Chapter 2: Above

Mordred pressed his back to the rain slick trunk of the old oak from his perch in the upper branches. The dark grey of the sky lit the forest with eerie silver tones that only added to the nightmarish ambiance. He had left his outer layers behind in his haste to escape and the dreary weather was making him pay for that mistake. Each breath he drew emerged in wisps of mist into the harsh wind that fluttered his chilled gray tunic over his skin. If the Fae wanted to use the weather to beat him into submission, however, Mordred expected he'd be quite a bit more uncomfortable than some aches and shivering. After all, he knew for a fact that Emrys could do worse without breaking a sweat and he was more-or-less human.

Mordred had been skulking around the forest, keeping out of sight and occasionally moving from one refuge to another in search of comfort, or at least a better vantage point. The Fae had come within his line of sight twice, each time scaring him into near paralysis. (Mordred's wary eyes scan the expanse of forest visible through the branches surrounding him. "The Fae are immensely powerful and wild. The Old Gods, as my people knew them. We call them that because they walked this earth long before people such as you and I existed - even as a concept that would lead to a definite thought, that might eventually be given form and life. They are old enough to know all the true names of all the plants and creatures that live here. They have learned the unspoken truths of all the rock, the soil and the water that make up this land, and in knowing them, they wield their strength. It should not be possible for a mere man such as myself to hide from the Fae for long, if at all. I cannot escape, but perhaps, I can procrastinate…." Mordred shifts himself, either to get more comfortable, or the better to prepare for his inevitable flight - whichever works. "I will procrastinate," he stubbornly affirms. A twig snaps, causing him to go wide-eyed and still for a long moment. "I do not miss Camelot!" Mordred denies in a dishonest whisper.)

"Oh, isn't this darling?" A familiar voice remarked in a stranger's accent. Walker circled the trunk of Mordred's oak and leaned back against the weathered bark to grin up at him. Mordred gulped. "You're still so young and sweet and timid. Let us put your fears to rest."

Mordred felt his eyelids growing heavy. He stubbornly tried to blink the feeling away but it was such a calming sensation, as if the wind were carrying off any memory of his past life. His fears, his worries, his pain - it all was stripped until he could hardly remember being Mordred anymore. He simply was. The senseless, thoughtless, unconsciousness that once called itself Mordred hovered in a state of suspension within his core. The Clairvoyant's motionless body slumped down through the branches. It was a corporeal shell, shed by its ghostly wearer, upon landing to fall deep, into a hidden place beyond the forest floor. Mordred's otherworldly captor watched with a self-satisfied smile.

"Your move, My Lord," the creature remarked coyly, glancing back in the direction of her two pursuers, before strolling away into the thickening fog that crept in from the north.

The sun was just beginning to set, casting a beautiful wash of gradient color across the small patches of sky that Merlin and Arthur only occasionally managed to glimpse through the canopy of dark, glistening branches. Merlin's every muscle was tensed and ready for a fight. The air around them was thick with ancient, wild magic, slowing them down as if they were pushing through treacle. It was time dilation. Emrys, being Emrys, could actually perceive it, literally experiencing the intense, artificial ebb of time around them as soon as he and Arthur stepped into it. Regardless of his lack of magic, even the Prat's capability for obliviousness had its limits. He'd begun showing signs of agitation a few hours ago, and had finally started to give up on his efforts to hide his suspicions from his manservant just within the past hour.

"That does it! It cannot be just in my head! We have been walking for over five hours now and when I look back," the fed-up King turned and whipped his arm towards their origin, "I can still see the stake I used to marked our starting point in the distance! We are literally going nowhere!"

"I wasn't going to say anything..." Merlin admitted with his patented 'obtuse servant' expression plastered on his face to prevent violent retribution.

His friend and monarch looked like he did want to throw something at him. Instead Arthur just mimed strangling him in order to bypass his frustration and utter loss for words.

"Well, look on the bright side, Arthur..." Merlin began, doing his best to conceal the inappropriate rush of amusement he was feeling.

"What! What bright side? You bumbling oaf! Where do you see a bright side?!" Arthur vented.

"I don't know, that's what people say, isn't it? There's always a bright side..." Merlin rambled on, distracting Arthur from the rats he'd sneakily magicked into scouting their surroundings for them and Bran's alert tracking of their progress. "I suppose this is good exercise. That's good-ish. Lots of fresh air? I can think of more. If you give me time..."

"I will not," Arthur stated flatly, adding, "idiot." Under his breath.

"What's that?" Merlin said, pointing past Arthur towards the daunting results of his enchanted search. He absentmindedly released his influence over the bewitched rodents, only for Bran to snatch one and scarf it down before the poor thing could regain its bearings. Merlin couldn't help but feel a tad guilty about that.

