Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.

Chapter 6: Of old friends and new.

Merlin sat down, with a sigh and lies down on the grass of the training field. All day since he had bought his mother here, he had been studying, Alator had managed to get him lesson with almost everyone! Which wasn't too bad, Merlin loved learning about magic and the history of magic. No the bad part was, Alator had decided Merlin needed to learn how to defend himself without the aid of magic. And he thought Arthur sword training was bad! With the aid of healing magic, you could train and get injured, if you weren't quick enough to defend yourself. So lets just say Merlin had been forced to train with someone who had a knights skill with a sword. It didn't end well and he has a couple more scars to add to his collection. Despite what most people believed Merlin was okay with a sword, not the worst, but not the best either. But his skill was no where near that of a knights. A shadow falls over him, squinting Merlin tries to see who it is standing above him.

"Hello, Merlin." A voice greets him.

"Gilli?" Merlin asks, sitting up.

Gillis grins and drops on to the ground beside Merlin. "Yeah, it's me. Its taken me all day to find you. First your off on a dragon, then all over the place. Finding out who you have lessons with and finally sword training. You got well and truly beaten."

Merlin groans. "I know. Why did they have to give me a knight to train with?"

"I don't think I would have done much better without the aid of magic," Gilli answers. "But you did mange to hold your own for a couple of minutes."

"Yeah, but then I got about ten cuts in under a minute. In battle I would have been six feet under by now."

"Good thing it wasn't a battle then!"

Merlin laughs. "Yeah good thing it wasn't."

"EMRYS!" Alator's voice echo's across the field.

Merlin looks up to find Alator hurrying towards them.

"What is it?" Merlin asks.

"A village just inside the border of Camelot, is about to burn a witch at the stake. I need you to go and save them."

Merlin looks at Alator. "You want me to go and rescue some one from the flames? How can I do that without magic?"

"Who said you couldn't use magic?"

"The use of magic is still against the law in Camelot." Merlin answers. "We'll cause the knights to hunt us down. They must never find this place."

"Emrys, you have broken that law since the day you were born, as for them hunting us down. They will never be able to enter this place, we have wards all around the borders to stop them."

"Okay," Merlin gets to his feet. "Where is this village?"

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Gilli and Merlin wall towards the village, Merlin's spell hadn't been powerful enough to get them all the way to the village, so they had a bit of walking to do. The village was on the opposite side of Camelot to the perilous lands, so his spell had allowed them to travel a great distance. Merlin suddenly sees smoke rising, to much smoke for a normal fire.

"Come on!" Merlin yells.

Running, the two of them storm into the village. Merlin raises his hand and yells a spell the flames go out and the smoke clears. Villagers run screaming, but Merlin doesn't even notice as he climes up to the witch. He stops suddenly, realising he knows who it is.

"Alice?" He asks.

She looks up weakly. "Merlin?"

Merlin draws his dagger and cuts the ropes tying her to the post. As she falls forward Gilli catches her, almost falling over whilst doing so. Merlin quickly jumps down and takes one of Alice's arms over his shoulders, while Gill takes the other. Around them the villagers had returned, with weapons, nothing to bad mostly pitchforks, axes and scythe's.

"I'm going to have to do the spell here." Merlin warns Gilli. "We'll only make it to the bridge."

Gill nodes. "Hurry up, I really don't want to be impaled by a pitchfork."

Merlin mutters the spell and the three of them vanish in a whirlwind.

"We must get word to the king." Merlin hears one of the villagers yell as they disappear.

That would go down well. The villager would only have to describe him and Arthur would know it was him, if they weren't hunting him down before they would most likely be trying to find him after this. As the wind clears around them, they find themselves standing in front of the bridge to the perilous lands. Grettir greets them.

"Magic, I see you have returned."

Merlin rolls his eyes. "Yes I have. I need to get Alice here, to the druids right now. Where are they?"

"They are at the tower, magic." Gerttir replies. "I will take you there."

Merlin feels the magic around them and suddenly they find themselves in front of the tower.

"Thank you, Grettir." Merlin smiles.

"You are welcome, magic." He answers as he vanishes from sight.

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The druids set about treating Alice straight away. The burns she had were minor, but she had breathed in a lot of smoke. Merlin sat beside his mother as the druids worked.

"Gaius needs to be here." Hunith smiles sadly. "Alice needs him and he needs Alice."

Merlin nodes. "Then I will just have to get him."

"Merlin you cannot, Gaius is in Camelot, it is too dangerous."

Merlin shakes his head. "Alator was right, I have broken the law since the day I was born. I have practiced magic in Camelot from the moment I stepped foot in the city, only difference this time is everyone will know I'm doing it."

Merlin quickly gets to his feet grabs a cloak the druids had given to him and rushes out the door. Merlin pulls his midnight blue cloak over his shoulder and muttered a spell under his breath, with a flash of his eyes, he finds himself standing in the court yard of the Camelot castle. Merlin smiles and pulls the hood of his cloak low over his face and quickly makes his way towards Gaius's chambers. None of the guards pay him any attention as he passes. Now that he was here he could pick up his spell books, Sidhe staff and caved dragon his father had given to him shortly before he died.

He enters Gaius's chambers to find them empty, Merlin looks around and notices a note on the table. He picks it up and reads, he then puts it down and sighs. Gaius had gone to see the druids in the valley of the fallen kings, that Merlin knew thanks to the note. Sighing once more he destroys the note and rewrites it, explaining how Gaius had gone to find herbs in the valley of the fallen kings. If anyone was to know Gaius was speaking to the druids, he could get in a lot of trouble. Quickly Merlin makes his way up to his room and packs his things. Before heading out the castle. He cast a second spell and with a flash of his eyes finds himself in the valley of the fallen kings.

Merlin sighs, there was no one here, he couldn't hear the druids. Merlin glances round and spots the path to the crystal caves, he shakes his head slightly and quickly makes his way along the path. He could use the crystals to scry for Gaius. As he enters the crystal cave, he is hit by the power, causing him to take a step back. Shaking his head, he quickly walks down the couple of steps to the main cave. On the far side of the cave Merlin could sense some kind of shield, but he didn't have time to worry about it, he needed to find Gaius.

"Taliesin?" Merlin calls.

Hey, hope you liked it. Next up is the poisoned chalice and Lancelot. Until next time,

Blessed be,

TreeOfLife1997.