Chapter 25: Smoke and Flood
Merlin was beyond furious. And aware that his strength was drained, magic and body. He was shaking and empty, but his temper blazed hotter and higher than the witches' fire. Protecting them – and only them – from the serkets attracted to the day's doings.
And they didn't even have the decency to help him with the poisonous creatures, before having a fit at each other.
One hand full of Gwaine's collar and chainmail, and Arthur in the corner of his eye – protected by the tree and he could climb it if he was quick and it was necessary – Merlin stalked through the cume hay fyrbryne to confront the two women.
Neither of whom, in his opinion, had any right to be here – not within Camelot's borders, since they'd declared themselves enemies and were therefore trespassing – and not in the mearcdenu since both of them used dark and selfish magic. The Beast was home and the last of the Knights was pinned to a tree and that was him and Arthur, he reckoned, cleaning up their mess.
"Hey, witches!" he growled rudely – and was darkly glad to startle them out of their argument, heated as the fires around them. Nimueh had thrown a few handfuls of the stuff before setting up the unbreachable circle, and a couple of the serkets had caught the flames and spread them still further in throes of agony and expiration.
He didn't slow. Releasing Gwaine inside the fire-protected circle, he grabbed each woman by a rough handful of sleeve – Nimueh's feminine lavender-hued cloak, and the other's black-and-chainmail – and marched them right through the other side of the flame barrier. Ignoring the heat and crackle himself; it was his most familiar element, after all.
They stumbled along with his grip, too startled to react.
"We're tired of fighting these monsters while you two bicker like children," he rasped. "I'm opening the portal. Make yourselves useful."
He released them with a shove, retreating back inside their circle to see that both turned away from the other, forced to use spell-work and attention to defend themselves from the serkets' eagerness to attack anything that moved. He turned back to Gwaine, who was patting at smoking sleeves and trousers-legs.
"It was hot – and then it wasn't," the mercenary blurted, incredulously.
"Keep your eye on Arthur," Merlin ordered him. His throat was raw, dry and hot and smoke scraped through with every breath, every particle of ash.
Gwaine gave him a determined nod, and Merlin allowed himself to collapse to sitting inside the circle of fire, shielded from the serkets. He spared a glance for Arthur, who'd swung himself up into the branches of the tree below which the massive scorpion-like creatures battled each other – drawn by the magic and maddened by the fire.
Merlin hunched over his knees, wrapping his fingers around the necklace as if that would help him convince himself, it was only an enchantment, it wasn't real. His knuckles had split open at some point, and blood slipped over the pulse point in his neck.
"Tha rumas wuldorgesteald those thara acendlicnessa… Gebolstrod be tha fifmaegen tha heofoncandela…" His voice was little more than a croak of noise. "Gadertang aet unmaete epel… Agensendan thaere aweosunge faederedel…"
The golden swirls faded to white crackles around the edges of his vision, like frozen lightning. He couldn't lift his arm to fit his fingers into the key and turn it, but the symbols swirled anyway, and his whole being formed the focus for the serkets' realm – a strange sideways teardrop with a little sharp star at the end, maybe to represent the tail and the poison.
Power rushed through him from somewhere else. He felt transparent – a mist, a shroud – as if no one could hear him or see him and his friends might look right past him in searching for where he'd gone.
The portal flashed, and flashed again, each time a serket crossed the threshold. How many? Evidently they'd been reproducing since the first ones had entered this world – and he lost count. Flash, flash, flash-flash-flash…
Would it stay open if he lost consciousness? He wasn't breathing; he hadn't been breathing for a while. The lightning-bright passage of each creature appeared smaller and dimmer every time, interrupting the encroaching blackness around his vision. Fire and air roared in his ears and-
And nothing moved, and Gwaine's hands cradled him, tucking the back of his head into the crook of an elbow. The flaming circle extinguished itself with a twist. Silence rained down around him like drops on a wet painting, smearing him down to absorb into the earth streak by streak.
He heard his friend speaking, comfort and nonsense, and sank gratefully through the ground and into oblivion.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Arthur's heart caught in his throat to see yet another trio of golden spirals shimmer into the eddying haze of a portal.
His view from his perch in the tree – bark rough under his fingers, air scalding his throat and lungs with each breath he sucked in - was partially blocked. Merlin had dragged Gwaine into the fire where the sorceresses argued, disappearing into foliage and smoke from Arthur's perspective.
But then the portal appeared – and the serkets alerted to it.
Approached, and began vanishing through it. Some scuttled eagerly for the portal, flashing into another existence like moths reaching a great flame, some seemed to struggle against unseen forces driving them back to it – and some seemed to cross entirely oblivious, clicking and clacking aggressively at each other. The three beneath Arthur's tree skittered away, and disappeared into blind spots flickering in Arthur's vision.
