Chapter Six
Merlin hung limply in his chains. Blood trickled from his abraded wrists and the muscles in his arms burned with the strain of bearing the full weight of his body, but he no longer had the strength to stand.
He was tired. He was so very tired.
Sleep called for him and he longed to sink into its peaceful depths, but tonight Morgana had refused to turn off the spell. She hadn't liked him speaking ill of her dead sister and this was his punishment.
"You had to open your big mouth, didn't you, Merlin."
He knew from experience that if he let himself lose consciousness the spell would activate and he would be left screaming soundlessly for hours until Morgana finally released him.
But at times, when his eyelids were leaden and he was sure it was physically impossible to be any more exhausted, he felt that maybe the pain would be worth it if he could snatch even a few seconds of sleep.
Trying to stay awake was a torture all on its own, as Morgana no doubt intended. Merlin did his best but he worried that the effort would kill him. Every so often, when the outside sky was as dark as his thoughts, he worried that it wouldn't kill him fast enough.
"The darkest hour is just before the dawn," Arthur had said.
Wanting to give up, nearly in tears, not caring if this could be considered a sign of insanity, Merlin whispered his response out loud. "It's pretty dark right now, Arthur."
"Can't be long now then," his mind supplied.
But what relief could dawn bring? Morgana would wake from her slumber and the pain would begin all over again. It was too much to hope for a rescue – it would be two weeks before anyone even knew he was missing, and the last time he was here he had sensed the magic that shielded this place from the view of ordinary men. Even if they did find him, what could Arthur or the knights do against Morgana anyway? Without his magic backing them up, she would slaughter them. And Merlin could not call Kilgharrah; even if he could raise his weary voice loud enough, his words held no power.
No, there would be no rescue. No one was coming for him. He was alone and he was helpless. No one could save him and he could not save himself.
"You can't give up, Merlin," Arthur's voice said. "Just hang in there a little longer."
Merlin closed his eyes. A tear slipped down his cheek. "I don't know if I can," he whispered brokenly.
It wasn't enough to imagine how disappointed Arthur would be with him if he stopped fighting. He thought that Arthur would probably understand a man reaching his breaking point, anyway, and would not judge him for it.
But if Merlin died, Arthur would be vulnerable. It was Merlin's destiny to protect him, to keep him safe. More than that, it was his life's purpose, the meaning of his very existence. He would give anything – everything – for his King. His friend.
He could live through this. He had to live through this. Not for himself. If it were only his life hanging in the balance, he would have succumbed to death already. But he could not, he would not let any harm befall Arthur, and that meant he had to stay alive. Arthur was depending on him.
Arthur, he thought.
When sleep tried to drag him under, he gritted his teeth and forced his eyes open. Arthur.
When Morgana woke and turned her cold gaze on him, when a cruel smirk curved her lips and fear threatened to overwhelm his mind, he forced it back under his control. Arthur.
When she cast the first spell and pain ripped through him, he held fast to one thought. Arthur.
When all he knew was an endless wasteland of agony and he could contain it no longer, his scream took the form of a single word. "ARTHUR!"
When he had been tortured to within an inch of his life and the darkness beckoned, his heartbeat stubbornly thumped out Ar-thur-Ar-thur, Ar-thur-Ar-thur.
When the days stretched into weeks and the weeks stretched into months, he repeated the word like a mantra. Arthur. Arthur.
And when the pain had stripped him of strength, of hope, of dignity, of identity, when he could not even remember his own name, there was one name he never forgot.
Arthur.
ooOOoo
They all tried to talk him out of it, but Arthur would not listen.
"He is just a servant," his councillors scorned.
"We have already searched everywhere, sire," Leon apologised.
"You still have a kingdom to run," Agravaine pointed out.
"It has been two months, Arthur," Guinevere reminded him. "There is little hope that he has survived this long."
"It breaks my heart to say it, sire, but I fear Merlin is d-" Gaius' voice broke, and he took a breath before continuing, "-is dead. And the best way you can honour his memory is by going ahead with the new laws on magic. It is what he would have wanted."
It all boiled down to one, underlying belief that everyone in Camelot seemed to share: that Merlin was gone, he wasn't coming back, and riding out to look for him personally would change nothing.
