Chapter 4: The Trinity
"QUEEN GUINEVERE!" Mordred shouted. When he got no reply, the clairvoyant reached out cautiously with his magic. Her mind was still there, unconscious, but thankfully alive. Mordred threw himself against the door a few more times. It wouldn't budge at all, and to his horror, the Druid noticed the first tendrils of smoke creeping around the edges of the wood. He let out a frustrated shout, giving the door a vicious kick. Then he stilled, looking down at his hands while he considered using a spell. It would be dangerous for both of them in his excited state. Even so- Mordred was torn out of his thoughts when the tapestry behind him coiled and struck like a snake, wrapping tightly around his neck. He grabbed at his animate noose while it dragged him back against the wall. He felt his feet beginning to lift off of the floor and focused on the bright light that was Emrys' mind, far nearer than he had expected
"Emrys! Emrys! Help! We're trapped!"
"Mordred?" Merlin thought inresponse, caught off guard by their sudden contact after so many years. "What'swrong? Who'strapped?" He was already on his way toward them regardless, which was ridiculously comforting.
"It's burning her! I can't reach the Queen!"
"WHAT!" Emrys boomed through his head, almost shocking him out of consciousness just before the warlock himself rounded the corner. "Oh, for..." the prophesied hero had the wherewithal to look irritated while he grabbed the sword out of the door and used it to cut Mordred free, "You might have mentioned that!" Although, my life would have been a lot simpler if I'd left him there... the warlock added internally.
Mordred coughed, averting his gaze to the floor while he tried to pretend that he hadn't overheard the hurtful thought. Merlin was too busy trying to force the door open to notice anyway.
"Aspringe!" The door was blasted open with a flicker of warm light from Emrys' palm. He darted into the smoke-filled kitchens and carried Gwen out, only to dart back in and extinguish the flames with his magic. Mordred checked Gwen's breathing for himself. It was too shallow. He slumped back against the wall to watch Merlin work, and after a beat, yanked the tapestry down out of spite. Merlin gave him a look.
"How is she?"
"Nothing seems to be broken. She's probably suffering from smoke inhalation. I can't tell for certain without Gaius' help."
"I'll get him as soon as I can."
"You're not talking..." Merlin observed.
"My throat is bruised and my chest feels half-crushed. I will talk when I need to."
Merlin's lips thinned for a moment as he battled with himself. The night's watch had finally arrived to help. Mordred would've wondered at the guards' incompetence if he hadn't been so transfixed by the other magic user. Merlin came to a decision. "Fetch Gaius," he told the closest guard, moving to inspect Mordred's injuries. The guard glared at him and puffed out his chest, not fond of being ordered around by a mere servant.
"Go," Mordred insisted before the man could make a scene, feeling insulted on Emrys' behalf. The older man stiffened upon hearing his raw-sounding growl-the attack had really done a number on Mordred's throat- and hurried off.
"Don't try to talk," Merlin muttered offhandedly, probing Mordred's ribs with his fingertips while the guards behind him began to carry Queen Guinevere away to her chambers. Mordred let out a pained grunt, then moved to stand. Merlin pinned his patient's shoulder to the wall with his free hand, continuing his inspection.
"Don't get up. Oooh," he picked up Mordred's bruised and swollen right hand. "This is broken."
"I hadn't noticed."
"Multiple fractures..." Merlin poked, gently at least, at the back of Mordred's hand. Assessing it as though he didn't have his patient's sarcastic words echoing through his skull.
"Thank you, Emrys," Mordred spoke into Merlin's mind, no longer being sarcastic. Merlin's head snapped up to look at him. "For saving me again."
Merlin looked away, guilt clear in his expression. He didn't reply, mentally or otherwise.
When they joined Arthur in his chambers, the King was standing by the foot of his and Gwen's bed with his arms crossed over his chest while Gaius treated the Queen. Merlin walked up to his usual place beside Arthur while Mordred waited behind them at a respectful distance.
"Arthur..." Merlin greeted, holding back the flow of his next attempt to make Arthur see sense.
"What happened?" Arthur demanded, forgoing greetings. He turned from Merlin to the patient, young Druid standing behind them.
"You know what happened," Merlin answered for him in a hushed voice.
"Sir Mordred," Arthur clarified.
"I know that you don't want to accept it, Arthur," Merlin persisted. "But your father never approved of you and Gwen. And Sir Mordred..."
"He wouldn't do this," Arthur denied with enough certainty to throw both mages for a loop.
"Uther wouldn't try to kill a Druid?" Merlin clarified on behalf of them both.
"You can't speak for yourself?" Arthur challenged, shifting his full attention to Mordred.
