23. Part 1: Exhaustion
("Here at the End" from The Necromancer's Apprentice)
Freya woke with a dreadful inhalation, the nightmare forgotten even as she realized it. She lay in bed, her heart pounding and her lungs trying to pant for more air and… the dread was not dispelled.
Sitting up, slowly and silently, she instinctively used her senses to explore her surroundings for any hint of danger. Her eyes told her, the bedroom in her teachers' dormitory apartment was empty and still; her nose told her, there were no changes in either of the other two rooms to worry about.
But the last sense, hearing, picked up something. Brush-click-scrape. Someone in the hall? at her door?
She squinted at her clock. At 1:44 in the morning? And not rapping sharply to inform her of emergency? Could someone get through locks and wards and–
Subconsciously, though, she knew. Already her legs were out of bed, blanket and sheet tossed aside; fingers gripped the doorframe to spin her around into the main room, flying to unlock and open the door.
Merlin leaned against the wall outside, nearly hugging it, as if it were the only thing holding him up. She gasped his name, and he lifted his head enough to see her.
Dripping wet from being out in the snowstorm outside, hair to boots – and without his coat. Translucent pale in the single overhead light-panel, eyes pools of shadowed agony. His lower lip divided by a line of dried blood.
"Freya," he said.
"What happened?" She moved to support him in spite of the wet, but his hand on her shoulder held her off.
"I came to say… g'bye." He was slurring his words – and beneath the cold-rain smell was alcohol – and she knew he meant, for good. Just as she knew, she'd have a hard time finding him and staying with him, if he didn't want her to.
"What happened?" she repeated gently, reaching to brush sodden locks of black hair away from his face. "Where's Arthur?"
"I told Arthur the truth. What I did to his sister." If he noticed her touch, he didn't show it. "He's 'n DC, still. Came here 'lone."
"Will they follow you?" she asked, in the same soft tone. She had a little experience with that, fleeing the law. Even without explanation, she knew Merlin didn't deserve a prison sentence for murder – but he'd be stubborn about letting her come with him if he was running from law enforcement.
"Arthur was… furious." The way he said those two words, Arthur and furious, broke her heart. "Just with me, though. Not the school. Tell Gaius, Lone Oak is… safe. But I… have to leave."
"Merlin, why?" she said pleadingly.
"Because Arthur will come back here. All his stuff's in the room… I can't even… If he sees me, he's going to kill me. An' I d'serve it." Merlin bobbed his head in acceptance. "But… he shou'n't be a killer, should he. Not him. Not like us."
Merlin pushed upright from the wall, turning away from her – staggered, weaved a single step, then crashed back into the wall so hard she knew he'd have bruises. And since he couldn't see her coming, she swooped under one arm to catch him up–
And shuddered in shock; he felt like an ice sculpture come to sluggish life.
"Oh my gosh," she said, ignoring his usual reluctance for touching, to lay her hand against his cheek. Hypo-freakin'-thermia. An idea hit her, like ice melting in a sudden rush all down her back. "Merlin, did you – you didn't teleport all the way here from DC, did you?"
He mumbled, " 'Rthur. Threw me out. Hates me. Gotta leave…"
"Oh, no you don't," she determined. Absolutely shaky at the evidence of his utter carelessness for his own wellbeing. "Come on, come inside."
"Tell Gaius…" Merlin's leg gave out and they lurched before he caught his balance.
"I will," she promised. Her magic closed the door behind them, and a flick of her fingers lit her desk-lamp beside them. "And you can leave in a minute, all right?" If he took it into his thick head to teleport again, he might very well kill himself. And leave her behind. "Just – let's get you dry first?"
The lamplight followed them into the bedroom, where he swayed like a willow but kept his feet as she awkwardly stripped the soggy flannel from his dead-cold arms, as his t-shirt clung to his ribs. She decided to dry the rest of his clothes on him, for his own peace of mind.
"Freya," he said, watching her kneel at his feet on the floor to begin with his jeans. "You'll… always be my friend, right?"
She rose to her feet, gesturing for the magic to dry the rest of him. Sick at heart to hear the childish uncertainty in his question. "You know I will."
He let her press him down to sitting in the rumpled mess of her bed, watched her remove his shoes and socks, cooperated to lift his feet into the bed. She nudged him closer to the wall on the twin-size mattress, then slid in beside him, arranging the blankets to cover them both, drawing him down beside her.
