38 Finalities

"You're not late, sorcerer" a tensed Anwar said. "You're too late. Your master has a mind to die, and he can be stubborn."

"I'm at the Prince's command. But the King outranks him. And I'm reasonably sure King Uther wants his son alive."

"Go away, Merlin" Arthur objected when his Court Sorcerer approached the Count. "I've made up my mind. It's for the best."

"As you always do, Your Highness. Martyrdom suits you and you've been told that way too often." Merlin still walked towards the Count who didn't stir. But he did not take his glittering gaze away from the young magician either.

"I'm still inside him, Merlin. How could you impede me without hurting your master?"

"As Arthur's willing to sacrifice himself anyway, what does it matter?"

"It matters to you!"

"Perhaps. But the Pendragons never gave a shit about what matters to me."

"Merlin…"

"Shut up, prat."

Arthur had no other chance to intervene, as in the next moment, Merlin seemed to pass some invisible border and all hell broke loose when Anwar suddenly raised his arms.

Gone were the serene meadow, the blue sky and the tranquil silence. A howling, raging gale took Arthur in its grip, paralysed him, drove him against an invisible wall and held him there, for all his frantic struggling. Darkness fell once again, and the shimmering, dancing mist was back, twisting more violently than before.

The noise was deafening, the roaring of thunder and lightning, mixed with the storm and the strange voices that came from inside the cloud of mist.

But even in the darkness Arthur could see shadows rise all around Merlin, whispering, screeching, pawing all over him, like bloodsucking insects covering a piece of living, bleeding flesh.

"Merlin, run!" Arthur screamed. He watched, transfixed with disgust yet uncomprehending as the creatures extorted a wave of energy from Merlin's body, a light as golden as the eerie light that shone in his eyes when he used his magic.

That was it. These … things were sucking not Merlin's blood, but his magic out of him. They feasted on it. As if they were to turn his insides out. In utter horror, Arthur yelled again. "Get out of here, idiot. You're no match for them!"

In the flickering lights of mist and twisted magic lightning metal glittered on the ground not too far away from Arthur. The knife, he realized. The stupid, useless thing of which he in his naivety had thought it was the key to freedom and life itself. But then, it might not be as useless to anybody as it was to him. "Merlin" he strained his voice to drone out the cacophony of roaring sounds "The knife. Take the knife. Use it."

Anwar turned briefly towards the Prince, and sneered. Merlin, unbelievably, in the midst of his deadly struggle, smiled, and shook his head in a silent apology.

A gust of ice cold rain poured down from nowhere, and Arthur lost sight of the two fighting men and their demonic allies or foes. For endless moments, the Prince could neither hear not see anything but the raging elementary powers and the high pitched screams of more demons and lost souls flocking to the place.

If one could call this nightmarish version of Armageddon a 'place'.

Arthur's heart raced in his throat, he felt sick and exhausted, as if his blood was indeed taken from his veins, faster and faster.

The Gods knew, he had been prepared and willing to die, but not like this. Not half drowned, helpless, like a half-strangled dog, and for nothing. "Merlin" he screamed again as loud as he could. "Merlin!"

Suddenly, the wind turned, and Arthur was blown from his place at the wall, thrown to the ground and skidded all over the place. He grabbed blindly at the ground, at walls that weren't there, at non-existing trees. He cut his hands open to the bones when he grabbed the knife's blade and held unto it for dear life, as if the darn thing could still be his salvation. And still he was sliding down an invisible slope, driven by the wind and the water pouring down, until he bumped into something that stopped him.

Blinded, choking, gasping for air, Arthur somehow scrambled to his feet, and grabbed whatever it was in his back with one hand, frantically searching the black turmoil around him for a sign of his friend and enemy. He almost sobbed with relief when he found Merlin, only a few steps away, still standing, hurling flashes of magic at Anwar's form.

Llanfair fend them off with ease, while he signalled his demons to attack the sorcerer, again and again.

Without knowing what he was doing, or what he was about to do when he reached them, Arthur pushed forward, the knife in one bleeding hand, hidden behind his back, ready to strike. A part of him knew it would achieve nothing, but all the other parts voted for going down fighting if all else was lost. Life-long instincts took over, and he was no longer a conscious being.

Like a madman he stabbed at Anwar's back, over and over again.

Apparently, the constant attacks were nothing but fleabites. Without really turning, Anwar pushed Arthur away, who fell to the ground again. With a nauseating, cracking sound, Arthur's kneecap came out of joint and he knew instantaneously that for all his strength and for all his resolve, this mistreated joint would not let him stand up anytime soon. Not in his already weakened state.

While his leg felt as if it were bathed in gusts and gusts of boiling water, Arthur watched Merlin lose the fight, and quickly so. Albeit the creatures around him had for some reasons lost their appetite for his magic and backed off a step or two, those demons who by Anwar's command fought back with their own powers slowly gained ground on the young magician.

