The Triskelion
The man who introduced himself as Ingild's voice was oily when he asked her, "Are you aware that under the law sorcerers are deemed weapons and that it is a crime to conceal any form of weapon from your king?"
Hunith was seated straight backed in her chair at the kitchen table, wearing her best non-expression on her face. The fat balding man sitting across from her wore a courtier's smile that was not comforting in the least. Merlin squirmed in her lap, and she tightened her arms wrapped around him warningly.
Woodenly, she repeated, "I've hidden nothing. All I know about the man who died is that he was my husband, nothing more."
The denial tasted bitter on her tongue, but the weight of Merlin on her lap was more than enough incentive to declare herself ignorant. She had to protect what was left of her family. She did not know Cenred's policy towards those who knowingly harboured sorcerers, and she cursed herself now for this lack of knowledge. It would be easier if she knew what she was trying to avoid; whether it was a mere fine or the gallows for her and her son.
The man had arrived on her doorstep an hour ago, showing an official seal and telling her she was wanted for questioning. He invaded her home and grilled her on everything she knew about Balinor - was she aware he was a sorcerer, when did he arrive, how did they meet, and so forth.
Being forced to describe all she knew of the day of his death was the hardest. Weeks had passed since that awful day she woke up alone, and it still felt as though her house was too dark and too empty. She'd look over her shoulder and realize she was addressing empty air. The villagers coming by to offer help was both blessing and curse, for having others do what were Balinor's chores stung with the sheer wrongness of it all. If it hadn't been for Merlin, she didn't know what she would have done. She needed to be strong for her son when she had to repeatedly force herself to answer the forlorn words, 'When ith Father coming home?'
Now, nearly a month since she had choked the first time she had had to say never and try to convince her son of a wonderful place called Heaven, Merlin had stopped asking. She'd thought it would be a relief, but it wasn't. She felt like Balinor was slowly beginning to fade, until he would become nothing but a distant memory in the same way as Antonius and Julia, and her parents before them. She hardly remembered her parents, and she had been twice Merlin's age when they had passed on. It seemed cruel beyond words that Merlin would have no clear memories of his father's little acts of kindness, and would only ever know him in the simple way a child knew his parents.
She feared losing Balinor in the passage of time as their lives went on and his didn't. But now, he had returned to haunt them in the worst way; a man sent by a king to investigate his death.
"Come now," the court man's attempt at comforting her only succeeded in putting her more on edge. "Whether or not you were aware of who your husband was, you were still hiding a user of powerful magic from your king. I understand, of course, but others... well, they might ask questions."
Hunith didn't say anything, too afraid of accidentally incriminating herself in some way. The man was eying Merling with more intensity than she liked when he said, "Though no harm has been done and the man in question is no longer under your roof, so I suppose we can call it all water under the bridge if you just allow me to do one last little thing..."
The raggedy girl in an awkward stage between childhood and adulthood stepped forward as though signaled, her tattooed hands gripping a large wooden box in front of her like a shield. Hunith did not miss the girl's flinch when the man's hands drew close to lift the lid. Like an angry red bracelet, chafed skin encircled the girl's bare wrists. She was too afraid of jeopardizing the safety of the child in her arms to ask about it.
Ingild lifted out several long clear crystals strung together in a band. He held them in front of him and started to chant, the words of the Old Tongue falling from his lips much more harshly than she had ever heard them fall from Balinor's. Hunith shivered at the sinister sounds, and for the first time knew why others feared magic as evil. The man's eyes locked on Merlin were magnified by the crystals he was looking through so that they were unnaturally large as they stared unblinkingly forwards. Hunith watched him back, frozen, heart racing as she tried to imagine what he was doing. A flash of gold flared behind him, in the eyes of the pitiful girl, distracting her momentarily just before gold flared in the eyes of the fat man.
With a disappointed sigh, he gave the crystals back to the girl, who fumbled them so badly she almost dropped them. "Nothing."
"What was that?" Hunith finally dared to ask, now that the moment had passed and the man seemed no longer interested in the child clutched against her.
"Just a little test," the man replied. "To see if your boy has any traces of magic in him."
"There's none?" Hunith tried to keep the surprise from her voice. How could that be possible?
"Not yet, at any rate. I don't know what was expecting; it's incredibly rare for it manifest until children reach about Oilell's -" he gestured to the girl without looking at her "- age."
Hunith nodded, her mind in turmoil. She wasn't sure what to think. She knew Merlin had magic; it had been obvious within minutes of his birth. How could the Court Sorcerer himself not see any signs when he looked?
Behind the man, the girl put the crystals back in their box with shaking tattooed hands, clutching it to her chest. Hunith had seen cornered rabbits less skittish. Terrified eyes darted from the sorcerer to the mother and child opposite him, looking as though she expected punishment to rain down upon her any moment.
