Merlin Big Bang Fic part 3/4

[snarkydame]

Title: They Howl in Dreams of Winter
Warnings: explicit sex, of the slash variety.
Summary: An enemy sorcerer invades Merlin's dreams, seeking to foment betrayal and ruin a great destiny. There's a cave, and monsters, and a glowing sword (no, really).
Length: 20919 words. I'll have to post it in two or three parts on LJ . . .
Disclaimer: Merlin and its characters do not now, nor will they ever, belong to me. No infringement is intended.
Notes: Thanks again, L, for printing this whole thing out and sharpening your red pencil! I still appreciate it!

(Part One) (Part Two)

He could hear the wolves snarling and snapping at his prison walls. At their prison walls, now, he told himself. But those walls, which had seemed so solid when they trapped him, felt thin as tissue now. He could feel the sorcerer behind them, trailing his hands along their length.

Merlin shuddered. It felt obscene.

Arthur's voice came from the darkness. "What do you mean, stay away from you? And where is the sorcerer?" He sounded angry, and Merlin bit his lip. He had so much reason to be angry.

"It's just not safe, that's all." That sounded weak, even to his own ears, and he shook his head. "And the sorcerer . . . I really have to tell you something."

Arthur said nothing for a moment. Merlin, holding his aching head in his hands, let the icy stone numb his body, waiting.

"Can we get a little light, first?"

The question sounded so normal, Arthur's voice so calm, that Merlin started laughing. He knew he was hysterical, but he couldn't stop himself. As he reached out for his magic (oh so relieved to be able to touch it once again) and asked for light, he was still laughing, helplessly, and the resulting light splashed against the cave walls in shaking, rippling waves.

He stared, as the light increased. Arthur crouched on his heels against the far wall of the cave's mouth. His hair hung over his eyes. He looked tired. He looked perfect.

Merlin sighed. "You're safe," he said, ashamed by how close to tears his voice sounded. He giggled. "Or as safe as you could be, trapped in a cave full of huge monsters and a crazy sorcerer."

"In a what?" Arthur's voice was sharp enough to cut through Merlin's hysteria. "Merlin, what have you been doing out here?"

The concern and fear in Arthur's face sliced into Merlin, and his hysterical laughter turned into sobs, frighteningly fast.

"I'm sorry!" he choked out. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to. I tried not to!" He felt himself shaking, and felt horribly tender, as though the struggle to regain control of his body had left him raw and bleeding.

But Arthur was moving then, wrapping his arms around him. He flinched away, but Arthur pulled him closer, rocking him like a child, and Merlin found himself crying on Arthur's shoulder.

It was dreadfully embarrassing, but he couldn't make himself stop.

Arthur fought back his fear as he held Merlin's shaking body. Something was wrong with him, obviously. Something was very wrong. But Merlin was alive, and he was alive, and all of his knights were alive.

He stroked a hand down Merlin's back, murmuring soothing sounds that weren't even words. Slowly, Merlin calmed. His breathing steadied, and Arthur thought, for a moment, that he might have fallen asleep.

Suddenly, Merlin jerked away from him, eyes wide in the rippling light of his magic. "No!" he said sharply. "Don't let me fall asleep!"

Arthur blinked. "Merlin, you're so exhausted you're hysterical. You can't confront the sorcerer like this. Rest here while my knights dig us out, and we'll go after him together. I'll think of something to tell the knights about your being here."

But Merlin was shaking his head. Getting to his feet he paced, wobbling on uncertain legs. "He'll get out," he said. "He'll get out, and he'll kill you, and he'll make me watch."

Arthur felt a chill that had nothing to do with the ice-rimmed cave at Merlin's certain tone. Merlin looked half-mad. His eyes were so wide he could see the whites all around, uncomfortably reminding him of Elyan's maddened mare.

"Merlin, what exactly are you talking about?" He shot out a hand and pinned Merlin to the cave wall, just to stop his unsteady pacing. "Calm down."

Merlin blinked down at him and wrapped his hands in the fabric of Arthur's tunic. "I'm sorry," he said again, though he sounded much calmer now. "You're confused. Of course you are. I'll explain it all." But instead, he gripped Arthur's tunic and pulled him into a desperate kiss.

Arthur's surprised exclamation was muffled, and brief. He gripped Merlin's shoulders and kissed him back, fiercely, all his worry and fear and relief shaping itself into a deep hunger. Merlin's head knocked back against the cave wall, but he hardly seemed to notice as he ground his hips into Arthur's. He whined, deep in his throat, and pulled him still closer.

