Hello reader,
I can craft the spells, and a little bit of the Dragon Language. Merlin is lost and hopeless. He doesn't understand what the Dragon Kilgharrah means by Arthur returning because Arthurs' body will do what all bodies do. He lost eyesight of it late in the day and wouldn't leave the hills.
This story includes the Druids, Dragons, a Fey kingdom presiding over the power of Avalon, serious magic, and a change in challenges as Merlin adjusts to losing Camelot and confronting allies with magical power of their own.
Merlin stumbled past Morgana's fallen body and threw himself into a tree. The daylight was high, and he was nearly out of energy. He used the last of it to dig the grave for Morgana. With no shovel, he used magic, then stumbled far away. He looked for the horse but couldn't find it. It was another three-day journey back on horseback and now he didn't even have that. Maybe he wouldn't go back.
Hungry and cold, Merlin followed a curious shimmer, avoiding it at first, believing it to be fire in the moonlight. He walked toward it, but it kept getting farther. Maybe it was the Sidhe and he could ask them finally what was of Arthur's body.
A young woman flung herself past him and stumbled, wide eyes to see him standing there. She rolled over and pushed herself on her wrists. Just then, a Saxon rushed through the trees. Merlin threw him, just hard enough to hide the magic, and turned his face quickly away from the girl.
She screamed. The man dropped his sword and ran at her again, ignoring Merlin.
Merlin picked up the fallen sword and ran the sword through him. Sickeningly, he felt the resistance of the blunt edge through the man's inside. Merlin helped the girl up as she wiped her face. "Who are you?" she said, voice quavering.
"My name's Merlin. Are you okay?"
She sniffed. "I'll be okay enough soon. You barred my escape," she said. "Did you come – through there?" she looked back at the dark trunks of the trees. She folded her arms and bit her lip, suddenly focused. She looked over Merlin, feet to face. "Come, follow me back to the fire. We'll get you warmed up."
Merlin stumbled flat-footed behind her, holding his arms around him. She spoke as she walked, ignoring the man who chased her as if nothing would happen. "Are you a servant?" she asked sweetly. "You can't belong there if you can get here. Unless they were using you for your magic?" she suggested.
"I have no magic," Merlin snapped.
She blinked. "Oh, oh well," she shrugged. "You must have been through something. Would you like soup?"
The bustling crowd enjoyed their party and food on sticks. A man twirled his fingers and a large metal ring, fit to be thrown and juggled, twined into eye-flashing bursts of flames.
"It's the pyre for my aunt. She was prophesied to die upon the death of the," she sighed, "Once and Future King." She rolled her lips together. "That didn't work out well, did it?"
Merlin frowned and bowed his head, trying to bleed into the ground. "What happened to …this king?" he said cleverly.
She snorted. "If I know… They probably put him on the Avalon grave site thinking stopping the decay would save her somehow."
He opened his eyes, dropping the brace for impact.
She brushed his arm with a finger, "Don't worry. I'll make a fine queen if I live."
"If you live?" entertained Merlin.
"There's me, and one other champion for Avalon, a male, with no magic," which many people seem to want. "This night is a trial by deception. Who can assassinate the other by the end of the night will become ruler." She brushed her smock dress and pouted slightly. "And I've been run from the palace."
"What happens if he wins?"
She squinted. "He's in there killing Druid apprentices as we speak." She frowned. "I think you know what."
A loud cheer went up behind the crack of the open front gate into the Great Hall. Merlin heard crying, and a horrible silence followed. He turned to her with mouth agape, but she seemed interested in her hands and falling into the shadows out of sight of a passing cloaked sorcerer with a floating lantern. Merlin blinked and built pressure behind his very sore eyes, following her with an intrinsic sight he called his 'mind's eye." The young woman's image sped toward his view. Merlin stayed rooted to the spot.
He came over to her, lifting her hand into his and squeezing to stop her from trembling.
Her blue eyes shown in the half light of a brazier from the stone walls of the Hall. "If you aren't a servant with some Lord here, are you a slave?" she shivered.
Merlin bowed closer. "No. I'm not a slave," he answered evenly, head bowed carefully and giving her full space. He looked her up and down, noting cloth shoes and a ring of dirt and leaves still stuck to her dress. She wasn't material for obvious royalty; he didn't know much about her. "You have magic?" he asked.
