Fic - Merlin - A Terrible Cost (Part 2)

[lorannah]

PART 1


The dream came again. The confusion of blood and smoke and fire, mixing together and colouring the moment in reds and blacks. Her heart shuddered away from it, anticipating the sight of someone she loved, dead. But the dream had changed again, shifted somehow.

She saw them both - Arthur and Merlin - stood back to back, pressed against each other. Seemingly apart but invisibly laced together and stronger. Her heart sang. Sang pure and true and happy for a moment that was both long and short and trapped in the knotted time that dwelt in dreams.

But the fire and the blood and smoke was still there and their faces were strong but filled with sorrow.

The world seemed to rage around them. She saw image after image of disaster and betrayal and magic - such cruel and evil magic - wreaking its will on the world.

She felt battered by a storm of pain and misery - the only haven being the pair in its centre, who she longed and reached for.

While she was reaching she suddenly saw herself, alone and wreathed in black hatred, a bow in her hand, loathing its arrow, aiming for…

Morgana woke with a scream. Lost for a moment and then, feeling the thin blanket and rough earth beneath her, she remembered where she was. Gwen was beside her side in a moment, soothing her again.

“We have to stop it,” she told her. “We have to reach Merlin.”

“We will,” Gwen told her. “Come, you need to sleep, drink this.”

The last sip of Gaius’ sleeping draught slipped past her lips, plunging her back into a soothed sleep and the dream was lost.

* * * * *

Gwen watched as Morgana slipped back to sleep and stroked the tangled hair away from her forehead. It felt fevered and sticky, but at least the sleep seemed more restful now. The nightmares seemed to be coming more and more regularly and they were getting worse. She didn’t know what she could do. And if Gaius were lost…

She rose slowly and headed back to where Arthur was sat staring into the fire. She had snatched a few hours sleep earlier in the night but she did not think he had rested at all.

“She’s sleeping again,” she told him softly. For a second he did not seem to hear but then he looked up, his eyes focusing upon her.

“We’ll need to leave soon.”

“There was only a little sleeping draught left, she’ll wake before dawn.”

He nodded.

“You should rest,” he told her brusquely.

“So should you,” she retorted and he smiled slightly, though it was not a happy smile.

“I can’t sleep.”

His hand strayed absently to the wound on his shoulder and she noticed that a little blood had seeped through his shirt. Moving quickly to her horse, she grabbed a water bottle and a rag and some lengths of the bandages she had packed.

“Remove your jerkin,” she told him firmly.

He blinked at her in surprise for a second and then smiled - a real smile this time.

“So forceful. Guinevere?” His voice was warm and mocking but he removed the jacket anyway, revealing that the blood had spread further than she had expected.

She gave him a withering look as she sat beside him and gently eased his shirt away from the stickiness of his shoulder and began to sponge the blood away with the rag. Arthur winced.

“It hurts you?” she asked him.

“Less than before,” he told her with a slight laugh, “Wounds are easy. They heal. It’s everything else that is hard.”

She could feel his eyes watching her as she worked, but she ignored him.

“Guinevere,” he asked after a moment, “the things you said when I was… ill…”

She felt herself flush, and thought for a second that she saw his lips twitch in amusement from the corner of her eyes, though when she looked up his face was serious again. She had hoped he would not speak of this again, it had been embarrassment enough this morning, now she was suddenly aware how close together they were sat.

“Did you mean… those things?” He sounded worried, uncertain, and she paused for a moment before answering.

“Yes, I mean, I think you will be a great king… one day,” she told him.

“You have such faith in me. I don’t know where it’s come from, I used to think you didn’t like me much.”

“You noticed,” she teased him.

“Guinevere.” There was both warning and question in his tone.

“You’ve been different,” she told him as she began to bind his wound, “better… since Merlin came.”

He laughed softly again.

“I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult.”

She waited a moment before speaking again, weighing her words carefully before she spoke them. “What do you mean to do? About Merlin?”

