.
It was the same question he always asked himself, the same one that always came up before these sorts of decisions. If he could protect Camelot using his magic, even if it would be seen as a bad thing by the people who mattered most to him, should he?
The answer was yes. It was always yes. He had to protect Arthur and Gwen and Camelot, and even if he used his magic to do it, it was worth it.
The decision had been made for him.
It took him a week to gather and prepare everything he needed for the spell. In that time, his spare moments were filled with learning the complexities of the incantation. With the knowledge that he was going to lose his friends the moment he finished the spell, he spent some more time with them, hoping they wouldn't noticed the sudden change in his behavior.
None of the knights had commented on anything, but Arthur kept giving him strange looks. No one had come out and said anything, and he preferred it that way. He didn't want to explain himself or have them attempt to confront him at the least opportune time. So he put back on the mask and pretended that everything was fine.
It wasn't fine. Not when he was standing outside the borders of Camelot.
The stones were buried in the ground around the city, planted there while he went out to gather materials and herbs for Gaius. At his side were his meager belongings, packed in a satchel and smuggled into one of the passageways out of the castle when Gaius was out. In his hand was the Sidhe staff, necessary for channeling the amount of power he was going to put into this spell.
A chill ran through him. He had chosen this time carefully. The patrol had returned and the next was not going to be sent out for another day. People were in their homes, as many of them as he could track, and the citizens were gathering for the festival of Summer's Close the next week, so no one had gone out to visit family. Camelot was as complete as he could manage it.
He allowed himself one moment of mourning what he was about to lose before he began incanting the spell.
"Ic geclipe se dimlicu ríceiu eorðen ond ic biddee se líffruma beswæpan mín eþel. Ic bewægne sylfum se drýlác beorganne þá wiðinnan ond bewarienne híe fram frécennes. Be þá stángaderunga ic ġemearcod, ic āmearcie þá endas sylfum galdorléoð. Be þá endas sylfum galdorléoð, ic āhebbe se scildweall betux þá eardgeardas."
The words flowed off his tongue like he was born to speak them, like he was calling on Kilgharrah, the language drawn from his very soul. Magic filled the air around him, intense and heavy and burdened with his intent.
He regretted that the world would forget Camelot. People would remember it like a story, tell tales as though it was something to caution their children against, or hold it up as the shining example of what a kingdom should be. But they wouldn't remember Camelot as an actual place, not until it returned to the world, and he didn't know when that would be.
Perhaps he would bring down the barrier when Morgana was no longer a problem. Perhaps he would safeguard it to his dying breath, and then it would be released into the world again, the people within untouched by the ravages of time. Nothing would change inside Camelot, not really.
He wondered if they would notice the passage of time, or if they would remember the world they could no longer interact with.
He wondered if they would remember him. There was so much he didn't know about the other end of the spell, but he hoped they wouldn't remember anything about the outside world. He didn't want his last protection to be tainted by the knowledge that he had trapped them in a place they could not leave, though he did it to protect them.
"Ic ástæle se drýlác eorðen āberanne sylfum galdorléoð, beclencan þenden se drýlác fordwīneþ or mín sáwol fēreþ for séo foldræst."
As the last syllables fell from his mouth, he felt the magic in the air around him crystallize and watched as the landscape before him warped until there was nothing but a field before him. A field with a ghostly image of Camelot.
He gasped in air as he stumbled back, the magic surrounding him suddenly slipping away, leaving nothing behind. No magic would affect the area where Camelot was. If anything tried, it would reinforce the spell keeping Camelot separated from the rest of the world.
He sat down where he was and let himself feel the loss. He would be able to see Camelot, he would always see it here. But he couldn't be a part of it anymore. And so, at midnight on the edge of an open field, Merlin cried.
Morgana found him several weeks later and he thought that would be the end of everything. She knew she was missing something from her memory, knew that she should have been a queen and wasn't, but she couldn't name the kingdom, couldn't recall Arthur. All she remembered was a boy who poisoned her.
She attacked him, and he ran into the field. He didn't feel like he should be protecting himself, not for what he had done to Camelot, but he knew that if he died, there would be no one to protect them from Morgana.