"What?" Arthur asked, looking back at him. Merlin was already jogging past toward what really looked like Sir Mordred curled up with his face pressed into the damp moss and soil.

"It looks like a body," the Guardian responded in a tense voice. The body didn't feel alive to his magical senses, but it also didn't feel dead either. He brushed the soil away from the familiar face, and felt his magic pass through the body as if it were nothing. It felt like he was touching a placeholder for the living person who should be lying there.

"Mordred!" Arthur called, pushing past Merlin to grab his nephew off the frozen ground and try to rub some warmth back into his arms. Merlin knelt down beside them and felt the Absent Prince's neck for a pulse to be certain, then frowned. Something was missing.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure... Here, just let me." He pressed his hand to the boy's chest, just over his heart. Nothing. He felt the pulse point again, then listened for breath...

"Merlin-"

"Shut up." Merlin listened, and felt the breaths rising from Mordred's cold lips. He felt the Prince's still chest again, squeezing his eyes shut. Again, nothing. "Sire," he added belatedly.

"Merlin, tell me, what is the problem?" Arthur snapped.

"It doesn't make sense..." Merlin considered aloud.

Arthur cuffed him upside the head.

"Ow! I don't know yet," the physician-in-training explained. "I just... here. Feel that?" He yanked one of the King's gloves off and pressed his fingers to Mordred's neck.

"Yes?"

"And that?" Merlin moved Arthur's hand again to hover over his heir's mouth.

"Yes. You know it's generally a good sign when your patient is breathing?" Arthur remarked scathingly. Merlin moved the hand to rest on the Prince's chest.

"It would be."

Merlin watched Arthur's expression fade from a confused scowl to astonished denial.

"No... No that can't be- That isn't possible!"

"He must have left it on purpose..." Merlin reasoned in a near whisper. "But why?"

Arthur caught it anyway. "He? Merlin, do you know who's doing this?!"

Merlin shot him what he hoped was an appropriately quizzical look.

Arthur blinked away his absurd suspicion. "Someone has just cursed the heir to the throne. If he dies-"

"I agree," Merlin interjected, resting a comforting hand on Arthur's arm. "That's why I'm trying to figure it out." He watched his friend's expression carefully as he requested. "Let me?"

Arthur nodded, dragging a hand over his pale face and backing away to hover uncertainly over the healer's shoulder. Merlin gently parted the lids to check one of his patient's eyes; it appeared to stare glassily into the distance like the eye of a painted doll. He could see the 'breath' still misting in the air as it escaped the boy's nostrils. No help there. His skin was cold to the touch, but his clothes...

"Perfect..." Merlin muttered. The garments were untouched by the frozen soil and inclement weather, despite how long their wearer had been exposed to the elements. They looked and felt as if they'd just been pulled on, fresh and warm from a fireside line.

"Perhaps, we should take him back to Gaius. Yes, he studied these sorts of things, he'll know what to do," Arthur reasoned. Merlin ignored him in favor of continuing to investigate. The Druid tattoo was just barely peeking out from under the loosely tied linen tunic - only that was wrong. "Wait a minute."

Emrys tugged the cords free and nudged the fabric aside to watch the ink lines on Mordred's chest wriggle and dance out of sight like a living thing. His hand chased the fleeing pattern out of sheer instinct and pinned the dark, greenish tattoo on top of Mordred's black clan mark. The greenish pattern wove into a flowing, intricate knot of luminous emerald. It grew brighter while it bled out of Mordred's skin and passed through the Dragonlord, making his eyes shift to the glowing, golden embers around serpentine slits of his reptilian kin.

"Are you alright, Merlin?"

Merlin fought down the inhuman roar that threatened to escape him, feeling the working jump from him into the hand that had just grabbed his shoulder. He whipped his head round to check on Arthur the very instant that his vision, and therefore, his appearance returned to normal. Arthur was studying an intricate knot tattooed onto his arm, right where it had no business being.

"Now, let's get back to Camelot before anything worse happens," Arthur ordered, scooping his nephew up and readying to carry him back the way they'd come. "Whatever trap this sorcerer has sprung on us I'm sure that you and Gaius can handle it at home." He started walking, then stopped a few paces away, once he noticed his friend wasn't following.

"This isn't the work of a sorcerer," Merlin stated, sounding a bit faint.

"Why do you say that?" Arthur questioned, trying not to acknowledge the foreboding feeling rolling off his grave-looking manservant.

