Hi all!

Thanks for the reviews. Please be patient with me because the updates will come slowly. Busy life and all that.

In response to a comment about the fact that I've made Merlin a bit too weak… You should know that this story is mostly about Merlin's powers. He's become a bit unsure since the Great Dragon disappeared (this will be explained in the next few chapters). Things will get worst and he'll think he's lost his dragonlord gift. The quest will be to retrieve his gift. And maybe along the way he'll learn more about where his powers come from, and just how far his magic goes.

So as you can see, I did give it a fair bit of thought before starting off with a "weaker" Merlin.

I guess what I mean is: keep reading!

Enjoy.

Chapter 2: Sea Fortress

Stupid Merlin, stupid Merlin, stupid Merlin, stupid Merlin.

This was all that Arthur Pendragon could manage to think as he and his knights entered the gloomy dungeon of the ancient Sea Fortress.

"Check every cell! Find him!" the king bellowed to his men.

Elyan and Percival were already working on untying a set of keys from the belt of a large thug. Another guard was lying unconscious nearby and Gwaine did not hesitate to step over the body as he pulled his sword clean of the man's chest. The tall knight gave Arthur a tap on the shoulder and he sped pass the king with long strides. He wasted no time and took the direction of the first corridor to the left.

"He's not in here!" he cried as he looked from cell to cell. His booming voice seemed to bounce off the walls. It was the only sound loud enough to cover the drip drip of the water and the distant rumbling of the sea.

"Are we looking for Old Merlin or Regular Merlin?" said Elyan as he came up hurriedly behind Arthur.

The young king shook his blond head. "Old Merlin," he said between gritted teeth as he peered through the semi-darkness with his torch. "He's probably stuck here because of that aging spell. I swear this is the last time I'm allowing him to use that stupid disguise."

He was cut off by Gwaine's yelling. "He's over here!"

Arthur spun on his feet and ran into the corridor where he knew that Gwaine was. The shuffling of footsteps and the sound of metal over metal told him that his knights were already opening the gate. Only a few more seconds and he would scold Merlin for being a clumsy fool, a lousy spy, a worthless marauder, a pathetic sorcerer…

But his strain of thoughts was cut short by Gwaine's amused voice. "What in Dagda's name are you doing?"

The young king had to wrestle through Percival and Elyan to get a better look into the cell.

The eighty-years-old, white-haired Merlin was sitting comfortably with his back against the stone wall, eyes closed, legs crossed, with his thumbs and forefingers joined together outwards against his chest. He seemed an unmovable object – a statue – even as Arthur and the knights gathered around him.

"Merlin? Can you hear me?" whispered Elyan as he waved his hand in front of Merlin's closed eyelids.

There were a few seconds of silence during which Arthur cursed inwardly. It was infuriating beyond belief that he knew so little about magic. He had years of experience in leading men, training them, preparing them for battle. Yet in the face of the mystery of the thread that connected all life together, the same life he was trying to protect, he was more ignorant than a child. And there in front of him, acting completely like an idiot, was the only guide available, the only teacher he could ever have.

A sudden wailing sound made them all jump at once and look over their shoulders at the empty corridor.

"This place gives me the creeps," murmured Elyan.

"It's only the wind," said Percival.

"We can't just wait for him to come around," said Gwaine with a little more self-control. "We're going to have to move him."

"I'm not carrying him on my back ever again," Arthur said under his breath.

"Percival will carry him," offered Gwaine, clapping the big fellow on the back.

Elyan was shaking his head. "But we haven't got the egg! We could try to retrieve it while one of us stays here and waits for him to…"

"To what?" snorted Percival. "Snap out of it?"

Elyan merely shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? I'm not a sorcerer."

"And how do you suggest getting inside the vault without a sorcerer?" snapped Gwaine.

"We steel the keys, of course!" replied Elyan. "We got in here, didn't we?"

"Borden would have the keys," said Arthur, stroking his chin, "and he's not around here. But we can't afford to wait for him to return. We'll be outnumbered by his army of thugs."

"This is our chance then," Percival said resolutely. "We can at least give it a try…"

But he suddenly stopped talking as they heard a loud snort.

