Chapter III: The Procession of the Dead

She could do this. She'd been working on it for months, learning the theory inside and out, pestering everyone for tips, exercising her magic until she could wield enough for this spell. She'd memorized the words long ago, practiced the pronunciation until she could say them without the faintest hint of access or hesitation.

Bedyrne mec. Astýre mec þanonweard.

"You look so intent, sister."

Morgana startled out of her reverie, shrugged sheepishly at Morgause. The priestess's eyes danced with amusement, though she kept her face blank. "I suppose I am intent. You know how badly I want to be able to teleport."

"That," chuckled Merlin, "and she wants to… attend the show, so to speak… under her own power. Personally, I think that's dangerous."

"Oh?" The witch arched her brow. "And why is that?"

"Because you might be laughing too hard to say the words correctly." His golden eyes sparkled with mirth and anticipation.

Morgause put her hands on her hips. "It's not meant to be funny, you know."

"And it won't be," Merlin assured her, "for the people who don't know what's going on. We, though, will understand what's actually happening, so we can revel in the confusion."

The priestess's lips twitched, but she sniffed, "As long as you're not reveling too much to not do your part."

"I can pause time," Merlin reminded her. "If I need to laugh to the point of collapse, I'll do that and start up again when I can handle it."

"If you do, bring us with you," Morgana ordered.

"I was planning on it. You two let me know if you need to step out."

"We will," Morgana assured him.

"I make no promises," Morgause replied. "Now, Morgana, I believe we were here early for a reason. Are you ready?"

Nerves fluttered in her belly. Her fists clenched, unclenched. She took a deep breath as the words echoed around in her mind.

Bedyrne mec. Astýre mec þanonweard.

She knew this. She could do it.

Breathe in, breathe out. Focus on her destination, picture it in her mind. Gather the magic close. Breathe in, then out, then in again.

Speak the words, release the magic.

"Bedyrne mec. Astýre mec þanonweard!"

The wind picked up. It whirled around her, tossing her hair, whipping at her skirt. Then it plucked her from the ground and whisked her away as easily as a dandelion seed. Moments later—not even the length of a heartbeat—she touched down in the fields, stumbling a little on the uneven furrows. A breath later, Merlin and Morgause joined her.

A smile split Morgana's face. "I did it!" she exulted, dashing into Merlin's arms. Her beau swung her around. They kissed briefly; as always, it filled her with a soft bubbling happiness.

They walked back to the settlement—no need to waste magic when they had perfectly good feet—but not to the exact spot they'd been before. Instead, the trio approached the crumbling castle, passed through one of its better-kept halls, and stepped out into what had once been the courtyard.

In ages past, there had been a garden here; for a long time after the Fisher King's injury, stubborn vines had grown wild over the castle walls, but now, only a few brown scraps remained in places that the wind struggled to reach. The remnants of a shed lingered in a corner, the place where warriors of old had stored their practice equipment before training on the green. Morgana never enjoyed coming here. Sometimes, it looked like nothing more than the ghost of Camelot's future.

It could have been the courtyard of any ancient castle, save for one thing. At the very center of the field stood a great slab of gray stone with a sword thrust deep into its heart. The blade's sides gleamed in stripes of silver and gold. As they approached, Morgana focused on the letters shining on the sword's side. Take me up, this side commanded; Cast me away, the other bade. They came closer still, and now Morgana could read the words carved deep into the stone.

Whosoever draws the sword from this stone is a rightwise destined monarch of all Albion.

Merlin had created that spell himself, weaving it from sheer instinct. The spell had in turn inspired Morgause's brilliant plan to return Excalibur to its rightful owner, the plan that they would enact today, right before the beginning of the Great Conference.

The Conference was scheduled to begin tomorrow. The last five monarchs were due to arrive today. If one assumed that they intended to arrive before sunset, as would be practical for multiple reasons, then everyone would be there to see the show. The mere thought of it made Morgana grin.

This was going to be excellent.

