43 Big mouth wide shut
"Merlin" Gaius stated "of all your mad ideas, this is by far the worst."
"I know."
"We do not even know what's wrong with Cendred, only that he got mad after the death of his son."
"I know."
"It's possible to use magic in healing a leg, or a belly, but to heal a mind, Merlin, a soul…."
"I know."
"I have no ideas, none whatsoever, it is unheard of!"
"I know."
"I do not even have my books. Or my diary, or my register of spells, or my tinctures…"
"I know."
"How are going to do it, Merlin?"
"That I do not know."
Gaius sighed irritably. "You must have had some ideas when you made the suggestion."
"Yes. I had the clear vision of them killing each other during the next few minutes."
"Well, they'll kill you, when you cannot deliver."
"I know."
"Merlin, one more 'I know' and I'll save them the trouble!"
The warlock buried his head in his hands. "Gaius, I had to do something. I thought I could make it up from there, but now…. my head is blank and void."
The healer gnawed his lip. "Merlin, I wish I'd never spoken to Antek. Believe me, if I'd known what mess it would bring us both into, I'd never talked Antek into it. I wanted to save Blackrock, and the Llanfair estate, for Merco's sake, and look what I've done."
"Gaius, I think it might help to let me in on what exactly you did talk Antek into."
Camelot's Court Physician, quite remorseful, told Merlin everything about the little conspiracy he'd made up with Antek, and Merlin, although he understood Gaius' reasons, could not help himself but hear both Llanfairs, the son and his wicked father, laugh in their graves, about the mess their conquerors had brought themselves into.
At least it explained why Arthur had been so keen to know if or if not he was obliged to Antek. If or if not he had a duty to the dead Count, for his own life and that of Little Thomas.
Merlin groaned. His silly quarrel with Arthur had been utterly superfluous.
More to distract himself from his misery than for any other reason, the warlock asked Gaius: "What is this thing between Arthur and Gwen all of a sudden? Shouldn't at least these two be happy and relieved with each other and their child?"
"As far as I learned from the Druids" Gaius said measuredly "Guinivere agreed quite readily, that is to say, she more or less pressed Arthur into sacrificing his life for that of Thomas, when Khilgarrah suggested it." The old healer shook his head. "Naturally, when Uther and I arrived, all had been decided."
"Nobody had seen you coming?"
"No, Merlin. Uther had tried to be patient, but in the end, he couldn't stand the wait. Head over heels, we left the ruins of Cendred's stronghold and the bulk of Camelot's army behind, only to find the ritual that might well have killed Arthur well under way. Uther was furious, but he could do nothing. Before we had really gathered what was happening, Arthur and Thomas were back, and Antek was dying." Gaius raised both hands in confusion: "It was my distinct impression that Gwen never really knew what the ritual would mean for Arthur, crazed as she was with fear for Thomas. As a result, she doesn't even know what it is that Arthur blames her for."
"And now Uther is mad at you, too, Gaius."
"He'll get over it. He always does."
"Not if I fail tomorrow."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that, Merlin. If Cendred were in his right mind again, Uther would have to give back the Kingdom he took from him."
Merlin shook his head violently. "The only thing Uther really wants is to take his family and go back to Camelot. It's all a show. He thinks he has to act like that, as a strong King, but it's not real. It's the only thing I know for sure. I've seen his face when Gwen said she'd leave. Uther's not really mad at her, or at Arthur. He's just hurt and he doesn't know how to cope."
"Perhaps you're right, Merlin. If Cendred could retake his Kingdom, he and Uther could make a treaty and the bloody mess would be cleared up. We could all go home, with no loss of face to anyone. Cendred on his throne, and Morgyan in Llanfair, would make fine, strong allies for Camelot." Gaius chuckled. "Now I come to think of it, Uther might even be proud. His Court Sorcerer, the man he once made a manservant to his son, the warlock born of legends that chose to become a servant to Camelot, will save the day once again, by King Uther of Camelot's command. Oh yes, our gallant Pendragon will like that very much."