Arthur released his shoulders to wrap one hand gently around Merlin's throat, desperate to feel his pulse, quick and vital and real.

But Merlin, just as he was beginning to go boneless under Arthur's hands, broke the kiss. He froze, like a frightened hare, and ripped himself away from Arthur, backing towards the dark expanse of the cave.

"No, no, I can't," he babbled. "It isn't safe. Oh, damn me, I'm not safe." And before Arthur could reach for him, Merlin took off running. The darkness, beyond the flowing light of his magic, was absolute, and Arthur quickly lost sight of him.

"Merlin!" he cried out after him. "Merlin!"

It wasn't that he could see in the dark, Merlin thought, a desperate distraction to keep him from turning around and running back to Arthur just as fast as he could. It's just that he could feel the way the cave laid itself out. It twisted deeper with every step, and Merlin could sense the old, old path laid down by the repeated step of ancient priests. There was blood on that path, soaked into the stones, and Merlin followed it, because it took him away from Arthur.

He could feel, from inside his paper-thin prison, the sorcerer laughing.

"Shut up," he snarled viciously into the dark. "You won't get out."

But even as he said it, he knew that he was wrong.

Arthur stood staring into the darkness for so long it seemed to lean out and swallow him. He jerked back with an oath, and scrubbed at his eyes.

He could hear, very faintly, the sound of his knights prying at the rock fall that closed the cave. If he waited, they'd reach him, and he'd be safe.

But, he thought, setting his jaw, the sorcerer was still unapprehended. And Merlin had apparently gone mad.

This was not an acceptable situation.

But he couldn't follow Merlin in the dark. Merlin may have some magical advantage in the dark, but he did not. And if he went out there unprepared, he'd probably fall down a bottomless pit, or run into one of those "huge monsters" Merlin had mentioned.

Arthur studied the light shining from the ensorcelled stones. It rippled and gleamed from every knob of stone and shaft of ice. He reached out a hand, and hesitated, nearly touching. But nothing Merlin did would harm him. He had his promise.

He slid his hand into the light.

It wasn't warm, he thought, feeling it wash over his hand like water. But it didn't feel cold, either. It felt, he decided, like he used to imagine the way moonlight felt on the river, when he was a child. Like silk brushing over his skin.

When he pulled his hand away, the light clung to his fingers, and he smiled. Merlin's magic constantly amazed him.

He wiped his hand on his scabbard, carefully, leaving streaks of light on the leather. Then he took his sword, and laid the blade against the stone, under the rippling light, until the steel was coated with magic. He did the same to the scabbard, until the leather shone with a coat of its own.

He looked back once, and listened to his knights on the other side of the rock. And then he moved down into the cave, sword held high to light the way.

It was growing warmer, as he fled deeper into the cave. A damp, clinging sort of warmth, that crawled along his skin. He could feel the sweat beginning to slide down his back.

He'd outrun Arthur's voice, calling out his name with increasing frustration. He'd run, losing himself in the twists and spirals of the deepening cave.

He felt as though he'd left something vital behind. Like he was bleeding. And as he ran, the sorcerer examined his prison.

Fascinating, the sorcerer said, as he dug a nail into the prison wall. Merlin faltered at the ripping pain, and slapped his will against the spot before it tore further. It really shouldn't be this easy. I think there's something wrong with you.

Merlin swallowed his retort. The sorcerer's voice wove through and around him, distracting him. He refused to answer it.

Perhaps it's only because you're worn so very thin. You've been fighting me constantly for most of two nights and two days. You've had nothing to eat, and little to drink. You're nerves are ragged. If you stopped for a bit, and rested, your defenses would be stronger.

But if he rested, Merlin knew he would be lost. He forced his stumbling feet to straighten, and ran on.

Arthur could see no mark on the stone to tell him where Merlin had gone, and so he could only follow his instincts. And his instincts said that Merlin would do the very stupidest thing he could, and go down.

He trailed his sword gently against the stone as he went, leaving a trail of light as thin as spider silk.

He was sure getting lost in this cave would be a good way to die. So, the trail. Just in case.

He listened intently to the dark outside of the spill of light from his sword. He was sure Merlin hadn't had much of a head start on him. But he couldn't hear anything at all -- not a footstep, not a rock kicked out of place -- beyond the steady drip of water in the depths.

As the cave grew warmer, he shed his heavy cloak as excess weight. He left it folded on the stone floor, hoping to pick it up again on the way out.

