Author's Note: Thank you all for your wonderful support! I never expected such a great response. I apologize for the delay and hope you enjoy this overdue part. Here's the end of Part Two, since it has been so long:
The man presses the knife against flesh, tilting along the curve of neck towards a vein, and rivulets of warm blood trail down Merlin's throat, and though he knows his blood is red, his mind fills with gold and humming—
Energy bursts, raw and wild, and Merlin feels the blade sear hot and hears the yell and the creak of wood as the crates sway above... The alley floods with torchlight as the soldiers round the corner, but the crates are tipping—The lead soldier is blond—and the tower comes crashing down in a rain of splinters and wood and grain.
Arthur hears a pained holler just before he rounds the corner.
There is no time to process anything but the creaking, looming tower—Arthur looks up to see the top crate plummeting, then they all tip—before the burst of shattered wood sends shards flying outwards, and the figures are buried beneath the avalanche as Arthur hollers, "Back!"
It is an unnecessary command; his three soldiers have flung up arms to protect their eyes and are retreating around the corner. Arthur follows them, the destruction echoing to make it sound like the whole street is collapsing.
Finally, the din recedes, leaving his eardrums thrumming. Night silence returns, with only his wavering torch flame and a handful of uncovered stars for light. The moon is drifting into the absolute dark of the curse.
Warily, Arthur approaches the corner. Splinters and grain crunch under the steps of him and his men. The halo of light travels with him.
He turns and faces the alley, but darkness denies him insight. The rubble is more extensive, and he kicks aside a chunk of wood as he heads into the mess.
Walking becomes increasingly difficult over the seeds. In the torchlight, they look like the gold beads sewn onto velvet clothing. Considering the raided farmland, the grain is nearly as valuable. The wasted food pulls his mouth into a scowl, and unbidden memories of the Unicorn's famine tighten his grip on the torch.
But then there's a gasped curse and thud as one of his men—likely young Gawain—tumbles, and for some unfathomable reason, Arthur feels the corners of his mouth twitch as images of his manservant tripping in a dozen different ways come to mind.
Light slips across the mountain of rubble. Reaching as high as Arthur's shoulders at the peak, the collapsed tower is all dark wood, retreating shadows, and spills of grain. A moment later, he notices the hand splayed out from underneath, leather-skinned and bloodstained. Ice fills his lungs, momentarily shocking the breath from him.
"Clear this mess," he commands, voice frozen. His eyes do not leave the hand. He holds the torch above his head, even when his shoulder begins to ache, as his men stack the larger wood pieces against the alley walls.
They all circle around when Loxley tugs the body from the half-cleared wreckage. Blond hair matted with blood and wheat, the man is covered in splinters and netted in fine lines of crimson, the blood quickly soaked up in the dust. Though his skin is tough from wear, it is not creased; he is perhaps Arthur's age.
Loxley, the oldest and most experienced of the group, bends over the body and rests two fingers against the neck. A moment later: "He has a pulse."
The cold in Arthur's chest eases enough to let him breathe freely. He sees too much of his own mortality in the tangled, dirty man at his feet, and he would not welcome the guilt of chasing the untried man to his death.
"Search his pack."
While the others resume cleanup, Loxley pulls out copper coins, a lock pick set, a necklace chain ("False gold," the knight notes, a dark grin of irony in his voice), and a collection of buttons sewn onto a square of silk.
"He was saving them to sell at once," Loxley says, holding the glossy buttons closer to the torchlight. A couple shine with gold or silver, while another sparkles with a glass emerald. They flop and hang by loose threads, the sewing crude.
Proof enough for Arthur. "He's just a petty thief; take him to the dungeons."
Loxley nods and lowers his arms, but then there is a ping of metal hitting the ground and he says, "What was that?" Arthur catches the glint rolling along the packed earth until it bumps against his boot, where it tips flat, a thick gold coin no larger in diameter than the buttons.
He picks it up and studies the pressed image of a raven with an inset ruby eye. Thin cursive scrolls around the edge, too small to read in the flickering light. "It's a seal," he realizes, and recognition clenches his heart. "It's Palengard's."
Heads turn and Alymere's eyes widen. "They're spies?"
"Unless he stole the seal from a real one," Arthur says, fist curling around the tiny symbol. Spies are strictly forbidden in the knight's code and using them is universally viewed as disgraceful; Arthur has never dealt with such a wartime violation before. That Palengard has spies should not be surprising, but apprehension makes Arthur's palms slick nonetheless.