Gwaine had forgotten, almost, how annoying his dear sister could be. Not entirely—that would be impossible—but time had definitely softened his memories of her.

Or maybe she was still mad about that time he'd pretended he wanted to marry her off to Cenred. That was fair.

"For the last time," he growled, "they were enchanted swords working against enchanted evil gargoyles. The magic made them extra smashy."

"Smashy isn't a word, dear brother."

"You know what I mean, Glarissant."

That had the desired effect, just as it always did. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth curled downward in a glower, and she hissed, "If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, stop calling me that."

Gwaine resisted the urge to stick out his tongue. Something about his sister always made him feel like an eight-year-old again. "Then you stop going on about the swords and the gargoyles. That's what happened, and I have witnesses who confirm it."

"A sword cutting through rock is ridiculous," Clarissant muttered, but this time her ire was (mostly) at the world rather than at her supposed liar of a brother.

"Magic is ridiculous," Gwaine countered. "Remember that story Grandmother used to tell about the duck spell?"

"How could I forget? But the ability to set an army of ducks on someone has profound strategic advantages."

"No it doesn't."

"Have you ever fought a duck, Gwaine?"

"Yes, actually."

Clarissant pulled up short. "You attacked a duck?"

"He started it! Feathery little b—" He remembered his mother's quiet presence just in time. "—bugger stole my breakfast. But I won."

"One would hope."

"My point is that he was an easy opponent, so there's no point in siccing an army of ducks on someone."

"A single animal is no threat. An army, though? No individual human would stand a chance."

Gwyar recognized the signs and intervened before things could get too heated. "It was good to hear the story directly from you. Lady Guinevere told us what really happened, of course, but you remember details that she doesn't."

Her son nodded.

Gwyar continued, "It must have been terrifying to go up against creatures made of stone and magic while one of the most powerful sorcerers in recorded history was trying to destroy the entire city."

"A little," Gwaine was forced to admit, "but don't forget, the others had my back, and I was too preoccupied with the gargoyles to think much about Sigan and Merlin trying to kill each other. At least once the earthquake stopped."

His relatives exchanged Significant Glances. Gwaine took the bait. "All right, what's wrong?"

"There's something we've been talking about ever since we learned that your king was trying to bring back magic," Gwyar stated, choosing her words carefully. Gwaine waited. His mother continued, "You do realize, I hope, that this… upcoming transition… will not proceed entirely smoothly."

"Yeah, I know that a lot of things will go wrong, but we can get through it."

"Can you?" Clarissant asked. "You can't cut down hatred with a sword, nor fear neither. Perhaps your sorcerer friends can use their magic to make a few people friendlier—no, don't look at me like that, I only said that they can—but I doubt that even Merlin Emrys could convert all of Albion through force alone. This is different."

"It's always easier to destroy than to create," Gwyar confirmed. "Arthur Pendragon might think that this distrust of sorcerers is only twenty years old, but the seeds of hatred were already there when Uther began his Purge. Uther fanned the flames of rage until they grew from half-dead embers into an inferno, but he did not light the fire."

Clarissant took over. Had they rehearsed this? "The people who hate magic have been given free rein to indulge their worst impulses. Do you really think they'll let you take that away without a fight?"

"Of course not," Gwaine scoffed. "We know there's going to be unrest. We know that people will try to keep abusing and killing spellbinders. We're not dumb enough to think that everyone will be happy with this."

His sister folded her arms. "So what's your plan?"

"Keep going. Show everyone that Arthur will treat spellbinders and everyone else equally, that the rest of us aren't losing anything when others are raised up."

Clarissant snorted. "When you've been in a position of power, brother dear, someone else getting their fair share feels like oppression and betrayal. Is your plan truly to just treat everyone nicely until they all hold hands and get along?"

Gwaine glared. Before he could retort, Gwyar interjected, "Your sister is trying to ask how you intend to counter an armed, organized resistance."

