~12~ Strength, Courage, and Idiocy
The cell was small, only about five paces from corner to corner. Merlin knew. He had walked around it for an hour.
Like a caged cat he paced, feeling the internal battle rage as his magic fought Morgana's (yes, he knew it was Morgana's: he couldn't mistake it for anything). Her dark sorcery had tried to coax him to sleep, but he could taste the foul magic and rejected it, fought the urge to rest.
Even in the near complete darkness, he didn't walk into any walls. Not anymore, anyway. He had not the slightest idea how long he'd been in there, for he hadn't been conscious for his entire stay. He remembered nothing after being captured by Mėtû, so he didn't know how he had gotten to the cell in the first place, only that he couldn't get out.
For the thousandths time, he contemplated on breaking the lock with magic, and, for the same thousandths time, he pushed the thought aside. Morgana would feel her power-reinforced lock being destroyed, and Merlin didn't fancy his chances against her and Fear united.
He forced himself to think of another solution, but it was getting harder and harder without fresh air. The dungeon had been closed off for centuries until recently, judging by the smell, and it made him feel slightly woozy. The window on the door was only about the size of his hand, and there was no opening to the outside at all. He felt like he was going to go crazy. He rushed up to the door and peeked through the tiny hole.
"Arthur! Gwaine! Lancelot! Can you hear me?" ...You hear me...ear me...me...? Merlin banged on the wooden door in frustration as his echo mocked him once more, just like it had every other attempt to communicate. He wasn't sure they were down there with him, or awake—alive—but why risk not trying?
Someone sighed shakily. "W-why b-b-bother-er, l-laddie? They c-can't hear y-y-you." A nervous laugh sounded from another cell.
Merlin wasn't sure if it was the voice or the insane laugh which followed that startled him more.
"Hello?"
"Hell, oh, in-indeed-d, b-boyo." Another chuckle, and then a frightened gasp, before silence.
When the stillness stretched on, accompanied only by a distant dripping sound, Merlin thought he had imagined the whole thing. Then there was a second shuddering sigh.
"H-h-h-have you any i-idea what-t-t...w-what you've g-gotten yourself in-into, l-laddie?" The laugh was shrill, and definitely not from a sane mind.
It was difficult to tell in which cell the other prisoner was kept. His voice echoed from up and down the corridor. Merlin figured that it may be because the man was actually right across the hall. "Sir, can you tell me what's going on?"
"...When as K-king Henry ruled th-this land..." A shiver. "The s-second of that n-name...B-bes-besides the queen he d-dearly loved a fair and c-comely dame..."
"Sir, do you understand me?"
"Heh-heh. M-most peerless was h-her beaut-ty found. 'Er f-favour and 'er face; a s-sweeter creature in th'world...C-could never prince emb...em-embrace-sss." This time the laughter was a loud whoop.
Merlin shook his head. The man had lost his mind, without a doubt. Any thought of his luck returning had already gone, but hearing the chortles of the insane prisoner dragged his hopes down to the bottom of the sea, and then started digging.
"Y-yea Rosamonde, f-f-f...fair R-rosamonde her name was ca-called so. Ha-ha...!" He whimpered, and sniffed. "To wh-whom our q-queen, Dame Ellinor was kn-known a deadly foe." Sobs had replaced the laughter. "Oh, my Rosie...No! Don't hurt me!"
Merlin's hands flew to his ears at the horrified scream that pealed out, but then he tore them away and looked through the door window again, searching for the cause of the man's terror. There was nothing that he could see from the glows of a distant torch reflecting down the damp corridor.
"Sir? Sir, are you all right?"
"The witch comes! The witch comes!"
"Calm down! What witch? Morgana?"
"Oh waly, waly up the b-bank, and w-waly, waly down the bro, and waly, waly yon b-burn-n side, w-where I and m-my love were wont to go."
Merlin growled in frustration. "Speak sense, man!" He began to pace around the cell again as the prisoner continued to chant old ballads, sounding high and cheerful one minute, and then low and terrified the next.
Suddenly, the mad man's tone changed altogether, to something grim. The warlock paused in his pacing to listen.
"When Darkness comes unto the world, beneath the shadow moon..." A shudder. "The bane of fate shall dance with him, and bring about her doom." Silence fell once more.
The words had been as clear as bells, but that is not what Merlin wondered about. They had sounded rehearsed, as though they had been repeated by the same man for his whole life; at the same time, they felt like they had been from a prophecy of a thousand years. But that was nonsense.
A madman's prattle, Merlin thought, and deflated. He slumped his back against the door and slid to the ground, only to grimace as something jabbed into his spine on the way down. Still sitting, he turned and glowered at the offender, and then blinked. It was a door hinge...The hinges were on the inside!
Yeah, okay, one would think. The door hinges are on the inside of the cell. Big deal.
To Merlin, it was a big deal. It was his freedom.
Probing with his magic, he discovered that, yes, Morgana had not taken the door's structure into account. The hinges were unaffected by sorcery, and so completely vulnerable to his own.
"Suck this, Morgana," he said (astonishing words coming from him), and shot a spear of magic through the door joint, displacing the nail. A moment later, the second and third hinges, too, were sabotaged.
Merlin put his ear to the small window and listened hard. All that could be heard was the soft, mindless sobbing from the other prisoner. Then the magic in his chest cracked its knuckles, flexed its arms and lifted the door the slightest bit, before pulling it towards him ever so slowly. Glad that it was only himself he had to free, as he was so thin, he squeezed through the narrow space before putting the door back in place, leaving the lock secure—if not slightly bent, as he suddenly noticed. Shrugging, he nearly turned away, but then got a new idea.