He blinked down at the silver line of his sword, dropped and abandoned in the bracken as useless against the creatures anyway, and only slowing him down in his climb to safety. Ducking and squinting, he decided that the immediate area was clear, and – flash, flash-flash – fewer serkets left every moment.
But Nimueh's motives were obscure at best, and considering the expression on Morgause's face when he twisted in surprise to find her striking at his back with no warning, silent and lethal, he trusted her not at all with Gwaine or Merlin in a vulnerable position – and after the fourth portal, he knew Merlin would be vulnerable.
He slid down, jumped the last length to the ground, stumbling sideways even as his fingers closed around the hilt of the sword.
The crackling of multiple fires about the clearing blended with the noise of the last few serkets disappearing through the portal. He straightened with his hand on the trunk of the tree; his sword felt twice its weight and he hefted it to his shoulder for ease of movement without betraying weakness or exhaustion.
He stalked toward Gwaine, still visible above the ring of fire, close enough to watch the mercenary kneel and catch Merlin's boneless collapse to a prone sprawl in the dirt. Gwaine supported him gently, and his mouth was moving to speak to the younger man, though Arthur couldn't hear what he was saying.
"Is he all right?" he raised his own to ask.
Gwaine lifted his head and met Arthur's eyes to nod, releasing Merlin's black-tousled head to loll in the dust, bracing to push himself to his feet again. He looked as grim and weary as Arthur felt.
He skirted the ring of fire to see that the portal had vanished, but the two women – sorceresses both; it made sense that Morgause had magic, it explained the reason for her unorthodox challenge a year and a half ago – stood arguing yet again in the clearing before the valley plunging down between the statues of the two kings.
"Was that really an appropriate spell to use?" Nimueh was asking the younger woman coolly, shaking out wrinkles from her lavender-gray cloak. "One would think you'd never had proper training."
Morgause's whole body seemed sharp, somehow – dark eyes glaring daggers and ringlets like shaved steel, down to the sword she propped negligently point-down in the dirt. "I thank the goddess you were never my teacher," she spat back. "For-bearn a-quell-y? Really? Might as well set the whole forest on fire. But then, you always were criminally careless with your magic, and abysmally naïve-"
"You have no right to judge me!" Nimueh's voice rose a single degree toward strident.
And Arthur decided he'd had enough.
"Ladies," he said firmly, raising his voice again, and successfully catching their attention. "I thank you for your aid in ridding Camelot of these dangerous creatures, but now that our task is done I have a mind to retire from the field for the day."
He took a deep breath, and likely his life in his hands – though Nimueh at least seemed to have discarded the desire to kill him – and eyed them warily.
"Neither of you is officially welcome in Camelot, a fact which I'm willing to overlook today. Tomorrow, however…" It occurred to him to issue some sort of truce-invitation to bring their grievances to him publicly, to be heard and maybe negotiate, if they'd swear to temporary peace with their magic – and then hope they kept to it, though that was as likely as him succeeding in driving them off if they were determined not to go. He didn't get to weigh the decision or speak to suggest it, however.
"That's lovely," Nimueh said to him, temper still high – but ice, compared to Morgause's fire. "Not officially welcome in a place I helped build, though I daresay I wouldn't recognize it anymore-"
Conversely, Morgause gave him a rather nasty smile. "I wasn't welcome the first time, was I? Your father would have killed me as a child, would have thrown me out if he'd known I was a woman before you accepted my challenge…" She raised her blade, beginning to prowl toward him. "Maybe we should pit our skills against one another, again."
He adjusted his grip on his hilt, blade still resting on the shoulder of his chainmail, but didn't move into a more defensive stance. Her appearance was a surprise he hadn't had time to assess, but her two companions – Knights of Medhir, and where was the third of those left after the battle? – revealed much.
"You came with honor to challenge us, last year," he said slowly. "But now – you would raise these Knights, and… ally with Cenred. To come against us with armies and sorcery."
"Cenred," Nimueh sneered, "and swords. And necromancy." She gestured at the Knight waiting inhumanly patient not far from them, pinned to the trunk of a tree by a lucky spear-cast, undead and undying.
"You've done it before." Morgause shot a venomous glance at her, pausing in stalking toward Arthur. "I meant to lure you from Camelot last year," she said, facing him though her eyes remained on the other sorceress. "I meant to tell you exactly what she'd done – what your father had done to your mother. And send you home in a fit of temper like the spoiled princeling you are."
He began to glimpse her driving motivation – she'd been associated with magic at a young age, but she wasn't that much older than he was. Still a child when his grieving father had declared her whole life evil and illegal and deserving only of termination. Loss of childhood and probably much more.
"However." Morgause tossed her head, lips curving cruelly. "I'm not displeased with my contingency plan."
