Chapter 1

He was really glad that he hadn't brought Merlin.

It had been bad enough to watch the five men he had brought with him fall one by one to the bandits, and he didn't think he could bear to have watched Merlin also be killed in front of him, not after the scare he had when he had thought Merlin dead just two weeks previous. The fact that Merlin was safe back in Camelot this time was at least some comfort to him as he sat disarmed, restrained, and surrounded by bandits.

Not that there was really much comforting about this situation but he could grasp for anything that made him feel better at this point. Having gone through every possible escape scenario and come up with nothing, he had to think of something to occupy his mind anyways. As hopeless as his situation was, he was actually finding himself get almost bored as the bandits took their sweet time deciding how best they could cash in on the capture of the king of Camelot. Arthur had actually resorted to counting the bandits (there were 63 of them) before they had finally decided to bring him to King Oden and ask for some kind of bounty. It was well known that Oden wanted nothing more than King Arthur's death and they figured he would pay them handsomely for delivering Arthur to him. While Arthur had to admit they probably had struck on the most profitable course of action, he was personally less than pleased with their conclusion.

As the bandits were discussing whether it would be easier or more difficult to bring him if they knocked him unconscious first, they were interrupted by a new voice. It was a voice unlike any other Arthur had ever heard; it was unnaturally deep and seemed to echo as though the person were talking inside a cave.

"Let him go!"

Arthur and the bandits all turned to see who the voice had come from. A man in a long black cloak was standing at the edge of the bandit's camp. The cloak, which was faded and worn, obscured all features of the man, leaving Arthur with nothing but a general impression that the man was tall and at least fairly thin. Not an inch of skin could be seen; the sleeves were long enough to cover the hands and although the sun was shining into the clearing and at least part of the man's face should have been visible below the hood, it was completely obscured by an unnatural darkness.

"Who are you," the bandit leader called out.

"My name is Emrys, and I demand that you hand the King over to me at once." His voice still had that eerie quality to it as he spoke.

The bandit leader just laughed, and then without warning, threw a dagger at the cloaked man. The dagger stopped midair about a foot from the man's head, slowly turned itself to face the other direction, and suddenly, with more speed than should have been possible, flew straight at the man who had thrown it and imbedded itself in a tree inches from his head.

"Release King Arthur and I will let you live."

Arthur felt his throat tighten. This man was a sorcerer. Arthur had dealt with many sorcerers in his time, usually ranging from the weak ones who could be easily overpowered by a knight to the stronger ones who required many knights to take them down. And then there were the sorcerers that Arthur had come across only a few times in his life who had seemed nigh on untouchable. Perhaps it was the downright creepy voice, the dark cloak obscuring all features, or the fact that he had used magic without so much as a word or a gesture, but Arthur had the distinct impression that this was one of the latter kind of sorcerer. He had thought that it was bad enough when there were bandits wanting to hand him over to his death. Now a powerful sorcerer wanted him for reasons he really didn't want to think about. At least his death at Odin's hands would have been straightforward and honourable.

The bandits nearest the sorcerer were backing away slowly.

"Kill him!" the bandit leader shouted, clearly frustrated by the cowardice his men were showing.

About a dozen bandits moved forward, raising their swords. Suddenly a sort of shockwave moved through the crowd of bandits starting with those closest to the sorcerer and knocking them off their feet, followed by those further away. As it passed Arthur he felt as though the ground below him had shaken violently, however, already being on the ground, he did not fall over. For a brief moment all of the bandits were groaning on the ground before they started moving again. Some of them stayed down but most were quickly getting back to their feet. Then one of them broke from the group and ran. As if this was a signal, every other bandit that had gotten back up turned and ran, ignoring their leader's shouts to stand their ground. When he realized that his men were more scared of the sorcerer than they were of him, the leader took one last longing look at Arthur and then he turned and followed his men.

The sorcerer, who had stood by and done nothing while the bandits fled the scene, started striding towards Arthur. Arthur suddenly wished that he had the option to flee as well. Running away may be a coward's move, but there were times when it was also the intelligent move. After walking around the bodies of the few bandits who had been knocked unconscious by the fall, the sorcerer raised his arm, revealing a pale hand, pointing directly at Arthur. Arthur swore. Then all the ropes binding him fell off. Not even taking a moment to wonder about his good luck, he scrambled to his feet, turned and ran.

He did not glance back to see if the sorcerer was following him, not wanting to slow himself even for a moment. It was at least encouraging that he hadn't been tripped up by magic or anything like that. He could only hope that the sorcerer hadn't expected him to run away the moment he had been released and hadn't had time to immediately give chase. Whoever the cloaked man was, he wanted Arthur, and whatever he wanted him for, it wasn't good.

