All That is Gold - Chapter One
Title: All That is Gold
Author: the_arc5
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: Still PG
Warnings: Spoilers for ENTIRE SEASON.
Summary: Arthur is kidnapped, Merlin is bait, and from there on out, things start to fall apart.
Author's Notes: I'm playing merry hell with Arthurian legend here, Malory in particular. Don't judge me.
Prologue
“I’m not panicking,” Merlin informed Arthur’s empty bedchamber.
“Not panicking,” he told the battlements.
“Definitely not panicking,” he said to the deserted training field.
“Not panicking at all,” he emphasized to the armory.
He might have explained the situation to a few passing servants and most of the castle walls, too. By the time he got back to Gaius’s rooms, the answer was automatic.
“What are you doing?” Gaius asked.
“Not panicking,” Merlin replied. Gaius cocked an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. Merlin fidgeted for a few minutes, nervously picking things up and putting them back down, going into his room and coming back out, and peering anxiously into corners.
“Whatever you’re not doing, could you stop?” Gaius said wearily. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“Arthur’s gone,” Merlin blurted. “I’ve looked everywhere, and he’s nowhere.”
“That sentence makes absolutely no sense,” Gaius said, peering into a flask of orange liquid. “You can’t have possibly looked everywhere, and he must physically be somewhere. Hand me that spoon, would you?”
“He’s not,” Merlin huffed, handing over the spoon. “He’s not in his chambers, he’s not training, he’s not with Uther, and he’s not off taking walks like some…prat.”
Gaius raised the eyebrow again. “Perhaps he’s hunting.”
“He’s not hunting,” Merlin sighed. “His bow is still in the armory, his hunting pack is still in his room, and he wouldn’t have missed that chance to torture me.”
“Perhaps he’s in…company.”
“Company?”
Gaius wriggled two eyebrows suggestively, and Merlin very nearly threw up.
“No, Gaius,” he said hastily. “Don’t even suggest it.”
“I just want you to think through all of the possibilities,” Gaius admonished, looking a little put out. “It’s no good panicking…”
“I’m not panicking!” Merlin snapped.
“When you don’t have all the facts,” Gaius finished. “Jumping to conclusions never helped anyone.”
“What if it’s magic?” Merlin moaned. “What if he’s off being eaten by something, or someone’s trying to trade him for entrance to Avalon, or somebody suggested some deadly quest, and because he’s cheerfully suicidal, he took it?”
“You’re panicking,” Gaius said evenly.
“I’m not. He just makes me nervous, especially when he’s not where he’s supposed to be.”
Gaius began to reply, but was interrupted by a quiet knock on the door. Morgana stuck her head in.
“Hello, Gaius, Merlin,” she said. “You haven’t seen Arthur, have you? He promised to go riding with me today, so I wouldn’t have to take an entire retinue.”
“Ha!” Merlin crowed, then sobered. “No, I’m sorry, I haven’t seen him. I’ve been looking.”
Gaius frowned. “I haven’t seen him either, Morgana. He didn’t have any other appointments today, did he?”
Morgana smiled. “That would be like him, weaseling out of riding with me with some excuse. He’s probably just hiding. Thank you both.”
She left, and Gaius patted Merlin on the shoulder.
“Stop worrying, Merlin. He’ll turn up.”
*****
But he didn’t. By nightfall, the usual business of the prince was unattended to, and Uther was put out.
By morning, there was no word, and Uther was angry.
By the next day, Uther was worried, people were beginning to talk, and Merlin was very nearly frantic. A search party had returned empty handed, and two more were sent out with strict orders to send word if anything is found.
Nothing was. It was if Arthur had simply disappeared.
*****
Merlin straightened Arthur’s pristine bedclothes and for the first time in his life, wished he had more chores. Gaius had tried to fill his suddenly empty hours, but Merlin’s boundless supply of nervous energy got the job done in half the time, even when he didn’t cheat with magic. He quite simply couldn’t sit still.
