You know how difficult it is for me to write a short story? I would have something really simple, but then go, "Ooh, I should add this conflict. And then this happens. And then this, and this—"
*Sigh* Self-restraint is not my strong point, not when it comes to writing. Or chocolate.
~13~ The End is Come
Lancelot, though slightly sceptical, followed Merlin, who appeared to be leading him down random corridors in search of the others. The knight wasn't sure about what the distracted warlock meant when he said he was listening for them, but followed him regardless.
He demanded that Merlin tell him what he knew, of course, about what was going on. Unfortunately, it wasn't much. Morgana had her hand in it, for sure. Fear, or "Mey-too," was also guilty, the servant was positive, though he didn't know what the man was, exactly. And Smokie, Arthur's horse, was really the "Noc-te Ek-ewah," the Night Mare. Together, they made a force that Merlin obviously feared to face. The man was as taunt as a drum skin, and jumped at little sounds, including Lancelot's voice.
They came to a fork in the tunnel, and, like every other time, the warlock paused and turned his head first one way, then the other, to locate their imprisoned companions. This time, however, he paused and frowned.
"What the...?"
"What? What's wrong?"
The warlock glanced at Lancelot, but never really saw him. "They're...coming this way."
"...Your light! Extinguish it!"
A moment later, they were enveloped in darkness. They listened hard for footsteps, but the prince and ruffian knight were still too far away.
"They aren't together," he whispered. "Their presences are separated...but both are down this way. Follow me."
They let the wall guide them down as their eyes adjusted, yet eventually, light was no longer an issue. Their hands brushed across brackets in the walls, and soon, torches, lit by magic, reflected light down the corridors.
"A real labyrinth, this is," Lancelot muttered as they reached a junction that led into five new passageways.
Merlin's eyes were closed as he concentrated. "One of them is this way," he said, indicating to his right, and then pointed to the next tunnel over. "And there's the other."
"Should we wait for them?"
"We've closed half the distance between us coming here. I suppose we should, so we don't split up. Separating never works anyhow."
It was a long, tedious wait. Like watching the moon rise, their companions took forever in getting to the junction room.
"Why is it taking them so long?" Lancelot grumbled, uncharacteristically impatient.
"They're probably just stuck in the dark."
Lancelot paused in his pacing. "How would they have gotten out of their cells in the first place? And...at the exact same time?"
Merlin, too, hesitated. "Well, er...they could have...um...Just a spooky coincidence?" Neither of them believed that, of course. "Maybe we should...meet them."
"Can you tell how far they are now?"
"...Not too distant. If we wait a couple more minutes..."
Five minutes passed by the time footsteps were audible from both passageways. Merlin, who had diminished his tracking spell, and Lancelot waited expectantly, holding the torches into the shadows.
"I see Arthur!" said Merlin loudly, as the prince came into view.
"And Gwaine!" Lancelot grinned. "How you doing, mate...? Gwaine?"
"...Arthur?"
The warlock and the knight glanced at each other in unison. Their companions' speed never increased despite the cheerful greetings and flaming torches. As they watched, Arthur and Gwaine walked into the junction room as though in a trance. Their feet dragged, and their eyes were closed. They were also chanting something under their breath, synchronized with each other.
Though his instincts screamed at him, Merlin took a cautious step forward and snapped his fingers before Arthur's face. The prince didn't react, and never hesitated in his entranced pace or mumbling.
"Okay, kinda creepy," said Merlin, as Arthur walked right past him, still in sync with Gwaine.
"I think we should wake them," said Lancelot casually, coming to stand beside the warlock, "don't you?"
They each walked around and stood in front of the hypnotized men, and held their ground.
"Rise and shine, dollop-head," sang Merlin. The prince walked right into him. "Whoa." He was forced back a few steps and he nearly tripped over his own feet. The stronger man still failed to respond, and ploughed past the warlock with ease. Lancelot, too, had difficulty stopping Gwaine. "This is ridiculous!" Merlin thundered, and once more stepped before Arthur. This time, he slapped his face. The Pendragon cringed away. "Wake up!"