Arthur kept running, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the sorcerer as possible to be certain that he had lost him. He didn't stop until his path was blocked by, to his utter horror, a serket. Great, he thought, just what he needed after escaping from 63 bandits and a creepy sorcerer was to face off with a giant killer scorpion. Now he understood why Merlin had been so panicky about him coming into this forest. He grasped for the hilt of his sword, only to find himself grasping at thin air. Of course, he remembered, the bandits had taken his sword. Slowing to a halt and backing away, he hoped that the serket would stay back and he could simply run in another direction. His hopes were shattered as he heard cracking of twigs behind him and spun around. There was more than one. Half a dozen serkets were crawling towards him from all different angles. He was surrounded. But that wasn't all. More and more were coming, filling the whole forest around him as far as he could see between the trees, until he couldn't count how many there were.

If Arthur had not been such a highly trained warrior he would have been on the point of panic. Even as it was, he could see no way out of this situation. He had no sword and there was no path to make an escape through the throngs of creatures that he knew could kill him with a single sting. Putting all his skills of strategy and crisis control to work he tried to think of some sort of plan that didn't end in his rather gory and unheroic death. He spun around to survey every angle and get the full measure of the situation and… what?! Almost startled enough to forget the serkets for a moment, Arthur stumbled back a step. The sorcerer was standing right behind him. When did he get there?! As if the situation wasn't bad enough as it was!

Ignoring Arthur's surprised reaction, the sorcerer focussed on the creatures, raising both hands in front of him he said, "Awerian hring bael onbryne."

A massive ring of fire appeared out of nowhere, completely surrounding Arthur and the sorcerer, so that he could no longer see the serkets. Arthur would have felt more reassured about his newfound safety from serket attack if he wasn't currently trapped with a sorcerer in a circle of fire so hot he could feel the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead already. Before he had a chance to even react to the new turn of events, the sorcerer reached out and grabbed his arm, raising his other hand towards one side of the flame wall surrounding them.

"Stángeat"

A gap appeared in the wall of fire, extending outwards as a sort of corridor of flames. The sorcerer pulled him forwards, running through the exit he had created. As much as he loathed the idea of following the sorcerer anywhere, Arthur certainly had no desire to be left behind. After a few moments of running over burned vegetation and serket carcasses, with walls of fire on either side of their path, they passed the end of the flames, continuing with the momentum from their mad dash further into what was now just forest before coming to a halt. Arthur pushed aside all thoughts of wondering how the rest of the forest had not caught on fire (which probably had something to do with magic anyways) to focus on what was most important now. He thought he had lost the sorcerer the last time he had run away but clearly he had underestimated the man. The sorcerer was now looking back at the fire, whether checking they weren't being pursued by any serkets or getting ready to cast some sort of spell to get rid of the fire Arthur didn't know. What he did know was that this would be his only chance to get away. Wishing more than ever that he had his sword with him, Arthur instantly formulated a plan that may not be ideal but was the best he was going to get in this situation.

He gave the sorcerer a shove from behind. He was extremely satisfied and slightly surprised to see the sorcerer stumble forward a few steps, trip on a root and fall flat on his face. Step one, perfectly executed. Now for step two. Arthur turned and ran. As soon as he got out of sight of the downed sorcerer he changed directions and ran to his left. He changed angles several times. There was no way the sorcerer was going to be able to follow him this time. Unless, of course, he used magic. Arthur really hoped that wasn't how he had been followed the first time because if that was the case he would never get away. But there wasn't time to worry about that. Right now all that mattered was running. He looked over his shoulder for a moment, trying to see if there was a black shape following him through the trees. Suddenly his foot struck on nothing and with a sudden sense of vertigo he realized with dread that he was falling; he had run off the edge of a cliff.

Looking down, he saw the ground far below. Much too far below. He knew in an instant that there would be no surviving this fall. After all that had happened to him today, all that he survived in the past, he was going to die here and now. His mind raced to thoughts of Guinevere, Merlin and his knights. He wished he could see them all one last time. So loyal, so brave, always seeing him as a person and not just a king. The things they had all been through together. He hadn't been falling for more than a few seconds before it had already felt like an eternity and he suddenly heard a sound on the cliff above. Automatically turning his head to look up he saw the dark shape of the sorcerer falling towards him as though in a dive. With the dark fabric whipping around him and the shadowy hood of the cloak somehow staying in place as if by magic (actually probably indeed by magic), the sight would have been terrifying if Arthur wasn't about to die anyways. He found it slightly ridiculous that even with only seconds left to live he somehow found the time to wonder incredulously at how the sorcerer was so intent on following him that he had actually jumped off of a cliff after him. Then he felt as though his body's decent was slowing. His speed decreased until he felt the ground gently appear under his falling back as though he had just lain himself gently down on the grass for a nap.

