A/N: And the chapter is ON TIME. Still no internet at my apartment, but that's okay considering I'm already editing and making changes on the story there. This work computer has the story that's actually consistent with what I've already uploaded so far, so it's probably best I keep uploading from here (until I run out of pre-written chapters and have to start back-editing in strange ways. I'll work it out.)

**EDITED**

Gerund insisted that Merlin be fitted for armour. Merlin tried to kick up a fuss, but Gerund simply wasn't having it. Apparently whether he became king or not, he would be considered nobility and therefore most likely dubbed a mage. At some point or other, he would be expected to fight, and so he would need armour of his own. He could conceivably have used his father's if Balinor had not taken it with him when he left Carthis, and if there had not been advancements in armour since that time. The armour was magically reinforced with ever-improving protective enchantments, allowing it to be much thinner than any armour Merlin had ever seen in Camelot, lighter and more closely fitted, less cumbersome and restrictive.

The only reason Merlin put up with being measured and examined and used as a dress-up doll for such a length of time was because he had absolutely nothing else to do in order to occupy his mind at the moment. After the demonstration of his Dragonlord abilities earlier that morning, the councilors had sequestered themselves in the council chambers and barred the door behind them, placing numerous spells on the room to ensure that no one could overhear what was being said inside. He had no idea how long it would be before they emerged to announce their decision, the ruling that would either put him on the throne or cast him aside.

So even though Merlin would be far more comfortable never having to don armour, he stood still and allowed for his measurements to be taken anyway. Well, as still as he could be when he was so full of restless energy. Several times he nearly elbowed the poor blacksmith in the eye because he was fidgeting so much. He was finally chivied irritably out of the door with instructions to pick up his armour in a few hours, and to keep it in good shape so he didn't have to come back.

This left Merlin at a loss. He could go back to his rooms, he guessed, but what would he do there? What did Arthur do all day when he wasn't busy with kingly duties? He trained with his knights, usually, but that wasn't really something that Merlin could do. Or maybe it was, he thought as something that Gerund had said on their way to Carthis came into his mind. Something similar to that, at least.

A castle guard kindly gave him directions to where he might be able to find the High Priest, in his study up in a tall tower in the east wing. He reached the place without much trouble—no one stopped him, at least, so he assumed that either anyone was allowed to be there or he had enough authority to get away with going anywhere that he wished—and found the door open.

It was a large study, which reminded him painfully of Gaius' workrooms back in Camelot, with a number of heavy wooden tables covered in teetering stacks of books and papers, and a number of strange instruments that looked to be of science and magic alike, some of which were moving of their own accord and emitting small puffs of colored smoke every few seconds.

Merlin hovered in the doorway for a moment, mouth gaping open as he watched one such contraption spin around under its own power with a high pitched whizzing noise, before a man descended into view down a small set of steps from a backroom and drew up short at the sight of Merlin standing there.

"Oh. And who might you be?" he asked in confusion.

He was tall and thin, but not overly so, probably somewhere in his middle or late sixties but still in good health. He had salt and pepper hair that fell in waves to brush against his shoulders and sharp dark eyes that examined Merlin from head to toe. Around his shoulders was a blue cape identical to the one Gerund often wore, as opposed to the similarly colored robes donned by the council members, except for the much larger and more elaborate royal sigil stitched into the right side of the chest.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," Merlin stammered, feeling like a small child for some reason under the man's gaze instead of the grown man that he was. "If you're busy, I can come back later."

"I don't have anything that needs to be done immediately," the man said, laying the book that he had in his hand on a nearby table and still watching Merlin with just the slight air of caution owed to any unknown person who should turn up unannounced. "Do you have something that you need to ask of me, stranger?"

"Oh, right, sorry," Merlin said hastily, feeling a blush of embarrassment creep up on his cheeks. "My name is Merlin. Er, Merlin Ambrosius, I guess," he tacked on as a bit of an afterthought. He had a surname now, one that would actually mean something to people, and he should probably remember to use it.

"You guess?" the man asked in mild amusement, raising an eyebrow at him.

Merlin flushed deeper, feeling very silly indeed.