The man stood from his chair, and the girl backed up a few steps away from him. "That's all for today, thank you for your time. You've been most helpful. I'll be back to see how your son is growing. Remember," his gaze darted briefly to Merlin's, "all sorcerers must announce themselves to the king. To not do so is treason."
With those uncomforting parting words, the man at last made for her door. The girl scurried to follow him, but just before stepping outside she turned and did something that if Hunith had not seen it herself, she never would have believed.
She bowed.
Then she was gone.
Hunith and Merlin stayed seated for several minutes afterwards, but when no one came back they rose.
"I don't like him," Merlin whispered to her. "Why did he ask all thothe questions? Why did he look at me like that?"
"Why don't you go play with Will?" Hunith evaded, not sure how to answer. Merlin looked like he knew what she was doing, but obediently slipped out the door and down the street anyways.
Hunith cleared up the lunch dishes - a task she had been midway through when Ingild knocked on her door - with her hands shaking as she thought.
Though the village appeared to accept her story of how Balinor had been killed in the crossfire of a border skirmish, she lived in fear of such a knock. She hadn't expected the man knocking to hold out Cenred's insignia, though.
Her wash cloth scrubbed with unneeded force, and she wondered why she had assumed threats only ever came from over the border. Cenred was not Uther, but the thought of people who could assassinate him without lifting a finger roaming unchecked in his lands would appeal to no king. She thought of the girl Oilell, bile clawing at her throat, and wondered if she had sat like Merlin in her mother's lap while enlarged eyes peered intently at her through a band of crystals.
Her hands stilled as she remembered the flash of gold in the girl's eyes, immediately before the spell's completion, and saw Ingild lowering the crystals in disappointment again as though it was happening right in front of her.
Had the girl been the reason Ingild hasn't sensed the magic in Merlin?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock, and the cold terror she held during Ingild's visit returned. Without stopping to dry her hands, she made her way to the door, opening it in trepidation.
Yet it was not Ingild or Oilell standing there, nor one of her neighbours come to question her about her strange guests. Hunith exclaimed warmly, relieved at the unexpected yet familiar face.
"Julius!"
Julius Borden smiled.
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It became apparent to him soon enough that Hunith had no idea where the piece of the Triskelion was, or even that it had ever been within her walls at all. He looked around her house discreetly while she occupied herself with chores, trying not to feel guilty when he noticed telltale little changes like a chair missing at the table.
How was he supposed to know that the dragonlord would have the bad luck to run into a border patrol while escaping Uther's men?
It wasn't his fault. It was the dragonlord's fault, for refusing to help and driving him to desperate measure. He only meant to separate the man from his attachments and rekindle his grudge against Uther, making him more susceptible to the temptation the tomb offered. His death hadn't been planned, it was a freak accident.
That's what Julius Borden told himself, anyways.
He'd gotten good at telling himself things to silence that little whispery voice in the back of his mind that sounded irritatingly like Gaius. That voice had been growing dimmer and dimmer during his months on the run, when he told himself more things over and over. It hardly bothered him now, as if it had grown tired by its fruitless efforts to change his mind.
Seeing Hunith, so guilelessly happy to see him without knowing what he had caused, had awoken the voice from its deep slumber.
He watched Hunith and her son - what was his name again, surely he had been told? - interacting innocently, the boy just as shy as the last time he'd visited. And he assured himself in a constant litany that it wasn't his fault, until he glimpsed something that captured his attention and drove the whispering voice from his mind entirely.
A pouch hung around the boy's neck, and - though he hadn't gotten a good look from the crack between the shutters - he thought it was the same size as the one the dragonlord had worn. He went through the snatches of hushed conversation he'd heard through the shutters, picked apart words he'd committed to memory. When I die the power of the dragonlords will pass to our son.
He waited until mother and son had gone to sleep, before stealing over to the smaller of the bedrolls. Gingerly, he lifted the pouch from the boy's neck, careful not to wake him as he did so. Even through the tough fabric, he could feel the hard swirl of the portion of the Triskelion within. A smile flittered across his face, and he looked back at the sleeping boy.
He hesitated for a moment, glancing over to where Hunith slept peacefully, never once doubting the good intentions of a man she remembered fondly as a boy scurrying in Gaius' footsteps, always eager to learn more. He looked back at the face of the little boy who inherited the power to control his pot of gold at the rainbow's end, and gave one mental apology to Hunith before carefully lifting him from his bed and carrying him away into the night.
It wasn't like he was going to do anything terrible to him. The boy would even benefit! He'd stand beside Julius as the handler of a great and terrible creature while the world fell at their feet. It was an existence much greater than what awaited him here in the squalor and ignobility of his backwater farming village. Once they stood at the top of the world, he'd bring Hunith to come live in riches with them. It wasn't as if he was separating mother and son forever.
That's what Julius told himself, anyways, when the voice that sounded far too close to Gaius' whispered he was kidnapping the son of one of his friends.
