The City of Wizards, known to most as Belialuin – the closest thing to a translation of its original name out of the unpronounceable ancient tongue thus far conceived – was located near the edge of the Britannia Realm, settled between the outer dunes of the Desert Land. Because of the remote location, the ruins had remained untouched by humankind for the past three thousand years. To most, the promises of wisdom far beyond the limits of other ancient sites simply did not warrant the dangers of the Desert Land with its harsh environment swarming with Sandcrawlers.
The fact that those who studied the facets of magic had become a dying breed also had its part to play.
Magic had once flourished in the lands of Britannia and had nourished the five clans in an era of prosperity marked as the Great Peace. But as the individual clans grew in strength and number, the fear emerged that Britannia's magic resources were finite and that the land had never been meant to sustain the needs of all five races. The resulting feud came to be known as the Holy War, a perpetual cycle of conflict for supremacy over Britannia. Alliances were forged and broken, treaties deceived, and bystanders sacrificed until the Goddess Clan declared the Demons as the natural enemy and proposed a plan to seal the entire clan three thousand years ago.
But even in the following time of relative peace, the magic pool of Britannia was competed for. What magic had remained after the disappearance of the Demon and Goddess Clan rapidly decreased as humans extended their rule over the Realm of Britannia. And even after the New Holy War had ended, the prosperity of past days had not returned. Magic was held by few individuals, often expressed in magical abilities that had become rarer still in the past years. No wonder then that hardly anyone chose to study magic in its broadest form.
In this, Gaius made for a nearly extinct exception.
He had asked Merlin many times if she would take him to Belialuin, for its secrets had enticed him since he had first stumbled upon a mention of the city in Merlin's studies, but his mentor had declined his wishes. Either she had been certain nothing of value slumbered in the ruins of her old home, or she chose to avoid the place out of resentment. Possibly due to painful memories. And while Gaius had never taken Merlin as someone of sentimentality, he could begin to emphasize with her reluctance. If he had had a destroyed home to call his own, he would prefer to keep his distance as well.
Dust and sand stirred up in fine clouds as Gaius and Katrina walked down the street that had seen no living soul in millennia. If the term 'street' was fit to describe the line of dirt turning and twisting between the shells of what might have once been brick build houses. A thousand days of fire had scarcely allowed for one brick to stay atop the other. The metal tops of towers had melted, and their bent shapes lay scattered between the ruins, deformed faces to remind of those who perished.
"It's so quiet," Katrina whispered, her voice carried away by another gust of wind howling through the ruins. "Do you know where we should start searching? Everything looks the same to me."
Gaius rummaged around his memories. "According to The History of Britannia, there used to be a citadel at the city's center where most texts and manuscripts were stored. I suggest we start there."
Though truth be told, Gaius had no means to tell where the foundations of the city center lay hidden beneath the sand. The only lead he had was an instinctual feeling deep in his chest, a pull that directed him past the burnt houses of Wizards from three thousand years ago. The gods hadn't shown mercy in their assault on the inhabitants, and trails of their suffering still hung in the magic current. Voices of the past cried out in agony, lured Gaius to follow them, and the cacophony of their suffering resonated in his head.
Let go, give up, you don't belong here, what you cling onto isn't yours, let go and DIE!
Gaius recoiled from the cold washing over him when he reached out to the oppressive magical energy hanging in the air. The hollowness he had felt when the bird had died in his hands back at the Boar Hat filled him, a hundredfold increased, and drew the air out of his lungs. He felt cold, so cold, three blankets and a lonely candle could not drive out the cold, the cold…
Gaius stopped walking, but if Katrina heard the voices, she gave no sign to show it. He calmed his rapid heartbeat by focusing on her strength and determination, and finally the icy feeling retreated. The voices fell silent. With uneasy steps, Gaius led Katrina further into what he presumed to be the city's heart. Solely based on ancient telling and outdated layouts, his estimation was likely to be subject of miscalculation, but something else made him pause. A faint humming in the air in which epicenter he was standing. Or rather, he was standing on top of it.
"Do you feel it too?" Gaius asked and kneeled down to put his palm against the stone underneath the layers of dust.
Katrina nodded, and her eyes darted towards all directions, an animal startled by a change in environment it could not place. "It's not demonic, but… it's similar."
Gaius had made the same assessment. In all likelihood, the aura was nothing more than an after-trace of the power the Demon King had used to destroy the city, but the possibility remained that it wasn't. A magical item perhaps, buried in these rumored vaults deep beneath their feet?
Gaius brushed away the dust of centuries to reveal what had once been a tile of sandstone. Scorch marks disfigured its surface, but a pattern was still identifiable, lines of complex symmetrical figures carved into the stone. He recognized some of them from Merlin's various texts.
"Atumeno ekameno bantarumashi;" Gaius said and was rewarded by an orb of swirling air particles hovering over his outstretched hand.
Careful to avoid further damage to the floor's remains, he let the air escape his grasp in circular lines, mimicking a tornado but with only a fraction of its force, and the wind cleared the surrounding ground of its sand overlay. The floor's pattern lay free in a shadow of its former beauty, but the secret message remained clear as daylight.
