Chapter Twelve
Xyla stared at the door long after it shut, as if she could make Merlin walk back in with the power of her mind.
(Could she? She was a sorceress… But no, Arthur was being ridiculous…)
Her eyebrows were drawn together, and her lips were down in a persistent frown, as though Merlin being taken was annoying her greatly. Arthur found that faintly irritating, but decided not to worry about her for the moment; that wouldn't do any good.
Thinking about Merlin wasn't doing any good either.
He lied to me! Arthur kept thinking. He knew she had magic and he didn't say anything. My father nearly died.
He also tackled her to the ground to save his father's life.
Arthur looked over at the girl – Xyla – as she leaned back against the wall with her eyes fixated on the door (probably partly to avoid looking at Arthur), and despite himself, he felt a bit of humor bubble up in him. Yeah, I'm sure tackling her took a great deal of self-sacrificing.
Immediately he was ashamed of himself. He shouldn't find this funny. For heaven's sake, his manservant dragged him off to rescue a sorceress, and now Merlin was… well, who knew what was going on with Merlin right now? He was probably scared.
That idiot.
Why had they taken Merlin? What was the point? Was he just being moved, or what? And why was Morgause (and Morgana) paying no attention to the fact that they had captured Arthur? Surely the capture of the Prince of Camelot was more important than that of a simple servant?
And did Merlin really… like this sorceress girl—Xyla?
Xyla, for her part, was finding Arthur rather annoying.
His friend was currently being dragged along by villainous guards. He was captured and chained up. His evil half-sister (at least; she thought so… Morgana had explained the whole parental mess up to her, but it was too confusing for someone with a horrible headache) was running a castle with her evil half-sister. He had plenty to be thinking about, so where did he get off just staring at her like that? What did he want her to do, drop dead?
She tried not to meet his eyes, but she could still feel his gaze on her. He was making her nervous. Why did he have no expression on his face? He could at least have the decency to look worried. Her annoyance, mixed with the twisting anxiety in her stomach, was growing larger and heavier and hotter.
But she wouldn't react to his gaze. No, she hated the prince of Camelot, and he wasn't worth her attention, much less her temper. (That's what her father told her when she was little, anyway; some people aren't worth the temper.) She wouldn't react even if she had to sit here, staring at the door blankly for years. She would get a hold of her anger.
1, 2, 3…
Eh, forget it.
"Stop staring at me!" she snapped, her head swiveling towards Arthur so fast that he gave a tiny start.
"I beg your pardon?" he said out of reflex.
"Stop staring at me. I don't like it."
Arthur's eyes narrowed in frustration. "I don't like being chained up on account of some sorceress."
"Well, that's not my fault," she said with a superior sniff. "You weren't supposed to come with Merlin. You were supposed to stop him from coming at all!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I sent you that stupid dream so you would realize Merlin was up to something and stop him, but you were too thick for it to even come through properly!" She stopped herself and looked away from Arthur again. Well, it's not like the thought of me sending dreams is so crazy… Why is his mouth hanging open like that? Geez, he's stupid.
"You sent me the dream I had," he said in a bland voice.
"Yes," she said. "And do you know how difficult that was when most of my magic has been taken away?"
Arthur, of course, didn't know. He blinked at her with a bit of surprise, and maybe some alarm, but he couldn't think of an answer. He had planned on being very angry by this point—heck, he was almost expected to be angry now, right? But Xyla was breathing hard, and her cheeks were stained pink, and she looked like she wanted to spit. Somehow it was always harder to be angry at any female when she was mad first. (With the exception of Morgana… But then, that was his sister.)
Actually, looking at her right then, Arthur almost wanted to smile. There was that blasted sense of humor again. Where had that even come from?
She rolled her eyes.
They fell into silence, but this time Arthur just couldn't stand it. Now that they'd started talking, Arthur didn't want to stop. Stopping would mean he had to focus on the situation they found themselves in right at the moment, and he'd rather not.
"You tried to kill my father," he said at last. That was good. A conversation topic, but not one that could possibly humanize her, or make him understand why Merlin went through all this trouble to save her. One that allowed her to remain the enemy. Arthur congratulated himself.
"Your father did kill my father. And my mother. My sister and her husband… Pretty much everyone in my community."
Arthur looked sorry for just a second, but it was gone quickly. "They were sorcerers?" he asked, but it sounded like a condemnation.