He sighed and looked away.

“He used magic. I don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, it’s just sometimes not an easy one.”

“Why are we here, Gwen? Why did we run so fast to save him?”

“For the same reason we went to Ealdor,” she told him.

“And why did we do that?”

He was staring at the fire again.

“Because we care for him.”

He laughed again, though it was bitter this time.

“I don’t care for him, he’s just a servant.”

She did not point out the irony of who he spoke these words to, she knew them for a lie and they didn’t hurt her.

“Because he would save us in a heartbeat, he wouldn’t even hesitate. He has saved us. All of us, one way or another. And because he makes all of us better people,” Gwen spoke quickly, hoping the meagre words would be enough.

“We need him,” she finished pathetically, tying off the last of the bandage.

“My father…” Arthur began but couldn’t continue and Gwen did not know what to say. It was not her place to criticise Uther, nor her right.

“After my father…” she said at last and Arthur looked up at her, horrified.

“I’m sor…” he started but she just shook her head and he fell silent again.

“After he died, I was so angry at him. Not because I thought he was bad or evil or wrong or involved in magic, but because he made such a stupid mistake, two mistakes, he didn’t think…”

It hurt still to talk about her father, and it hurt more to criticise him. She could see the muscles in Arthur’s cheek had tightened.

“Guinevere, you don’t have to say this,” Arthur told her, meeting her eyes.

“I just wanted to say that I love my father, he was the most wonderful man in the world to me, but he wasn’t always right…”

“You think my father is wrong about magic?” he challenged her and Gwen had to look away.

“It’s not my place,” she told him softly, “I’m just saying you are allowed to disagree with him. Even if he is your father. Even if he is the King. And maybe you should, because no one else can.”

“He’s trying to protect Camelot.”

She breathed deeply for a moment, as if she stood at the edge of a deep, cold lake and was pulling in the strength to dive in.

“Maybe people who perform magic are meant to be part of Camelot,” she said keeping her voice gentle but firm. “I mean, maybe they need to be protected as well.”

For a while Arthur didn’t speak, staring into the dying embers of the fire instead and Gwen wondered if she had gone too far.

“But if that’s true then all the people who have been…” he began at last and then trailed off, his face seeming sharper and when he spoke again his voice held broken ice. “Morgana asked… but I didn’t… I don’t know why my father hates magic but he declared war on it when I was born. What if it’s something about me? What if this is my fault?”

She stared at him in horror for a second and then impulsively reached and gripped his hand. He let her.

“It isn’t. Maybe he did start this because of you, because he wanted to protect you, but that doesn’t make it your fault. You can’t blame yourself for your… for things that started when you had no power to stop them.”

Arthur was silent for a moment and when he finally spoke his voice was quiet.

“I have the power to stop it now. When the black knight came, after my father destroyed him, he told me he cared for me. I didn’t know that before. I mean he’s said he’s proud before, but I just…”

Gwen had never heard Arthur, usually so assured and confident, talk like this before, struggling to find a way to explain his feelings. If you’d asked her a few months before she would have thought it impossible that he even thought this way. She had no words of comfort for him.

“I mean, you can be proud of something and not care for it.” There was a tinge of bitterness to the sudden rush of words. “I’m proud of my horse, it’s a good horse, but it’s still just a horse. But he said… it. And it’s… I mean I still don’t believe it sometimes, not deep inside, but I know it and that’s good - like my mind knows even if my heart doesn’t and that must be worth something... It makes me feel stronger.

“But now that I know, I’m afraid to disappoint him. I don’t want to disappoint him. I don’t want to fight him. I don’t want to lose him, not now,” he finished with a note of desperation.

Silence lingered between them.

“You have never let fear control you before,” she said eventually.

Arthur did not reply and she did not press him again. Instead they sat in silence, their shoulders touching. Not quite together and not quite apart. Until the sound of bird song, in anticipation of the dawn, began to reach them from somewhere distant and Morgana began to stir.

