Hidden Motives

A/N: Here's the next chapter. Thanks for the reviews and let me know what you think!

Chapter 21

'Where is he?' Arthur repeated more forcefully, looking at each of them in turn. 'When did anybody last see him?' He studied them for several seconds, but their expressions gave him no clues. Gwaine was looking just as confused as him and more worried than he normally appeared in these sort of situations. Gwen was looking anxiously at Gaius and Gaius was…Arthur frowned. His expression was unreadable, but he didn't seem to be suffering from the same confusion as the rest of them. 'Gwaine,' Arthur murmured, not taking his eyes from Gaius. 'Will you please go and get Lancelot?'

'Sure.' He disappeared down the tunnel. Arthur waited for several seconds, wondering how best to speak to Gaius about the situation; the man was practically Merlin's father; if he knew where the manservant had wandered off to then it meant he had let him go. Would he tell Arthur? He decided that a gentler approach would work better at this point.

'Gaius. Do you know where he is?' It took all his self control not to speak to him in his authoritative tone, but he forced himself not to; he had known Gaius for too long to treat him as he would another member of the court.

'I'm afraid I do not, Sire,' he replied evenly. 'But Merlin is known to wander off.' It was a throwaway comment, meant to instil some calm in Arthur, but it did the opposite. Gaius knew where Merlin was. He was about to reply when Lancelot and Gwaine arrived back in the room.

'Did Merlin go past you last night?' Arthur asked hurriedly. Lancelot looked briefly at the floor and then back up at him.

'I…I believe I fell asleep at one point, Sire. I'm very sorry.'

'So you're saying he went past you?' Arthur asked pointedly. He could feel his whole body tensing up as if preparing for battle. His muscles were coiling in anticipation and he was taking deep breaths.

'He must have done if he isn't here.'

'Really?' The tone was dangerous. He sensed Gwen stir beside him. She stood up quickly and laid a hand on his arm, clearly trying to placate him.

'Arthur, calm down.'

'Oh, I will, Guinevere. I will. As soon as somebody tells me where Merlin is.'

'They don't know,' she tried, but Arthur was shaking his head.

'Yes they do.'

'Hey!' Gwaine interrupted. 'I don't know anything!' He frowned indignantly, but Arthur wasn't bothered by it. It was obvious that Gwaine was just as confused as he was, even if he wasn't quite so angry. And that, as far as Arthur was concerned, made the knight the only man in the room who wasn't lying to him.

'No, but Lancelot does and Gaius does.'

'They just said-' Gwen began, but Arthur cut her off, he tried to keep his tone calm while addressing her and instead focussed on the other two.

'I know what they said, but they're lying.'

'Sire,' Lancelot tried.

'Because you don't fall asleep on watch; you've never, in all the time I've known you, done that,' Arthur continued, glaring at him. 'And even if you had this time, you certainly wouldn't have slept through someone walking past you, opening a door and going outside. Least if all Merlin! He can't walk anywhere stealthily.' His voice was dangerous; low and controlled. Even Gwen moved back in resignation; she knew him too well to try and talk him round at this point. Lancelot couldn't hold his gaze for more than a few seconds. He looked down at the ground, guilt written across his face. 'And you, Gaius,' he continued, turning on the man, 'I know that Merlin worries you half to death most of the time. If you didn't know where he was, you'd be a little more fearful for his safety.'

'He's probably-' Gaius tried, but this only irritated Arthur further.

'Tell me the truth,' he shouted, cutting the man off. 'Where has he gone?'

Arthur was not in the mood to wait out the ensuing silence, but Gwen brought it to an end for him.

'You let Merlin go out there on his own?' she asked, her utter confusion evident. This seemed to break through the men's resolve much more effectively than Arthur's cutting stare had. The two of them looked at each other, making Arthur clench his fists at his sides and take several deep breaths.

'Next to my father and I,' Arthur said through gritted teeth, 'Merlin is the most recognisable person in the city, and there is a warrant out for his arrest and execution. How could you let him leave here?'

'Sire,' Gaius began. 'Merlin believed he could help.'

'Merlin often believes he can help,' Arthur answered bitingly, 'that doesn't mean he's right.'

'Nevertheless, he is only doing what he thinks is best.'

