Ch. 6

Their path through the castle was mostly uneventful, and that made Merlin nervous. The only opposition met was when Arthur, consulting the various parchments of drawings, had attempted to make for an exit. They had not even been within sight of the door when they were almost spotted by a beast prowling in a stairwell.

That they had yet to be accosted meant that they were going exactly where they were supposed to go. Any help this library could offer would not be help to them. But it was all they had, and Merlin wasn't ready to give up on any options just yet.

But the going was still hard, mostly for Merlin. The cut across his back had reopened, adding to the blood already crusting parts of his shirt, the cuts on his wrists were twice as raw, and together they joined forces to make him burn from his arms to his shoulder-blades. Merlin's feet were also ready to give up the ghost, each step feeling as though another crack was being added to the bones.

Gwaine tried to help, but with the manacles preventing Merlin from draping an arm over Gwaine's shoulder without the chains getting in the way should Gwaine need to fight, and Merlin's ribs making any grip on the rest of his body tricky, by the time they reached the library both Gwaine and Merlin were panting. Gwaine set Merlin gently onto one of the stools in front of the many tables. Merlin, arms resting on the smooth table-top, curled into himself.

It was a short-lived respite when Gwaine thumped a heavy book in front of Merlin. He stabbed his finger at a picture of the worst creature Merlin had ever seen, and he had seen quite a few in his young lifetime.

"That's the bastard I think's behind all this," Gwaine said. "This book was open when I found it and I highly doubt it was a coincidence. But good luck reading the bugger."

Merlin turned the pages with a shaking hand, the drying blood on his wrists tugging at his skin. Gwaine was right; it was a pain to read, steeped in the kind of sickly sweet words even Gwen, who loved poetry, eventually tired of.

Arthur was busy ransacking the rest of the library, picking up one book only to discard it in disgust by tossing it over his shoulder. "Well I doubt these are going to help us. Spell books. Every damn one a spell book."

Merlin focused intently on the tomb in front of him, steering his mind away from the agony of his contained magic.

"The key within," he muttered, a common theme in the book other than this Place with No Name and the benevolent being. There were more pictures of this being, various angles and standing in various states – one picture where it seemed to be moving through a solid wall, one where it was presiding over its followers, one where it was presiding over its followers in agony. Merlin turned back to the picture Gwaine had shown him. There, standing before the beast, was what looked to be the tiny figure of a man, or a picture of a man in a frame. He looked to be asleep while the frame, or whatever it was enclosing him, wept dark droplets.

"Merlin, what do you make of it?" Gwaine said in a breathless hurry as though time were against them.

But Merlin knew with painful certainty that they had all the time in the world. They were supposed to be here, they were supposed to be reading this book. They were supposed to learn something, realize something.

Merlin flipped through the book once more, focusing on the pictures – the beast coming through the wall, the man in the frame, the worshipers in agony but facing away from their deity, facing toward the reader as though begging to be let out. He read the words.

The key within us.

"You've never seen anything like this in any of Gaius' books," Gwaine stated. "Any at all."

"No," Merlin said. "But..." he flipped back to the page with the beast and the framed man. He thought of his dream, of Jimbol at the table dining on blood and bones. Merlin looked at his wrists, the bandages stiff with dried blood.

His tired, pained head slowly, sluggishly, fit the pieces together until they clicked.

Merlin moaned, "Oh, no."

Both Arthur and Gwaine were staring at him.

"What, Merlin? What oh no?" Arthur demanded tightly.

"I – I can't be sure. I'm only guessing..."

Arthur moved swiftly to the table. He leaned in on his hands, meeting Merlin's eyes with his own. "Merlin," he said in the calm, even tone when he wanted Merlin's attention, a firm command meant to draw Merlin away from whatever was distracting him.

Merlin swallowed against the tightness of his throat. "I think... someone has to be sacrificed. To this thing."

Color drained from both men's faces.

