Chapter 5 :

When Merlin arrived at the room he shared with his guardian, Gaius was nowhere to be found. Merlin peered about the room with interest, scanning over the various herbs and spices that lay strewn about the place. Occasionally he would lift a bunch to his nostrils and try not to hurl at the stench given off by more than one of the various aphrodisiacs. Never before had he felt without purpose and he was beginning to realise he didn't like it.

"Today's been a strange old day" Merlin thought to himself amusedly, as he scanned the bookshelf without any apparent interest in any of the spines.

"First that thing with the vision, then.." He stopped short. He had almost forgotten about that and Merlin was pretty sure that the unkindly voices he had heard wouldn't take to kindly to the misplacement of their warnings. In fact, Merlin was pretty sure that they were already aware of his forgetfulness. The re-occurrence of the memory disturbed him greatly and the gaiety he had previously expressed quickly dissipated and leaving instead in it's wake a feeling not unlike that of unfathomable fear. The feeling seemed to ignite something inside of the young warlock and soon enough he was scanning the shelves far more reverently than before, pouring over the tightly drawn spines, taking care not to mis-read any of their contents.

"Come on Gaius, come on!" he said frustrated, running his fingers through his dark hair, desperately searching the shelves.

"Come on! You've got have a book on it somewhere! You've got books on snails eggs for goodness sake..AHA!" he cried, as his hand came to rest on the shelf in front of him. He pulled the leather-bound volume down from it's resting place, careful not to disturb any of the others from their precarious perches. Merlin had in his hands a work named "Magic; The World Around You". The title was written in curvature script, etched into the leather and painted with a gold pigment, at least it would have been, had it not been covered in a thick layer of dust, which Merlin blew away.

Merlin snatched up the volume from the base of one of the shelves that he had been resting it on and brought it over to a small writing desk that sat in the corner of the room. There was a window to the right of it, though the curtains were yet to be drawn. Merlin sat himself down onto the stool and pulled the cord to free the window from its confines. It did not let in a great deal of light, rather, a little square shaped patch which the now illuminated dust particles could be seen twirling about the air, though he did not let this deter him. He prised the cover open, careful not to dislodge any of the pages. The contents page was the longest Merlin had ever seen, at least 10 pages of parchment all indicated what could be found within each chapter, this would have, at any other time, I imagine, had been very useful, however as Merlin didn't exactly know himself what he was looking for, found it more of a distraction than anything else. "Typical," he thought to himself as he scanned the impossibly long list of page numbers for anything remotely helpful,

"There's never a book entitled 'How to know the voices your hearing in your head isn't a sign of madess' when you need one is there?" The words on the page were fast becoming nothing, except black splodges of parchment until finally, his tired gaze came to rest on "An finné adh" (The silent witness). He flicked through the volume, pages flicking over pages until the came to a halt beside a diagram of a three headed woman. The page read, something like this,

An finné adh: Fabled messengers of the three headed goddess. Often appearing to their recipient through dreams, the An finné adh communicate with a person of the goddesses desire. They have no known shape, colour or stature though their voices are distinct in mannerism and in tone. The Chorus or ancurfá as they are known in the old tongue, is often heard before speech and as one might expect from ones so closely tied with the Goddess, they are never to be taken lightly.

"Ah," Merlin said, shutting the book with a thump and sending dust particles high up into the air, which spiralled down onto the desks like a mini-snowstorm.

"Merlin? Don't you have anything better to do? Other than talking to yourself in a dark corner?" Gaius said, bursting into the room, a bunch of leeks and mandrake roots clutched to his chest.

"Ah, Arthur turned me away, said something about a princess he wanted to impress." Merlin said, sliding the parchment he'd been taking notes on under his desk and on to his knees.

"Ah, Princess Anushire of Ananias's Kingdom no doubt. Uther has been trying to forge this meeting since the start of his reign! He'd do well to impress her." Gaius said, dropping the pile of vegetables onto a nearby work bench and pulling a knife from the deep confines of a drawer.

"Hm, well, I guess Guinevere's going to need some consoling, what with the heart of her betrothed being stolen by another!" Said Merlin.

"Betrothed? Do you even know the meaning of the word Merlin?" said Gaius.

"Nope!" Merlin said with a grin "just thought it sounded good."

His guardian shook his head in despair.

"I think you should go and make yourself useful somewhere else Merlin, perhaps the kitchens are in need of a hand." He said, busying himself with the chopping of vegetables.

"I think….on this one occasion…You may be right!" Merlin said, jumping up from the bench and walking around his master, the parchment concealed behind his back.

"Merlin," Gaius called after him,

"Yes?" he said slowly, turning his face to his guardian

"What have you got there?"

He risked a glance at his mentor "what have I got where?" he said, clasping the parchment tighter in his hands.

"Behind your back Merlin" Gaius said pointedly.

"What this?" Merlin said, bringing out the folded sheet with a flick of his wrist.

"Yes." Gaius said pointedly.]

"It's a uh, recipe. Found it in one of those old books of yours. You have too many by the way."

"And what are you planning on doing with it?"

"Uhm" Merlin paused "Give it to betty in the kitchens. Arthur doesn't like her soups anymore. Thought this one might be better!"

"Merlin? Why do I get the feeling you're lying?"

"Me? Lying? Oh please? This isn't my lying face!" he said, before proceeding to stick out his tounge and waggle his eyebrows "this is my lying face!" and with that he dashed up the steps and into the castle above.