"It's some sort of code," Katrina mused and bowed down to better follow one of the countless lines splitting the tiles.
"Try looking at it from further back," Gaius said and made his way to the south-western corner of the constellation.
Katrina did as told, conjured two pairs of Goddess wings, and jumped high to hover a dozen feet above the ground. She scanned the pattern until she realized what Gaius had already discovered, and her eyes lit up.
"It's Britannia! The entire map!"
The solution to a riddle so simple and overt it brought a smile to Gaius' lips. The discomfort and the voices were pushed aside by the soothing thrill of a solved question. What had appeared to be nothing more than a chaotic cluster of magic runes and symbols was a meticulously constructed image embedded into the floor of a great hall in Belialuin's citadel. And together, when looked at from the balcony of an upper floor, the runes formed the outlines of Britannia with all its landmarks and defining features as it had been three thousand years ago. Someone who hadn't spent hours copying and memorizing maps of Britannia would never catch on to that detail – unless they happened to be flying overhead.
Katrina dismissed the magic that kept her afloat and gracefully dropped down next to Gaius. The soft feathers of her wings brushed his cheeks and left a pleasant warmth on his skin.
"But where does that lead us?" she asked as the Goddess triskelion faded to make room for her natural eye color.
"To Belialuin if I'm not mistaking," Gaius answered. While concentrating on the circular emblem pierced by two crossing rhombi to his feet, he spoke the incantation meant to solve the last piece of the puzzle. "Zimoto shikaharo."
As the unlocking spell took effect, the emblem – precisely placed where one would find Belialuin on a normal map – began to glow in violet hues. From there the light spread like an epidemic until the entire floor was covered in shining lines and restored the image where it had been burned by divine and demonic fire. Once the light had reached the furthest northern corner of the map, the central tiles folded away and revealed a stairway that lost itself in the dark depths below the citadel.
The invitation was handed out.
Gaius and Katrina exchanged a nervous glance before they descended into the underbelly of Belialuin.
The longer they walked through the tunnels that followed the staircase, the more Katrina became convinced that they were by no means the first ones to enter this place since the city's destruction. At first, a feeling had agitated her, a constant ping of pressure against the back of her mind, but the signs had multiplied after an hour or so. One of the crossroads they passed had its dust layers set into disarray as though multiple pairs of feet had been shoving over the ground in a debate of where to go next. They had found the burned-out remains of a torch in a corner. Other entrances into Belialuin's tunnel system likely dotted the surface, easier to make out than the one Katrina and Gaius had used. An observant man like Mordred would have found entrance.
But so far, no living creature had crossed their path.
Gaius was leading the way and never hesitated for more than a few seconds whenever the tunnel diverged before resuming onward. How Gaius managed to find a lead worth following, Katrina had no idea; the entirety of Belialuin was covered in so many layers of destructive magic from both the Demon and the Goddess Clan that she struggled to make out any other traces. Despite his confidence in the path they followed, Katrina could tell that Gaius was disturbed. He shivered, and from time to time, his head jerked sideways in search for a sound. But nothing echoed through the stone tunnel except his uneven breath. He had never been one to fill silence with words, but his condition unsettled Katrina.
"We are close now," Gaius said, more to himself than to her. "I am certain the presence of at least one magical item lies a few dozen yards ahead."
"Do all magical items have a distinct presence?" Katrina asked, glad to replace the all-encompassing silence with the sounds of conversation and distract him from the ghosts haunting his thoughts. "I mean, the Time Crystal for example. Do you feel whenever it's around?"
"It is more a matter of might and sensibility," Gaius answered and shifted the orb of flames they used as a source of light into his other hand. "The stronger an item's magic is, the greater its impression in the magic current. Ivy's Shrinking Bracelet is limited in how it can alter its surroundings; therefore, it does not have a presence I am able to track down. But since Ivy has developed a certain familiarity to its magic, she might be able to tell its location if she were to lose it. As for the Time Crystal, I do, in fact, feel its presence. The magic bears some of Merlin's signature working, but there are other, darker facets I cannot place. It is… frustrating."
"And you've never asked Merlin what the crystal is?"
Katrina was certain that he had not – Gaius had always been the type of guy to maltreat his brain cells until they spit out an answer –, and the question leaned dangerously close into personal matters, but she was curious as to how Gaius viewed his mentor. Merlin could be difficult to understand or get along with, and although their mutual fascination for the unknown bound them together, Gaius had rarely shown signs of attachment beyond that.
"No, I have not. One of the things I learned from her teaching is that you are better advised to verify for yourself whether something is true. That way you prevent yourself from blindly following the lies of others. With books, this is quite easy, you can always draw from other sources. People are more… difficult to see through. Often enough they themselves trust in the lies they spread."
"Not all people are like that," Katrina said, and the conviction in her words made Gaius stop and turn towards her. "I would trust anyone of you with my life: Lance, Ivy, Errin… and I trust you, Gaius."
His response came without hesitation. "I do too. You and Merlin are the two people in this world I can talk to without fear of judgement."