It was obvious even to Arthur that under normal circumstances the demons' machinations would have been nothing but child's play against Merlin's inborn powers, but inside the Rashnijaan, on their own ground, and in sheer countless numbers, they would, in the end, prevail.

Already Merlin grew weaker by the second. He swayed on his feet, stumbled back.

Unwilling to be pulled into the fight, the magic-sucking creatures backed off even further away, hovering indecisively over the ground some two or steps behind the magician, whose strained face and shaking shoulders spoke loudly of his exhaustion.

They were biding their time, Arthur thought despairingly. Why attack a fighting prey, if you can devour it more easily as soon as it has been brought down by somebody else?

Reflexively, Arthur struggled to get up, only to bend over and choke up bile when his leg gave way under his weight with an agonising wave of blinding pain. How the hell was this possible? His body wasn't even here, damn it, so how could it hurt so much?

Again, he thought he could hear Agneta's voice over all the turmoil, shouting his name. If it was indeed her spell that kept him here, he wished he could tell her to just let go, before it was too late.

Arthur tried to concentrate, to remember every bit and shred of information he'd always got about magic, how it worked, how spells worked, physical world, spiritual world – anything.

Stubbornly, uselessly his mind repeated one scene, one memory, and this memory alone – his father's voice, when he had been a child, stumbled over an old book on a forgotten shelf in Camelot's vast cellars - where he was strictly forbidden to ever go, but which was his favourite playground just because of that.

For the first time ever, Uther had not ordered somebody else to punish his son and heir, but thrashed his six year old boy with his own hand – and belt. All Arthur remembered was his father's red, puffy face, the tears of wrath (and perhaps something else, as Arthur realized only now, more than 20 years later) in Uther's eyes and his endlessly repeated stream of words, from which the little boy, scared witless, only gathered that magic was evil and that such books must not be touched, ever again.

It had taken him 14 years before he had visited these cellars again, and until even today, just being there gave him the creep.

So here he was, trapped in a world of evil magic, if there ever had been one, the real world's, his world's most powerful sorcerer ever was losing a fight on which the fate of all of Camelot depended, let alone his little son and his own life, the magical knife was useless, and so were Uther's teachings.

Great, father. Thanks a lot.

Perhaps you could lend me that belt of yours, to give ol' Anwar a real good thrashing?

It was listening to his own thoughts that made Arthur think he'd maybe lost it.

Meanwhile circumstances were pretty much as dire, pretty much as unbelievable, and pretty much as hopeless as they had been before.

Arthur watched Merlin stumble even further back, then fall to his knees, bend over.

Sorry, Merlin. Should never have dragged you into this. But then, I never could keep you away from one of these petty skirmishes, could I. You and your great destiny.

Crab. I'd rather I'd been born into some country property, two cows, one goat, and Gwen there to come to my bed at night. And Thomas. Thomas in the sun, pedalling his legs. Thomas at night, chewing his paw. Thomas, smiling at him from somewhere deep below inside the cradle.

The thought came out of nowhere, that it was befitting to now go – or rather crawl – and find the child. Without hesitation, Arthur went about his new mission, leaving the scene of his and Merlin's utter defeat behind.

This wasn't real, anyway. He had no idea what was real, but he knew for a fact that this here was not. So he might as well find his little boy and go to sleep.

Single minded as he went about it, Arthur found Thomas – he had no longer an idea of the little boy being his son's image, or avatar or whatever an adept of the old religion would have called the tiny body sleeping on the ground – took the baby's hand into his own, and went out as a light.

He did not even feel it when someone gently wrestled the knife from his other hand and sneaked away as silently and as quickly as he had come.

Meanwhile, Anwar let his arms sink. The young magician who had once defeated him so easily, who had once caught him unaware, was down on his knees, his powers spent, defenceless.

And even so, the demons and lost souls that hungered for the shabby leftovers of his singular magic, hesitated to come near him. Still indecisive, they hovered in their corner, too terrified to stir.

Cowards in life, cowards even here and now. The Rashnijaan had an irresistible allure to these characters. Small wonder he, Anwar of Llanfair, had been the first to really master the Book of Demons and its powers.

Briefly, the spectre thought about making sure that the young magician was a spent force, but another need tore at him, urged him to turn to where his future lay, unmoving, almost dead and lost to him forever.

He couldn't allow that. He couldn't afford that.

Standing over the two Pendragons like an ancient deity, ready to hand out death or live or endless torment at his heart's desire, Anwar hesitated. Which one? The child? No. Too dangerous. The father, then. Oh, to think of Uther Pendragon's only son, forever trapped inside a world of demons, a prisoner of the darkest of magic until the moon fell into the sea – it was too good to be true.