Arthur rose stiffly from where he had sat on the ground and moved towards where his armour lay. Gwen’s heart lifted slightly.

“Wait. I’ll help you dress.”

She worked quickly and deftly as the dark turned to grey and Morgana rose, preparing him for battle.

* * * * *

“Gaius,” Morgana said suddenly and began to run, her dress billowing out behind her. Gwen saw the huddled body a moment later as Morgana sank to the ground beside him.

Something became still inside her. She could not imagine Camelot without Gaius.

“He’s all right,” Morgana said a moment later. With a soft laugh of relief Gwen sank down beside her.

Gaius was cold and wet but he was still breathing shallowly and he didn’t seem hurt.

“Good,” Arthur said, his voice flat and he turned back to his horse.

Merlin wasn’t there. There was no sign of him.

Morgana met her eyes. Arthur hadn’t spoken much since they’d started to ride. They didn’t know what he was thinking. And whatever they had spoken of in the night now felt closed between them.

She looked across the lake. The ruins seemed to rise from the mist of the lake, just visible through the rain, with no island beneath them. A strange, floating relic of the past.

It made her uneasy.

She did not want to think of Merlin there.

There was a strange sort of personality about the area - everything seemed set in itself, determined and full of purpose.

Arthur was paying little attention to the view. He had tied up the horses and was now checking his weapons - it seemed a familiar ritual to him. She wondered if that was a sign of fear in some way, a way of combating it. He never seemed scared, but neither did Morgana, not to most people, anyway.

A small boat waited on the shore. It did not seem tied to anything, but it did not seem willing to drift away either. It was merely waiting.

Behind them Arthur grunted in a way that seemed to suggest he was satisfied and Morgana watching him, rose quickly. She squeezed Gwen’s shoulder for a second, and she was already by the boat’s side when Arthur shouted out.

“Stop!”

Morgana turned to Arthur, annoyance clear on her face.

“You’re not about to insist that you should get in first, are you?” she challenged him.

“We’re dealing with magic,” Arthur replied, “the boat could be enchanted - dangerous.”

“As much for you as for me.”

“I’m used to facing danger.”

“And we are not? Anyway, we don’t know the boat is enchanted.”

Arthur ignored her.

“This armour is heavy,” he told her. “It will be a damn sight more problematic if the boat sinks because of the weight and you are already inside it.”

“I don’t think that boat will sink,” Gwen interrupted.

The boat was making her nervous. The island, or lack of it, was making her nervous. She wished to be gone as soon as possible and Arthur and Morgana could argue for hours if you let them. She sometimes suspected that they enjoyed it.

“See,” Arthur said to Morgana triumphantly, “Gwen agrees with me that the boat is enchanted.”

“That’s not quite what I said,” Gwen started, but Arthur had already pushed past Morgana and was stepping into the boat.

He was barely inside when it began to move, leaving them behind. Arthur was swallowed by the mist.

* * * * *

As the silence began to reclaim them again, Merlin felt the anger and fear that had been burning slowly inside him release slightly, allowing the pain of the magic still coursing through him to take hold again.

There was magic in the air around him as well, magic thrumming through the stones with a rapid, insistent beat.

“Does it always hurt this much? Magic,” he asked Nimue, feeling oddly vulnerable.

It barely mattered now with so little time left, but she was one of the few people who could give him a truthful answer and he could not help but ask.

She watched him for a moment, her expression softer than before. The rain had begun to ease away. He remembered with a jolt how beautiful he had thought her when he first saw her.

“Not always,” she told him. “But sometimes. Few people could do what you have done since yesterday. Hold back dragon’s breath, travel with the wind and carry another with you, open the heavens and claim the power of life and death, fight me… and even fewer would be able to stand afterwards. Was it your first time? The spell you used to take Gaius away?”

He nodded and she moved closer to him.

“And you have no teacher?”

He hesitated, thinking for a moment of the dragon, anger mingling with loss.