Katrina smiled upon his sincerity. Even in the dim light of the tunnel, Gaius' eyes were a manifestation of the clear summer sky. Endlessly blue. Almost unnatural. If only he hadn't buried them into books all his life, then people might have come to see him as Katrina did.
She continued after they had resumed their walk through the labyrinth of tunnels. "She must be worrying about you," Katrina said and ignored another wave of unease creeping down her spine as they passed a deserted crossway.
"Merlin? What makes you think that?"
"Well, if time travel works the way you said it does, then she wouldn't have been able to find you since yesterday noon," Katrina explained, surprised that Gaius hadn't thought about this detail himself. "You disappear for a day without a trace – how could she not worry about you?"
Gaius blinked a few times against the cloudiness of his thoughts. "I always assumed she would be too occupied with Arthur's funeral and the arising conflict with Mordred. It is a matter of far greater importance, after all."
"That's not true. Something like objectively greater importance doesn't exists, and if it does, it's irrelevant. What counts is what's important to you. Of course, I want to protect the innocent people who lost their lives during The Fall – but mostly, I want to do this for my parents. I wouldn't have gone so far for a crowd of strangers, not even for all of Britannia. And you want Merlin to be safe, right?"
"I do."
"See, it's the same thing! Dad always told me that we fight harder for what we care about, that we are stronger when it comes to protecting those who matter to us. And I think he's right."
Gaius hesitated, and his mind needed the extra time to settle an internal debate. Then, he smiled that adorable, frail smile of his. "I trust that you're right."
The tunnel took a sharp turn to the right and ended soon afterwards. The heavy metal-framed door making up the far wall was covered in lines and pictograms of the same style as the Britannia map back on the surface. As Gaius gave the gate a gentle push, one wing swung inwards. Unlocked. With how carefully the entrance to the tunnel maze had been sealed, one would think the vault itself would pose a harder challenge to enter.
"Strange," Gaius said. "I assumed they would set up another confinement spell, maybe one similar to «Perfect Cube». It is possible though, that the effect has faded after such a long time."
They both knew it was unlikely; the gate spell up above had worked the same as it had on the day of its inception, and the Mages and Wizards of Belialuin had been revered as the most competent of their kind for a reason.
Katrina hugged herself in an attempt to combat the cold that made the hair on her arms stand up on edge. She told herself the shivers stemmed from the chill underground compared to the desert-like heat they had endured before.
The room on the other side of the door was loaded with ceiling-high bookshelves, which occupied the space in all kinds of lengths and all kinds of angles and masqueraded the true size of the room. The shelves themselves were filled to the brim with scrolls, scriptures, and heavy volumes, and the wood bend downward under the load. Many more books piled up on the floor. Caskets with peculiar items occupied the space in between, with contents ranging from gemstones and metal trinkets over bottles with unknown liquids bubbling inside all the way to the mummified remains of bones. Whether or not they were human, Katrina couldn't tell.
"All of this has been waiting here for centuries, and no one even attempted to find it," Gaius said in awe. "In here, there might just lie the answers to questions no one has been able to answer in three thousand years."
"It will take us weeks to find what Mordred is after," Katrina said, far less enthusiastic than Gaius.
Discouraged by the sheer volume of information they would have to dig through, Katrina let her fingers run over the spine of a weighty tome only for the leather to dissolve under her fingertips. Katrina shrieked and stared in horror at the pile of dust remaining where the book had stood a second ago.
"I feared this would happen," Gaius said. "Most of these works are so old that they can no longer be saved. It makes sense for the citizens of Belialuin to have stored their newer works up in the citadel's official library where they fell victim to the fires. I nevertheless hope that there remain books in better conditions further into the vault."
Gaius dismissed the fireball in his hands – the glowing orbs suspended all over the bookshelves filled the room with enough light –, and the two of them navigated deeper into the library. As a gust of wind blew into their faces from somewhere ahead, the books next to them turned to dust by the dozen. Gaius' expression became grimmer and grimmer by the second, until they entered a section of the library where the books weren't quite as ancient. They stopped at the edge of a large circle of tiles, free of the cluster of bookshelves and likely the center of the room. A bookrest of stone stood in the middle of the symbols drawn or carved into the floor. Did the Mages of Belialuin used to conduct their most secretive spells here, amidst legions of magical items, where the air itself tasted of energy? Gaius stepped forward to inspect the worn volume on top of the bookrest, with pages so battered that the ink had almost faded.
Still, it looked like the book had been placed there less than a few hours ago.
"The Inevitable Downfall of the Faerie Clans," Gaius read out loud and furrowed. To Katrina, the book's title sounded awfully similar to a banner slogan a narrow-minded human might come up with. Complete with the misspelling of the word 'Fairy'.
"The usage of plural seems arbitrary to me." Gaius returned to the page that the book had been opened up at and skimmed its content. "According to this, a type of Fairy used to inhabit the springs of Avalon. The author calls them Morgans. They were neither as well-hidden nor as strong in numbers as their relatives in the Fairy King's Forest. It seems they were attacked and eradicated during the early days of the Holy War…"
Gaius was too immersed in the text to hear the metal sound to their left, but Katrina did. It was close. And as the rattling continued, it came closer still.
