Gold

Chapter Twelve

"ARTHUR!" Merlin yelled, his fists pounding on the stone slab now in the way between him and the man he'd sworn to protect. "ARTHUR!"

"He is alright, so long as we don't waste time," Alianor told Merlin. "I'm afraid I knew that it was going to fall, but I wanted us to be alone for a moment so that you could do your magic." Merlin stopped pounding the wall and turned to look at her, confusion written all over his face.

"You know about my magic?" he asked her.

"Of course I do- didn't you hear me tell Arthur that I sought out a brilliant magical mind to help me?"

Merlin blinked, his mouth resting open.

"That was me in your dreams. I've been calling to you." She was standing in the centre of the room which was entirely decorated by gold and blue mosaic. Next to her was a marble stone grave marker and on top of it was... something... with a beautiful grey silk cloth over it. Alianor looked at it. "This is me," she said simply. She looked back at Merlin. "I've needed your help, so I came to you in your dreams. I want to be either alive or dead, but not stuck in the middle between the veil. It is worse than hell- it is nothingness. I desperately need your help." Merlin saw her eyes, filled with years of pain and loneliness which somehow she hadn't gone insane from. Merlin wasn't sure that he would have been able to stand it if he'd been in that position instead of her. She must be incredibly strong in soul as well as in mind, he thought.

"Is that why in my dreams, you sounded so desperate?" he asked.

She nodded, looking down at the silk covering.

Merlin still stood in the same place by the stone slab. "What do I have to do?" He had always wanted to help her- the sadness of her voice in his dreams had filled him with such a need to help her.

She looked at him then. "You are Emrys, the most powerful warlock to ever have existed. You need to reunite my mind with my body. I need to be one again."

Slowly, Merlin came over to the grave plinth. He didn't want to move the covering, but he knew he probably would have to. He was a creature of life and happiness, which Arthur had more than once complained about first thing in the morning. Merlin had a soul that craved sunshine and open fields with flowers and the blue sky. Death felt utterly foreign to him and his soul rebelled a little, making him fearful even though the Queen technically wasn't dead and she was standing right next to him.

She smiled warmly at him. "You won't find a skeleton under there," she reassured him, knowing what he was thinking.

He didn't say anything- he just swallowed and raised his hand to pull back the grey silk, taking care not to touch the body underneath.

She was right.

The body underneath the silk covering was that of a woman in her prime of life. She looked as if she were asleep. Her skin was milky white and full of youth, although she could have been ageless. The long black eyelashes still had their golden tips and were gently resting on the cheeks which had the ghost of a red hue about them. The wavy golden hair fanned out around and beneath her and a golden crown with red jewels rested on her head. Her red dress with gold embroidery wasn't even moth-eaten but was as rich and colourful as if it had been made yesterday. Merlin gasped both at the possibility of it, and at her beauty. He dropped the silk so that the top that he'd pulled back was resting on her bodice and he looked back at the ghost next to him. "I'm not sure how to do this," he admitted to her.

"Please Merlin," she said, "please try." She glanced up quickly at the slab in the doorway. "And please try and be quick- he's coming!" Merlin didn't need to ask who she meant- the fear in her voice wasn't referring to Arthur, still probably stuck at the end of the flagstone flooring with one too many traps in it to risk him venturing any further. "Once you've revived me, all the traps and curses will disappear so Arthur will be safe. The power of the sorcerer will be destroyed."

Merlin nodded and let his eyes droop. He raised his hand to the body of the Queen and began to speak.

"Feorhgener!"

Nothing happened.

"Quickly, Merlin!" Alianor whispered.

"Edhwierft þes æt ealdorgesceaft!"

The torches started to flicker in their sconces.

"Merlin!" Her whispering was getting quieter, although from fear or because she didn't want to disturb his concentration, he didn't know, and he didn't have time to think about it.

He gathered all of his power from within him, feeling it pool and swirl warmly inside and then he put everything that was in his being into his next words, yelling them out.

"EDHWIERFT!"

The torches all at once suddenly dimmed and then shot up as one great flames into the air, blasting the room with radiance. Merlin had to shield his eyes from the light. A stone sounded like it was cracking into two and he could hear a man screaming a hideous high pitched scream that even from inside the tomb, hurt Merlin's ears. Then his ears popped painfully as the air pressure changed in the room and there was a great gust of wind that ruffled his clothes and his hair and nearly pushed him over to the ground helplessly.

The everything suddenly went still and silent.

Merlin looked up. The ghost of the Queen was nowhere to be seen. Merlin remembered the man's scream and ran to the doorway- the stone slab had broken and crumbled where it was now leaving the doorway free.

He could see Arthur who had fallen over on to the traps in the floor, but nothing had happened. Arthur was fine, if his movement was anything to go by. Merlin rushed forward to help him, remembering what the Queen had said, that the traps would disappear.

"That scream!" Arthur said loudly. He stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it. "It's made my ears ring!"

"It wasn't you then?" Merlin asked, looking Arthur all over to make sure he was fine.

"Merlin, I do not scream like a girl," he said, chastising him gently. He looked at the slab. "What happened?" he asked.

Merlin helped Arthur up. "I'm not sure, but the traps are gone. So is the Queen," and he pulled Arthur along to the tomb.

Merlin went through the doorway first and returned to where he had been at the side of the grave.

Arthur didn't spare a moment to look at the room and came to the other side of the marble and looked down at the woman Merlin was staring at.

"She's beautiful," Arthur whispered.

Merlin nodded dumbly.

They both stared at her with baited breath.

She opened her eyes of green and her eyes locked first with Arthur's, and then with Merlin's. She smiled.

They both smiled back at her. She looked back at Arthur. "My riches... her voice was so quiet that they could barely hear her. They both leaned in closer to her. "They are wasted here Arthur. Use them to help your people."

"I will," Arthur promised, nodding.

She returned her gaze to Merlin, her head barely moving, just her eyes.

Her smile grew larger for him.

"Thank you," she said, her voice even more gentle.

She closed her eyes, and with the smile still on her face, she stopped breathing.

"Alianor?" Arthur asked loudly. He didn't want to touch her, she looked so fragile. He looked at Merlin. He had a tear falling down his cheek which he didn't bother to wipe away. Arthur didn't say anything. He looked back at the Golden Queen and realised that she was disintegrating. He gasped a little at what he saw.

"Time is catching up with her," Merlin said. "But she is at rest."

Neither of them wanted to see that incredible beauty turn to dust. Merlin took the grey silk covering and pulled it back up over her head where it had been before.

"How did it happen?" Arthur asked him. "How did she return to her body?"

Merlin paused for a moment before he answered. "I suppose she just needed to be back here. Maybe she couldn't get here alone. She was stuck between worlds. She said she only appeared when people were here, so she probably needed someone to be with her so that she could return to her body."

Arthur nodded, accepting.

They left the tomb to return to their horses outside and to Camelot.