He missed it almost immediately, not for its warmth, but for the extra protection. He could feel a crawling certainty between his shoulder blades that something was watching him.

He gripped his sword more firmly, and kept walking.

The dripping water was too easy to focus on, he decided. He caught himself, more than once, lowering his sword and slowing his step as the constant drip seemed to echo in his head. He shook himself, and his chain mail rattled fiercely. He wished that he could talk to Merlin.

"If you were here," he said aloud, "then I wouldn't be in danger of losing my way because a leak in the roof was distracting me!"

He went on, indulging himself. "If you were here, I'd pin you down, to keep you from running away, again. And I'd finish what you started, up there in the entrance. I'd kiss you senseless. I'd strip you naked and paint your body with the light you left me so even if you did manage to run away again, I'd be able to see you, and I'd follow you where ever you ran." He heard the longing in his own voice, and it embarrassed him. He cleared his throat.

"And what's up with this cave? The floor's almost polished, it's so smooth. And the walls do not look natural."

He stopped, suddenly unable to stand the heavy silence of the stone around him. "Merlin! Where the hell are you?" His voice bounced sharply against the cavernous space around him, but there came no answer but the drip of water, somewhere far below.

Do you intend to run forever? To hide in this cave until you're naught but a pale, blind worm, creeping round and round in sleepless misery? Your Prince will never stop looking for you. Why not go back to him? Fall asleep in his arms. Are they as strong as they look? I'd like to find out.

Merlin, despite himself, snarled back at him. "Don't you touch him."

What? What did you think I'd do? Strangle him in his sleep? Pin him to the stone with his own sword? Use your magic to strip his mind of thought and give him back to his father like a broken, empty doll?

The sorcerer laughed as Merlin twisted away from his voice. You carry me in a prison beside your own heart! You can't get out of the range of my voice. And you don't know enough to keep me quiet. Your ignorance is appalling. But I don't enjoy torturing children. If you'd go to sleep, I'd make sure you didn't wake up until I was done. You wouldn't have to listen anymore. I'd send you pleasant dreams -- of you and your Prince entwined on the floor of this cave, safe and warm and trusted. Of those frantic knights finally freeing you both, and all of you going back home, to Camelot, where the kitchens are preparing a feast in the Prince's honour, and the king waits to welcome his son home triumphant. I'd do that for you, if you just go to sleep.

The voice wound around Merlin like a silken caress, and his skin crawled from the horror of its offering. Would he even be able to tell it was a dream? Or would he simply take what his senses gave him, until he wasted away, locked in chains of his own making?

"Stop it," he whispered. "Shut the hell up, you poisonous bastard." The sorcerer's laugh was joined by the yipping amusement of his wolves.

He pressed unsteady hands against his ears. It didn't help, not in the slightest.

Arthur heard it long before he saw it, the first of Merlin's "huge monsters." It came with a heavy slithering drag against the stone -- not loud, but so different from the only sound he'd heard before that it instantly caught at his attention. He listened as it came closer -- it certainly sounded large, whatever it was.

When its bulk came into view, he thought he was ready, but the sheer mass of it stole his breath. It loomed, a hulking beast whose damp hide drank in the light of his sword like water, and threw it back in rainbow colours, like spilt oil.

It's long, heavy jaws opened wide, exposing broken, stumpy teeth in a wide mouth, and its small, pale eyes squinted against the light. Its flat tail, that had alerted him with its drag against the stone, swung ponderously from side to side.

Arthur set himself, studying the beast. It looked mostly like a salamander, he thought. Like a massive, hideous salamander. But not quite.

"Doesn't matter, does it? You want to eat me, and I'd rather not be eaten." He took a deep breath.

"Right then." And he leapt straight at it, flinging the light from the sword at its sensitive eyes. The beast gurgled more than growled, and swung its head.

Arthur's sword bit into the beast's jaw, but only shallowly. The thing's hide was slippery and dense. The sword nearly skipped off, and Arthur's arm ached with the ringing it sent up the blade. He swore, and moved back cautiously.

The beast moved far more quickly than Arthur thought remotely fair for a thing its size. He had to dance backwards to avoid its lunge, but he managed to score another glancing blow as he did.

"This will never work," he growled at the beast. "I don't have time for you."

He would aim for the eyes, he decided. They seemed the only spot unprotected by the thick, wet hide. The eyes, and the mouth. But to hit anything vital there, he'd have to be standing inside the cavernous thing. No. He didn't want to do that.

But before he could make the next lunge, the beast's heavy tail swung around and flung him off his feet.