"Gaius, we need to go. I don't think we're alone anymore."
But by the time Gaius reacted to her continuous tugging at his sleeve and looked up, the bookshelf to their right exploded into a cloud of dust and wooden shrapnel. Three figures emerged from the shadows, all of them armored, all of them wearing the crest of the Knights of the Round Table. Gaius stepped in front of Katrina, and his left hand found hers.
"Merlin's little bookworm," Iseo said, and her cold eyes looked over Gaius with the joy of a hunter who had stumbled across a particularly rare prey. "And he has brought his girlfriend with him. How lovely."
"We don't have time for this game, Iseo," the knight in the middle said. Based on the way he held himself and his commanding tone, he seemed to be the leader of the group.
"What are you doing here, Gaius?" The tall-built man to the left – Gaius had referred to him as Ronal – sounded genuinely concerned about their presence.
"Irrelevant," the leading knight cut in, "they represent a loose end that will undoubtedly proof problematic if we don't deal with it now."
Gaius opened his mouth for an incantation, but before he uttered the first syllable, the knight had raised his hand to silence him. Gaius' grip around Katrina's hand went loose, and an invisible force wrenched him away and against the bookrest. His bones crunched upon impact, but no sound escaped his lips, no pained outcry, not even a groan. He lay still, knocked out with eyes wide open, no longer master of his body.
Ronal reached Katrina before she could aid Gaius. Her struggles to free herself from his grip only earned her a slap against her head. Her vision blacked out for a second.
Gaius' limp torso raised itself from the ground in accordance to the knight's hand movements; he had become a mere puppet on his enemy's strings.
"Don't take all the fun for yourself, Gawain," Iseo said, but her commander silenced her complaint with minimal gesture.
"You'll get your fair share," Gawain said before turning back to the victim caught in the net of his magical ability. He kneeled down to meet Gaius at eyelevel. "Now, Gaius, your presence creates quite the problem for us. We are all aware that Mordred's plans won't be met with open ears across Britannia. Everyone daring enough to do something that will truly change and better the lives of millions has faced this blind defiance. Why change when the wars over land and magic suit their simple minds so damn well? So, tell me, Gaius, does Merlin know that you're here?"
"No." Gaius voice was hollow, his answer nearly inaudible.
"Excellent, you've just signed your own death sentence."
Gawain stood up, and Gaius slumped to the ground. Fear ate into her heart, and Katrina tried once more to escape Ronal's grip. She conjured her wings and knocked him back, desperate to reach Gaius. Her freedom hardly lasted a heartbeat before she found herself in Gawain's stranglehold. He smacked her to the floor, and she tasted blood. Her wings disappeared. Gawain's boot on her shoulder buried her cheek deeper into the dust. She fought to breathe in, but her lungs clenched tighter without the relief of air.
Gaius returned to his feet, shaking and unsteady, freed from Gawain's control. He raised his hand towards Gawain in another opening of a spell.
Gawain was faster; Gaius' head snapped backwards, joints grinding, muscles tearing, arms spasming in a desperate attempt to break the invisible hand of magic around his neck. But he didn't back down. The pressure on Katrina's shoulder increased as Gawain's control over Gaius was slipping out of his hands.
Then, Gaius' efforts were put to an end. His muscles released and his eyes became unfocused. Endlessly blue past the shadows in her vision.
Katrina screamed.
Iseo's halberd buried itself into the flesh of Gaius' shoulder. Past the point where the spike expanded into the axe blade.
Gaius had never been one to disappear without a word, without a trace, and Merlin had begun to worry from the moment she had been unable to find him hunched over the book he had been reading in her laboratory. At first, she told herself that he was visiting Camelot's royal library and had simply forgotten to leave behind a note. Not that it was like Gaius to forget anything either.
Then, he didn't return in the evening. Or the next morning. And for as skilled in the magic arts as she was, Merlin failed to track down his location. Her multiple attempts of using sumetumaro nokote proved a waste of time as did her excursions to the places Gaius visited most often. A source of magic powerful enough might have shielded his presence from her, and Merlin hoped that such was the case. The other explanation unsettled her far more.
Escanor had stopped by once to ask if she wanted to join their fellow Sins who had arrived the day before in preparation for Arthur's funeral. Merlin had sent him away without an explanation. Alas, the Captain was stubborn to no end, especially whenever his comrades were eating their worries into themselves, and dragged her to the nearest tavern to meet up with the others. And after tedious questioning, Merlin revealed that Gaius had vanished.
Elizabeth, King, and Diane were quick to show their support.
"We'll go look for him together then. He couldn't have gone too far, right?" Diane said, and her words drew forward nods from all across the table. Merlin felt no need to mention that, technically, Gaius could teleport himself to the other end of Britannia in a matter of moments.
"He probably just dug into another book and lost track of time," Ban said. His attempt to lighten the mood caused King to scowl.
"Just try to be serious for once, any number of things could've happened to him," he said. "He's still a child, even younger than Ivy and Lance…" Merlin couldn't bear to look at him.