"Well, it's, er…a bit of a new development," he muttered. He cleared his throat and stood up straighter, making a conscious effort to look less awkward than he felt. "You are the High Priest of Carthis, are you not?" he asked.

"I am," the man confirmed. "My name is Kane. Did you have something that you wished to discuss with me, Merlin Ambrosius?"

Merlin hesitated only a moment more before entering the room more fully, not entirely sure what he wanted to ask but eager to do so nonetheless. This was a man so full of knowledge and power, the most learned man in the entire kingdom in the esoteric arts, and Merlin wanted to know everything that he did. He wanted to learn, to study, to become half as capable as the world seemed to expect him to be.

"I just wanted to…" he started, but he stopped and tried again. "Well, I'm afraid that I have had very little training as far as magic goes. And I would very much like to have more."

Kane watched him for a moment, long enough to make Merlin want to fidget, but he suppressed the urge.

"I trained your father, you know," Kane said abruptly.

"My father?" Merlin repeated, stunned.

"You are Balinor's boy, are you not, Merlin Ambrosius?" Kane asked. "Word travels fast about such things as this. A true Dragonlord has returned to Carthis at last. Where have you been hiding all this time?"

"In Camelot," Merlin answered blankly, still too dazed by the revelation to be anything but honest. This was the man who had taught his father, just as Merlin had hoped he would train him.

"Camelot? Well, then it's no wonder you have no training," Kane exclaimed. "What on earth possessed you to go there of all places?"

"I travelled there for the same reason that I sought you," Merlin said. "In the hopes of learning more about my gifts. What little training I do have is thanks to Gaius."

"Gaius, of course," Kane laughed, looking delighted. "I studied with the man myself for a few months when we were both much younger men. He was a spectacular healer, and a genius with a potions set. How goes it for him?"

"Well, as far as I know," Merlin said, but a sliver of doubt plagued him; Arthur had to have reached Camelot by now. He didn't think that Arthur would do anything to Gaius, even if he had been aiding and abetting a known sorcerer, but that did little to assuage his worry for his guardian. If anything happened to Gaius because of him, he would never be able to live with himself.

"If Gaius had a hand in your training, even in such a place as Camelot, then you surely have a solid foundation," Kane told him. "Come. I have nothing pressing to attend to, if you wish to begin now."

"Really?" Merlin asked breathlessly, hardly daring to believe it.

Kane smiled at him, the wrinkles around his eyes showing that it was something that he did frequently. He put a hand on Merlin's shoulder.

"There is much to discuss, my boy," he said. He steered Merlin into a seat at one of the many tables and placed a book in front of him. "Now, to start with the basics—"

And that was where Mordred found the two of them when he appeared in the doorway several hours later, still in the exact same place but now deep in discussion about the storage properties of different crystals and the possible uses that could be developed for them, books and auxiliary papers long since discarded as they had progressed quickly past the fundamentals.

Merlin's innate understanding of magic, as well as the years of experience that he had with experimentation and trial and error meant that he hardly needed a concept explained once before he understood it well. The lack of structured learning that he had meant only that he lacked the boundaries in his thinking, did not have any notion of impossible. With enough ingenuity, and his own near-limitless reserves of magic, he was sure that anything was possible.

"But think about it," Merlin was saying fervently. "Transportation spells always use a ridiculous amount of power. If that magical energy could be stored ahead of time in a crystal of some sort then you could come out the other side of the transport without being wiped out and exhausted. Think of how useful that would be in a battle, not having to leave one of your strongest fighters out of the fight because he had drained his magic in transport."

"You would need a very resilient crystal to support the transfer of that much energy without breaking apart," Kane argued, his brow furrowed.

"Maybe a double terminated quartz in conjunction with a dendritic agate? Or maybe a fluorite. You said that those handle large amounts of energy without side effects," Merlin suggested with a quick glance at the reference chart of crystals and their associations that he had been studying earlier and which had sparked the thought in the first place.

"Would the addition of runes be of any help?" Mordred inserted.

The two looked up in surprise; they had been too engaged in their conversation to hear the young knight come in.

"Something to strengthen and stabilize the crystal?"