The weeks that followed were a nightmare.
When the boy awoke, no amount of reassurances or lies could settle him. No matter how many times he repeated that they were going on a quest and he could see his mother again once they'd found the treasure - not a complete lie, as he was careful not to mention when afterwards the boy could see Hunith - the boy refused to settle. He screamed for his mother and fought viciously in the only way a child his size could: kicking and biting and scratching. With angry red marks down his face and bleeding semi-circles on his arms, Julius at his wits end managed to hold the boy down long enough to force valerian down his throat.
Though he knew he couldn't drug the child the entire way, he waited until they were deep in the woods of Camelot before reviving him.
When the boy screamed and fought, Julius simply sat down on the ground and said,
"Then go on home." When the boy looked stunned by his sudden change of mind, he waved his hands as though shooing off a fly. "Go on."
The boy looked around the unfamiliar land in trepidation, glancing in every which direction. Finally, he seemed to decide on one at random, and set off with a determination that would be adorable if it wasn't so laughable.
Julius fingered the pouch that now hung around his neck, and waited until nightfall to follow the glowing golden trail of magic left in the boy's wake by a rune etched onto the sole of his shoe while he slept. The boy lay huddled against a tree, shivering in the cold night air. He jumped at the sound of Julius' approach, and then relaxed when Julius smiled at him and held out a loaf of bread.
"Hungry?" he asked, knowing the boy hadn't eaten in nearly two days.
Cautiously the child took the bread, nibbling at first then downing it with a speed that made Julius fear he would choke. Miserably, he said, "I wanna go home."
"I told you," Julius said indulgently, "once you help me find the treasure, I'll take you home."
The child curled up on himself, but his defensive posture was at odds with the venomous glare he gave Julius, "I don't like you. I wanna go home."
But the boy made no moves to get away from him, and for the following weeks trudged grudgingly after Julius day after day, insistently asking if they were almost there yet until he wanted to throttle the little brat.
It was nearly after a month of living in each other's constant company, dodging patrols through the forests of Camelot, the Julius found the next step on his question: Iseldir's camp of druids.
Stealing the second piece of the Triskelion was strangely easy, and he wondered about the wisdom of using pacifists as guardians. The druids seemed utterly unperturbed that he had stolen from them, spending most of their confrontation giving him cryptically useless advice about how it was a trap and not worth any man's life. He ran back to the clearing he'd left the dragonlord's son in unhindered by them in the slightest.
He shook the boy awake and - predictably - the boy's first question was, "Did you get it? Can I go home now?"
"Not yet," he said for what felt like the millionth time.
The boy trudged his feet wearily, used to the disappointing answer by now. Julius led them onwards towards the city, determined to reach it by the next day.
It was time to retrieve the final piece of the puzzle.
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A woman knelt shaking and white faced on the floor of the throne room, two guards flanking her on either side with hands clamped down on her shoulders. Above her on the dais sat the king, stone-faced as he proclaimed down to her,
"You, Myfanwy, are charged with aiding and abetting an enemy of the Crown, harbouring a sorcerer, abusing your position in the Royal Household, and theft of a dangerous magical item. How do you plead?"
Her dumpy face convulsed at each charge against her. Pleading with the air of one who knew she would not be listened to, she burst out, "I didn't know! I swear on my life, I didn't know! I had no idea what he was planning!"
She glanced around the audience chamber frantically, meeting the eyes of those attending her trial one by one. Some looked at her in disgust or condemnation, some looked away as if the sight of her was too painful to watch, but no one stepped forwards to help her.
"He told me he wanted to meet with me alone, for a night together, some place we wouldn't be disturbed! I thought... I thought..."
She couldn't say anything else, a shame-faced blush marring her face. She was not an attractive woman, even she would admit to that. Vivid remnants from a childhood pox marred every dumpy fold of her face. Her hair, the colour of used washwater, fell limp against her shoulders like the old yarns of a mop.
Why had she ever imagined there might be a man interest in her, she wondered miserably from her grovelling position on the king's floor. She didn't know what she had been thinking. That it was her one chance to find love? That even if they'd only just met, he was more attentive to her than anyone she'd ever known? That her heart beat quickly when he told her she had lovely eyes?
She'd been a fool, she told herself bitterly now. She'd always thought herself immune to men because of her looks, and she never imagined the day would come when she fell prey to a sweet talker like some love-stricken pretty young face. She hadn't stopped to think, and made the worst choice of her life.
"You stole the keys to the vaults and handed them over to a wanted criminal," the king's hard voice cut her down.
"He was supposed to meet me there," she said pathetically, looking at the stone beneath her so she didn't have to see the looks in their eyes as she admitted to her foolishness. "It was supposed to be romantic."
The words sounded even more foolish said aloud. What must they all think of her, deceived so by such poor excuses? She continued, without looking at any of them. "I didn't know who he was. I had no idea he was wanted for studying the black arts. I thought he was just new to the city. I didn't know he was planning to steal anything!"