"If" Merlin said despairingly. "If I could heal Cendred."
Gaius laid his arm around the younger magician's shoulder. Unfortunately, it was the only help he could think of.
The night progressed, with no mercy for those who dreaded the light of day.
The first rays of sunlight strayed over the horizon, and, sure as death, Uther was the first to appear on the scene. He ignored Gaius, who, by right, should have been miles away already. Gaius smiled, Uther scowled at no one in particualr, and that was that.
It was a bit peculiar, as they hadn't really spoken about it, but by some archaic instinct they all came to the old ritual place where Agneta had battled the Rashnijaan. As if, under some silent agreement, Merlin could not possibly have chosen another place for his enterprise.
Under the bright sky of early morning, they all gathered. Arthur, Gwen with a sleepy Thomas, Leon with Mirella and their little daughter, Agneta, her druids…. a whole crowd. They all were in travelling clothes. After this morning, whatever the outcome, they would leave this place for a better future or a worse one.
Cendred came with Morgyan, whose eyes saw no one and nothing but Merlin. Her unbridled hope and joyful anticipation made Merlin even sicker than before. What had he done? To arouse such hope, such expectations, knowing that he could not possibly deliver.
To worsen things, Morgyan was not the only one to carry their heart's desire on their face today.
"My friends…" Uther's voice suddenly sounded through the clearing. The voice with which he held his 'balcony speeches'. Death sentences, laws, and declarations of war or peace – these speeches always were momentous events for the people of Camelot. Reflexively, without thinking, Merlin, Gaius, Leon and even Arthur stood to attention.
"My friends" Uther repeated "we have come a long way to reach this moment. You all know I've been an enemy of the Old Religion for many years. But I've admitted it before, and I freely say it again: I owe you – the druids, the followers of the Old Ways – the life of my son, of my grandchild, and the future of my realm. It is time for me to give something back for all the help and the support you've given me when all that's dear to me seemed lost. I therefore pledge my word, my solemn promise, to all of you, but most of all to my son and heir, Prince Arthur of Camelot, that there shall be peace between Camelot, King Cendred and Morgyan Countess of Llanfair, as well as between me and the Old Religion, for all time to come. From this day on, each sorcerer, each druid and every other man or woman willing to live in my realm in peace will be welcomed there, as long as a Pendragon is on the throne of Camelot."
Uther cleared his throat, and, careful to avoid Arthur's disbelieving stare, he continued "furthermore, I do here declare, freely and joyfully, that the Lady Guinivere, Crown Princess of Camelot, is a daughter to my heart as well as to my realm, and that my son could not have chosen better; neither a consort for his life nor a future Queen of Camelot. I pray that the Great Mother will bless my family, this day's peace and the friendship that binds us all. As a sign of the Great Mother's blessing, I now ask Camelot's Court Sorcerer, the greatest warlock of all times, to use his power for our benefit, and that of my brother-king."
The look on Arthur's face in that moment was singular. Not for the life of his, Merlin could remember when he had last seen his best friend that enraptured with his own father. The warlock flinched in surprise as Gwen took Arthur's hand, and he did not pull back. Whatever these three had said to each other over the last few hours, they had, somehow, sometime, at last decided to draw a line under everything that had happened.
It was what Merlin had wished for, and longed for, since he'd first encountered the cursed Book of Demons. Ever since Arthur had made it home from Blackrock Castle, injured, tortured, but alive.
A fresh start. A new beginning. Let bygones be bygones.
And now, when he'd finally succeeded against all odds, it would be Merlin's singular incompetence that would destroy it all.
The greatest warlock of all times, indeed! Merlin wished he'd fall down dead.
He remembered, with an icy feeling of disgust in his belly, how he once had staged an impressive show of his powers for Anwar of Llanfair. And it had worked a treat, the monster hadn't had a clue what was going on until it had been too late. Merlin had saved Arthur's and Uther's lives that day.