Not that the castle was a particularly relaxing place to be still in. Uther drove the knight patrols even harder than Arthur did, and in ever-widening circuits. Nobody had to be told that he would find his son, dead or alive, even if it took years. Morgana didn’t dare challenge him; she just looked pale and sick, and was unnaturally quiet. Their combined bad mood cast a pall over the entire castle, and servants and knights alike were high-strung and anxious. Merlin had thought that Gwen was the only one bearing up well under all the strain, until he offered to carry a basket of laundry for her, and she fell into his arms like a rag doll, crying hysterically. It was enough to startle Merlin out of his own melancholy and worry for a moment, but it didn’t last. When Gwen finally wiped her eyes, hiccupped, and shyly thanked him, he felt a little like breaking down himself.
“It has to be sorcery,” he told Gaius, dropping his latest assignment, a large basket of herbs, onto the workbench. Gauis didn’t so much as turn around.
“I need you to deliver this,” he said instead, waving vaguely to a small bottle.
“Gaius! This is important,” Merlin snapped. Gaius sighed.
“Of course it is. But you’re grasping at straws, Merlin.”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” Merlin answered, a bit peevishly.
“As if anyone could talk of anything else,” Gaius grumbled. “Go on, then. How is magic associated with Arthur’s disappearance?”
“I don’t know,” Merlin said uncertainly. “But it has to be.”
“Why?” Gaius asked. Merlin flailed his arms in exasperation.
“Since when has any earth-shattering problem of Arthur’s not been magic?” he cried. “Magic shields? Poisoned goblets? Evil seductive enchantresses? Unicorns? Have you been around the past few months?”
“You’re exaggerating,” Gaius said.
“I am not,” Merlin shot back. “There’s something unnatural about this whole thing. They won’t find anything.”
Gwen suddenly burst into the room, the door slamming loudly against the wall. “They’ve found something,” she gasped, and turned to run out again.
Merlin didn’t stick around long enough for Gaius to gloat.
******
Something turned out to be a smug little messenger with a pimply face and a disturbing habit of licking his lips every five seconds. Merlin stood slightly behind Gwen, fighting a massive internal battle of self-control not to turn the man into a lizard out of sheer spite. The messenger smirked as he handed Uther a sealed roll of parchment and waited while he read it. Uther’s face immediately flushed crimson.
“What outrage is this?” he said, his voice rising to a boom that made everyone in the hall flinch instinctively. Everyone, that is, except the messenger, who clearly had a death wish. He licked his lips and smirked again.
“Is there any message for my lord?” he asked in a high, reedy voice. Merlin clenched his fists. Forget magic. He would just pummel the lizard’s brains out.
“You will await our reply,” Uther snarled. “You will be escorted to a room. The court is dismissed.”
*****
“Merlin, if you don’t sit down this instant, I’ll throw you out the window myself,” Gaius said, dangerously calm. Merlin flopped onto the bench and began drumming his fingers.
“What was in that message?” he asked for the millionth time. Gaius threw a rag at his head.
“We’ll know soon enough,” he snapped, the same answer he’d given for the past hour. Merlin dropped his head to the table with a frustrated groan. There was a timid knock at the door.
“Enter,” Gaius called, and nudged Merlin, his eyebrows silently signaling for him to get up and try to look like he had some semblance of reason about him. Merlin scowled at him in response.
Gwen stepped in the doorway, wringing her hands. “I just… I thought you would want to know.”
That brought Merlin to his feet.
“Know what?” he asked, hurriedly pulling her further into the room. “Is it about the message? Do you know where Arthur is?”
“Morgana told me,” Gwen said, her voice quavering. “The message… It was a ransom note. From Maleagant of Tintagel.”
“No,” Gaius gasped. Merlin looked nonplussed.
“Who is Maleagant of Tintagel?”
“A shameless villain,” Gaius supplied, at the same time Gwen said, “An evil bastard.”