“Gaius…” he started but she laughed sharply.

“Gaius knew little magic when he took Uther’s service, he could not have taught you these things.”

“I have a book.”

She reached out and touched his cheek, her fingers lingering.

“So much potential. So much I could have taught you,” her hand fell to her side again. “Magic is a cruel and demanding mistress, Merlin - the more you ask of her, the more she takes from you. Sometimes the cost is terrible.”

Her voice had become sad, tinged with regret and Merlin felt a sudden closeness to her.

“Gaius said that as well,” he confided in her.

“He would know.” Merlin was surprised at the anger that had replaced her sadness, but then it was gone again and she sighed. “Everything passes.”

“You should have let him take your place,” she told him, but there was no mockery in her voice.

“I couldn’t,” he told her truthfully.

“If there were another way to escape your fate, would you take it?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

Nimue reached towards him again. He flinched away, but her hand just stroked his cheek, cold but soft. Merlin did not move, uncertain of what he should do. He searched her eyes looking for some hint of what she was thinking.

The sky had turned grey behind her, and for a moment, there was a fleeting hint of promised sunshine, streaming across the water.

She reached down and took hold of his hand lifting it and pressed it to her throat, holding it in place.

“You could have killed me, let my life flow across the altar and it would all have been finished. You still could, I would not stop you. Do it now. I’m your enemy - what would there be to regret? It would be a victory.”

He pulled his hand away from her throat abruptly.

“I’m not a murderer,” he told her.

“No? It is a shame, we could have done so much together.”

“If that is how you feel, why not just stop this?” he asked.

“The old religion binds me.”

He almost laughed. “The old religion? This is your doing, not some old lies told to peasants.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me. I have spent my whole life not understanding these… things. Tell me.”

She was still so close that he could feel her breath and she did not break his gaze as she answered.

“Magic is wild. They tried to bind it, to control it, to turn it into something they could use. But it wasn’t powerless, it bound them - made them perform its will. Demanded a cost. I am its servant, Merlin, its slave - the last. It’s given me so much knowledge, so much power and it still holds me.” Her voice was angry.

“So everything you’ve done, you did because it made you?”  He didn’t believe it.

“Of course not, I have my own will, my own anger, my own price. But when it calls, I come, like a hunting dog.”

“And what would have happened if I had killed you?”

She laughed softly. “You would have taken my place, it would have… claimed you, taught you its secrets.”

“And how would that have been better than me dying?”

She looked at him, confused, for a moment. “You would have stood beside Arthur, you would have secured our hope, our chance, our champion.”

For a moment he saw her thoughts clearly, saw her stood beside Arthur, and if not her another, saw how truly she believed this. All her hopes resting upon it. All those plots to hurt Arthur had been nothing but a way to scare Uther…

She wanted this. Needed it.

She pulled away from him, turning to look across the lake where it was visible between the ruins.

“But that’s lost now. I will find another way. It’s nearly time,” she told him.

* * * * *

The boat moved underneath Arthur, pulling away from the shore.

The mist seemed to thicken, clinging to him, making it impossible to see and almost impossible to breath. He closed his eyes against the whiteness for a second, a gesture of fear. In anger he forced them open again, pulling in two deep, choking breaths.

The air left his throat feeling coated and sore.

Self-consciously, he reached for the hilt of his sword, his hand settling comfortably around it and he let it reassure him.

Beneath him the boat shuddered to a halt. Had he hit land? The mist was still too thick around him to see, but slowly, almost imperceptibly it began to thin.

He saw the hand first, gripping the prow. Ghostly and white and dripping water.

Arthur pulled his sword loose, raising it to meet the throat of the man who had emerged from the parting mist. As the sword swung towards him the man reached up and gripped the blade, his hands wrapping firmly and strongly around it, jarring Arthur’s still painful shoulder.

He was tall, dark hair hung damp around a gaunt face. He did not flinch against the sharp blade and no blood dripped from his clenched hands.

