Ch. 3

Gwaine, Arthur had to admit, had very good timing. He'd been ready to go look for the knight himself, make sure he hadn't stumbled onto the wine cellar and disregarded Arthur's warnings in a fit of glee. The man wasn't the perpetual drunk he led others to believe but he did have a weakness for good mead and well-aged wine.

It had absolutely nothing to do with being concerned. Nothing at all. Even when the man in question shouldered his way through the door and Arthur released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Fresh melting snow," Gwaine announced with a triumphant grin. "And... well... not bandages. I'm thinking it's a towel but it was all I could find." He shrugged the arm covered by the towel. "But it was clean and folded, and from the look of this place I'd say cleanliness was next to holiness."

"About time," Arthur said, and took the pot to set it by the fire. "From how long you took you had me wondering if you'd met a barmaid on the way."

Gwaine, ripping the towel into bandages, bounced his eyebrows. "Now wouldn't that have been a treat." Then he looked at Merlin tipped over onto his side, and frowned. "Is he asleep?"

"No," Merlin croaked. He struggled upright. Gwaine abandoned his task to help him.

Gwaine had packed the pot with snow, but melted it didn't seem all that much. It would have to do and it wasn't like they didn't have plenty.

"Get his shirt off," Arthur said.

Undressing was always a thankless task when injured. Because Merlin needed the shirt (ragged and useless as it was in Arthur's opinion) they couldn't merely cut it off. But Gwaine was a man who knew what he was doing, perhaps a skill he picked up from his wanderings and penchant for angering the wrong people. Arthur watched as the knight bunched the shirt up Merlin's torso, eased it over his head then slid it over his out-stretched arms. Merlin barely winced the entire time.

Arthur was then distracted by the state of his manservant's body. He knew the cruelty of the slave traders – he had divested them of enough slaves to have deduced their methods without ever having to see it first hand – but there was a difference when the damage was on the body of someone you knew. And up close... lords it was horrible: the bruises as though Merlin had been splashed with the colors of sickness and decay, cut through with thin, angry lines of red and striated with dried blood and filth. If they'd fed Merlin at all, it had been very little or next to nothing. It was not emaciation, nothing that complete, but Merlin's bones had always seemed close to the surface and now the majority of them were showing with a clarity that couldn't be called normal. The sharp visibility of Merlin's ribs, like some horrible cage for a delicate bird, twisted Arthur's stomach.

The men had been toying with Merlin when Arthur had found them, like a cat with a mouse, laughing at him when he stumbled and cried out in pain. The rage Arthur had felt on seeing it... the last time he had felt such anger was when the old wizard had killed his father.

Three weeks. Merlin had been at the mercy of those slavers for three weeks. Arthur had lain wounded and helpless for three weeks, and even now his shoulder still twinged fiercely. Gaius had said it would take more than weeks to heal but Arthur hadn't cared. He was going to find Merlin, whatever it took.

Which, in retrospect, hadn't been particularly logical. Gwaine could have gone with any one of the knights and brought Merlin home. There had been no reason for Camelot's king to go. But damn logic, Arthur had said. It was his fault Merlin had been taken in the first place, his fault for bringing him along on that stupid hunt so far from home, and his fault he had been unable to protect him. This wasn't about logic. This was about setting right a terrible wrong.

Arthur dipped one of the strips Gwaine had ripped into the bucket, wrung it, then moved to Merlin to begin cleaning some of the cuts, the deepest on his chest, ribs and across his shoulder blades. Gwaine set about poking Merlin in search of broken bones, much to Merlin's consternation. Being poked and prodded when broken and bruised might as well be a form of lesser torture, though Merlin made little complaint beyond hisses and grunts.

"Ribs it looks like," Gwaine said. "But not much else. Good, less to bind." He pulled his dagger from his boot. "Now those damn chains."

But no matter how Gwaine dug at the locks, the manacles wouldn't budge, and the effort was only causing Merlin more pain. Hisses and grunts turned into choked whimpers and shakes.

"Enough. We'll deal with them back at Camelot," Arthur said harsher than intended.

