Author's note:

Gwaine, Ellyan, Percival, Lancelot, Gaius, Arthur and Merlin have fallen into a dark hole.

This is the chapter you've been waiting for; trust me ;-)

Chapter 6: In the dark

The first thing that hit him was water and cold.

"Wet!" he cried out, gasping for air and trying to grab anything that he could touch.

It was dark; darker than the forest in the dead of the night. He could literally not see any further than his hands.

"Merlin! Don't struggle! I've got you!"

Groping in the dark, his hand found a strong shoulder wearing a chain mail. With his other hand, he tried to find the wall but he was slipping on the muddy and slimy surface.

"Try to find a root," said Lancelot. "Here! Take this!"

Lancelot guided his hand and there was indeed a short root hanging from the muddy wall. Merlin grabbed on to it, but he was still submerged in water up to his shoulders and it was freezing. He was also painfully aware of the deep gash on his left upper arm.

"Merlin!" cried out Gaius's panicked voice.

"I've got him, Gaius," said Lancelot. "He was just stunned."

"Is everyone accounted for?" asked Merlin while trying to maintain his hold on the feeble root.

"Yes, we're all here," said Arthur, but Merlin could not see him.

It was a bit strange, talking to people, knowing that they were present, but not seeing them. Of course, he had spoken to a dragon, and heard voices in his mind, but this was somehow weirder.

"What is this: an underground stream or a well? She's thrown us down a well!" cried out Ellyan shakily.

"Yes, and she's put a cover on it too," said Arthur.

Merlin glanced up, but there was no sign of an opening above their heads.

"Well, we know it's not a stream: the water is very still," said Gwaine.

From the spluttering sound that he was making, Merlin guessed that he had just gone under water to asses their predicament.

"Did you find the bottom?" asked Lancelot.

"No, pitch black and very deep too. You wouldn't know up from down."

Lancelot let out a long sign of discouragement and Merlin could almost feel his breathe on his shoulder. Lancelot's protectiveness over him was not decreasing.

"It is really some kind of well, then," he said.

"It used to be a punishment for sorcerers and traitors, you know," Gwaine added after a short pause. "It's kind of ironic."

"What do you mean?" said Ellyan.

"Don't you think that here and now may not be the appropriate time for such a conversation?" said Lancelot irritably.

Gwaine snorted loudly. "It's just, you know, the irony."

"Try to grab hold of some roots and see if they go any higher," cut in Arthur in his most commanding tone.

"It's no use," said Percival grumpily. "Everywhere I tried is just mud or roots that rip easily."

"We won't get anywhere without light," said Gwaine resolutely.

There was a short moment of silence during which Merlin could only hear breathing and the sound of ripples in the water.

"Let's not stay silent for too long. It's creepy," said Ellyan.

"It shouldn't be too hard: we have Merlin with us," sneered Arthur.

"Nobody is going to say it so I'm going to ask it," Gwaine cut in abruptly. "Arthur, I know you have principles and fine morals and all that, but I really don't. You do know what I mean to ask, Gaius, don't you?"

Merlin sighed quietly. For a moment, he had been afraid that his name would come up.

"No," said Arthur before the old physician could reply. "We're not using magic to get out of here."

Nobody spoke again and Merlin could feel the cold gripping his body. His left arm was throbbing and probably bleeding: it was too dark to tell. They were in a potentially fatal position: that much was certain. If the water did not kill them, then the cold certainly would, and fast too.

"Sire," said Gaius unmistakably to Arthur's attention, "in such cases, certainly there can be no evil in bringing about a little light."

Without waiting for Arthur's reply, Merlin heard his mentor take a deep breath and say "Bryne!" forcefully. He had not heard Gaius utter a spell often, but it seemed loud and difficult for the old man and the result was rather pale. There, in the center of the deep pool around which they were all hanging off the wall was a small flame the size of a fist. Its light was whitish and it made their faces look a silvery grey, but at least they were no longer blind.

Arthur grunted in disagreement, but he didn't dare say a word as the others were obviously glad for the small light.

"Gaius, I'd never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad you have magic," said Ellyan with a half-smile on his face.

"Thanks, Gaius," said Gwaine. "And Arthur means to say thank you too. He's just too much of a pratt at the moment."