"Contingency?" Arthur said incredulously. "You lost the battle – Cenred retreated, the Knights aren't even a challenge, so long as I've a blade blessed by Merlin's sense of right and wrong."
She sneered, then asked slyly, "How is your father these days?"
Arthur straightened instantly, inhaling through widened nostrils like she'd physically struck him. He had forgotten there was other magic used in that battle – before that battle. Nimueh looked interested, and he resisted the flush of humiliation to have the weakness of his father and his king revealed to enemies and strangers.
"You see, I have you here now," Morgause continued. "And your pet Caerleon in no shape to defend you."
Nimueh made a scornful noise, seating herself with dignity upon a fallen tree. "It is not your destiny to kill Arthur."
"Is it your destiny to put out the fires you've started?" Morgause snarled at her, irritated with her interruption or her presence or both.
Nimueh twitched her shoulders carelessly, looking about her at the flickering flames – some of which barred Gwaine from joining them, if he'd leave Merlin's side – then made a gesture. Tipping her face to the sky, she spoke a single word of spell-work he didn't understand. Above the smoke, dark gray clouds scudded and swirled, and the low grumble of thunder was scant warning before a steady downpour broke open on them – except for a small clear bubble where Nimueh sat, self-satisfied and dry.
Hells, Arthur complained to himself. It might clear the air, but it would drench them. One consolation was, Morgause wore chainmail as he and Gwaine did; she would be just as uncomfortable.
Her blade dipped and rose like she was catching raindrops on it. "That's not all I have," she taunted him, her eyes flashing. "I have a spy in your household."
He froze, blinking against the drops that trickled down from his hair, tucking his chin slightly to keep his eyes clear. "You lie," he growled.
"Someone who tells me when you come and go," she continued, "when you cry for your father. Someone who's got your pet sorcerer's heart in her pocket – someone who placed that enchantment on your father that drove him mad – someone who freed the goblin."
Rain trickled cold down the back of his neck. No. She can't mean…
"Someone who has the magic you hate, and hates you for your father's laws and murdering prejudice," she went on gleefully. "And do you know why I'm telling you this? Because you're not going to live long enough to return to Camelot at all. It's ours, now."
It couldn't be. Couldn't be… impossible. She was lying to distract him – it was working…
Maybe Morgause had kidnapped her, he told himself. Maybe she'd held her captive for a year, not because she was enchanting her as Merlin had once discussed with him, but because Morgana had held out that long against whatever threats or coercion had been employed… And no wonder, then, that she didn't want to talk about it.
He swung his sword down from his shoulder, and swiveled his wrist to let it arc around, calling on the reserves of his strength to wield what felt like increased weight. If this was what she wanted, fine. They'd settle it with steel, and he'd be quit of her.
But she didn't take the last two steps to engage. He caught his surprise before it could show on his face as Gwaine moved into position beside him, clearly determined to fight against her and with him. Fierce hope leaped up beneath his breastbone, warming and lifting him.
Morgause paused – then gestured to the side. The spear pinning the knight to the tree jerked itself loose, skidding away through last years' leaves that the persistent rain was plastering to the ground.
"You take Him," Gwaine suggested tersely, focused on Morgause. "Your sword…"
Was enchanted. But Arthur wasn't going to leave Gwaine to face Morgause in his place; this wasn't his fight at all save for the voluntary loyalty he'd declared to his prince – Arthur spared a thought for Merlin unconscious under the rain.
"You take Him," he countered. "Keep him busy for me while I finish here." Morgause's eyes promised torture as well as death – flaying, and she could manage it. He lifted his chin and added to Gwaine, "I'll be with you in a moment."
Gwaine shifted, hesitated, then danced away on an angle to intercept the black knight, who was no more bothered by the downpour than by fire or sword or spear.
Morgause looked mad enough to spit nails – for a moment. Then her lips curled and her eyes brightened maliciously on an idea.
And her eyes brightened maliciously on magic, as she tilted her head to the rain.
Downpour became deluge. He struggled for breath and sight, raising one arm uselessly against rain so close and heavy it could be sloshing violently from a great bucket overhead. His feet slipped; maybe he could make an exception, attacking a woman – she was armed, and using magic in a kind of attack.
His feet slipped again. Something coiled about his ankle, constricting around his boot, and yanked. His balance went flying and his hand lost his hilt. The world was a messy, muddy blur and he felt movement increasing in pace like he was sliding down a hillside and the hillside was sliding with him.
He didn't see Morgause, nor Nimueh, but the rain-distorted faces of the Kings stared down at him – he was tugged relentlessly into the valley and-
Plunged without warning into water. Deep cold water, and churning – more river than lake, but there wasn't either in the valley, it was-
Magic. Damn it.