"It might just be possible," Kane mused, reaching for a blank piece of parchment and beginning to sketch roughly in charcoal.

"Do you really think so?" Merlin asked eagerly.

He had always wanted to learn a transportation spell, to be able to disappear from one spot and reappear almost instantly many leagues away, but such spells were said to be draining, even for the very powerful. And the spell hadn't been in any of the books he'd had access to. If this idea came to fruition, then it could change the face of magical transportation entirely.

"It just might. It will need some work, of course it will, but this is a brilliant idea. You're a bright lad, Merlin, that's for sure," Kane said without looking up. "You've got a head for this. I might make a scholar out of you yet."

"Gaius will be delighted," Merlin said, pretty thrilled at the prospect himself. He would have said more, would have asked Kane to take him on as a true apprentice or something, but Mordred stepped forward.

"Sir Gerund sent me to fetch you, Merlin," he said apologetically. "He said that your armour is completed and ready to be picked up."

Merlin deflated with a sigh, not wanting to leave this haven of inspiration and magical knowledge. For a short time he had been able to forget about everything outside of that room, about the council deciding his fate, about Arthur angry and betrayed in Camelot, about all of it.

"Go on, Merlin. I'll continue working on this. The Lower Priests will be intrigued by the prospect as well," Kane told him.

Merlin got up and crossed to the door where Mordred was waiting for him.

"Oh, and Merlin."

He turned back to Kane.

"You are welcome to stop by anytime. I would be more than glad to have you, sire."

"I will," Merlin promised with a smile.

He would be back every day, if he could manage it. Hell, he would rather just stay here. But sadly, there were other things that demanded his attention. His was not the life of a scholar, no matter how much he sometimes wished that it could be. He nodded to Kane and followed Mordred out into the corridor.

They walked in silence for a ways, Merlin's good mood edging lower and lower with every step back into reality that he took. Needing to distract himself again, he glanced over at Mordred and saw that he had replaced his Pendragon-red cloak with a blue one.

"So what have you been doing all day, Mordred?" he asked, realizing that he had not seen the young man since the day before. He had not been present at the demonstration that morning, from what he had been able to tell.

"I joined the training of the secular knights in the morning," Mordred told him. "It is not much different than the regime in Camelot. The same forms, the same stances. But then I was invited to join the mages' training session."

"How did they know you had magic? Did you tell them?" Merlin asked.

He thought that maybe he ought to feel jealous of Mordred's experience, but he had been perfectly content to be surrounded by books and discussing the properties of crystals, rather than learning how to do battle with his gifts. He had never been much of fighter, not when there was any other option to be had.

"There were a couple of druids among their number. They recognized me as one of their own," Mordred explained. Not that that really explained anything, but Merlin had long since given up on trying to figure out the peculiarities of that particular group of people. "They said that they would be honored to have you join them tomorrow."

"Did they? I don't know…" Merlin said nervously, reaching up to adjust his neckerchief only to remember belatedly that he had not worn it. He stuffed his hand in the pocket of his trousers instead, finding the sigil ring there. "I have never really fought openly with magic. I doubt that I would do well against those who have."

"It's training, Merlin, not a duel to the death," Mordred chuckled. "They mean to teach you, not test you."

Merlin wasn't sure that he wanted to be taught such things. He had already brought about far too much death with his magic for his own peace of mind. Being trained in offensive magic, being made even more dangerous, was a scary prospect. He bit his lip and did not answer.

Mordred seemed to catch on to his mood, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "I would like for you to be there, Merlin," he said softly.

"Why is that?" Merlin asked curiously, caught by his reticent tone.

"I want you to share in that freedom with me," Mordred said, coming to a stop and turning to face Merlin properly. His eyes were bright, a small, awed smile on his face. "To practice openly. To be who we are without fear of reprisal. It…I could never describe the feeling. But I want you to feel it too."

Merlin recalled how he had felt that morning, standing before a crowd and speaking in the language of the dragons. And the night before, the giddiness of using a simple spell without having to worry about being caught and hanged for it. He wondered how it would feel to enter into a battle with confidence, with his hands held high as the only weapon he needed, to stand tall on the battlefield instead of crouched behind a tree. To be able to stand at Arthur's side as his equal, as a warrior in his own right.