"We've talked about it, and we've decided that assassination is a much bigger threat. Arthur's won two wars in the past year."

"No, he hasn't," Clarissant interrupted, "he's won two duels that ended very short wars. That's different."

"Nitpicker."

"And you're a fool if you're not planning for a full-scale rebellion as soon as the new laws are passed. If I had to guess, I'd say that people are hoping that other, more experienced kings will talk Arthur out of his mad plan. That and winter have kept revolt from breaking out so far, but your luck won't hold forever."

"If you'd let me finish talking, I'd have told you some of the other reasons we aren't too worried about full-fledged rebellion."

"Let your brother speak, Clare," Gwyar ordered, cutting off her daughter's inevitable retort. Clarissant grumbled wordlessly but obeyed.

"Thank you, Mother." Gwaine gave her his best grin, to which she was fully immune, before broadening his attention. "The biggest reason we don't fear a revolt is because we have one huge advantage over anyone who tries to sabotage magic's return. Our side has magic, and lots of it. Once magic is legalized, Arthur will have open access to people who can spy on you from afar, teleport, separate entire armies with glowing shields, all sorts of things. Apparently Merlin can pause time. The point is, we'll have magic and the people who hate magic won't. Rebellions by definition are organized, drawn-out affairs. Once a spellbinder with enough power knows about one, he can end it in minutes. Assassinations, though, those are surprises. You can try to predict them, but they're over too quickly for magic to make that much of a difference."

"That makes sense to me," Gwyar said. There was noticeably less tension in the line of her shoulders.

Clarissant, of course, remained unconvinced. "Then how did the Purge happen in the first place?" she demanded. "Uther didn't have magic when he started it, yet he drove magic from his kingdom for over twenty years. Hell, he killed all the dragons. Dragons!"

"Not all the dragons," Gwaine corrected her.

"All the dragons but one, which he could have killed but spared for some incomprehensible reason. The point still stands that he accomplished all those things without sorcerers of his own. If the rebels have half a brain between them, they'll study his success."

Gwaine wagged a finger at her. "Wrong again, sister dear. Uther might not have had his own spellbinders, but the old hypocrite had magic. Lots of magic. Camelot has a huge treasure vault full of deadly thingamajigs and whatsums designed to negate magical advantages. That treasure vault is guarded night and day by some of the finest guards in the kingdom. When the Purge began, all the other nobles had to send their artifacts to Uther, so now Arthur is the only one who has any. That's two huge advantages."

And yet, his obstinate, ridiculous sister remained skeptical. How did she do it? "Didn't Merlin Emrys steal the entire vault last year?"

"He gave the stuff back."

"After successfully stealing it and hiding the theft for gods-know-how-long."

"Again, Merlin has magic. He can pause time and create illusions and put the guards to sleep and a bunch of other stuff. These guys can't do that."

At long last, Clarissant acquiesced with an incline of her head. "I hope you're right."

The final welcoming feast was actually going quite well when the incident began. Bors and Evaine had arrived in time for a celebratory luncheon, so dinner only honored three kings. This made seating easier and allowed Arthur to pay sufficient attention to each one of his new guests. He was laughing at one of King Bayard's tales (who knew the man had such a sense of humor?) when a chorus of silvery bells—not the alarm bells that would have indicated a crisis, but smaller, more joyful instruments—began to ring. Conversation quieted just in time for a sharp blast of coronets, followed by the richer, mellower notes of a harp.

Arthur and his guests looked around, seeking the source of the sounds. There were no musicians nearby, nor a single visible instrument. "The hells?" Arthur muttered, utterly baffled.

The doors were closed, but the coronets and harps and bells and a few other, less recognizable things—now playing an ancient song about the courtship of Bruta Pendragon and Innogen, his beloved queen—were loud and clear, like the room was full of invisible instruments. Arthur started to wonder if he should call Merlin. What would he say, though? 'I need you to find the magic bells'?

Then the lights went out, plunging the entire dining hall into unnatural gloom. Shrieks and yelps filled the air, and Arthur fumbled for his amulet.