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the solid ground beneath him, hardly daring to believe that he was actually alive. He felt a strange urge to laugh. When he opened his eyes again he saw the sorcerer come into his vision and reach out a hand as if to help Arthur to his feet. Regaining his sense of alert crisis mode, he swatted away the hand, scrambled to his feet and backed up a few steps. Automatically reaching for his sword again, he had to remind himself that he didn't have it.

"What do you want with me," he said, trying to sound like he was in control of the situation despite realizing that he was unarmed and unable to escape from this sorcerer, who was clearly able to follow him anywhere with magic. If he was to be so completely at this mysterious man's mercy, surely he could at least be told why.

"I want you to stop trying to get yourself killed."

Well that wasn't the response he was expecting.

"I'm not trying to get myself killed!" he argued before he could remind himself that it would be best not to aggravate the sorcerer unnecessarily.

"I just saved your life three times in less time than it takes to saddle a horse! Either you are trying to get yourself killed or you are really, really bad at trying to stay alive!" He sounded incredibly agitated.

Arthur took half a moment to think about the fact that the sorcerer had just saved his life multiple times. He was actually kind of grateful, or he would be if he wasn't so worried about what purpose the sorcerer had wanted him alive for.

"What is it that you want from me," he asked again.

"What makes you think I want anything from you?"

Arthur gaped. Did this sorcerer really expect Arthur to believe that he had relentlessly followed him, even jumping off a cliff after him, and saved his life multiple times for no reason whatsoever? Sorcerers, honestly. Over the years, Arthur had come to realize that not all sorcerers were as pure evil as his father always believed. No, some of them were just downright befuddling, with motives so complicated Arthur had given up trying to understand the way sorcerer's minds worked. There was that druid that had given him the cup of life without even putting up a fight, while giving him cryptic warnings about how it was not a good idea for him to take it. Which in hindsight, it wasn't. And there was the sorceress who had spared his life, claiming that he was not destined to die at her hand, while simultaneously leaving him to die alone in a cave. One thing Arthur knew he disagreed with his father about was the claim that all sorcerers worked with simple motives of causing harm to innocents and spreading their evil. No, nothing to do with sorcerers could ever be described with the word "simple". It did not encourage Arthur to think that this was one of those sorcerers who couldn't give a straight answer to save their life.

"Why did you save me?"

"Are you really complaining about that?"

"That depends. What happens now?"

For the third time, Arthur reached for a sword that was not there, wishing he could look more threatening than he did at the moment.

"Now? Now, I imagine you will go back to Camelot."

Arthur blinked. That was it? He was allowed to just go? Maybe this sorcerer's motivations were even more complicated than he thought, but at the moment he wasn't complaining.

"I can't go back yet. I need to collect the leaves of the Japnus tree."

"What, on your own?"

"Yes!"

When did this conversation go from frightening to irritating?

"Why don't I come along? I could help."

"What? No!"

"Okay then."

The sorcerer did not sound fazed and Arthur had a sudden suspicion.

"You're planning on following me, aren't you?"

"No, of course not!"

Arthur wasn't convinced.

"Don't follow me!" he shouted, pointing at the sorcerer before turning and stalking off away from him. When he had gotten quite far away and looked back, the sorcerer was still standing in the same spot. This was slightly reassuring, but Arthur couldn't help but think that if the sorcerer really wanted to follow him, there wasn't much he could do about it.

If Arthur could remember the way back, he would have returned to the bandit camp to retrieve his sword. He was wishing more than ever that he hadn't abandoned it in his haste to get away from the sorcerer. Arthur tried not to think about the sorcerer as he made his way east, alone and on foot. He would drive himself crazy if he tried to puzzle out what the sorcerer's plan was. Clearly he didn't want the King dead, at least not for now, which meant that he had more important things to worry about. For example, the fact that he was unarmed in a forest infested with bandits and magical creatures, not to mention he was starving and not carrying any weapons to hunt with.

"Emrys," the man had said his name was. Despite Arthur's resolve to put the sorcerer from his mind he found his thoughts drifting back to him as he lay against a tree to sleep for the night. Arthur had trained himself to remember names once he had heard them, both to save embarrassing himself by forgetting the name of newly introduced nobles and visiting dignitaries, and to make sure he never forgot the name of an enemy. Arthur filed the name Emrys away for later. He could look into the records when he got back to Camelot to see if any knights had encountered him before. Or maybe Gaius might have heard of him. For now, he needed to sleep. He would have been able to drift off more easily if he had the comfort of his sword stuck into the ground beside him, ready to be grabbed at a moment's notice. As it was, he drifted into an uneasy sleep, his senses still on high alert.

