~39~ The Passing of a Legend
"Arthur?"
Someone was shaking him, somehow being urgent and gentle at the same time. The king groaned and rolled over. His bed seemed harder than normal, and smelly, like a forest floor.
"Mmm, go'way, Merlin. Five more minutes."
He heard a barely stifled snigger and fumed. It was a Gwaine snigger. He forced his eyes open, and for a long, befuddling moment, he stared at the dank ground he seemed to be sleeping on. There was something soft under his head, but otherwise he was not very comfortable.
He blinked slowly, then saw a shape moving towards him from the corner of his vision and flinched.
"Shh, it's all right. It's just me."
Arthur turned his eyes to see the relief in Gwen's, and he smiled as she did. He reached up to stroke her face...only to realize that his arms were too heavy.
"Just me," she said. There was a damp cloth in her hand, which was what had caught Arthur's peripherals in the first place, and she was using it to wipe his face.
"Did you see it?" he asked, his voice raspy. Gwen only frowned in question, hesitating in her cleaning. "The stag...it destroyed the werewolf..."
The queen shook her head, still looking puzzled. "I saw the stag, but...there was no werewolf, Arthur."
"But...but there was a ghostly wolf..." Did they not see it? How could they not have?
The king tried to sit up, but every bone in his body felt like a thousand pounds. He grunted, forcing one hand up to feel his face. It was covered in sweat, and blood.
Blood?
He pulled his hand away and stared in confusion at the gore. It was all over his face, running down his cheeks and jawline. It was even under his eyes, as though he had been crying the red substance in sorrow.
Gwen shook her head, breath shuddering slightly. She wrung the now stained cloth between her hands. "I thought you were dying, Arthur," she whispered. "When you fell, you started to bleed and...Oh, it was so horrible."
Arthur remembered the agony, the unspeakable pain he felt as the beast blood was burned from his body by the Silver Heart. Now that it was gone, though...
"Help me up," he said, and he felt two people take either of his arms and pull him to a sitting position. His head swam, his surroundings swirling like ink in roiling water, but he took several deep breaths and closed his eyes until the world stopped spinning. He realized that they were all still in the glade where he'd killed the unicorn years ago. The Wild, Merlin called it. A pocket of land that had never seen destruction or disease. Just pure wilderness.
"Is it...Is it really gone?" a distant voice asked, and Arthur recognized it as Elyan's.
"Yes," said Sophia Silverblood gently. "I can no longer See the beast, in either of them. They are free."
Arthur didn't need the Eye to know that. It was gone, like a sickness that had been there so long it had felt a part of him.
He felt so happy, he wanted to laugh. But instead, he retained a dignified, kingly composure. "I didn't think that would work."
"Damn lucky it did, mate," said Gwaine loftily. "I feared things had made a turn for the worst, when she started throwing daggers at trees and mad stags began stamping around like their tails were on fire." He grinned, but there was an edge to his joviality that Arthur didn't like.
"Gwaine," he said slowly, cautiously. He could not see him from where he sat. "Where's Merlin?"
Gwenevere began to clean his face with the cloth again, but the king pulled gently away.
"He's alive, Arthur," said Leon, who was standing to the side, unsure. "The silver no longer has any affect on him." He said nothing more, but the pocket of unspoken explanations loomed over the king like a monstrous leviathan.
He vaguely felt Gwen once more attempt to wipe the drying blood from his face, the caked gore pulling at his skin as he sat there, numb. Sitting as he was, weakened as he was, he felt what strength he had waning. But that just made him all the more determined to get up. So, groaning, he rolled to his hands and knees, then began to stand. Gwen's warm hands grasped at his arms, his shoulders, anywhere in her attempts to aid him. He let her, yet the knights kept a respectful distance.
Arthur swayed, and he kept his vision on the ground in an attempt to smother his dizziness. Once he regained control, however, he sought his fallen friend and servant. It didn't take long.
Gwaine had moved Merlin so that he rested comfortably against a tree, and now knelt beside him, trying in vain to clean off the blood that had oozed from the servant's nose, mouth, ears and eyes. Sophia Silverblood was on his other side, staring at him silently, helplessly, but she backed away as Arthur approached, giving him room.
He knelt, keeping impassive as he took in Merlin's withered form. He was no longer grey from silver poison, but he still trembled with fever and pain, occasional jerks disturbing his already fitful sleep.
He looked so small, lying there all helpless. Arthur felt a foul lump form in his throat and could not swallow it.
"How long as he been asleep?" he asked.
"Ages!" Gwaine exclaimed. "We haven't eaten for—"
Percival rolled his eyes. "Less than half an hour, sire. Gwaine's just delusional from a lack of breakfast."
The other knight glowered at him. "A man can't function without his nibbles, mate."
"With the stomach you're growing, Gwaine, I think you can go a few mornings without nibbles."
Everyone blinked in astonishment. Merlin was stirring, a small smile donning his lips as he looked sleepily at Gwaine. The knight turned baleful eyes on him.