Something that emitted a soft moonglow light stepped through the eastern door. Its colors were faded, its form translucent, but it was instantly recognizable to everyone in the hall. The Pendragon banner, muted red and subdued gold, followed by another pennant bearing the crest of Queen Innogen's now-extinct house. The banners were followed by spectral knights on transparent horses with flaming eyes, splendidly attired, then by a troupe of remarkably acrobatic dancers.

"Merlin, Merlin, Merlin, get over here," Arthur hissed.

"I'm actually already here," a cheery voice announced in his mind. "Don't worry, this is all completely harmless."

"Are you doing this?" Arthur demanded.

The diners and servants scrambled out of the phantom procession's path. The coronets flourished, and a booming sourceless voice cried, "Hail, hail, Bruta the king and Innogen his bride!"

Two more glowing horses stepped through the door, one appareled in Camelot red-and-gold, the other in Innogen's lavender-and-rose. Another step, and the riders were revealed. A dark beard sprouted from the man's face, a face that Arthur recognized from busts and portraits and even a few old coins. The woman's visage was less familiar, but he knew her, too, from a threadbare tapestry that had hung in the queen's chambers for centuries.

…Come to think of it, this entire scene bore a remarkable resemblance to the event memorialized on that same tapestry.

"Have you been raising the dead, Merlin?" Arthur silently shrieked.

"Of course not," the warlock huffed, like that wasn't a completely reasonable question and Arthur was utterly ridiculous for asking why there were dead people running around. "There's no guarantee that your ancestors would do as we asked. You'd more likely end up with a permanently haunted castle. These are illusions. Now be quiet, I need to concentrate."

"You're the one spending magic so I can talk to you!"

A priest of some sort rode in, his mount adorned with ribbons. (Arthur had always found that part of the tapestry absurd, but it was historically accurate, Geoffrey claimed.) When he spoke, his voice seemed to come not from his mouth but from the entire room all at once. "Hail, hail, Bruta the king and Innogen his bride." He gestured broadly at the crowd. "Come. Follow us!"

More dancers spilled in, and another pair of knights on horseback carrying banners. The first knights reached the western doors, which sprang open at their approach. "Follow us!" they cried in unison. "Follow us, people of Albion!" An impossible wind picked up, as though the world itself wanted them to move.

Arthur stood. "What is going on?" he yelled.

"Follow us!" demanded a great chorus of voices, every illusory figure speaking in eerie unity.

Bruta's horse reared with a whinny. "Follow us, Once and Future King!" he thundered. "Behold the great marvel set aside as a sign of your destiny."

Arthur glared. "How about you bring the marvel here instead of asking me to follow a ghost parade to gods-know-where?"

"That would destroy this hall, Once and Future King. Now come! Follow us!"

The king opened his mouth. He didn't know what he was going to say—something scathing and brilliant, no doubt—but Merlin interrupted, "Just listen to the nice ghost man and play along. Morgause worked really hard on planning this."

"If this is a trap," Arthur threatened the shades (because people had seen him with his mouth open, and he had to say something or look like an idiot), "then I'll—I'll have your graves dug up and your bones thrown into the sea. By a sea serpent's lair."

Scowling, he stepped into line behind the last two knights. The bells clanged as if in celebration.

Arthur's decision to follow the ghosts—or perhaps his threat, or maybe just plain curiosity—inspired a couple of other people to climb to their feet, fall in place behind the procession. Their courage was contagious. Chairs scraped against the stone floor as almost everyone joined in.

They followed the ghost parade through the halls of the castle, past gaping servants and the occasional pile of dropped food, until they entered the courtyard. A sea of gray clouds seethed low in the sky, occasionally crackling with lightning. The spirits arranged themselves in a semicircle.

The dancers stilled their frantic movements. The priest pointed his bony finger towards the sky. "Behold!" he cried, and almost the entire procession vanished before the echoes of his voice had died. The priest alone remained.