The Captain clapped his hands together in an attempt to settle the matter for good. "All seven of us should be able to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. If he's still in the city, we'll find him."
"No." Meliodas looked up to Merlin, and his determination made room for irritation. "You should attend Arthur's funeral as promised. Especially you, Captain; Mordred would want to have you there. I will rejoin you shortly."
"Are you sure, Sis-sis?" Elizabeth asked and put a supportive hand on top of Merlin's, only for the latter to pull back.
"Certainly. You'll only stand in my way." Judging from their expressions, she had failed to convince any of them. The drawback of being too close to others; Merlin's poker face couldn't fool them anymore.
"Fine then, your call."
"But Captain!" King and Diane burst out, but Meliodas raised a hand before they had the chance to argue further.
"This is Merlin's responsibility," he said, "and we've all agreed not to pry into each other's Sins or any other problem that's on our minds. That rule still stands." Meliodas turned to catch Merlin's gaze. "Just know that we're here for you in case you need help."
Merlin nodded and left her seat without another word. But she didn't make it further than the other side of the tavern door before Escanor caught up to her, his blue eyes clouded in genuine worry.
"Please, let me help, Merlin," he said. "I might not understand how much he means to you, but I don't want to see you hurt as you are now. You are always strong and wise and confident, but that doesn't mean you have to carry your burdens alone. We know each other better than that, don't you think?"
Merlin smiled a sad smile and wondered when Escanor had become so confident around her. "You have every right to despise me for my selfish actions. Did you ever regret that I brought you back?"
"Not for one moment."
Merlin hated his earnest beam, and she hated herself for clinging onto it for as long as she did. Nothing could be done. She was doomed to repeat her mistakes until the universe finally stopped her. All she could do was beg that Gaius or Escanor wouldn't pay the price for her selfishness.
"You are Camelot's most respected Holy Knight," Merlin said, her words, sympathetic as they might sound, enough to have him pull back. "People will undoubtedly start asking questions if you stayed away from the king's funeral. As the Captain said, Gaius is my responsibility."
It hurt to push him away, and leave him alone and helpless in front of the tavern, but Merlin had other worries on her mind. Additional emotional distress would only detract from her search, and she couldn't afford to lose Gaius.
Not a second time.
– Eleven years before the Fall –
Merlin had just finished reorganizing her personal scriptures – a long overdue task – and used the last hour of daylight for a short walk to clear her thoughts. Ideally, she would be able to make some theoretical process on the cylinder able to store magic for an indefinite amount of time she had been puzzling her head over for weeks.
Outside of her laboratory, a group of street kids played with a tattered leather ball, much to the disdain of a pair of nobles traversing the plaza. Some of the children looked barely old enough to walk, not to mention fend for themselves. Merlin decided she would address the issue the next time she would visit the palace to see Arthur, regardless of how many problems he might have on his plate at the moment. And heaven knew Arthur always had a plethora of problems on his plate.
Her short stroll through the city streets might not have given her the breakthrough she had hoped for, but Merlin quickly forgot about her studies in the face of one of the children from before sitting on the doorsteps of her lab. The boy couldn't be older than four, too young to be a war orphan. His dark hair and thin, malnourished features made him another face in the crowd of thousand same-aged children in the capital.
"Now, shouldn't children your age be fast asleep this late in the evening?" Merlin asked the boy. He stared up at her with wide doe eyes.
"You do know that I can turn you into a toad if I feel like it and if you keep blocking my doorway?"
Merlin hadn't thought it possible, but his eyes went even rounder and wider. "You can do something like that?" He lisped a bit while speaking and struggled with articulating the 'th'; it sounded more like an 'f'.
"Certainly."
Since the boy refused to budge and kept looking at her in expectation of a display of the magic she had promised, Merlin reevaluated her strategy. With a mere flick of her wrist, she directed the leather ball from where it laid abandoned on the plaza into the boy's lap. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as he inspected the plaything in his hands. Then he started to giggle.
And Merlin couldn't help but smile.
"You wouldn't happen to have a name so that I will know which one of my plentiful toads is you?" she asked.
He mumbled a mess of syllables that might have passed for a name, but the word was hopelessly intangible. Merlin sighed. "I suppose you might show more promising results after you've had something to eat. Though I must warn you, cooking is not a craft I perform on a regular basis, so the results may vary."
After Merlin handed him the remains of the fruit loaf she had stored in the depths of her stowage – not her own work but rather the outcome of Elaine's most recent attempt at getting Lancelot to bake when Merlin had visited them two days ago –, she found out that the boy's name was Gaius. When Merlin brought up the topic of his parents, he fell quiet and studied the crumbs on his plate with a vacant expression. Based on his bony statue, Merlin deducted that they had died a few weeks prior, and Gaius had been forced to live on the street since then.
Merlin offered him to stay, at first for the night only but soon without time limitation.
He loved everything she showed him. The basic magic trickery she performed, the heavy volumes in her shelves he couldn't read; he soaked up every word she said like a bottomless hole with a pure, honest joy. And without realizing it, Gaius became the center of Merlin's life.