"If I can be spared from mindless chatter for more than one minute I will be able to tell you that you don't need to go back in the vault to retrieve the egg. Because I've ALREADY GOT THE BLOODY EGG! Did you seriously think I would get all this way empty handed? I may be old but I'm not STUPID! Yes, I'm talking to you, Arthur Pendragon. You may want to keep your thoughts to yourself, once in a while."

The eyes of Elyan, Percival and Gwaine turned went wide in shock and repressed laughter. The king, however, wasn't so amused.

"Don't you… You're not supposed to listen to my thoughts!" burst out the young king. "You swore never to use your magic on me!"

Old Merlin's face immediately contorted thoughtfully. It only lasted a few seconds. Then his wrinkled lips turned into a malicious grin. "It's not my fault your thoughts are so BLOODY LOUD!" he burst out.

"You were listening to us all along," cut in Elyan. "Why didn't you say…?"

The knight didn't have time to finish his sentence.

"I may be eighty-years-old but I'm not DEAF! I was concentrating on a healing spell, if you must know EVERYTHING."

Arthur took a long calming breathe. For some unknown reason, Merlin could not quite control his temper when he was Old Merlin and each time it took the young king considerable effort not to strangle him.

He kneeled in front of his friend, hoping to catch the eyes of the real Merlin somewhere beneath all of the wrinkles. "Where is the egg?" he asked, weighing every word.

The old man smiled. "Hidden. I'm quite proud about that bit, actually. But it's going to take a lot of magic to retrieve it, which means that I'm going to have to endure the aches of being eighty-years-old a while longer. Now help me up, will you?"

The walk out of the dungeon was surprisingly uneventful except for an encounter with a few guards. Gwaine quickly disposed of the attackers. The guards had been eating their dinner and Old Merlin had no trouble at all helping himself to a piece of bread while Percival was dragging the bodies out of the way.

Elyan had been leading them through the fortress and he was now pointing towards an opening to their right. "This corridor will lead us on the eastern side and close to the woods where our horses are waiting."

Merlin was shaking his head of shiny white hair. "We don't need the woods," he grumbled. "We need the sea." He sniffed the air. "It's that way."

When he wheeled around, Elyan caught his arm. "There's no exit that way. We checked when we came in. It's just solid stone wall and… Ow! Oi! What are you doing? "

The old man was knocking frantically on Elyan's head with his small wrinkled fist.

"Don't mind that! Just trying to knock some sense into that thick head of yours!" growled Old Merlin. "I had to find a hiding place for the egg, didn't I? Just get me close to the sea and don't worry about any wall."

With those words, Merlin whipped around, sending his silky white hair all over Elyan's face, and headed straight for a narrow flight of stairs going up into a tower. Arthur did not wait for the knights to make up their minds and he took off after his friend right away. Whatever Merlin was up to, leaving him alone was never a good idea.

They had not been going upwards for long when Arthur bumped into the old man's back, forcing the knights to stop their climb as well.

"As I expected," he heard Merlin murmur under his breath.

"What are you up to?" Arthur let out a little apprehensively.

But Merlin wasn't listening. He was muttering a spell under his breath. Suddenly, there was a burst and a boom and the narrow stairway filled up with a cloud of thick dust. Arthur felt Gwaine's arms grab his shoulder from behind, but his only thought was to go forward after his fool-of-a-servant.

"Merlin, you idiot! What did you do?" cried out the king.

His eyes could hardly see through the dust. Where the Hell is he? Thankfully, the stairs had not collapsed under his feet and with a few strides he was able to get out through that opening that Merlin had seemingly created. The fine powder in his throat was making him cough. He could hear Gwaine, Elyan and Percival struggling to breathe as well. I'm going to kill him, thought the young king again for what seemed like the hundredth time since this whole venture had begun. Why had he allowed Merlin to bring him into this ludicrous search? What was a dragon egg to him anyway? He was the king of Camelot, not a dragonlord, for goodness's sake.

And then a waft of wind ruffled his hair. A tingly, salty wind.

The sea.

The cloud of dust had faded away to reveal the starlit night sky. The hunched shape of the old sorcerer who was also his young friend stood a few paces front him, facing the sea. The moonlight was making his hair even whiter and shinier than usual. Both of his hands were stretching far ahead. The words of the Old Religion filled the air.

Merlin's eyes were burning gold.