He struggled for up and air, but equilibrium was hopelessly confused, and in any case his chainmail, all twenty pounds of it, was dragging him down to drowning. Exhaustion fought a losing battle – his arms flailed, his lungs burned-
He couldn't. He couldn't die. Camelot was… Camelot needed…
There was so much he hadn't… and couldn't…
Murky water filled his eyes and ears and nose and mouth, and he was alone and helpless and he was going to die.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Merlin was drowning in the silence that poured down on him, roaring around him like the pulsing of his racing heart, like the beat of a thousand subtle insistent drums.
He choked, coughed, rolled over onto twenty new bruises searching for dry air-
And realized he was soaked. It was raining – he was still in the woods – everything was soaked in a muddy ashy chaos. The fires were out.
He remembered Gwaine; he looked around for Arthur, his neck achingly stiff.
There was Gwaine, exchanging blows with a Knight of Medhir – another, the last, or the one freed from the spear and the tree? Was Gwaine wielding one of the enchanted blades? – Merlin couldn't tell. He was defending himself adequately but giving ground, tired maybe in a way the Knight would never be again. The ringing of the two swords together punctuated the pounding rhythm of the rain all around.
And Arthur? He couldn't see Arthur.
He stuck an elbow in the mud, rolling off his hip to his knee, feeling like a colt or a calf, newborn and unsteady and uncertain. His feet shuffled under him and he wobbled toward the portal and the mearcdenu-
To either side, each under one of the statued bregum, he saw instead Nimueh and Morgana's sister – facing down the valley, steep and narrow as it was at this point, from his first impression.
He stumbled forward. Where the hell was Arthur?
A shout alerted him, but he stopped short of the boundary because the valley was a river, gray water churning and snarling in waves that fought magical constraints. Two magics, he recognized. One for the tidrenas sheeting down all around. And one for – this.
"This is not your destiny either," Nimueh was chiding the other, whose blonde curls were stringing wetly over her face and down the back of her black cloak.
"I'm not killing him," Morgana's sister – what was her name? he couldn't remember if he's ever heard it - retorted without looking at the older sorceress. "The water is."
And a smudge of submerged scarlet showed in a trough between waves, and an upraised hand, fingers stretching wide, dropped back beneath the surface. Merlin almost vomited with the realization, managing instead to yelp out the word, "No!"
Both women turned to look at him. Dimly he heard Gwaine yelling something behind him.
Morgana's sister gave him a viciously triumphant smirk. "You can't help him," she declared. "Try so much as lighting a candle right now, and you'll knock yourself out for a few hours at least."
Nimueh gave him a sympathetic look, though evidently her concern didn't extend to action or interference. And Morgana's sister was right, he knew. He was sick and empty and cold, transparent and collapsing in on himself like rain-drenched parchment.
"Damn you," he gritted out.
And launched himself through the mearcdenu, aiming a flat surface dive for the place where he'd last seen Arthur. Maybe his magic couldn't help Arthur, but he wasn't going to stand there and watch to see what became of his friend, either.
A single second before his body struck and cleaved the water, he could have sworn he heard a different female voice scream his name.
"Merlin!"
Beneath the surface, he was blind and deaf. His feet were leaden and the rest of him ached, but he didn't waste time trying to grope through the water.
He headed for the bottom. It wasn't encouraged, but there had been times in the past when he'd swam the Cove in Caerleon that the fortress was named for, and it wasn't much different than this - treacherous with roiling sediment.
There was a moment when he knew he'd passed between the bregum, he could feel it – sentient regard and warning. There was another moment for a memory of Gaius' warning scrambled with Alator's instruction – birthplace of magic, time itself pivots – Arthur wouldn't have time for him to seek the surface for a second breath.
Good thing he'd had practice lately, functioning without sufficient air.
The valley floor was littered with stone that had fallen away from weathering walls – he kicked out and struck his shin against one so hard his whole leg went numb and he nearly gasped a lungful of water.
Water that fought him lethargically, smothering him, burying him with silt and despair.
Hells… Arthur…
Disturbance swirled against him, the fingers of his right hand up his arm and down his flank and he kicked desperately in that direction, fingers straining-
Brushing a spread of smooth, even bumps that instinct recognized though it was unfamiliar.
Chainmail.
He gripped, snatching the mail-wrapped body into an anxious embrace, arching his whole being toward the surface, the portal between a watery grave and the air they needed for life.
It was still raining; he almost didn't realize they were out as his body reached his own border of endurance and his lungs expanded to fill the void with – rain-scented air.
Arthur's head was just under his jaw, knocking into him so that he bit his tongue. His fisted his hand in the armpit of the older prince's tunic, his elbow bent around the muscle of Arthur's chest and the chainmail over his back gouging furrows in Merlin's ribs beneath the clinging fabric of his shirt.
The world was still fluid. The bregum bobbed irritably above him, and he thrashed toward the break between them, unsure of his directions, else.
