Chapter 13

As consciousness slowly forced its way through Merlin, he noticed not only was he gagged, blindfolded and tied up, he appeared to be in some sort of vehicle, at least if all the jolting was any indication. He tried to use his magic to pan out into his surroundings, but the only outcome was a jolt of pain through his head. He groaned at the pain, and someone ripped the gag out of his mouth before tipping some sort of fluid down his throat. Merlin felt his muscles go lax before drifting back into the calming lull of unconsciousness.

When he awoke a second time, the blindfold was gone, and he was now in some sort of cell. The walls were a drab grey and the only furniture in the room was a wooden chair which Merlin was chained to. Suddenly the door flung open to reveal a smug looking Cenred. Merlin groaned, although the sound was muffled by the wad of material stuffed in his mouth. Cenred smiled at his captive before saying,

"Hello again Merlin, we have to stop meeting like this! I hope you like my castle so far, or at least what you can see of it!" He tittered to himself, before continuing. "I'd like to warn you now that any magic you try to do will be restricted by that lovely collar on your neck, resulting in a nasty headache. So I wouldn't bother trying anything."

With that said, Cenred gestured for the two men that had been standing by the doorway to untie and remove the gag from the warlock, although they immediately seized his arms in a vice like grip, and the four of them went out into the musty corridor.

What he had originally conceived to be a dungeon looked more like an asylum to Merlin. All the cells had doors with little slots to look in, although most people were walking around, staring at the teenager with a pitiful look in their eyes.

Merlin quickly realized he was the youngest person in the facility by at least 5 years with only one exception. As he was being led through the canteen, he noticed a girl a little older than he was sitting on a bench by herself, those around her giving her odd looks. She was a pretty girl with shoulder length brown hair and chocolate colored eyes. When she looked up to see what the disturbance was, Merlin sent her a smile, and was happy to see her return it. He held onto the hope that perhaps not everything in the castle was going to be bad.

Finally, after a daunting amount of stairs, they reached another door. This led to a more typical dungeon-style chamber, and the two men clipped Merlin's arms tightly into the shackles that hung from the wall, leaving his feet barely touching the ground.

"Enjoy your first evening," Cenred said, and they left Merlin alone in the dark, cold room.

When Arthur woke up, his environment was much nicer than Merlin's. He was lying in a 4 poster bed with silk sheets and fresh clean clothes. As he raised a hand to his head, which felt like a horse had trampled it, he remembered what had happened and sprung from the bed. He recognized his surroundings now as his bedroom in the castle, and as he made his way across the floor of his bedroom, he noted the key he always left in the door had been removed, with the shadows of guards stood outside of his room.

As the previous night hit him like a brick, he ran to the door to try and prise it open, but as he had suspected it was locked from the outside. However, the jolting of the door alerted the guards to Arthur's state of consciousness, and one of them set off to alert the King.

Arthur dragged his feet back to his bed, where he lay down and tried not to think of what Cenred was doing to Merlin even as he lay there. The last words the wicked king had said to Arthur still echoed through the young prince's mind...

"All your precious daddy wants is for you to be returned home, and for his land to be free of those with magic, and in return Morgause and I get to spend some time with your little friend. Merlin, I believe his name was."

Arthur sighed into his pillow, and resigned himself for whatever punishment his father would give him. He just wish he knew if Merlin was ok.

Merlin wish he knew if Arthur was ok. The warlock was finding it near impossible to sleep not only due to the heavy strain on his arms, but also due to fear of what the next day would bring. He could hear people downstairs, yelling for freedom, and there were wild beasts yowling as well. Merlin shivered in the cold night air, closed his eyes, and drifted into a fitful sleep full of nightmares about what he might face in the morning.

Meanwhile, as dawn rose over Camelot, Arthur awoke with a jolt as he heard someone unlock his bedroom door. As he stood up to see who it was, he frowned as his father appeared.

"Good morning father," Arthur said curtly.

Uther acted as though his son had never even spoken. "What have I taught you about magic users. Have I not shown you, time and time again, that they are not to be trusted. And then I see you, ignoring everything I have ever taught you, in favourite of gallivanting around with that filthy scum!"

"Merlin is not scum!" Arthur cried. "He's one of the kindest people I'be ever met." Suddenly Arthur realised something. "How did you find out about Merlin?"

Uther looked sheepish at those words, before reverting to his previous state of anger.

"It is of little consequence who warned me, although if you must know it was Cenred and the Lady Morgause."