He gaped in awe at her after she finished reading the page to him. "Can you do this spell too? Make a tree out of a seed in only ten seconds?" Gaius asked and pointed at the oversized textbook in his arms.
"I am certain I can do it in less than three," Merlin answered. The warmth of a smile spread across her face. "Would you like to try it out right now?"
His grin widened and he nodded in a lovely overacted fashion.
She had never had children of her own and had never seen the desire for one either. When she had stopped the aging process of her body with «Infinity», she had thereby forever given up the opportunity to carry a child. She could watch the physical changes of motherhood in other women, had seen the effect on some of her closest friends, but never hoped to experience the same. And for the longest time, Merlin had considered this a small price to pay in exchange for infinite time to discover all the mysteries Britannia had to offer.
This new, unparalleled feeling of adoration and love that controlled her decisions both enlivened and frightened her. For the first time, something, someone could rob her of her rationality, could make her do unspeakable things and allow unspeakable things to happen. She had always had her sense of justice to rely on. But when Gaius was involved, her sense of right and wrong fell silent.
He bobbed back and forth on his toes and studied the night sky in search for one of the constellations displayed in the book sprawled on the merlon in front of him. With the exception of Camelot's palace, no other building offered a better view at the stars than the top of Merlin's laboratory. This benefit of her home had come in handy before, but if this had been the first night Merlin stood atop the tower, the observation deck would have still been worth the hassle for Gaius' expression alone.
"This one, this one!" He pointed first at the constellation and then at its counterimage in the book. "What does it say?"
Merlin moved the small oil lamp closer to read the inscription underneath the ink drawing. "The White Stag. It can best be observed in the early weeks of fall."
"What's the White Stag like? Why were the stars named like this?"
"You see, Gaius, the White Stag is an old human folktale, a legend founded on little more than the imagination of humans. It is said that whoever hunts down such a creature will be granted immortality. Knights and adventurers have searched for the White Stag for a long time, but no one succeeded."
"Why do humans want to be immortal?"
The stars reflected in Gaius' eyes, the spark of youth and awe and everything she hadn't felt in centuries. Merlin hesitated to answer and reached out to push a lose strand of hair behind his ear. "We all want to leave a mark on this world. We strive for the unknown, the unexplored for a chance to create something that will outlive us and that will be remembered. And those with the strongest desire to create something worthwhile are scared to leave this world before they found the answers to their questions. When in reality, we just fail to see what we already have."
Gaius pondered for a while, but the full scale of her words could not divert his interest from the volume on astronomy for long. "There must be at least one thousand stars in this book. And I'm gonna learn all their names and the stories behind them!"
Merlin smiled and heaved him up to sit on the merlon, secured by her arms. "You will, dear. With enough time, you will."
Gaius was the most lively and curious child Merlin had met, a star of optimism in this war-ridden world.
He was also terminally ill.
The Purgatory Plague was far from uncommon in Camelot these days; it had become the primary source of death after the war had ended. The uneducated commoner liked to refer to the disease as a final act of vengeance the Demon Clan brought upon the world after their defeat in the Holy War. Nonsense. Nevertheless, children died under the creeping illness' greedy fangs every single day, and though Merlin had tried to help Arthur minimize the casualties, her research hadn't brought forth any successes. Healing was a magic reserved for Druids and members of the Goddess Clan – and no matter how often she had tapped into its secrets in the past, Merlin had never overcome this barrier.
And because of her inabilities, she had to watch Gaius be consumed by this disease that she knew no way to stop.
"Why d'you look so sad, Merlin?" he asked, his voice hoarse from coughing too often.
"I have a great many things on my mind, dear. And some of them are quite sad. Your mind is still young, so you shouldn't be bothered with any of it. Do you understand this?"
Gaius nodded and tucked at her sleeve. "When can we go outside to see our tree again? I want to go, Merlin, plea–" The rest of his words was cut short by another wave of coughing that shook his small form.
Merlin was running out of option, was running out of time. Nothing she tried helped Gaius defeat the sickness, and he grew feebler as the days ticked down to the inevitable date where his weakened body could uphold the fight no more. And still, he never forgot to smile, as though he felt obligated to balance out the tears she never allowed him to see.
"I want to read like you," Gaius declared, his body tucked under three blankets. He couldn't stop shivering. "Not just look at the pictures of your books. I want to understand what they say, and I want to learn all their spells."
"You will, Gaius, with some time you will learn all of them," Merlin said and put a hand on his forehead to brush away a few strands of thin black hair. "You should try to get some rest. Tomorrow we can start to teach you how to read. Just… one letter at a time."
Gaius coughed, and all Merlin could do was hold his hand until the assault eased. The dull haze of exhaustion had replaced the light in his brown eyes as he looked up at her. "Okay. And then I'll learn how to turn people into toads."
"I can't await the toad infestation we will have by the end of the month."
As Gaius drifted into sleep, Merlin kneeled by his bedside and watched the single candle in the room flicker and wither away. The wax burned down to the stand by the darkest hours of night.
Three months after Gaius had first sat on Merlin's doorsteps, he was dead.