"For any particular reason or for the fun of it?" Gwaine asked, his voice small.

"Um..." Merlin scanned the other pictures. "Well, it talks of doorways and keys and other places. I could be wrong but I'm thinking they need a blood sacrifice to open a doorway to this nameless place. I – I guess they must be trapped there. Or this creature is trapped there, I don't know. But it makes sense – the key within, doorways, the pictures. Gaius once told me about how there were sects within the old religion that believed taking a life could enhance a magical spell. Most used animals but some believed that taking human life was the ultimate source of magical enhancement."

Arthur slammed his hands on the table and pushed himself roughly away, causing Merlin to jump. "Wonderful! Just what we need, one more reason to hate magic."

Merlin pretended not to hear as he always did, since it was all he could do no matter how it made his heart sink during such declarations. "I'm guessing they need one of us to open this doorway and let this creature out."

Gwaine frowned at this. "Then why not simply take us? Why all this running around, keeping us in?"

"Maybe because it needs to be voluntary?" Merlin said with a shrug, feigning uncertainty. What Gaius hadn't taught him the dragon had. There were levels to magic and power, and that meant levels to the various hidden worlds and the creatures that resided in them. Avalon was the most powerful of these worlds, the creatures able to come and go as they pleased. While other worlds needed the aid of those beyond their realm to open their doors.

But these latter places in need of a key were, for the most part, prisons according to Kilgarrah – prisons created by powerful beings to contain those who had abused the laws of magic, or self-made prisons by those who thought themselves powerful enough to be gods, creating their own worlds and failing, so trapped in their own creations. And such blatant disregard for the power of creation and magic as a whole always had restrictions. One of them being that no will could be forced upon another living creature, no enchantment used to coerce a mortal to sacrifice himself the way the sidhe had enchanted Arthur. There had to be a choice.

Merlin shuddered thinking about it.

And he knew. He knew this was why they had been allowed to the library. He knew this was what they were meant to have found. And he knew, finally, why they were being chased and not merely taken.

There had to be a choice. They had to want to be taken and die.

"Maybe," Merlin said as though someone else were talking for him, because he didn't want to say this, not out loud. "Maybe the magic doesn't work right and they can't take us to be sacrificed unless we let them."

But Arthur shook his head. "Then why are they trying to kill us?"

"Who says they are?" Merlin countered. "We haven't been lucky, Arthur. It's like we've been saying – we've been iled/i."

Gwaine's shoulders sagged. "And we're going to keep being herded until one of us agrees to be this bloody key."

Merlin shrank back, not able to look at either man, feeling as though he had failed them, as though this were all his fault. And wasn't it his fault? Getting captured, them coming to save him. Didn't he bring them to this?

He said, in a small voice, "Maybe."

Arthur shook his head vehemently. "No, I will not accept this. Gwaine, you take that shelf over there. Merlin, keep looking through that book." Arthur went to the shelf he had left off ransacking. "There has to be something. If we keep looking..."

Merlin stared at the book, at the beast standing behind the man on the table. As he stared at it, he gathered his chains tightly into his hands, then into the cloak still wrapped around his shoulders, muffling their sound. If his body would cooperate with him long enough, he could slip away and fix this, keep Arthur's destiny alive, keep Gwaine alive, by giving up his part of it. He could fix this. He would fix this.

Merlin looked up from his book and mentally prepared himself for the pain he would endure when he stood up. It took his aching head a moment to realize that something wasn't right. He looked around.

"Arthur?"

"What?" Arthur snapped, books flying over his shoulder one after the other.

"Where's Gwaine?"

