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I Am the Embers of Your Fire - You Are the Breaking of My Dawn
Part 6
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One afternoon he's given the order to go down to the stables, where he finds Arthur waiting. The prince is wearing a pair of high boots, black gloves and that leather vest that he favors. There are several stable-hands milling about, and one of them walks up to Arthur, bows his head and gives him the reins of a large black horse which looks strong enough to be able to kick a man's head off.
The prince turns to his manservant. "Good, you're here. Grab a saddle and carry it out to the paddock. There's already a horse waiting for you there."
Merlin gives him a bewildered look, not blind to the glances of the other servants and staff present. It's not every day the Prince takes these matters into his own hands. A stable-boy could easily have taught Merlin, or someone else – royalty should have more important, if only personally important, things to attend to that see to a servant's riding education.
"What, now, sire?"
"Yes now, Merlin. You said you practically didn't know how to ride and I can't have a servant who's useless with a horse, especially since I've not hunted for weeks. Now hurry up, we don't have all day!"
()()()
The mare is calm, but alarmingly large for someone who's this unused to riding, and by the time the servant manages to get up in the saddle, Arthur is back to his impatient prattish self. They'd practiced taking on and off the saddle several times until Merlin got the hang of it –"You should be able to do it in your sleep!" as Arthur'd adamantly said.
A small crowd of stable-boys, servants and commoners otherwise not occupied have formed around the paddock when they get there and even if they don't linger too long, they still make Merlin uneasy, all of those curious eyes fixed upon him. He's suddenly very aware of how he's wearing his smallest shirt today since all others were too dirty to use, and can only hope no one will notice anything amiss, that no one will see. Perhaps, though, they'll be distracted by him falling into the mud over and over again, as Merlin is certain that he'll do.
The Prince slings himself onto the back of his stallion with an ease and grace that makes Merlin scowl at him. Show-off.
"See, it's not so hard."
"Maybe for you it isn't," Merlin grumbles under his breath and inhales, and holds his breath as he climbs into the saddle. By some miracle he manages to stay there, upright and clinging to the reins, knuckles white.
"See? Now, stop being so tense. It'll only make her nervous."
Gradually he manages to relax; it is strange sitting so high up from the ground, and the mare beneath him shifts and breathes. He really, really doesn't want to fall down from here, it's so far off the ground.
"We'll start with a slow trot around the paddock." The prince urges his stallion, Hengroen, forward and Merlin studies out of the corner of his eyes how he sort of follows the horse's movements, and tries to copy that.
He only ends up in the mud, as foreseen, Arthur twisting his torso to take a look at whatever made the sudden noise and bursting into loud laughter that's almost startling. Merlin can't recall the man ever laughing before.
There's a dull pain sneaking up his side. Merlin pulls himself up to his feet with a groan. "Ow."
The mare snorts and presses her muzzle against his face, like she too is amused by his fall. From above Arthur's voice is as impatient as ever.
"Come on, then, Merlin."
"Must I really? Again?" He stares at the mare who stares back like it's a competition. This is really not fair. No, not at all. "It's useless, I already know it is."
The prince, only using one rein, steers Hengroen up to Merlin's side. "Rome wasn't built in one day! You must have patience."
"Oh, so you've heard of that word, have you, sire?" Merlin asks and is rewarded by a swat over the back of the head. But it was worth it.
()()()
When he returns home after another tiresome day (Arthur had been extra bothersome after that council meeting and his chamber had been a mess), he finds Gaius examining a body lying on the table with a piece of glass near his right eye – Merlin isn't quite sure what it's for, he's not seen such a thing before. The dead man's exposed skin is coldly white-blue, and the open unseeing eyes are the colour of fresh milk. The cheerfulness which the day has filled him – it was oddly nice being with Arthur and riding around even if he made such a fool out of himself, being so clumsy and with Arthur taunting every fall off the saddle - with sinks like water through sand.
"What happened to him?" Merlin exclaims, horrified. He drops the prince's armour in a corner with a clang, hurrying to his mentor's side. Polishing will have to be done later.
"I am not sure," Gaius says. "I've never encountered a sickness such as this before. And this is not the only case. I've seen three similar just this morning. Whatever it is, it's new and spreading fast."
Though the rational part of him tells him to stay away, Merlin curiously steps forward. "Is it some kind of plague?"
"It seems unlikely to me that such symptoms would be caused by a disease from nature." The physician shares a dark look with his ward, who understands immediately.
"Magic then," Merlin murmurs and glances at the door. It's tightly closed. "Should we tell…?" And have someone beheaded or burned at the stake? he adds quietly to himself, shuddering at the thought. But why would someone use magic like that?
Gaius shakes his head. "Not yet. I want to be sure. Telling too early would only cause panic."
