Ill-Advised Fic
Oh, I really shouldn't be doing this. I have a build-up of homework from the week after taking three days to do a coursework draft (curse my advanced procrastination skills!), plus revision for mocks tomorrow and the day afterwards. It's impressive how I can only be a week into this half of the term and already be behind. I also have serious beta-ing to do, which isn't as easy to find time to do as before because I can no longer access my e-mails at school (plus the school computers are apparently determined to spread diseeeeeases/viruses). And what do I do? Dig out Merlin fic.
I actually started this one just after watching Ep 6, so it's been lurking on my hard-drive for a while. Now wasn't really the best time to dust it off and finish it, but oh well. A couple of scenes are also a little vague because I can't remember exactly what happened in the eps, and it can go a little schizophrenic depending on when I wrote various bits.
Ooookay, shutting up now so that I can post and go. #sigh# I missed my fandom.
Title: For Your Enemies
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: Some darkish!Merlin, references to death, possibly not slashy enough. Spoilers for 1x06 (`Remedy for All Ills`) and 1x07 (`Gates of Avalon`).
Genre: Angst
Pairings: Arthur/Merlin if you really squint.
Word Count: 4229 (whyyy?)
Summary: Merlin's trying to cope after Edwin Muirden's death and discovers a certain book.
For Your Enemies
It is up to Merlin to clear out the rooms after Edwin Muirden’s death. To sort through his belongings, pretending he is looking for anything that could be of use to others. It is just a formality, of course - Uther has already ordered the burning of all of his possessions. Anything to stop any magic getting out.
There is a flash of sadness as he packs it all away. All of those tubes, containers, all that valuable glass. By tomorrow all of Edwin’s carefully constructed and assembled equipment will be so many warped remains, good for nobody. What a waste.
Not that Merlin wants some trace of the man to be left behind, of course. At first he had been so excited at the idea of another magic-user in the court, especially one apparently so interested in his own gift… Then it had turned out that he was only interested in how that gift could help him. It wasn’t a lesson Merlin had enjoyed learning.
If he had been just a little bit later, Gaius would have…
But he hadn’t. Edwin’s body is the one carted off to be burnt that morning, not his teacher’s. A body that Merlin is responsible for, even if it had been an accident. Maybe if he had been more careful, tried to aim it… Except if he hadn’t acted in that instant, it would have been two bodies, not one. Three if you counted the king as well.
Lifting up an open bag, resulting in several items of piled clothing falling to the ground, he lets out a sigh. He had often heard his mother use the phrase `the lesser of two evils`, but he has never really appreciated its meaning until now. Uther could have been dead by now, and magic freed once more… Except that had been exactly what Edwin had wanted. All that and more.
Before he can continue that trail of thought any further, before the memories can hit him while they are still fresh and strong, his attention is suddenly caught by something he has inadvertently uncovered by knocking the clothes off the table. Just briefly the light had reflected off something set in leather, something that glistened and drew the eye like a spell.
A spell…
Slowly, cautiously, yet strangely reverently, Merlin reaches out to touch it. He has seen something like this before now, tucked away in Lady Helen’s room. In fact, he had seen another one just that morning. Leather-bound, with intricate designs marked into the cover and pages which make the crackly sound of their years as his fingers brush against them. What marks this one out from the others though are the intricate runes which cover the old leather, spelling out words that only exist through magic now.
Without truly realising what he is doing, he takes it up in his hand. Its weight belies its size, but he is used to that from what could be its brother. Already he knows that it would also sit better opened in his lap, pages held open by habit as he reads, always trying to find something new, something different…
Abruptly he snaps out of his reverie. Already he has opened the book without his realising it, the first page exposed to the light. A series of names are written above and alongside each other, winding their way down the paper, changing in shape but somehow all connected, joined by lines that link them together and draw the eye down towards the bottom, eventually ending in a single name, hastily crossed out and replaced by an almost illegible scrawl: Edwin Muirden.
