The Precious of Gaia
Part Two: Metamorphic Man
by Tonzura123
Magic is Arthur's only hope. All he lacks is a warlock.
Disclaimer: Surprisingly, my initials are not BBC.
The knights had borne Arthur from the battlefield with tears and despair and the intent to put him to rest.
They had not expected to find him prowling his barricaded quarters a day later: dressed for a pire, pale, and pacing like an enraged spirit with the laugh of a ghost still haunting his ears.
Gaius is summoned and gives Arthur a full examination. His heart is healthy and beating. His breathing unhindered. The place where Morgana ran him through is completely healed, save for a small puckered spot that looks a little like a white, dimensional sun stretching light across his left ribs. He has to twist in front of his mirror to see how far it goes, blending white around his ribs and under his arm, circling around to his back, where the exit wound used to be.
The old Physician's explanation: Magic.
Arthur knows immediately what this means, and finds Gaius' company heavy with a bitter grief.
"I'm sure Merlin knew what he was doing," Gaius says tiredly. His unkempt hair lingers in his face, and his sagging face folds almost grotesquely in his misery. "There was hardly a time that he did not, when it came to you."
"He knew me."
"Yes, Sire."
Arthur traces the light with his thumb, pressing on the raised flesh, feeling no pain.
"But I barely knew him."
The night breathes.
Well...
I know you.
And the air speaks.
The city rallies around him when he walks in the streets, as Gwen suggested he should.
There had been a great and terrible panic at the word of his demise. Some citizens had ended their own lives for the fear that Morgana would take over the Citadel that very day. Others had fled Camelot's walls, shot down in the fields by Morgana's men in the night. Those that chose to stay, lived to mourn.
Those that mourned, now seccumb to jubiliation.
Now the houses and shops are covered in bright cloth, sheets, flowers, jewels. The last of the beer and wine are rolled out of storage and into the dirt of the pathways for neighbors to share. People are laughing and crying with each other, children screaming and running around. Animals (covered in wildflowers and ribbons) are barking, cawing, bringing touches of chaos to the joy. Hope, hope! It can feed the starving and protect the weakest victim. There is nothing more dear than hope. In Camelot is manifests itself like May Day and Christmas and Samhain and Arthur's birthday all rolled into one. The people of Camelot touch Arthur's hair, his hands as he walks by them, some hug him like a lost son, or even kiss him.
All cry, "Long Live the King!"
And Arthur plans to.
The sky trembles.
You're a great warrior and one day you'll be a great King.
And the earth rumbles.
Morgana staggers away from him when he enters the field this time.
His armor gleams from hours under George's hands, his sword balanced, his feet steady. He wears no helmet, but is feeling just reckless enough to go without.
Raising his sword, he levels the blade at his sister's head and releases a battle cry that is so soaked in the tears of vengeance and the blood of innocence that the Witch can do nothing but gape at him. Her jaw reminds him vaguely of a corpse, and her ragged train of mold. His men let fly their arrows. The stunned ranks of Morgana's army fly into a panic, rapidly devolving into chaotic tugs at order and authority.
Arthur meets Morgana's eyes, which have grown cold.
"Can you feel the field shifting?" Arthur asks quietly.
Hundreds of metres away, her nearly invisble mouth moves.
Yes.
His appetite changes. And then the rest of him does, too.
He can no longer stomach the heavy meats and cheeses, preferring vegatables, fruits, cheap and rough breads that are days old and hard on his teeth. He chews slowly while he pours over texts, feeling his mind slowly opening up, stretching. Plans, intricate, somewhat slapshod slip into his mind while he works or trains. Ways of taking out Morgana. Ways of bringing Merlin back. Somehow. He hasn't thought of these things before, amazed at the ease with which they come to him now.
He sees things in his dreams. Dreams of walking into Merlin's room with the haunted air and still bedcovers and herbal drawings. Dreams of an ancient tome humming, calling, singing for him throught he castle walls. Dreams of new memories.
"Trouble sleeping sire?" asks Gaius, when Arthur walks in late one night.
Arthur says yes. Gaius has to go fetch a special herb from his stores.
There is just enough time for Arthur to do what he came there to do.
He doesn't sleep at all that night, candles burnt to stubs, fire in the grate down to sparks, and still Arthur reads Merlin's book of magic until the sun begins to rise.
The streams flow.
But you must learn to listen as well as you fight.
And the waters grow.
Arthur begins to spend all of his extra time lying. It's easy, because he doesn't have much of that to begin with.