Hells, he was so cold. And not shivering. She put an arm around his neck and drew him to her; he rested his head on her chest and curled an arm around her waist. There was the smell of rain in his cold-dry hair, and tears in her eyes. Focusing, she set her magic at a low warming hum that vibrated in her teeth and bones, but not unpleasantly.
" 'S just," he mumbled against her chest. "I trust, and then… Just don' know if a friend is real. An' gonna stay… y'know. 'R hate me, 'cause I… killed somebody…"
Damn you, Arthur Pendragon, she thought fiercely, as Merlin's relaxing weight seemed to squeeze the tears from her eyes, trickling cold down her temples as her magically-enhanced body heat began to seep into him.
No, that wasn't quite right. Arthur probably had every reason to be angry and hurt – he'd lost his sister. Damn whoever's fault it was that Merlin had been put in a situation where someone died, in such a way that he believed it was his fault.
"You're mine," she whispered into Merlin's hair. "And I'm yours. And we'll always be together…" When he warmed up – when she didn't have to fear him leaving abruptly – she'd go for Alice.
Until then, she held him close and counted each breath he took, the steady output of magic and warmth wearying her both mentally and physically. The last thing that made sense to her was to press a kiss to his forehead.
23. Part 2: Exhaustion
("The Captive's Token" from Torr Badon)
Aweax thu metethearfenda… Thicge thu thone drycraeft the thinan deorcan mode gefylth… It was a call, a summons… but not for him.
Arise, and – feed?
Merlin woke with a splitting headache, and wished for a moment that he could sink back into painless oblivion.
But he could not dispel a vague but persistent feeling of… menace. The conviction that he had heard, or sensed, magic that was… that needed…
The feeling dragged him out of his mind and back into his body, where he was distracted by an almost overwhelming sensation of being thoroughly and inexplicably and undeservedly battered–
Aithusa… he'd jumped midflight so the dragon would not be caught in Morgause's net, and ordered his kin back to… Arthur. Because they were fighting the Saxons at… Mount Badon.
He opened his eyes.
Above him, dingy canvas billowing, oddly silent. Except he couldn't hear anything else, anyway.
Dim flickering light brushed the rough material. He felt the iron earth beneath bruises on his back; he didn't seem to be tied at all and that was good, but…
Rationality threatened him with unanswerable questions and he resisted, retreating into instinct – which made him move, to absorb more of his surroundings. Turning his head where it rested also on bruises, on the ground, to see a box.
A wooden box, of a size to be carried comfortably in a man's arms. Bound with strips of iron – a lid that was removed, propped beside the box – and runes. One rune, large on the lid, and voices. One his instinct knew, but denied rationality could not name.
- You better be sure about this, my lady.
- The Teine Diaga didn't work. But, Arthur is nothing without Emrys… and Emrys is nothing without magic.
- Orso will be angry. He wanted… but at least, if he cannot command the magic and the dragon, neither can Emrys. I suppose a defeated enemy is just as good as a forced ally… He wants results, Morgause, and he is threatening us with… How long will this take?
- Moments, only.
- Will it kill him?
Silence.
Then, a soft and insidious rustling, the first thing that was audible to him since regaining consciousness. Like a rising flood or a slithering serpent, or–
He turned his head away from the box to search for the origin of the noise, to look in the other direction–
And stared into a hole in reality. A muddy solid nothingness, a corporeal hunger for good and light and freedom and everything Merlin was and had. A ravenous sinkhole, shapelessly slug-like, that hated him and would devour him – not bodily, it wasn't large enough for that – his soul, then.
The sphere of darkness launched itself at his head.
Merlin had time only to close his eyes and hold his breath – felt the hard slimy impact, ooze spreading swiftly and abruptly over every corner of his face – in nostrils in ears in the hollows of his eyes and the cracks of his lips.
He couldn't breathe. His lungs were on fire – his pulse pounded through bruised flesh as he writhed in the struggle to grip the creature attached to his face – sucking sucking his soul his magic–
Deep and full and pure and serene and rarely had he ever used so much that it drained him to weakness and inability but it was being taken, siphoned, slurped from his soul and body without consent and–
No.
He attempted a shield, which was immediately, hungrily absorbed. Licked right off his soul with a serrated tongue, and only served to increase the appetite of the darkness, and left his magic raw and vulnerable and-
No.