Merlin absent-mindedly follows the lines with his finger, stopping when he reaches that blot above the horribly familiar name. Underneath is the real name of the one he’d killed. It feels wrong to have played so important a role in the man’s life without knowing his name. Briefly he contemplates some spell to make it reveal itself, until he remembers he hasn’t found that one yet. There are still large gaps in his knowledge, something he really doesn’t like.
He wonders why Edwin even changed his name in here. Surely a book detailing his family (he recognises the layout of a family tree from going through Geoffrey of Monmouth’s records) would be the one place he would allow that part of him to exist.
Unless it didn’t exist anymore. Unless he was no longer that person. Was that what magic had done to him? Had Gaius (somehow he couldn’t stop the thought) been responsible in some way? Or would Edwin have lost himself either way?
Will it happen to him too?
Suddenly he starts to quickly turn the pages, ignoring their crackles of protest, trying to find anything to distract his thoughts. Pictures rush by, of eagles, dragons, creatures he can’t name, until they start to blur together into some unnameable beast that, knowing his luck, he’ll run into next week.
“Merlin?”
He snaps the book shut, dropping it hastily as he spins around. He’s in luck though. It’s not Gaius or Arthur or anybody who might start asking awkward questions he doesn’t think he can answer right now. It’s the servant who is so scared of what Edwin might have left behind that he asked Merlin - acknowledged as the most incompetent servant in history even by the people who otherwise are pretty sympathetic about trying to deal with Arthur - to clear the room before he cleans it.
That’s the legacy of magic in Camelot: Either you hide as best you can or people fear you even after you’re dead, burnt, gone. Hardly any of the exciting prospects he’d hoped for when his mother had sent him here.
Briefly he lingers over that idea. Is he really better off here? Before, he hadn’t questioned it, but Edwin’s words are still there even without his body. About how Merlin could do better.
Snapping out of that thought before it goes too far, he realises the other man is watching him warily. Probably wondering how long it will take for him to return to normality. Hastily Merlin tries to remember his name to respond, because this man is just like him and doesn’t deserve to have his name forgotten, except of course they’re not the same…
“George!” he splutters, more to cut off the train of thought than because he has actually remembered the name. Luckily for him, the expression suggests he’s got it right. This time, at least.
After another pause, George slowly asks, “When are you going to be finished?”
Merlin forces a smile, knowing that anything else from the court idiot would look suspicious. It feels forced, unreal, but George doesn’t seem to notice. “Oh, you know, after it’s all packed up. Unless you’re going to help?”
That last question slips out almost pleadingly, asking not to be left alone with what’s in here. ‘I killed this man, please don’t leave me with him.’ Merlin has never been largely superstitious - most of the fantastical really does exist for him - yet suddenly he remembers all of those stories about ghosts and demons who seek out the ones who took them, and he feels a lot less comfortable about doing this.
However, George retreats without much protest, attempting a smile which looks almost as weak as Merlin’s feels. At least he can show it when he’s scared.
The thoughts are still there, hovering like the birds that eat the dead. They won’t get anything from Edwin though. Not unless they like their meat roasted.
A brief hysterical laugh becomes a choke somewhere on the way out. He can smell flesh, blood, the decay of animals found in the woods in Ealdor, except each of them has Edwin’s face when he recalls them.
There’s too much in this room. Too much for him to cope with. Inside him he can feel his magic bubbling with the twisting in his gut and he has to force back what feels like what little he had managed of his lunch. The thought of his magic summons up pictures of a body with an axe in it, not to mention the fire which had surrounded Gaius beforehand.
He starts to shove Edwin’s possessions (although he shouldn’t really describe them as that anymore) into a pile, not even bothering to look at them. As a bottle shatters against the floor, he realises he is shaking, trying to keep back the memories or at least stop them from connecting together. He’s not like Edwin, he’s not…
Truthfully, he has no idea how the job is suddenly done. Well, not as `done` as some might hope, since it is all still right there, but enough for him to claim his particular job is finished. Turning to go, the book suddenly catches his eye again. A whole family’s work over who knows how long, about to be burnt to nothing but ashes.
Without really knowing why, he reaches out and takes it, then practically runs away from the room.
His magic tells him from its hiding place that he has five minutes before he throws up.