But Arthur was not going to change his mind.
He saddled two horses; one for himself, and one for the wayward manservant who, he was determined, would be returning with him. He mounted up, ignoring all those around him who persisted with their objections.
He was not expecting anyone to come with him, but when Gwaine appeared, ready to go and equally impervious to dissuasion, he was not altogether surprised. Gwaine had ridden out with every single patrol Arthur had sent to search for Merlin and occasionally on his own as well.
Arthur just nodded to him and they rode out of the city together.
The sun climbed to its zenith and then slipped inexorably towards the western horizon. As darkness descended over the land it seemed that this expedition, like all the others, would bear no fruit. But Arthur would not admit defeat. He permitted them a short meal break and chance to sleep, but as soon as dawn came they were once more on the move.
There were well worn trails from the many search parties that had passed through this forest over the past two months, and it was evident that they had been very thorough. But then, the last time Merlin had gone missing the reports had been the same – that he was nowhere to be found – and then he had turned up out of nowhere, as if by magic.
Arthur reined up, eyes widening with realisation.
"Arthur?" Gwaine asked, pulling up beside him.
"Magic," he said. "Morgana has magic."
"Yes…"
"That's why we haven't found them. She's using magic to stay hidden."
"Figures," Gwaine said. "But what can we do but keep looking? Merlin is my friend, I won't abandon him."
"He is my friend as well," Arthur snapped, and regretted the harsh tone immediately. His nerves were frayed. "My point is that we need to be on the lookout for signs that magic has been used to mislead us."
"Good idea, except for the fact that neither of us really qualifies as a magical expert. How are we supposed to recognise a sign even if we see it?"
The man had a point, but Arthur wouldn't admit that out loud. "We don't know until we try." He urged his horses into motion again and Gwaine followed.
It was a long time before Arthur spotted anything out of the ordinary and he nearly overlooked it. But something nagged at him. He glanced back.
They were following a recently worn trail that, according to the usual search patterns, was supposed to cut a relatively straight swath through the forest, but here it veered off at an angle. The ground showed that every time a patrol had been through here they had done the same thing, but there was no logical reason for it. In fact, looking more closely through a gap in the trees, Arthur thought he might see something up ahead.
"Gwaine? I think we should go this way."
"But we just did," Gwaine said, brow furrowed. "It was a dead end, so we came back here."
Arthur frowned. "We-we did?" Now that he thought about it, he was sure that Gwaine was right. They had already searched over there and turned up nothing.
He made to move on, but his gaze was pulled back to that spot.
"Gwaine?"
"Arthur?" he replied impatiently.
He pointed. "If we just went that way, then why are there no tracks?"
"Tracks?"
"Yes. The ground is soft from recent rainfall; we should be able to see hoof prints leading down that way and then coming back again. But there are no tracks."
"But I swear I remember looking over there. There was nothing to see."
Arthur remembered, too, but for some reason he couldn't quite picture it in his head. "Well, let's check again. Just in case."
"No!" Gwaine snapped. "You're wasting time! There's nothing there!"
"What's the harm in making sure?"
"We can't!"
Goosebumps rippled across his flesh at Gwaine's insistent words, and that's when he knew.
"This is it," he whispered. "There is magic at work here."
He dismounted, tying the horses' reins to a tree branch. "I'm going this way," he told his companion. "Are you coming with me, or not?"
Gwaine grumbled something rude under his breath, but he swung out of the saddle nonetheless. "Fine."
Arthur walked forward. The first few steps were easy, but then he suddenly forgot what he was doing.
"Why are we leaving the path?"
Gwaine was a pace behind him. "Because we're looking for Merlin and double-checking everywhere doesn't seem to be working, so apparently we're triple checking this place."
"Oh. Right." He took one step, then another. This time, the very air seemed to be resisting him, but a physical barrier he could understand and he pushed stubbornly through it.
Abruptly, the pressure vanished. He stumbled but caught himself, and when he looked around it was with a much clearer head. The path that stretched out before them, unnoticed before, had man-made steps embedded along it.
"Whoa, that was weird," Gwaine said.
