Adventures of Merlin 9
Enter the Red Dragon egg.
More than a few spells are original. They are from old English.
"Ic i āhebbe se wæter." – I raise the water
Reaoch – Ree – ock
Brychan- Bree-kaan – it's based in Welsh, lunatic. :0
The image of the king in wet clothes bubbled to the surface of a scrying pool. Gillie paced with arms folded. Gwendy's father did the same, holding a finger to his lips.
"There isn't much time before our friendly gets out. Did you get the Dragon safe?"
"I sent him away by the call. He should be far enough away to escape if I'm tortured."
"—You won't be tortured Merlin," said Wen quickly.
"This enemy is powerful. At least I knew Morgana."
Merlin gazed down through the pool. Reaoch just sat there. He stared, and he waited.
"We have to do something soon. His army has been in position for weeks before this visit. They'll attack if they don't get word."
Merlin rested his knuckles on his forehead and met Brychan's eyes. "Let me go down first. If he kills anyone, I stand the best chance. Gillie, stand outside the passage. You won't defeat him, but you can slow him down."
Gillie grunted. "Giving orders now?"
Merlin barely nodded, knowing Gillie moved when he did to do exactly as he said. He bowed to Brychan and followed Gillie.
Merlin took a steadying breath and lowered himself through the drop from the Dragon Run into the cavernous slope leading to the mouth of the 'Dragon Keep.'
"Bearne."
"Scildan!" Merlin flourished his fingers, and the air around him shimmered with a protective film of hanging magic. It dissipated like reflections of metal objects, as if it had lost its mass. Merlin glared with a cold power, but the eyes he met were inquisitive. They were a deep, very normal blue; inquisitive, and familiar.
He hated the feeling of being analyzed and glared into the dark. "Bind yourself to a treaty and I won't kill you," ordered Merlin.
A throaty, raspy laugh echoed off the cavern walls. The old king drew himself from the shadow of the iron bars. He made a jarring, hissing sound. "Oh, I do believe I found a clever one. I don't doubt you will kill me, but I doubt it's within your meek nature to demand such dishonorable –."
"—terms?" Merlin interrupted. "No." he said. "You are a very real threat. You'll bring war anyway; sign the treaty, bind yourself by magic, or I will kill you." Merlin drew the scroll drawn by the young Wen from his side pocket under a gray-blue cloak. "flēotaþ." Float.
The scroll unfurled itself and glided innocently through the bars toward the King's hands. An inked utensil followed.
Reaoch read a few lines with squinted eyes. Those eyes paused where the script changed writing, notably where Merlin had interjected. Merlin glanced away as the King analyzed him again, but Reaoch didn't speak. He signed with a sigh. "I'll need wax," he said curtly. "Formal documents need my seal, which I have." He groaned weakly. "That is very fine magic. Where did you learn such things?"
"Experience," said Merlin evasively. "I've learned I need insurance amongst other sorcerers. A curse will do." Merlin had cursed the page to affect the signer, and Reaoch knew it.
Merlin waited for the King to sign it, which he did with a scowl. "Befliegst me." Fly to me. The scroll did so. Merlin rolled it after checking the name.
The king's attention roamed from Merlin to the floor. His twisting lips thoughtful and obvious in their careful manipulation to hide thoughts. "I don't find you will release me?"
"No," Merlin uttered.
"You cannot hold me forever," said Reaoch truthfully. "I misjudged your place in the court," he stared at his nails with an absent expression. "Hmm. Maybe a trade?"
A crash echoed behind Merlin.
Merlin didn't turn his head, realizing Gillie had knocked over a suit of armor. "What could you offer to be sure to eliminate your threat."
Reaoch raised his hand flat side down, making Merlin recognize he was trying to rectify the situation rather than pose a threat. "Now I know," Reaoch toed slightly closer to the bars, "your great power and influence in the court. It benefits me to assist you rather than stir a war I do not want." He touched the bars. "I can't take the dragon for influence, but," he said. "I can offer one more."
Merlin rolled his eyes and metabolized this information with a sigh. "You have a dragon?" he entertained.
Reaoch 's voice was too low, as if he were deliberately avoiding the reverb of the cave. "I have an egg."
"We'll return you after your knights have gone and sent smoke signal from the encroach of the forest," said Merlin curtly. He then left silently.
"Ic ia tóspringe."
Merlin halted, recognized the spell to unlock gates and threw his arm full forced behind him. "ÁSTRICE!" (I strike you) It hurled the door back on the king, locking it with a jarring metallic echo and forced him to stumble back, stunned.
Merlin rounded on his heal toward the doors and held his hand at the bars. He'd heated the handle by sight before speaking a spell and it ambered red. The king saw and gaped at the display of power, holding his mouth open and his spell casting arm in his hand for protection. "Ic i āhebbe se wæter." The pool of magic-dulling liquid gathered progressively, swelling silently from its place at the side of the cave. The water lapped precariously toward the king, who backed to the wall. "HEY, HEY, lad!"
Merlin slowed, drawing to a halt.
The king drew his hand over his chest and heaved a sigh of relief. "Alright. I'll return my knights," he said, "and I'll do the added honor of giving the egg; it won't do much with me."
In his mind, Merlin flipped the gate open. The click echoed. "ic bestīeme se man, fleard." I soak the man, deceptive -accusatory.
