Chapter 1
"Ah, you are… Guinevere? Morgana's serving girl?"
Guinevere almost dropped the bucket of water she had retrieved for Giaus upon hearing the King's voice. Instead, she turned and started to drop into a curtsy, surprised when Uther waved off the formality.
"I do not wish you to spill that," Uther's tone was amused.
"Sire?"
"Morgana has you aiding Giaus in tending to Arthur's manservant, yes?"
"Yes, sire," Guinevere nodded, eyes cast down.
"I wish to hear how he is fairing."
Gwen couldn't stop her shoulders from slumping, "Not well, sire. Giaus… he suspects magic may have been used to increase the poison's potency. He didn't want to tell you until he was certain, but Merlin… he's getting worse far too quickly." She chanced a quick glance at the King's expression, surprised to see a pensive frown.
"I see. If Gaius needs anything that can be provided by the castle staff, I will see to it that they know to aid him. I owe this boy Arthur's life twice over."
Gwen flashed him a look of gratitude only slightly less intense than had been on Arthur's face not three hours before, and Uther wondered why the boy inspired such feelings from those who had known him for only a few weeks.
"Thank you, sire," Gwen almost curtsied again, the bucket sloshing dangerously before Uther's hand steadied it.
"Get back to Giaus, girl. Arthur would be most upset if he returned to find his efforts in vain."
"Yes, sire," a bobbed head and the girl turned back to the stairs leading towards the physician's quarters.
Uther watched her go, deeply troubled.
xxxx
The next evening, Giaus sighed as he wrung out a wet cloth and gently put it back on his ward's forehead, barely glancing up as Guinevere entered the room and placed another new bucket of water on the table. "Giaus?"
"The poison has already entered the final stage," Giaus said heavily. "It should have taken at least another day for the rashes to appear… if Arthur does not return tomorrow, I fear it will be too late."
For several long moments, Merlin's labored breathing was the only sound in the room.
"Does that mean magic truly was used in making this poison?"
The old physician's shoulders slumped, "There could be nothing else that would cause this," he admitted.
"Then Arthur is riding into a trap," Uther's voice caused both serving girl and old man to jump, and Giaus' expression went from surprised to horrified in a breath.
"… I fear you are right, sire," Giaus breathed. "But he will already have reached the forest."
Just then, Merlin began to struggle weakly in his half-conscious fever dreams.
"Merlin?" Giaus twisted back to his patient and Uther turned to give a hasty order to the knight standing in the hall behind him.
The King was fully intending to go and meet with the council, to inform his advisors of the fact that a sorcerer had made an attempt—apparently a double-attempt (he could only pray that the trap did not succeed)—on his son's life when a breathy moan caught his attention.
"Ar… Arthur… no, no… trap…"
Uther hesitated only a moment longer, struck silent at this boy's sheer loyalty to his son. Here, on what could very well be his deathbed, obviously in agony and not even conscious, the manservant feared more for Arthur's safety than anything else.
He strode out of the room sharply, calling to a passing guard. "Send riders with spare horses after my son!" It was too late to protect Arthur from the trap, but Sir Leon and Sir Gavin would protect him with their lives.
However, he would never be able to replace the boy's loyalty to Arthur, and spare horses would speed his son's return, thus increasing the boy's chances to live. And apparently, by extension, his son's.
xxxx
Arthur and the two knights reached the forest at a quick canter as the evening after their departure from Camelot came to a close.
They slowed their mounts to jogging trots, then again to walks as the animal's sides heaved with exertion.
Sir Gavin's mount skittered sideways a few steps, Leon's horse tossing its head and nickering with wide eyes as Arthur's mount pinned its ears and snorted.
Not two minutes after the knights tied the horses outside the entrance to the caves they had the dubious pleasure of meeting the forest's cockatrice.
Between the three, they made quick work of the semi-magical creature only for rustling in the brush off to the side to draw their attention to a young woman, scratched and wearing a dress that was the mark of a noble's servant, though it was torn mostly to shreds.
A hurried conversation and the three knights followed the young woman into the caves.
"I don't trust her, sire," Sir Leon murmured to Arthur, just out of the woman's hearing range.
Arthur closed his eyes briefly, "Nor do I. Her presence is far too convenient. However, we have no way of finding our way through this underground maze alone and time is not on our side."
The woman was true to her word up until showing the group where the flower was. A brief argument later and Arthur (the lightest of the group) was the one to move forward to reach for it, a rock outcropping the only thing between him and a long, dark drop.
And that was when everything went mad.
xxxx
A flare of power rushed from the woman—the sorceress—sent Prince Arthur stumbling forward, unable to catch himself. Instead he lunged for the cliff-face opposite the cave-opening the group stood in, barely managing to catch hold of a narrow ledge with gauntleted hands.
Leon stepped towards the stone outcropping even as it cracked and fell and Gavin lunged for the sorceress.
She laughed, vanishing in a bright flash as Prince Arthur cried out, his precarious grip failing.
"Sire!" Leon knew he was too far to do anything, only able to watch helplessly as his Prince fell.
Seconds stretched out in shocked silence, a flickering torch illuminating the flower clinging to the roots of the great tree that grew above, the reason for a journey that cost the Prince's life. They could not reach the flower, now, and so doomed the boy still in Camelot to a painful death.
"Sir Leon," Sir Gavin said finally. "We must go back."
Leon closed his eyes for a long moment before nodding, casting a final glance at the flower and the dark abyss that had taken his Prince. He remembered the servant that Arthur had been trying to save, and found himself wondering if it was kinder to let death take the boy than to let him know that Arthur had died seeking a cure.
Considering the boy's strangely powerful attachment to the Prince, perhaps it was.
He turned to follow Gavin back down shadowed tunnels, moving slowly with the weight of their failure.
xxxx
Arthur watched in something like disbelief as the two knights suddenly acted as though the sorceress had gone and he had fallen, knowing that their inability to see or hear him had to have something to do with the bright light she had sent out. It must have been some kind of illusion.
Her parting words were scornful, sure of his death, but Arthur paid little heed as he drew his blade one-handed to swat away an approaching spider larger than any he had before seen. He didn't have the dexterity to sheath it again while hanging by one hand, so he tossed the blade up onto the ledge and dragged himself up after it, realizing fairly quickly that he would have an easier time getting out of this mess barehanded and discarding his gloves.
And the sorceress left him there, the magical lighting she had conjured vanishing with her.
Blinded by inky darkness, Arthur felt himself begin to despair.