She nodded, looking up under her fan of red lashes with wide eyes, then looking away toward the earth. An empty torch sparkled and rushed loudly to life nearby.
Merlin nodded. "You cling to the Old Ways," he said informally.
She peered suspiciously at him. "Are you going to kill me?" she asked in a small voice.
"No," he said, voice low.
She shuddered. "Then what?"
"I'm going to make you queen," he said. "Get up. Follow me," he ordered. "And take my hand." He offered his fingers to her, and she took them. He pulled her through a nearby door, the latch clicking as he pretended it wasn't locked, and continued to hide his magic.
The night went on headily. Merlin avoided guards, ducking back and choosing doors that'd get him closer to the balcony in the Great Hall. He pursed his lips, seeing a pillar and a long wooden railing. "There," he said, "get behind there," he led her to the pillar. "Do you have magic to protect yourself?"
There was a young man below, boastfully holding his arms out to cheers. "AND THIS IS THE PROBLEM," he yelled, his voice echoing through the room. "Baby sorcerers like this. POISONED to take on the ways of these dirty, deceitful monsters." He kicked a crying girl, and she yelped, slamming into a glistening tile floor. "Forced to take on their ways! But when I am king, there'll be a stop to that."
She leaned against the pillar, ducking carefully as she had done in the front lawns. "These men worked for my aunt for years."
Merlin bellied to the floor and lifted her wrist with two fingers. "I want you to say 'forbearnan'," he whispered. "For-bearn-an," he repeated, "Just there. The plate that the servant is holding."
She narrowed her eyes, then did as he said. "forbearnan," she spoke on the breath of her whisper.
The servant dropped the metal plate and dishes with a dramatic and resounding clatter. Drink goblets rolled with a ringing against the stony floors. "It was hot!"
The laughter stopped immediately. The room filled with a silence.
"She's alive," yelled the young man.
"But sire, the maid is not trained in magic!"
The young man backed away from the walls. "Then she has an ally, but that still means she's alive." His eyes searched the halls.
Merlin cupped his hand around her head, pulling her out of sight further. Merlin looked around. In a stroke of unbelievable luck, a metal ring hung on a dusty rope, a heavy contraption hoisted high above the hall and with open floor beneath it. He lifted her chin and pointed. "The rope there," he whispered. "It'll take a second, but you have it."
"People could die," she whispered.
He pursed his lips into a frown and tutted. "There, again. Forbearnan," he said.
Her eyebrows screwed up, and her freckled face sharpened in concentration. "For-bear-nan," she repeated. "Forbearnan…" The spell sputtered up at a point on the rope, sparking at first. "I've lit fires before. You saw me,' she hissed at his frown.
"COME OUT, COME OUT KITTY CAT."
Merlin hissed back. "It's a different context."
The crying druid girl below dragged herself backward toward a table. The man below made a face at the sound of the crying. "Kill her," he said dully to a guard. "Just kill her. She's annoying." The guard lifted the sword.
"That's it," whispered Merlin. He ducked her out of the way. The ring of candle lit chandelier plunged dramatically to the floor. The rope breaking with a snap. There was another sickening crack. Merlin looked down, covering the now crying girl's face with his hand and seeing both the youth and the guard were beneath it. The guard pulled himself from the side, the hall now dark. The Druid girl made it under the table and was now screaming. She heaved until her face turned to the side and her body went limp.
A man rushed into the Hall, seeing the damage. "MY SON! HE WAS MY SON! YOU'LL PAY!"
Merlin pulled himself onto his elbows and gaped as the guards looked between each other and dragged the man away, waiting knights that had been laughing along suddenly darkened in countenance, many exchanging looks and rushed the Great Hall.
"You did it," hissed Merlin. He shook her shoulder. "Girl," he said. "Girl." Her body had fallen flaccid, her head to the side and her eyes closed.
Merlin watched on as most of the cheering men picked off. The sound of swords and clanking, screaming as spells came from druids and people continuing to fight for the fallen potential ruler signaled Merlin didn't really know the situation he'd walked into. He hid her in a closet, nestled away in a secret space.
He told himself she would be safe until the battle was won and slipped out of a window, dropped on the grounds and back through the shimmer of light onto the fields outside Avalon.