Strongest of the Warlocks: Chapter Six: Phantom Plague
AN: I'm so glad you all enjoyed your Christmas present, but we are now back into the episodes, starting with 1x03, I, personally, am looking for the episode following this one, that'll be fun to write!
Merlin was many things and did many things, including kneeling down next to a corpse, which would have made Gwen throw up a little in her mouth, Merlin was certain. But it was better for her to do it than Gaius with his frail limbs.
"He can't have been dead long," Merlin said, her words nearly a mumble so as not to draw much attention towards them, "the body's not stiff enough."
"What else can you draw from that?" Gaius asked her, treating this as though it was some kind of training for when she was Court Physician, which it could be considered, she supposed.
"His veins are a bit obvious and his skin is so pale that it's a little blue," Merlin mused, "shall I turn him over?"
"Please do."
Merlin grunted slightly as she pulled the face-down body to face the sky by tugging at the side of his waist that was opposite her and then she had to recoil slightly at what she saw. The face was just as blue-tinted pale as his arm had been, but the eyes were completely white. Merlin had never seen anything like it before.
"He," Merlin decided, "did not die of natural causes."
"No, he did not," Gaius agreed, appearing greatly troubled. "People mustn't see this. They'll panic."
Merlin frowned slightly, but she still took the ratty sheet he offered her, covering the body as best as she could. "We have to get him back to the castle," she said, "and I've hardly the upper body strength to carry him, and you're completely out of the question."
Gaius shot her a shrewd look before gesturing off to the left. "Grab that wheelbarrow. It will have to do…and I'll leave you to do the heavy lifting, shall I?"
Merlin glared. "You think you're so funny, Uncle, don't you?"
He smiled congenially at her, but it did little to pull the wool over Merlin's eyes as she dragged the wheelbarrow over with difficulty and with a bit more difficulty managed to lift the corpse into the wheelbarrow, quickly replacing the sheet over the body and glancing around to be sure no one saw.
"I think it would be best if this young man was taken back to the castle quickly," Gaius told her and for once Merlin had to agree with him there as they both took up a handle and began to pull their covered cargo towards the castle.
"Does Arthur known you're out here?" Gaius asked her conversationally.
Merlin couldn't help but snigger. "Nope…he's not going to be pleased."
Gaius arched an eyebrow at her response and she merely rolled her eyes. "What's the worst he's going to do to me? Have me muck out the stables?"
Gaius had to hum in agreement to that as he took one of the handles and Merlin took the other and with a bit of work, they managed to wheel the covered corpse over to the drawbridge that was currently down to allow people inside the courtyard, and it was there that Merlin and Gaius met their first obstacle: Gwen.
"What are you doing?" a familiar voice asked and Merlin whirled around to see her bronze-faced friend.
"Oh, er, you know," Merlin said evasively, "moving heavy stuff, the usual."
"It does look heavy," Gwen had to agree, though couldn't be quite sure of just what it was that the pair were carrying. "Do you need any help?"
"I assure you, Gwen, we have it well in hand," Gaius told her with a small smile.
Gwen smiled back, though hers was far brighter than Gaius' by far. "Alright, then…see you later, Merlin!"
"See you!" Merlin called after her was her fellow maid positively skipped way. She seemed to be in a very good mood, if you asked Merlin, which made one of them; tending to a corpse that may or may not carry a contagion of sorts didn't really count as a good day for Merlin.
"Let's hope we get no more interruptions," Gaius told her shrewdly.
Merlin gave him a jerking look. "You're making it out like this is my fault, and, just in case it's not obvious, I am the incredibly innocent party here! Gwen's the one who started the conversation, not me!"
That seemed to matter little to Gaius as they dragged the wheelbarrow through the courtyard.
"Gaius…how exactly are we supposed to get this body into your chambers without anyone noticing that we've got it, especially since the wheelbarrow can't fit through all those corridors?" Merlin asked him and the physician paused briefly.
"Do you think Sir Leon would be willing to do you a favor?" he asked her and Merlin gave him a filthy look at how innocent the words had been said and then left, stalking off in search of the ginger-haired knight.
Finding him was not as easy as it would seem, because, even though his ginger mop was a dead giveaway, the castle was rather large, but she found him eventually.
"Hey, Leon!"
The knight turned around to arch an eyebrow at her. "Merlin."
"Leon," she said, nearly mocking him, "how's your strength?"
Leon paused and stared at her, not quite understanding. "I beg your pardon?"
"Your strength," Merlin said impatiently. "Are you strong or not, Leon? It's a rather simple answer, you know."
"I suppose strong is a relative term," Leon said dryly, "whatever do you need strength for?"
"I'd have to swear you to secrecy for that," Merlin said, shooting furtive glances around in an exaggerated manner.
"What is it you need, Merlin?"
She grinned.