Merlin flung his magic from him like emptying a pail-full of water – sending it – it belonged to him he would choose to give it to another rather than allow it to be taken from him by this horrible twisted monstrosity–
To the hand of his king – each line and whorl and scar memorized, engraved…
All.
The well ran dry.
The creature found no sustenance, tasted nothing but stone and dust in Merlin's soul - and then his fingers found purchase beneath soggy edges by his jaw and he shoved.
He was shocked by how light it was – he heard it hit tent-canvas, and then the ground, plop-splop.
Merlin rolled away, gasping wetly for breath and coughing too hard to catch it. Scrabbling for the open box, he tumbled over it – grasping and gripping and shaking uncontrollably, so hard his whole body seized with pain again.
The living mire, the hungry darkness, came for him again in an instant and he caught it in the box, the impact slamming him to the ground, slamming his fingers between box and lid, fumbling so slow and clumsy and weak to latch it, to lock it.
He finally collapsed bodily over the container, hoping his weight would hold the lid shut. Hoping – sobbing – the thing could not ooze out between the hinges.
"Well," a voice said. A man's voice, mocking and unfeeling. "That was very impressive, Emrys."
He could not summon the strength to lift his head to identify the speaker; his whole body felt submerged beneath an inanimate form of the sludge that had drained him. When hands tried to heave him up from the closed wooden box, he fought them to be able to retain his hold, hold it shut – but too feebly.
"Oh, just drag him," the same voice said. Irritable, impatient – anxious. "Orso wants him now."
The hard careless grip on each side rucked his clothing roughly up toward neck and armpits – unfastened jacket, and belt over his tunic pinching uncomfortably at his lowest ribs. His boots loosened slightly, heels scraping over rough ground, but that was secondary in his concern.
The box retreated in his vision, framed by the tan angled shape of a tent, the interior illuminated by single lantern on the ground. A woman in a shapeless black cloak bent to caress the lid and secure the lock, then rose to follow, her face framed in the hood by long blonde ringlets.
Sharp black mountain peaks. Darkening blue sky. The motion of the men who moved him a sensation at the corners of his vision, felt rather than seen.
She walked faster than they; the delicate features she shared with her royal half-sister remained blank. Those intense brown eyes cast down as she came – then lifted to his face for a moment, and he recognized the expression in them. Emptiness.
It was how he felt. Cold and alone and incomplete and helpless and useless – though he was without his magic and she was not, they both had lost their souls.
His captors dropped his arms, and he made no effort to avoid the ground. He might have grunted at the impact, the sore agony that encompassed his entire being flaring somewhat. But he didn't see any reason to move. A little voice in the back of his mind that reminded him of Gaius said, shock, perhaps.
He rather wanted to sleep.
Even when another familiar face thrust itself into his field of vision. A man harder and crueler than the warlord Uther Pendragon. Who sneered around full moustaches trailing longer than his grizzled beard.
"Not so mighty now, are we, Emrys?"
The accent was strange, foreign. Odder even than the way Alator drew out his second-name, giving the first vowel a long A sound – Aim-rys. This man gave it an extra syllable and susurration – Am-ro-shus.
"He is broken to my will, then?" the Saxon commander went on, glancing up. First at the witch who loitered by Merlin's feet – then at the fox-faced traitor who appeared at Merlin's other side.
"Ah… no, my lord. He proved too strong, too resistant – we have used the gean canach to remove his powers from his control, instead…"
Orso was granite. "You. Did. What."
"He is impotent, now." Cenred sneered down at Merlin.
Neither look nor feeling touched him. He shifted his gaze past the heads of the men to the shy first stars, twinkling high above, throbbing cool and clean but regrettably out of reach.
"He is of no use to Arthur, like this. The knights of Camelot will no longer be able to counter Morgause's magic, and I think–"
"You have not been paid to think." Orso loosed his weapon – Merlin thought with curious detachment of the swords of Medhir – took one striding step across Merlin's prone body to shove the blade through the center of Cenred's chest.
Cenred gasped, soundlessly, resisting acceptance of the inevitable, but weakly.
The action and its consequence meant nothing to Merlin. He looked, instead, to the dead brown eyes of the witch standing near his feet. Watching her watch him. Also expressionlessly insensitive to the death of her fellow-traitor.
Cenred's body tumbled to the ground beside Merlin. He felt the reverberations through his bruises, and thought distantly that there was something ironic in the similarity of their positions.
"My lady, perhaps you wish to retire for the night," Orso growled to Morgause, not without courtesy.