She had made preparations for this case, had stayed the nights awake, all to find a method, a spell, an incantation that could bring him back if the worst were to happen. Arthur had told her once that the peace he strove towards was meant for his children, so that they might never face the horrors of war that had controlled the early years of his life. He was ready to cross every necessary boundary.
And Merlin would do the same.
To bring Gaius back to the world of the living, her options were twofold, one as unethical as the other, both of them fabricated by her broken mind in the solemnness of the night. What she was about to do would have ramifications and might cost her dearly, she knew that. But no one would bat an eye if she altered the fate of one boy who had had no one in this world but her. No one would know. How weak her time with the Sins, with Arthur, with Gaius had made her, too weak to let go, too weak to move on.
Merlin fell back on the Druid spell «Enslavement of the Dead» that she had made alterations to so that the dead in question would be bound to an object rather than a person. It was wrong to use this spell, cruel even, and if King were to find out, Merlin doubted that he would forgive her. She might forever cage Gaius' soul in a dying body.
Merlin knew all of this – but she proceeded.
As soon as the ancient words of the Druid Clan had passed her lips and the light was swallowed by the pendant around his neck, Gaius opened his eyes. Blue had submerged the warm brown. He looked at her with the distant apprehension with which one would regard a stranger.
Due to Merlin's selfish actions, the boy she held so dear had become a blank slate. Not a different person but rather no person at all, with his previous memories wiped clean. A four-year-old with a dead soul.
Over time, Gaius adjusted to the body that was foreign to him, and his mind mended itself into a state that could almost pass as human. But emotions remained incomprehensible and unattainable to him as he grew older, and Merlin had long given up hope that he would retrieve his past joy.
From time to time, a shadow of his former self befell him when he discovered a particularly intriguing mystery or when Merlin surprised him with a slice of fruit loaf.
But his laugh only existed in the past. And in her weakest moments, Merlin returned to those days, the three month of bittersweet joy she could not let go, to hear it again.
Let go, give up, your life isn't yours, hasn't been yours for so long, let go and DIE!
Gaius had expected to feel pain. Had expected to feel the flood of horror at the sight of his body pierced by Iseo's weapon. But neither was the case. There was only numbness in his muscles as well as his mind as he stumbled. Blood soaked his clothes, and its metallic taste lingered in the back of his throat. His knees buckled under him, no longer able to receive the commands his brain was screaming at them.
Katrina's voice sounded distant; he had fallen to deep.
Gaius gave in to the heaviness of his eyelids. It was easier this way. To continue the battle was tiring and took too much from him, and letting it all slip away seemed like a welcoming path to follow. If he gave up, maybe the cold would retreat. The candle had burned down so far, and Merlin still sat there, too grief-stricken to cry.
He regretted to never have asked her to teach him how to read and pressing every letter into his brain on his own. She had sounded so genuine when she had offered to teach him…
Gaius emerged from the mist of half-death, and his eyes flung open. He didn't want to die, in spite of what the voice of weakness whispered into his ears, he wanted to live. He had never wanted anything this badly.
Despite the pain in his lungs and in his shoulder, Gaius pushed himself to rest on his elbows and reached for the pendant around his neck. Blue light pulsated from the engravings in sync with his heartbeat. The intensity wavered while counting down the beats his heart had to spare before it would shut down from the expiration of oxygen circulating his body.
Images of unknown origin floated in his head, of a childhood he didn't remember, of a happiness not quite his own, but all of it tied back to the piece of silverware that he had owned for as long as he could recall. His life was tied to it. The pendant had never been a simple lucky charm or an object of remembrance. It was one of Merlin's magical items. The same that had saved Gaius' life before.
While holding onto the pendant so intensely it hurt, he returned to his feet. Iseo fell a step backwards, shocked to see him standing, whereas Gawain raised his hand in the move that proceeded his magical ability, «The Puppet Master». But this time, Gaius acted beforehand.
"Atemoto dureshi!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, and the will to survive granted him strength where he had been missing it before.
The library froze to a rigid painting, everyone except Gaius caught mid-motion. Without the supporting effect of the Time Crystal at his disposal, the time-manipulating spell ate up Gaius' magical reserves quicker than his stumbling heartbeat. But the fire of determination, fueled by these strange memories that part of him knew to be his own, allowed him to uphold the stream of magic, and he staggered to were Katrina was lying on the ground. Her eyes remained in their state of shock and fear as Gaius dragged her away from Gawain; the effect of atemoto dureshi had befallen her as it had the Holy Knights.
He didn't make it into the nearest aisle of bookshelves before his physical strength collapsed, and his lungs filled with blood instead of air. But he still had some magical energy left to count on.
"Lokshi marote," Gaius mustered, and with his next shaky breath, he lifted the time manipulation spell. "Dukario umaro."
In the same instance that Katrina stirred, the blue aura of Gaius' shield spell began to waver in the air to form a barrier between them and the Holy Knights who needed time to overcome their bewilderment. But it was only a matter of time before they would charge.