A conjuror's cheap tricks. A childish dissimulation to dupe a twerp who'd thought to boil the ocean with the help of an evil book.
But now, when it really counted, Merlin was the dunce that had overreached himself.
He thought what might happen when he just stood there, shrugged, and said that he couldn't do it, sorry, and shouldn't we all go in for breakfast. For a second, the thought had a perverse fascination. Sorry, folks, but it was all a ruse, I could not possibly do it. I'm a coward, a liar , but, hey, who gives a damn.
But a life's habit is a thing hard to kill and even harder to resist.
For many a year Merlin had either been a genius who'd acted the dumb or he'd been dumb and acted the genius. He could not shake this off, just like that.
The warlock raised his hands in a very impressive way, sent a short and hurried prayer to every creature between heaven and earth willing to listen, and took Cendred's head with both hands.
Cendred looked at him, unafraid and expectant. Obviously Morgyan's presence next to him gave him confidence and calm.
Merlin rapidly muttered under his breath, on and on, every spell, every enchantment he could think of; a long, endless chain of healing spells for headaches, toothaches, hordeolum externum, bruised jaws, broken noses, split lips and prematurely grey hair in eyebrows. In the end he caught himself citing a time-honoured enchantment against after-birth migraines in elderly women.
That sure wouldn't do much good.
Cendred looked a trifle concerned by now. Perhaps that had something to do with the lice that were merrily wandering about his scalp. Perhaps it was because Cendred knew them to be warlock-lovers at heart?
Merlin had much more important things to consider, many, many very much more important things, but even so his nostrils failed to ignore the abominable stench that came from Cendred's clothes and unwashed body.
Focus, damn you, focus!
Giving up the recital of spells that were as useful as a breadknife would be for heart-surgery, Merlin closed his eyes and delved into Cendred's mind. Slowly.
At least, that was the idea.
Merlin wasn't much of a telepath; in fact his magic had always had a mind of its own when it came to that. The warlock, used to regard his magic as something close to an independent soul traveling within his own, thought of his inner power as a very private person that shied away from others.
Khilgarrah, some druids, and, on very rare occasions, Arthur were notable exceptions to the rule.
Therefore, Merlin grossly underestimated the power of his onslaught. His determination, his anxiety to spoil the day, to lose all he had so far achieved, to make a fool of himself in the one moment when he could not afford that, had concentrated all his strength in one wrathful, aggressive burst of magic energy that swept away Cendred's feeble defences without even registering their presence.
To the warlock, and doubtlessly even more so to Cendred, the forced entry felt, and by all means looked, inside both their minds like Merlin kicking in the door, forcing his way into the sensitive niches of Cendred's memory with the recklessness and violence of a conqueror entering a defeated castle.
Cendred screamed. He tried to push Merlin away, but the warlock held on, not only with his physical strength but also with a merciless mental grip that left the victim no escape.
Merlin himself did not know he was desperately fighting for breath.
He, too, was caught, in a violent nightmare that wasn't his own.
Repeating itself, in an endless, inescapable sequence of horror Cendred lived and relived the death of his son, the destruction of his army and of his realm under the druids' magic attack. Merlin felt it as if it was him whose home was brought down before his very eyes, whose child was burning alive, screaming and writhing in agony, only a few steps away and yet unreachable.
Only now Merlin began to imagine how being near the very people who'd done that to him felt for the confused, deeply hurt and bewildered Cendred. He had seen Agneta, recognized her as the person responsible for all this horror, and yet his troubled mind had given him no chance to cope, to even really conceive what this was all about.
The pictures of abuse, of death and violence blended into each other. Cendred's son was burning, the sight was blurred by the picture of Antek's corpse burning on the pyre. Morgyan was screaming, weeping, first over the dead body of her nephew, then with Antek's limp hand in hers.
Everything was engulfed in an overwhelming, sickening impression of Cendred's powerlessness, of his inability to make it STOP!