****************************************************************************
Merlin isn’t hiding. Not really. Certainly he’s not avoiding the people outside his room in Camelot, because that would be ridiculous. Why would he not want to see them? None of them think he has done anything wrong. And he hasn’t.
No, he just feels like spending some time in his room, that’s all. Arthur may yell at him later, except they both know how much more successful training goes when Merlin isn’t there to knock anything and everything over and Arthur doesn’t have to constantly stop to reprimand him as required in front of all of his father’s knights. Merlin much prefers not having to take it, instead of their normal, more even-handed arguments. It’s for the best, really.
No doubt Gaius would like to think he’s studying…whatever it is he’s supposedly been learning lately. That would be better than simply sitting, leaning against his door to keep anybody out (or because that’s where he sat down) and staring into nothingness. It would take effort though. Effort to focus all of those blurred drawings and words into something that doesn’t look like a face.
Maybe he should just face it. Face what’s scaring him so much he hasn’t slept in over a day. Swallowing hard, he gestures with a hand and feels the familiar thrill of magic as Edwin’s book rises up from its hiding place alongside Gaius’ and floats over to him. At times like this, he’s glad it is so hard to get up high enough to look through his window.
There’s another thrill as he takes hold of it, yet not from his magic. This is forbidden in every way possible. Any magic book would be bad enough within Camelot, but the book of Edwin Muirden’s family? Even Gaius would object to that. Merlin can tell that much, even if he still doesn’t know why his teacher hated the man so much, beyond the obvious. Was it only what Edwin had done to him? That wouldn’t explain why the warlock himself had turned on Gaius when Merlin had found them.
Breathing deeply, he opens the book at a random page, deliberately ignoring the family tree. It is the work he feels he should save, not the people, or in particular that one person at the bottom like a rotten seed in the harvest. Or were they all like him?
A spell for preservation, the scrawling script describes. For maintaining a thing’s state until it can be woken. Surely that must be a good thing? As his eyes scan the page, devouring words he’s never seen before but somehow understands, he realises this is far more complex than anything he has tried before. In fact, more than preservation, it seems to be suspension outside time.
Something runs up his spine that doesn’t feel like a magical response. Still, he keeps reading to the bottom, storing the knowledge away to be used when necessary, along with his doubts…
…Until he reads the next spell. Lightning focused into a single deadly point. `A spell for your enemies` runs a different hand next to the words which Merlin has already started to read. Embarrassingly, it takes a moment for their true significance to register while his eyes are still scanning, absorbing the information quite unlike anything he can do with Gaius’ studies.
Then it hits him and that coil in his stomach reaches up to his throat again.
Killing people. Instantly that image of Edwin is back in his head, blocking everything except, of course, for those words.
Hastily Merlin turns the page, trying to get away from the spidery writing which seems to pierce into his vision and leave lines in red. No escape comes though. A different hand, yet the words it shapes form a horribly familiar spell. A ring of fire, once more `for your enemies`. He knows this one works, because he’s seen it before.
Three spells. Two out of the three aimed at destruction. The incantation for the exception is so complex in comparison that Merlin could almost understand why this family had preferred the opposite. Perhaps that writing had been from the odd one out trying to leave his mark, rather than the pride of the family.
The thoughts don’t need to be focused. The book goes flying from his hands without any visible assisting movement, spinning through the air until it hits the wall and falls to the floor. Merlin stays where he is; afraid of even the place he has always felt so safe before.
Is that what magic really is? After the little flash tricks, the oh-so-convenient shortcuts and sleights of hand, is that where you end up? Do you slowly begin to progress up the levels of power, losing a little bit more of what makes you the same as everybody else every time until you think nothing of recording spells to make others like you?
Is it already happening to him?
This time, instead of a laugh, the choke comes from a sob. Hiding his face in his hands (always hiding), he tries to keep the sounds muffled. If Gaius hears him, he will want to know what’s wrong, and then it will all come out. Instead, Merlin’s trapped in here with a black magic book (and it must be) and the memory of a man who had offered him a way out with an axe in his head.