()()()
It certainly doesn't help that over the next few hours, they find eight more sick in the castle. That's just the upper town; there might be many more in the lower town. And Gaius can find no cure, not yet; he can't tell what the sickness is.
Merlin knows little of medicine and Gaius strongly forbids him from using magic, it's far too dangerous, and he's never used it to heal somebody intentionally before. (There was this incident, when he was five, and his mother had cut up her hand by accident with the meat knife. At seeing the sharp red on the table and her skin, he'd cried out in panic and, without thinking, reached out for her and reacted. She'd been too shocked by both the pain and the magic to yell, and then, when the wound closed without any scar, she was too thankful to be angry with him. She'd made him promise though not to speak of it again, like everything else – the command wasn't even necessary.)
Now, he can only stand there and watch helplessly as the people get even weaker and paler. They can do nothing but ease their passing and try lull them into calmness.
It happens so fast.
He completely forgets that he's supposed to bring Arthur dinner and clean the fireplace and all other such duties and when night comes, he can't sleep with so much going on, and neither can Gaius.
()()()
"Where have you been? You didn't come back yesterday. My boots are still muddy from the ride," the prince asks, exasperated, when his servant enters his chamber the following morning, without any jolly 'Rise and shine' (a dreadful habit Merlin's developed, but he just won't listen to Arthur's orders to stop it). "And what's with the gloomy face?"
A plate is quietly put on the table.
The boy jerks his head stiffly at the prince's voice. "A woman just died this night in Gaius' chambers. He couldn't help her." The tone is flat, but Merlin's face and eyes speaks volumes: of pain and despair and something darker, more sinister.
Arthur frowns. Gaius is the finest physician he knows, but losing a patient isn't rare, unfortunately. There's so much no man knows and cannot cure, he's aware of that, so there's the possibility that the woman suffered a great deal. Somehow the thought of his servant, who's still quite young and rather frail-looking with those ridiculously thin wrists, aiding Gaius dealing with the dying makes him – not directly uneasy … but almost.
"Was she very ill?"
"Yes, some new kind of disease, Gaius said he's never encountered it before." But then Merlin gasps and clasps his hands over his mouth. He'd been told not to mention anything about that!
The prince's frown only deepens. What is his servant hiding? "Merlin," he says in a serious tone he's not used to days now, silently ordering the boy to explain himself.
"I – I was asked not to say. Not yet. Gaius feared people would panic," Merlin admits, lowering his hands. "He's never seen this sickness before … he's no idea how to cure it."
Arthur's following reaction is exactly what Merlin has been trying to avoid:
"My father should know of this."
()()()
When arriving to the hall Arthur finds a body stretched out on the stone floor, cold and unmoving, and Gaius is covering it with a rough white sheet. The prince stares at it aghast for a moment, recognizing the face before it disappears under the fabric as belonging to one of the councilors. The man isn't particularly old even, so that can't be the reason for his demise, and his face is unnaturally pale.
"Why didn't you report it to me?"
The King's voice booms across the hall. The large room relatively empty; there are only a handful of guards scattered about the room, lingering by all doors, silent and watchful, and three councilors are present, staring horror-struck at the now covered corpse. All servants have quickly been dismissed, perhaps to not stimulate any rumours (though it's already too late) - including Merlin, much to the warlock's exasperation. He wants to know what's being said, not ordered outside like a child! Gaius is always so vague and mightn't tell him everything afterwards. Maybe he could ask Arthur, but the Prince probably wouldn't tell just to annoy him, the prat.
Gaius bows his head in respect to the King. "I was attempting to find the cause."
"What did you conclude?"
"I do not think it's time to hurry to conclusions, sire," Gaius says indistinctly. "The scientific process is a long one."
The King's eyes narrow at the old man. "What are you concealing from me?"
Gaius gives in; lying to the King is dangerous, and he should be aware of the situation – even if the physician can tell already what the reaction will be. "Sire, I have seen nothing like it. The victims are dead or dying within a day and it's spreading fast. People of all ages with seemingly no contact with each other fall sick in all parts of town: I have seen over a dozen cases already, and fear that more are to come."
Uther frowns, as does Arthur; Merlin hadn't made it sound that bad and not said anything about so many being sick! "What is the cause?"
Gaius' voice darkens. "I believe the cause, the most likely cause, is sorcery."
The prince glances at his father; his face is dark. The King momentarily pulls his son aside, turning from Gaius who hasn't been dismissed yet. "We must find who did this."
"I will, father," Arthur replies dutifully.
"Conduct door to door searches. Increase your presence in the town. Double the guards on all the gates. And lend the physician your manservant."