Gaius examined the head of the corpse while Merlin looked over his hands and arms again.
"I've never seen anything like this before," Gaius told her, leaning back from his examination with his looking glass that helped to amplify what his fading sight could not see.
"No contusions," Merlin remarked, "he doesn't seem to be injured at all."
"Yes," Gaius agreed, a frown marring his lips briefly as he gazed down the length of the body with contemplation.
Merlin's eyes flashed up to meet his, her blue eyes surprisingly serious. "This couldn't be some kind of plague, could it?...Though I suppose we'd have to wait for more bodies to consider it a plague," she mused.
"I believe it is something quite different," Gaius disagreed, shaking his head and causing his white hair to flutter slightly from the movement. "I fear that something like this could never come from nature. But who has this kind of power?"
Merlin frowned, leaning back herself, away from the body. "You think the cause is magic?" she guessed.
A sudden loud yell of "Merlin!" had Merlin scrambling for the door and swearing loudly as she went, barely opening the door before Arthur reached it, keeping it carefully open only a certain amount so that Arthur wouldn't be able to see inside.
"I'm on my way," she told him as blank-faced as she could manage in the face of his clear-as-day irritation, before adding, for good measure, "sorry I'm late."
"Don't worry," Arthur said dryly, "I'm getting used to it."
"Well, then, maybe you shouldn't have taken on the physician-in-training to be your maidservant," Merlin replied tartly, barely restraining from rolling her eyes, "what're you going to do when you're king and I have obligations to the sick and wounded?"
"I'll worry about it then."
Merlin faked a smile and said –a bit sarcastically–, "Sure, you will."
He ignored this, glancing her up and down. "You know," he said, his eyes narrowing slightly, "there's something about you that's bothering me…"
Merlin gave an exaggerated sigh. "Tell me, was it the masculine clothing or the sword?" Someone always had something to complain about in regards towards her.
"Surprisingly neither," he drawled, "it's that you only wear one vambrace." He pointed a finger towards the leather forearm protector she had tightly bound to her right arm.
"What's wrong with that?" Merlin asked, heat creeping up her neck at the thought of the owner of the other vambrace.
He gave her one of his special I-know-more-than-you looks. "They come in pairs."
"So?" Merlin demanded. "Do I question your fashion sense?"
"Yes," he said, but Merlin ignored him.
"—No," she said, "so you leave my vambrace out of it! Now, did you need anything, Prince Prat?"
Arthur scowled at her, considering pulling rank on her before deciding that it would just be a waste of time since she would probably just ignore him. "Tell Gaius my father wants to see him now."
"Fine," Merlin said, slamming the door shut in his face.
"I imagine that vambrace is of some significance," Gaius said lightly, quite amused when heat flooded her face.
"Oh, shut up, Uncle," she grumbled. "Did you hear Arthur, about his father…?"
"I heard," he told her.
"Am I a bloody courier?" Merlin grumbled to herself. "No, I'm a bloody healer, but does anyone care? No!"
"You're a servant," Gaius corrected her, "which means sometimes you just have to do as you're told."
"All this for saving a prince…it's hardly worth it," Merlin scoffed in disagreement as she threw a sheet over the body to hide it from prying eyes before following Gaius out the door.
"And do try to keep your head in the presence of the king," Gaius warned her, "that's the part of you that has me particularly worried."
Merlin nearly glared. "Did my mum tell you to watch out for that?"
"The mouth that gets away? Yes, she did."
Merlin jutted out her lip slightly at those words, slightly irritated and slightly resigned, but this was her mother, after all. Hunith knew Merlin better than most people and she knew quite well that Merlin always had something to say.
"Do you think they found another body?" Merlin asked instead and Gaius hushed her with a rather significant look as they entered the throne room and all was made clear.
Sprawled on the floor garbed in the typical uniform of the servants of the castle, was another corpse bearing the same symptoms as the body they had back in Gaius' quarters.
Merlin and Gaius knelt down beside it, inspecting the body closely for a few moments to ascertain if the symptoms were identical to that of the first corpse, well aware of the nobles that were speaking in hushed whispers around them.
"What's happened to him?" Uther demanded and Gaius leaned back to address him.
"I don't know, Sire," he said. "It's the second case I've seen today."
Merlin glanced up and Arthur gave her a look. That's what you were hiding!
She narrowed her eyes. What did you want me to do? Forget about the corpse?
He jerked his head slightly. Yes!
She rolled her eyes, looking back over the corpse in front of her. What an ass! Why did she agree to stay on as his servant in the first place?
"Why didn't you report it to me?" Uther implored Gaius.
"I was attempting to find the cause," Gaius admitting, standing straight, and Merlin followed suit, keeping her mouth politely shut, refraining from making any remarks.
"And what did you conclude?"