Arthur tried to draw his sword back but it would not move.

“No weapons must be taken to the Isle,” the man told him.

Around them Arthur could see other figures now, men and women and even children, all cold and wet and proud and imperious and oddly lost. Many hands were gripping the boat.

“Who are you?” Arthur asked, wanting mostly time to decide what to do, and they all began to speak. Not at once, but each taking an answer, one after the other, so fast that the answers blurred together and he could not make out which figure was speaking.

“We are the dead…”

“The sacrificed…”

“The abandoned…”

“The lost…”

“The bargained…”

“The betrayed…”

“The keepers of the Isle….”

“The terrible cost…”

It was the man who held the sword who said the last and he ripped the sword from Arthur’s fingers.

“Are you what happens when someone trades their life?” Arthur asked, fighting against the sudden image of Merlin, cold, wet and alone. “If it’s this terrible why let it happen to someone else? Let me stop it.”

“That’s not your path,” the man replied and he dropped the sword. It plunged beneath the lake’s surface.

Arthur flung himself forward, reaching beneath the water, but his fingers closed on nothing and although the figures stood as if only in shallow water, he could not touch the bottom.

“Why?” he demanded, but they had already begun to move away, disappearing back into the mist.

All but one. A woman. Tall for her sex, with pale hair plastered to her face and neck. Her sodden dress, drifting in the water around her, was beautiful and richly made. She was staring at him.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Arthur Pendragon,” he spat at her and she gasped, a tiny painful gasp that wrenched at his heart unexpectedly. It must have shown on his face for she smiled at him.

“No, do not fret, it is just an old loss rediscovered.”

Moving a step forward, her hands reached out to rest on both sides of his face. He flinched away for a second, scared of the ghostly touch, but they felt real - cold and wet but real.

“You have come to release me.” The voice was laced with unexplained happiness but then her eyes faltered and her hands fell away to rest beneath the water. “No.”

“I’m here to save Merlin,” he told her slowly, uncertain.

“That shouldn’t be your path. Never mind. You must cut yourself another.”

“Who are you?” Arthur asked her. She wasn’t making any sense.

“It is of little matter… you will need a sword. One they will not know.”

Her left hand rose from the water clutching a sword and for a moment she stared at it as if she didn’t know where it had come from. It wasn’t his sword, Arthur realised, strange engravings marked the blade but it looked strong enough.

“Where…”

“All waters are one water,” she interrupted, her expression confused, as if the need for the question surprised her.

She took the sword in both hands and held it out to him, a formal gesture. As he reached to take it, she held on for a second, forcing him to meet her gaze.

“It was forged in fire,” she told him, “and has rested in water, but it must find a home in the earth before it can live in the air. Find it a harder sheath.”

With the last word she was gone, the sword suddenly heavier in Arthur’s hands and the boat moving again.

* * * * * *

Merlin was unconscious now. Nimueh looked at his body laid out on the altar, his skin both pale and wet with sweat. The first light of the sun, just visible as a soft grey through the easing rain, could not seem to warm him. He had descended quickly at the end. He would be dead soon.

She watched him, her sorrow at the lost opportunities genuine.

She reached out and gently stroked his cheek. He was already cold, Death’s fingers lingering there. She sighed.

“If you had only had the strength to take another’s life,” she told him softly, “we could have...”

“He doesn’t have to,” a man interrupted her. “That’s why he has me.”

* * * * * *

Arthur’s frustration, tiredness and the pain in his shoulder solidified into something useful as he saw Nimue reach out and touch Merlin - rage.

“If you had only had the strength to take another’s life,” he heard her say and his anger hardened again.

“He doesn’t have to. That’s why he has me,” he told her loudly.

She turned, shocked for a moment and then she smiled, stepping away from Merlin.

“Have you come to challenge me… prince?” she mocked him.

“I’m not going to let you kill him.”

“It was his choice, he agreed to the cost.”

