what_we_dream (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
what_we_dream) wrote2010-08-05 10:04 pm
what_we_dream) wrote2010-08-05 10:04 pm
Entry tags:
Merlin: Third Time's the Charm
Title: Third Time's the Charm
Series: Merlin
Pairings: None (potentially Arthur/Merlin pre-slash)
Rating: PG
Notes: A slightly AU missing scene from The Labyrinth of Gedref (1.11)
Summary: It turns out that the labyrinth is not, in fact, empty. Arthur discovers more than he wanted to.
Rat soup, Arthur comes to realise a few turns into the maze, is not very filling. Of course, that could also be a result of his only having managed to choke down a few mouthfuls. His stomach feels as though it’s crawling up the side of his ribs, flat and empty as a pauper’s purse. His chain mail is weighing unusually heavily on his shoulders.
Arthur has visited mazes before, of course. Dozens of them, in fact. Camelot’s terrain is not ideal for the amusement, being both rocky and full of sharp slopes, but the kingdoms down on the plains generally have at least one per castle and Arthur has visited them all. As a child he welcomed the invitation from his father’s hosts for “young Prince Arthur to be shown the maze”; it meant an escape from the tedium of conferences and dinner parties and fawning would-be allies of Camelot.
He had expected this maze to be different. Sinister, filled with cold or mist or foreboding omens. Perhaps even traps and warriors and magical creatures.
Actually, though, all it is full of is boredom.
Arthur is used to dangerous missions, to hunts, to the necessity of keeping his senses constantly sword-sharp, his nerves strung tight as long-bows. He isn’t used to the strain it’s putting on him now, muscles beginning to tremble when allowed a pause and head beginning to ache from keeping constantly alert through the long journey and the apparently-empty maze. This too, he knows, is hunger, is days without a proper meal.
If the hunger is dulling his senses, though, it’s whetting his thoughts. As he stalks through the yew aisles, sword heavy as stone in his hand, his mind is whirring. It chases itself in ever-tightening circles, a dog snarling and snapping at its own shanks. His desperation and frustration and rage are red-hot chains which surround him and burn him as he struggles, all the while wrapping tighter and tighter to strangle him. Camelot is suffering because of you. Children are starving because of you. The people are dying because of you. Your pride, your arrogance, your mistakes are killing them.
Sweating and drawing heavy breaths past the three stones’ weight of his mail with which to curse, Arthur storms deeper into the labyrinth, growing progressively hotter and more furious.
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He can’t find the goddamn centre. Can’t even find the bloody exit. He’s wandering in circles in some goddamn game while his people starve to death. His stomach twinges at the thought; he ignores it.
To make matters worse, he now thinks something’s following him, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about that either. He’s stopped several times in the lee of blind corners waiting for whoever it is to show themselves but, coward that they are, they never appear. If he backtracks in search of them, he’ll lose whatever miniscule progress he’s made. And if it turns out that the whole purpose of this ridiculous, useless, maddening exercise is to find the thing, he’s wasting precious time ignoring it.
Arthur snarls aloud and rounds yet another green corner. Up ahead, there’s a flash of reddish brown as someone disappears around a curve. Arthur surges forward, using the bulky chain mail as an aid to his momentum. Trampling along feeling clumsy as a cantering carthorse, he pursues the figure – a snatch of rust-coloured shirt here, a dirty boot there – around several corners and sharp curves. And becomes aware as he does so that something’s chasing him in turn. It’s quiet, but he can hear a faint panting between the jingling of his mail, now and then catch the thump of heavy footsteps on the hard turf.
Arthur’s sight is just beginning to blur, sound siphoning out like water down the gutters, when he stumbles around a corner and finds himself facing his quarry’s back against a dead end.
His quarry, who has a horribly familiar back.
Merlin turns around and Arthur watches in a black mood as shock, embarrassment, and guilt flash across his servant’s face like gusts of wind over barley fields. He steps forward, raising his free hand to punctuate the tirade he’s about to launch into, when Merlin’s expression shifts directly into terror. Arthur wouldn’t be at all surprised by that, except that the disobedient idiot’s eyes aren’t looking at him. They’re staring at something behind him.