The water leapt up oddly and threw itself over the stunted king. Merlin let the door swing open as heglided off. Gillie came from the side and followed Merlin's wake, troddling back and gazing over his shoulder as he near-stumbled at the approaching king.
"How'd it go?" asked Wen wearily, holding her cloak to a gust of wind as they passed. Merlin pulled Gillie physically close to her and whispered to 'stand at guard," as the king passed. "He says he has a gift for you," said Merlin darkly. She watched the King approach and frown with a hung head. "So, it's true," said Reaoch is a flat tone. "But it won't be near until I'm free and gone."
"Is this gift a trap? After you tried to kill my Dragon Lord?" her head tilted, with an equal frown.
"I don't behave as your men of honor," said Reaoch, "but I am honorable. I'll do as I say."
Merlin waited until Tannic and Meilyr both were in sight before stepping away from Gwendolen. Rain pattered in a way that surrounded them in the patched, roofless ruins of the old castle, Merlin thought quick on his feet, and quicker in skilled magic and shielded new rain from soaking the sorcerer. A feat immediately noticed with new reverence. "Take to the fields at once and light a signal pyre of the outermost of the forest. I'll join you on horseback as soon as I've signed in seal."
"—and magic," stuttered Gillie bravely. He pushed his chin as the king looked at him.
"—and magic," confirmed Gwendolen with grace.
The King chuckled a wry laugh and signed with seal. The formal document crackled with the image and red hue of flame from its center outward, but the paper and the image on it was untouched by the fire. The king mounted his horse again over the polished floors of the Great Hall, and exited out the Great Doors to the South of the castle. Merlin looked on, then darted to the Dragon Tower to watch as the King left.
When Merlin returned, he met impressed glances and awed gazes.
"I think we need to investigate our dear Dragon Lord," said Cardell flatly.
Brychan frowned with a silencing finger to his lips, "my apprentice, has already been investigated."
Merlin ignored this. He gently squeezed Wen's arm to comfort her until she nodded and took a breath to his satisfaction.
Cardell clapped his hands. "Is no one going to mention this closeness, or am I going to be the one to mention it? This here," Cardell pointed between Merlin and Wen, "is inappropriate." He raised a silencing finger to Brychan. "Dragon Lord, or magic, or not. He's not royal. He is an outsider and an," with accent, "inner court member to an enemy."
Merlin gritted his teeth. "I'm only trying to protect your queen and be helpful. Don't put thoughts in –"
"—OH, it's obvious," harrumphed Cardell.
Merlin rolled back weight on one foot and glared. "I haven't time for this. If you want proof I won't harm the princess then talk with Iseldir of the Druids. Bring Saffer here if you must, but leave your social presumptions to yourself. I don't want to be part of gossip." Merlin fled.
Wen breathed through her nose with closed eyes. "Cardell," she finally said. "We are – at the very edge of extinction. The time for courtly ritual and cruelty to your royals is over." Her face lowered dangerously. "I don't want to be bred."
"I didn't say—"
"I don't much care. If it works, and I like him, then I like him, but," she pinned several people with eye contact, "It doesn't. Our Dragon Lord is entrenched in the torture of another kingdom's dead king. I don't think he understands the way prophecy works, and I think he's been tormented by the ways of a magical creature." She sighed. "He's a sweet thing. But he can't do it."
Brychan drew close with folded arms and leaned over her. "I disagree," he whispered.
She cocked her head. "You'd support a servant in that position?"
Brychan waited before shrugging idly. "If he's what we need."
A knock on the Great Door, now closed, shook them to attention. A small, cloaked figure, a boy, entered and carefully approached. He dropped to both knees and pushed his hands forward from under a fall-away cloak.
The egg was black at the bottom, gradienting up to a glowing white peak. It was a dew-drop shaped, delicate, and deep red dragon egg.
Merlin stirred a pot of stew made of the bones and left over lamb fixed from the last treat given Aithusa. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. ON the desk beside the fire at the door was a candle melted to the last inch of wick, so spent the wax had dripped and dried in a stalactite to the side. Near it, was a letter, and inside that was words he had not read from his mother Hunith.
She wouldn't see him. She didn't write to send him home. In fact, she'd told Brychan and his lofty daughter she could simply keep him there.
Always, 'you are safer elsewhere.'
Never 'come home.'
He got the same from Gaius.
Merlin didn't want to be disappointed again.
Wen cupped a wooden bowl and gave it to the young boy from Dyfed's king. A scroll at the boy's side was collected by the knight Tannic. "Keep the child on me. The druid will have use of him as his parents are dead."
"He's magic," she told Brychan.
"I guessed." Brychan echoed through thought.
She unrolled the scroll. "He's threatened Merlin's mother," she sighed. "And threatened to scourge Camelot." She rolled her lips closed, "He must have realized the reason Camelot was so immune to magical attack."
Brychan, Cardell, and Gillie who were all still present, regarded each other. Cardel rolled his eyes. "If he wishes to undermine Camelot alone, he's a madman, but let him do what he wishes."
"That's almost not relevant. If the Dragon lord believes the other kingdom is at risk, he'll abandon Avalon Gate."
"For what?" piped the consul. "For a memory?" he scoffed.
Wen folded the scroll. "Like I said. He couldn't do it."
"We keep it secret," said Brychan.
She nodded. "We keep it secret."