"Because I'm pretty sure that I've seen that sigil before," Merlin continued, remembering some of the old marks and portents from Druid cautionary tales that Mordred had relayed to his mind; he hadn't been willing to draw out a single one by hand. They were too dangerous, belonging solely to the Fae. "I think we're in trouble."

Arthur forced out a scoff, trying to reassure his frightened companion, and maybe himself as well. "You always think we're in trouble. Come along. We should get back to the horses. You can tell me about this marking you saw once we've found someplace warmer."

Merlin woke to sounds of movement downstairs. He had been asleep in the room at the Inn where they'd found Mordred's things. He suspected that Arthur had fallen asleep in his vigil at the Prince's bedside. Bran jumped off the foot of the bed and trotted out into the hall with a soft rumbling in his throat. It wasn't quite a growl. Merlin got up out of bed and followed the unhappy wolf. Bran was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, but he trotted away again once the warlock was close. It wasn't difficult to see what had woken them up. The center of the room now featured a huge, circular pit with a staircase spiraling down around the strange root formation that fanned out from the center. Bran stopped at the edge to let out a communicative little song that Mordred probably would've understood just fine and looked up at Merlin. The Guardian eyed the new features to the room with growing concern, then looked determinedly to Mordred's familiar.

"Wait for me," he instructed, uncertain of how well the foreign command would translate. Thankfully, Bran seemed to get it, curling up on the floor to lounge by the beginning of the impossible stairway. Merlin looked him over once to be sure that he really was settled in, then began to descend into the unknown. The canopy of upward growing roots was thick and ashy black - somehow ancient- in direct contradiction with the sudden overnight appearance. The tightly interwoven system that he circled on smooth slate steps was sturdy and thick. The immortal in him knew that this tree had weathered countless generations of growth, perhaps more than even he could ever witness. It was just as certain a fact to him as the knowledge that he had left his human self behind in the world above, setting Merlin aside for the moment so that the Guardian might reach beyond. As he neared what looked like a tree trunk, the darkness began to engulf him. He summoned up a fire to rest in his palm without bothering to utter the spell. Lord Emrys was about to be among his equals; there was no time for ceremony. Eventually, he arrived at the tile floor which allowed for passage under the abundant branches, leaving him just enough room to reach up and run his palms over what would be the treetop, were this any other tree.

"Hello?" he called cautiously, able to feel at least one other magical presence somewhere nearby. They were watching. "Do you know where you are?" The magic was familiar, faint, almost drowned out by the wild energy flowing and cresting over them. "Hello? I know you're there," the Guardian sucked in a deep breath, scenting traces of life teeming in the surrounding darkness, along with the cold, foreboding sting of salt. "If you call me I'll find you! Can anyone he-"

"This way..." the response was weak and strange, wandering back and forth between thought and sound as if the speaker couldn't quite remember how either worked. It was still unmistakably Mordred.

"Where?" Emrys replied, starting to follow in the direction from which the call seemed to originate. He held out his flaming palm to light the way, but failed to see anything but a few fluttering moths and a disinterested owl up ahead where the floor gave way to a field of tall grasses.

"This way."

"I don't suppose you could give me a direction?"

"Supposed to give a direction?" Mordred's call responded, sounding more like he was playing with the concept and reflecting upon it rather than conveying a cohesive message.

"You know, are you… forward? Right?" Emrys demonstrated each direction with both a gesture and a focused thought, trying to cover all his options. "Left? Or back?" He took a step back and waited for the Clairvoyant to form a response.

"No."

"I need a direction, Sir Knight," Emrys said sarcastically. He had tried following the sound and sensation of Mordred's call until he couldn't get any closer. At this point cooperation was necessary. "What direction are you in?"

"Not forward, not right, not left, not back," Mordred's reply carried a nearly tangible feeling of annoyance. The subtext was clear enough.

"You're not below..." the Guardian glanced down anyway, just to reassure himself of that fact. The ornate stone mosaic under his feet caught him off-guard and he brushed his hands across each other to light it with a flash of embers and confirm what he was seeing. "The mark of Nemain," he breathed, then looked up into the branches hanging overhead. "I've found you." He thought to the sleeping Druid suspended against the branch above by a patchwork of grasping leaves. The Guardian tried to grab the tips of the tree top in order to climb up and retrieve the Druid Prince. Before he could get a good grasp, however, another presence surged out of the shadows behind him and yanked him down by his other wrist.

"Dragonlord!" She screeched. Her eyes glistened bright red like rubies and her coppery hair flowed around her head like sunlit water. Everything about her, from the ethereal, faintly-bluish glow of her exposed skin, to the odd way that her gown coiled and rippled around her, spoke of a maiden long submerged. Nemain was a trickster of the Western Face, a God from the Deep and a weaver of true illusions.