~oOo~

It was a good thing he was going to his doom, or Arthur and Merlin were going to kill him. Gwaine made his way quick as he dared to the kitchen, figuring it a decent enough spot to be surrounded then dragged off for the slaughter. Gwaine didn't consider himself any kind of a damn martyr but he did like to think himself practical, and what practicality told him was that out of the three of them, Camelot could do with one less knight. It couldn't do without its king, the only king that had ever given Gwaine a reason to respect a noble. And it couldn't do without Merlin. That he was a servant be damned. Status had nothing to do with this. Merlin was too kind, too brave and too loyal to be taken from this world. And besides which, what was the point of going to rescue one and protecting the other if they up and died just so some disgusting monster could come back into the world?

It was a logical, practical conclusion. It didn't mean it wasn't scaring the hell out of Gwaine. What if the thing decided to ieat/i him? Now that's a fine way to go – as the key to some hell dimension and a snack for its denizen. And he was heading to the kitchen, how convenient for the denizen.

Gwaine forced his legs to carry him onward, anyway. He reached the kitchen and cocked an eyebrow. The heavy doors had been ripped to splinters. Second thoughts tugged at him mercilessly. He ignored them and stepped over the wreckage.

Positioned in the center of the room where the table had been, Gwaine sheathed his sword and lifted his arms to embrace his fate.

"Well. Here I am. Ready and willing to be sacrificed and all that. Well, I may have to argue the willing part where the fate of my friends are concerned. So how about a deal? You let them leave this place without bother, I come along and bleed all over you sacrificial table without a fuss. How about that? Sound like a fair bargain?"

He blinked, he could have sworn he had only blinked, and suddenly he was surrounded – men in cloaks and beasts between them, oozing whatever it was that filled Gwaine with dread, that made a part of him beg not to go through with this.

It would be worse than death, and he knew it.

No more worse than watching it happen to Merlin or Arthur.

"Do we have a bargain?" Gwaine stressed, his hand drifting to his sword.

The cloaked men bowed their heads as one in agreement.

"Oh," Gwaine said, surprised. He hadn't expected it to be that easy. Actually, he'd been rather hoping for a fight. It didn't seem right not to go down fighting, but where his friends were concerned, well... it was an exception without question.

Gwaine dropped his arms and smiled tightly. "Shall we be off, then?"

~oOo~

"When I find him I'm going to kill him!" Arthur snarled for the second time when he took a wrong turn. The hall they wanted didn't dead end, which meant they now had to backtrack. Merlin – stick figure that he was – was getting heavy in his arm.

Merlin said nothing, either knowing better to or too focused on not stumbling. His face was mostly expressionless except for the tautness of pain and something Arthur might have thought was sadness. Which was all wrong. They weren't supposed to be sad, they were supposed to be angry, because Gwaine was a stupid, self-sacrificing bastard.

Which was hypocritical, Arthur knew. They had all been thinking it, even Arthur as much as he had tried to keep his thoughts focused on finding a way out. And Merlin – well, he was Merlin, and might have been the first out the door had he not been injured.

They were all a bunch of self-sacrificing bastards, really, but Gwaine more the bastard because... because Arthur was king, damn it. It was his right (since he didn't want to call it a privilege) to chose himself as a sacrifice.

And that's exactly why he went. Because you're king, Merlin is his friend, and the man doesn't think his life is worth anything.

Lords, Arthur really was going to kill him as soon as he saved him.

But first he had to find him.

Arthur already knew where to look. He checked the pages of drawings one-handed, trusting to Merlin's theory that the people of this place had only wanted a sacrifice, and now that they had one would leave them alone. Arthur would never admit it, but Merlin often made sound theories.

He found the hall they were supposed to take, followed it all the way to the end and another stairwell. He took the steps to the very bottom, deep below the castle to a chamber of doors. Second door on the right opened to another set of stairs, leading them into a wine cellar filled with fat barrels, taller than Arthur and three times as wide. There were no other doorways. Arthur checked the notes and scowled.

"These are useless!" he snapped.

"It's... a secret catacomb," Merlin panted, his pinched face shining with sweat.