Loxley looks down at the fabric and tilts it, face bemused. Then, pitch rising with realization, he says, "It's a pouch. The fabric is two pieces sewn together." He sticks his finger through a spot where the seam has torn, and the ridges on his forehead smooth in understanding. "He intended to keep it hidden."
Arthur nods. "He's the spy, then."
Before he can decide on the implications of such a discovery, Gawain cries, "Sire!" and the wood pile ruptures and the second man emerges, eyes burning in the torchlight, bloodied knife clenched in a fist.
"Shad!" he roars. His arms are twice as large around as Arthur's and his hair is alloyed with iron. "Shad!" His eyes scan, passing over the knights as insignificances to rest on the unconscious form.
Gawain rushes forward with his sword drawn, but the spy slashes his knife in warning. His legs are still trapped in the tangle of wood.
With his free hand, Arthur yanks his sword from its scabbard and is almost within reach when the man latches eyes with him, teeth bared in a cornered snarl. "Come closer and I kill 'im."
"You harm a knight and you will regret it," Arthur snaps, raising his sword. The spy's threat wipes any inhibition about killing from his mind.
"Not him." The man glances down at the rubble and kicks a plank aside, revealing a bit of torso covered in dirty blue fabric. "Him."
Arthur blinks, thrown by this materialized, immobile presence, and before he can process anything the boar of a man lunges, plowing through wood and grain, but then there is a disembodied cry like a startled hawk and the spy trips and comes tumbling down, and Arthur leaps back, expecting the knife to flash forward, but it's knocked from the man's grip as he hits the ground and it spins wide. The fall sends up a puff of dirt, and from beyond Arthur catches the sight of two moon white hands clamped around the spy's ankle.
The spy lifts his head, but Arthur steps forward and lowers his sword so that it is a razor-thin line dividing the face in half, the point ready to cut. The man's eyes cross, staring at it.
"You," Arthur says, breaths only now speeding, reacting to the flood of motion, "are under arrest for breaking curfew and for suspicion of espionage."
The man glares up, his eyes the steel-shine of the sword an inch in front, and his lips peel back from his crossed teeth in a snarl, ready to spill damnations.
Then there is a song, a deep-throated chant from behind Arthur. It is a language he doesn't understand, a meaning slipping through the spiral of his ear bones, and he looks over his shoulder to seek the source.
The last word is like the click of a lock, and suddenly the world is on fire.
Flames flare up from the torch in his hand, spitting and unfurling, and heat and light hit his face like a smack. Hand seared, his grip loosens and the torch falls; panic processes enough for him to make a blind snatch for it, but he grasps only air. As soon as it hits the ground, the fire catches hold of the debris and dances. The first crackles reach Arthur's ears, though he can't see the fire spread because the initial burst is still in his eyes, white and hot.
There are yells, shushes of swords drawn, and shivers of chainmail. All Arthur imagines is the wood scattered along the ground and the huge pile that brushes stone on one side and panel buildings on the other; through his temporary blindness the vision of Camelot in flames is already real. There is more chanting, then an angry cry.
Arthur flies back, and his shoulders strike the wall and his neck snaps. The stinging pain knocks him back to reality. Staggering up, he blinks furiously, making the white recede from his vision and let in the chaos around him.
It is the young one, Shad, casting the spells. Arthur can see the words match his lips as he cries out now, but his curses are short, two-word shocks that knock a sword from a hand or push a knight back. Loxley and Alymere cannot harm him, but they prevent him from standing, while Gawain faces the other rearmed spy. He uses no magic, and is presumably incapable of practicing it. With a shout, Gawain charges, and the two collide in a swirl of steel.
Arthur looks down to see the fire devour the ground, turning the Earth to heat and flickering gold as it creeps towards the main pile of wreckage.
The fire is a line along Merlin's throat and every breath is a billow that flares the flames in his broken chest, but he hears it, hears Arthur's voice and he has to stop the heft of a boar towering above him, because the saving is of his own life as much as Arthur's. Every time Arthur is saved is a small shovelful to fill to the pit of guilt in his chest, but he can't bite back the cry when the spy accidentally kicks his already fractured ribs. Desperate, the shadow sliding overhead, Merlin breathes in air that bursts to fire in his lungs and grabs for the ankle flying above.