'Please tell me that he hasn't done anything stupid. Is he meeting with the other knights?' At this he glanced over at Gwaine, who threw up his arms and shrugged.

'I've told you; I don't have a clue where Merlin is. If I did, I'd be dragging him back by now. Like you should have done,' he added, turning to Lancelot.

'He was determined to do it.'

'It's Merlin!' Gwaine argued. 'Gwen could have picked him up and carried him back here to be tied up. It would have been easy enough for you to do something similar!'

'Tell me what Merlin's doing?' Arthur interjected in frustration: not that he wasn't completely on Gwaine's side for once, but berating Lancelot wasn't going to get him any answers. 'What is he doing and where is he?'

Silence fell on the room and Lancelot took a deep breath.

'And don't lie to me,' Arthur added quietly. The knight paused again and looked up, but he made no move to speak. Arthur could see the overwhelming urge in the man to tell them everything; his sense of loyalty and nobility ran too deep. Arthur decided to use it against him.

'You swore an oath to be loyal to me. You swore, as a knight, that you would do as I asked. I'm asking you to tell me where Merlin is.'

Lancelot closed his eyes tightly, before the features of his face smoothed out and he looked at Arthur again; his eyes full of sadness.

'I'm sorry, my Lord, but Merlin asked me to remain silent.'

'Merlin is not the Prince of Camelot. Your allegiance is to me, not him.'

'Sire,' he pressed quietly, 'everybody knows that if they ally themselves with Merlin then they ally themselves with you.'

Arthur felt a fury rise in him at Lancelot's continued defiance; he had never seen the man like this before. But it was the words that fanned his anger, because they were true; he knew that Lancelot was right. Unbidden, the sense of connection and purpose between him and his manservant rose up again in Arthur, but he pushed it away. He didn't want Merlin's current actions to have any justification; he needed to believe that there was no good reason for him leaving the safety of their current location.

It didn't work. Lancelot's words rang through his head, undeniable in their accuracy. Merlin was the most loyal and devoted friend that Arthur had ever had the honour of knowing. If Merlin wanted his whereabouts and his mission kept a secret, then he was doing it solely for the purpose of protecting the Prince. Arthur knew this; he knew it wholeheartedly and it made him so angry because it meant that Merlin was another person who was risking his life for him.

He looked at Lancelot once more; the knight seemed to be bracing himself for another argument, but Arthur had none to give that could counter what had just been said. He tried a different approach. He moved forward and looked at both Lancelot and Gaius in turn.

'How long has he been gone?'

'A few hours,' Gaius answered slowly.

'Then surely, whatever he was planning has already been put into action. Please tell me where he is and what he's done. I'm not asking as your Prince,' he added, looking at Lancelot. 'I'm asking as your friend and as Merlin's friend.'

He stopped there and waited and he saw the two of them share another glance. It was with reluctance that Gauis shook his head again. Lancelot took a deep breath and then looked at Arthur, sympathy written all over his face.

'I'm sorry.'

Arthur froze for several seconds before making his decisions. He pushed down all his anger and the sense of betrayal that was sweeping through him and then picked up his sword. It was evident from the collective intake of air from everyone in the room that they expected Arthur to challenge a duel, but he didn't have that sort of time to waste. He put it into its sheath and then walked past them all to the tunnel, picking up a helmet that was on the floor.

'You can't go out there,' Lancelot told him, but he was cautious as he spoke; he knew how much he'd angered the Prince.

'Neither can Merlin, but he did.'

'Arthur, please.' Gwen this time. That was much harder. He could hear the fear in her voice. He turned back and walked over to her.

'You know I have to go and find him.' She looked at him for several seconds, but he could see her resolve crumbling; she knew what it would mean to him to stay behind and wait, hoping Merlin would return.

'Please be careful.'

He collected the last few things he would need as a terrible silence encompassed the group. He tied his cloak around his neck and slotted a knife into his belt beside his sword. No-one moved to help him and yet no-one tried to stop him.

'Sire,' Gauis tried, but he ignored the man and headed through the tunnel.

'I'll come with you,' Gwaine told him, grabbing a few things as he made to follow the Prince. Arthur considered it for a few seconds; had it been Lancelot he would have refused, but Gwaine was just as confused about Merlin's whereabouts as Arthur was. He turned back and gave the man a grateful nod.

Moments later, the two of them were walking through Camelot.