"You are an accomplice," the king said flatly. "You have desecrated the trust placed in you as a servant in my castle and stolen the keys to my vaults. Because of your actions, a dangerous breed of monsters I have taken great labours to wipe from the face of this earth may surface again."
She felt like she was submerged in water, making the words an indistinct buzz, but when the guards pulled her to her feet and dragged her from the room she knew what her sentence had been all the same. The doors slammed behind her, and the king addressed the witnesses to the trial.
"Let this serve as a lesson to all against the deceptive cunning of sorcerers and their ilk. We must remain vigilant against their evils, lest they creep in among us in disguise. Ignorant acts of aid are just as detrimental to this kingdom as willful wrongdoing. You must all be on guard."
He looked over each of the gathered members of the court to impress his point. Gaius looked especially dour-faced, and Uther knew he did not approve of the woman's sentence. However, he could not show her mercy when her actions might yet mean the lives of many under his protection. This was harsh, but necessary. If he reduced the sentence for her, then everyone would claim ignorance when brought before him. And regardless of what she thought she was doing, she had willingly abused her position to steal the keys.
He would not think on her anymore. She had sown her crop, so she must reap it.
"Thankfully, not all misguided aid causes permanent damage. For even now, I have men out hunting for this Julius Borden. I assure you all; he will be brought to justice.
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As he watched Borden carefully place the metal swirls into a stone circle on the wall with more swirls, Merlin just wanted it to be over with already.
"The Double Triskelion," Borden said casually as he began to turn the circle. "It's the symbol of your kind."
It wasn't the first time he'd made references to Merlin's "kind," but when Merlin asked the explanation had been long, boring, and involved a lot of names he didn't know and things he didn't understand. He didn't ask again.
The door opened outwards, and Merlin had to back up a few steps to avoid being hit. Smoke billowed down from above and he took a few steps further back, covering his face to try and get away from the nasty smell.
The smoke billowed out after him, and he ran.
Only once he was away from the smoky room, down the long stone halls that he'd come up with Borden, did Merlin stop running. And when he did, he remembered there was nowhere to run to.
The last time he'd run, he hadn't found his mother. All he'd done was run and run, and walk when he couldn't run any further, until it was dark and he was hungry and scared. He'd tried leaving a couple more times, whenever the lonely ache in his heart was too hard to bear, but he'd barely leave Borden's view before he remembered that he didn't know how to get home.
But Borden said he'd take him back home, to see his mother, after they got the treasure from the top of this tower.
So Merlin turned around and climbed the stairs again, panting as he covered his face with the neck of his tunic. The halls smelt of ask and rot now, but when he reached the doorway he'd run form before he could see clearly. The smoke was disappearing.
Merlin climbed over to where Borden lay slumped against the doorframe, and tried to shake him awake. After a moment of shaking, he hit him in the face. He still didn't wake. Merlin peeled back his eyelids, jumped on him, pushed him down the stairs, and yelled loudly in his ears, but Borden still slept.
Tears trickled down Merlin's face. It wasn't fair! He'd waited and waited for Borden to get the little swirly pieces of metal, being cold and hungry and missing his mother, and now when they were finally at the tower with the treasure in it, Borden fell asleep. If he slept, who was going to take Merlin home?
Why wasn't he waking up? What if he never woke up?
Maybe he just didn't want to wake up, Merlin thought hopefully. Sometimes Merlin wanted to go back to his happy dreams, when he opened his eyes and saw Borden's face instead of his mother's and knew he'd spend another day, all day, walking behind him wondering if they would ever find the stupid treasure.
But Merlin got up anyways, because if he didn't he knew he'd never find the treasure and if he never found the treasure then he'd never go home.
He bit his lip and tried to think of what would make Borden happy enough to want to wake up. The answer was easy: the treasure. The treasure at the top of this tower was all the Borden ever talked about, and his eyes went wide and crazy-scary looking when he did. If Merlin brought him the treasure, then Borden would want to wake up, he concluded happily, pleased with himself for coming up with an answer so easily.
And since Merlin would have already gotten the treasure, they could go home right away!
Merlin looked up the dark hallway, and grabbed Border's torch. It was heavy and his fingers weren't big enough to close around it, so he clutched it against his chest with both his hands, careful to keep the fire away from him.
He took a step forwards, expecting something awful to jump out at him. Maybe more smoke, maybe evil monsters hiding in the dark corners of the hallways, or maybe men in red lying in wait for him. When nothing happened, Merlin felt silly and kept walking.
The stairs going up to the top of the tower felt like they went on forever, and he had to stop several times. His hands were sweaty where they held the torch, but the thought of walking up and up the stairs in pitch black had him wipe them on his breeches and pick up the torch again each time he went on.
Finally, Merlin saw a light above him, and the stairs ended in a large, beautiful room with a giant egg on a pillar in the middle. Merlin's breath caught at the sight.