For a moment, there is nothing but sweat and coarse hair under his palms, then the tension jerks at his shoulders and drags him against the shattered wood as the huge weight tips down.
The crash is a relief, and Merlin lets go, lets the pain and fire fill his dazed mind as he curls in on himself.
He is slow to sense the magic, too late, and it pierces him only as it's flashed into the world in the form of torchlight.
Merlin's breath catches and he has to move. But his ankles are pinned in crates, and boards press against his shoulders and arc overhead like a cathedral, an ancient one left to fall to pieces.
And there's the pepper-scent of smoke, but he's not really on fire, it's just the pain…
It's the old dreams. The pyre, the wood and smoke cocooning and burning the sin from him until there are just pure white bones. He can't see Morgana but her voice is a ringing verdict: You played God, Merlin. Recently it's been hemlock, his throat constricting as if it is Arthur's stone-frozen stare throttling him. Merlin pleads with his eyes and his nails scrabble on the stone floor, but Arthur only towers above and drones, You failed them all.
The smoke curls into his nose, but the fire is already in his lungs and mind, and when Merlin jerks it is a feeble tug against his pyre… and anyway, it's only a nightmare. He deserves so much worse than nightmares.
His eyes sting from the smoke, so he lets them slip shut.
Arthur shakes the last of the light from his eyes and darts forward, towards the sorcerer still shouting, but then the burly one looms up, and Arthur spins to face him alone. Gawain lays spread-eagle behind the man, but Arthur sees him begin to clamber up.
Arthur swings out with his sword but there is only a tiny catch as the tip scrapes across the midriff. There is no sound, as if the wound doesn't register, and Arthur steps back, adjusting his grip, trying to find his balance.
Crackling fills his ears, volume rising by the moment. Alymere and Gawain and Loxley are all shouting, and underneath there is the foreign tongue, guttural and lilting.
Blue light bursts, and when Arthur glances over his shoulder Loxley is crumpled, his armor like a pile of mirrors. The growing fire is reflected in the plates, turning the silver to gold. Shad is now standing, arms outstretched.
A growl fills his throat and Arthur turns back to his opponent, who is swaying. A tassel of blood trails down from his gray hairline along the side of his face, and Arthur lunges, point-first to pierce—
His sword seems to ram into stone and the force jars Arthur's whole arm. The spy blinks blood from his eyes, which are focusing, seeing more than the stars of a head wound and Shad's shield spell, and Arthur can only stand and feel the fire's warmth spread across his body.
"Get out of here!" he shouts, but it is faint against the chatter of burning wood. "Get help!"
For a moment he fears they don't hear him, but two flickered glances, uncertain, confirm the command. Alymere and Gawain turn tail and run for the black opening, and Arthur watches it swallow them whole.
Arthur's shout is like ice water dumped across Merlin's pulsing brain. Smoke has filled his mind, asphyxiating and clouding it, but the voice, the sharp order with a taint of panic, is clear. His eyes flutter open to see swirling smoke, trapped in the beams with him, and things are brighter than before. Fire… it is laughing in his ears and growing louder.
A stab of pain hooks his breath every time he inhales, but he clings to it now, because it is real, not the dream, not the dream. Arthur. Arthur needs him, before the fire turns Merlin to dust.
Merlin tugs, but his legs are still trapped. Through the beams he can see patches of stone wall, the charred lines of a rune. Within arm's reach.
He winces at another breath and fights the urge to cough on the smoke. He reaches out, but his fingertips only brush against the stone as his arm falls.
There is a pop and wood falls behind him, settling in the warmth and the first tongues of flame. Heat is a weight between his shoulder blades. Merlin lifts his arm up, and his fingers reach the cool stone. Fighting the pull of broken ribs, he forces his arm to stay, the muscles already quivering.
Inhale, and pain bursts, but it doesn't white his mind like at first. The words slip from his mouth easier than English, curling in his throat before sliding free, lost in the sound and chaos and humming energy of another sorcerer.
For the brief moment that the magic's loose in him, it fills the gaps of pain and seems to keep him from falling to fragments, unreal. Then it pulses from his fingertips into the stone, a shimmering force that bleeds though the porous rock, drawn from one rune to the next.
It leaves Merlin hollow.