Every stroke was a grunt of air released unwilling from his starved lungs. His shin felt split to the bone, weighted and unwieldy, banging against Arthur's legs.
Then his reaching arm grabbed at a handful of sodden mud and stuck. He realized he could feel the bank – the sloping ground – under his right side, and squirmed to drag Arthur higher up, further out of the water-
Was it receding now? He wasn't crawling that fast…
And then he collapsed, panting and barely holding his face above inches of sloppy, soupy mud. He had an elbow under him – slowly sinking into the sludge of the ground beneath him – and blinked particles of dirt and leaf from his eyes as Arthur convulsed, rolling slightly away from him to choke and vomit-
Merlin almost gave up on consciousness again right then, from simple and overwhelming relief. Instead he flopped half on top of Arthur, trembling uncontrollably and laughing so he wouldn't sob.
They were alive.
But… that didn't mean they were safe.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
(7 years ago)
Morgana's hand and wrist still ached, and she fussed with the lace on her sleeve as Gwen arranged her curls over her shoulders.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" her maid asked worriedly. Nothing much was missed by Gwen's keen dark eyes, and usually Morgana felt lucky that such a smart, observant girl was her unquestioned ally.
Maybe not today, and in this. She'd already refused a visit to Gaius once.
"It's fine, Gwen," she said, lifting her chin and yanking the lace a little lower to disguise the bruising, then forcing herself to leave it alone.
"He's just, grown a lot," Gwen went on, showing signs of talking too much in her slight anxiety, straightening the fall of Morgana's silk skirts. "When did he get so tall? And his shoulders are wide, now, and you can't really see muscle under the chainmail, but…"
But she could definitely feel it. When she sparred with Arthur – which wasn't often because Uther didn't exactly approve of the two of them fighting - she teased and teased and sometimes she could get him to abandon the reserve he wielded against her, proper and aloof as a gentleman the way he wasn't when he fought against any boy on the field.
Today he'd slipped. She could never guess what sarcasm might slide between the joints of his invisible armor to find its mark – and she couldn't now remember whatever it was she'd said that had sparked his temper.
But then he fought, as if he'd forgotten who she was. That she was a lady, and his father's ward. Briefly – moments only, before he was drawing back into himself, lowering his sword and giving her an apology and a little bow.
Too late. Her sword was on the ground at her feet and her hand smarting from trying to catch the full strength of his blow on her blade, and the rest of her arm was numb to the elbow.
"You sound like you've been looking at him," Morgana responded, light-heartedly accusing.
"It's hard not to, when you're sparring with him," Gwen countered, still focused on Morgana's appearance, jeweled curls to jeweled slippers, with a devotion to detail that raised the color in her cheeks. "I think he's turning into a bully. Do you think so? Like Owain and Pellinor."
Morgana snorted. "I am distinctly unimpressed with the squires," she said. "They're so juvenile."
"Well, you'll conquer them all, dressed like this," Gwen murmured, admiring the results of her work on Morgana's hair and costume rather than answering her comment. "You look so grown-up…"
"And if he keeps spending time with them…" Morgana continued her thought, but was interrupted by a quick, light knock on the door of her chamber.
Gwen straightened, meeting her eyes with a questioning look. They weren't late yet; it was her birthday banquet and everyone else should be assembled before she made her grand entrance. "Now, who…" the maid mumbled, skipping to open the door a crack to check the identity of the person who'd knocked.
Her soft gasp stiffened Morgana's spine. Gwen gave her a wide-eyed look, hiding behind the door as she pulled it open to reveal-
Prince Arthur. Of all people.
He stood awkwardly, one hand tucked behind his belt, one fisted and drawn in to his body defensively. He'd washed since the training field and the match she'd taunted him to accept – he was perversely pleased to invent any range of excuses to turn her down, usually, true or obviously not. His hair was dark damp gold, blue eyes wary, lightened by the pale hue of the tunic he wore over his white blouse.
He ignored Gwen to glance uncertainly around her room. He'd never come to her door before, in the four years she'd been living here.
She wasn't sure what to do, now that he had. Was it her victory, then? or his, somehow? Whose advantage-
"Morgana," he said; he and his father and rarely Gwen were the only people who didn't use her title til she was sick of it, here in Camelot. "I – came to give you. This."
He brought out his hidden hand, offering a small bundle wrapped in what looked like one of his white handkerchiefs, tied with a piece of leather thong.
She stared at it, at him.
A line appeared between his brows as he contemplated the object himself – then his eyes sought Gwen's, still half-behind the door. The maid whipped her head around, cheeks dusky-scarlet, to implore Morgana with a glance.
"Do you want to-" she said stiffly- "come in? for a minute?"
"Thank you," he said, stepping over the threshold, but coming no further than two paces, enough for Gwen to close the door, if she had thought to. There was nothing inappropriate in that; she and Arthur had been instructed to consider each other as siblings by the king often enough, and it was the way she discussed the relationship with Gwen, who also had an annoying brother.