The feeling worked like wheat-paste; it agglutinated the fibres of Cendred's mind like a spider's web would keep a fly; his resolve, his strength, his love for his sister, his will to act and fight – all paralyzed, frozen to a standstill.
And in its run, in its far too hasty, far too vehement and eager race to get its way, Merlin's magic, his mental ears and eyes, completely lost perspective.
He was no longer there, in his own body, in a forest clearing, surrounded by friends and allies. He was there, with Cendred, in a dying castle, with a dying child, bathing in the blood of people he'd known and cherished all his life. And they were slaughtered, burned and slain while wave after wave of the druids' magic ran up against the castle walls, invincible, heartless and unending.
Merlin's magic, more than himself, acted on instinct.
He braced his own powers against the attack. He fought back with all his might. He felt the other wizards break, go down, and he screamed in wild triumph. He called for his old allies; the trembling ground, the raging storm, and they all came.
Now it was the druids who were swept off their feet like brittle twigs in a hurricane.
Filled by his power, half mad with his victory, Merlin turned and howled in a strange, alien language, at the sky. Sure enough, the Great Dragon broke away from the black storm clouds to make the victory complete and finish the powers of evil for all eternity.
"Save the King!" Khilgarrah shouted as he soared through the sky over Cendred's castle. "Leave the druids to me!"
Merlin waved at him and cheered loudly as the mighty beast vanished from sight. Then he turned and helped Cendred to free himself from the rubble that had trapped him. "You're safe, My Lord. The day is ours!" The words came naturally to Merlin; it did not matter that this wasn't Camelot, that this wasn't Arthur or Uther. His castle, his home, had been viciously attacked, and he had risen to make it STOP! As he had vowed to do when he had first come to know his destiny.
Things were as they ought to be. He had used his powers as a sorcerer and as a Dragon Lord to defeat evil once more.
"Safe?" Cendred asked breathlessly. "It's over?"
"We've won, My Lord" Merlin answered. "See? There's your son."
And indeed, Gyrrin stood on the fallen wood beam that had almost killed him, and laughed.
"Gyrrin" Cendred said, disbelievingly. "My boy….."
The warlock watched them come together, Cendred, Morgyan and Gyrrin, and he could not have been happier if this had indeed been Camelot and the Pendragons celebrating a great victory.
He had done it. He had fulfilled his destiny once more.
"Merlin" someone said in his back, and the warlock turned to face his dragon-friend.
Khilgarrah looked very grave. But then, the mighty beast, for all his ferocious strength, did not like battles. Merlin knew the Great Dragon felt nothing but remorse when he remembered the night he'd attacked Camelot, searching his revenge on Uther Pendragon.
"We've done it, Khilgarrah. We've won."
"Indeed, young warlock."
"We can rebuild it all in no time, can't we? Better and stronger than it was before!"
"Yes, we shall, Merlin. But now it is time to rest. We must get out of here."
"What do you mean, Khilgarrah?"
"Camelot awaits, young warlock. We cannot linger. This life isn't ours to live."
"Yes….." Merlin said, bewildered. "Of course…. Camelot….." He rubbed his suddenly aching forehead. Something was terribly wrong, why hadn't he seen it before? And his lids were so heavy now….. he could barely keep his eyes open…..
Khilgarrah raised his wings and enclosed Merlin in them. As always they were so much softer and warmer than they looked….. The smooth leather folds fell away, and Merlin blinked in astonishment.
The castle, the battlefield, all gone.
He stood in a clearing, in a forest that was vaguely familiar. In some distance, he could make out Arthur and his father, Gwen, Gaius, Leon… what on earth had happened?
"It is over, Merlin" Khilgarrah said again. "You won. King Cendred will heal. The power you channelled into his soul, the magic you allowed to reach him, will make sure of that."
"But I….. how could I…" For one, terrible moment Merlin could not feel his magic inside him. The warmth that had been there since the day he'd been born seemed gone.