Arthur turns just as Merlin shouts, and only manages by the skin of his teeth to avoid the lion that leaps at him. Its huge bulk knocks him off his already unsteady feet and he falls hard, rolling on the grass and trying to force tired muscles into obedience. Merlin is shouting like a fool in the background.
A lion. Not a griffin, or a basilisk, or even a sphinx. Just a regular goddamn lion, its thick hide the colour of summer wheat and its huge mane all shades of yellow-brown from butter to black. It is admittedly nearly twice the size of a regular one, but Arthur still feels a sting of affront. He came all the way here to fight a damn lion? He could have done that at home, and saved hours of wrenching stomachs and fainting children.
He makes a wide slash at it as it turns back towards him and realises, as the lion dodges easily and smacks him down with a huge clawed paw, that fighting near home would have also brought the advantages of strength and freshness. His sword goes tumbling from his hand and his vision blurs as the creature leans over him, its breath hot and putrid as it pours over his face, so thick it almost seems liquid.
Arthur kicks out with his boots and catches the beast in the stomach. It howls, and he punches it in the neck with the hard steel edge of his gauntlet. The lion steps backwards, surprised by this recovery, and Arthur looks for his sword. It’s nowhere in sight; probably the goddamn hedge has swallowed it. That would be just his luck. He tries to get to his feet, armour pulling him down with all the drag of an ocean rip-tide, and staggers. The lion senses his weakness, and makes to pounce. Someone shouts – Merlin, that idiot, why hasn't he forced his way through the hedge to safety – and there’s a clap of thunder and a burst of blue light. He thinks he sees a dark figure behind the lion with a flash of gold about its head, but then he’s being knocked back by an intense wind and thinking is pushed out of the way by instinct as he tries and fails to catch himself.
Arthur finds himself lying on his back, looking up at the sky. It’s robin’s-egg blue – not a cloud in sight. He pulls himself up, instinctively recoiling from the expected pounce, and finds no sign of a lion. Or, for that matter, of Merlin - he tries to ignore the sudden tight clenching in his chest.
What there is, is a large uneven circle of singed grass surrounding a pit. A pit which definitely wasn’t there a minute ago. He gets to his feet and steps forward to look over the edge.
The pit’s mouth is about the length of two men, its width only half that so that the edges barely brush the yew trees on either side of the maze corridor. Its depth is more than the height of two men, its sides sandy and steep.
Lying at the bottom of the pit is a very dead lion, its fur black and smoking. And, half-lying, half-sitting beside it, Merlin. His servant is dusty, but neither black nor smoking. Not even singed, in fact. But then, why should a sorcerer be harmed by his own magic?
Arthur stares down in shock which slowly bleeds into cold horror. His servant, a sorcerer. The man closest to him, the one who keeps his armour strong, who sees that his blades are sharpened. The one who brings his food, who pours his wine, who holds the keys to his room and wakes him from sleep. One of only a handful of people in the entire world who has complete power over his life, not just on the battlefield when he is always alert, but in his own home where his guard is down.
Even as these first thoughts flash though his mind they are already being overruled. This isn’t just his servant, it’s Merlin. The man he has trusted not just with his life, as he trusts all his knights and guards and courtiers, but with his confidence and friendship. Merlin, who he has allowed not just into his stables and wardrobe and armoury but his life.
Merlin, who is a sorcerer, a twisted, degenerate, evil being. Merlin, who has wormed into his trust just as his father always said of sorcerers, while revealing nothing of himself, while purposefully concealing what he was. Merlin, who took advantage of the kindness and generosity of everyone in Camelot, but especially his own and that of his lord and father.
Merlin, who has unabashedly been serving him while growing ever closer and probably trying to build up his power and influence over Arthur, is one of the greatest enemies of the kingdom.
Arthur looks down, rage and betrayal waging a bloody war for possession of his heart, and sees Merlin look up. His face is very white beneath his ridiculous mop of dark hair, his eyes wide and horrified. As he should be.
“You traitor,” snarls Arthur, voice low and full of grit.
“Arthur –”
“What was your purpose? To worm yourself closer and closer into my and my family’s trust, while waiting for the perfect moment to strike?”