"Right. Right!" Arthur said. He rechecked the parchments. "Right. Okay. It's a bit faded but this section looks to be marked in red." Arthur dragged Merlin over to one of the barrels. He leaned Merlin against it as he searched the thing, and the moment Merlin's weight was pressed against its side, something clicked and the front of the barrel swung open. Musty, humid air gushed out across Arthur's face.

Merlin smiled wearily. Arthur traded the mess of parchments for the map of the catacombs Gwaine had handed him. He leaned Merlin back against him, and together they stepped through the barrel into the catacombs.

Like most catacombs, the tunnels were caves mostly carved by human hands than by nature. The tunnels were wide, the walls almost smooth and the entries into the next branch of tunnels ornately etched. Torches were already lit, lighting their way. Where once this had unnerved Arthur, it now angered him. Everything about this place made him want to rip it apart and bury it for all time. It was an abomination, a curse, a devil's pit and when they left this place – and they would leave it – he would find a way to raze it to the ground. Then burn it with its own torches.

They followed the winding tunnels through chambers that seemed to serve no purpose, doors open to empty rooms - no tombs, no niches with bones, no boxes of gold or jewels. Nothing.

Until they reached the dead-center of the catacombs and a massive chamber twenty times larger than the cathedral they had found on first entering the castle. It was a natural cave, a forest of stalagmites hanging high above them, and the only thing touched by man – if it had even been made by mortal hands – the bloodstained stone table in the center of the room. Lying like a body waiting for the tomb, hands folded over his sword resting on his chest...

"Gwaine!" Merlin shouted.

Arthur and Merlin made straight for their wayward and stupidly self-sacrificing knight. Not three steps into the chamber and they were surrounded by the men in cloaks and snarling beasts, too many to count but still not enough to even begin to fill the chamber.

"What have you done to him, you bastards!" Arthur shouted.

"A kindness."

Arthur felt Merlin stiffen against him. The men and beasts parted, leaving a clear path toward Gwaine. A man stepped around the table, a familiar man, an impossible man in the midst of decay and yet still upright and talking.

"No," Merlin whimpered, shrinking back and shaking. "No. You were a dream. Just a dream."

"Really, Merlin?" the man said with a look of mocking reprimand. "Really? Goodness, boy, I thought you were smarter than that. 'Course I suppose I can't really blame you. Not the best form to inspire any trust in reality but, oh, it was so delicious the way it made your heart flutter like a scared little bird. And I've been so disgustingly bored."

"Who are you!" Arthur demanded.

The man gave him a puzzled look. "Now, now, kingy. I would think you the type to remember those you run through. But Merlin knows me, don't you Merlin?"

Merlin didn't say anything, but his shaking was answer enough. Arthur tightened his arm around Merlin, felt the boy's heart racing in his thin chest.

"You're the man who took him. Who tortured him!"

The man – Jimbol, Arthur recalled – clapped his hands sending bits of skin flying. "Well done your lordship! Although, technically I'm not him. This is merely a form, a representation, a means for communication. I've been using it to visit Merlin in his dreams, give him a bit of a heads up to the situation."

Arthur shot Merlin a look, part alarm, part growing anger. Merlin looked frantically from Jimbol to Arthur.

"I – I didn't... I didn't understand them, I didn't know..."

"Of course you didn't Merlin," Jimbol simpered. "More fun that way. Poor boy, he thought he was going mad. But it no longer matters. You're here, now. The past is the past and we need to get on with things. The door has gone too long without a sacrifice. Any longer and it will be closed for good, and you can't possibly imagine how difficult it is trying to get anything through a door that wants to suck you right back in. My poor children." He looked to his men and beasts with mock pity. "Can you not see them straining, fighting the pull of the door? The realm does not like us to stay gone for long. It is a lonely realm, but so utterly dull."

Jimbol waved to his men and one broke away from the group, moving toward Gwaine with a curved dagger in hand.

