Chapter 10. "Good night, sir Gawaine."

What a good day that was. The one when I've met Nin. He's a nice fellow and helped me when he didn't have to. And eventually "he" turned out to be "her". And rather beautiful "her".

She told me the whole story and I stopped considering her being a threat for the Kingdom. Yes, yes, earlier I thought she did that entire masquerade thing to get into the Camelot and do some witchy stuff. Now, when Uther is no longer a fearsome king of Camelot, something is going to change. I mean, Arthur is more tolerant to people. This place is never going to be the same again.

Well, until they let me visit taverns for the expense of new King I'll stay and keep the place safe.

I left Nin's room and immediately bumped into Lancelot. He was deep in his thoughts. When he realized whose room I'd just left he rolled his eyes.

"Seriously? How long do you know her? Wait, that's none of my business."

"Hey, we've been through a lot together, and that makes people closer, you know?" I joked and snapped his shoulder. "What's bothering you?"

Lancelot shook his head.

"I'm thinking about what Arthur said at the meeting. About those artifacts that can be helpful for us." We moved on and soon entered the half lit dining hall. "I doubt that it's safe to bring them here. I don't want to sound paranoid but after all that story with Morgausa and Morgana…after all we've been through… is it safe to use the weapon of our enemy to protect ourselves?"

We watched servants cleaning the hall. I understood why Lancelot was so worried. He suffered a lot from the deeds of the witches. And now, Arthur offered us to use the magical artifacts to protect our land. It was a weird suggestion from the man whose father destroyed everything magical. Arthur had read about the artifacts in one of the books hidden in his father's library. I had no idea why would Uther keep this kind of book. Anyway, now we were supposed to collect the magical thing and bring them to Camelot.

"Lancelot, man, I get what you mean. I'm not happy about this entire search for artifacts either. But Arthur, and what is important – Merlin, believe that it will bring us some good. Besides, magic is not always evil."

For example I know one cute witch that saved my life couple of times…

"Hope you're right. So, tomorrow you're going to start the search again? I've heard the last place you checked was empty." Lancelot looked at me, still not convinced with my words.

Merlin is the only one who can convince him…he or Gwen.

It was late and I had a long and difficult day ahead so I decided to reunite with mi bed as soon as possible. All the thoughts about Nin, artifacts, Lancelot and taverns had to wait. I fell asleep the second my head touched the pillow.

The fog was so thick that I could almost cut it with a knife. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I've heard muffled voices of Percival and Lancelot. They were standing back to back with me. Fog surrounded us. We froze. I couldn't see or hear much.

'T was a bad idea…'

'Told ya…'

'Quiet… I've heard something! '

There was another muffled sound besides our voices. I couldn't hear it properly. A whisper of the wind? But there was no wind. At all. The place was completely still. Suddenly, the fog around us started freezing. I couldn't explain it but the temperature went down, I could see my breath freezing.

'What a hell is going on?..'

'It's getting transparent!.. I can see my legs now…'

I looked down and noticed that fog is not so thick anymore. I could see my legs, ground and grass covered with ice.

'We gotta move… I can see the way now…'

I followed Lancelot while the fog got more and more transparent. Soon we saw silhouettes of big stones standing in front of us. I prepared to face the enemy, if any were hiding there. A shady figure came from behind of a stone.

'Gawaine, thanks Goddess… are you…'

She was interrupted by a whistling sound and a felt a movement behind my back. I turned around. Percival wasn't there.

'GET INSIDE!' she yelled. I pushed Lancelot behind the stone and felt something cold covering my back and legs. Another sharp movement and I fell on the ground. All I could hear was her fading call.

'Gawaine!'

"Gawaine!"

I jumped slightly, rolled over and fell from my bed. Next second I was on my feet shaking violently. Merlin stood beside me with a concerned look on his face. I slowly realized that I was back in my room, sun was shining through the window, it was warm and safe.

"I have no idea what you dreamt about, but our nuisance of a King wishes to talk to you right now about the new destination of the search."

"Damn it, Merlin… that was..weird."

"When I came in you were barely breathing. And your skin was ice cold. Do you want to tell me what was that? What did you dream about?"

"Don't think so. Tis just a nightmare. So, where is my breakfast?"

"I hope this time we will be lucky. The artifact is hidden in the abandoned temple not far from this small village in the North of the forest. You have two days to get there, find the artifact and come back. If you're not back we'll send help."

Arthur gave me instructions and showed a drawing of an artifact I was looking for. It was a plate or something like that made of metal or stone. The drawing was old and not actually good. Couldn't they choose a better artist to do it?

"And, to make sure that you won't end up in another tavern instead of doing the job, Lancelot and Percival will go with you this time."

"Arthur, come on… Am I getting this predictable?" I laughed.

"Don't worry Gawaine. We've got your back covered," Lancelot smiled but I could see his look still being serious.

We've got your back covered… is it like in standing- back- to- back- surrounded- by- mysterious- and- dangerous- fog way? Hope it was not a prophetic dream…

Hi, guys!

What's up?

Sorry for the long wait, but here's new chapter, as I promised it's from Gawaine's point of view. Hope you'll enjoy it!

Thank you for all the alerts and favs!

Peace!