Gwaine held up his hands in surrender, then stowed his knife. Merlin pulled his hands to himself, cradling them against his concave stomach. Arthur hadn't missed the angry red skin beneath the metal.

Other than his hands and the various controlled noises of discomfort, Merlin kept perfectly still and unnervingly quiet. It made cleaning him easier but it bothered Arthur. Merlin was not one to pass up an opportunity for commentary, such as the king possibly apprenticing with Gaius or some protest on how Merlin could clean his own wounds, thank you very much. Arthur reminded himself that Merlin was no doubt tired, and cold. Even sitting up he looked half asleep.

You just miss the sound of my voice. That's what Merlin would say if he could read Arthur's thoughts.

It wasn't normal, that was all – Merlin not talking. It wasn't normal and it was making Arthur nervous, making him wonder if there might be something else wrong, something internal that was draining Merlin's life away, something in his mind that made him never want to talk again. Arthur had rescued slaves. He knew the damage.

"Merlin?" Arthur said.

"Hm?" Merlin replied.

"Are you hungry? We were able to trade two rabbit skins for some bread and cheese before we arrived at the auction camp. You should try to eat while you can."

"Mm," Merlin said, his eyes barely open.

With Merlin's chest wrapped Arthur focused on the chafed wrists. He cleaned them under the manacles, wrapped them, protecting them as best he could while the shackles remained. Both he and Gwaine decided to wait for when Merlin was a little stronger before splitting the chains. The chains were long enough so there would be no hindrance to Merlin's movements, no reason to cause him any more discomfort.

Sometime during the cleaning and binding Gwaine had filled their water skins with melted snow. It left little water in the pot, and that meant needing more, especially since the horses had yet to drink. Gwaine didn't look particularly happy about it.

"You're not scared," Arthur said with a half-smirk. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Merlin's lips twitch toward a smile around a small mouthful of bread. Good, a smile was good, even a small one.

Gwaine's snort was paled by the trepidation in his eyes. "It's the wind. Plays tricks with the ears," he said, but as though more to himself than to Arthur. It took Gwaine what felt like nearly a whole minute before he finally leave the room.

Gwaine wasn't normally a man all that fond of hesitation.

But neither was he a man who stayed silent about potential problems. If something was wrong, Gwaine would say, and until then Arthur wasn't going to worry about it. He turned his attention back to Merlin to coax some cheese into him.

"It's not the wind," Merlin said.

Arthur blinked. "What?"

"Gwaine has a right to be nervous." Merlin huddled deeper into himself. "Nothing about this place feels right."

"Obviously. It's been abandoned, very recently. What about that could possibly feel even remotely right?"

Merlin, too weary to deal with Arthur's usual sarcasm, shrugged and continued eating. He managed three bites of bread and one bite of cheese before both pieces of food were falling out of his limp hands. Arthur took them and placed them in his satchel. He then helped ease Merlin onto his back and covered him to his neck.

"Rest," Arthur said. "This place may not feel right but it's warm, and Gwaine and I are here. You're safe."

Merlin grunted his understanding, already drifting off. Arthur was left to listen to the snap of the fire, the moan of the wind and the snow softly pattering against the window pain above the bed. He looked at Merlin, studied his gaunt and angular face and the slow motions of his chest. The idiot had been running toward him when the slavers took him, running and yelling, heedless of the danger around him, because Arthur had fallen with an arrow in his shoulder.

Lords, Merlin was always doing that, wasn't he? Cowering behind a tree one moment then not giving a damn about the danger the next. He was odd, and irritating, and yet none of that ever seemed to matter because Arthur couldn't begin to imagine what life would be like if Merlin wasn't there. He could barely remember what life had been like before Merlin had come. And just the thought of Merlin – clumsy, idiotic Merlin with his guileless smiles and impertinence and eternal optimism and kindness – in the hands of those slavers, beaten and starved and toyed with while barely able to stand, made Arthur sick to his stomach.