"Sihirli kisi," she told him, and he looked puzzled. "Roughly translates to 'magic people.' A community… People with the ability to use magic who all lived together, teaching their children all about it from the time they were babies. It was like growing up… seeped in magic. There were lots of the communities… Most disbanded when the Purge began, but our group thought there was strength in numbers. Maybe we were right… It took them years to find us. I was… six? Seven? Something like that when we were found. I was an infant when the Purge began."
Arthur would have been a child, then. That made sense… Most of Arthur's earliest memories were littered with images of sentenced sorcerers as the Great Purge began to slow. He wondered if he remembered seeing any of that group die, or if they had been killed on the spot.
"A few people survived. I did. My friend Kushi. A young boy and two adults who taught us to use magic. And when we were old enough, Kushi and I wanted revenge."
Arthur had heard that way too many times. "Practicing magic is against the law; my father had to uphold that…"
"Your father made the law, so you can't use that excuse!"
He didn't know what to say again. He was right, of course, but he couldn't think of the words to prove it. She wouldn't believe him anyway… She was a wicked magic-user.
"I swear, you are so stupid," she griped. "It's beyond me why Merlin is so attached to you."
"And what do you mean by that?" He was really beginning to hate the comments that she didn't elaborate on.
"I mean, for some reason he seems to think that you aren't all that bad. Almost like a friend. Even when you're cruel to him."
"I'm not—!" He started forward out of instinct, but his chains rattled and stopped him. He gave them a glare to show his disapproval, and then turned his eyes back to her. Cruel? He was never cruel to Merlin. He wasn't always the nicest, sure, but overall…
She wasn't looking at him again. The thought of Merlin drove her eyes back to the door, and the worried crease on her forehead came back. "His – rather misplaced, in my opinion – trust in you is the reason why Kushi and I agreed not to kill you."
Sarcasm, always a powerful weapon, came to his assistance at once. "Should I say thank you?"
"Don't bother," she said, looking at him again with hatred in her brown eyes. "Wouldn't accept anyway. We didn't think it was really fair to punish the son for the father's sins, anyway."
There was a pause.
"My sister had been married for a year. When she was killed, she was pregnant with her first child."
For some reason, that revelation made Arthur distinctly uncomfortable. He changed the subject, because this topic was failing to demonize Xyla. Her angry expression hadn't changed, and you couldn't see the hurt in her voice, but Arthur knew that it was there. Many years old, but the anger existed. And hurt was wonderful fuel for anger.
"So… you must have really… respected Merlin's opinion to let him change your mind."
She gave a tiny smile, her breathing slowly, and he got the impression that she was grateful for the change of subject.
"Yeah, I did. Merlin's smart."
"You like him." The thought was very unsettling. Sorcerers were capable of feeling that way? (Of course they were, he thought to himself. They were sort of human.)
She nodded. "I thought I loved him."
Okay, that was very, very unsettling.
"But not anymore?"
She gave a small chuckle, meeting Arthur's eyes. He tried not to break the contact. "I knew him for what, a week? That's rather quick, don't you think? I thought I loved him… But you know, a year away is great for thinking time. Helps you make smart decisions."
He didn't really want to talk about a sorceress's smart decisions. But still… he couldn't help being curious. "Such as, you don't love him?"
"Such as, I like him. And if I had more than a week full of attempted assassinations and death to get to know him better, I would probably love him. Not like it's really going to happen… I can't really go back to Camelot without getting killed, now can I? And there's no reason to look like you swallowed a bug, Sire. I'm not going to corrupt your manservant. We'll probably die before I'd even get the chance."
Corrupt… okay; there was a subject they didn't need to get into. "We're not going to die," he told her.
She stared at him in surprise for a second, all the bitterness gone from her eyes. But then, after a moment, all the hatred came rushing back. "Meaning yourself and Merlin, I suppose. Well, if you don't die, I have no plans of doing so either, you know."
Arthur shrugged. He hadn't really given any thought to what would happen to her. But perhaps it bore thinking about.
"Besides," she grumbled, "You don't know that Merlin isn't dead already."
Horror flashed through Arthur. No. There was no way. Merlin couldn't die. "Merlin will be fine," he said defensively.
She gave an ironic half-smile, much less attractive than her real ones. "And you don't think it's any of my business either way, maybe?"
They both turned to stare at the door, and no matter how much they wanted to, they didn't say another word to each other.