When Borden told him the treasure was an egg, he first thought that Borden was being silly, and when he realized that Borden was being serious decided that he wasn't being silly, he was silly. Merlin liked eggs, but he didn't see why anybody would go through all this trouble just to have a nice supper. When Merlin excitedly told him that his mother had chickens and if he took him home he could have tons and tons of eggs, Borden had just laughed.
Several times when Borden was occupied with something, Merlin searched out a bird's nest and endured the mother bird's angry pecking to bring Borden back a variety of little speckled eggs, but Borden always said they weren't good enough. He didn't want robin's eggs or blue jay's eggs, he laughed, he wanted a dragon's egg. Merlin thought it was a stupid thing to get hung up on; what did it matter what type of egg you ate? And as Borden ate the bird eggs anyways, Merlin thought it was unfair he couldn't go home even though his face bled with peck marks to get them.
The egg on the pillar wasn't like any egg Merlin had ever seen before, and he thought that if there was any egg that deserved to be a treasure, it was that one.
It was huge, bigger than Merlin's head. It was also a smooth white as pure as snow, and shaped like a teardrop. Merlin wondered if that meant the egg was sad. It was all alone with no other eggs around it, it wasn't even in a nest with a mother dragon sitting on it to keep it warm.
"Where's your Mummy?" Merlin asked the egg, which of course didn't answer because that would be silly. Eggs don't talk.
He suddenly didn't want to give the egg to Borden. He wanted to go find the mother dragon and give her her egg back. Why had someone taken the egg away from her anyways?
He bet it was a stupid, selfish man like Borden who was only thinking about something stupid and selfish like his supper without caring that the egg might not have wanted to be taken away, that it didn't care about riches or greatness or the other things the stupid man talked on and on about. Maybe the egg just wanted to go home too.
But Merlin also wanted to go home, and he could only go home if he gave Borden the egg.
It sat there, shining in the light of the top of the tower unable to defend itself if Merlin should decide to hand it over to be fried for stupid Borden's stupid supper. He felt bad just thinking about it.
A hazy idea came to Merlin as he worried over whether giving Borden the egg was a bad thing to do. Borden would need a very big frying pan to cook the egg in, so he couldn't eat it right away. Merlin would tell him that his mother had a very big frying pan, and that she would be happy to fry it up for him. Then, once Borden took Merlin home, he'd tell his mother he didn't want Borden to eat the egg and she'd fry up chicken eggs instead when he wasn't looking.
Merlin was pleased with himself for coming up with such a good plan. He'd get home, the egg wouldn't be eaten, and Borden would have his stupid egg supper, and if he didn't like it because it wasn't a dragon's egg it would serve him right for dragging Merlin all over the place to get it!
All his worries gone, Merlin walked up to the egg and reached up to take it, only to be stopped by the most unexpected obstacle: he was too little to reach the top of the pillar.
Of all the things to stop him from finishing this silly quest!
He tried to use his magic to lift it, but the egg stayed stuck where it was. Merlin blinked in surprise – he'd never not been able to lift anything he wanted to before – and tried harder to no avail. Merlin wondered if someone had glued the egg to the pillar, because that was what it felt like. It was a weird feeling, like he was playing a game of tug-a-war with someone much bigger than him, and he gave up, stumbling back a few steps panting.
Well, if he couldn't reach the egg the normal ways, Merlin thought determinedly, then he'd just have to climb the pillar itself. After awkward heaving and scrambling of limbs, Merlin pulled himself up so that his elbows rested at the top. Face to face with the egg, he grinned triumphantly and grabbed it, falling on his back to the floor with the egg held tight against his chest.
His moment of elation was quickly interpreted by ominous creaks and groans all around him, and to Merlin's horror the floor crumbled away beneath him, and he was falling.
Terrified, he shut is eyes and hugged tight to the egg, curling up in a ball.
When he finally dared open his eyes again, he was surrounded by a glowing white light radiating from the egg, and was hovering a few feet off the ground. Though beneath him the stone foundation stood, in a circle spreading out from him was rummage where before there had been the tower. The sun shone down on the wreckage, not a wall left standing. Merlin stretched out his toe, and slowly he fell to the ground. The light from the egg dimmed when he was firmly on his feet.
Staring around at the waste, a horrible thought occurred to him: how was he ever supposed to find Borden in all this?
"Stop! Don't move, you're under arrest!" a man's voice said from behind him. Something smooth and cold rested against Merlin's check, and if he made his eyes go funny he could see it was thin and silver-coloured.
Rough hands grabbed him and spun him around – rather rude, thought Merlin, he would have turned if they had told him to so why did they say not to move and then move him? – so that he was looking up into the face of a dirty blond man dressed in a red cloak ringed by more men in red.
Merlin's eyes went wide as saucers, and he was keenly aware of the fact that he was standing in the open with nowhere nearby to hide.