Mordred opened his mouth to attempt an answer, but-
"Look at the bruises on his throat, Arthur! Uther's spirit tried to strangle him with a wall hanging. His windpipe is damaged," Merlin defended.
"Is this true?" Arthur prompted.
Mordred nodded his head, trusting Emrys' interpretation of events.
Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to come to terms with the news. He stayed like that for a few seconds, then turned to Gaius. "How is she?"
"The smoke has reached her lungs and she has sustained some rather nasty bruises. However, I am confident that she will recover in time," Gaius reported, while Merlin ducked past him to grab a roll of bandages out of Gaius' bag. "It is lucky that you got to her when you did. Any longer and she could have died."
Merlin nodded in humble acknowledgement, pausing beside Arthur when he saw the despair in his best friend's eyes.
"I have always known my father to be cruel, but he w-" Arthur caught himself, stealing a split second's glance at Mordred. "How could he do this to Guinevere? He knows how much I love her."
Merlin waited quietly at his side until his friend steeled himself and turned to the Court Physician.
"Gaius..." Arthur questioned. "What do you know about ghosts?"
Merlin grabbed Mordred by the arm and led him away to the table so that he could wrap his ribs, hoping to escape his mentor's fury.
"Hullo, my Luv!" the barmaid greeted fondly, setting another tankard of beer down in front of her favorite knight.
"Bless you, Annie," Gwaine said, grinning drunkenly up at her.
"I'd rather have the coins, Brave Sir Knight."
"Ahh," Gwaine chuckled.
"This round's on me," a stranger's voice said, accompanied by the clink of silver pieces hitting wood. Annie smiled and accepted the payment before weaving her way back to the counter with a swish of her curvaceous hips.
"Thanks, mate." Gwaine took a deep draft of his beer, studying the wiry stranger over the rim of his cup.
"I wan'ed ta get your attenshun," the man remarked.
"Well you have it. What did you want it for?" Gwaine replied with slight slurring marring the end of his last sentence.
"Sir Gwaine, yeah?"
"That's right."
"I was 'opin' we could talk about King Arfur's newest recruit."
"You know Sir Mordred?"
"Yeah, we met. Briefly. I were jus' wonderin' how you lot woulda' knighted the bloke. Knowin' whot 'e is an' all," the man answered.
Gwaine's gaze, which had been wandering lazily towards the bar, now centered on the other man's face.
"Ya dunno, do ya?" the ruffian noted innocently. "Dat boy's a Druid. An' not just any Druid at tha'."
"Is he?" Gwaine replied, mulling the new information over for a moment. He paused to wink at a passing barmaid before he added, "Honestly, I can't be arsed. Lucky that Camelot doesn't shun his kind anymore, eh?"
"Didn' tell ya whot 'e is, did 'e. Ya wanna know why? I'll tell ya. 'E ain't normal. You dunno whot 'e did before 'e come 'ere. Ya think 'e's lawful an' that? I know 'im."
Sir Gwaine's drunken, carefree demeanor evaporated. "I know Sir Mordred now, well enough. I like him. His past, and his heritage are his business." The Knight leaned forward with his elbows on the table, locking eyes with the unwanted troublemaker. "Why are you poking your nose in?" Something clicked in his memory, and his lip twitched upward in a snarl. "Walker."
"Dis the part where ya threa'en me?"
"I don't threaten." Sir Gwaine smiled sharply. The cold look in his dark eyes was enough to get his message across.
Walker bolted.
"Run along then!" Gwaine chuckled, slipping back into his usual playful self, but there were still dark thoughts lingering behind his dark chocolate eyes. First, Merlin had started acting weird, now Walker was here stirring up trouble for Sir Mordred. Gwaine doubted that it was a coincidence. Nobody picks on my friends and gets away with it, he decided, no longer wanting to drink his night away. This would be his last tankard of ale tonight- this next one.
Arthur's head whipped around at the sound of a loud clatter in the archway leading to his and Gwen's bedroom. Mordred, who'd been lightly dozing with his head rested on his folded arms at the table, straightened enough to squint at Merlin. The manservant was smiling awkwardly at them, bent over the tray he'd just dropped.
"Sorry. Did that scare you?"
Arthur straightened his posture. "Well, you're fortunate that I'm not easily frightened."
"Really? Because you looked like you jumped out of your skin."
"That's because you're a clumsy oaf. Now pick that up." The King shifted his attention to his possible-heir's tousled head, pretending to be more interested in the sleepy Knight across from him.
Mordred wondered for the umpteenth time why he was even still there. He had shed his chainmail when Merlin pulled him aside to wrap his ribs, expecting to be sent away to recover. Instead, Arthur had deemed it better that he stay with them until Gaius returned with the potion, and medicine for Mordred's throat. Neither mage was clear on what the reasoning behind this decision might be.