"Hey! That's my line," said Merlin.

"How about that idea of going upwards?" said Ellyan. The pale light seemed to have lifted his spirits.

But as they glanced above their heads, they saw nothing that could help them. The roots were all small, not enough for a grown man to hang on to. The wall was made of slippery mud and it went up, up over their heads, as high as a tower.

"Save your strength," Gwaine told Ellyan after he had tried for a while to climb on the wall but with no success. "Even if we could get up there, the witch and her archers would kill us on sight."

"I prefer that to drowning in the dark," said Ellyan crossly.

As he said this, Gaius's small flame flickered and grew a little dimmer. Merlin was hanging with his face half-turned towards the wall. His brain was working in slow motion because of the cold and the pain. He was wondering vaguely if the Great Dragon had heard his call. But even if he had heard, what could he ask of the great big creature? Kilgharra couldn't just dig them out with his claws.

"All right, Merlin?" asked Lancelot with concern.

"Cold," said the young warlock, aware that he was shivering.

"It's not that bad actually," said Percival. "You never fell into a lake in winter where I'm from."

"He's cold because he's hurt," said Gaius. "If we don't get him out of this water soon, he's going to go into shock."

But Merlin wasn't thinking about his injury: he was trying to find a solution, any solution. Unfortunately, all of his ideas had to do with magic and that could not happen without his revealing who he was.

"We should try to get Prince Arthur out," said Lancelot with his sudden conviction. "Maybe we can hoist him up. He doesn't deserve to die like this."

Gwaine let out a long sigh. "Nobody deserves to die like this, Lancelot, not even sorcerers and traitors. What say you, Arthur?"

"Do I really have to answer to that?" There was a general laughter and then Arthur added softly, "I only wish that I could see Gwen again just once."

Merlin looked at the knights, one after the other. None of them seemed really afraid to die, but it couldn't be their fate, it just couldn't. It was too cruel. It was unfair. They still had so much to accomplish. Arthur had only begun to walk the path towards his great destiny. It couldn't end like this, but the only option was one that he couldn't consider; or maybe he was too afraid of what would happen to think about it.

He was working very hard on pushing that one dreadful idea out of his mind, when he noticed that Gaius was looking at him intently.

"Merlin…"

Gaius's pale light was flickering again and the faces around the black pool were growing darker. Hopelessness was in their eyes now though they were trying to hide it.

"We'll find a way out of here, Gaius."

The old man made a sympathizing grin. "Merlin… My magic is not strong enough. It certainly cannot get us out of here. My fire is dying out. Without light, we will all die. Arthur will die."

Merlin turned his face against the muddy wall. He couldn't look at the others. He couldn't look at Arthur. Was this some kind of test? Gaius had always been absolutely unmovable on the subject of secrecy. Was the prospect of death changing his mind? Was their situation really that desperate?

"You cannot ask me this," murmured Merlin, his voice strained.

"We need your light."

"No," said Merlin weakly.

"You've been in the shadow for too long. It is time now, Merlin. You know it. You've seen it. This was in your dreams."

He didn't want to recall the dreams. More than once, he had stood surrounded in blackness, watching each of his friends vanish from his sight. Whether or not they were dying or leaving him was unclear. Arthur was always last to disappear and his absence was more painful than any wound he had ever endured.

Gaius's light flickered. It was only a faint glow now. The others had grown quiet, waiting; perhaps they were expecting a miracle to happen.

"You asked me when," said the physician. "I'm telling you that it is now, Merlin."

And then the small white light died out. It felt as though they were all holding their breaths. Merlin bit his lips. His heart was pounding against his chest. He was numb with cold and also with fear, but Gaius was right; there was no escaping it. It was now or never.

Swallowing hard and taking a deep breath, he enunciated the first spell that came to his mind. "Fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme!"

The ball of light took birth in the black water, rising from the depth like a large soap bubble: blue, white, silver and gold. The powerful glow lit up the whole cave, casting light on the roots hanging from the muddy walls, on the rock that was covering the opening high up above, and on the dark water below. The stunned faces around him became visible, but he could not look at any of them.

The ball of blue light was hovering in the middle of them all, seven friends down in a well, yet Merlin had never felt so alone.