"Merlin? But ... " The protest reaches Arthur's tongue before he thinks of it or can stop it, and it catches him off-guard, making him cut off the sentence before it can be finished. Why would he object? There are hundreds of other servants available to him and it's only temporary; and it's only logical Merlin is to aid Gaius, being his ward and assistant.
Luckily his father doesn't pay heed to the slight hesitation. "I'm going to need Gaius to find a cure. He needs all the help we can give him. If Gaius is right, believe me, this city will be wiped out. This is the kind of magic that undermines our authority, challenges all we've done. If we cannot control this plague, people will turn to magic for a cure. We have to find this sorcerer, and quickly."
()()()
By evening, there are eight more dead and too many sick for them to fit in Gaius' chambers, so one of the smaller council chambers is cleared and made into a sick ward. Various servants are pulled from their ordinary duties to help care for the patients. It helps little, for while the sick may found bedding, food and something against the pain there, there's still no cure, no explanations for the disease and no pardon.
They only get worse, fading away like ghosts.
If there was only some way …
Every hour he has the time – very few hours, unfortunately, between helping Gaius and sleeping – he slips into his room and locks the door and pulls out his magic book. His eyes scan the pages in frenzy for a spell, a potion, something, anything that could provide a cure.
()()()
"The sickness will eradicate us out if we do not stop it now," the King growls as he watches from the window, alongside his son, the square. There's a cart below, onto which bodies are being collected.
"We have found nothing yet, father, but we're extending our search," Arthur says, voice heavy. "But I fear that whoever did this have left the kingdom completely. They could be anywhere …" After a moment's pause he adds; "I'm sorry." The words are heavy on his tongue.
Uther turns stiffly from the scene, without speaking, cloak billowing behind him. The prince stares after him, feeling utterly useless. He's a warrior, a fighter. If there's an actual sorcerer to be dealt with, or if a monster attacks the city, Arthur would pick up his sword to fight it; he'd raise his voice if the people suffered, or if there was a situation of political nature to be dealt with. But this dark magic slipping into Camelot can't be fought with swords or words. Can't be fought with any power Arthur possesses.
He loathes admitting defeat, but they're fighting a losing battle.
()()()
"Tell me, what's different about this victim?"
"She, uhm," he looks at the woman on the table, slightly uncomfortable. He can practically feel the cold radiating from her skin, like poison making him want to step back. If concentrating he can also feel the fading dark magic that surrounds her, from the spell that's done this to her.
"She's a woman?" he says uncertainly glancing up at his mentor.
His guardian raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. "Sometimes I wonder whether your gifts were given to the right person. Anything else?"
"…She's a courtier."
"Very good! And what does that mean?"
Merlin struggles to come up with a reply. "That … that she hasn't spoken to any townspeople."
"Yes," the physician confirms, "it implies the disease probably isn't spread through human contact. Anything else?"
"Uhm, she doesn't eat the same thing as they do, or walk the same places. I doubt they even breathe the same air…"
"What's the one thing they do share then?"
"Wat-" His eyes widen. "Water!"
His mentor's words are an almost-praise. "Merlin, you are a prodigy." A bucket is thrust into his hands. "Fetch me some water from the pump."
()()()
As fast as he can, he returns with a bucketful of water, so Gaius can examine it (how is beyond Merlin's comprehension though). He finds the door open, and inside there's a familiar voice, crying, and Merlin's heart skips a beat, nearly causing him to drop his burden.
No!
The woman is pleading to Gaius, who tries to soothe her, but looks so very tired, and there's no cure. No cure and nothing to hinder her tears. "Please, you have to help. My father is all I have! Please, Gaius!"
"I am so sorry, Guinevere, but I so far a remedy is beyond what I can achieve."
"Please, I am begging you!"
The old man reaches out for her hand in attempt to comfort her. "I'm sorry, Gwen."
Sobs wrecking her body, she rushes out of the room, past Merlin, unable to meet his eyes. "Gwen!" he cries after her, but there's no response. He swirls around. "I have to help!"
"There is no way, Merlin."
"I could use my magic," Merlin says, "I could heal—"
"Heal her father? Maybe you could, but then what, if he miraculously recovers?" Gaius retorts. Merlin has rarely seen him this upset or angry, heard his tone this sharp. "People would assume there's either a cure and immediately demand it, or assume magic has been used." He straightens up, then picks up a small open vial and submerges it in the water from the bucket. Then, he places a small blue flower in it, though why Merlin isn't sure and right now he doesn't care. "No, we must wait until we find the answer through science. Patience is a virtue."
"Oh, so doing nothing is a virtue!" Merlin cries and throws out his arms in despair. He can't just sit around and wait and do nothing. "I'll heal everyone with magic then!"