Merlin shook his head. “Right, so he kidnaps people, I get it. What is he planning to do with Arthur?”
“Maleagant has long been an enemy of Camelot,” Gaius said. “He despises Uther and would like nothing more than to see his kingdom razed to the ground.”
“He won’t kill Arthur,” Gwen broke in, laying a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. Merlin wondered for a split second if that was supposed to keep him from hyperventilating or fainting or whatever it was people did when they panicked, since he’d never done it before. “Kidnapping knights is a noble tradition.”
“What?” Merlin screeched. “Noble kidnapping my…”
“She means, there are rules about this sort of thing,” Gaius interrupted. “Arthur’s probably not in mortal peril.”
“Oh, now I feel better,” Merlin grumbled.
“The problem will be the ransom. Usually, knights are traded for knights; that’s the whole point of kidnapping them. But a prince…” Gaius shook his head.
“That’s just it,” Gwen explained. “Maleagant is demanding knights, but not just one or two of his imprisoned men. He’s demanding hundreds of them, a huge part of Camelot’s force.”
“He’ll have our heir, or he’ll have our army,” Gaius said slowly.
“But… Uther’s going to get Arthur back, isn’t he?” Merlin asked, a little desperately.
Gwen bit her lower lip. “I don’t know. Camelot would be defenseless if he did.”
“He won’t cripple the kingdom like that,” Gaius agreed.
“But Arthur. His son,” Merlin persisted.
“One or many?” Gaius said. Merlin grimaced and twisted out from beneath Gwen’s hand.
“If nobody else plans on saving him, then, I will!” he shouted.
“Merlin, be sensible,” Gaius snapped.
“No! I won’t! I’m not going to just leave him!” He flung the door open and ran pell-mell down the corridor in the direction of the battlements, ignoring Gaius and Gwen’s calls for him to come back.
“What will he do?” Gwen asked anxiously. Gaius kept his eyes on the open door.
“I honestly have no idea.”
Author: the_arc5
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: Still PG
Warnings: Spoilers for ENTIRE SEASON.
Summary: Arthur is kidnapped, Merlin is bait, and from there on out, things start to fall apart.
Author's Notes: I'm playing merry hell with Arthurian legend here, Malory in particular. Don't judge me.
Prologue
“I’m not panicking,” Merlin informed Arthur’s empty bedchamber.
“Not panicking,” he told the battlements.
“Definitely not panicking,” he said to the deserted training field.
“Not panicking at all,” he emphasized to the armory.
He might have explained the situation to a few passing servants and most of the castle walls, too. By the time he got back to Gaius’s rooms, the answer was automatic.
“What are you doing?” Gaius asked.
“Not panicking,” Merlin replied. Gaius cocked an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. Merlin fidgeted for a few minutes, nervously picking things up and putting them back down, going into his room and coming back out, and peering anxiously into corners.
“Whatever you’re not doing, could you stop?” Gaius said wearily. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“Arthur’s gone,” Merlin blurted. “I’ve looked everywhere, and he’s nowhere.”
“That sentence makes absolutely no sense,” Gaius said, peering into a flask of orange liquid. “You can’t have possibly looked everywhere, and he must physically be somewhere. Hand me that spoon, would you?”
“He’s not,” Merlin huffed, handing over the spoon. “He’s not in his chambers, he’s not training, he’s not with Uther, and he’s not off taking walks like some…prat.”
Gaius raised the eyebrow again. “Perhaps he’s hunting.”
“He’s not hunting,” Merlin sighed. “His bow is still in the armory, his hunting pack is still in his room, and he wouldn’t have missed that chance to torture me.”
“Perhaps he’s in…company.”
“Company?”
Gaius wriggled two eyebrows suggestively, and Merlin very nearly threw up.
“No, Gaius,” he said hastily. “Don’t even suggest it.”