Merlin takes on the appearance of sickening anguish, although Arthur can only imagine what he truly feels. “What? No! Arthur, I – of course not! I would never hurt you!” He climbs to his feet, and Arthur steps sharply back. The movement is reflected in the sorcerer’s face like a slap; he falls back against the unstable wall of the pit. A shower of dirt falls down on him, and he staggers forward onto the lion’s corpse.
Arthur wants to laugh, but somehow the sound won’t come out. He twists his face into an ugly rictus, and forces out a stiff barking sound that has nothing to do with humour. “You, a sorcerer, didn’t want to hurt me? You took the job of my servant, toiled in the castle, won my trust and that of my father’s ward, gained access to all levels of the keep, simply for fun? You have worked yourself into the perfect position to assassinate all the leaders of Camelot, you have not only the motive but the taint compelling you to do so – of which you told no one – and you want me to believe you meant no harm?” He spits the words out, so harsh and furious that he can hardly understand them himself.
Merlin falls to his hands and knees on the beast’s side, face still upturned and beseeching. “Arthur, I swear! I only wanted to protect you – to protect the next king of Camelot! You will make a kingdom to be proud of, a kingdom which is fair and just and peaceful! I’m your friend, Arthur, all I want is your safety!”
“My friends do not lie to me! And my friends are not sorcerers!” roars Arthur, and turns so sharply he staggers. Behind him Merlin cries out, and there’s another shifting of dirt. Arthur stoops to find his sword, retrieves it from the base of the hedge, and stalks away with the pleas of his former servant ringing in his ears.
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Arthur strides through the maze slashing at the tall trees with his sword and kicking at their lower branches. There is nothing to take his fury out on here. No one to shout down, no one to kick, no one with calming advice to ignore. He hews a thick sheaf of prickly green boughs from a tree and stabs his sword into them as they fall to the ground, spearing them against the untrodden green grass and dropping to one knee beside them. Head bent in tortuous thought, he tries to let the green scent calm his boiling mind.
Sorcerers are evil. Magic is evil. He has spent his whole life knowing that. Has been taught it from the cradle, has seen the pain and suffering they can cause. The curse now strangling his kingdom is magic; what else could be responsible for the deaths of innocents from slow starvation? Sorcerers bring nothing but darkness, but grief and hurt and death, and are subject to none but themselves. Sorcerers don’t care for ordinary folk, don’t see them for anything other than sheep to be driven and tormented and slaughtered for their own amusement. And, now that most of them have at last been thankfully wiped out, any survivors feel nothing but hatred for his family and Camelot.
Merlin is a sorcerer, and casts magic. Merlin is, therefore, evil. Even if it weren’t in his blood, in his very bone, he has no reason to care for Arthur and every reason to wish him dead. That is absolute, indisputable.
But why then has the damn idiot saved his life so many times? There is no point in Merlin saving him from death to get close to him, just so he can then kill Arthur. He has held the power of life and death over not only Arthur, but Uther and Morgana, for months now and hasn’t acted. Has done nothing but serve loyally – if incompetently – and done what passes for his best to protect his master. And why, knowing he had lost Arthur’s trust, did he not strike him down from atop the lion’s corpse? If he has magic enough to bring down lightning out of blue sky and dig a hole of that size, killing one starving prince shouldn’t have been too difficult. Although Merlin always does manage to botch things a child could be tasked with.
Merlin may be a sorcerer, but he’s still an idiot. Arthur is crown prince, and knows by now when men want him dead. He’s never sensed that coldness from Merlin. Has never sensed anything from the man but a rather bumbling, irritated, snarky kind of goodwill. It may not make sense, but it’s just as much a fact as his father’s teachings.
It shouldn't matter. Sorcerer or not, Merlin is a servant. Dispensable, disposable. Not worth Arthur's time or attention, and certainly not all this trouble. That is the nature of his class, that is the advice his father would give. But the memory of his anguished face, like a man who has suffered a mortal blow, twists sharp and painful in Arthur's chest. Merlin is no prince, no noble. And yet, somehow, he can't bear to break with him like this.
Arthur sighs and pushes himself back up to his feet with his sword, then withdraws it from the ground. He hasn’t heard anyone staggering around behind him. Which means, odds are the fool’s still back with his lion. Arthur turns, and begins to backtrack.