"Where is Gaius?" Arthur asked impatiently. "How long can it take to make a potion?"
"These things take time if they're to be done properly," Merlin calmly replied, tidying up the mess he'd made on the floor. He stood and looked back over his shoulder.
"What is it?" Arthur asked, while in contrast, Mordred tried to reclaim his comfortable dozing position. Sadly, the hole torn in the back of his granite grey shirt was making that difficult, not to mention his tender ribs.
"I heard something behind the door," Merlin said in a foreboding whisper.
"You're imagining things, Merlin," Arthur dismissed. Mordred shut his eyes, feeling secure in the company of the two most trustworthy and influential people that he knew.
Merlin chuckled, returning to his task. The door rattled. Merlin and Arthur crept away to investigate. Good. Mordred thought to himself. He doubted that he would be getting many more chances to rest tonight with the way that things were going and for once he felt like he could sleep. The slamming of the door jolted him out of his peaceful respite and he looked toward it just in time to see Gaius scare the two legends when they turned to find him standing directly behind them. Mordred couldn't help but chuckle. The crafty old man had done that on purpose, knowing that he had the acting ability to get away with it.
"Shall we?" Gaius prompted and the three of them took their seats at the table with Gaius at the head, Merlin on his right and Arthur seated across from his manservant on Mordred's right.
The physician set down a number of phials, sliding the deep violet one to Mordred. "One spoonful, twice a day."
Mordred nodded and tucked it into the partly-detached waistline of his breeches.
Arthur scoffed. "You've only been here for six and a half weeks! Honestly, do you own anything that isn't coming apart?"
Mordred gave him a flat look and gestured towards his chainmail piled neatly at the unoccupied end of the table.
Merlin shook his head in that 'you are being a prat' sort of way.
"You have the potion?" Arthur addressed Gaius, hoping to shift the disapproving mood of the room.
"This will allow you to see Uther in his spirit form. Once you are in his presence, you must blow the horn. It is the only way to return him to the world of the dead," Gaius instructed.
Mordred eyed the three phials and picked up the poison-green concoction to look at it in the light.
Arthur grabbed his hand and lowered it to the table, preventing him from bringing the potion close to his face.
"You have a plan?" Merlin tested, seeing where Mordred's, and presumably, Gaius' thoughts were already going.
"I'll think of something," Arthur hedged.
"We need bait," Merlin stated on the figurative-mute's behalf.
Arthur saw the way that Mordred pointed to himself in perfect synchrony with Merlin saying 'bait', and scowled.
"He's injured, Merlin."
Mordred shook his head, insisting that he was both willing and able to be bait, as best he could without words.
"He can't even talk," Arthur pointed out, pinning down Mordred's hand holding the phial with a reproachful expression on his face. The young knight wondered idly whether all royals were quite this controlling, or if it was a trait unique to the Pendragon line.
Merlin shot him a warning glare as if he had somehow picked up on the rebellious thought.
"Can fight," Mordred insisted in a grating, painful-sounding voice that caused the others to cringe.
"Don't do that again," Arthur ordered. He looked at the phial in his hand, then at Gaius. "Is this even safe to drink?"
Gaius started to answer, hesitated, and admitted, "I'm not sure."
Merlin and Arthur looked at each other. The King nodded for his servant to get on with it. Merlin steeled himself to take a sip, only to frown with the rim centimeters from his lips.
"What are you waiting for?" he inquired, suspicious.
"To see if it's safe," Arthur replied matter-of-factly.
"Oh, I see. If I don't die you'll drink it."
"Precisely."
Mordred rolled his eyes. "I can drink first if you get him to let me go," he offered.
Merlin seemed to take that as a challenge, hastily finishing off his bottle and slapping it down on the table. He shrugged and nodded to Arthur, indicating that it was safe. The King tried to do the same as he had and gagged.
"Augh. That is the foulest thing that I have ever tasted!"
"Did I forget to tell you about that?" Merlin joked in a voice gripped by nausea.
"You still want to come along, Mordred?" Arthur challenged.
Mordred looked from Arthur to the disgusting potion, lastly meeting Emrys' calculating eyes. He braced himself and downed the potion in one big gulp. Once he was through the painful coughing fit that it had provoked, he caught the warlock's eye to see whether he had chosen well. Merlin's expression was as difficult to interpret as ever. Hopefully, that meant that he'd done the right thing.
Mordred knocked his head back against the armrest of Arthur's throne. He and Emrys had figured that this seat at the foot of the throne was the most provocative placement for their Druid 'bait'. To their respective horror and chagrin, the King himself had pointed out that the most provocative placement would be to have Mordred sitting on the throne, but he was the only one of them who thought that option was even worth mentioning. Mordred shrugged off the disconcerting thought and tossed the apple he had grabbed out of Arthur's fruit bowl to himself. It was bright, delicious green and begging to be eaten, but his throat was too raw for him even to swallow water without searing pain.