As with being unable to imagine life before Merlin, Arthur couldn't imagine having not come to find him. There were some things in life you had to do, and damn the sense of it, or lack thereof. As much as Arthur missed his father, a small part of him was glad Uther wasn't around to see this. He would have put Arthur in the dungeon for it. Or, worse, the stocks. Kings don't risk themselves for a mere servant, he would say, and then he would wonder why that crucial bit of wisdom refused to be branded into Arthur's skull.

Arthur was rudely interrupted from his thoughts by the nervous nicker of a horse. Arthur glanced at Merlin, satisfied to see him deeply asleep. He went to the door and peered out at the two horses still parked in the hall. Their ears were back, the whites of their eyes showing, but like the war horses they were, they were not inclined to leave unless instructed to do so. Arthur went to them and patted their necks.

"I suppose we're not the only ones who find this place wrong," he said.

Which was... unsettling. One more unsettling to add to the ever growing pile. Because animals weren't bothered by anything unless they had a reason to be bothered. Arthur glanced in either direction of the torch-lit hall. Still empty as when they'd come in. Arthur turned to go back into the room.

A shadow dashed across his peripheral vision on his left and a horse squealed. Arthur whipped around drawing his sword. But as had been the case and was still the case, there was no one there.

Yet when he looked at the horses, they were quivering.

A hand clamped itself onto Arthur's shoulder. He yelped and spun around, bringing his sword up.

Gwaine, pot tucked under his arm, took two quick steps back, his free hand raised. He eyed Arthur carefully.

"You're not scared of this place, are you?" Gwaine said with a challenging lift of one eyebrow.

Arthur glared at him. "The horses were spooked. I thought something might be out here."

But Gwaine, still vindictive, smiled saccharine and shouldered his way into the room, leaving Arthur with the horses. Arthur turned his glare on them, instead.

The horses were completely relaxed.

~oOo~

Merlin dreamed in half images – flashes of dark and fleeting shapes like the scattered pieces of a puzzle. They whispered, these images; so many voices undulating in and out, sometimes in the distance, sometimes right next to his ear.

Jimbol was there, sometimes; still a bloody pile of dead man slumped against a tree. The next time he came, clear as though real, he turned his bloodless face and smiled bloodless lips.

"Out of the pan and into the fire, boy," he said. "You escaped nothing."

The sword lashed out drawing a red line beneath Merlin's heart. Blood poured from him in rivers. Someone laughed, but it wasn't Jimbol. He was a pile of bones, now, eaten by time.

We'll soon have all the time in the world, little warlock. Just you wait. Just you watch.

~oOo~

Arthur reentered the room, feeling ridiculous for having indulged the paranoia of horses and placing them in the neighboring room. Out of sight, out of mind, he reasoned; if there was something skulking about the castle – some cat or dog left behind, or wolf having found its own way in – then the horses wouldn't see it, get spooked and plague Arthur with reasons to check on them every two minutes. He was tired, achy, and in no mood for skittish animals. He was going to have enough on his plate dealing with a, no doubt, skittish manservant, not to mention an already skittish knight.

Speaking of whom, the latter was currently kneeling at the bedside, mopping the face of the former with a wet cloth. Arthur froze in alarm.

"Does he have a fever?" Arthur asked. Just what they needed, a skittish, injured and sick manservant.

"He's warm, but mostly restless. I thought this would help," Gwaine said.

Merlin's head rocked to the side, the muscles of his brow twitching in consternation. It wasn't the frantic motions of fevered nightmares, but it iwas/i a sign of unhappy dreams none the less. As though to confirm this, Merlin moaned – a high, pitiful sound tapering off into a weak whimper.

Arthur went to the fire and stoked it, not because he thought it would help in anyway, but because he felt the need to do something. Outside, the storm continued to rage, the wind rattling the window and snow still assaulting the glass. It felt not unlike being under siege.

"The council is never going to let me hear the end of this," Arthur muttered to himself, leaning his elbow against the edge of the mantle.

"For what, going off to save Merlin?" Gwaine said. He chuckled. "What can they do? Dethrone you?"