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The grass is thick and pristine, and as such it’s much easier than expected to find his way back to the hole. It’s still there, just as he remembered. He cautiously approaches the side, and looks in.
The lion’s still down there, still dead. And Merlin is still down there, sitting on it as though it were a bench, still alive. He’s staring at the ground with his hands pressed to either side of his head, long fingers tangled in his dark hair. Arthur takes a breath, and clears his throat.
Merlin looks up so quickly he nearly loses his balance, only catches it by flinging his arms out and pinwheeling wildly. It’s becoming more difficult by the second to believe this is one of the greatest threats to Camelot.
“Arthur!” he says, and for some reason the absolute shock in his voice cuts. “Arthur, listen –”
“Why are you still down there?” asks Arthur, despite himself, in a half-ready stance.
Merlin glances at the walls and then back at him, slightly confused. “The walls are too unstable to climb, they just cave in on me when I try,” he says, kicking one to demonstrate. Sandy dirt tumbles down to partially bury one of the lion’s paws.
“I meant,” expounds Arthur, “why haven’t you magicked yourself out? It’s your hole, after all.”
“It’s not, actually. I don’t know how it got here, I didn’t do it.” Merlin sounds genuinely uncertain.
Arthur narrows his eyes. “You’re telling me your not a sorcerer now? After that?” he indicates the over-cooked lion.
“I’m telling you I didn’t dig this hole, and that I can’t get out of it. I suppose I’ll be able to live off of lion for a while,” he says consideringly.
“You can’t just … levitate yourself out?” He makes a rising gesture with his hands. Merlin shrugs.
“No. But you should finish the test, whatever it is. The people in Camelot have a lot less than this lion,” he looks up, suddenly serious. Arthur’s gut twists; he’d almost forgotten.
“And you’ll just stay there?”
Merlin sits down and closes his shoulders, taking an elbow in each hand and staring at the wall. “I don’t have much choice. I can’t get out on my own, and you believe I’m your enemy. Checkmate.” His tone is almost completely resigned, but Arthur still hears – thinks he hears – the twinge of pain in it.
“Merlin –”
“You should go, Arthur. You prat,” he adds, looking up. He’s trying to smile, but it just makes the hurt in his face shine all the brighter, a single clean spot accenting the blood dripping from a blade. “I’m not your servant anymore, so I guess I can call you what I want.”
“I don’t recall you ever letting your status stop you before,” says Arthur, slowly, while his thoughts turn ponderous as the world spinning. While teaching battles trust, and learning fights loyalty. While years of lectures and sermons and curses screamed from the scaffold come up against a single man with messy hair and the balance of a three-legged table and a wide, sudden smile.
“Yeah, well, I never really got the –”
“Merlin,” says Arthur abruptly, and the man falls silent. “Take off your belt.”
He stops, sits so still that Arthur knows he isn’t even breathing.
“Come on, idiot, I don’t have all day,” he snaps, and begins to unbuckle his own. Merlin stumbles up as if struck, and his fingers scrabble at the buckle of his own belt. Arthur already has his off, and is undoing the straps which fasten the sheath to it. He buckles that onto the end of his belt, and then hooks on the sheath. Merlin has by now pulled off his own, and is standing uncertainly on top of the lion with it bunched in his hand, staring up. “Well hurry up! Throw it to me!”
Merlin does, and it hits the pit wall three quarters of the way to the top before falling back down along with another small avalanche of dirt. Arthur rolls his eyes. Merlin tries again, and this time it’s high enough for Arthur to be able to snatch it out of the air. He promptly buckles it on to the end of the makeshift rope which, with his sword’s hilt at the end is more than six feet long. He lowers the end over the side of the pit; on his knees, it’s still several feet above Merlin’s head.
“D’you think it’s strong enough to hold me?” the idiot asks, staring up at it doubtfully.
“Just grab it already.”
Merlin blinks and sets himself. Steps back to give himself a run-up, and then dashes forward. He springs up lamely, pushing off from the unstable wall for an instant, and then his frantically waving hand grabs the end of the sheath. Arthur hisses as the weight hits, and then leans back against it. Merlin’s heavier than he looks.