Arthur was woken not by the sun, but by his warrior instincts. He must have heard something in his sleep because he knew instantly the reason he was awake was because there was someone or something else there. Reaching to grab his sword from beside him and once again being frustrated by its absence, he leapt to his feet, scanning the forest around him for danger. He heard a sound behind him and whipped round to find himself staring up at a giant centipede. The thing was thick enough that two men couldn't have wrapped their arms around it and, rearing up in front of him, it was taller than the great dragon had been. Not even taking into account those nasty looking pincers, the thing could probably kill him by just crushing him with its body. Was this forest just full of massively oversized bugs? Arthur quickly looked around for an escape route and found himself completely surrounded by the creature's many-legged body. Turning back to face the head, he had to quickly dodge as it lunged for him, the massive pincers striking the ground where he had been standing a moment ago.

Before the centipede could rear up for another shot, its whole body suddenly glowed as though encased in blue flames. The creature gave a massive shudder and fell stiffly to the ground, clearly dead, as the blue light dissipated. Relieved as he was to not be a centipede's dinner (certainly not a death worthy of a king), Arthur couldn't help but feel vaguely annoyed by what he suspected had just happened.

"Alright, you can show yourself," he said looking around for a man in a black cloak, "I know you are there."

After a moment of waiting, the man stepped out from behind a nearby tree. Arthur walked towards him, having to climb over the centipede's body on the way, and was intending to shout, "I told you not to follow me," at the sorcerer when he saw that the man was now carrying a sword – a very familiar looking sword – and what actually came out of his mouth was, "Hey! That's mine!"

"Yeah, I went back and got it for you," said the sorcerer, turning the sword around to hand it to Arthur by the hilt.

Arthur took the sword and immediately felt much better. There was nothing more comforting than having a sword in his hand.

"Are you hungry? I got some food and supplies from the bandit's camp," the sorcerer, Emrys, Arthur reminded himself, continued.

Since this Emrys didn't seem to intend him any immediate harm and he hadn't eaten in over a day, Arthur nodded and found himself following the sorcerer back to a small clearing where there was a bag of supplies and a small fire with a pot cooking over it. Besides, he thought to himself, Emrys was apparently just going to follow him anyways, and Arthur figured it would be better to keep the sorcerer in his sight. Maybe this way he could get some answers out of him if nothing else.

Emrys handed him a bowl of soup, which he gladly dug into. The taste was strangely familiar to him but he couldn't think why.

"Why does your voice sound like that," he asked.

"I used a spell to disguise my voice," Emrys replied after a moment's silence.

"Why?"

"A known sorcerer must always be on the run."

"Is that why your hood is enchanted to keep your face hidden?"

"Yes."

Arthur, who had found the strange voice and faceless figure to be nearly inhuman, was almost surprised to think of the fact that there was a person under there who, when he took off the cloak, would blend into a crowd with no one the wiser that there was a powerful sorcerer among them. Arthur felt a sudden urge to know what the man looked like. Maybe it wasn't even a man? If the voice was disguised, maybe it was a woman under there?

"Emrys," Arthur started seriously, hoping his question would be answered properly this time, "why do you keep following me and saving my life?"

Emrys poked the fire absently with a stick, "I keep following you because you can't seem to keep yourself out of trouble. And I keep saving your life because I believe you are a great king and you need to live for the good of the kingdom."

As touched as Arthur was by the sentiment, and as sincere as the man sounded, he felt that to believe that was his real reason would be too good to be true.

"I have never met a sorcerer who believed that I was good for the kingdom."

"The sorcerers who believe so generally are not the ones voicing their opinions to you."

"But why would someone practicing magic want a king who outlawed it?"

Emrys put down the stick and looked away from the fire, up at Arthur.

"The lives of those with magic have been much improved since you became king. While it is true we still have to hide it, we no longer live in constant fear as we did under Uther. You do not send out soldier to ransack people's homes in search of sorcerers, raid druid camps, or pay bounty hunters. When a bounty hunter came to you shortly after you were crowned king you sent him away and released the girl he had captured, claiming there was not enough evidence to convict her of sorcery. Those who practice magic should know that if they keep their heads down and do not use their powers to attack you, they can live in peace under your reign. Besides, there are more than just sorcerers to consider when looking at how you rule. In many other kingdoms where magic is practiced freely, people both with and without magic suffer from cruelly high taxation by greedy kings, and suffer attacks by raiders and slave traders because their kings do not protect them. They lose everything they have or even their lives to wars fought for the selfish aims of unjust kings. You are a king who truly cares for his people. You understand the struggles of every one of your subjects and do your best to protect and care for them. You believe that to be a good king is to be a servant to the people and have even been willing to lay down your life for that of a servant. The majority of your people, even many of those with magic, know that they are lucky to have you as their king and would willingly lay down their own lives to protect you."