"They think as my father did. They may not have the authority to lock me in the dungeons as he had but believe me, their never ending attempts to have me emulate my father is bad enough." Arthur rubbed at his eyebrow with his thumb. "They'll prattle on and on about my foolishness for leaving Camelot without a king in order to go after one man who isn't even a noble."

But this only made Gwaine chuckle louder. "They'll think it more of that mad King Arthur's reckoning. First he knights peasants, now he's risking life and limb to save a serving boy. What next, risking life and limb to save kittens from trees?"

"It's not funny, Gwaine," Arthur said even as he fought not to smile. He shrugged. "Although I did save lady Althea's kitten once."

"Was she grateful?" Gwaine asked with a bit of a leer.

"She kissed me on the cheek."

"That's all?"

Arthur gave Gwaine a hooded look. "I was nine and she was five."

"Ah." Gwaine poured all of his focus into cooling Merlin's clammy face. The boy's head had flopped the other way, and his lips moved as though mouthing words.

"I'll happily save any one of you, kitten in trees included," Arthur went on. "But I have to be careful, Gwaine. I give the council enough reason and they could take control over my authority."

Gwaine scoffed. "I doubt saving one manservant is going to lead to your court rebelling, sire."

"They'll say I'm being selfish." And Arthur couldn't help but wonder if it was selfish to leave a kingdom for a single person when so many others could have gone in his stead.

"The way I figure it," said Gwaine. "The fact that you rescue kittens from trees and a manservant from slavers puts you as a damn fine king in my book. The masses don't mean much when you see them only as masses. You have to see them as people, as individuals who deserve to live their lives and be rescued just as much as any with noble blood. You care about your people and you show it. To the bog with the council, I say."

Water splashed hollowly in the pot. Gwaine sighed both heavily and pointedly. "Lovely. Time to fetch more water. Anything else I should get while I'm out? Oh, wait, that's right – there's a whole larder full of food and we're not supposed to ouch it."

Arthur chuffed. "Gwaine, when we return, I swear to prepare a feast the likes of which you will never forget."

"Oh, believe me," Gwaine said, standing with the pot. "Days of rations have made me fondly remember every feast I've ever had. That includes Grandmother Ginny's rabbit stew, and that old hag couldn't cook."

Arthur allowed himself a small chuckle this time. When Gwaine was gone, Arthur pushed himself away from the mantle and took Gwaine's spot by Merlin's side.

~oOo~

"Oh, there was a sweet lass by the old mill road..." Gwaine hummed to himself, filling the silence on his way to the kitchen. He was starting to get used to this empty, strange place. He knew because he was starting to get bored with fetching water, and also starting to get curious as to what else this place had to offer. That is, things to look at, not to take. It was a small castle, at least compared to Camelot, but the workmanship of the tapestries, rugs, even the grate in front of the kitchen fireplace, was enough to make the artisans of Camelot rage with jealousy.

Odd thing was (as though there wasn't enough odd going around) none of the work actually depicted anything. It was all knots and shapes, complicated and lovely but otherwise there to look pretty and nothing more. Gwaine had been around, had seen his share of places of worship when in need of sanctuary against ruffians and barkeeps looking to collect on tabs. There was never any question of which place worshiped what, because the object or objects of worship were depicted everywhere. Even in Camelot, if it wasn't a flag with the Pendragon crest it was a tapestry of a hunt or a sculpture of some long dead king. Even a lowly peasant's home had its trinkets of belief.

But here, in this place that seemed so much like a monastery, there was nothing. It was as though whatever these people had believed in – be it gods or kings or something else – was meant to be hidden from the world.

Or maybe you had to look in the right place - the more sacred a thing, the better it was hidden.

Since it wasn't as though they needed water right away, Gwaine kept going beyond the kitchen. He took careful mental note of where he went, left, then right, checking doors but finding only more bedrooms. A quick trot down the stairs, however, brought him to another arched door, like the kitchen's only wider. Through it was a library.

Gwaine wasn't a fan of libraries, and not for the reason most people thought. It wasn't that they were boring – well, completely boring, he did like a good book now and then. What they were was a reminder; him and his mother curled up in their meager little cottage, a tattered book in hand, Gwaine's young mind struggling with difficult words and his mother helping him through them. They were strange memories, filling him with warmth only to dampen that warmth with pain. There had eventually, too soon, come a time when he had only himself to teach him to read.