“Hurry. Up. Idiot,” he hisses through his teeth. Merlin scrambles up the side, feet setting off huge downpours of dirt while he climbs the make-shift rope. The dirt at the edge of the pit is starting to trickle away as the wall beneath it crumbles. Merlin climbs past the scabbard – the grass begins to sag downwards – past Arthur’s belt – Arthur’s feet beginning to sink into the ground – onto his own belt, and then –
Arthur snaps out his hand and grabs Merlin’s wrist just as the edge of the pit gives away. Yanks him back with all his weight, suddenly thankful for the mail, and takes three long steps backwards before falling flat on his ass and pulling Merlin down beside him.
They lie there for several seconds panting for breath before Merlin sits up, and Arthur has no choice but to follow him. He’s staring at Arthur with confusion, and gratitude.
“Arthur,” he says, making to reach out. Arthur stares, wary but unmoving.
And behind them, someone appears. Anhora, the unicorn keeper.
Arthur grabs his sword and uses it to push himself to his feet. “You!” he says, pointing the blade accusingly.
“You have passed the first part of the test, Prince Arthur,” Anhora says calmly, spreading his hands. “You broke with your beliefs to do what you felt was right. You judged, not on accusations, but on evidence. The second part awaits you at the end of the labyrinth.” Anhora steps back and disappears, serene as ever.
“It was a test?” spits Arthur, staring after him. He rounds on Merlin, and sees nothing but green grass behind him - the pit and the lion both are gone as if they never were. “It was a test? Why didn’t you say so?” he demands.
“I – what?” Merlin looks somewhere between confused and cagey, like a schoolboy who has been caught with a question he has no answer to. Arthur rolls his eyes.
“’I didn’t dig the hole,’” he says, giving Merlin a mincing tone. “Why didn’t you just bloody say you aren’t a sorcerer? I might’ve left you in there, you know! Making me think you were a sorcerer – you really are a complete idiot! Gods!” It’s only years of training that keep him from throwing down his sword in frustration.
“Right,” says Merlin slowly, looking like he still hasn’t fully grasped the implications. “But –”
“I mean, imagine if that damn games keeper or whoever he is hadn’t come along.”
“Yes?” says Merlin, looking up at him with a strange eye.
“Well I’d probably have left you here, wouldn’t I’ve? And then who’d clean my armour and muck out the stables? Honestly, Merlin, you might have a little more foresight. Try to think about me just a bit more. I’m only your prince and master, after all.” He sighs and picks up the makeshift rope to take it to pieces.
“Yes, sire,” says Merlin quietly. Arthur pulls off his belt, throws it at him, sheaths his sword and begins walking while still reslinging his own around his waist.
“Come on, then. We’ve still got to finish this second test, whatever it is. Today’s just full of irritating digressions.”
“Yes, sire,” says Merlin again, in exactly the same flat tone. Just a little talking-to, and now the fool’s sulking. Well, he was wrongly accused of sorcery. Arthur supposes that merits some patience. He leans over and claps the man on his shoulder, Merlin stumbling slightly.
"Never mind about all that. Should've known better," he says, buckling on his sword.
"What do you mean?"
"Should've known you weren't a sorcerer. You're not like that. Right?" He looks at Merlin, smiling in his most kindly manner.
Merlin's face spreads into a slow, crooked kind of smile, obviously unused to praise from his master. "Right," he echoes, looking slightly pole-axed.
Arthur nods and turns, immediately dropping the face to roll his eyes. Really, it's a wonder he tries. Taking a deep, long-suffering breath, he strikes out in what he hopes is the right direction. Merlin plods on behind him.
Series: Merlin
Pairings: None (potentially Arthur/Merlin pre-slash)
Rating: PG
Notes: A slightly AU missing scene from The Labyrinth of Gedref (1.11)
Summary: It turns out that the labyrinth is not, in fact, empty. Arthur discovers more than he wanted to.
Rat soup, Arthur comes to realise a few turns into the maze, is not very filling. Of course, that could also be a result of his only having managed to choke down a few mouthfuls. His stomach feels as though it’s crawling up the side of his ribs, flat and empty as a pauper’s purse. His chain mail is weighing unusually heavily on his shoulders.