Before he left Albion forever, before he took another body, and another, and another, before he would roam and rule the mortal world forever, he would make sure that Uther knew. In the split second before he died by his own son's hand, he would know what had befallen his precious Arthur and that he, Uther himself, had nourished and cherished Arthur's murderer in the body of his son.

Anwar relished this moment even now. He bathed, for a glorious second, in the joyful anticipation of the day.

Then he bent down, and gently shook Arthur's shoulder. "It's time, little dragon. Time to fulfil your destiny. Wake up, my dear, I need your help for this."

Arthur stirred, his lids were as heavy as lead, he could not open his eyes. "What…."

A slap in his face, then another. "Damn you, wake up, you brat!"

Arthur opened his eyes as best he could, to see two white spots hovering above him, one behind the other's shoulder. What on earth was going on?

"It's time to say good bye, Arthur. Come on, just open up to me. Do not fret, you won't suffer for long."

Something brushed by Arthur's mind, something intrusive. Something which had until now been in the back of his mind demanded pre-eminence. Like a bat emerging from a dark cavern. And yet it was pushing him, pushing him out.

Instinctively, Arthur fought back. The other cursed blasphemously. The pressure on Arthur's mind became harder, more violent. "Let me in. Or else ….."

Arthur fought a hopeless battle. Something told him that he should not fight at all. That he should let this happen, however much he dreaded being pushed out into desolation.

A faint memory stirred, and went down again instantly, when the pressure weakened. He had felt that before, sensed that before, the violent, painful onslaught and then the sudden release, as if the attacker had been distracted, had lost his purpose.

More alert than before, Arthur focused his gaze on the figure that by now held him by the shoulders, only to see the attacker's head being turned towards something in his back.

Or rather, towards someone in his back.

"Antek" Arthur murmured. "Antek, where do you…." He could not finish, he screamed with pain when Anwar dropped him to the ground and jumped to his feet, snarling like a wild animal.

"Get away from him, you moron" Anwar barked. "Will you forever stand in my way, you pitiful excuse for a son?"

It appeared to Arthur's blurry gaze that Antek did not look as he should. There was blood, it came from his nose and his – his eyes? His skin was pallid, he was stumbling as he raised his hand to the apparition of his father. "Leave Arthur alone. Go to hell where you belong."

"I should have buried you with your mother's carcass" Anwar yelled, pushing Antek back. "If it had not been for you, I could have made Blackrock bigger than life, ruled an empire to all eternity. You and your foolishness, you blasted it all, you're no son of mine, you're a creeping worm, like that whore, your mother."

"You have no right to reclaim Blackrock. It is mine, y' hear me? MINE! You're dead, dead and buried, I'll burn the last rottin' pieces of your flesh and make sure you'll never rise again!"

Arthur knew Antek was doomed the moment he came for his father's spectre. The demons needed no command from their master to attack the young Count and Arthur felt sick when he saw them bury Antek's struggling body under their sheer numbers. The young Count screamed under the heaving, flowing back mass, and the scream did not end.

Anwar watched the hopeless struggle only for a moment before he turned back to Arthur. It was the Pendragon Prince who just could not turn his gaze away from the heaving, screeching mass under which a living soul was fighting his last.

So it came that Arthur never really saw the lean figure appear behind Anwar's back, raise the knife and bring it down with vicious force. The Prince only turned back to his enemy when the old Count's spectre was cut in two halves from head to toe with one merciless thrust of the blade that blazed in a golden sparkling flood of light.

The world around Arthur was shattered, it imploded on itself. Light engulfed him, in all colours of the rainbow, voices screeched in incredibly high pitched tones, incredibly loud, incredibly ugly.

Desperately Arthur held fast to Thomas' hand, determined to not let go, at all costs.

The universe seemed turned upside down, Arthur's body and that of his son were taken by the storm, lifted high up into what could have been heaven or hell, tossed and pushed like dry leaves in an autumn gale. Arthur screamed and yelled in senseless terror, the way he'd screamed only once before – and suddenly, all was over.

With a thud, his body hit the solid, leave-covered ground of a forest, he could see the sky, dark blue with a rim of reddish gold and some fading silver in the east. Trees stood dark against the lighter background.

A crowd was gathered all around him, murmuring, excitedly shrieking, definitely human, definitely not dead.

Agneta's strained face bent over him was the first he recognized, before, with a loud, strangled sob, Guinivere fell over him and took little Thomas from his hands.

Whilst she rose and lifted her son to her chest, the Prince could see Thomas' face.

The baby, that much Arthur could see albeit not believe, was smiling happily. He gurgled, and then he did, loud and imperatively, what he had never done before: Little Thomas spoke. And his very first word was: "Mama!"

"Great, son" Arthur thought as he closed his eyes and let his head fall back. "Thanks a lot! It's so good to be appreciated."