She blinked. Then turned away absently, without looking at the Saxon. Orso turned away as well, with a single hard downward glance at Merlin.
"Leave him lie where he is," he said to someone Merlin could not see.
He wondered if the commander meant, him or the corpse.
Not much difference, now.
But, no one made any attempt to move him. It occurred to him that if he was left unguarded, he should make some move toward freedom, because. Arthur needed… Arthur… needed…
Arthur had his magic. And the well was dry.
Merlin had no energy even to roll to his side and curl up. He simply closed his eyes and blocked everything out, every last inch of the howling wasteland of his reality.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
"Merlin," someone said.
A dream. Of course. No one here knew his name, or had any reason to use it.
Because he was still lying bruised and emptied on the stony ground in the middle of the Saxon camp, he could feel that much.
He tested his theory by trying to open his eyes.
And saw, of all things, Gwaine's head on a Saxon's black-and-leather-clad body. Gwaine's mouth spoke again in Gwaine's voice – only it was shaking a bit and he couldn't identify which emotion caused that.
"Hells, Merlin. What did they do to you?"
Hallucination. Or something. He wondered vaguely, how Morgause had accomplished this one. He had no magic with which to counter even the smallest spell, this time – the bottom of the well was still dry…
"Hey." He felt his shoulder shaken, hands run over the rest of his body in search of something he wasn't sure what. "You're not hurt badly, are you? Can you get up? We're not exactly alone, but if I pretend to be hauling you as the prisoner off somewhere, we might get far enough to make a credible attempt at running for it."
Well, that might answer the question of why they would put such a strange image before his eyes. To see if he was able to escape? To see if any magic remained to aid him?
A strange, foreign voice barked something, not too far away. It seemed to him that he should be able to understand, but he didn't have the energy – or maybe the magic – to try. Gwaine's face looked up, away from Merlin, intent and wary – then sullen and uncooperative as any Saxon soldier. He didn't respond, simply made a very rude gesture at the speaker.
Merlin almost laughed. That was Gwaine, exactly – they were very good. Or perhaps they'd taken the image from his own mind… he felt all through his head but could find no trace of another's presence.
"Come on, Merlin." Gwaine's voice was a soft plea; evidently the unseen speaker had not considered it worthwhile to answer the insult in a more tangible manner. A gentle hand supported Merlin's head by the back of his neck, pulled him toward upright. "Up you get. Rise and shine."
That made him angry, that they would use those words against him. "Please leave me alone," he said. His words sounded more distinct than they felt, and he found the strength to sit, on his own, without toppling over again. "Haven't you done enough?"
"Haven't I…"
Gwaine's Saxon body squatted before him, the concern on his face so genuine that Merlin had to look away, look at the black night and the blowing torches illuminating the camp. He noticed vaguely that the corpse had been moved, at some point.
"What's been done?" Gwaine asked. "Besides the obvious, of course, you look like hell."
"I fell," Merlin said, resentful. "And my magic–" His throat stuck and he couldn't even swallow.
"Your magic?" Gwaine said. "Arthur's hand was glowing blue, we didn't know what that meant…"
Merlin looked at him again. That was not something he knew; how could she know, to have Gwaine say it to him?
"You've. Taken it. From me."
His brother's face held sudden horror, also excruciatingly genuine. "You can't use your magic?" he hissed in a lower voice.
Merlin gave him a puzzled frown. "I haven't got it to use," he reminded Saxon-Gwaine.
"Come on," Gwaine said, suddenly determined, reaching for Merlin's hand. "Stand up. Get up."
Merlin obeyed, simply because he didn't care and it felt easier not to resist.
And it felt odd to stand. He was at once so hollow and light he could have lifted from the ground and floated away, and so heavy it was a chore to drag his feet along. It didn't hurt, really, it was just a distracting lack, like hearing with only one ear, or seeing through only one eye.
"I'm tired," he said, to no one in particular and for no specific reason.
Another voice spoke, again, and he turned as Gwaine did, to watch another Saxon call out something to them that sounded angry. He looked angry, and gestured imperatively toward a tent. The tent where Merlin had been held, if he had to guess.
This time, Gwaine's gesture was placating, and he took Merlin's sleeve to pull him toward the tent.
He followed, reluctant but docile. He didn't want to go in there – what if Morgause was there? what if the wooden box was there? – but as they neared, he could see the corner of a folded blanket on the ground, and a bucket with the telltale glimmer of torchlight on water just below the rim. The box was still there, but the witch wasn't. That was something, at least.