He lies about the dreams he's having. He lies about how he thinks they can defeat Morgana. He lies about what happened to Gaius' books of magic, because magic is technically still illegal and no one can know that the King is now studying those ancient words in his bedroom.
He's rubbish at magic, as it turns out. Nothing responds to his spells. He can't wrap his mouth around some of the words. He can't feel that inner fire that the book so often talks about. He wonders how an idiot like Merlin could have been so good at this.
"Pure luck," he grumbles, trying to pronounce forbearne and failing miserably. "Pure dumb luck."
As is his, when he spots a word in a messy script across one page:
Aithusa
The stray wolf howls.
You're a good man, Arthur Pendragon.
And the lion bows.
"I don't know what it means," Arthur tells Merlin not an hour later. The witching eyes of gold don't look half so frightening in broad daylight, but somewhat more powerful. Animated, is the word. "I think it might be a name, or a spell, or a clue to something you hid before you... Before Morgana did this. I'm not going to rest, Merlin. You have my word."
For whatever it was worth.
The child is born.
And for this reason, your life will always be worth more than mine. More than any of ours.
And the mother mourned.
Percival falls in battle the very next morning, if it can even be called a battle anymore. Massacre is closer to the sensation of animal panic and the gross murder of the men by magic that tears them in half in midair or dissolves them in a breeze. Morgana is mad with fear. She leaves her army behind so that she can finish Arthur's alone.
They were retreating again, Percival was pushing Leon- wounded with an arrow high in his shoulder- when another fell from the open sky and struck Percival. It tore into him, just above his chain mail and below his hair line.
Gaius says that it severed his spinal cord. Percival didn't even realize his transition from man to corpse. Like blowing out a candle or crushing a grape under your heel.
They burn his body that afternoon, before the crows or ravens can peck his eyes and chew his lolling tongue. It takes three knights to lift his sturdy frame onto the pyre.
All three share Percival's eyes: glazed, aimless, grey.
He is the first of Arthur's Knights to go Beyond.
The past is depressed.
You change things for the better.
And the future trespassed.
Elyan barely leaves his sister's side.
Arthur isn't sure that she realizes it, if she notices the shadow that trails her as younger brothers do. His dark eyes watch as she bathes the wounded, feeds old mothers, sharpens the blades of the warriors. He sits beside her, or behind her, or somewhere he can be sure to see her, always watching. Always guarding.
Arthur remembers that Elyan and Percival were close- almost like family.
"We weren't close growing up," Gwen surprises him by saying, tirelessly folding bandages. "He followed me around a lot, but we didn't talk often. He didn't like being hugged or kissed. He just watched."
"You've noticed, then?" Arthur asks. "He's been quieter than usual. Tired."
Gwen nods. "It was the same after our mother died. Give him time. He's still a knight."
The mirror moves.
But you're still Arthur.
But the person loves.
"Sire?"
"Thank you, leave it there," says Arthur distractedly to who he thinks is George. He's found more lines in Merlin's handwriting throughout the book. Nonsense words. Some more bizarre than others. Definitely not in the tongue of the Druids.
"Leave what, Sire?"
Arthur finally turns around to find Leon at his door. He shuts the book and stands in front of it with a smile, "Leon! Forgive me, I thought you were my lunch."
Sir Leon smiles thinly. "No, my Lord."
"Ah well." Arthur stands awkwardly, hiding impatience. When a moment of stagnant silence has passed, he presses, "What can I do for you, Leon?"
Leon hesitates. "The men are worried, my King."
"Worried?"
"About you, Arthur."
"Tell the men they need not worry. I'm healthy, ready for battle. Don't lose faith in me now, Leon."
"I'm not. The men- We've all noticed it. You barely train. You're remain in your room for hours, or, if not here, then in the throne room with..."
Leon trails off and Arthur realizes too late that his face has shifted to a mask of cold anger. He doesn't even know why. He is very angry. Suddenly, he can hardly stand how angry he is. Bewildered, he waves a dismissive hand to the Captain of his guard. Leon, wise as ever, chooses to retreat. The door clicks delicately shut behind him.
"Abdakasam!" Arthur swears.
The candles in the room leap into sudden flame as green as emeralds.
The stars fall.
And I'm happy to be your servant 'til the day I die.
And the planets stall.
All of Merlin's spells work for him. None of the Old Religion spells will budge.
