32. Arthur's sacrifice
Merlin crawled cautiously towards the slope, closely followed by Marwon. Lying flat on their bellies side by side, they peeped down at the makeshift camp in the glen some ten metres beneath them.
"I don't believe it" Marwon hissed through gritted teeth.
"Say this one more time" Merlin growled back under his breath "and I'm no longer responsible for my actions!"
"But you must admit…."
"No! I must see what's going on down there. Now BE Quiet!"
Marwon choked on the reprimand, Merlin could see his throat bop up and down.
However, the warlock's sympathy for the Druid, for any Druid, was at an all-time low.
Three days, more than three miserable days, cold and wet and hungry; under constant quarrelling between Morgyan and Marwon – in fact between Morgyan and anybody else except her brother who never spoke anyway – had cost the already aggravated and fearful sorcerer the last of his usually strong nerves.
Less than 12 hours left until the New Moon Gaius had warned him about and Merlin had as much an idea of what to do as he had from the start – none at all.
To make matters worse, Merlin now saw what and whom he'd dreaded to see – Arthur and Leon, guarded by half a dozen Druids, being marched from one of the wooden shelters to another.
Arthur's head hung low, his steps were tired. He walked as if dreaming. Only that it wasn't a very good dream. Leon was obviously talking to him, frantically, his hands flying through the air constantly. But even from his watch-post Merlin could see that Arthur wasn't listening.
The warlock winced at the sight, and bit his lip.
This did not bode well.
"So what of it?" Merlin tried to lift his own spirit. "Quite normal, isn't it? The royal idiot gets his fingers burned, and his loyal manservant can make things right, as always!"
So much for the warlock's hopes that the Prince might be of help in the upcoming struggle. Not that these hopes had been more than feeble to begin with.
Naturally His gallant, dashing, foolhardy Royal Highness would get himself caught at the first possible opportunity. Naturally his faithful knight, never far away from his Lord's side, would do exactly the same.
Damned dim-witted, stumbling, half baked, hare-brained … clotpoles!
Frankly, Merlin had to admit that he was at his wits' end.
Gwen, the child, Arthur, Leon – the list of those to be rescued, if possible unbeknownst to the fifty or more very alert looking Druids that roamed the glen, grew longer and longer.
And there was Antek, for a cherry on the cake.
Oh, for sure, one could leave the bastard behind, served him right for all the trouble his greed had cost, but, no, of course not, as Merlin knew his Prince, the prat would insist on delivering bloody asshole-count Llanfair from the mess he'd brought himself in, no matter what.
Now what? Who was where? And, how was an unfortunate peasant boy, who, by a cruel, evil joke of Mother Nature had been born with too much magic for his own good, supposed to find out?
Merlin caught himself thinking wistfully of King Uther, would one believe it.
If the kingly idiot were here, he'd just say: "Lay waste to that camp and bring me my son" and, at nightfall, they'd all sit merrily around the campfire and have supper.
Well, those who'd survived the lunatic attack against a camp full of magicians.
Naturally, Merlin could just walk into that glen; talk some sense into Agneta, and, by nightfall… oh happy world, in which things could be that easy. "The time is out of joint" Merlin thought miserably; "O cursed spite! / That ever I was born to set it right."
Actually, he liked that phrase, it sounded good in his mind, like music. Who knew, maybe someday a poet would use it for one of his pieces.
However, today, it wasn't of much help.
"I don't believe it" Marwon said.
Merlin closed his eyes and counted to five.
"I just don't believe it!" Marwon repeated.
Before Merlin could do or say anything, the Druid rose to his full height, and began the climb downhill. In broad daylight. In full sight of the other Druids.
Merlin groaned only inwardly before he let his head fall into the soft forest ground and silently cried for mercy, mercy, MERCY.
"Rest assured, Merlin" Marwon yelled at the very top of his voice when he was halfway down and the first group of Druid guards made haste to intercept, "I'll talk some sense into her, I will! She is my wife, damn it!"
After that, Merlin didn't see much sense in struggling when the Druids came to arrest him.
Morgyan and her brother had different views on that, however. Cendred's sister only surrendered when her brother was disarmed by magic.
As a result, when brought before Agneta, they all were a trifle sore, one way or the other.
Sore and – surprised.
Morgyan to see the Druids treat her still quarrelsome brother with all possible compassion.
Merlin to see Mirella standing behind her sister-in-law, her face a pale and sad mask.
And Marwon to see his own wife completely ignoring him.
Nevertheless, Arenboarth's son straightened his back as best he could and commenced speaking, meaning to deliver the most severe talking-to in all his married days: "Agneta, my love….".
"Shut up!" she snarled.
"But my sweet… I must tell you…"
"What? You must tell me what? Where you have been all this time? Why you have left me, our son, your sister, anyone? How you've been out somewhere, playing the gallant warrior, while we were left to fend for ourselves? Is that what you came to tell me? Husband?"
Merlin looked to his feet.
Morgyan was wide-eyed and clearly unsure of what to think, unsure enough to let the protest she had been about to make die on her lips.