"Ünūguibus, revęrteris." His eyes flashing gold, he heard three small, rusty clinks as the nails replaced themselves, and nodded, satisfied. Let her riddle that one out, he thought.
Suddenly, Merlin stopped, rolled his eyes and put his hand to his temples. What did it matter if the hinges were on the inside or not? He could have just as easily...oh, whatever. If they weren't on the inside, he would never have been inspired to use them to escape.
"Stupid," he muttered, disgruntled. "Stupid..."
A hiccough saved the insane inmate from being forgotten by the warlock. Merlin checked the only other locked door in sight and tried to see in, but, of course, it was too dark.
"Lučem," he whispered, and nudged the blue orb of conjured light from his palm through the little window. Tendrils of light flicked off the orb towards a huddled man in the corner, filthy and skinny. The illumination gave the gaunt face an even more haunted look by shadowing his eyes and cheeks. The prisoner whimpered, cringing away from the light in fear. He looked so pathetic in his tattered, dirty clothes. His shoulder-length hair greasy and scraggly.
"I'm not going to hurt you," said Merlin soothingly. He undid the lock, which wasn't reinforced with magic, but did not open the door. "What is your name?"
"When Darkness comes unto the world, beneath the shadow moon—"
"No, your name...Your name, sir."
"The bane of fate shall dance with him—"
"No one's dancing with anyone. Will you just listen to me?" Merlin backed a few steps and turned once uselessly in a circle. His patience was wearing too thin to detect, and it was all he could do to not leave the man to his fate and search for his companions.
"—and bring about her doom..."
He took a deep breath. Deep in his heart, he knew he would never—could never—do that to anyone. Then he grimaced: the stench wafting from the cell was horrid.
"For he will call the Lord of Sky, the Luminance of the Sun—"
Merlin stepped back up to the door. "Sir, you need to come with—"
"He shall triumph over Darkness!" screamed the man, "for the land of Albion!"
With a howl, the madman rushed at the door, blood-shot eyes wide and toothless mouth gaping. Merlin jumped back as a bony arm reached through the door window and clawed at him.
"For Albion!" he shrieked. "For Albion!"
Merlin fled, the echoes of the maniac chasing him down the dungeon corridor. The mixture of screams and insane laughter was terrifying to behold. No matter where he turned, the sounds rang in his ears and haunted his heart.
When at last all that was to be heard was his own heaving breath, he slowed to rest, and brightened the blue orb of conjured light that had led him. He gathered his bearings and thoughts back into the spilt basket and calmed himself.
He had had to leave that man behind. There was nothing for it. He was insane, and would only prove a burden to the warlock. However, Merlin found himself swearing to break the prisoner free should fate permit it. And he would do his best to make fate permit it. But to do that, he was going to need help, help in the form of strength, courage, and...and...
Merlin paused a moment. What was Arthur's forte? Idiocy? Pomposity? The tendency to attract trouble?
Moron! Stop thinking and start acting! he snapped at himself.
"Monștrarę mihĭ șociis ąrdĕnt!" Show me my comrades!
The cry came louder than he expected, but it was satisfying to hear his commanding tone reverberate down the dungeon; although, he wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen.
The answer came in the sound of a throb. Blinking and shaking his head, he thought he'd imagined it, but when it came again, an undertone pound from the direction that he had come from, he knew where to go.
The throb increased in speed the closer he got to the first of his friends, and as the sound quickened, so did his feet. He reached a closed, locked door. The pounding ceased, and then started again, low, slow, and distant. It was trying to lead him to the next knight, but Merlin focused first on the one in the cell.
With his conjured orb of light, he lit up the inside of the prison through the small window of the door, and squinted at the huddled figure against the far wall. The man was sleeping, and suffering through a nightmare. Merlin prepared to unhinge the door as the prisoner rolled over, and he saw that it was Lancelot.
Φ
Drowning.
The water, deep, black, soulless water, shackled his ankles and prevented him from making for a surface he couldn't see. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't ascend to relieve his howling lungs, starved of oxygen and suffocated by fear. His heart was fit to explode, but the dark water was oblivious to his suffering—or enjoyed causing it.
Despair had enveloped him long ago, but hopelessness had leeched away his will to live. Eventually, he stopped thrashing, and closed his eyes which couldn't see anyway. Then the triumphant water dragged him down, further and further, into its crushing depths.
Drowning.
But wait. Was that...a light?
The gleam of a candle teased his eyelids open, and he saw a figure swimming his way. He felt hands brush past him, and then grasp onto his shirt. As they began to haul him upwards, a flicker of will returned to him, and he kicked at the furious water towards the surface. The hands that were his saviours encouraged him by tightening their grip and tugging faster.
The surface was near. He could see the light—
Φ
Air bellowed into his lungs as his eyes snapped open. Despite what he thought, he wasn't sopping wet and half-drowned. His mind caught up with reality, and he sat up, heart racing.
Merlin rolled away from him, groaning and holding his mouth and nose. An orb of azure light lit the small cell they resided in. As Merlin retched emptily once, Lancelot crawled towards him, but was at a loss of action. However, within moments, the warlock had recovered, and was wiping away the dribbles of blood from his nose.
"Not as bad this time," he said, and shuddered. "Why did your fear have to be drowning?"
Rough Latin translations:
Monstrare mihi sociis ardent: show me my comrades
Unguibus, reverteris: nails, return
Lucem: light