“I just want you to think through all of the possibilities,” Gaius admonished, looking a little put out. “It’s no good panicking…”
“I’m not panicking!” Merlin snapped.
“When you don’t have all the facts,” Gaius finished. “Jumping to conclusions never helped anyone.”
“What if it’s magic?” Merlin moaned. “What if he’s off being eaten by something, or someone’s trying to trade him for entrance to Avalon, or somebody suggested some deadly quest, and because he’s cheerfully suicidal, he took it?”
“You’re panicking,” Gaius said evenly.
“I’m not. He just makes me nervous, especially when he’s not where he’s supposed to be.”
Gaius began to reply, but was interrupted by a quiet knock on the door. Morgana stuck her head in.
“Hello, Gaius, Merlin,” she said. “You haven’t seen Arthur, have you? He promised to go riding with me today, so I wouldn’t have to take an entire retinue.”
“Ha!” Merlin crowed, then sobered. “No, I’m sorry, I haven’t seen him. I’ve been looking.”
Gaius frowned. “I haven’t seen him either, Morgana. He didn’t have any other appointments today, did he?”
Morgana smiled. “That would be like him, weaseling out of riding with me with some excuse. He’s probably just hiding. Thank you both.”
She left, and Gaius patted Merlin on the shoulder.
“Stop worrying, Merlin. He’ll turn up.”
*****
But he didn’t. By nightfall, the usual business of the prince was unattended to, and Uther was put out.
By morning, there was no word, and Uther was angry.
By the next day, Uther was worried, people were beginning to talk, and Merlin was very nearly frantic. A search party had returned empty handed, and two more were sent out with strict orders to send word if anything is found.
Nothing was. It was if Arthur had simply disappeared.
*****
Merlin straightened Arthur’s pristine bedclothes and for the first time in his life, wished he had more chores. Gaius had tried to fill his suddenly empty hours, but Merlin’s boundless supply of nervous energy got the job done in half the time, even when he didn’t cheat with magic. He quite simply couldn’t sit still.
Not that the castle was a particularly relaxing place to be still in. Uther drove the knight patrols even harder than Arthur did, and in ever-widening circuits. Nobody had to be told that he would find his son, dead or alive, even if it took years. Morgana didn’t dare challenge him; she just looked pale and sick, and was unnaturally quiet. Their combined bad mood cast a pall over the entire castle, and servants and knights alike were high-strung and anxious. Merlin had thought that Gwen was the only one bearing up well under all the strain, until he offered to carry a basket of laundry for her, and she fell into his arms like a rag doll, crying hysterically. It was enough to startle Merlin out of his own melancholy and worry for a moment, but it didn’t last. When Gwen finally wiped her eyes, hiccupped, and shyly thanked him, he felt a little like breaking down himself.
“It has to be sorcery,” he told Gaius, dropping his latest assignment, a large basket of herbs, onto the workbench. Gauis didn’t so much as turn around.
“I need you to deliver this,” he said instead, waving vaguely to a small bottle.
“Gaius! This is important,” Merlin snapped. Gaius sighed.
“Of course it is. But you’re grasping at straws, Merlin.”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” Merlin answered, a bit peevishly.
“As if anyone could talk of anything else,” Gaius grumbled. “Go on, then. How is magic associated with Arthur’s disappearance?”
“I don’t know,” Merlin said uncertainly. “But it has to be.”
“Why?” Gaius asked. Merlin flailed his arms in exasperation.
“Since when has any earth-shattering problem of Arthur’s not been magic?” he cried. “Magic shields? Poisoned goblets? Evil seductive enchantresses? Unicorns? Have you been around the past few months?”
“You’re exaggerating,” Gaius said.
“I am not,” Merlin shot back. “There’s something unnatural about this whole thing. They won’t find anything.”
Gwen suddenly burst into the room, the door slamming loudly against the wall. “They’ve found something,” she gasped, and turned to run out again.
Merlin didn’t stick around long enough for Gaius to gloat.