"Alright," he sighed. "I'll do it. I will join you tomorrow."

Mordred's beaming smile lit up his face in a way that Merlin had never seen before.

"Come on," he said. "If you are to train with us, then you will need your armour."

Merlin groaned in half-hearted protest but followed Mordred off toward the blacksmith's hut anyway.

Merlin dug his heels in and held his ground, refusing to budge an inch under the onslaught of magic hammering away at his defenses. The shield that he had conjured glittered brightly in the afternoon sunlight, sparking a brighter gold wherever his opponent's spells connected, exploding across the surface of his magic with a sensation that left Merlin's skin buzzing, but never cracking under the pressure. He had no idea how long he had been holding this shield—time got a little iffy when he was focusing so completely on something—but the attacks from the mage across the field from him were coming slower and slower as his energy flagged.

Finally, after another minute or so, the man dropped his hands, panting, and signaled his defeat with a white cloth from his pocket. Merlin let his shield fall, letting out a sigh of relief but not feeling truly fatigued from the prolonged magic use, and drew his sleeve across his forehead.

"Bloody hell, man," his opponent called, looking stuck between admiration and jealousy. "That was ten solid minutes and you didn't even falter."

Merlin shrugged, scratching the back of his head.

"I've always had more magic than I knew what to do with," he said truthfully.

It had been a serious problem when he was living in Ealdor, back before he had learned how to really control his magic. It had come bursting out of him at random times, leaping up to meet his needs before he even knew what they were. It had been extraordinarily dangerous, never knowing when his magic was going to flare up or to what end, always looking over his shoulder to make absolutely certain that he was completely alone.

Several times he had gone out into the woods by himself, or later with Will at his side, and just poured out his magic in whatever way that he could, hoping to exhaust himself to the point that his magic would settle down. That had never really worked as well as he had hoped, but it had gotten him by.

Only when he moved to Camelot had he managed to get a grip on himself properly, with advice from Gaius and the metaphorical axe hanging over his head. The looming threat of execution was a much better motivator than any warning his mother ever could have come up with to try and keep him in line.

"Well, I think your shielding is up to par," Sir Frederick, the mage to whom Gerund had delegated the task of training the new recruits, said with a wry twist to his lips as he jogged over from the sidelines. "Any enemy of yours will wear himself out long before he manages to break through a shield that strong. Of course, that doesn't mean that you should rely on that sort of shield completely. They only protect you from one angle, and they take up your concentration and leave you vulnerable to attacks from the rear and sides."

"Are there shields that wrap around entirely?" Merlin asked curiously. If he had to focus entirely on sustaining that one spell, then it seemed like it would be more of a hindrance than a help. Unless he were fighting only one opponent, in which case he felt that he would be more likely to take the offensive approach rather than hide behind a shield. He would want the battle over and done with as quickly as possible.

"There are," Sir Frederick said approvingly. "There are a few different spells that can take different shapes, but they take considerably more power to maintain."

"I really don't think that will be much of a problem for him," the exhausted mage pointed out. "I threw everything I've got at him and he's not even winded."

Sir Frederick nodded and shrugged at the same time, conceding the point.

"You're tapped out for the day, Timmons. Head on over and get some sword practice in," he said, waving the mage off toward the adjacent field where a number of secular knights were running through their forms and stances, blunted practice swords flashing as they cut through the air.

Merlin could see Lord Ellison there, clad in chainmail gambeson and engaged in a sparring session. Even from a distance Merlin could see that Ellison was a talented swordsman, if a little unnecessarily aggressive in his style. However, Merlin suspected that that was only because the council was currently holed up in discussions and Ellison, as one of the subjects of the debate, was not allowed to participate.

"And send over that new kid, will you?" Frederick added thoughtfully. "He's got some serious power. Let's see how he holds up."

Timmons nodded and jogged off the field as Frederick explained the new spells to Merlin, walking him through the first incantation a time or two.