Merlin's magic didn't work.
It was these blasted cuffs around his wrists… Every time he tried to cast a spell, he felt the magic surge up and be rebuffed by them. He couldn't use magic. He was powerless. And that was terrifying.
Merlin had been dragged out of the poorly lit, windowless dungeon into the hall, where lights seemed to assault him from all sides. Everything went white, and a spike of pain went through his eyes. He closed them quickly, squeezing his lids together as purple and red colors splashed up against his eyelids. The two men didn't stop for him, though; they pulled Merlin forward, and he stumbled to keep up. His arms were aching from the rough way he'd been manhandled out of his prison, and he didn't want them pulled on.
After a moment or two, his eyes adjusted, and he peeked through his lids at his surroundings. He recognized the castle, naturally. It hadn't been too long ago that he'd been in it, dragged down the dark stone corridors and tossed into a tiny cell with a cot. (Arthur had taken the cot. Merlin had sat on the floor.) Merlin had never been in this part of the castle, though. He'd only seen a bit of it—just the way to his former cell to the throne room and back. The floor had a rug on it. The walls were bare and cheerless, except for the occasional turn or window. The men dragging him were of the generic guard type. Cenred's old colors still on them, helmets, unsmiling faces of men who took themselves very seriously.
Merlin had run into tons of their kind.
Merlin had killed tons of their kind. He couldn't count the number, even if he wanted to. A faint spark of guilt lit in his brain when he thought of Xyla and her healing magic, the way she'd looked at him back when she was in Camelot. She didn't know that he'd killed people.
But he had bigger problems right now, he thought, shaking the other idea from his mind. Where were they taking him? To Morgause and Morgana? What was going to happen to him, to Arthur, to Xyla?
How would they escape and make this one turn out right?
And if they were killed, what would Gaius and Gwen think? Gwaine? Lancelot?
It was an unhappy Merlin that was finally dragged into a room on the second floor of the castle. It used to be a bedroom, but no longer boasted curtains on the windows or a bed to the side. It was bare but for the weapons and miscellaneous tools on the back wall and several comfortable chairs and a table… And one wooden chair in the middle of it all, facing the other chairs and looking quite ominous.
That one had Merlin's name on it, he could tell. The guards shut the door, and a third man standing by the wall on the inside of the room locked it.
The guards pushed him towards the chair, and he struggled to pull away. Quite pointless, really, since he knew he couldn't get away. Even if he could, he couldn't get out of the room. But he had to struggle, just for the principle of the thing… And because he was suddenly very scared. See, Morgause stood in the corner of the room, a fourth guard by her side. They were coming forward. And that man held thin chains.
Oh, no, he thought with alarm. He'd been chained up by Morgause once, and it was not something he was desperate to relive.
The men pushed him into the chair, but he got to his feet and tried to pull away again, so one of the guards held him down. A big hand was on one shoulder, another on one thigh, holding him sitting. Merlin tried to push his arms away, his mouth going dry.
Morgause laughed a little, but Merlin ignored her.
Then the guard by her side stepped forward and began to tie him to the chair. His hands were chained. His ankles were chained. Merlin was near to panicking; he just wanted to run as fast and as far as he could. He didn't like being tied up… That made him more helpless than the loss of his powers.
Morgause waved the guards away when they finished, and they went silently, unlocking the door so they could leave.
Merlin was left with a sneering Morgause, her blonde hair pulled back all-business, chained to a chair, helpless, with his blood pounding through him so hard he could hear it in his ears.
"So, Merlin," she said. "It's been a long time since we've seen each other, hasn't it?"
"Where's Morgana?" he asked.
"She might be along a little later," said Morgause casually, and Merlin wondered why.
Morgause made her way slowly towards the back of the room, passing out of Merlin's sight. He tried desperately to look behind him, but still couldn't spot her. She was moving towards the wall with the weapons.
"Now, Merlin," she said, repeating his name. "I have a few questions for you, and I'm sure you could be persuaded to answer, hmm?"
Merlin couldn't help himself. He groaned, casting his eyes towards the ceiling.
Great. Just great.
A/N: I realize I've been gone a long time, and I'm so sorry! I made it a longer chapter to make up for it, so don't be unhappy with me, please. I was dreadfully busy. And we got more back story for Xyla. I'll try to update in a week. Thanks to reviewers. Please review again! Sorry for the bit of a cliffhanger…