******
Something turned out to be a smug little messenger with a pimply face and a disturbing habit of licking his lips every five seconds. Merlin stood slightly behind Gwen, fighting a massive internal battle of self-control not to turn the man into a lizard out of sheer spite. The messenger smirked as he handed Uther a sealed roll of parchment and waited while he read it. Uther’s face immediately flushed crimson.
“What outrage is this?” he said, his voice rising to a boom that made everyone in the hall flinch instinctively. Everyone, that is, except the messenger, who clearly had a death wish. He licked his lips and smirked again.
“Is there any message for my lord?” he asked in a high, reedy voice. Merlin clenched his fists. Forget magic. He would just pummel the lizard’s brains out.
“You will await our reply,” Uther snarled. “You will be escorted to a room. The court is dismissed.”
*****
“Merlin, if you don’t sit down this instant, I’ll throw you out the window myself,” Gaius said, dangerously calm. Merlin flopped onto the bench and began drumming his fingers.
“What was in that message?” he asked for the millionth time. Gaius threw a rag at his head.
“We’ll know soon enough,” he snapped, the same answer he’d given for the past hour. Merlin dropped his head to the table with a frustrated groan. There was a timid knock at the door.
“Enter,” Gaius called, and nudged Merlin, his eyebrows silently signaling for him to get up and try to look like he had some semblance of reason about him. Merlin scowled at him in response.
Gwen stepped in the doorway, wringing her hands. “I just… I thought you would want to know.”
That brought Merlin to his feet.
“Know what?” he asked, hurriedly pulling her further into the room. “Is it about the message? Do you know where Arthur is?”
“Morgana told me,” Gwen said, her voice quavering. “The message… It was a ransom note. From Maleagant of Tintagel.”
“No,” Gaius gasped. Merlin looked nonplussed.
“Who is Maleagant of Tintagel?”
“A shameless villain,” Gaius supplied, at the same time Gwen said, “An evil bastard.”
Merlin shook his head. “Right, so he kidnaps people, I get it. What is he planning to do with Arthur?”
“Maleagant has long been an enemy of Camelot,” Gaius said. “He despises Uther and would like nothing more than to see his kingdom razed to the ground.”
“He won’t kill Arthur,” Gwen broke in, laying a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. Merlin wondered for a split second if that was supposed to keep him from hyperventilating or fainting or whatever it was people did when they panicked, since he’d never done it before. “Kidnapping knights is a noble tradition.”
“What?” Merlin screeched. “Noble kidnapping my…”
“She means, there are rules about this sort of thing,” Gaius interrupted. “Arthur’s probably not in mortal peril.”
“Oh, now I feel better,” Merlin grumbled.
“The problem will be the ransom. Usually, knights are traded for knights; that’s the whole point of kidnapping them. But a prince…” Gaius shook his head.
“That’s just it,” Gwen explained. “Maleagant is demanding knights, but not just one or two of his imprisoned men. He’s demanding hundreds of them, a huge part of Camelot’s force.”
“He’ll have our heir, or he’ll have our army,” Gaius said slowly.
“But… Uther’s going to get Arthur back, isn’t he?” Merlin asked, a little desperately.
Gwen bit her lower lip. “I don’t know. Camelot would be defenseless if he did.”
“He won’t cripple the kingdom like that,” Gaius agreed.
“But Arthur. His son,” Merlin persisted.
“One or many?” Gaius said. Merlin grimaced and twisted out from beneath Gwen’s hand.
“If nobody else plans on saving him, then, I will!” he shouted.
“Merlin, be sensible,” Gaius snapped.
“No! I won’t! I’m not going to just leave him!” He flung the door open and ran pell-mell down the corridor in the direction of the battlements, ignoring Gaius and Gwen’s calls for him to come back.
“What will he do?” Gwen asked anxiously. Gaius kept his eyes on the open door.
“I honestly have no idea.”