Merlin sat in the darkness of the ruins of Veneficus. He hadn't lit any of the torches that were attached to the walls in their sconces; he hadn't used magic to illuminate the area around him. He let the darkness encompass and hide him as he waited for Sythe.

It had taken him a long time to get to the point of meeting with Sythe. Once he had left the Midnight Moon, he had slotted himself into a group of soldiers heading for the castle –a task made all the more difficult due to the fact that he had to try and disguise his limp as he walked- and then detached himself from them to move into the lesser known passages of the castle as a means of moving around unnoticed. His first plan had been to go to Arthur's chambers and wait for Sythe there, but the castle was so packed with guards and soldiers that Merlin knew walking into Arthur's room would be too conspicuous. Anywhere else in the castle, such as the throne room, the Council chambers and anywhere else for that matter, would be too crowded. He needed to face Sythe alone.

And so, instead, he had made his way to the dungeons, put the guards to sleep with a spell –it was so much easier to do those things when Arthur wasn't around to condemn him to death for magic use- and then crept down the corridors and stairs until he got to Kilgharrah's cave. He detoured down one of the side corridors where they had stashed the rope in an alcove after leaving the cave the previous day, not wanting to arouse suspicions as to why the Prince was carrying round a huge length of rope. After retrieving the rope, there was nothing left to do but go down into Veneficus.

Merlin had tried not to think of how terrified he had been the last time as he shimmied down the rope, having welded it to the wall once again. He was quicker this time, swinging and reaching the ledge in half the time that he had done so before. Once on the precarious ledge by the tunnel, he broke the spell on the rope and gathered it up, leaving it in a pile outside the tunnel; he wasn't taking any chances that someone could follow him down.

After an uncomfortable trip through the tunnel -one which he was sure undid a lot of Gaius' work in healing his leg- and Merlin had found himself in the huge hall once again. It was then that he had begun to contact Sythe. He hadn't wasted any time over it. He had sat down, cross legged on the floor and focused himself. The magical aura of the room filled him with a sensation of power and control and possibility that he had not experienced before. He wondered if the magic in the room, could actually increase the power of his own, and the longer he stayed there, the more he became convinced that that was the case. It wasn't a huge increase, but he could definitely sense the magic in the room giving a potency to that which resided inside him. It seemed to react to his wishes more quickly than he had ever known it to before and he could sense it with a clarity that he only experienced on rare occasions.

He had taken the time to meditate on his new found power and focus; used it to calm his thoughts and try and find some sense of clarity.

With that done, his next task was to get the Sythe's attention. He had done it in a series of magical distractions that he thought might turn the sorcerer's focus towards his whereabouts. First had been several magical blasts that he had sent into the air and rock around him. They carried no physical force, but they resonated deeply inside users of magic. He continued to do that for several minutes until he was sure that wherever Sythe was, he had felt the power and was now trying to locate it. That done, he tried something that he had experienced himself, but had never initiated. Magical telepathy. He had done it plenty of times; he understood how it felt to be talking to someone inside your mind, but never had he been the one to forge the connection in the first place.

His first few attempts were clumsy at best and all he found was that his own thoughts swirled repeatedly around his head until it started to ache. But slowly, as he got the hang of it, Merlin could sense his thoughts reaching out. He used his experiences of talking to Kilgharrah mostly, tried to replicate the feel of his thoughts moving out of himself and, in return, Kilgharrah's moving into his mind.

Slowly, tentatively, Merlin started to put together the message he wanted to send to Sythe. It was short, to the point, giving nothing away except his location and the fact that he wanted to speak to the man. It was with deep relief and a terrible dread that Merlin felt the reply slip into his own mind. The tone of Sythe's thoughts, the way they felt, made Merlin shudder. There was such darkness and arrogance in them; it was evident that he was looking forward to the confrontation; a sadistic amusement resonated in his words.

I'm looking forward to meeting you…sorcerer.

That had fifteen minutes ago and Merlin had felt the tension in his body rising with every second that passed. He had only a vague idea as to what he was going to do. He'd gone over a few spells in his head that he'd used before in self defence and a few that he'd read about in various magic books. Past that he was going to see how things went; that tactic had never failed him in the past…well, generally it hadn't failed him; he'd always managed to pull off some sort of plan in the end.