Gwaine would have moved on, but if the artwork of a place didn't tell you about it, then the books surely would. Gwaine entered, pot still in hand, following the wooden shelves packed with books along the wall. These people must have been exceptionally well off to have so many books.

Gwaine's heart slowly sank. He was no expert, but he knew enough to know that some of the symbols on the spines were symbols normally associated with magic.

"Oh, this is not good."

Of course neither could he really call it bad. They were in Cenred's land, after all, where magic wasn't forbidden. Had this been Camelot then, yes, definitely time to panic that there was a fortress filled with magic books in a place where magic was outlawed. Here, it was just a place with magic books.

Gwaine chuckled as he imagined sorcerers, dozens of them, accidentally turning themselves into frogs or enchanting themselves into skipping off into the snow. Or, hell, maybe they got drunk on magically enhanced wine and decided to go dancing naked to celebrate the winter solstice, forgetting about the "winter" part and the "solstice-still-two-weeks-away" part.

Either way, where there was magic, and a mysteriously empty castle, there had to be magic gone awry. That meant that the castles abandonment was the fault of whoever owned this place. That meant they probably had nothing to worry about. Shaking his head at the sundry hilarious what-ifs that popped into his brain, Gwaine moved to one of the books open on one of the many tables and flipped idly through it. Poetry for the most part, fancy words written in fancy lettering full of thous, thees, and other various big, flowery script. He bringeth forth yonder light of the fallen sun. As the halo embraceth the shadowed moon doth he embraceth the lovers of his will. He keepeth the door, and the key within us doth he need to open the way. The Place We Do Not Name. The soul doth burn to speak it. We come to him.

Gwaine flipped the page and grimaced. On the other side of the poem was an image, hand-drawn in ink by a particularly disturbed individual, though Gwaine had to give the bloke credit for skill. The thing was like a giant snake with four arms, a pair of bat wings and a long neck topped with something like a ram's skull, only with very uncomfortably sharp teeth. Its four arms were spread, like it was waiting for a hug.

"Don't think I want to be 'embraceth' by that any time soon, thank you much." Gwaine snorted, easing the book shut. He turned to the door.

A great mass of furless skin and solid muscle barreled into Gwaine, knocking him into the bookshelves, and the pot fell with a clang. It was only thanks to years of spontaneous bar room brawls and hunting trips gone wrong that Gwaine's hand went immediately to the great jaws of serrated teeth and held them open and away from his throat. At the same time, he wedged his foot into the things stomach and shoved it back. The sudden shift in weight and his hands still keeping the jaws pried apart dropped both man and beast to the floor. Gwaine immediately rolled away, landed on his feet and pulled his sword from its sheath. The beast found its footing and took a flying leap, right into Gwaine's blade. The thing snarled once, then slid from the blade and crumpled to the floor in a dead heap.

Gwaine stumbled back into the table for support as he gave his body time to remember how to breathe. The need to breathe was mostly forgotten when he got his first real look at the thing that had tried to rip his throat out.

"What the bloody fires of the underworld is that?" he muttered. It was the epitome of ugly, whatever it was – like a wolf... no, a giant boar. A giant boar with mange and a smashed face – not unlike that mean little lap whelp his aunt Millie had liked to keep tucked in her arm, bug-eyes included. But its nose was piggish, its tusks putting to shame a real boar and its claws like curved daggers that could reach all the way to a man's heart.

And it was red. Blood red. More than blood red, it looked as though it's skin had been removed to show off just how bulging and impossible all those muscles were.

Then it vanished, fading like morning mist until not even the blood remained.

"Oh that is not right," Gwaine quavered. He scraped a hand down his face and realized he was trembling. He hurried from the room at a run.

He was right; there was magic gone awry in this place.

"But couldn't damn well have been them dancing naked in the snow," he grunted to himself in between panting breaths. "Course not. That would have been too bloody easy."

TBC...