Arthur has visited mazes before, of course. Dozens of them, in fact. Camelot’s terrain is not ideal for the amusement, being both rocky and full of sharp slopes, but the kingdoms down on the plains generally have at least one per castle and Arthur has visited them all. As a child he welcomed the invitation from his father’s hosts for “young Prince Arthur to be shown the maze”; it meant an escape from the tedium of conferences and dinner parties and fawning would-be allies of Camelot.
He had expected this maze to be different. Sinister, filled with cold or mist or foreboding omens. Perhaps even traps and warriors and magical creatures.
Actually, though, all it is full of is boredom.
Arthur is used to dangerous missions, to hunts, to the necessity of keeping his senses constantly sword-sharp, his nerves strung tight as long-bows. He isn’t used to the strain it’s putting on him now, muscles beginning to tremble when allowed a pause and head beginning to ache from keeping constantly alert through the long journey and the apparently-empty maze. This too, he knows, is hunger, is days without a proper meal.
If the hunger is dulling his senses, though, it’s whetting his thoughts. As he stalks through the yew aisles, sword heavy as stone in his hand, his mind is whirring. It chases itself in ever-tightening circles, a dog snarling and snapping at its own shanks. His desperation and frustration and rage are red-hot chains which surround him and burn him as he struggles, all the while wrapping tighter and tighter to strangle him. Camelot is suffering because of you. Children are starving because of you. The people are dying because of you. Your pride, your arrogance, your mistakes are killing them.
Sweating and drawing heavy breaths past the three stones’ weight of his mail with which to curse, Arthur storms deeper into the labyrinth, growing progressively hotter and more furious.
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He can’t find the goddamn centre. Can’t even find the bloody exit. He’s wandering in circles in some goddamn game while his people starve to death. His stomach twinges at the thought; he ignores it.
To make matters worse, he now thinks something’s following him, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about that either. He’s stopped several times in the lee of blind corners waiting for whoever it is to show themselves but, coward that they are, they never appear. If he backtracks in search of them, he’ll lose whatever miniscule progress he’s made. And if it turns out that the whole purpose of this ridiculous, useless, maddening exercise is to find the thing, he’s wasting precious time ignoring it.
Arthur snarls aloud and rounds yet another green corner. Up ahead, there’s a flash of reddish brown as someone disappears around a curve. Arthur surges forward, using the bulky chain mail as an aid to his momentum. Trampling along feeling clumsy as a cantering carthorse, he pursues the figure – a snatch of rust-coloured shirt here, a dirty boot there – around several corners and sharp curves. And becomes aware as he does so that something’s chasing him in turn. It’s quiet, but he can hear a faint panting between the jingling of his mail, now and then catch the thump of heavy footsteps on the hard turf.
Arthur’s sight is just beginning to blur, sound siphoning out like water down the gutters, when he stumbles around a corner and finds himself facing his quarry’s back against a dead end.
His quarry, who has a horribly familiar back.
Merlin turns around and Arthur watches in a black mood as shock, embarrassment, and guilt flash across his servant’s face like gusts of wind over barley fields. He steps forward, raising his free hand to punctuate the tirade he’s about to launch into, when Merlin’s expression shifts directly into terror. Arthur wouldn’t be at all surprised by that, except that the disobedient idiot’s eyes aren’t looking at him. They’re staring at something behind him.
Arthur turns just as Merlin shouts, and only manages by the skin of his teeth to avoid the lion that leaps at him. Its huge bulk knocks him off his already unsteady feet and he falls hard, rolling on the grass and trying to force tired muscles into obedience. Merlin is shouting like a fool in the background.
A lion. Not a griffin, or a basilisk, or even a sphinx. Just a regular goddamn lion, its thick hide the colour of summer wheat and its huge mane all shades of yellow-brown from butter to black. It is admittedly nearly twice the size of a regular one, but Arthur still feels a sting of affront. He came all the way here to fight a damn lion? He could have done that at home, and saved hours of wrenching stomachs and fainting children.
He makes a wide slash at it as it turns back towards him and realises, as the lion dodges easily and smacks him down with a huge clawed paw, that fighting near home would have also brought the advantages of strength and freshness. His sword goes tumbling from his hand and his vision blurs as the creature leans over him, its breath hot and putrid as it pours over his face, so thick it almost seems liquid.
