Me again, and i'm sorry about taking so long, I just sort of wanted a short break from writing. But, good news, this chapter is longer than usual as well. And the next chapter will probably contain the REAL whump; the stuff you've all been waiting for. Once again i'm not sure as to when i'll be able to update next, but i'll try for it to be soon. And i must say that the reviews really did help motivate me, I probably wouldn't even have this chapter out yet if it weren't for those reviews. So thank you to everyone who sent me those little boxes of motivation. I have to say that I really loved this chapter as well, oh, and there is a quote from the Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. If you can find it then i have to say that i love you. Anyway, i'll stop babbling and let you read.

From the moment Merlin awoke he knew that something was wrong. What, exactly, he didn't know. It was like the feeling he'd had before, only it wasn't on a purely magical level anymore. Despite what Arthur always believes Merlin actually has some naturally good instincts. But whatever was nearby in these woods was setting both his magic and his physical instincts on edge, and now that was saying something.

Never before had Merlin been so restless upon waking or wanted to get so far away from any place so much in his life. His magic was reaching out; trying to feel something, but, afraid that he wouldn't be able to control it because he was only just waking up, Merlin reined it in before it had a chance to find anything.

The thing Merlin currently wanted more than anything was to leave this forest and get back to Camelot. So the first thing out of his was, "Arthur, are we going back to Camelot today?"

Arthur had woken around the time he normally did, which was usually late due to Merlin's laziness, and saw that his servant was still conked out. It had been painfully obvious the last couple of days that Merlin was not getting enough sleep, so Arthur decided to let him have it now.

As he walked around, tidying the camp, he noticed that the plate of food he had given Merlin last night was completely empty. He didn't know when it had happened but sometime during their conversations the boy had finished it off. Good.

Arthur became slightly worried when it became almost lunchtime and the sleep-deprived servant still hadn't woken up. How much sleep has he missed?

Something else was bothering Arthur as well, though, he wasn't sure what. Being a knight and a future king his senses and instincts had been honed and refined since he was a child, and right now they were telling him that something was wrong. He had the strangest feeling that something bad was about to happen, only, it wasn't the normal type of feeling that he felt. He didn't feel like he himself was in danger, but someone else.

But before he could think much more about it; Merlin woke up.

He looked at the boy; he still had circles under his eyes, but they weren't as deep, so apparently a good night's sleep for a change could do wonders for a person. He also looked way too thin, but no longer like he was in danger of dying on the spot. All in all, some pretty good work for only being gone a day.

Merlin looked groggy and a bit agitated; an expression Arthur wasn't familiar with when it was on his servant's face. And when he heard the words that came out of his mouth, well, then he knew something was wrong.

"Arthur, are we going back to Camelot today?"

Merlin looked like he really wanted to leave, and Arthur couldn't blame him because he felt the same way. But still, that really wasn't normal for the idiot. At first he was going to say no; that they couldn't leave, but when he realized what it might mean that both of them felt uneasy, he decided to let Merlin have this one. After the boy had his breakfast/lunch.

"No Merlin, we can't leave, I might consider going back, but since you have been sleeping all this time you haven't had a chance to eat, and I'm not leaving until I know we won't have any more interruptions."

"Fine, whatever, but after I eat can we go?" Merlin didn't know why he was so snappy all of a sudden; he had no real reason to be, unless you counted the ominous chill creeping up his spine, of course. He just really wanted to head to Camelot, or anywhere that wasn't here.

Arthur had the feeling that they should leave right away as well, but he wasn't going to listen to it, no matter how reliable it had been in the past, Merlin's health was more important. If only he knew how much better it would be for Merlin if they did, then maybe none of was about to happen would happen. However; they weren't so lucky as to be able to see the future.

Arthur was pretty shocked at Merlin's words and the tone in them. But he decided to ignore it as him still being half asleep; after all, he knew he could be pretty cranky when he first woke up.

"Maybe, Merlin, here." He handed him another plate of food; not as big as last night's, but considering how long it took him to finish it, it wasn't really a surprise to Merlin that Arthur had no interest in staying there for that long.

He took the food without complaint; something else that only bothered Arthur further. The boy had nearly had a fit last night when the food had been given to him. Because, even though it wasn't as much as before, it still had a lot of food on it.

In fact, the manservant wolfed the food down as if his life depended on eating it as quickly as possible, which to him it felt like it did.

"I'm done, can we go now?" Arthur frowned; this was really un-Merlin-like behavior, maybe it would just be the best to get the hell out of here.

"Sure, help me pack up."

In no time at all the camp was gone, the only evidence that they had been there was the still smoking embers of the fire from the previous night; something that Arthur was currently dousing.

And just like that they were gone. Neither one said anything; but in unison the prince and his servant got on their horses and rode away, none too slowly either.

Unfortunately it just wasn't fast enough. Maybe if they had left several hours earlier they may have been able to escape the horrible fate that awaited both of them, but as it was both of the young men rode straight into something neither one was prepared for. But then again, how can anyone be prepared for something so horrible?

As Merlin and Arthur rode into a clearing to stop and water the poor horses they saw the very thing that they had both been sensing in their own ways.