"I don't think it's time to hurry to conclusions," Gaius said, and even Merlin could tell how evasive he was being. "The scientific process is a long one."
"What are you concealing from me?" Uther asked shrewdly.
Gaius breathed out carefully. "Sire," he said, "I have seen nothing like it. The victims are dying in twenty-four hours, and it's spreading fast." Merlin noticed a few nobles, including the Prince Prat himself, took a step back at that, but she didn't move from where she stood; she had no fear of death by illness.
"What is the cause?" Uther pressed him.
Though he was very reluctant to speak on the matter, Gaius did have to admit that there might only be one cause. "I think you should say the cause, the most likely cause, is sorcery."
Merlin tried to look as inconspicuous as always when magic or sorcery was brought up, but, like usual, no one looked towards her. Uther, instead, pulled his son aside to have words with him, though Merlin heard every word of it.
"We must find who did this," Uther told him.
"I will, Father," Arthur promised.
"Conduct door to door searches," Uther continued. "Increase your presence in the town. Double the guards on all the gates. And lend the physician your servant."
Merlin knelt down with Gaius to lift the body as Arthur balked slightly. "Merlin? But—"
"I'm going to need Gaius to find a cure," Uther insisted. "He needs all the help we can give him. If Gaius is right, believe me, this city will be wiped out. This is the kind of magic that undermines our authority, challenges all we've done. If we cannot control this plague, people will turn to magic for a cure. We have to find this sorcerer, and quickly."
"Yes, father," Arthur agreed.
Merlin was half asleep from the stress of searching for a cure the whole day with no such luck. The whole day had been rather terrible, if she had to give it a word. Arthur had spent it searching the upper and lower town of Camelot for the sorcerer and Merlin had to keep forcing herself to not try to help those suffering from the mysterious plague, and there were many.
"I can't find anything," Merlin bemoaned as she rubbed her eyes with one hand; it was no use, the longer she stared at the words, the more they floated off the page. "There is nothing here, Gaius."
"I suspect that this is magic of the darkest kind," he said, lifting a flask filled with the contents of their first corpse's stomach over a small flame.
Merlin blinked blearily as she sat up. "I never thought of using magic that was dark," she admitted.
"That is because you would never have felt the desire to," Gaius said. "But magic corrupts and people use it for their own ends."
"Not all magic," Merlin corrected him, "magic is neutral, its user isn't." That was one of the first lessons that she had learned from Iseldir.
"Indeed," Gaius agreed, "however there are many who do not share a similar view."
"What a shock," Merlin said dryly, slamming her book shut so fast that she dislodged a bit of dust that induced a small coughing fit. Her coughing only ceasing when the door was suddenly thrown open and several knights filed inside with Arthur.
"Sorry Gaius," Arthur told him as he strode inside, directing his knights to begin searching, "we're searching every room in town."
"What for?" Gaius asked as the knights began to spread out in the room, rifling through his things.
"A sorcerer," Arthur replied.
"But why would he be here?" Gaius inquired, raising his voice slightly as Merlin looked around nervously. The magic grimoire that she had been given by Gaius was carefully hidden, but she couldn't help her heart beating a little fast out of reflex.
"I'm just doing my job," Arthur replied in a placating manner as he turned away to inspect the books that Merlin had been spending the better part of the night reading.
"We've nothing to hide," Gaius said, glancing to Merlin out of the corner of his eye. "Go on, then. Search."
Merlin couldn't help but wonder why they were looking at the items that covered the benches and tables if they were looking for a sorcerer, but she thought it best not to mention that.
"What are all these books and papers?" Arthur asked, lifting a few for good measure.
"Don't hurt yourself," Merlin couldn't help but snark. "Those are pretty heavy."
Gaius shot her a look of warning and Arthur narrowed his eyes briefly at her before Gaius answered his question. "My life's work, dedicated to the understanding of science. You are quite welcome to read through them if you wish."
Arthur turned away slightly to hide the gagging grimace, but he didn't do a very good job of it and Merlin hid her snigger behind her hand. "What's that room up there?" he asked instead, gesturing up to where Merlin spent her nights.
"It's my room," Merlin said, "there's not much in there." It wasn't as though she had been in Camelot more than a month.
"And what exactly are you expecting to find?" Gaius asked quickly.
Arthur turned back to survey them for a short moment and Merlin had to wonder if he truly thought they were the source of the plague. "I'm looking for material or evidence suggesting the use of enchantments," he told them.
Gaius tapped her wrist lightly, speaking in low tones so they wouldn't be overheard. "What have you done with the magic book I gave you?" he asked her.
"They won't find it," Merlin said with complete certainty. The book was hidden whenever she didn't have it out to study the spells, hidden under her floorboards quite well, she had to admit.
But she was still relieved when Arthur returned down the steps, clearly not having found anything. Merlin relaxed her vice-like grip on her elbows which were still crossed across her chest.