By the time Mordred had joined them, Merlin was relatively confident in his ability to cast the spell; the language of the Old Religion had always come easily to him, ever since the first time that he had picked up the book that Gaius had given him and found that he could read the foreign words written inside without ever having been taught their meaning, as if he already knew them on some level.

"Go on then, Merlin," Sir Frederick called, moving back out of the line of fire.

Merlin settled himself into a defensive stance, breathing deeply to center himself. He reached deep down inside himself to that place in the pit of his stomach that always felt hot, calling upon the warm presence that was his magic, drawing it forth until it hummed in his fingertips and danced along his skin like the crackle of lightning. It was a rush, as it always was, that feeling of power and pure energy, exhilarating in a way that nothing else could ever hope to be.

"Befielde mec æghwæs sidrande," he intoned, lifting his hands above his head and bringing them down again slowly, leaving in their wake a wash of golden light. It enclosed him from head to foot, a luminous bubble of protection that Merlin could feel, could sense as an extension of himself. Once it was fully in place, he saw Mordred slide into a ready stance across from him, already forming words of the Old Religion on his lips.

Merlin barely felt the first spell connect. It glanced off his shield as if it were nothing more than a gust of wind, a splash of cool water, strong though he knew Mordred to be. The next was stronger, a wash of magic questing across his own, pushing and testing for weak spots that it didn't find, and this time Merlin felt the vacuum left in its wake as it receded, the way it felt almost as if his own magic was being drawn out with it, like eager to stay with like.

As attack after attack fell on his shield, an insistent push and tug against the edges of his mind that was the brush of foreign magic against his own, an idea formed in Merlin's head. It was risky, impossible according to what he had been told, but he had accomplished the impossible before, and the result would be worth it if the risk paid off.

Merlin closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the throb of energy through his body, pulled along in his blood, released through his palms and his fingertips to enter the air around him and become reality. Merlin extended one hand to the side, focusing on the feeling of channeling magic in that direction and keeping the flow of it steady and constant down his arm and out of his fingertips and to the shield. The influx of foreign magic from Mordred's assault was a distraction and Merlin poured more magic into his shield, making it thicker and more resistant to soften the blows.

Then he raised his other hand in front of him, closing his eyes briefly in order to better concentrate on what he was doing. He had always been very good at multitasking in his everyday life, after all. Why should the same not hold true when it came to magic?

He began thinking through his repertoire of spells, but he had to stop briefly when his hold on the shield faltered ever so slightly, Mordred's magic digging into the weakness and trying to make it crack. Merlin took another deep breath and reestablished his connection with it through his left hand, repairing the damage, and then he tried again, holding the shield steady as he thought of a different spell entirely.

"Tòdrìfe þone wiðerwinnan," he gritted out, struggling to pull his magic in two directions at once, to split the flow of it in half and channel it toward different purposes.

To his immense gratification, it worked. The shield stayed where it was, still functioning as it was meant to with only a slight flicker of weakness, and a second push of his magic sent Mordred flying off his feet. The effort left Merlin feeling a little lightheaded, but now he knew that it could be done. It was possible to perform two spells at once, to throw out an attack while maintaining a magical shield, despite what Sir Frederick had initially claimed.

Merlin let the shield fall gratefully, panting now as Sir Timmons had been earlier. He hurried across the field to offer his hand to Mordred where he lay winded, pulling the younger man to his feet. He looked dumbfounded, staring wide-eyed at Merlin. Sir Frederick also appeared too thunderstruck by what Merlin had achieved to speak. Sir Gerund had arrived at some point during the duel and was standing at Sir Frederick's side, gaping openly. Really, everyone on the entire field, and the field adjacent, and those walking past, all seemed to have stopped what they were doing to stare at him in astonishment.

Merlin tugged at his new chainmail, the neck of it suddenly feeling too tight around his throat.

"How—how did you do that?" Sir Frederick finally managed to choke out.

"I just wanted to see if it could be done," Merlin said a bit defensively, uncomfortable with all the attention. "Magical multitasking. Two spells at once, I mean. Protection and offense. I don't want to need to wait until my opponent wears himself out and stops attacking before I can safely return fire."