Arthur cringed at the latter mentioned. "You gave Merlin to Morgause! She's amassing an army of magic users, torturing them into submission, and you just gave possibly the most powerful warlock ever without so much as considering the consequences!" Seeing that Uther looked suitably guilty, the young prince began putting on his chainmail.

"I'm going to rescue Merlin and you are NOT going to stop me," Arthur told his father, "If not for the sake of the innocent boy's life, think of the devastation Morgause will bring to Camelot with him at her disposal. With a weapon like that, she could crush you easier than swatting a fly."

Uther considered what his son had said. On the one hand, he knew he had made the wrong decision in handing the other king the boy. On the other hand, letting Arthur go rescue the boy meant showing weakness, as well as letting that magical brat integrate further into his son's life. Suddenly he had a brain decided he would let Arthur take back the brat, then kill him the second he set foot in Camelot. That would solve his problems.

"Fine," Uther said, trying to keep the loathing out of his voice as he continued. "You may rescue the boy and bring him back to Camelot, but only if you do so without being captured by Cenred. If you are, I warn you now boy, I will NOT be coming to rescue you. Do you understand?"

Arthur stood surprised for a moment, then nodded.

"Good," Uther said. "You have a week." And with that the king strode out of the room.

Merlin was jolted out of his light doze by the shackles around his wrists being released, causing him to crumple to the floor like a puppet with its strings snapped. As he lay in a dazed stupor, he heard a gasp and felt someone roll him over, checking the area where his head had impacted with floor.

As the black spots that had clouded his vision cleared, he noticed three strange men in front of him. He jolted up in shock, shuffling backwards, only to realise there was someone behind him as well. He immediately spun around, to find the pretty girl from earlier.

"Are you sure that he's this Emrys fellow, Percy?" the more rugged looking of the men said. "He looks a bit young to be an all powerful warlock."

"I told you not to call me that Gwaine," Percival, a man who's build was almost bear like, said grouchily. "And besides, why would Cenred isolate him if he wasn't powerful?"

"Maybe he's just a nutter?" Gwaine pondered thoughtfully.

"The only nutter around here is you!" Percival muttered, sparking a gasp of indignation from Gwaine.

As the pair of them began to argue between themselves, the third man bent before Merlin and said, "Hello there. Do you know why you're here?" He looked inquisitively at Merlin.

"Well, Uncle Gaius said that Morgause has recently begun to build a magical army, and that she really wants me to be a part of it. This is the second time Cenred has tried to capture me, but this time Morgana and Gaius weren't there to stop him."

"Morgana? As in, Morgana Pendragon?" asked Gwaine

Merlin nodded. "Yeah, I live with Gwen, Gaius and her."

"Wow, this kid has got some deep connections," the third man said, impressed.

"Lancelot please. We didn't come here to see who Emrys knows. We came here to help him escape, before Cenred comes back with Morgause," said the girl, pulling Merlin to his feet.

"Freya, I still don't know how this is gonna work! You and Percival both have your magic blocked, and in case you haven't remembered, Lancelot and I don't have any weapons!" Gwaine grumbled, exasperated.

"Well, Gwaine, what do you propo-"

"I can help with that!" Merlin said. Now that the cuffs had been removed from his wrists, presumably by Percival's brute strength by the mangled state of them, he could feel his magic once more, bubbling under his skin ready to burst out. Merlin's eyes flashed a blazing gold and the cuffs around Freya's and Percival's necks clicked open, rolling off their necks. Another flicker of his eyes, and the metal bars across the little window snapped off, and began to sharpen themselves against the stone floor, carving themselves into two crudely fashioned but razor sharp swords. The four people surrounding Merlin gawped, the silence only breaking with Gwaine.

"That, my friend, was bloody brilliant!"

Hello again my reader's, remember me? Sorry I've taken so long to update but have been in a whirlwind of mock exams, real exams and have just gone on holiday for Christmas. I hope you enjoyed this update (it's the longest to date!) and I hope to update again at some point next week (after I update my other fics but hopefully before the final episode of merlin :,( ) It's the penultimate episode tomorrow! Hope y'all have a fab Christmas in case I don't update this before then! Next chapter will involve a daring escape plan, but will it succeed! Thanks t everyone who has been reviewing so far, it means a lot to me! :)

P.S. Some shameless promoting, but I'm dying for more reviews for all my stories. So if you're reading this, why not review :)