Mordred reached out with his magic to brush the other sorcerer's mind, hoping to draw his attention.
Merlin ignored him, keeping focused solely on their King, who was prowling around in wait just inside the throne room. The young knight got the feeling that Merlin was just trying to avoid looking at him. Mordred stared longingly down at his apple.
"Take a bite if you want it, Mordred," Arthur said impatiently. "I don't care about food in the throne room." He glanced over to see Mordred tenderly rubbing at his throat. "Fine then. Give it here."
Mordred tossed Arthur the apple.
"Honestly," Arthur muttered, walking out into the hall to set the troublesome fruit out of sight on a side table. He was beginning to think that this plan was a bust anyway.
"Emrys..." Mordred called to the aloof warlock's mind.
He got no reaction. Merlin instead watched Arthur turn back towards them and raise a hand to hover over the horn only to shrug off whatever had spooked him.
"Perhaps if we shut the doors..." Merlin suggested.
"I'm not shutting him in," Arthur firmly rejected the idea. Merlin looked away, apparently feeling insulted.
"Emrys..."
Still no response, other than a hint of unrest from the older sorcerer.
"Emrys!"
"WHAT!" Merlin snapped within his own mind, glaring at the clairvoyant from his seat on the opposite side of the open double doors.
"I'm bored."
"I don't care, Mordred," Merlin rejected. "This isn't any fun for Arthur and me either. If you really need something to keep your mind occupied, why not consider how likely you are to die at the hand of a dead zealot within the next half-hour."
There was a beat of silence between them. "I'm sensing some hostility from you."
"..."
"That's a first. I do not believe that anyone has ever actually imagined a pregnant pause at me before just now. What have I ever done to- Wait. What was that?"
"What?"
Oblivious to the others' unspoken conversation, Arthur glanced down the far end of the hall just in time to see his father's ghost pass by. He drew the horn and crept cautiously towards it.
"Listen," Mordred was a faint rustling. "There! Did you hear that?"
"No... Are you sure that it-"
"Shh. You just spoke over it."
"Over what?"
"It sounded like..." Mordred looked to the right, having caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Uther was gliding towards him with a predatory look in his cold, dead eyes.
Merlin tensed, watching the his own breath form a white cloud in the freezing cold. "Mordred?"
Mordred made a run for freedom, but Uther suddenly appeared out of thin air behind him, and grabbed him just short of the doors. Mordred let out a ragged cry as he was yanked backwards into the tyrant's clutches.
"Arthur!" Merlin shouted, jumping up to try and slip through the closing doors. It was hopeless. They slammed shut on the horrifying sight of the pale, lifeless Uther lifting a kicking, and thrashing Mordred up off the floor with both the boy's arms pinned to his chest. Arthur rushed over to help shove the doors open, but there were two loud clanks from the other side before he could even begin. The dead ruler had bolted them shut.
In the throne room, Mordred thrashed in his attacker's vise-like grip as Uther reclaimed his seat on the throne. The Druid struggled uselessly to free his arm or to find leverage as he was essentially trapped in the specter's lap. He bit down on dead man's wrist even knowing how useless it was, mostly to buy himself time. He nearly pulled himself free. The Druid made another dash for the door only for Uther to drag him backwards by the strap of his belt and dig icy fingers into his forearm. Mordred wriggled and kicked the specter's knee. Uther pinned him with a patronizing look. Then he went still, staring at the teenager's chest. The edge of Mordred's shirt had been pulled down in his failed attempt, revealing one spiraled edge of his tattoo. Uther's pale blue, grimacing face took on a look of utter surprise. Their eyes met, and for a moment everything seemed to still. Even the banging clatter of Arthur throwing himself against the doors, trying to force his way in seemed somehow muted. The dead King's hand came down to push Mordred's shirt out of the way, revealing the spiral triskelion etched in black over the right side of the Druid's upper chest. He looked from the clan marking, to Mordred's face.
"I see... You look so much like her," Uther thought aloud, his expression vulnerable. For the first time that Mordred had ever witnessed, the Father of the Purge looked human. Then his expression hardened. "It had to be done."
Mordred's eyes went saucer-wide as Uther reached up and covered his face with a painfully cold hand. The weakening young Druid felt the heat draining out of his body as the world faded to black.
A/N: Ok, yeah. I know that this one was too short, but the next one will be longer. Two cliffhangers in a row... Don't kill me? You can probably tell how this'll turn out anyway, so at least it's not too suspenseful. Anyway, thank you for reading this, and special thanks to Agana of the Night and catherine10 for their reviews. Feedback is always very welcome!