His throat tightened as the prince turned towards him at last, his chants ceasing. Arthur's eyes opened, but the thunder blue irises had been consumed by a pitiless darkness.
The warlock heard Lancelot gasp, but couldn't tear his horrified gaze away from Arthur's dead one. He can only imagine that Gwaine was the same.
Arthur started muttering again, but his voice and words were not his own. "Vėnit finiş. Quinquô ex Apôcalypsĭ revęniö. Illis arcụm, döminos fảta. Vėnit finiş." The end is come. The five of the Apocalypse return. Bow to them, the lords of Fate. The end is come.
Merlin shivered as the prince's black eyes turned sightlessly away, and he began to make for the darkness once more. The warlock snatched out and grasped Arthur's shirt, making himself a deadweight.
"Enough of this," he hissed, even as the prince dragged him along, his feet skidding against the damp floor. "Stop, Arthur. Snap out of it!"
"Vėnit finiş."
Merlin threw a foot forward, between the Pendragon's legs, tripping him with his own limb. As Arthur stumbled, Merlin attempted to shove him to the ground to hold him down, but it was in vain. Even as he regained his balance, Arthur turned on him, snarling, fist upheld. The warlock managed to duck the first swing, but a second caught his eye, and he saw stars as he crashed to the ground.
He nearly curled up to protect himself, but the entranced prince had already raced down the corridor, Gwaine by his side. Merlin stood, clutching his eye, and noticed Lancelot pushing himself from against the wall, favouring his jaw.
"After them!"
Torches at hand, they chased their companions down the passageway, thinking that it would be easier to catch them because they had a light, and the others did not. They were wrong. Despite the continuous darkness, the knight and prince were always ten paces ahead.
Exhaustion, starvation, and thirst slowed the pursuing comrades, and they couldn't bring themselves to accelerate even as their targets got away. Merlin vaguely felt himself using the tracking spell once more to keep on the right trail.
When they reached a room with a central spiral staircase twirling up into a ceiling trapdoor, they paused, and glanced at each other.
"This is it, I figure," said Lancelot, somehow sounding cheerful and grim at the same time.
"It was nice knowing you," Merlin replied. When the knight looked at him peculiarly, he said, "Well, chances are Morgana and Mėtû are up there, waiting for us. I just thought, you know, good-byes won't be able to be said later. Try to see through the corniness, okay?" The warlock passed the bewildered knight and led the way up the stairs to the trapdoor. Then he glanced down at his friend, nodded sombrely once, and pushed it open.
† † †
The place was in ruin, that much was clear. Rubble was strewn everywhere, and chunks of stone were missing from the roof, walls, and floor. Some furniture and torn tapestries were fortunate to still exist.
Merlin carefully scanned the room, which he figured must be inside the tower of Mitheras, before pushing the trapdoor the rest of the way open. It fell behind him with a loud bang, and he winced.
Wary, he crawled from the hole and remained at a crouch as Lancelot came through after him. They both saw the footprints in the dust and began to follow, careful not to step on any rubble and create a ruckus. The tracks were easy to pursue, as the makers were still in a trance and were clumsy in their flight. The pair each picked up a petrified stave of wood for a weapon on the way, until Lancelot found a sword hanging on a wall, one that was once part of a coat-of-arms. He felt its balance and then put it through his belt at his hip, satisfied.
As they continued, Merlin's mind wandered a bit, and for the first time, he noticed a light tang in his mouth, foul and slightly nauseating. He remembered it quite clearly: the taint of the Perilous Lands. The chaos of the past several hours had prevented him from acknowledging it properly, but now, something else was mixed with said taint, something older, and darker...
Lancelot grabbed him from behind and prevented him from walking past a sizable gap in the wall. The pair hastily crouched and hid against the rubble before peeking through the gap.
It was a courtyard, about forty paces across, surrounded by the inner walls of the tower. Far above, the sky was visible as a square the size of a coin. Shrieking wyvern circled within the open space, some roosting in nests built into the crumbling stone. There was also the occasional pigeon, and the soft coos of the birds were vaguely heard from a hutch above and out of sight.. Merlin knew now that it had not been just a concerned civilian reporting a magic sighting who had sent the pigeon message to Camelot all those days ago.