"Magic," Arthur explained, drawing his sword and heading toward an outcropping of rock that did not look entirely natural. "Come on."
ooOOoo
The pain ceased.
Blue eyes opened warily, expecting the pain to begin again at any moment.
But the tormentor seemed distracted, glancing behind her shoulder, frowning with uncertainty.
"The wards," she said, talking to herself. "Someone just passed through the wards."
Blue eyes watched with detachment as she walked to the door and peeked out quickly. When she closed it a moment later and turned back around, she was grinning.
The body tensed, waiting. That expression on the tormentor's face only ever heralded something bad, and often painful.
"Luck has favoured me today," she exhaled. "I had grown bored with you, Merlin. You are not nearly as entertaining as you used to be, now that you have abandoned the amusing back-talk and useless bravery. I would have killed you today, thinking I had pained you all I could, but now the fates have delivered Arthur straight into my hands."
A frown. Arthur?
The tormentor laughed. "He must be looking for you. How foolish of Arthur to come here with but one knight to guard him. Killing Arthur will be all too easy."
The frown deepened. Killing Arthur?
Something long buried began to stir within him.
"I think I will make you watch as he dies. And then you can follow your precious master into the underworld. Would you like that, Merlin? To see your beloved Arthur again?"
Arthur…
The tight knot of warmth and light in the centre of his chest started swiftly unravelling.
"I will be sure to tell him that you screamed endlessly for him to come and save you. I'm sure it will upset Arthur to know that he was too late."
Arthur.
Threads of power shot out from his core through to every fibre of his being.
"And then, after breaking his heart, all that will be left will be to choose the method of his execution. Alas that I have not the power to kill him and then bring him back to life; I would immensely enjoy having the chance to re-live the exquisite pleasure of Arthur's death over and over. I will simply have to savour the moment."
Arthur's death?
Pressure was building exponentially, straining against the confines that had held it too long.
The sound of footsteps approaching outside.
The tormentor licked her lips, pupils dilated with blood-lust. "Here they come. Today, Arthur Pendragon, you meet your doom."
ARTHUR.
His whole body thrummed with power, the pain and exhaustion fleeing into the background. He stood to his feet.
The door of the hut was flung wide open, and two men threw themselves inside with weapons drawn and battle cries on their lips.
But before they had moved two steps the men froze and stared.
Two pairs of blue eyes found each other and the shock of their meeting was like a bolt of lightning striking the metal rod that had pulled it to itself.
"Merlin!" the blonde man gasped.
His tormentor cackled gleefully. "Master and servant reunited at last!"
The blonde man rushed forward, brushing past her as though she wasn't even there. "Merlin, you're alive! You're okay! You're-" He stumbled to a halt, his joyful expression crumbling. Hesitantly, he stepped closer and gently placed his hands on thin, bony shoulders that trembled at the contact. "You're not okay," he whispered. "God, Merlin, what did she do to you?"
Fury built in the man's eyes. He spun to the tormentor. "What did you do to him?!"
She grinned. "Welcome, dear brother. I admit, I expected to see you here much sooner. Merlin did too – he kept screaming your name, as if he expected you to come rushing to his rescue. But you never did, and now he-"
"Morgana! What. Did. You. Do?!"
"Nothing less than he deserved, I assure you. And now, Arthur Pendragon, it is your turn."
The name echoed in his head and now, with the face to match, the significance of the name slammed home.
Arthur Pendragon. Arthur, King of Camelot. Arthur, Once and Future King of Albion. Arthur, lord and master.
Arthur. Destiny. Vulnerable. In danger. Needs protection.
Arthur. Friend.
"Your turn to die," the tormentor hissed.
She raised her hand, an incantation on her lips.
She was going to kill him. She was going to kill Arthur. He couldn't let that happen.
Her eyes began to burn gold-
A desperate cry of fear and effort tore from his lips. "ARTHUR!"
Power exploded.
Wrist shackles and an ancient collar all burst in a simultaneous spray of hot metal fragments.
Freed at last, magic shrieked through the air as twin lightning bolts of brightest white and deepest black. They converged on the threat, blasting effortlessly though any defence she may have mustered. Her scream was cut short-
And a massive shockwave of concussive force detonated the world into darkness.
ooOOoo