“You tricked him,” he replied flatly, edging towards her.

“No. He sought me. He thought your life worth saving. None of this is of my doing.” She circled away as she spoke, placing the altar between them.

Arthur did not care, he thought only of reaching Merlin. As she backed away he stepped forward and pulled Merlin into his arms, carrying him from the altar. He sank with him to the ground, setting him on the wet grass.

There had been no response as he touched Merlin, no response as he lifted him. The boy felt cold and lifeless, though there was still a slight breath visible at the base of his neck. Merlin’s scarf was missing, Arthur realised, that’s why he could see the breathing. He wondered for a second where it had gone and then, steadying himself, he slapped him, hard enough to raise a bruise. Merlin did not even flinch.

He looked up. Nimue was watching him, her expression curiously blank. Almost sad.

“You will lift this curse,” he ordered her.

“If I do,” she told him, “you will die. To return a life, another must be taken.”

He rose steadily to his feet, leaving Merlin on the rain soaked grass and pulled the sword from his belt, its balance was superb. She did not seem surprised to see the weapon.

“Is that your answer, Prince?” she asked.

“If I take your life, Merlin will live.”

He moved quickly, hopeful to catch her off guard, his sword swinging almost of its own volition to strike her down. Her hand rose, quicker than he could see and the sword stopped with a painful jolt inches from it, sliding away from her. The pain in his shoulder doubled. He slashed at her twice more, each time she turned the blow away. He fell back.

“Think,” she told him sharply. “You may not always slaughter your way to a solution, Pendragon. Do you think the old religion would leave its servants so unprotected? My life cannot pay this cost.”

He fell back a few steps, allowing the sword to fall to his side and tried to win back his far too spent breath.

“Then he is doomed?” he asked her, after a moment, not able to look at where Merlin lay.

“Perhaps. There may be another path.”

He knew what she meant. He could still die.

It was the right thing to do, to refuse the sacrifice. But he knew what his father would say, Merlin was just a servant and he was a prince and that came with responsibilities. And his father was right, even when he was wrong, but what good was a prince who would not die for his people.

And this was Merlin.

“You said before that it was not your destiny to kill me? Is this what you meant? That I should take my own life? Was that your intent?” he asked her.

She shook her head gently.

“No, the future told me that the deed lies in another’s hands, many years away.”

“So what does my destiny hold?” he challenged her.

“I think that depends on the outcome of this night - the Questing Beast was seen - the future is moving.”

“What does that mean?” he snapped.

“In some places there is more than one path to the future, more than one future to reach. What we do affects which we take. Our feet are on one path now - what happens next might yet move them.”

“And what path am I on now? What future?”

She looked away for a moment and though his eyes did not falter from her, he knew hers rested upon Merlin. Then she looked back at him.

“You will be a more terrible king than your father. Magic will falter and die and Camelot will be doomed. Your reign will only bring sorrow and cruel retribution. The sword will rule, not wisdom.”

He felt the anger of her statement, his own rising to meet it. And with his anger the sword rose, steady again in his hand. That was not his father’s kingdom and it would not be his own.

“Then why don’t you kill me now? Stop it happening?”

“That’s not…”

“Your destiny, I know. But you said the future could change tonight. Why not change it?”

“I created you - I will not destroy what I created,” she told him.

He moved suddenly, anger and fear sweeping him forwards and she did not fight him - in a moment she was pinned to the altar, his sword to her throat.

“What do you mean?”

“They did not tell you,” her voice was soft, almost gentle. “Your mother was barren, my magic allowed her to bear you - but her life was forfeit. She died so I could create you. That is why your father does not love you as he should.”

“That’s not true,” he told her, not quite sure which part he was arguing against, the truth of his birth or that his father did not love him. Feeling the world falter beneath him and not knowing whether it was his wound or her words that made the ground twist.

“Why do you think he turned against magic?”

He had no answer, his hand was shaking and the sword pressed against her throat, drawing the first drop of blood. He wanted to kill her. To wipe away the things she had told him.