"No, you can't!" Arthur bellowed, surging forward and dragging Merlin with him. "You can't! I chose myself, do you here? Myself!"

Jimbol threw his head back and barked a laugh. "Oh, you are priceless, your lordship! Priceless. I can see why you're so fond of protecting him, Merlin, this king is definitely a keeper. But," he clucked his tongue. "What's done is done. First come and first serve and all that. But we will be needing another sacrifice in thirty year's time if you'd like to volunteer then. We'd be happy to have you."

With a sneer, Arthur lowered Merlin to the floor. "You'll not have anyone ever again. As king I will make sure of it, starting now!" He raised his sword and surged forward, his only intent to run the bastard with the knife through. He managed five steps when pain exploded in his skull and the world went black.

~oOo~

"Arthur!" Merlin screamed, lunging to his feet. He was up, but then lurched forward and fell to his knees when pain slammed through him. So he crawled to Arthur's prone form instead.

Jimbol laughed. Then sneered. "What a blockhead. I admire his courage, I really do, but did he really think he could just charge like that and expect nothing of it? I would have killed him on principal but your overly noble friend, Gwaine, had struck a bargain, and I am a being of my word, I'm afraid. Now, enough interruptions. Let's get this done."

The man with the knife positioned himself next to Gwaine. He lifted Gwaine's wrist, pulled back the sleeve and with agonizing slowness slide the knife across his skin.

Horror clenched Merlin's chest like a vice. Again he tried to move forward, to help, to do something but pain and weakness drove him back to his knees. He knelt there, trembling, as Gwaine's blood dripped to the floor.

The cavern rumbled, sending rocks and dust scattering and clattering to the floor.

"Oh, good, it begins," Jimbol said chipperly. He turned. The very air began to shimmer in front of him like water. It warped, rippled then swirled together before expanding into a whirlpool of black and red. The hole in the world widened, oozing black, and Merlin thought he saw something glowing on the other side – two dots like yellow eyes.

"Watch this, Merlin, you will love it!" Jimbol laughed above the rumbling. "You think this form a thing of nightmares? It is nothing compared to what I am. I am the master of dreams, Merlin! King of nightmares, and I will feed on your terror and the terror of your kingdom until you beg me to sacrifice you to my world!"

A head emerged like that of its picture – a ram's skull, but spiked, black, dripping gore and bits of flesh like oil. Its stench was that of blood and decay, choking the breath in Merlin's already sick lungs. Forcing harsh coughs from his abused chest.

The man went around the table and slit Gwaine's other wrist. His blood dripped to the floor, taking his life with it.

Merlins' heart hammered so hard he thought it was going to burst. He watched as the blood pooled on the floor, as color drained from Gwaine's face, and the door widened on the other side of the table. The great head dripping and oozing eased itself through over Gwaine's body, studying it like a man would a leg of lamb it was anxious to eat.

It was not enough that Gwaine had to bleed. This thing was going to devour him, leave nothing to bury, only a memory. Just like Lancelot. Just like Freya, and his father, and so many others taken from Merlin.

Merlin felt his magic boil and surge. He had to do something, anything. He couldn't let this happen, not again, not to Gwaine, not to anyone. He could do something and he would and damn the consequences. He was not helpless. He was not a fragile, cowering child to be tormented and driven by fear. He was a warlock, and he would fight. No matter what it took.

The great head lowered toward Gwaine and the great mouth opened baring serrated teeth. A warty tongue slide from its mouth and under Gwaine's back.

And Merlin screamed.

His magic ripped from him like a hand punching through his chest and ripping out his soul. Fire burned up his arms and through his body. He felt as though his bones were shattering, his blood were boiling, his nerves were melting. It was an agony that surpassed all words, pushing blood from his nose, his eyes and out of the corners of his mouth.