The first man in red took the egg from him, handing it off to another man in red nearby who threw it carelessly into a bag. Then a different man in red pulled out a rope, and stepped forwards to bind Merlin's hands.
Panicking, Merlin tripped the man approaching him with his mind. Fearful murmurs broke out among the men in red, and the man nearest him raised his hand and brought it crashing down behind Merlin's head. His skull hurt, and he thought he might have bitten his tongue because he could taste blood.
Everything went black.
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Merlin was bored.
He was also scared, and cold, and his head hurt, and he wished there was somebody with him so he could ask where he was and how he'd gotten there, but above all he was bored.
He'd woken up in a stone room with a tiny crack letting sunlight in far above his head. The room was bare except for a pile of straw in one corner, and one of the walls was made out of long thin pieces of metal with big gaps in between them. The door was on that wall, but when Merlin tried to open it it wouldn't open, even when he'd tried to use magic on it.
He'd tried yelling, but the echo of his voice on stone was his only answer. He was completely alone, and there was nothing to distract him from that awful fact. He sat glumly on the pile of straw, watching the small patch of sunlight slowly make its way across the cell floor as the day went on.
When he heard echoing footsteps in the distance he jumped to his feet and raced towards the hole-filled wall, pressing against the metal so hard he was sure little rectangles were being carved into his cheeks.
"HELLO!" he hollered hopefully, "HELLO! I'M STUCK HERE! IS ANYONE THERE?"
The footsteps were getting closer and closer, and then suddenly stopped. Merlin craned his head, but he couldn't see anything except the empty corridor out the stone room. He heard an old man's voice say,
"Food for the prisoner."
Two sets of footsteps approached, bringing an old man and man in red into his view. Merlin immediately withdrew from the metal wall as though burned by it, backing away from the man in red warily. His heart beat fast in his chest, and he wished desperately for somewhere to hide.
The man in red fiddled with something, and the door came open. The man in red stayed on the outside, and the old man walked into the room. He smiled at Merlin, but it looked a little forced.
"Hello, I've brought you supper."
Merlin didn't say anything. Even if the old man wasn't wearing red, he came in with a man in red. Merlin couldn't trust him.
The old man put down the tray on the floor, and turned to go. Merlin's insides felt all jumbly-wumbly: he wanted the man in red and his friend to go away, but he also wanted someone to tell him where he was and take him to Borden, who would take him to his mother.
The old man paused outside the door, and pulled a small vial out of his pocket. "There's been reports of a rare strain of mildew growing down here that is harmless in small amounts, but can be lethal for people constantly exposed to it." The man in red looked alarmed, and the old man held out the vial to him. "This is an antidote, drink it and you should be fine."
The man took the vial and downed it in one gulp, grimacing as he handed the now empty container back to the old man. "Thanks, Gaius."
The old man walked away, and the man in red fiddled with little pieces of metal at the door again before going too. After his footsteps had faded, Merlin warily approached the metal wall again, tugging at the door. Once again, it didn't open.
The man in red could open it, though, with those little pieces of metal. Merlin closed his eyes, and willed the jingly things to come to him.
It was much harder than he thought it would be, almost as bad as when he tried to lift the dragon egg. Merlin's face scrunched up in concentration, and he pulled with all his strength. Like his opponent's hands got sticky and he couldn't hold on anymore, he felt the metal bits give all of a sudden. A metallic clang echoed right in front of him, and Merlin opened his eyes to see the ring of metal bits had crashed into one of the bars.
It took him a while of fiddling to work out how the man in red had gotten the door open, but at last something went click and then the door went creeeeeeeak and Merlin was free. Looking both ways down the long hallway and seeing no one, he pressed himself against the stone wall and tiptoed sideways down the way the two men from earlier had come from.
When he got to the corner he peeked around, and to his surprise he found the man in red from earlier slumped at a table, snoring with a glass tumbled over in front of him as if he'd been drinking water and suddenly fell asleep. There was a staircase just passed him, and Merlin tiptoed cautiously towards it, keeping an eye on the sleeping man in red the whole time. Once he was at the foot of the stairs, Merlin gave up on stealth and started to run.
After a while, Merlin had to admit to himself that he had no idea where he was going. It was like the mazes of old shawls his parents used to make for him, but this was harder because he couldn't look at the pattern from above to plan ahead. He climbed stairs, turned corners, and walked and walked but never seemed to get anywhere.
He was hopelessly lost.
If he kept walking, he'd just get more lost. But if he stopped walking, then he'd never get unlost. And all the while, there were men in red everywhere he had to keep ducking behind corners and doubling back to avoid.