She smiled at him and the sword pricked deeper. It took all his strength to stop it from sinking further. Only the echo of his own commands for wisdom and control on distant training fields stayed his hand.

“What now, sire?” The words were harsh and laboured.

“Tell me how to save him,” he demanded, pushing the anger and pain aside.

“There is no way, unless…” Her voice trailed away, but she did not sound scared, merely tempting.

“Unless what?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“If you can break the altar, the old religion’s power will be lost, then you both may live.”

Around them the Isle seemed to shudder and a strange keening noise rose from its base. Arthur stared at the solid stone. He had no idea how what she asked might be achieved.

“You have betrayed us.”

The words were spoken by many voices. Looking up, Arthur realised that the people from the lake had surrounded them and were approaching quickly. He swung his sword away from Nimue’s neck, releasing her. She rose quickly, raising her hands.

“Think, Arthur Pendragon, think. I cannot hold them for long,” she told him.

“I don’t know what to do, you have to help me,” he told her bitterly.

“Magic cannot destroy its master,” she warned, casting her first spell, wreathing a protective barrier of flames around the three of them.

Through the smoke and fire he saw the pale woman in the crowd, the one who had given him the sword.

“A harder sheath,” he murmured and then without waiting he leaped onto the slippery surface of the altar and, taking only a moment to balance himself, plunged the sword into the stone.

It slipped through it, as if it were only mud and for a moment there was silence, then beneath his feet the altar cracked, the stone shearing away from itself and he was flung to the muddy ground.

The flames surged and then died away. The figures seemed to still then with a sigh, vanished. Nimue began to laugh.

* * * * * *

It was the cold that came back to Merlin first. The cold and then the pain - like he had fallen through ice into the frozen lake beneath.

“Merlin,” he heard Arthur say from somewhere far away as he struggled to draw a breath. “Come on Merlin, wake up - you’re going to be all right.”

It sounded oddly concerned for Arthur, though the hint of exasperation was purely his and the last certainly sounded like an order.

He could hear laughter too; broken, joyous laughter.

The next thing that filtered back into his perception was that somebody was shaking him. Mentally he groaned and tried to push them away but his body refused to follow his thoughts.

Then someone hit him hard across the face.

He was not sure if it was the shock or the pain that forced the first breath back into his lungs, plunging him back into the sound and feel of the world.

For a moment he could not remember what had happened, but the first drop of rain hitting his face and the realisation that the ground beneath him was muddy and wet pulled the memories back.

“Shut up, will you,” he heard Arthur snap, and that wasn’t right.

Forcing his eyes open, he saw a blond head, though the vision was dark and blurred. As the world slowly cleared, he saw that Arthur was holding him and at the same moment he realised he wasn’t dead. They weren’t dead.

He tried to sit up, but could not manage it, gasping softly at the effort.

“Calm down,” Arthur ordered him. “Stop.”

“No,” Merlin told him, “I need… the altar. I have to die,” he finished desperately.

“No, you don’t,” Arthur sounded like he was somewhere between amusement and annoyance.

“No. You’ll die,” Merlin tried to make him understand.

“Wrong again. Are you ever right about anything, Merlin?”

“But…”

“I’m alive, aren’t I,” Arthur told him and then added as an afterthought, “idiot.”

Merlin let his mind wander for a moment, trying to find the ruins around him, though he could not seem to see very far. The world felt as if it were changing, somehow. He searched, trying to find a way to explain to Arthur.

“Nimue…” he tried at last, but stopped as he saw Arthur’s face freeze for a second and then sober.

“She’s here.”

As if he had somehow been released by the words, Merlin’s eyes at last found the altar and the pale figure sprawled beside it. He could see blood on her throat but she was alive. Her laughter had softened but her eyes shone with tears and triumph.

Beside her the altar was broken, laying in jagged chunks, only one part remained standing and a sword, a familiar sword, rose tall and proud from it.