"Oh, my best mate has forsaken me and my famished belly! Such cruel cruel fates—"
Arthur looked affronted. "I thought I was your best mate."
Gwaine glanced from king to servant and back again, sizing them up. Then he shook his head, a smile dancing behind his eyes. "Nah. Merlin is." Then he patted his stomach. "Or at least I thought he was!"
Arthur nodded, empathetic. "Aye, Merlin does have a tendency to call his superiors fat."
The servant now looked witheringly at him. "I never called you fat. I was just inferring that you were getting...husky."
"Husky?"
Merlin grinned, but that grin contorted into a grimace as he moved. He gasped, what little colour there was in his face draining in an instant. A hand moved to his side, where he had more than one broken rib. He was trying to breathe evenly but the pain was not letting him.
"Aw, ow," he gasped.
It was as though he was becoming truly aware of his wounds for the first time. The instincts of the werewolf gone, he had nothing to urge him to ignore his injuries.
"He won't last long like this," said Sophia. "We need to get him back to the Druids. Help me make a stretcher."
Arthur prepared to stand to do just that, but then Merlin's hand reached up to grasp his, keeping him grounded. The others moved away to find deadfall.
"Did...did it work?" he asked meekly, the pain taxing him. "Is it gone?"
Arthur nodded, genuine grief etched into his features as he remained crouched by his friend.
"It is," he said, "thanks to you. But how did you know?"
Merlin shook his head. "I didn't. Larentia showed me this place in my dreams."
"In...your dreams? You listened to dreams?"
Now the servant's brow creased shrewdly. "You didn't need to follow me."
"No, I didn't."
"And yet you did."
Arthur sighed, rubbing his eyes with one hand and then pinching the bridge of his nose. Merlin was still staring at him.
"Why, Arthur? Why did you follow me?"
Another sigh. "I meant everything I said earlier. I can't let a brave man die for me, not like this. And you're my fr—servant. A half-decent servant is hard to come by these days."
Merlin scowled. "You've used that excuse too many times."
"And if you were any worse, it would be invalid."
"I love you, too, Arthur."
"Shut up, dollop-head."
Ͻ Ϫ Ͻ
Not for the first time, the companions wished they had dragged the horses with them deeper into the Forest of Agmar. As it was, they each took turns carrying one end of the stretcher bearing their fallen friend. At first, Merlin expressed his uncomfortable attention, but soon his wounds were too much for him, and fell still. Even though most of the damage had been cauterized, preventing bleeding and infection, it had done nothing for internal injury.
He fell into a deep fever, from which he refused to pull himself out of. Sweat beaded his face and soaked his shirt around the neck and beneath the arms. His hair was matted into thick, dark strands on his forehead, and his face never once bespoke of peace. Gwen did what she could to dampen the fever, but she wasn't as skilled as Gaius or the Druids.
They descended into and ascended from the gorge, and continued until they passed the statue of the Archon, Nocturn. The hooded figure, black hands clasped, the owl on his shoulder as immobile as ever, seemed to regard the wearied travellers with an air of expectation.
Arthur, currently at the rearguard, was the only one to notice Sophia Silverblood stop and curtsy low to Nocturn's monument. He recalled her explaining that the Archon was the one responsible for the creation of the unicorns. He also recalled that Merlin had told him to find Anhora the night before. Perhaps he didn't mean for him to find the Keeper of the Unicorns directly. And then the servant unwittingly led Arthur to the glade, the glade where they had found a unicorn years ago, which he called the Wild.
What did all these connections mean? That the company was helped by a fabled Archon? But that's ridiculous!
Was the cure the Silver Heart blessed us with ridiculous? he asked himself. Then he realized that Sophia had straightened and was walking towards him. He barely saw her as she kept going, rejoining their companions.
Arthur, however, stayed a little bit longer, studying Nocturn intently for...for what? For life?
He wasn't much of a believer of gods, having never seen one nor witnessed their wonders. He didn't know how the world came to being and, frankly, never gave it much thought. And by the way they're described, Archons seemed little more realistic than gods...But after all that's happened...
Impulsively, to his own surprise, the king bowed, falling to one knee and lowering his head. For several moments he remained there, until the dank loam beneath his knee soaked into his trousers. Only then did he stand, glancing once more at the statue before turning and following his knights.
What did it hurt to show a little respect, after all?
It had taken them little over a day to find Merlin on horseback. Now bearing him injured in a stretcher, on foot, it took three times longer.
"I guess we should have brought this into consideration," Gwaine grunted, relieving Elyan of the stretcher for his turn. "Bringing a Druid with us would have been novel."
Arthur didn't like the thought of having a magic user travelling with them, even though the Druids had already expressed their benevolent values. It just...unsettled him too much.
On the third day, Mistwood was at their feet. And the Druids were there to welcome them.
Ͻ Ϫ Ͻ
"This would not have been possible without the aid of you or your people," stated Arthur, bowing his head to the Druids Bowen and Gabriela. "Camelot owes you all a great debt."