A way out. Is that what he wants? Except when he thinks of leaving Camelot, there’s a strange pain in his chest that feels quite different from magic and separate from the rising illness. Something stops him from leaving here, as if he’s under a spell himself.
Trapped. Spellbound. However you look at it, he is here to stay.
Why isn’t he so happy about that anymore?
****************************************************************************
Branches batter him as if they’re trying to hold him back. Roots rise up from unexpected places (‘You’re in a forest, where were you expecting them?’) to trip him. Thorns reach out to rip at his clothes. He keeps running.
His thoughts whirl around him, conjuring images that only get worse as the forest stretches out around him. They all have one thing in common though: Arthur. Dead.
It’s the girl. Or her father. Both of them. Everything is so confused that he can barely keep track. His chest hurts from where they struck him with lightning that seemed strangely familiar, except he can’t remember where he has seen it before. The pain mixes with the emotions and the barely suppressed magic, which feels like it’s spilling into the trees around him. He knows it will be a long time before this seems a safe place again.
When he is almost at the lake, he skids to a halt. The scene before him his nightmare brought to life, only waiting for him to allow it to begin. Aulfric is chanting with a clearly deadly intent, even if Merlin can’t understand the individual words. That must be the magician then, who waits to show him what he’s supposed to do with all of his magic. Sophia is out there in the water, so pretty yet so deadly, with a power he has never managed to obtain. And Arthur…
Since coming to Camelot, Merlin’s dreams have changed a lot. They used to be the usual tangled mess of life and fantasy, mixed with that unique spin on things his magic has always given him. Now they’re not so easily explained. If he wanted to analyse some of those not-so-shapeless fears he’d say he was getting scared of other magic-users, but the sudden jump in his chest tells him what he’s really scared of now.
When Sophia reaches out and pushes Arthur, unresisting (why can’t Merlin ever get him to do that? Oh, because he’s not a selfish megalomaniac), down into the water, all of those reasons for not using his powers in this way go clean out of his head. As the prince vanishes beneath the surface, the knowledge the warlock has been hiding since reading that book comes rising back up into his mind.
It’s almost too easy to summon the staff and when he turns it on Aulfric, the words are as fresh as they have always been. The disintegration is a jolt, something he really hadn’t been expecting, and for a moment he realises that this is a point of no return for his magic. After this, even more than after Edwin, he can’t pretend it’s just fancy tricks and lights. Isn’t this what he had been so afraid of?
Then he looks up and sees Sophia standing there, and he tells himself that they were the ones who changed things, not him. If everybody who threatens Arthur (and that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?) is going to use their magic like this, it hardly seems fair for him to hold back.
He uses a slightly different spell this time. Both Edwin Muirden’s family and Aulfric have used very similar spells, and without knowing precisely how he can do it, he mixes them into something someone might call overkill. He wants to make sure, that’s all.
Before she’s done dying, he has already moved forwards, focusing on the water. Diving down, he looks around frantically, realising that it really isn’t that clear down here. What exactly was he swimming around in? A few ashes drift down in his wake, but he brushes them aside as he swims down. Unlike Edwin, Sophia and her father are gone in a moment.
Just as he begins to give up hope, his hands touch familiar chain mail. He was cleaning that yesterday, or at least he was supposed to be. Seizing it, he pulls up, restraining a curse as the weight kicks in because that would be a really stupid way to end up drowning.
He had never thought the air could feel so good before he finally breaks the surface and draws in a deep breath. Momentarily he’s distracted by the wonderful feeling that he’s alive, until he remembers the armful of prince that might not be so lucky.
Somehow Merlin manages to drag the two of them to the lake’s edge and out onto the mud (oh, he is not looking forward to washing that out for both of them). Looking over at Arthur, another breath catches in his throat. Arthur doesn’t look, well, alive.
Leaning over, he frantically puts an ear to his prince’s chest, not even wondering how odd this might seem in any other situation. After muttering a far milder spell, he can just about make out something that sounds fantastically like a heartbeat, although far too slow to stop him panicking completely. Looking up at Arthur’s face, he notices how pale it is. If the prince isn’t dead yet, he soon will be.