"How long do you think it may be before you find a cure?" Arthur asked as he moved towards where they were still standing in front of the corpse-ladened table.
"It depends on how many interruptions I get," Gaius said, giving the prince a rather significant look that he no doubt took to mean "like certain princes and guards."
"Of course," Arthur said before adding, to Merlin's great surprise, "I'm sorry." He jerked his head upwards slightly to raise his voice to the still-searching guards. "We're finished here."
It was only once they had all gone that the pair released a breath of air.
"Make sure you keep that book out of sight," Gaius warned her, turning back to his flask of stomach.
"What if there's something in there that can help?" Merlin asked him, her imploring eyes meeting his.
"Don't be foolish, Merlin," Gaius barked. "Practice magic when the king is hunting for sorcerers? That's the quickest way to the chopping block!"
"I'm a healer!" Merlin snapped. "Am I meant to sit back and watch people die?"
"Your time will come," Gaius said with a sigh.
Merlin did not agree.
The next day brought the sun rising on more casualties.
Merlin had never felt so helpless before, and she certainly didn't like the feeling. She had never ignored those that were in need; she couldn't shrug it off like Gaius could (or at least he appeared to, he was the far more rational of the two).
"Merlin? Merlin! Are you listening to me?"
Merlin blinked a few times and raised her head to meet Gaius' eyes with hers. "What? Yes, I was listening." She hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night and the stress of working in the midst of a plague was starting to get to her.
"I was asking you to tell me what's different between this victim and the others," Gaius told her.
Merlin glanced over the most recent corpse. It was a woman dressed in fine silks and wearing delicate jewelry. "She's a noble," she said with a frown, "and most of the victims are of lesser status…so, she can't have been in contact with them."
"Yes," he agreed, "it suggests that the disease is not spread by contact."
"Didn't we already know that?" Merlin asked flummoxed. "We've been touching corpses and we're still not sick."
"It is always better to be certain," Gaius told her shrewdly. "Now, if the disease is not spread by contact, what is the only thing that they share?"
Merlin screwed up her face in thought. It couldn't be the air, obviously, or she and Gaius would have been dead several times over. It couldn't be the food, since those in the lower town –which was where a great deal of the victims lived– did not eat the same quality of food as those who lived in the castle. That only left— "Water!" she said suddenly. "It's got to be! The disease is spread by water!"
"Merlin," Gaius said with a grin, "you're a prodigy."
"Well," Merlin grinned slightly in return, "only in things healing-related, or magic, I suppose…"
"Now, be a good lass and fetch some watch from the lower town so we can see what is causing this plague," he told her, handing over the heavy bucket that Merlin usually used to fetch the water.
Merlin did as she was told, disappearing out the door and heading off towards the lower town on surprisingly quick feet. Moving down the road was much easier to do when you took into account that very few were out and about.
Fear of the unknown plague had spread like wildfire through Camelot and as it was, Merlin could have easily compared it to a graveyard with how still and silent it was.
Merlin sighed as she found the water spout, taking the lever and pressing it down several times until she had enough water for Gaius to run his tests, and in doing so she caught sight of Gwen running towards the castle with her crimson cloak fanning out behind her, but it wasn't enough to block the tears that were falling down her cheeks.
"Gwen?" she questioned, but the girl ran past her. "Gwen!"
Merlin grabbed the bucket and began to race after her friend, being very wary of the poisonous water that sloshed inside the bucket with ever movement, but, luckily (or unfortunately as it would later be discovered) Gwen seemed to be heading in the same direction as Merlin: Gaius' chambers.
She burst through the door, startling the older man terribly that he nearly dropped his magnifying glass, however he could not be reproachful when he saw the look on her face. "Gwen!"
"Gaius!" she gasped, breathless from the run to the castle, not noticing as Merlin entered after her.
"Do you have the sickness?" Gaius asked her and Merlin did a quick check, her eyes roving over Gwen's visible skin, but she couldn't even see a hint of the tell-tale pallor or obvious blue veins mapped across the skin like spider webs. Gwen appeared to be perfectly healthy…apart from being so distraught.
Gwen shook her head quickly before descending into sobs. "My father," she cried, "please, Gaius! He's all I have!"
"I have no cure," Gaius said as gently as he could manage, being completely honest.
"I am begging you," Gwen pleaded as though he could create something out of thin air at that moment.
"I wish there was something, anything, but so far the remedy is beyond what I can achieve," he told her regretfully. "I'm sorry, Gwen."
Renewed tears fell from her eyes and she fled from the room, leaving Merlin's eyes falling in the direction that she had left. She wanted to help Gwen, but they didn't have any remedy to the plague.
Merlin frowned. Should she even dare to save just one life, even if it was a modest blacksmith?
The answer was one Merlin already knew.
AN: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!