"Gaius!" Katrina shrieked, and the shrill sound momentarily yanked him out of his state of blood-loss-infused delirium. She wrapped her arms around him. "How did you get us free? You were hurt so badly…"
Katrina pulled back as she realized that Gaius had gone rigid under her touch. She hadn't meant to hurt him, Gaius knew that, but his injury ached whenever she made a move and brushed over the torn flesh. Dismayed, Katrina stared at the expanding patch of dark liquid on his shirt, visible even against the black fabric. Her dress was stained by crimson as well.
The dull sound of metal on the magic barrier, roused Katrina out of her staring, and she took a mere second to take in her surroundings. The shield pulsated under the fire of Iseo's brunt attacks, about to collapse and leave them at the mercy of the enemy. Gaius' eyes hurt from squinting them in a frantic attempt to get them to focus, and his head felt dizzy.
"Gaius, please, you have to stay focused, just a moment longer." For as pleading as Katrina's words sounded, her expression was composed, the uncertainty banned to a place far behind her emerald eyes.
She extended her palm to hover a hair's width from Gaius' battered and bloody skin, and warmth spread through his body as her healing magic knitted the tissue back together, reassembled muscles, and contained his blood flow back inside its streams. A dull pain remained when he shifted his severed clavicle, but Katrina's reserves were as limited as his own, and any further attempts to heal the damage would cost them precious time.
Gaius locked eyes with Katrina for a moment before climbing to his feet. She followed suit. While her magic had healed his body, the spell hadn't reached as far as refilling his magic energy, and the longer he upheld the barrier protecting them against Iseo's barrage, the drier and more used up he felt. But that was acceptable. He would continue to protect Katrina's and his own life.
To his surprise, Katrina stepped past him, closer to where Ronal had joined his sister in assaulting the magical barrier that swayed with each hit. "Can you dispel the barrier?" she asked, and Gaius answered with a weak nod. "On the count of three then. One…"
Gawain drew his sword, and his cold eyes jumped between Gaius and Katrina, ready to trap them with his magical ability as soon as the shield would disperse.
"Two."
Iseo's halberd and Ronal's flanged mace crashed against the barrier, and Gaius recoiled as the strike drew out more of his energy to sustain the shield.
"Three!"
The barrier ceased to exist as Gaius cut the stream of magic, leaving them without protection or cover. Triumph flashed in Gawain's eyes.
But only for a second.
"«DIVINE HELLFIRE»!"
Magic power exploded onto the fray, and its shockwaves rippled over Gaius' skin to make it crawl. Heat kissed his face to drive away the cold in his bones, a beautiful, deadly, heavenly heat. The empty space between them and their opponents was consumed by the dark flames of purgatory magic, flickering to taste the dust-ridden wood that surrounded it, eager to consume. Only that the fire wasn't uncontrolled in its rage as Gaius had expected but was reigned by Katrina's willpower, who kept the white tips of from spreading and stilling their hunger.
"Don't you two dare retreat," Gawain ordered his fellows from behind the inferno where Gaius could barely make out his silhouette. "Don't you see? This is merely for show. The girl won't risk setting the entire place on fire."
"Not yet," Katrina said while taking a hold of Gaius' hand who was still mesmerized by the magic power he had never seen Katrina use in such fashion.
She dragged him back the way they had taken through the library, and as soon as she turned her back on the tornado of purple and white flames, the fire crackled greedily, and the sound of wood being split and eaten by fire followed them as Gaius and Katrina picked up speed.
"I'm sorry about all these texts you won't be able to read," Katrina said. The Holy Knights' shouts grew in urgency, but the roaring fire soon overshadowed them. If they came to their senses, they would make haste and escape through one of the other tunnels before the smoke rendered them immovable.
"It hardly matters," Gaius said even though the faint sting of regret did pierce him at the thought of the plethora of textbooks he had held at his fingertips. "I already know where Mordred will be going next and what he plans to find there."
He hadn't realized it at the time, but the polarizing study on the Fairy Clan he had tapped into before Gawain had arrived at the scene had shown the exact page with the information Mordred had ordered his men to obtain. An untouched source of magic forgotten for three thousand years, the key Mordred needed to overcome foes as formidable as the Seven Deadly Sins. His plan never relied on manpower – he required magic energy to equip the forces he did have.
Katrina tripped but caught herself before she fell. "You mean there is another thing Mordred needs for The Fall to happen? And we can take it from him without the need to confront him? We won't need to kill him?"
"If my assessment is correct, yes," Gaius answered. "Though we have to assume that, at this point, Mordred has access to this information as well."
"Where are we going then?"
"To Avalon."
And with luck, they would arrive there before Mordred would and prevent unnecessary bloodshed. In case of the opposite coming to pass, Gaius doubted that they would be able to overcome Mordred's forces. But he would stand up to the man who had ordered the murder of his mentor, regardless of the odds. To live and to protect those who mattered to him.
One look at Katrina confirmed that she would do the same.
(A/N) I feel like I need to reiterate that I wrote the the first draft of this chapter long before the Chaos arc happened, which is why Merlin's character is a little different from how we've last seen her in the manga. I wanted to explore Merlin's flawed but human nature as well as her strong focus on the individual as supposed to the collective, but I realize that this representation might be jarring for some considering the Chaos arc. Nevertheless, this is probably my favorite chapter.