That hurt. He lay gasping on the stone, unable to move. His sword lay on the edge of a drop off, just out of reach.

The beast's tale swayed overhead as it ponderously shuffled around to face him. Arthur grimaced at the wet, rotting smell of it.

The beast leaned towards him, opening its jaws, and Arthur groaned painfully with the effort, but he moved, as he had to, frantically unbuckling his sword belt.

He thrust the empty scabbard deep into the soft roof of the beast's mouth. The belt whipped around, frighteningly close to Arthur's face.

The beast squalled in pain, a bone-deep throbbing sound, and Arthur clapped his hands over his ears. It backed away from him, swinging its huge head, and Arthur saw, to his horror, that in its retreat the beast's feet were moving perilously near his sword. And as it moved away, still squalling, face glowing weirdly red around the scabbard wedged into its mouth, it kicked his sword. The blade tumbled over the edge, striking against stone with a clear, belling tone.

Arthur was left in the dark, unarmed. He banged his head against the cave floor.

Merlin could feel that manic edge of exhaustion overtaking him. It was impossible to walk in a straight line anymore. He began to count how many steps he wandered to either side of the spiraling path, as though he were in the middle of a children's game.

The sorcerer was humming. It was a discordant, halting tune, turning back upon itself in twisting, elliptical rhythms. He could feel the wolves, pacing the confines of his mental defenses in time with the song.

"Six. Seven. Two more to the left." He counted loudly, trying to drown it out, but found, with a horror made distant in his tiredness, that he was counting measures for the sorcerer's song, and not his own steps at all.

He would go mad, he thought, quite clearly, long before he got out of this cave.

Perhaps, he thought, brightly in his weariness, if he went mad, he'd take the sorcerer over the edge with him. He wouldn't mind, he thought, if he never got out of this cave, so long as the sorcerer didn't either.

Arthur wormed his way to the drop off, feeling his way with his hands well out in front of him. He moved stiffly, deeply bruised by the blow the beast had landed.

When his fingers touched empty air, he lifted his head, and carefully looked over.

Far far below, his sword burned on the rock with borrowed magic.

He scrubbed at his eyes. "Wouldn't it be easier," he asked himself, "to sit here in the dark and wait for the beast to come back? It would be a cleaner death, I think."

But he didn't want to sit in the dark and wait to die. He wanted to find Merlin. And to do that, he needed light. He needed his sword.

The blade, in its tumbling, had struck against stone on its way down. He could see the faint traces of magic it had left behind -- thin shards of light scraped off on rock worn smooth by years of falling water.

It looked to be an impossible climb.

He stretched his fingers, and thought of Merlin.

"At least this time," he said aloud, "let there be no spiders."

Without further hesitation, he swung his body over, holding tight to the edge. Steadily, he reached for the light scuffed onto the wall, and found a thin crack there, barely wide enough for the toe of his boot.

"This is ridiculous," he breathed. "I'm going to die here. Merlin, you idiot, I'm going to die for you."

He found, to his great relief, that the stone was not quite as smoothly featureless as it had felt at the lip of the drop off. Though the knobs and cracks that had struck against the tumbling sword were few and far between, there were others, not lit, and he could find them with a questing hand.

He inched down. His hands cramped. His legs burned with tension. At one point, he bit his lip to bleeding, when he had to stretch the whole length of his body to reach a toehold, leaving all his weight hanging from his fingertips.

But finally, the light from the sword was throwing itself on the wall beneath him, and he could feel the sheer drop angling to a sharp slope. He slid the last several feet in a clatter of chain mail, slapping a hand over his sword as he passed.

He kissed the hilt. "I'll just rest here a moment, Merlin," he said. "Don't go too far."

The wolves were walking beside him. They brushed against him as they passed, and their fur was bitter cold in the clammy warmth of the cave.

The sorcerer's humming had gone silent, and Merlin knew it had been the key to the wolves' release. But they made no move against him. He strained to find them in the dark, to know where they were -- but all he could catch were fleeting impressions of claws clicking against stone, and a dry, cold scent like icebound bones.

He slowed his pace, turning again and again as the wolves brushed by.

But when he stumbled to a stop, coughing in air that felt too thick to breathe, the wolves closed in with snarls that bounced off the cave walls around him. They tore at him with teeth that burned like ice, and he ran, weaving through the dark.

Arthur's sword still carried enough of Merlin's magic, despite the battering it had taken on the rocks, to show Arthur where he'd ended up.