Suddenly, loud clanging bells started ringing, and Merlin heard shouts and footsteps coming from both ends of the hallway he was in. Panicking, he glanced around for somewhere to hide. The only place was a hole-filled metal door with a staircase going down behind it. Merlin pulled on the door, but it wouldn't open. Panicking, he pulled on it with his mind and he heard something click. With a creak that was too loud for Merlin's liking, the door opened. Merlin lost no time in slipping past it, shutting it behind him, and racing down the stairs.
The stairs felt like they went on and on forever, deeper and deeper underground. There was no light, everything was pitch black, and Merlin had to keep his arm on the wall to avoid falling to what would probably be his death. He wondered if it was a stairway that went down into the centre of the earth, and why anyone had built it to go so far down. He couldn't even hear the clanging of the bells anymore.
After what seemed like forever, when he put his foot down it was met with ground at the same level of his other foot. Taking a few more steps, it became clear he'd hit the end of the stairway. There was a pale light ahead, and Merlin ran forwards eagerly.
The hall opened into a massive cave which seemed more than just a cave. Merlin couldn't see any way for light to get in, but the entire thing shone with just enough light to let him see. Great pillars of rough cave wall rose like colonnades to support the massive open structure, arching in places to create great rocky halls that stretched further than Merlin could see. Even though the rough rock spoke of natural formation, the sheer size and beauty of the cave made Merlin feel that it could not have arisen unless someone had designed it.
Everything in the cave, from the soft glow to the misty air, buzzed with magic. It felt like the stone itself was alive.
The path in front of Merlin fell into a sheer cliff, falling so far he could not see the bottom. Like an island, a single pillar of rock rose twenty feet or so ahead of him, forming a great platform that was unreachable. On that platform gleamed a pure white teardrop shape with the pale white gleam of moonlight, even though there was no moon.
Merlin was delighted and confused: how had the egg gotten there?
Tentatively he gave a mental tug to the egg, and it flew right into his arms without the least resistance. Merlin sat down, exhausted by all the running and walking he'd done that day, and ran his hands over the egg admiringly.
It was the smoothest, prettiest, whitest thing he'd ever seen.
He felt better now that he had the egg, even though he was still lost and hungry and wanted to go home. But the egg radiated warmth like he was cuddled up against another person, and any kind of company was comforting, even if it was just an egg.
He pressed his cheek against the smooth white surface, and closed his eyes. BA-thump BA-thump BA-thump, beat the egg's heart, a slow soothing rhythm of life. Merlin sat like that, hugging the egg and listening to its heartbeat, and slowly his mind became hazy. It was like when he was sleepy, but instead of the world getting indistinct it was becoming clearer.
Inside the egg was not runny white and yellow yoke, like in a chicken's egg, but a fully formed baby dragon waiting to hatch. It was curled up snuggly within the shell, squished in its deep slumber. It was dreaming of things it had not yet experienced: open night skies with the stars shining down on its leathery white wings, the feel of dew in the morning grass, and the smell of salty ocean air. It dreamed and dreamed, without knowing anything of the world around it, waiting for the day it would be called into consciousness at last.
He felt the little dragon's sleeping mind more clearly with each passing moment his head lay against the egg, until he knew it as well as his own.
"Aithusa," he called softly, the name in his mind as naturally as if he had always known it.
The smooth shell beneath his cheek cracked.
* ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ * . * ~ *
"You've found him?" the mug of a soothing herbal infusion that Gaius called tea after a rumoured medicinal drink from the East nearly slipped from Hunith's numb fingers. She remembered it at the last second, and hurriedly placed it on Gaius' table to avoid a spill. "Where is he?"
Gaius seemed strangely reluctant to speak, "I found him wandering around the Cavern of Uhelgoad while I went to check on the egg."
His hesitant manner gave Hunith a dreadful suspicion. "Is he hurt?"
"No," Gaius was quick to assure her. "No, he's fine. Hungry and dehyrdated, of course, as he hasn't had anything since he escaped two days ago, but otherwise he's fine. There's been a… complication though."
Of course there had, Hunith thought bitterly. Why should things go smoothly just for once, when these last few months had been pure hell?
She'd looked for Merlin for a three days before she first set out for Camelot. Julius had been Gaius' pupil, and though the link was tenacious it was possible that he would know more. He hadn't, he'd known even less than her in fact, as he didn't even know that Julius had been looking for a dragon's egg. Once she told him they'd pored over his many books to no avail.
Finally, after two weeks of fruitlessly looking for answers she returned to Ealdor, hoping that Julius would return with her son once he had finished his damned quest. Gaius' promise to send word to her immediately if he learned anything new was fulfilled a week ago, when a messenger handed her a note saying that the vaults of Camelot had been broken into.
By the time Hunith arrived in the city, Merlin was being held prisoner. The two of them quickly devised a simple plan to ferret Merlin out of the dungeons. To her horror, to even that had gone wrong; after Gaius slipped the guard the sleeping draught, a guard coming off duty hailed him and started telling him his medical complaints. He followed Gaius all the way back to his chambers to get the cure for his woes, and by the time Gaius was able to sneak back into the dungeons he arrived to find the cell door open and empty. They could only conclude that Merlin had somehow used magic to escape, despite Gaius' incredulous disbelief that a child could bypass some kind of anti-magic spell that was on the dungeons.