Cendred, poor, mad, deranged Cendred, looked at Agneta's flushed face and shining eyes with a strange kind of sympathy.
Each decided that it wasn't his or her time to speak. Not until those two were finished.
"What were you thinking, woman?" Marwon meanwhile thundered. "Burning and killing the Cymbrians like a mad wolverine? Is that the way of our people?"
"What do you know about our people?" she shouted back at him. "Your father taught me all about it. You never listened."
"And what have the Pendragons to do with anything?" Marwon heatedly demanded to know. "To abduct Arthur's family – are you mad, woman?"
"Ask him" Agneta pointed accusingly at Merlin. "No doubt the great Emrys knows what he has allowed to happen. What abomination has come into our world, because he wasn't on his guard."
Like one man, everybody turned to stare at the warlock, who was aghast at the unwanted attention.
In this second, Merlin wanted nothing more but to fade into nothingness.
During the last days, after Gaius had told him about his suspicions as to the reasons for the Druids' strange behaviour, Merlin's memory had, bit by bit, revealed what had been buried deep within him.
The memory of what he had seen inside the Rashnijaan's spirit world, before Gaius had dragged him away from his doom.
There had been another shadow that had created his own bridge of light, using a living, tortured soul to make his way; his escape from the Book of Demons back to the world of the living – and now Merlin knew whom that had been!
"You've found him" he said hoarsely. "You've found Anwar of Llanfair! And it's not Arthur who's carrying him. Not this time."
"No!" It was Mirella who told him, softly and her absent gaze went right through him. "The evil one has taken a child. He's taken Arthur's son!"
"Tonight" Agneta added, her voice as sharp and hard as a blade "we'll sent the evil one back to the hell from which he came. Tonight ….. Arthur's child will die."
Morgyan drew a sharp breath through her teeth, Marwon was visibly dumbfounded, the other Druids averted their gaze, shy and guiltily.
Cendred shook his head, moaned and mumbled under his breath. Only he would know what he was saying, or to whom.
Merlin looked at Agneta and for the first time since he'd come here, he saw the lines in her face, the anguish and the disgust, in fact the utter horror she felt at her own deeds. A Druid, perhaps the most convinced of the firm believers, and yet she had smeared her hands with blood. And more blood was to follow, before long. Blood that doubtlessly would come upon her, her tribe, her children …. perhaps upon every magician in Albion.
Neither Uther nor his son would spare anyone in their thirst for revenge.
"There will be a renewal of the Great Purge" a distraught warlock pleaded with Mirella. "This time there will be no amends, no peace treaty – our great dream of a united Albion where magic has its place – it will die with the child. There must be another way."
"There is not" Agneta interjected. "And there's an end to it!"
Mirella added "Arthur said the same thing when I told him. He spoke of you a lot. If Merlin were here….., but I'm sure there's nothing you could do, Emrys. You cannot even touch the Rashnijaan!"
"What about Antek?" Morgyan blurted out her heart's anxiety. "You can't blame him, he did not know what this …. thing was, he thought it valuable, nothing more!"
"We blame nobody" Agneta answered, and her fight had clearly left her, "the evil must be taken from the world of the living before the Great Dragon is to be called, as only he can destroy the Book of Demons, once and for all. That, Emrys, is your task in this. Everything else, you'll leave to me."
"You can't" Marwon exclaimed. "You cannot – the mere thought is monstrous. A child, Agneta, a baby, not older than our own son. With your own hands you held him, you nourished him; how can you even think of harming him!"
"Because, if we all are cowards, the world will end. Through the Demon Child the Rashnijaan will consume all Albion, don't you remember anything from your father's lectures? It is for our son, for my son, that I am doing it!"
"It's a book, my love, just a book…."
"Tempered in a Demon's blood, written in a Demon's tongue, and it's getting stronger every day, it's getting stronger as we speak. Another year, when the moon will regain this position; and nothing I or anyone could do would harm it!" Again, Agneta pointed at Merlin's torn face. "Ask him, Marwon, ask your precious Emrys! He's been there, I can smell it on him. Go on, ask him!"
Again, they all stared at the warlock, some hopeful, some disgusted, some anxious and not comprehending.
"It's true" Merlin finally said. "I've been there. I know its evil. But how it should consume our world – that beats me. It's superstitious talk, not worth our time, let alone a child's life. I'll call Khilgarrah now, and tonight, the Rashnijaan will cease to exist. I swear it!"
"There" Marwon wanted to say. "You see? Piece of cake for the greatest warlock of all times. And I rescued him, I brought him here, I'm not always wrong, not as useless as you think!"
But Agneta's husband had no chance to say anything, as someone else raised his voice to be heard over the murmur and frantic shuffling of feet. "Be careful what you swear, Merlin. You're about to commit perjury."
The warlock darted round, because he did not believe his ears.
Nor did he trust his eyes, either.
The man in the door, standing upright and with his head erect, was Arthur Pendragon.
"You have no right to blame Agneta but for what suffering she caused in Cendred's castle" the Prince said. "For anything else, you must blame me. I told Mirella to call for the Druids' help!"