Arthur stared at the man across the fire from him. He hadn't expected such an impassioned speech. In spite of himself, he found that he couldn't help being convinced that Emrys truly believed what he said. And there was something else, a strange feeling that Emrys seemed to know him incredibly well for someone he had never met before. Some of the things he mentioned, like Arthur's willingness to lay down his life for a servant, or the time he had released a girl caught by a bounty hunter weren't exactly secrets, but they also weren't things that he had proclaimed throughout his kingdom. He did believe that a good king was a servant to his people and he was sure that he must have voiced this belief several times but only to those close to him. Again, it was hardly a state secret but he was still surprised to hear what he felt to be his own thoughts quoted back to him by a stranger.

Then again, sorcerers often gave off the unnerving feeling that they knew a lot more than they should. Arthur wondered briefly whether they somehow used magic to watch things from afar before deciding he would rather not think about that.

Perhaps feeling awkward in the long silence following his speech, the sorcerer stood up, collecting the dirty dishes and set about washing them. The sight was slightly bizarre in contrast to how he looked while facing down 63 bandits or summoning massive walls of flame. Now the all-powerful man in the dark cloak with his face hidden by enchanted shadows had his sleeves rolled up as he scrubbed soup off the bottom of a pot.

If what this man implied was true, Arthur realized, there were many sorcerers living in peace among his citizens. Arthur had long known that his father's attitude towards magic was over-zealous, if nothing else. While Arthur had always maintained that magic was dangerous and should be banned for the good of the kingdom, all the evidence he had seen had pointed towards the sorcerers he had met being regular people with dangerous skills and no respect for the laws, rather than beings of pure evil who had lost all humanity as his father had claimed. He had come to see the war on magic as being not that dissimilar to any other kind of war, where each side believes in their own righteousness and the evil intent of the other. When he was very young his father had also claimed that all men from Mercia were inherently evil, that is until King Bayard had come forth and proposed a treaty. He had come to think of his father's claims about sorcerers in much the same way, as something that his father told himself to make it easier to carry out the harsh punishments necessary for the protection of the kingdom. However, unlike the war against Mercia, Arthur had firmly believed that the war against magic could never be resolved in peace. The hurt ran too deep on both sides. Arthur could never, in good conscience, allow magic freedom in his kingdom for fear that he could not protect his people against unfettered sorcery, and no sorcerer had ever shown signs that they would be willing to forgive the Pendragons for his father's purge and relentless killing of their kind. No, Arthur had always known that he could never trust a sorcerer, not because they were inherently evil, but because they were powerful in ways he could not combat and on the other side in a war that would never end. But now, he was faced with a sorcerer who claimed to have no resentment against Arthur, and who was also claiming that there were others like him who would rather live in peace than continue the fight of magic against might. Arthur had a lot to think about as he watched the sun rise and the sorcerer pack up the dishes and put out the fire, looking so much like Merlin that Arthur had to stifle a laugh.

"The grove of Japnas trees is not far. We should get there long before it is even midday."

So apparently the sorcerer was just assuming that he was coming with Arthur. Wasn't he even going to pretend that Arthur had a choice in the matter?

"What makes you think you're coming?"

"Can I come?"

"Okay, fine."

That was better. Now Arthur had given his permission. He wasn't bringing the sorcerer because he had no way of stopping the man from following him; he was bringing him because he had decided it was in his best interest. At least he could tell himself that now. He would feel better about it if he didn't have the distinct impression that Emrys knew exactly what he was thinking. He stalked off moodily towards the rising sun, not wanting the sorcerer to take the lead, and he could hear the man following behind him. Arthur reflected that in his whole life he would never have predicted that he would ever end up on a quest with such an unlikely companion.

Notes:

I know Merlin disguising himself with a cloak and saving Arthur as "Emrys" has been done quite a lot but I really like those kinds of stories so I wanted to make my own version.

If you are wondering why Merlin disguised himself with a cloak instead of doing an aging spell, it's because 1) Arthur thinks old!Merlin killed his father, and 2) the cloak thing is more impressive for bandit-intimidation.