Then the clouds split open like a torn seam, pierced by a pillar of light. A chorus of wordless human voices sang a sustained chord, gradually growing louder as something descended from the sky. A massive slab of gray stone with a sword sticking out of it.

"Dear gods," Arthur growled as the rock touched down. The singing ceased, the clouds dispersed, the pillar of light vanished. The entire absurd scene might not have happened, except there was a sword in a stone right in front of dozens of monarchs, nobles, and servants who were supposed to be eating supper right now, and that bloody ghost priest was still there.

"Behold Excalibur, the Dragon Blade!" the priest expounded. "Whosoever draws this sword from this stone is a rightwise destined ruler of Albion! Take it now, if that be your will, Once and Future King, or leave it to be drawn by the People's Queen whom the gods have chosen for you. The choice is yours." Then he, too, was gone.

"I recommend not drawing it," advised Morgana, because of course she was also involved in this nonsense. "Gwen can pull it out right before you announce your engagement."

"I'm going to kill you both," Arthur informed her, too frazzled and irritated to appreciate the part of this scheme which benefited Guinevere. After all, who would go against the will of Bruta and Innogen and the bloody gods themselves? Although with Arthur's luck, the gods would become irate with the spellbinders for claiming to speak with their voice. He could just picture Merlin trying to fight one.

…Merlin couldn't actually fight a god, could he? Not seriously, at least, only like a page trying to defend against a fully trained knight. No, of course his very powerful warlock couldn't take on the gods themselves, and he really needed to stop thinking about this, because it was making him unaccountably uncomfortable.

"Don't worry," Merlin assured his lady, "he'll be much happier and more grateful once the shock, rage, and other negative emotions have worn off. I personally think that this went brilliantly."

"People know that I have magic on my side," Arthur pointed out, exasperated. "They'll figure out it was you lot any moment now."

"Not with an illusion this complex," Morgause answered smugly.

"That won't stop them!"

Sure enough, the stupefaction was beginning to wear off. The onlookers were whispering, murmuring, their voices growing steadily louder.

"The dead have spoken," said someone nearby. "The founder of Camelot returned from the dead!"

Honestly. After Sigan, you'd think that this fellow would sound less enthusiastic about spirits from Camelot's founding.

"I've heard this prophecy," another person declared. That's right; Merlin and his lot had seeded rumors about a sword in a stone all throughout the kingdom, and probably other kingdoms as well. "The People's Queen is supposed to be someone that nobody expects, but she'll help her king create the greatest kingdom this island has ever seen."

Others were conversing, their voices steadily louder, but they were not, Arthur realized with mild despair, raised in anger at the sorcerers who had tried to trick them. Instead, there was a great deal of wonder and awe at the miraculous sign.

"It's been several moments, and it doesn't sound like they've figured it out," Morgana observed gleefully. She was a terrible person. They were all terrible people.

"That's right," Merlin cackled. "How many more moments do you think they need?"

"…Shut up, Merlin."

Alternate chapter title: "In Which Morgause Finally Gets the Opportunity to Implement One of Her Plans and Everything Goes Surprisingly Well Because her Scheme is not Evil"

Next chapter: June 17. The Conference begins.

So one of the most common motifs in Arthurian legend is the Procession. Everyone will be minding their own business, feasting away in the castle, and suddenly WHAM! The door bursts open and something really weird comes in. It can be a Questing Beast followed by a full hunting party, a white deer, maidens bearing the Holy Grail, a giant green knight who wants to be decapitated, whatever. It's bizarre, it's magical, it usually kicks off the story(ies). This procession doesn't start off our story, but it's pretty close to the beginning, and I really wanted to do an affectionate spoof of the whole trope because it's so funny to me.

Random question: How many ducks could you fight at once before they overwhelm you by sheer force of numbers? Gwaine and Clarissant need to know. I could probably take... 15-20, maybe? I don't know. I have no idea how powerful ducks can be when angered.