"Fae," Emrys answered drily, as if unimpressed, outright refusing to give her the satisfaction.

Nemain swam forward and hissed in his face with her dark currents surging up behind her.

"I'll bring you back, I promise!" The Guardian communicated to his ensnared charge and spread his arms out wide to create wings of flame reminiscent of his reptilian brethren, countering Nemain's wave of dark, smothering water with his white-hot breath.

Merlin blinked awake with a sharp gasp, then propped himself up on his elbows to look toward the fire. Arthur was still wide awake, staring into the flames, and Mordred's human shell remained exactly as Merlin had left it: tucked into the other bedroll within easy reach of his Uncle's watchful post. Only that wasn't really Mordred, not all of him anyway. Merlin reached out and grabbed a handful of frozen soil, watching it crumble between his fingers. Mordred was trapped down below.

"You were hissing in your sleep," Arthur informed him. "Did you know that?"

"I dreamt that Morgana turned me into a lizard," Merlin lied, watching Bran get up from where he'd been dozing atop his unconscious Master and turn in a tight circle, only to plop back down in the same limp sprawl that he'd already been lying in before.

"And what did that have to do with Mordred?" Arthur asked, not sounding all that interested.

"He was in a tree."

"That makes sense," Arthur responded, proving -in Merlin's reckoning at least- that he wasn't paying attention, anyway. The young King likely only wanted a reminder that he wasn't alone.

Northeast of the three travelers, a Druid woman sat in the shadow of a dark tower with her golden-brown ringlets tied back and her characteristic linen dress replaced by more maneuverable brown leather. She paused in her sharpening of the sword in her lap to glance up at a man who'd suddenly ascended out of the dusty ground before her.

"Well hello, lovely girl. You must be Kara," the scrawny blond rogue greeted with a flirtatious smile.

Kara's brows twitched upward in skepticism of the impossible visitor. "You're trespassing."

"I think you'll find that to be an endearing habit of mine. By all means, summon your Lady. We need to talk."

Kara scrutinized him briefly, then turned to the dark passageway on her left that led into the tower proper.

The Fae inside Walker let out an impatient huff.

"Lady Morgana, there's a strange man here asking for an audience," Kara begrudgingly relayed.

"How can that be? I plainly told the guards: no one is to-" Morgana's diatribe died on her lips the moment she reached the doorway. She nearly tripped on her own feet at the sight of the visitor, such was her shock. "Get inside."

Kara frowned up at her leader, confused. "Why? Has something-"

"I meant now, quickly! I will not ask again," Morgana kept her voice admirably steady, considering how frightened she was. She could feel the raw, suffocating power of the Old Gods exuding from the human vessel.

Nemain smirked down at her as her underling scurried inside. "You look troubled."

"With respect, I am uncertain why a being such as you would be interested in me?" Morgana responded, attempting to be appropriately humble.

"That sounds like a realistic expectation for you. Well done," Nemain observed.

"Have you come here to make sport of me?"

Nemain chuckled. "I am in possession of someone you claim as yours. Being in an amicable mood I thought it might be fun to offer you a choice."

"I don't understand. I do not know this man," Morgana declared, stepping down out of the doorway and venturing just out of arms' reach of her visitor.

"Oh no, you don't know this one," Nemain said patting her host's chest. She swept an arm up, causing his image to run like the surface of a rapid stream. It coalesced again into a familiar face. "But you know me. Don't you, Mother?" The silvery pale specter asked, his dark curls floating and glistening as though he were submerged in moonlit waters.

"Mordred-!" Morgana reached out to him, but he melted into a cascade of chilled water the moment that her finger brushed the damp fabric of his tunic. Walker was left standing, completely dry, in her son's place. "You have my child..." Morgana said, breathlessly stumbling away to catch herself against the tower wall.

"He is unharmed. I have him safe and sound, for now. Would you like him back?"

"Yes, please give him back to me!" Morgana hurried forward to hang on Walker's arms.

"There's a catch. How badly do you want to have him?" The Fae asked, holding up a finger. The look in Walker's now blood-red eyes sent a shiver down the Priestess' spine. "In what manner?"

Morgana tensed and took a cautious step back, away from the predator standing before her. "What would you have me do?"

A/N: Thanks for reading, and for bearing with me through the unexpectedly extended wait. I'm unabashedly claiming it an act of god as the blackout that threw me off the planned schedule for about a week was caused by weather. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this result(I think my gloomy, chilly surroundings really had an impact on these scenes). Special thanks to my dear reviewers booksareforescaping, NerdGirlAlert, Agana of the Night, Isis Ma'at, and SisterOfAnElvenWannabe for the support. As always feedback is most appreciated.