Arthur kicks out with his boots and catches the beast in the stomach. It howls, and he punches it in the neck with the hard steel edge of his gauntlet. The lion steps backwards, surprised by this recovery, and Arthur looks for his sword. It’s nowhere in sight; probably the goddamn hedge has swallowed it. That would be just his luck. He tries to get to his feet, armour pulling him down with all the drag of an ocean rip-tide, and staggers. The lion senses his weakness, and makes to pounce. Someone shouts – Merlin, that idiot, why hasn't he forced his way through the hedge to safety – and there’s a clap of thunder and a burst of blue light. He thinks he sees a dark figure behind the lion with a flash of gold about its head, but then he’s being knocked back by an intense wind and thinking is pushed out of the way by instinct as he tries and fails to catch himself.
Arthur finds himself lying on his back, looking up at the sky. It’s robin’s-egg blue – not a cloud in sight. He pulls himself up, instinctively recoiling from the expected pounce, and finds no sign of a lion. Or, for that matter, of Merlin - he tries to ignore the sudden tight clenching in his chest.
What there is, is a large uneven circle of singed grass surrounding a pit. A pit which definitely wasn’t there a minute ago. He gets to his feet and steps forward to look over the edge.
The pit’s mouth is about the length of two men, its width only half that so that the edges barely brush the yew trees on either side of the maze corridor. Its depth is more than the height of two men, its sides sandy and steep.
Lying at the bottom of the pit is a very dead lion, its fur black and smoking. And, half-lying, half-sitting beside it, Merlin. His servant is dusty, but neither black nor smoking. Not even singed, in fact. But then, why should a sorcerer be harmed by his own magic?
Arthur stares down in shock which slowly bleeds into cold horror. His servant, a sorcerer. The man closest to him, the one who keeps his armour strong, who sees that his blades are sharpened. The one who brings his food, who pours his wine, who holds the keys to his room and wakes him from sleep. One of only a handful of people in the entire world who has complete power over his life, not just on the battlefield when he is always alert, but in his own home where his guard is down.
Even as these first thoughts flash though his mind they are already being overruled. This isn’t just his servant, it’s Merlin. The man he has trusted not just with his life, as he trusts all his knights and guards and courtiers, but with his confidence and friendship. Merlin, who he has allowed not just into his stables and wardrobe and armoury but his life.
Merlin, who is a sorcerer, a twisted, degenerate, evil being. Merlin, who has wormed into his trust just as his father always said of sorcerers, while revealing nothing of himself, while purposefully concealing what he was. Merlin, who took advantage of the kindness and generosity of everyone in Camelot, but especially his own and that of his lord and father.
Merlin, who has unabashedly been serving him while growing ever closer and probably trying to build up his power and influence over Arthur, is one of the greatest enemies of the kingdom.
Arthur looks down, rage and betrayal waging a bloody war for possession of his heart, and sees Merlin look up. His face is very white beneath his ridiculous mop of dark hair, his eyes wide and horrified. As he should be.
“You traitor,” snarls Arthur, voice low and full of grit.
“Arthur –”
“What was your purpose? To worm yourself closer and closer into my and my family’s trust, while waiting for the perfect moment to strike?”
Merlin takes on the appearance of sickening anguish, although Arthur can only imagine what he truly feels. “What? No! Arthur, I – of course not! I would never hurt you!” He climbs to his feet, and Arthur steps sharply back. The movement is reflected in the sorcerer’s face like a slap; he falls back against the unstable wall of the pit. A shower of dirt falls down on him, and he staggers forward onto the lion’s corpse.
Arthur wants to laugh, but somehow the sound won’t come out. He twists his face into an ugly rictus, and forces out a stiff barking sound that has nothing to do with humour. “You, a sorcerer, didn’t want to hurt me? You took the job of my servant, toiled in the castle, won my trust and that of my father’s ward, gained access to all levels of the keep, simply for fun? You have worked yourself into the perfect position to assassinate all the leaders of Camelot, you have not only the motive but the taint compelling you to do so – of which you told no one – and you want me to believe you meant no harm?” He spits the words out, so harsh and furious that he can hardly understand them himself.