"I – might have waited," he added into the silence. His hand drooped slightly. "Til the banquet. Except it's… not…"
It was a birthday present, she realized, belatedly and stupidly. Though she might be excused, for every previous year, the gift from Arthur had been rich and elaborate and impersonal enough for her to suspect he'd actually had very little to do with it. Funds given by the king for the purpose, and delegated to one of his servants to perform.
And this year, instead of polished caskets and carved boxes and silk or satin lining… what? a joke? an insult?
"Maybe you won't like it," he said suddenly, and his ears were red. "It was – it probably wasn't a good idea after all, but I wanted to… ah. Say I was sorry? About earlier. On the… training field."
And he'd never sought her out to speak to her on purpose, before. She approached him slowly, intrigued but uncertain, herself.
The squires were juvenile. He could easily be giving her something… troublesome, in one way or another, for laughs, though he'd never done anything like that, preferring to ignore her whenever he could, and partly for fear that she'd-
"Is this because you're afraid I'll complain to your father about our match?" she demanded.
His arm must have been getting tired, extended to hold the object; it was definitely wilting.
"No," he said. Red spots showed on the tops of his cheeks – not so childishly round anymore – to match his ears. "I am sorry for losing my temper, and if I hurt you. And you can tell my father anyway, I won't blame you."
She was slightly unbalanced by his sincerity. It was not their way. And even though he was likely to be punished if she told Uther that his son had harmed her – even in a sparring match she'd provoked – he meant what he said. He hadn't apologized to pacify her in hopes that she wouldn't tattle.
"This is for you anyway," he added, lifting his hand again.
And she took the little object. It was lighter than she expected, hard and solid. She picked the leather thong untied with her fingernails. He shifted his weight and tucked his hands away again, settling maybe unconsciously into the attitude he'd adopted to bear his father's regard in public. When the king so often found fault with him – studies, training, random incidents, careless words – and rarely, grudgingly offered words of offhand praise like a handful of copper coins thrown from a carriage and stuck between the cobblestones to be searched for and dug out of their settings. Not like the way the king spoke to her. Smiles in abundance and lavish compliments like sugary treats for every meal when sometimes she wanted bread or salty meat or tart fruit.
The material of his handkerchief unfolded, and she stared dumbly at a slightly misshapen turtle, carved not-very-skillfully from wood. Recognizable and finished and smoothed, but never anything a prince would buy, which meant-
She raised her eyes to his. He wouldn't meet them.
"It's not meant to be that. You're slow, or anything. You're not, you're faster than I am, you're better, it's just… I'm stronger now. I don't want you to feel bad that you can't beat me anymore."
He was embarrassed that he was growing up. His body was rewarding him at the same time that hers was betraying her. Nearly two years older than her, they'd been of similar height and strength for several years now, which had allowed her to catch up to his level of swordplay – and surpass him by enough to frustrate and unsettle him and win.
Even though she'd never actually won him, not the way she'd won everyone else in Camelot. Not until today.
"So that's…" he added lamely, still looking at his turtle – with mild distaste, like he wasn't sure if he should snatch it back and run. "To say sorry for. Earlier. And… Happy Birthday. My lady." He made her an awkward bow – and usually he was graceful when he was courteous. Distant. This time it felt, for the first time, like he was bowing to her, not just to convention or his father's requirements of civil behavior.
He turned to go and she snatched at the moment, to hold it like she held his handiwork – hours of it, she suspected. Which meant he'd started it long before today, before he'd slipped his control and overpowered her and won their sword-match.
"Arthur!" He hesitated, his eyes on her rather than the turtle, now, and she felt awkward too. Because she'd only – occasionally – let Gwen see her feelings past cool ladylike control. "Thank you. For this. And – about earlier. I'm fine." She could see that he realized, she wasn't going to talk to anyone about it.
He nodded, almost another bow.
"I'll see you at the banquet," she added, not quite a question because of course he'd be required to attend whether he wanted to or not, and he usually ignored her while being attentive enough to satisfy his father. But… she didn't want to be ignored, any more. She wanted to… she wanted to know him. Not to win, but to… understand. To ally?
Yes, that was acceptable.
He gave her a true smile, like she'd caught on his face before, but never had directed to her. Relief and an offering of more, in a crooked self-conscious half-grin. "Don't be too late."
And then he was gone, swinging around her doorway and leaping – it sounded like – down all the stairs to the broad landing at once.
He wasn't Acollyn – no one ever would be – and maybe he wouldn't do everything she wanted, every time, but… maybe he would be worthwhile, anyway.
Gwen pushed the door closed behind him, eyes still wide with surprise at the visit. "Well, that was," she paused. "He's… not completely vile."