But within the pain - ecstasy; his magic free and rolling like a great wave of iridescent white through the chamber. Jimbol and the beast looked over at Merlin as one, and there was only enough time for Jimbol to widen his eyes when the wave hit them. Jimbol vanished in an explosion of dissolving flesh. The beast was shoved back into its doorway but fought to get out. The men and beasts around Merlin ran to and fro flickering in and out of existence. The cavern rumbled like thunder, shook like an earthquake dislodging larger stones that smashed into those who did not flicker entirely away. The great beast shrieked and lashed as it was pulled deeper into the door, and Merlin kept screaming.

The people and beasts vanished, and the door swirled shut. The spot of air where it had appeared imploded and the shock wave ripped through the cavern and beyond. The rumbling increased, as did the falling debris.

Magic continued to pulse through Merlin, horrible and wonderful. It fed strength to his body even as it seemed to rip him to shreds. He stumbled upright then forward to the table. He pulled Gwaine off unable to be gentle about it and dragged him to Arthur. Taking Gwaine's wrists in his hands, he poured magic into the wounds, sealing them though it was agony to do so. He then placed one hand on Arthur, the other on Gwaine, and screamed into the air.

"Wake!"

Both men startled awake with a gasp. At exactly the same time, Merlin's body could take no more, and so took him under.

~oOo~

"What the hell!" Gwaine gasped glancing wildly around, wondering if this was that fate worse than death because it certainly looked it. Rocks were tumbling around them, Arthur was sitting groggily beside him, and Merlin was sprawled on the floor, blood staining his face and soaked all the way through the bandages on his wrists.

But never let it be said of Gwaine that he was a man slow to come to his senses, even when drunk... or whatever he currently was. He was alive, that's what he was; his heart was still beating, his lungs still taking in air, his friends were beside him about to be smashed, and now was not the time to waste the good fortune of him being in a position to do something about it.

"We have to go!" Gwaine shouted above the rumbling. He grabbed Arthur by the arm and pulled them both to their feet, then scooped Merlin into his arms. Arthur, more clearheaded, took the lead.

"I hope you know where you're going!" Gwaine shouted.

Arthur answered by leading them around the table where Gwaine could have sworn he'd been lying not moments ago. On the other side was a small doorway, easy to miss in a place this large. They dodged debris that barely missed them, following tunnels to more quaking chambers and more collapsing hallways until, finally, they came to a set of stairs leading straight up.

They leaped through the entry at the top of the stairs, into a cave, just as the passage behind them buried itself.

Both men crouched among the boulders, coughing and waving away the dust. Gwaine looked up through the inky blackness and saw what appeared to be a sliver of dark blue. He nudged Arthur in the ribs with his elbow then pointed the way with his chin.

They followed the light, which meant having to pick their way through boulders and rocks without falling, the very last thing Gwaine wanted to do with an unconscious Merlin in his arms. Definitely unconscious. Had to be unconscious.

Please, please let him be only unconscious.

The sliver grew into a cave entrance they had to duck to get through. They stepped into snow and clear air, not a single snowflake in sight and the land glittering under the moonlight. But the rumbling continued. They followed it around the hill where the cave was located, hidden by a pile of boulders and rocks. They came out to see what must have been the back of the castle just as it fell in on itself raising a great heaping cloud of dust and debris.

Arthur laughed.

"What?" Gwaine snapped.

Arthur shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing at all." Then he looked at Merlin and all humor vanished. He moved to Merlin, pressed his fingers to his neck, and heaved a breath of heartfelt relief. "He's alive."

Gwaine tilted his head back and breathed a very much similar breath. "Oh, thank the gods."

"Do you know what happened in there?" Arthur asked.

Gwaine shook his head. "Not a clue."

"We'll have to ask Merlin when he wakes, and he will wake," he said to Merlin like an order.

"Then let's make sure he does," Gwaine said, and led the way back to the cave.

TBC...

A/N: You guys are making me all kinds of happy with your reviews :D I know you have many questions. Soon will come many answers.