Soon, Arthur is levitating his bed with a simple Flibertyjim! and creating his own bread out of rocks with a whispered Stonodo. There is no change to his eyes while he works- he practices with a mirror just to make sure- and no inner fire grows up into his chest like the books describe. For Arthur, it's like the eyes that watch him are suddenly seeing with him, as him, and he's having someone else do the work for him. Like he's the hilt to the terrible blade of this new weapon.
And after a few days, Arthur decides it's time to run this new weapon through a real trial.
The words are heard.
And beyond that, you'll always have a servant in the next life.
As their speaker is Lord.
Arthur trips Morgana.
Perhaps not as much of an attack as he would like, but the magic reaches easily over the field. Arthur is giddy with how easily. It latches hold of one of her high-heeled boots and pulls it through the bloody mud away from her.
She nearly falls on her face.
It makes her furious, but Arthur thinks it's almost worth it to see her confident eyes suddenly bulge, stunned. To see her perfect hair tangle over her mouth, her dress split at the hem, her beautiful face replaced by an ugly scowl. It's terrifying. It makes Arthur's army laugh.
The battle is a draw that day. Morgana is flustered, reckless in her rage at the mockery leveled at her.
Arthur smiles through the entire thing.
"Why doesn't Percival wake up?" Elyan asks Leon. Arthur is putting on his greeves when the knight speaks, and remains bent over, frozen, heart hammering.
"Elyan," Leon says. He says nothing else. Arthur does not have to look to know Elyan's face is innocent of grief and hopeful- almost mad with hope.
"King Arthur woke," Elyan says. His latest injury was a blow to the head, and Arthur prays that this is all that is causing this moment of confusion. "Percival has slept for two days, not one. Why is it taking longer?"
Why did I wake at all? Arthur begs. Why did you wake me up?
And the Magic has anwers for no one, not even its King.
Gwen arrives later to take her brother home to rest.
The sorceror is stone.
Like two sides of the same coin. Everything I have and everything I am is yours.
The man: flesh and bone.
Arthur thinks that he can hear a voice speaking to him- only it's less of a voice and more of a presence.
At first, he considers stress and maybe more than a little blood-related madness. He steps into his room one day and freezes, certain that he's looking at someone standing beside the window. But of course there is no one there. As he moves in and draws his sword, he feels it move, but he cannot tell where, and the presence slips away into a void of a million invisible eyes.
At night he lights every candle and calls for more. Calling for Gwen or Gaius or Leon to stay might force him to "rest" as Elyan must now rest. Instead, Arthur searches the Book for spells on warding away evil. When he falls into dreams, the presence finds him there, strangely solid, out of sight.
Arthur chooses to not speak with it. There have been too many stories of men who spoke to spirits and were possessed or haunted by them. He thinks of the Druid boy that possessed Elyan. He wonders if he harmed anyone else, made any other poor decision, that would bring this spirit to him. It follows him for times, watches him practice, watches him read, watches him eat.
What it's waiting for, Arthur can only guess.
I am Arthur.
Aithusa.
Aithusa, thy Lord summons thee.
And Arthur is me.
It is when he attempts a spell, that the presence swoops down on him, mixing with him, and Arthur yells, but the fire is suddenly there, leaping up to his eyes and blasting out of his hand and turning his wardrobe to gold.
"Merlin!" Arthur gasps out, hand still extended. It scalds his mind, lashing off of his tongue, flaring in his eyes as the name of his closest friend erupts out of him like another spell. And for one moment, Arthur is certain that he is looking at Merlin's smile-
But the presence dissipates before his outstretched and frozen hand, and suddenly Arthur is moving.
He races downstairs, pushing around servants and courtiers alike, running on slapping, bare feet into the throne room, which he throws open the doors with both hands.
Merlin's stony hand reaches for him in the moonlight, mirroring Arthur's posture from only moments ago.
And in his ear, a soft breath carries to him from a void of a million eyes.
Aithusa.
"Aithusa," Arthur says.
It rides a gasp like fire out of his throat, burning, scaly, somehow soothing. A voice that is not his voice, and not Merlin's voice, but something ancient and of old blood that roars out of him like a beast of Hel:
"Aithusa, thy Lord summons thee."
Light of the Sun, thy Lord summons thee;
For only Dragon's Fire can set stone free.
A/N:
Next chapter- "Igneous Immortal" Dragons show up, witches get their cummupits, and wrongs are made righter.
Questions, comments, concerns? Please contact me via PM or review.
Allonsy!
As Always,
-Tonzura123