"No," Morgana murmured, rubbing her thumb over the bumpy surface of the turtle's back. "No, he's not… completely vile."
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Morgana was worried. Tense, and worried.
Leon was in pain, even if he – and Gwen – reassured them it wasn't life-threatening, or cause for stopping or leaving him behind.
"I think something's broken? or cracked?" Gwen leaned close from her own mount to say to Morgana in an undertone. "Ribs, collarbone, something in his shoulder…"
He wasn't letting it slow them down, though, riding in the lead with Acollyn, and it chilled Morgana to hear the reason. "The sorceress - Nimueh," he'd said. "And the Questing Beast. And Merlin was going to open the third portal today, around that piece the king has him shackled with. I came here for reinforcements – found Him just killing everyone, but no sign of the others. And if Nimueh raised Them to send against Camelot, what will she do with Arthur unprotected and Merlin exhausted?"
Nimueh hadn't raised the Knights of Medhir, though Morgana couldn't tell them that and explain how she knew it. It might not matter anyway, if the sorceress who had raised the Knights, was here in the forrest.
And then it started to rain, clouds scudding and gathering in an unnatural way, and all the others - except Leon – looked at her as though, since she was capable of wielding magic, that meant she understood what was happening every time someone else used magic.
And then there were the carcasses of serkets – great shell-covered beasts curled up, brittle and charred and unmoving. They all spooked to see that, but there was no sign of others in the area.
"What the hell?" Acollyn said uneasily, and didn't even seem to realize his use of language in front of ladies.
And the shout and clash of one man in chainmail – Morgana didn't recognize him – fighting a lone Knight. Maybe injured or weary; he was giving ground in a way that said he was trying to maneuver the black knight unsuccessfully in a specific direction.
"Will the sword still work?" Acollyn demanded of her tersely.
"It should," she responded, uncertainty stemming from her unfamiliarity with that particular spell.
And he was off again, sliding from his saddle and sprinting forward to help the unknown knight against the one from Medhir. Without dismounting, she searched the clearing and the area around it – she'd never been to the Valley of the Fallen Kings – for any sign of her sister. If a Knight was here–
So was Morgause. At the base of a huge statue three times her height, facing another such across maybe five paces of ground. There was another woman at the foot of the other statue, dark-haired and light-cloaked. Nimueh, then. Merlin stood a little nearer Morgana's party with his back to them, facing the women, his Caerleon indigo muddied and soaked from the rain.
And between the women, down from the statues, a river or narrow pond or the inlet of a lake rose impossibly – magically – higher than the ground.
What? Why-
Inexplicably, Merlin threw himself forward, between the women, muscles gathering and arms rising with a clear intent to dive into that water and-
What was he thinking?
"Merlin!" she shrieked, so vehemently her horse startled beneath her.
He didn't stop, flinging himself into the water to disappear.
Gwen gave her a worried-questioning look, dismounting. Elyan was already down, helping Leon to the ground from his saddle. Morgana didn't feel the ground beneath her feet til the third step, til Leon called out and she twisted instinctively to give him at least momentary attention.
"Wait," he said in white agony. Not just for his injury and not just to make her stop and think or listen, but – wait for me, wait for us.
She didn't. Not even pausing, she flew forward.
Loyalties were colliding, she realized distantly, dispassionately, but she couldn't feel any personal concern for that. They'd discover the secret of her sister, as they'd discovered her magic – and possibly, probably, what had been done to fulfill Morgause's plans against Uther's tyranny. Judgement and censure was a risk that didn't even register in the moment when Acollyn faced another Knight – and Morgause might take exception to that and attack him, and Morgana never had been enough of a match for her older sister to make her stop and listen. And Merlin was lost in the water somewhere and-
"Where's Arthur?" she called urgently. "What are you doing?"
"Arthur's gone for a little swim," Morgause informed her, dark eyes snapping with satisfaction as she gestured to a pond's worth of water roiling in the narrow area beyond the two statues. "I doubt he'll be coming back."
"We'll see," the other woman – Nimueh – murmured, eyes fixed to the churning surface.
"What do you mean?" Morgana demanded of her sister, swallowing against something that wasn't hysteria, rising in her chest. "Why did Merlin-"
"He's gone to save Arthur," Nimueh answered, sparing her a glance before tossing at Morgause, "This is your spy? the king's ward?"
Morgana bristled at the term. "I'm her sister."
Nimueh snorted, throwing a gesture between them to show, she'd noticed the similarity in how they were dressed, trousers and mail. "And magic, yes? No wonder you want the Pendragons dead, also."
"I don't want them dead." Morgana turned to Morgause. "If Arthur's in there and Merlin's gone after him-" How long? she saw no trace of either, surfacing for air. "You've got to help them. You've got to-"
"I'm helping you," Morgause interrupted, blazingly intense sincerity. "I'm helping all of us. Cleanse the land of Pendragons once and for all."