Across from the two companions was a two-story tall entrance, devoid of gate or door. They could see dawn glowing orange and gold on the horizon. At the centre of the courtyard was a circle of pale stone, engraved with a large pentagram. At each point of the star was a lone-standing archway, and at the centre of it all was a small pedestal. Morgana stood by that pedestal, her back to Merlin and Lancelot. She was talking to Mėtû, or rather, by her angry gestures, arguing. The pair was just out of range to hear properly, but the words were obviously heated.
"There's Arthur and Gwaine," Merlin whispered grimly, indicating with an unnecessary nod. The knight and prince stood in a daze before two of the archways, which, when Merlin squinted, had figures visible through them. "And...she has the Phoenix Feather. I can sense it."
"That's the magic-channelling thing, right?"
Merlin nodded grimly. "It magnifies her power, and gives her absolute control." He could recollect the events quite clearly, even after a year later, of Morgana acquiring that tool. Beneath Camelot, in its deepest, darkest caves, Merlin had found the Phoenix Feather sitting innocently on a pedestal, yet when he touched it, it had nearly killed him. Fortunately, Arthur was there to revive him. Then, because all of Camelot was being held hostage, he was forced to give the weapon to the witch.
Merlin shook his head, gritting his teeth. "I should never have surrendered it to her."
"There was nothing you could have done, Merlin." Lancelot put a hand on the warlock's shoulder. "Even if you had kept it from her, she would have killed you and then taken it. Chances are Arthur, too, would be dead. What's done is done."
"Well, I wish it had been done better." The servant swallowed the past, lived the present and prepared for the future. "What the hell is this? What is she planning?"
"It's too hard to hear what she's saying. But we can't get any closer than this," said Lancelot in frustration, scanning the area.
"I don't think it would be very wise to charge headlong across the yard, swords swinging and roaring battle cries of blood-lust, do you?"
"That would be the Gwaine thing to do."
"Yeah, it would. Let's go."
It was stupid of them, but they did charge headlong across the yard, swords swinging and roaring battle cries of blood-lust anyway. They made three steps before Morgana noticed them, yet she let them come within seven of her before casually twitching a finger and lifting them effortlessly into the air.
"Last time we do any Gwaine things," Merlin hissed as he struggled, disgruntled.
Morgana shook her head, mockingly amazed. "This is proving easier than I thought." She stepped closer to them, studying each in turn. "What, exactly, did you plan on accomplishing?"
Lancelot and Merlin glanced at each other, and then the warlock said, "Well, usually things just work out doing that."
Morgana glared at him, and an invisible noose tightened around his throat. "Silence, little fool." As Merlin struggled and choked, he dropped his wooden stave, clawing at the rope. Lancelot growled in fury.
"Let him go, witch!" His sword was torn from his grasp and tossed away, and then he was dropped to the ground. Before he could stand, unseen ropes looped around him, pinning his arms to his sides.
"Men are such nuisances," said Morgana, as Lancelot snarled and was dragged across the stone circle, towards an archway. The one he halted before viewed, through a transparent veil, a thin, armoured man astride a scrawny black horse. The knight swallowed as he was tugged to his feet and made to stand, facing the spectre. "Useless, and weak."
"My lady."
Morgana faced Mėtû, who was still mounted on the Night Mare, and then she remembered Merlin. The servant had started to turn blue in the face. With a sigh, the sorceress banished the noose suffocating him, and then dropped him. As he crashed to the ground, he sucked in air loudly and coughed.
"You are a bug, Merlin," said the witch. "A thorn in my side. I don't know how you escaped your prison, but know that you will never thwart me again. You shall aid me in freeing the Knights of the Apocalypse – you and your companions, including my little brother. You will feed the pentagram and release its powers, and I will finally rise to take my rightful place as queen, queen of Camelot, and eventually, all of Albion."
That b—witch!
Witch, I said witch!
The moral of this story: Never do any 'Gwaine things.'