Wood shudders all around him, and the heat soaks into the back of his shirt, makes the fabric hot. Another shudder, then the cocoon around him collapses in time with Arthur's agonized cry.
It is the large spy's knife that rips into his shoulder, sliding between the two armor plates because the top one is still too loose, and Arthur yells at the fire now inside of him, cauterizing. The real fire has reached the main pile and is chewing away at it, and part of the mountain settles, the wood charred and crumbling. A building lining one side of the alley is alight as well, flames spreading like ivy.
The knife is jammed between the armor, and now the man is weaponless, and the other has only magic. Arthur clings to this in his mind, though he knows it means nothing except as a tool to steel his confidence. Truly problematic is that his right arm is incapacitated; he now has to fight left-handed with a sword meant for two hands.
He swings, a wild and uncoordinated swipe, and the man dodges, but Arthur keeps turning and catches Shad, who was creeping up from the rear, unawares. Flesh tears and Shad collapses, red flowering from his thigh. He's still shouting when Arthur twists his grip and rams forward, into the throat, and the sound chokes on the blade.
Teeth clenched and nostrils flaring—every shift causes stars to burst in his arm—Arthur swivels. He sees the spy stare with wide eyes as Shad topples forward, limp as a ragdoll. This time, the man does not yell; he just glares at Arthur for a moment, taking in the cold-colored armor and the blood shining it, and then he charges, hands curled to fit around a neck.
Two steps later, the fire explodes. A shockwave of heat buffets Arthur, and when he tries to lift a shielding arm pain sears his shoulder, snatching the air from him, and the blaze is alive with a roar like the Questing Beast's so long ago.
All the fire pulls together. The sputtering flames along the ground sweep past Arthur and combine with the larger fire that had been spreading across the building wall, and the burning mountain goes dark as the fire there joins the new, massive bonfire as well. Tall as Arthur, the conglomerate fire is in the center of the alley, alive but feeding on nothing. Then it roars and flares up, spiraling into a column as high as Camelot's walls, and both Arthur and the spy stagger back, pushed by heat and light. The noise fills Arthur's mind until there are no thoughts, just yelling fire like a thousand angry voices and the rush of hot air.
Squinting, he looks up to see a monstrous bird unfurl, pure flames, and its flickering head rises to cry out and its wings spread above the roofs and its tail melds into the inferno. A flash of a childhood fairytale, a bird rising from the ashes but the stories never said it was vengeful. He stumbles back farther, sword clattering to the ground, but the other man stares in dumbstruck horror as the bird swoops, diving, and engulfs him, its wings embracing. Through the flames Arthur sees the shadowy form collapse then shrink, burnt alive, then the bird retracts into the column and spirals down into the Earth.
And the world is a void.
Stunned by the absolute nothing, Arthur just stands. His ears ring in the silence, and no matter how he strains, he cannot see anything. Blindness and pain leave him paralyzed, unsure of his orientation in the alley.
He wonders if this is some sort of magic as well, if his senses have been destroyed. But then he smells the air, charred and laced with the tang of burnt wheat.
Shivers wrack his whole frame, rattling the armor plating. Shock from the knife wound drains him of warmth. Only the skin on his face and hands is hot, where the tongues of fire burned him. He can't think straight, can't see in this pitch… Where's Merlin, he ought to light a candle—
Arthur shakes his head, a sharp jerk to rattle the pain. Now his hearing has adjusted somewhat. Brittle wood settles, and he can just make out the sound of breathing. They are arrhythmic, smoke-filled gasps. For a moment, Arthur thinks they are his own, but they don't match the pain the jarred knife causes every time he inhales.
Someone is still here. Arthur can't remember, but the fire, the fire was magic and it saved him, so someone was helping. Someone here in Camelot, and didn't the letter say that Emrys hides in plain sight? Only Emrys could summon a phoenix, could turn the world to blazing justice like a seraph, and Arthur always feared them, they were in the stained glass of a cathedral in a visited kingdom, ringed in flames with knowing eyes…
Arthur shakes his head again and bites the inside of his cheek, because this is his chance to save Camelot, even if he does feel ridiculous talking to the likely abandoned dark. No sorcerer so powerful should wish to linger with Uther's son, but then, no sorcerer so powerful should wish to take part in this disaster at all.
His breaths are shallow and breathy. He sucks in air, summoning strength, and says, "I know you're there." His face pulls into a grimace at the wavering voice. In the silence, it is as raucous as beaten pans.