Here was the source of that hypnotic dripping water. At his feet, the surface of a small, mirror-finished pool gleamed under the light he held, and broke into a thousand scintillations as a single drop of water fell from a massive stalactite overhead.

The sound was amazingly loud in this silent cave. Arthur frowned. It would easily cover up the approach of another beast like the one he'd just gotten away from.

He couldn't stay here. And, he thought, looking up at the face of the cliff he'd come down, he'd never make it back up that way, not with a sword in his hand. He could tuck it through his belt, but without his scabbard he'd risk slicing his legs open in the climb.

He held his sword out over the pool. It was easily small enough to jump across. And beyond it, the cave continued.

Arthur frowned. This really was a suspicious sort of cave, with its smooth floors and winding pathways. There was a remarkable lack of bats, as well, though he supposed the monstrous predators might have something to do with that.

He shrugged. If someone had shaped this cave, they'd done it hundreds of years ago. It made no difference now.

And that way, across the pool, led down. His instincts still insisted that Merlin had gone down. So.

He backed up. He'd need a bit of momentum to make the jump with his stiff leg. But he ran at the pool without hesitation, pushing himself off with his good leg.

Directly over the pool, mid-jump, something reached up, wrapped itself along his leg from ankle to hip, and yanked.

Arthur's involuntary screech filled his mouth with water.

Adrenalin spent, Merlin stopped. Head lowered like a bull's, blind and maddened by baiting hounds, he glared into the dark. He could feel them circling. Hear them howl, a yearning, empty sound.

He raised his hands, and struck with fire.

Unfocused and uncontrolled, the magic sprayed against the cave walls in a blinding display of rage. But it was spent, quickly, and Merlin fell to his knees in a dark made deeper by the fleeting light. Colours burned against his eyes -- the swollen reds and throbbing whites that spoke of pain, and made no impression on the overwhelming black.

He felt himself sliding under, and cursed himself for a fool, driven by phantoms and beaten by his own panic.

"Arthur," he tried to shout. He barely heard himself. "Get out of here."

He slumped forward, and as he fell, he felt the sorcerer's prison shred apart.

The light of the sword rippled and swam under the surface, as the thing that had him pulled him deeper. And deeper. The little pool seemed to have no bottom.

Arthur twisted frantically, fighting against the weight of the water and the confines of the pool to bring his sword around. The tentacle tightened painfully, the thin, sinewy length of it clinging to his leg.

With his free hand, he clawed at the stone side of the pool, breaking fingernails but slowing his descent not at all. Bubbles of air escaped him.

Finally, the stone walls widened, and he could bring his sword to bear. He bent nearly double, to reach the tentacle below his leg, and from that vantage point, he could see the great blind eyes of a monster, hovering in the reservoir below.

Even the light from the sword could not illuminate the whole of the beast. Arthur got the impression of many tentacles, and a shapeless hulk, but what he focused on were the blind, indifferent eyes, and the sharp beak, which he was being drawn towards.

Desperately, he hacked at the tentacle, slicing the edge of his boot in the process. The sword sheared through the fibrous muscle, and black blood eddied in the water. The creature whistled, a piercing sound of pain that rang through the water with punishing force.

The blind eyes seemed to focus on him, indifferent no longer.

Arthur kicked upwards, scrabbling with torn fingers at the stone walls, pulling himself back into the narrow shaft that led to the surface.

Water was filling his boots, until they were heavier even than his chain mail. The damaged one, filling faster, pulled him off balance, but the tentacles whipping through the bloodstained water below egged him on.

Arthur could feel his lungs seizing up for lack of air, and there was no light at the surface to tell him how near he was. When his head did break the surface he nearly didn't take the breath he so desperately needed. And then, frantic, he sucked it in so fast he nearly choked himself.

He scrambled over the side of the pool like a beaching seal, heavy and awkward. But even in his haste, another tentacle managed to whip around his ankle, pulling him half into the water again.

Arthur coughed up a scream, and dug his sword at the cave floor. It screeched across the rock in a shower of sparks, but did nothing to slow him, until it caught briefly at a small stone outcropping, near the edge of the pool. Scant leverage, but Arthur heaved with terrified strength, and pulled his foot out of his boot.

The tentacle dragged the boot down, and more shot out of the water, looking for the rest of him, but Arthur was already rolling well away from the pool, coughing into the cave floor.

Soon, the tentacles retreated, and the roiling pool of water stilled, until the next drop of water plunked down.

Arthur watched it for a long time.

He could feel the sorcerer seeping through his body like a poison. He shivered face down on the ground, unable to move, unable even to blink against the dark.