Merlin gasped, pressed his hollow stomach with both hands, and toppled over. "Khilgarrah…. no…. please no ….."
"You're tired, Merlin. Nothing more. All will be well. You've won. Things are as they were meant to be."
"But my magic…" Merlin whined.
"Will recover" the Dragon assured him. "The transfer is complete. You're just tired."
Merlin looked around him frantically. He did not understand one word Khilgarrah said. There, by Uther's side, stood Cendred. Tall, erect. Morgyan stood next to him. Her hand stroked his arm, up and down, up and down, relentlessly, as if to make sure that he was really there.
Arthur left his father's side. He and Gwen made haste to come to Merlin. Absent-mindedly Merlin registered that, even after all that had happened, the Prince tried to stay as far away from the Dragon as possible.
"Merlin" Arthur said, taking the warlock's limp hand "I thought…when you fell down and Cendred just walked away from you, I thought….."
"How are you, Merlin?" Gwen asked warmly. "Is there anything you need?"
"I do not…" Merlin said, and then one thought struck him. He knew what he needed. Whom he needed. "Gaius…. where's Gaius?"
"He's still with Agneta and Marwon" Arthur said. He sounded oddly sad. "There are things that he must see to….."
In Merlin's mind stirred a strange set of memories. The druids, fire, destruction and death…. "Agneta..?" he asked
"She didn't make it" Arthur answered. "I know you tried, we could all see how hard you fought to keep them both alive, but…. although Gaius did everything he could, Agneta died."
Abruptly, Merlin looked up, a hard, painful stare into the Dragon's eyes.
"They weren't Cendred's memories alone, young warlock. It was Agneta's nightmare, too."
"I do not…. it was her magic that saved Cendred?"
"She was a druid, Merlin. She attacked Cendred to protect her people from the Rashnijaan. But it changed nothing. A druid mustn't kill."
"Agneta sacrificed herself to rescue Cendred?"
"His madness was her doing. It was her duty as a druid leader to make amends."
Merlin darted to his feet. Deep down in his throat something choked and strangled him. He fought every thought that it might be the humiliation that he had been used. That it had all been a trick, that he had been the involuntary instrument for another's senseless suicide. "You're wrong" he shouted at Khilgarrah, while Arthur and Gwen watched, full of pity, but helpless. Arthur had a very good idea of what his friend was feeling. The load Antek's sacrifice had burdened him with was nothing one could easily forget.
"Marwon is a druid" Merlin raged on. "Arenboarth's son. And he is a warrior, too. This is your fault, Dragon. Agneta had no reason to die. You tricked us all into this!"
"Marwon is now the last of the Arenboarth-line, he and his young son." Khilgarrah said sternly. "He will lead the druids, and his son will come after him, if and when the druid people will so choose."
"Like hell he will!"
"It was Marwon who called for me last night. Without me, neither you nor Agneta could have saved Cendred."
"Marwon knew what would happen to his wife?"
"She spoke to him, right after you had made your grand announcement. He was her husband."
"So it had to be him who called in her executioner?"
"If it makes you feel better, young warlock – Marwon has sacrificed his freedom. There will be no merry life among the knights of Camelot. The law must be satisfied. It is the Old Way."
"Curse the Old Way" Merlin yelled until his voice broke. "Who says we must be bound to some fucking ancient rule just by your say-so? Agneta was my friend, she had a future, she had a baby. She only did what she thought was right for her people!"
"She did indeed, young warlock. Right up to the end!"
And Merlin, panting, shivering, with Arthur's for once not helpful hand on his shoulder, stood there, raging, aching, spiteful and speechless – Merlin stood there and the most terrible, most defeating thing of all was the knowledge that Khilgarrah spoke the truth.
Agneta had done what she thought was right. Always. Until the very end.
There were those who might think that a marvellous epitaph, worthy to grace even the finest marble tomb stone.
But all that Merlin wanted to do right now was puke.