"If you can," Nimueh added lightly.
Morgana couldn't believe her ears. "No! Not Arthur! He's better than his father, he's going to be regent, he's negotiating with Merlin, who's a magic-user – this is what we wanted!"
"That is what you wanted!" Morgause flashed – then flung a hand at the chaotic waves before and below them. "This is what I wanted! Purge the land of Uther's evil – and you'll thank me for it!"
Morgana's incredulous yelp, "What?" was covered as her sister kept speaking.
"I told him everything. He's going to hate you, for your magic, for your subterfuge, for what you did to his father. He'll see you dead for all of that, unless he's dead."
Shock rendered her incapable of movement. She realized distantly that the name of the feeling was betrayal. Morgause gave her a triumphant smile, as if of course her giving Arthur this information would persuade Morgana's divided loyalty to gather in her favor again. And Morgana didn't have even a split second to think, whether she still wanted Arthur to reappear.
"There they are," Nimueh remarked.
Morgana's gasp caught halfway down her throat as her muscles clenched. It was worse than stumbling through the bandit camp and seeing the evidence of violence. Arthur was limp; Merlin was bone-white and desperately grim. With one arm wrapped around Arthur's chest, he completely ignored them in his struggle for the edge of the magically-gathered water. Their progress was slow and ragged and tenuous; their heads dipped so low at the end of each single-armed stroke she wasn't sure if they'd come back up, every time.
Before she knew it, she was knee-deep in the water, soaking cold down into her boots – the valley floor descended sharply here – reaching for them.
"Help them," she tossed over her shoulder – toward Nimueh. Because in the pit of her stomach she was afraid that Morgause would use magic – or her hands – to push Arthur and Merlin back under the water.
Nimueh spoke, and the water rushed its unnatural bounds, flowing away down the valley, sinking away down Morgana's legs. Merlin seemed to find the ground beneath the swirling muddy water and half-crawled, still towing Arthur. He hadn't looked up to see them at all – maybe lost in focusing shock and exhaustion to complete this self-appointed mission.
Morgana took another step to help him with Arthur – was he breathing? – and Morgause caught her by the arm, exactly as she'd gripped her to walk her down Cenred's corridors to the bedroom that locked her in, for her own safety.
"He'll kill you!" her sister declared vehemently.
Morgana tried to shrug her off. "He won't."
Not just because he couldn't – trembling on his side in the mud and retching filthy water as Merlin huddled over him, gasping and shuddering himself. Because he wouldn't. He'd listen to her, explanation and apology and whatever else came out of her mouth, until she was done. And then, whatever he felt – the betrayal that had just struck her sideways? – he'd think and decide and try to be fair. He'd try to be just, and that was what was going to make him a good king. See how he'd handled Merlin – an enemy warrior and a sorcerer, who had just risked himself to save Arthur's life, because he knew his enemy was worth saving.
"You're being naïve," Morgause snapped. "He's his father's son, and-"
A shout of challenge made them both turn, startled – to find that the last Knight was nowhere to be seen. Instead, four men strode toward them, each armed with a bared blade. Morgana flicked her gaze between them to see Gwen securing their mounts, before focusing again on the four.
Elyan the blacksmith, Leon in stern discomfort, off arm clutched close to his side, and the unfamiliar shaggy-haired knight or guard in chainmail whose attention was on Arthur and Merlin. And Acollyn at the end, wearing Camelot's dragon over Trevena's colors, furious and intent and Morgana's heart skipped nervously in her chest, aware that she was facing the four of them from between two other sorceresses. Her conscience whispered, whose side are you on…
But when Acollyn spoke, he addressed Morgause. "Get your hands off her."
Morgause tensed to gesture, and Morgana flung herself at her sister's arm to ruin the aim of her spell. Scrambling away from the statue-guarded mouth of the valley, Nimueh snapped something that sent both Leon and Elyan flying, and Morgause shook Morgana off to the muddy ground.
"You will thank me for this," she snarled at Morgana – clenching her fist to lock Acollyn and the stranger-knight into unmoving positions in spite of shouts and grunts and glares. Then she spoke another enchantment that Morgana recognized by three words. "Slimas – cwicum – cwellan!"
Muddy-earth, come to life… and kill.
A/N: As far as spell-work goes. Cume hay fyrbryne is the spell Merlin uses to attack the wraith in "Excalibur". Mearcdenu is the term Merlin's used for Valley, and the spell for the portal is translated in Chapter 22… When Morgause mocks Nimueh's spells in Arthur's pov, I've written it as he would have heard it, an unfamiliar ear.
Sorry this is a little late – I was gone over the weekend. But it's also longer – and I'm well on my way with the next chapter! So the cliffie shouldn't leave you hanging for long…