You have such astonishing power, The sorcerer's voice was peculiarly gentle, almost soothing, but Merlin's skin crawled to hear it. But you cannot harness it properly. You waste your energy. You might have learned better, in time. Someday, with the support of Camelot and King Arthur's sword, you might threaten even my power; encroach on my domain. You know, I don't care at all about the Pendragons. They'll never spread their influence so far north as to trouble me. But you, at Arthur's side . . . Do you realize? This really is all your fault.

The sorcerer sank deeper into him, and Merlin ceased even to shiver.

Don't fear, boy. I won't let him wander in the dark for long.

Much of the sword's light had washed away in the water. Arthur squinted in the new dimness, cursing first the monster that had taken his scabbard, and then the creature that had nearly drowned him, and stolen half his light. And his boot. He scowled, looking down at his bare feet. He'd abandoned the one boot he had left, annoyed at how unbalanced it left him. His chain mail chafed his shoulders through his wet padding, and he felt uncomfortably clammy in the warmth of the cave. His bloodied hands stung as the water dripped from his sleeves. He sighed, shaking them off, and kept walking.

At least even the little light that remained was enough to keep him from falling over the edge of another cliff, or tripping into another pool. He shivered, thinking that there must be more than one such pool, leading down to that vast underwater cavern, and to the monster lurking there.

But as he thought this, the light dimmed further. Nearly imperceptibly at first, and he rubbed at his eyes, but then it was gone with shocking suddenness. Arthur whipped his head around, but even the thin trail he'd dragged along the cave wall had gone out.

Stupidly, he stared into blackness, before a horrible suspicion squeezed at his heart.

"Merlin," he breathed. "No. No!" This last a shout, thickened with rage and refusal. And he ran, recklessly, trailing a hand against the wall.

He couldn't possibly be dead, after all this, he thought, anger surging through him. Not possibly.

Merlin lay on his stomach; head resting on his crossed arms, letting long strands of grass tickle his bare feet. Dragonflies buzzed past, jeweled bodies glowing. He stared at them, feeling, for a moment, oddly angry. But the moment passed, and he smiled at the sound of their wings.

He watched through the grass as Arthur wrung out his tunic, water running down his arms, and laid it out on a rock to dry in the sun. His golden hair caught the summer sun and threw it back at the endless blue of the sky. Merlin's smile widened.

Arthur stretched his arms behind his head, surveying the clearing, with its little shining lake, as if it were his kingdom, and he its king. Merlin could just see the crown upon his head, woven of cattails, strung with clover.

Then Arthur yawned, and in his daydream, Merlin saw the crown slip down over one ear, leaving a single blossom bobbing in front of his nose. He snickered.

Arthur turned and found him watching.

Seeing the predatory look that crossed his face, Merlin swallowed his laughter and ducked deeper into cover. His shirt rucked up as he wriggled back, and the earth tickled against his bared belly.

Anticipation coiled through him.

He could hear Arthur, rustling through the long grass up the hill. Merlin eased himself into an illusion of grass and sun baked earth and dancing dragonflies.

The prince's bare feet stopped just short of Merlin's nose as Arthur searched for him. The narrow bones were grass stained and muddied, still wet from the lake, and Merlin couldn't help it. He licked the closer foot, from toe to ankle. Arthur jumped straight into the air and tripped on his own bare feet, sending Merlin into howls of laughter. His magic shivered away into sunshine.

Arthur lunged for him, growling, and Merlin rolled away, still laughing. They tumbled through the sweet-smelling grass, sending clouds of pollen and irate dragonflies into the air. Then Arthur, breathless, wet hair tousled and covered in clover, pinned Merlin head down on the slope of the hill.

Merlin smiled up at him, staring at his broad shoulders bared to the sun. "You'll get freckles," he said. "Don't worry. I like freckles."

Arthur smacked his hands flat on the stone that blocked his path. He crouched over, heaving for air. The blackness seemed a physical thing -- It had a weight. It crawled along his skin, like the water that still dripped from his clothes. He could smell it, a foul, rotting stench.

He swallowed down his nausea. His mind was wandering, circling round and round the black expanse.

If all he saw was the dark, he would never find the body. And if he never found the body, then Merlin wasn't dead.

Jaw clenched, he moved around the rock, not running now, each step carefully explored. He'd search every twist and turn in this cave. If, if Merlin was dead, he'd bring his body out of here, and bury him where the sun would warm the earth, and grass would grow.

* * *

To part four