"Merlin," his guardian says, a protest or a warning or a combination of both, but Merlin pays no heed to it as he moves to fetch his magic book. It has to contain an answer and he will find it.
()()()
Bells toll between the walls of stone. Across town people sit in vigil by loved ones' bedsides, waiting for the inevitable. Over two dozen cold bodies fill the courtyard as the day darkens, and inside the Great Hall the King is pacing.
"Impose a curfew. No one is allowed on the streets after the bell rings," Uther says, "and seal the lower town."
"Why?" Arthur asks, for why would they do so? Then, they won't have access to the physician, even if there's little Gaius can do. Unwillingly, his thoughts wander to the struggling physician, and Merlin who's trying to help him. Merlin who's down there being exposed to the disease, to the dead bodies. The thought doesn't sit well with him, but he swallows the ashen taste on his tongue. Merlin's just a servant, and Arthur is the Prince of Camelot and should not be so concerned for his well-fare, not for such an unimportant individual especially during such a crisis.
"Because that's where most of the victims are," his father says, a frown marring his face. "I cannot allow this disease to spread any further; we must isolate it."
Yet Arthur speaks up before considering how his father would react at his words – odd, he's done so a lot more as of late, after Merlin stepped into his life; speaking up against his father, not always with him.
"But what about the people who live there?" he asks, aghast at the thought of simply abandoning them like that.
"Don't you think I haven't considered it?" Uther says sharply, and looks tired and worn. "What else can I do? I have to protect the rest of the city." And Arthur realizes that the King doesn't wish for this either. It's his city, his people, as well. His responsibility. He must save what lives he can, but it comes at a cost … Always a cost.
Bitterness lingering on his tongue, Arthur bows and takes his leave, and begins to spread the new orders to the guards.
()()()
Night has fallen when Merlin sneaks out from the castle, down to where he knows Gwen lives: getting past the guarded gate to the lower town forces him to distract them with simple levitating magic, and his stomach knots with apprehension, but eventually he gets through unseen.
He has waited impatiently for his mentor to fall asleep, and by then it's late into the night, but if Gaius finds out about this he'll have his head. There's a risk Gaius will realize that some of his stored herbs have gone missing, but Merlin will deal with that later. If he's caught now, he'll definitely get thrown in the dungeons for breaking the curfew.
The streets are hauntingly empty save the occasional guard and he ducks behind carts and littered boxes to avoid being seen. Most windows are dark, the houses look gray and cold though he's sure families inside are huddling close anxiously waiting for dawn, fearing the disease to strike them as well. But there's a light, in Gwen's home, flickering weakly. Opening the locked door with magic, he finds his friend resting over her father's bedside.
The man is sickly pale with blue streaks across his skin, and his breathing is harsh. He doesn't have many hours left. Merlin takes a deep breath.
This has to work.
There's no other option.
With a few whispered words he pushes magic into the object in his palm, the sack of carefully mixed together herbs reacting at the presence of the magic and starting to glow faintly. Gently, he lifts the pillow and places the object beneath the man's head.
There's no immediate reaction, but Merlin draws back into the shadows and lingers for just a moment. To make sure it's not a complete failure.
It takes just a few minutes before the man's eyes open, and they're not milky white but colourful and full of life, and his skin slowly begins to take its normal tan. Within moments his breath is no longer weak and he moves slightly causing the girl next to him to stir.
"…Gwen?"
"Father? You … you're all right!"
She envelopes the man in a tight embrace and nearly sobs with relief. "It's a miracle!"
()()()
When Merlin hurries home close to midnight, his footsteps are lighter than they've been for days.
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Author's note: Finally some review replies to people who have admitted them anonymously. I'm sorry they come this late. My only excuse is that I'm terribly lazy. Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, faved, saved this story on their follows-lists or simply read it!
neutrino (prologue & part 5): Thank you! I'm extremely relieved. I was afraid about the same thing; unfortunately sometimes I have no choice but to more or less copy some lines, but I try to keep as original as possible and not just copy the whole script right off. I'm also attempting to fill some plot holes and I've got a few tweaks ahead too, so don't worry. Writing Merlin's situation is actually very tricky - it's difficult to balance. Either it feels as if I'm mentioning it too little, or I'm mentioning it too much. It's about focus, and sometimes I'm torn about whether I want to focus on what's happening in a scene and what Merlin is feeling at that particular moment. It's a delicate balance.
(As a side-note, I always wondered what happened to that dog; they never mentioned it in the series. But then again, there are a lot of things they don't mention ...)
Guest (chapter 4): Thank you for reading! I'm trying to update as often as possible. As I've said in the prologue, it all depends on how fast I get them written. At the moment I'm some 5-6 chapters ahead (I'll try to keep that pace up).
Guest (chapter 2): Thank you!