Chapter 1: The Darkest Road

################ Three years later ##############

Merlin braced himself as he lay helplessly on the cold ground.

"What's the matter, old man? Lost that foul mouth of yours, did you?"

A brutal kick on the chest knocked the breath out of him. The sting shot through his body, announcing that a few ribs had been cracked, or that his lungs had been damaged, but that wasn't even the worst part. The worst pain was not being able to move his eighty-years-old body to show his assailant what he was truly made of.

"I think he's had enough for now, the old fool," snarled the man who had thrown him into the cell. "What do you think Borden will do to him when he finds out he's been in the vault?"

"I guess it depends whether or not he took something," growled the first assailant. He was a large and filthy thug with a dozen small knives and daggers hanging from his belt. Merlin thought in a flash how easy it would have been for him to turn those weapons against the two brutes had he not been an old man with no strength left, not even for a small spell.

"You want my shiny daggers now, don't you?" said the thug. "You want to slit my throat too? Look at me when I'm talking to you! YOU FILTHY OLD TOAD!"

Merlin heard the heavy thuds, saw the muddy boots through heavy eyelids, and knew immediately what was coming. He rolled on his side with his arms covering his face, expecting another beating. An instant later, the heavy man's boot was on his right shoulder blade, crushing his fragile bones, making his thin frame tremor violently.

"Come on! Why don't you try? I'm not stopping you!" spat the thug so close to Merlin's face that he could smell the man's disgusting breathe. One spell and I could make you swallow those daggers, the warlock thought angrily. Yet he remained as still as he possibly could, holding his elbows in, closing his eyes and trying to listen to the distant to and fro of the sea. Sometimes, it was just better to play dead, especially when one was a wounded old man.

"That's right. Now you know who you're dealing with!"

"But that's not really us he's got to worry about, is it?" cut in the other guard.

"I hope for your sake that you didn't take anything in that vault, old toad," barked the large thug. "The man you tried to steel from? He's a lot nastier than he looks."

Julius Borden, thought Merlin, instantly recalling the image of the young man who had been Gaius' pupil and was now his enemy.

"The same could be said about his new Lady," sneered the other guard.

"Keep your voice down! That witch has eyes everywhere."

Merlin's brain became a little more alert. Why was there a hint of alarm in the big man's voice? What did he fear? Or who?

"How do you reckon she got those scars on her face?"

The thug's voice was barely a whisper. "I don't know but I wouldn't want to be the one that did it."

Merlin heard the clicking of the keys and then silence.

At least now the mystery was becoming clearer.

There was only one witch with scars on her face and who could inspire fear in the heart of men such as these.

Morgause.

He had wondered and wondered how Julius Borden could elude him so easily. The man had showed up in Camelot with a plan and very little means to achieve his goals except his recklessness and an ability to surround himself with large and brainless thugs such as those who were guarding the donjon now. How, then, had he been able to unite al the pieces of the Triskelion and find the hidden lair of the last dragon egg? How had he survived the traps and curse that he caused to collapse?

The answer was undoubtedly magic, but Gaius had made it clear that Julius Borden had no magical talent whatsoever. Well, at least now we know that he had help, thought Merlin wearily. But that wasn't actually making him feel any better about having failed to recover the egg instead of Borden.

He was a dragonlord and he had failed. What would Kilgharrah say?

But Kilgharrah wasn't around anymore. Yet Arthur seemed convinced that a dragon egg in the hands of anyone else but a dragonlord did not bode well for Camelot or for Albion. And so they had left Camelot in the night: the young king, a few knights and a servant, all of them wearing nothing but chain mail and black cloaks. They had followed Borden's trail all the way to an old abandoned fortress on a cliff by the sea. The next step had been to strike their enemy, possibly capture him and make him give them the egg, but the plan had taken another turn when Borden had suddenly left in the middle of the night.

And then Merlin had felt the presence of the dragon egg, not with Borden, but deep within the fortress. Why had Borden left without it? The young warlock did not have the whole answer, only parts of it.

It was a logical assumption that Morgause was an essential part of the plan.