"It was an honour, Arthur Pendragon," said Bowen, also bowing.
"Is there any way we can repay you?" asked the king, glancing from one impassive figure to the other. Gabriela smiled then.
"Your expressed gratitude is payment enough, good king," she said. "Though, perhaps, there is one thing..."
"Anything," Arthur pressed.
Gabriela regarded him with a level stare. "When you sign a decree on the grounds of magic, remember us. When you sentence a convicted sorcerer to death, remember what we did for you. And, perhaps, you will not look to such morbid means to deal with issues you do not properly understand."
Arthur just blinked as the two Druids then turned and walked away, joining their folk in the daily hubbub of Mistwood.
He heard someone snort behind him, a heavy hand falling on his shoulder a moment later.
"I would have gone for power and riches," said Gwaine casually, staring off after the Druids as though they were insane. "And maybe mead. A whole barrel, just for me!"
Arthur felt his eyebrows lift, but he could not help but give a soft smile. "Only you, Gwaine. Only you." He left the knight then, left him looking slightly puzzled, and made his way to the Healers' tent.
Merlin was fast asleep when Arthur ducked into the pavilion, as was to be expected, of course. The servant had been through quite an ordeal, and the Healing magic the Druids had woven into him was extensive. Not only externally, but internally. It was after they had done all they could that they told the king that Merlin had indeed cauterized his own wounds days ago. They had to reopen his shoulder to retrieve the silver shard, the remains of a Blackhand spear, from his flesh.
Arthur sat on a stood by his servant's bedside and looked at that shard now, laying on a simple table near a small clay vase of flowers. It was almost as long as his finger, and had the width of his thumb. Hesitantly, the king reached to pick it up, cautious that it would burn him like silver used to. But it did not. As it sat in his hand, he noticed that a small hole had been drilled into one end, and now there was a tiny loop of string and a woven thong attached to it. Someone had made it into a necklace.
"Do you think he'll like it?"
Arthur stood and turned, to see Gwen enter the tent with a small smile.
"Did you do this?" he asked, sounding surprised when really, he wasn't. He held it up, watching it flash in a ray of sun gleaming in through the tent window. "I think he'll love it."
"I dulled the edges a bit, so they no longer cut," she said, sounding somewhat distracted as she stared down at Merlin.
Arthur set the necklace back down on the table and took her hand.
"I...guess I never told you earlier," he began, and Gwen looked to him curiously. "You showed great courage in the glade. If you weren't there..." He shook his head. "I fear I would have been lost."
Gwen simply gave another small smile and pushed into his arms, embracing his chest. He lowered his head onto hers, inhaling the homely scent of her dark hair, and for several minutes, they remained there, undisturbed, reassured by each others' presence.
"I still don't know if I understand," said Gwen finally. "Why the glade in the Forest of Agmar? What was so important about it?"
Arthur sighed, an answer slow in the coming. "You recall that that was the glade in which I slew a unicorn six years ago? The creature was there because it was, as Merlin called it, the Wild. He said that it was a place that has never seen destruction or disease." He frowned. "I suppose killing something there didn't count as destruction. Or because we somehow resurrected the unicorn later, it was fine."
"But how is such a thing possible? How can a place never see destruction or disease?"
Arthur shrugged, finally releasing his queen. "Magical barriers? I don't know. Probably has something to do with Nocturn, the Archon..."
Gwen looked down at Merlin. "Still the question remains, why there?"
"Because that was where the beast blood would be most exposed, without bursting free entirely."
The king and queen of Camelot both turned at Gabriela's voice, the shaman having soundlessly ducked into the tent. Arthur frowned curiously.
"What do you mean, 'most exposed?'"
"Did it not feel like the beast was going to break free at any moment when you were there?" asked the shaman. "The instincts of the werewolf would have peaked in such a place. From my understanding, that is. And that is why Larentia, or, possibly, Nocturn, gave Merlin the visions of the glade in his dreams. Though he knew it not, he was sent there to be cured, not to die like he thought. And you were supposed to follow him, with the Silver Heart."
"So...had we not been there, curing us both would not have worked?" said Arthur, just managing to stop himself from swallowing audibly. Gabriela nodded.
"Where the werewolves were strongest they were also at their weakest. They longed to detach themselves from you and be their own creatures. Or else take over you entirely."
Gwen shook her head. "There was so much blood," she whispered coarsely, pale at the memory. Gabriela nodded again, looking at Arthur.
"It was the Silver Heart separating your blood from the beast's, and pushing the taint from your body. Had you and Merlin both held the Heart while anywhere else but a pocket of Wilderness, somewhere that the bloods were closely mingled, you would have bled to death."
Arthur's eyebrow rose. "Okay. Good to know."
So I hope that explained some of the more supernatural stuff that was going on. Make it a little less weird...or not...
Holy crackers. Only one more chapter to go.
"Nothing's ever for sure, John. That's the only sure thing I do know." ~ Charles (It's a Beautiful Mind)