There is no response. The breaths either stop entirely or quiet, but Arthur is desperate because he can't see and the bells warned him that there's no more time—
"I saw the—the bird," he says, beginning to sway so that he can't tell up from down. "You saved my life, and probably my knights' as well." Loxley, something happened to Loxley; he's sure something happened…
"You're Emrys," he says, his tongue thickening in his mouth and causing the words to trip over each other. "I hope you are. Don't want any other sorcerers like that—" His knees threaten to buckle and he staggers; the knife in his shoulder chafes against muscle and suddenly the world is white, not black. Through the white and the pain stealing his air, he slurs, "Need you. Palengard—coming. Sauce-sorcer-sorcerer too." His legs fold under him and he drops to the dirt that he can't see. Sound is as muffled as underwater. The black is returning, a ring around the white and closing fast. Dark has flooded the world and he's choking on it, flailing. His lungs are heavy, filling with it…
He can't hear himself speak anymore, but he hopes he says, "Please help Camelot. We will not prosecute you for aiding us."
Arthur is pretty sure he only whispers the Please before he drowns in night.
A round face fills his vision, words flying from the mouth too quickly to process. The voice is an annoying whine in Arthur's ears, and he lifts an arm to bat at the mosquito—
He blinks, staring at the hand raised in front of his eyes. There is something wrong with that, something too easy.
"I'm so glad you're awake, milord. The knights feared you had a head wound but I thought that the sorcerer had gotten you…" Philip continues to chatter, but Arthur is staring down at his shoulder, the space where there should be a knife blade. He should be in agony, but there is only a sting and ache, like a cut superimposed on a bruise.
Memories and perception fall back into place, and Arthur glances around, taking in the servants and knights, the two shapes—one noticeably deformed—covered in sheets, the torches, the neat piles of ashes and debris.
Arthur looks at his shoulder again. The armor plating has been removed to reveal the stiff leather underneath. He opted to wear a leather vest instead of the cumbersome chainmail, not expecting physical confrontations in his search for a magician. With a grimace, Arthur remembers the moment of hesitation as he deliberated the options. Now he wishes he had been more cautious.
Except that there's no knife. Instead, a piece of fabric is wrapped under his armpit and knotted on top of his shoulder, stretching across where the wound should be. The fabric is dyed red, though there is the deeper stain of blood at the injury sight. But that is an oval no wider or longer than a finger.
Arthur reaches across with his good arm and pokes the bloodstain. His wince is slight, and his finger comes away dry. He can see the coarse weave through the layer of ash and dust; the fabric is clearly salvaged from this alley.
"Philip," he says, and the boy's teeth click together. Arthur looks at his wide eyes and asks, "Where did you get this?"
"Milord?" He glances at the bandage but apparently assumes Arthur means something more profound, because he adds, "Get what, milord?"
"This fabric. Where did you find it?"
Philip just stares at him for a moment, bewildered at the mundane question. Then he stutters, "Beggin' yer pardon, but it was already on, milord. One of the knights must've tended to you before coming for help. But milord, Sir Loxley just came round and should be alright; he just got stunned, he says, and he told us all about the battle…"
Arthur's lets the prattling fade. Confusion flows in because he knows this fabric is wrong, but his head is pounding and his face stings with burns and he really can't think it through right now. It also occurs to him that he is possibly not in his right mind, that this fixation over a scarf and a missing knife is nothing more than the manifestation of a blow to the head.
Scarf? A man with black hair and sky-bright eyes comes to mind. Arthur lets out a long breath and pinches the bridge of his nose, forcing Merlin's image away. He takes another breath and tries to focus on anything else, because his mind is obviously not capable of rational thought yet. He listens to Philip, forcing himself to memorize the high pitch, the peasant accent, and to think of nothing else until his head clears completely.
"Oh, I forgot, sire, but I'm supposed to tell you that the court physician is coming, milord. Sir Alymere went to fetch him, so I'm sure they'll be here any minute, milord."
An image of Gaius flashes across his eyes, one eyebrow arched skeptically as he denies the existence of Emrys. He's a myth, my lord. And again his absent manservant, the red fabric tied around his neck. And the past days of vacant physician's quarters, silent but for the taunting echoes of his questions.
Clutching the scarf with his good hand, Arthur suddenly isn't sure he's going to like the answers.