He had the feeling that in this case, however, he was going to need more than just 'some sort of plan'.

Before he'd managed to come up with one, though, the sconces all around the hall flared into life, blinding Merlin for several seconds before his eyes focused on Sythe, walking towards him from the few remaining shadows in the far corner, well over fifty metres away. Looking exactly like Arthur dressed up for a ceremonial banquet, the man strolled forwards, arrogance and confidence exuding from him in much the same way that it did from the real Arthur at times, but there was something so much more sinister in the way Sythe conveyed it.

Merlin tried to get up, but put too much weight on his bad leg and stumbled back to the floor before finally getting up to the background noise of Sythe's laughter. He felt his face grow hot and inwardly cursed his clumsiness. Fumbling idiot wasn't really the impression he had wanted to give to Sythe.

'You know, Merlin; I still can't quite believe it,' he mused as he came closer. There were twenty metres between them. 'Of all the people, in all of Camelot, you would have been the last one I'd suspect of having magic. I mean, I've watched you for...years, and I never once even came close to the truth.'

'Don't feel bad, most people don't,' Merlin nodded warily. Sythe had stopped about fifteen metres away. His posture was relaxed, calm. He was enjoying being here; the smile on his face was evidence enough of that.

'Well, let me be the first to congratulate you on your deception.'

'I'm not here to talk to you about what I can do,' Merlin said, gathering his thoughts together. 'I'm here to ask you to leave Camelot and give Arthur back his reign.'

Sythe laughed and looked at Merlin as if he was a child who didn't quite understand.

'That won't be happening. Maybe, a few hours ago, I'd have considered your offer, but you've made this game so much more fun.'

'This isn't a game,' Merlin told him more firmly. 'You're putting lives in danger. You're going to leave a path of destruction and death in your wake.'

'That's all part of it,' Sythe grinned. 'Seeing the lives entangle and unravel, trying to guess where people will go and what they'll do; or being puppet master of the situation.'

'Nobody's playing this game with you,' Merlin said, stepping forward slightly, forcing calm into his voice. 'You're wasting your time.'

'Don't you understand, Merlin?' he asked. 'Everybody's playing. You're playing your part beautifully. I have so much to thank you for.'

'There's nothing that you can thank me for.'

'Oh, but there is. So many things. Your loyalty, for one: without it, Arthur wouldn't have got this far; I've had to change my game plan so many times because you keep on giving him hope. And then for this secret…' he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, almost shuddering with the excitement of it all, 'it changes everything. And then the last thing that I truly want to thank you for,' he grinned. He stepped closer and Merlin felt his whole body tingle in terrible expectation, but no magical attack came, no blast of power that knocked him to the ground. 'You gave me a gift earlier and I've put it to good use.'

'I didn't give you anything.'

'Really? How is that leg of yours? I would have asked in the Throne Room, but I was thrown backwards quite unexpectedly.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Blood, Merlin. Your blood, a part of you, given to me on the blade of my sword.'

Merlin felt himself go cold. He was following the man's thought patterns, piecing the clues together. He looked up and focussed on Sythe, looking for any signs, any hints that what he was speculating about was true, while desperately hoping that it wasn't.

'It can get boring being a Prince,' he said quietly, his eyes never leaving Merlin's. His mouth moved and Merlin heard the words of the spell echo around the room. He made no move to defend himself. This attack was not something he could protect himself from; he would have to endure and fight it once it had taken place.

Merlin's eyes were fixed on Sythe, and he watched as the man's hair grew darker. He became skinnier, the ceremonial clothes hanging off him, until they too began to change; transforming into exact replicas of the clothes Merlin was wearing. Sythe's face grew paler, and his eyes shifted ever so slightly to a different shade of blue. Merlin felt a detached terror shoot through him as he came face to face with himself.

'All this time watching the two of you has taught me one key thing,' Sythe said. Merlin tried to ignore the sound of his voice, the tone that he used. 'Of everybody, it is you that can get closest to Arthur, you that he trusts the most, you that he will believe.' He stepped forward and smiled once more. 'I think the game is coming to a close, Merlin; and you're the key player.'

Merlin said nothing, but the words screamed loudly in his head. For the first time, he saw the situation as Sythe did: a game, because seeing it as anything more real than that at the moment was too horrifying. He would play along for now.

He only hoped that this was a game that he could win.

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