Merlin doesn’t know what to do. What few healing spells he’s found (come to think of it, why is something so useful so hard to find?) are only for little things, not complete resuscitation. Maybe Gaius would know what to do, but there is no way Arthur is going to last long enough to get back to the castle from here without a horse, and at a glance it seems the Sidhe didn’t bother with something that mundane.
Which is when another spell returns to him. Preservation or suspension, he is willing to take either. Anything to get Arthur back home in time. Even if it does mean turning his magic on somebody he trusts so much it hurts.
Stretching out a hand over his friend’s (or his prince’s, or whatever they are to each other) face, he slowly draws out those complex phrases and incantations. If he gets any of this wrong, he could end up being as deadly as Sophia. The mere thought focuses his thoughts into that one point, and he feels the magic, stronger than he has experienced before, flowing out of him into Arthur. At first there doesn’t seem to be any change, yet when he again tries to listen for that heartbeat, it is even slower than ever. Still there though. That will do.
Heaving what he hopes won’t be a literal deadweight up, Merlin pauses to curse all princes who obviously haven’t considered the possibility of anybody trying to lift them. He’ll be lucky to make it back to Camelot in one piece.
He has Arthur though, apparently safe and incredibly not dead. The rush of the magic he has just cast is dancing through his veins, giving him that extra push he needs.
As he turns his back on that lake, really he hoping he won’t have to go back there, he reaches behind him absent-mindedly to catch the staff that flies into his grip.
Another remnant of the dead. Another way to use magic.
****************************************************************************
He is back in his room, although this doesn’t feel like hiding anymore. In a strange way, it feels like waiting for something he can’t describe.
It had only been right before he had knocked on Gaius’ door that he had realised producing a temporarily suspended Arthur would require some sort of explanation, and he had guessed that Gaius had a pretty good idea of what sort of things were and, more importantly, weren’t in the book he had given him.
Edwin’s book had been in Merlin’s room, across Gaius’ chamber. Getting it would have also needed explaining, not to mention basically revealing it to a no doubt disapproving mentor. Casting around, Merlin had found that he had at least remembered the counter-spell (when it came to magic, he seems to recall far more than he is capable of elsewhere), and had whispered it while carefully casting around for any eavesdroppers. Later, he had decided that feeling Arthur slowly stir against him had been the best moment in his life.
All things considered, Gaius had reacted rather well to a wet manservant staggering into his room with an equally wet unconscious prince and mystical staff in tow. The only awkward moment had been when he had commented that had Merlin taken much longer, there would have been little he could have done for Arthur.
“See? I can be on time when I want to be.”
The lie had been so easy, he reflects. Admittedly Gaius had still given him a disapproving look, but that had probably only been a comment on Merlin’s normal time-keeping, judging by how quickly it had faded once his teacher had turned to Arthur. He is safe, it appears.
Now, lying on his bed, all he can think is that he could never have managed it without Edwin’s book, or, for that matter, Sophia’s staff. Not what he wanted to thank, yet it is true. Perhaps this is what is meant by the idea of using magic for good? You have to consider all magic, not just the pretty parts.
Besides, without them, Arthur would be dead, either at the bottom of a murky lake or somewhere in the forest. Surely anything that saves Arthur can't be evil?
Without sitting up, he reaches out with his mind to the two books underneath the panel in the floor. One of them rises up as that panel moves away, floating over to his waiting hands.
This time he intends to start from the beginning. After pausing on the family tree out of some respect for those who had given him this knowledge, he turns the page and starts to read. When he reaches spells `for your enemies`, he reads them too.
This is the world that Uther has created for those who use magic. If Merlin wants to protect his prince, he will have to follow its rules, even if the single rule is that there are no rules. That Arthur has to live is unquestionable. Whatever is necessary to make sure it happens will be done. No question about that.
He doesn’t stop to wonder why he is so determined that the Royal Prat can’t die. Since seeing him there out in the water and realising who has made their way into his dreams, there has been no doubt about what needs to be done.
Merlin or Arthur. Only one of them can fall. And he knows who he is willing to sacrifice.
`For your enemies.`