"Rest a bit," Gwaine muttered, pushing him toward the blanket, turning to snatch a horn cup bobbing in the bucket. Drinking first, in an oddly cautious way, then glancing into the cup and smacking his lips, reassured. "No magic, huh? At all? Are you sure?"
Merlin rounded on him, unsteady but angry, and snarled, "Astrice!" pushing his palm toward Saxon-Gwaine, who stumbled back momentarily in a shocked panic – but not because the magic had been the least bit effective. "Are you… satisfied now?" Merlin demanded, panting and trembling and so terribly dusty-dry inside. "Go away and… leave me alone."
"No, mate." Gwaine's grin was a pale version of his usual. "That's not the way I pay off my debts, remember? Any minute now you'll remember how clever and skillful and stealthy I can be when I have to–"
Merlin couldn't help it. He snorted derisively.
"Geoffrey's grand-niece," Gwaine said, pointing at him as he straightened with the horn cup of water re-filled in his hand. "Huh? You couldn't have gotten out that library window without being caught, clumsy as you are. Here." He put the cup into Merlin's hand. "Any minute now you'll realize I really am here… and maybe then we can figure out what we're going to do. Just rest." He spun to look round as much of the camp as he could from the mouth of the tent, and drew the last section of canvas mostly closed.
"No," Merlin said. He did drink the water, though, as Gwaine gave him a puzzled over-the-shoulder look. "Not while that thing is in here."
The box. The creature inside. Sitting innocuously crooked on the grass and he considered trying to incinerate it with a fire-spell, if it wouldn't feel so appallingly wrong when nothing happened.
"Why? What's in it?" Gwaine said, striding past Merlin to lift the latch and flip the lid off with one deft movement of the toe of his boot.
Gwaine! He managed not to shout – not to draw attention – leaping, staggering, into Gwaine's broad back, yanking the knight's sword in a single clumsy pull. Turning and shoving the other man – and spinning to slice the launching darkness into two squelching, quivering halves.
He collapsed to his knees as dark viscous liquid oozed into the ground, absorbed, leaving two rapidly-shriveling skins behind.
Gwaine's voice swore. His Saxon boot kicked at the closer husk, and it dissolved into fine powder that also absorbed into the dim rocky ground. "What was that thing?"
Merlin felt stupid, suddenly. Gwaine had no magic, he would not be in danger from the creature – and this wasn't really Gwaine. Perhaps the ordinary soldier the witch had given Gwaine's face and voice and – sword, actually; he recognized the weapon in his hand before letting the other man take it gently from his grip – didn't know.
"Gean canach," he said, expressionlessly repeating the words that came into his mind at his recognition of the symbol on the box's lid. "A fearsome creature forged, it is said, by the tears of the earth mother Nemaine. It devours the magic of others, draining them of their power. Through the face… evidently… though that detail was news to me." Although, not really surprised that Morgause knew where to find one, or had one in her possession.
Gwaine's fingers put pressure on Merlin's chin, turning his head til he met the other's eyes, scanning him for… what, he didn't know. Injury, evidence of the creature's attack, maybe.
"Damn bastards," Gwaine spat.
And the furious loathing Merlin heard was genuine.
He turned and crawled to the blanket, not bothering to unfold it, but simply stretching his bruises on the ground again and pillowing his head on the material. So. Tired.
The lid of the box closed behind him. He thought that odd. It was what Gwaine would do, to keep any stray enemy from noticing immediately that it was empty – but this wasn't really Gwaine. Was it.
Gwaine's voice said, way too softly for the rough knight, "Go ahead and sleep, Merlin, if you need to. I'll stay and keep watch, and when you're ready… we'll go back to Arthur."
"Why," he mumbled against the rough scratchy wool of the blanket. "No use – no magic." He felt a hand again, light on the back of his head, ruffling his hair.
"You know I hate to have to agree with Arthur about anything… but you are an idiot, sometimes."
He opened one eye to glare at Saxon-Gwaine, who gave him a wry-melancholy grin.
"It's not your magic that we love, or need. It's you, Merlin."
Consciousness drifted, as he considered the words. The truth of them. And why they would be said by an enemy. And he heard Gwaine's voice say one more thing, on a low quiet sigh.
"So come back to us, my friend. Won't you."