They had searched the castle from top to bottom, but they could find neither hide nor hair of her child. The only comfort about the situation was that Merlin somehow miraculously managed to evade Uther's men as well.
"The dragon egg has hatched."
Hunith brought a hand to her head, kneading her temples with her thumbs. Why couldn't anything be simple, for once? Selfishly, she wished Gaius had just "properly disposed" of the egg as he told Uther he had.
What were the chances that Merlin would agree to set the baby animal free into the wild? What were the chances of it surviving if she did, with all manner of natural predators as well as human to contend with?
What the hell was she supposed to do with a baby dragon?
Balinor's words about his kin echoed in her mind like snatches of poetry, and she knew to abandon it would be akin to betraying him. But how could she take care of it? She didn't even know what dragons ate, and her neighbours would never accept that her son's new pet was a giant fire-breathing creature of magic!
Where was she supposed to hide a dragon?
"I don't suppose you want to take care of it?" she joked with a sigh. She shoved the matter to the back of her mind; what was truly important was that Merlin was found. Abruptly, she pushed herself up off the table. "Could you take me to this cavern? I'd like to see my son."
She gathered the little supplies she had brought with her from Ealdor and food enough for two for the journey home. Gaius waited patiently while she did so, and then led her into the depths of the castle down a long flight of stairs to a vast cavern that even Hunith could tell was humming with magic.
At the mouth of the cavern sat Merlin, petting a hen-sized winged lizard curled up in his lap like a contented cat. He jumped up, startling the dragon which trilled its confusion and flapped its leathery wings clumsily to regain its balance.
Merlin shot forwards, flinging his arms around her waist. "Mother!"
Hunith sunk to her knees, wrapping her arms around Merlin and reveling in the bliss that was just having him with her. He'd grown taller since she'd last seen him.
A questioning trill came beside them, and Hunith looked over to see the dragon standing there, head cocked to one side as it blinked up at her curiously. Merlin drew back, and said in lisp-free words that pained her anew as she was reminded of the months of his life she had missed, "Mother, this is Aithusa. Aithusa, this is my mother. I told you about her, remember?"
The dragon made a series of happy little clicks as though in answer.
"Aithusa says nice to meet you," Merlin interpreted solemnly, and Hunith had no idea whether that was actually something he knew or just the result of a child's imagination.
Either way, she parroted back solemnly, "Likewise."
Two sets of big, imploring blue eyes stared up at her. "Can Aithusa come home with us?"
It would have taken a cold-heartedness that she didn't possess to refuse those looks. Hunith steeled herself for difficulties to come, and told herself the route back to Ealdor was long. She would think of something on the way, because she had to and when there were things she had to do she would find a way to do them, somehow.
Bracing herself for many trials to come about because of the mad decision she was about to make, Hunith nodded. The delighted look in Merlin's eyes was worth every last stress mark this would add to her face.
"This cavern has another exit that comes out in the Darkling Wood," Gaius interjected, apparently feeling that he had given them sufficient time for their family reunion. "I'll lead you there."
Hunith said sincerely, "Thank you, for everything."
As the king's trusted adviser of all things magical, he was privy to information a foreign peasant woman would never otherwise hear, could go places she would not be permitted to such as the dungeons, and his word on certain matters – such as the destruction of the dragon's egg – held unquestioned authority. She could not have done this without his help.
Gaius looked uncomfortable with her gratitude, and beckoned her towards a long, winding stair in the cliff face that she hadn't noticed. "We'd best set off now, the route is a long one."
Hunith picked up Merlin. She did not spend months and months anxiously wondering if she would ever see him again only to have his clumsiness make him trip on a loose stone and plummet to his death just after their reunion. Aithusa fluttered onto Merlin's shoulders, wrapping around him like an oversized scarf.
"Let's go home."
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* I wasn't sure I could get into the head of a four-year-old, but it was surprisingly easy. I'm not sure I want to know what that says about me.
* The trap in Ashkanar's tomb was a stupid one. He goes to all that trouble to hide the egg, then has the building come crashing down around it so that it smashes into a million pieces? So I'm saying there's some kind of fail-safe on the egg itself so that it would be unharmed by a crumbling building and that holding onto the egg saved Merlin's life. A stupid thing for Ashkanar have overlooked, perhaps, but then his entire trap wasn't very well thought out. Why make a key at all if you're going to set a trap that will come crashing down on anyone who tries to take it, with no Anhora-eqsue moral tests or anything to distinguish between someone like Merlin and someone like Borden? Just the building, smashing down on whoever takes the egg, and even that didn't work on Merlin! I think his wisdom must have been in moral matters, not trap planning.
**/