"Impossible!" a stodgy-looking old man cried from behind the fence on the perimeter of the magical training field. Merlin thought he might have been one of the lesser council members. If he wasn't still shut up in the council chambers, then they must have concluded their session for the day without coming to a decision; there would surely have been an announcement if they had. "It can't be done! It simply can't be!"

"Obviously it can," Sir Gerund pointed out. "That's astounding, Merlin."

"Is it really?" he asked dubiously.

A number of secular knights had gathered by the fence as well, nudging each other and shaking their heads in something like wonder. Ellison didn't join them, opting instead to stab his sword into the ground where his sparring partner had abandoned him. Merlin couldn't read his expression across the distance, but he didn't look particularly pleased with the attention Merlin was getting. Not that Merlin was any more pleased with it, but he didn't need any more reasons for Ellison to dislike him.

"It's unprecedented," Sir Frederick exclaimed. "I have never heard tell of someone achieving such a thing."

Merlin flushed darkly, partly pleased, partly embarrassed, and partly thoroughly depressed. It wasn't like it would be the first thing he had achieved that no one else had, but that didn't make it any less alienating to be the only person capable of such a thing. A glance back at the other field showed that Ellison was halfway back to the castle, leaving his practice sword stuck into the ground in the middle of the training field.

"Would you be able to teach me?" Mordred asked eagerly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Merlin looked at the young knight, surprised but considering it; Mordred had a formidable gift, nearly as strong as Morgana's. While Merlin knew himself to be more powerful than them both by a good deal, Mordred's magic was still likely to be stronger than the magic of most everyone else in attendance. If anyone could match him in this, it would be Mordred.

"I could certainly try," he said, a small smile making its way onto his lips. "You just need to split your atten—" he began, but he was interrupted by an urgent cry.

"Sir Gerund!" They all turned to see a knight hurrying toward them from the direction of the castle, his blue cloak fluttering in his wake.

Gerund stepped forward, waving him down.

"What is it, Sir Galahad?" he asked. "What's happened?"

"There has been another report," Galahad told him. "There has been direct contact with her just over the southern border."

"She crossed the border?" Gerund demanded sharply, his face hardening.

"Yes, sir. She invaded the estate of Lord Hendle, trying to persuade him to lend her his support. He refused and called for his guards. There was a fight, but there were no fatalities. She fled the premises by means of a transportation spell and we were unable to track her."

Gerund's expression tightened further and Merlin got a heavy, sinking feeling of dread in his stomach; there were not many who were powerful enough to inspire such alarm on their own. He only knew of one, and a quick exchange of glances with Mordred showed that he was thinking the same thing. Her name did not need to be said. It seemed that everyone within earshot knew exactly of whom the knight was speaking.

"She grows bolder still," Gerund said tensely, his fists clenched by his sides. "If she has ventured over our borders and assaulted one of our own, then we must prepare for the day when she comes for us directly. Double the guard by the southern border, and the western as well. No patrol should be without at least two mages; we cannot afford to engage her without strong magic, no matter our numbers."

Sir Galahad nodded briskly and hurried off to carry out his orders.

"Gerund," Merlin said, stepping close so that his voice would not carry. "You speak of Morgana, do you not?"

Gerund nodded sharply, his jaw clenched.

"She has been a growing presence since Queen Eleanor's death," he said.

"You think that she hopes to seize the kingdom for herself?" Mordred asked.

"Yes. And her strength alone may have been enough to win her the throne," Gerund answered grimly. "Lord Ellison would have been no match for her magically, nor would any of the other Lords who were hoping to seize the throne while they had the opportunity. We have managed to hold her at bay, but she has grown more audacious as of late. It is only a matter of time before she makes a bid for power."

"Is there no way to discourage her? Aside from outright battle, that is," Merlin asked.

"There is one way," Gerund said. "Come, Merlin. Let us inform the council that they have run out of time to bicker. Their decision must be made now. Morgana will have more trouble seizing a throne if it has already been filled."

He immediately turned to lead the way back toward the castle. Merlin did not hesitate to follow him this time, Mordred falling in at his side without missing a beat. Morgana was his enemy and his responsibility, and he would do anything to stop the people of Carthis from suffering at her hand the way the citizens of Camelot had.