Merlin hadn't wanted to stop, in fact he wanted to ride in the opposite direction since he really didn't feel like the current direction they were in was helping their situation any. Not that he knew what their situation was. But he did know that the horses needed the water.

"Merlin, we'll let the horses rest here for a min—" Arthur stopped. There, in the clearing was a man just lying on the ground. He looked unconscious, and he also looked more than a little beaten up.

Merlin turned his gaze away from Arthur to see what had caused him to pause. What he saw sent shivers throughout his magic. A man was lying on the forest floor; a man who was bruised and bloody. Merlin didn't know what it was about the man that made him feel so…wrong, so unnatural, maybe it was what had been done to him, or maybe it was just the man himself. Though why he would be so afraid of someone so vulnerable he didn't know, so it must be the first one.

Even so, he watched as Arthur got down off his horse and made his way over to the stranger without making a move to help himself. He wanted to, because the poor man looked like he could use a friend, but he just felt like whatever that man was, or whatever had happened to him, kept him, or more likely, his magic frozen in place. However; all it took was for Arthur to call to him,

"Merlin, stop being a coward and get over here!"

He clambered off his mare and joined his prince. And though his magic seemed to react even more as he got closer to where Arthur was hunched over the beaten man, he was glad that he had obeyed Arthur this once. If something was wrong with this man then he didn't want Arthur to be near him either, and if he was as harmless as he looked than he was glad for the opportunity to help him.

That all changed when he did what Arthur told him to do.

"Merlin, you live with Gaius, do you know anything you can do for him?"

He lent down to examine him and his hand went to touch his arm; a place that contained many bruises, in the hopes that he could further assess the damage. The man was in tattered peasant clothes, he was bruised, battered, and bloody, but Merlin didn't know if he had any more serious injuries, so as he touched him he felt, well, he felt worse than he had the day before when he'd nearly fainted. He could feel that a layer of extremely abused magic was covering him.

He wasn't sure at first what the magic was doing. He had pulled his hand away sharply only milliseconds after touching his skin, it was almost like he had been burned by the pure hate and insanity that was in it. In fact, the magic reminded Merlin of when he had drunk the poison. Gaius had told him that the poison had been enhanced with magic, and now that he felt this magic he knew that a lot of the pain that he had been experiencing, as if dying wasn't enough, had been from the foreign and evil magic.

The magic covering this man wasn't the same magic, but it had the same hate and corruption in it. It literally felt as if the magic was poison to Merlin, ironically enough, because it felt so evil. Still, he needed to figure out its purpose, and besides, he'd have to touch the man again anyway because Arthur was looking at him funnily. And since he really couldn't tell the prince that the man's skin felt like fire, he would just have to bear it.

So he reached out and touch the arm again, this time trying to uncover the reason behind the magic. The pain was slow and excruciating, but he pressed on. The magic was doing something, it was…shifting the perception of…it was changing what this man looked like to the eyes of other people! He wasn't really injured!

Merlin pulled away even sharper than before, he'd only been touching the man for a few seconds and already it felt like the pain and the searching had lasted years. But none of that mattered; he had to tell Arthur!

"Merlin, what's wrong, I told you to figure out what had happened to him?" Arthur was annoyed; his servant was acting really weird and he'd had enough of it. He was just about to tell him so when he caught sight of the look on Merlin's face; terror, pain, and urgency.

"Arthur, listen to me, we need to get away from here right now!"

Not again, the prince thought, but he seems so serious.

"Why? This man needs our help; I'm not going to abandon him unless you give me a good reason as to why."

Merlin hesitated, and that solitary action cost the boy so much, but then again, who can say for real what would've happened if he hadn't? No one can know what would've happened.

Merlin didn't know what to tell Arthur, so he went with the closest thing to the truth that he could think of. "Arthur, please, this man isn't who we think he is."

Arthur was leaning over the supposedly unconscious man; something that was greatly distressing Merlin. "Merlin, we don't know who he is, and it's hardly like he's dangerous."

Oh, how he was going to eat those words.

Merlin didn't know exactly what was going on, but he really didn't want to stay and find out, and he especially didn't want Arthur that close to that man. He was just about to try to pull his prince and destiny away when the unthinkable happened.

The man's eyes opened all of a sudden and he said to a very surprised prince, "You know, you really should listen to him." Then he said some words in a language that only those with magic would know and the prince's eyes drooped.

Arthur's head fell backwards and would've hit the ground hard if his servant hadn't lunged forward and caught him.

Even though Merlin wasn't as much of a weakling as everyone seemed to think he was he still had trouble not collapsing under the dead-weight of his prince. He tried to pull him away from the now standing, and no longer in disguise, sorcerer, but the most he could do was shift him a bit. Arthur wasn't dead; he was clearly breathing, so Merlin knew that there was no way he was going to leave his side if he had any choice about it. But still, he couldn't really look at the smirking sorcerer, or use his magic fully if he was supporting a sleeping prince, so he gently laid his head down on the ground and brought himself up to his full height to face this new threat.