And he understood.

“It’s broken?” he asked, dreading what that would mean. He could not feel magic in the place anymore. The stones no longer sang to him.

“It’s free,” she told him, then she looked at Arthur. “We worked well together, Pendragon, and you will need me now.”

“I will never need you,” Arthur’s anger was blinding. “There will never be a place in Camelot for magic.”

Nimue stiffened then, rising to her feet and Arthur rose with her, but Merlin could not follow him. The two faced each other.

“Magic is wild again, wild and powerful - you cannot exclude it.” Nimue spoke with certainty. “It is unleashed, and with it comes terrible, glorious things. Such power, I can feel it, inside me.”

“There is no old religion to protect you now. You should pay for what you have done,” Arthur’s hand reached for the sword that no longer hung there and Nimue smiled.

“Every witch and wizard you have ever scorned, ever hurt, ever punished is now more powerful than you could begin to imagine. You would do well to start making amends, Prince. I at least will forgive you and by your side I can aid you against what will come.”

“You will never stand by my side,” Arthur told her.

“You have chosen the wrong path,” Nimue said and then looked at Merlin, “both of you. I hope he is worth the cost, my lord.”

For a moment, Merlin had the queer sensation that she was addressing him.

Then in a storm of smoke and wind that tore at her clothes and hair she was gone. There was silence for a moment and Merlin felt a strange sense of loss at the parting, mingled with fear.

“We need to go, something’s happening,” Arthur said at last. “Come on”.

He pulled Merlin to his feet and as his weight hit him, Arthur stumbled slightly. They rested a moment each holding the other up. Arthur’s face was a grimace.

“You’re hurt,” Merlin said, feeling useless.

“I’m not dying yet,” Arthur told him and took his weight more firmly, with grim determination.

“No…”

“God, you’re not exactly heavy, Merlin, stop fussing.” Arthur cut him off, his voice annoyed.

Merlin let himself be dragged, almost carried. The armour was cold and hard beneath him, but Arthur’s hands were warm where they held him firmly and Merlin allowed himself to grip them so their hands rested together, allowing himself to cling to Arthur in a way that he knew they would both normally resist.

As they moved painfully towards the stairs, he saw what Arthur had meant. It was not that the sacred ruins were crumbling and falling around them, but they seemed to be aging, as if time were moving fast - he could see moss spreading quickly, stones wearing away and cracks appearing.

And he could feel it. It felt like they were dying or coming back to life or both.

* * * * * *

Morgana could not draw her eyes away from the ruins. She was cold and wet and tired and, most all, desperate to know what was happening. It felt like they had waited an age, not knowing whether Arthur and Merlin died or lived - or what they could do in either case.

Gwen had made Gaius, who slept on, as comfortable as possible and now she was gentle, soft and patient beside Morgana.

Suddenly the world went black, just for a moment, and then pain and light, flowered around her. She could see things - things like those she saw in her dreams - but they had never come in her waking hours before.

Horrible things - monsters and battles and fire and Camelot under siege from all manner of enemies.

Her skin swam with them, tingled all over as if someone was touching it - painful and terrible and wonderful and filling her with such potential.

She felt for a moment like she would drown in it.

Then she felt Gwen’s hands on her shoulders, Gwen’s voice calling her.

And she saw her.

Gwen at Arthur’s side, a crown on her head, and a smile on her lips. Then Lancelot and the images began to move faster, flowing together - a stolen kiss, a pyre, Arthur’s eyes, Arthur’s pain, another battle, a dark haired man gripping Gwen, Gwen’s fear and loss, Arthur being carried away.

“Don’t leave me,” she begged her.

And then she saw Gwen again. Trapped in a cold, barren room with only a cross and its broken man for company. Abandoned. The loneliness wrapped around her like a shroud. And Morgana felt as if a beast was in her own heart, trying to claw its way out.

She gasped at the pain and the wonder of it all as the magic danced across her skin and through her soul.