She followed him, drunk on her arrogance and thirsty for revenge. Spell after spell she cast at him, and all dissipated before they reached him. He watched as she spent her strength shoring up the protections he had put in place, unsure whether he should tell her that it would do no good.
In the end, he didn't have a choice in it. With one last overpowered spell, she collapsed where the courtyard of the citadel was supposed to be. Cautiously, he made his way towards her. Without magic, there was no way for him to tell if he should believe she was not faking this.
She wasn't moving, which hardly meant much because it could be normal exhaustion, or it could be a trick. She also didn't appear to be breathing, though. He was watching for the rise and fall of her body, but there was nothing. Throwing caution to the wind, he knelt beside her, touching her shoulder gently. When there was no response, he rolled her over.
At first glance, he could believe she was simply asleep. Her angry expression had smoothed over and gone slack, and there was a sort of childish softness in her features he hadn't seen in years, before she had attempted to take over Camelot and kill Uther. But she wasn't breathing, and her heart wasn't beating when he checked it. She was still and quiet, and those were things he had never associated with Morgana. She was capable of silence and stillness, but she hadn't shown that in recent years, had only ever employed it in protest of something Uther had done. Or when she was trying to hide her intentions.
He picked her up and carried her out beyond the bounds of his spell, unsure what to do from there. She was dead, and he knew there was no changing that. She had expended her magic, power she had been born with, to try and kill him. Instead, it had been absorbed by his spell.
The spell. He could take it down now. Morgana was the greatest threat to Camelot, the one he was so afraid of. Looking down at her now, he wasn't even sure why he'd been so afraid. She was powerful, yes, and she was a threat to Arthur and his reign. They were fairly even in power when he took the time to think about it, but there was a sort of inevitability about this. Merlin had been operating under prophecy and destiny from the moment he set foot in Camelot. If it hadn't ended like this, he wasn't sure it would have ended at all.
He looked to the ghostly Camelot. They might not have even noticed the difference. He didn't know what the experience was like for them. For him, it was just waiting.
He laid Morgana out under a tree, resting as though peacefully asleep, her hands folded atop her stomach. Then, he retrieved the book with the spell and his staff.
Standing in the place where he cast the spell in the first place, he began chanting the counter spell. The magic gathered around him again, but something was wrong. Nothing was changing. Nothing was happening to Camelot. If anything, the spell was absorbing the magic he was using as well.
He let the incantation die, cutting off the access to his magic lest it steal his as well.
"This isn't how it was supposed to be," he muttered. He rounded on Morgana's body. "Why did you have to come? Why did you have to give all your magic to the spell? I can't control it anymore!"
He gasped, turning back towards Camelot.
"Arthur!" The cry tore itself out of him before he realized he intended to say anything. "Arthur, I can't bring you back!"
There was no answer. It was only in his disappointment he realized he'd been expecting one.
He turned back to the book, frantic for an answer but cursing its existence. He never would have tried the spell if he hadn't found the book. He would not have isolated Camelot from the rest of the world. He wasn't protecting anything anymore. Morgana was dead, and his friends were forever out of reach.
He seized upon the first bit of information that gave him hope.
The spell is, at best, a temporary measure, wholly reliant upon the power put into it and the area being protected. The larger an area the spell is meant to cover, the more magic is required from the caster. The spell is capable of sustaining itself on ambient magics but it will, with time, degrade and return the area to the natural world. The timescale of this is, however, unknown.
Unknown. Merlin could learn to hate that word. He was already well on his way to it. It was a slim chance, a hope he wasn't sure he could believe in, but the spell would fall eventually.
"I'll wait for you," Merlin promised. "I'll wait as long as it takes for all of you to come back."
He could only hope it wouldn't be long.
Incantation translation
Part 1: I invoke the hidden powers of the earth and conjure the forces of life to protect my home. I offer of myself the magic to save those within and keep them from harm. By the stones I marked in blood, I place the corners of my spell. By the borders of my spell, I build the wall between the worlds.
Part 2: I charge the magic of the earth to bear up my spell, that it may hold until the magic fades from it or my soul makes its final journey.
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