But there was also the map. Somehow, Merlin felt that it ought to be connected to the rest. If only he knew how or why.

As a matter of fact, nothing about the map made sense.

He had found the egg. It was safely in the folds of his robes. Why then had he felt so compelled to deviate from his course and sneak into an empty chamber for no purpose except an urge to look? Just look. Loom inside the cabinet. Look under the bed. And look through a pile of rubbish on a writing desk.

It had seemed such a trivial map first, old and faded, but as soon as he had touched it, he had felt a powerful surge of magic, potent enough to knock him halfway across the room. His frail eighty-years-old frame had taken quite a blow, making it conveniently easy for the guards to seize him only a moment later. Had he fallen into a trap? Had he been under an enchantment?

Arthur's voice seemed to ring in his ears.

Get in the vault. Grab the egg. Get out.

His mission had been simple enough. To disguise himself as Old Merlin had been his idea, his own personal touch. Although troublesome to get rid of, the aging spell was the best way to avoid anyone making a connection to King Arthur if ever he was caught.

Secrets and disguises, those two words were enough to sum up the three years since his return from Aria's Cradle, the birthplace of the House of the Brittanicus. His House, his origins, his real name, his title, his powers, his accomplishments, all of that had to remain hidden to all but a few. What would Kilgharrah say about this situation? He had no way of knowing. In fact, he had not seen the Great Dragon since the day he had revealed his magic to Arthur and stopped Morgana.

Many things had happened since then. Gaius had taken in an apprentice: an obnoxious scholar named Aurelius who seemed to think he was better than Merlin in every way. Shortly after, Uther's death at the hand of an assassin had placed Arthur reluctantly on the throne. A conflict with Carleon had brought Camelot on the brink of war. Lancelot had committed an act of unimaginable bravery by sacrificing himself to appease a vengeful spirit. Arthur and Guinevere's love had grown and they were now engaged. Yet through it all Arthur's confidence seemed to be wavering and the tensions with the other kingdoms was only increasing.

And there he was, locked up in a cell, a dragonlord without a dragon. True, he had the dragon egg in his possession, but he hadn't the slightest idea what to do with it.

He tried to recall the words spoken by the druid Iseldir. Only when the road seems the darkest ahead will you have found it.

Merlin rubbed his heavily wrinkled eyelids. It's dark enough in here so I guess it's a good sign.

Stretching his senses as well as his weary legs, he realised that it was utterly quiet in the dungeon. Was he perhaps the only prisoner?

The only light was the pale glow of the moon coming through a round hole above his head. Through the small opening, something else caught his attention: a salty smell and a slight tingling in the air.

The sea.

Unfolding his arms and legs, he managed to twist his body into a sitting position. He tried to get up twice but the throb on his chest stumped him with violent bolts of pain each time. Standing up completely came with considerable effort and assistance from some loose stones on the wall. He waited a few minutes, catching his breathe, and then he proceeded to hoist himself up so that his eyes could see through the hole.

The star-spangled sky and the ebbing waves seemed to welcome him like old friends. Resting his head on the cold stone wall, he allowed the sound of the sea to fill his mind. He was, after all, not just an eighty-years-old man but a creature of magic whose life was tied to the fabric of the world. He had more and more often the feeling that he was not entirely human, especially when he was seeing or hearing things that others weren't. It was a little unsettling, but the feeling was stronger if he was staring at the sky and he knew exactly why.

He had known the joy and exhilaration of flying on Kilgharrah's back more than once. One day, he knew it, he would fly again and this time on his own.

However, he wasn't going to fly very far disguised as an eighty-years-old man. He needed to recover his strength, if only to be able to reverse that bothersome aging spell. But his breathing was painful, which meant that self-healing would have to come first.

In a few hours, Arthur and his knights were going to rescue him. They would wait for the cover of darkness or the early hours of dawn when all is still and the guards have fallen asleep. And then, there was the small matter of recovering the egg and the map from the place where they were hidden. If Borden or Morgause returned, that would certainly complicate things.

Indeed, he was going to need all of his strength.

And, most of all, his magic.