"Well, well, well," said the man, who was no longer covered in peasant clothes and bruises, but was in a cloak that hid everything but his face and his chest, which was wearing a leather shirt. In fact, if Merlin hadn't been so terrified of what might happen next, he probably would've thought that he looked rather cool. "I know who you are. You are the loyal manservant to the snob Prince Arthur, the same manservant that drank poison for him not eight days ago."

Merlin was surprised and a little scared that this man knew this fact about him. And it must've shown on his face as the man said in his voice that was slightly higher than normal for male,

"Yes, I know about you. It's hard not to have heard the story of Prince Arthur's brave servant who willingly gave his life for him. I mean, after all, everyone in Camelot is still talking about it. You should be honored; you're perhaps the first servant to cause so much gossip in a hundred years."

All the while the man was talking the cruel smile never left his features, and his strangely high voice held no joy, just an insane, perverse pleasure at the trouble and discomfort he was causing.

And Merlin had to say that it was greatly disconcerting to even hear the sorcerer talk, let alone hear him say that he knows him.

"What do you want?" He tried to sound brave, but in all honesty, he didn't know whether or not that was achieved. He was concentrating on trying to find a spell in his limited library of them that might take this man out. When he had felt his magic he had known that it wasn't all that powerful, but that didn't mean that it couldn't be deadly. Besides, he still would have to explain all of this to Arthur, assuming he actually managed to save them both.

"What do I want? I want many things, Merlin, that is your name isn't it? But I believe that you are not referring to my simple, basic desires in life, but rather in my purpose for laying this trap for Prince Arthur." He chuckled. "It's quite simple, really. I have the same burning desire that everyone else with any brains has; to take down Camelot."

He's right; it was simple, and not particularly out of the ordinary. "But why, there are thousands of people in Camelot; innocent people, why hurt them?" Merlin asked, trying to stall for time. The pain that touching him had inflicted was still clouding his mind.

"You're right; the people of Camelot are guilty of nothing other than living under a tyrannical rule." He laughed again; a sick, twisted, insane laugh. "And after all, the whole point of a tyrant is that he doesn't usually give his people choices. So, let me rephrase that. I wish to destroy the entire Pendragon family.

"As you may have guessed since I believe that you're not the idiot that everyone thinks, I have magic, but unfortunately it isn't very powerful. It's powerful enough to take the both of you down, but not strong enough to invade Camelot. I do, however; know of many witches and wizards that are powerful enough, with the right information and plan, of course. So, I suppose you could say that it is my goal to help them as best I can, assuming I get a little something for it in return." His smile widened at this.

He's truly insane, thought Merlin. He thought he may have come up with a spell to get both him and Arthur out of this clearing and far away from this madman, but it required for the said madman to be distracted. Shouldn't be too hard, like most evil, insane people he likes the sound of his own voice way too much. Just let him talk for long enough.

"Let me guess, you want to get paid?" Merlin asked, in the hopes of furthering the man's distraction.

"Of course, in this world you can get nothing for nothing. In short, I plan on torturing Arthur for valuable information on Camelot's defenses, and then I will sell the secrets to the highest bidder." At the word 'torture' a sadistic gleam flashed in his eyes.

And at the word 'torture' Merlin's entire body froze up. I can't let that happen to Arthur, I made a promise to myself and to the knights; I will not let this happen.

"W-what makes you think that—that you will get anything out of Arthur?" Curse my lack of self-control; the fear in my voice is far too evident.

The sorcerer seem to think so too because he said, "You don't seem all that confident, or maybe that's just the fear for your master breaking through. I have to admit; I do admire loyalty, it just seems so rare these days. Besides; loyal people are always far more enjoying to break, do you think that your prince is loyal to his kingdom? I hope so; I have been planning this trap for ages, after all."

Merlin couldn't stop the shiver that went downs his spine; everything this man said was far too creepy.

"Oh, but I'm telling you all of my plans and I haven't even told you my name; how rude of me."

Suddenly, before Merlin had time to react the man mumbled a few words and his entire body froze up; he literally couldn't move. He fell backwards and hit the ground, and boy, did that hurt! And just as blackness began to descend Merlin realized what the insane sorcerer had done.

Of course he knew how unnerving he could be, it had taken all of Merlin's will power to not run away from him and hide. He knew the effect he had on people and he had exploited it. Instead of getting the man to talk Merlin should have tried to shut him up; the man had been trying to distract him. And when he had shivered had probably been when he had believed he had accomplished just that. And he had. At that point in time Merlin had completely forgotten about his plan.

And just as Merlin came to the conclusion that he had played right into the man's hands, said man appeared in his ever dwindling line of vision to tell him something that would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life; however long or short that might be.

He said in that creepy voice of his that is so unlike any other voice Merlin had ever heard, "My name is Arcturus, and I must say, it is a pleasure to finally meet you."

I know, you probably all hate me right now for that ending. And yes, i did take the name for the villain from Harry Potter, which i do not own nor hold any claim to. Review and tell me what you think so far of my villain, is he creepy, or is he boring? Oh, i need help finding a translator for the Merlin spells, everyone seems to have a way of finding how to spell them, currently, i am not one of those people. So if anyone can find me something to help out with that then that would mark that person as seriously awesome for the rest of eternity. Well, bye for now...