Merlin falls to his hands and knees on the beast’s side, face still upturned and beseeching. “Arthur, I swear! I only wanted to protect you – to protect the next king of Camelot! You will make a kingdom to be proud of, a kingdom which is fair and just and peaceful! I’m your friend, Arthur, all I want is your safety!”
“My friends do not lie to me! And my friends are not sorcerers!” roars Arthur, and turns so sharply he staggers. Behind him Merlin cries out, and there’s another shifting of dirt. Arthur stoops to find his sword, retrieves it from the base of the hedge, and stalks away with the pleas of his former servant ringing in his ears.
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Arthur strides through the maze slashing at the tall trees with his sword and kicking at their lower branches. There is nothing to take his fury out on here. No one to shout down, no one to kick, no one with calming advice to ignore. He hews a thick sheaf of prickly green boughs from a tree and stabs his sword into them as they fall to the ground, spearing them against the untrodden green grass and dropping to one knee beside them. Head bent in tortuous thought, he tries to let the green scent calm his boiling mind.
Sorcerers are evil. Magic is evil. He has spent his whole life knowing that. Has been taught it from the cradle, has seen the pain and suffering they can cause. The curse now strangling his kingdom is magic; what else could be responsible for the deaths of innocents from slow starvation? Sorcerers bring nothing but darkness, but grief and hurt and death, and are subject to none but themselves. Sorcerers don’t care for ordinary folk, don’t see them for anything other than sheep to be driven and tormented and slaughtered for their own amusement. And, now that most of them have at last been thankfully wiped out, any survivors feel nothing but hatred for his family and Camelot.
Merlin is a sorcerer, and casts magic. Merlin is, therefore, evil. Even if it weren’t in his blood, in his very bone, he has no reason to care for Arthur and every reason to wish him dead. That is absolute, indisputable.
But why then has the damn idiot saved his life so many times? There is no point in Merlin saving him from death to get close to him, just so he can then kill Arthur. He has held the power of life and death over not only Arthur, but Uther and Morgana, for months now and hasn’t acted. Has done nothing but serve loyally – if incompetently – and done what passes for his best to protect his master. And why, knowing he had lost Arthur’s trust, did he not strike him down from atop the lion’s corpse? If he has magic enough to bring down lightning out of blue sky and dig a hole of that size, killing one starving prince shouldn’t have been too difficult. Although Merlin always does manage to botch things a child could be tasked with.
Merlin may be a sorcerer, but he’s still an idiot. Arthur is crown prince, and knows by now when men want him dead. He’s never sensed that coldness from Merlin. Has never sensed anything from the man but a rather bumbling, irritated, snarky kind of goodwill. It may not make sense, but it’s just as much a fact as his father’s teachings.
It shouldn't matter. Sorcerer or not, Merlin is a servant. Dispensable, disposable. Not worth Arthur's time or attention, and certainly not all this trouble. That is the nature of his class, that is the advice his father would give. But the memory of his anguished face, like a man who has suffered a mortal blow, twists sharp and painful in Arthur's chest. Merlin is no prince, no noble. And yet, somehow, he can't bear to break with him like this.
Arthur sighs and pushes himself back up to his feet with his sword, then withdraws it from the ground. He hasn’t heard anyone staggering around behind him. Which means, odds are the fool’s still back with his lion. Arthur turns, and begins to backtrack.
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The grass is thick and pristine, and as such it’s much easier than expected to find his way back to the hole. It’s still there, just as he remembered. He cautiously approaches the side, and looks in.
The lion’s still down there, still dead. And Merlin is still down there, sitting on it as though it were a bench, still alive. He’s staring at the ground with his hands pressed to either side of his head, long fingers tangled in his dark hair. Arthur takes a breath, and clears his throat.
Merlin looks up so quickly he nearly loses his balance, only catches it by flinging his arms out and pinwheeling wildly. It’s becoming more difficult by the second to believe this is one of the greatest threats to Camelot.
“Arthur!” he says, and for some reason the absolute shock in his voice cuts. “Arthur, listen –”
“Why are you still down there?” asks Arthur, despite himself, in a half-ready stance.
Merlin glances at the walls and then back at him, slightly confused. “The walls are too unstable to climb, they just cave in on me when I try,” he says, kicking one to demonstrate. Sandy dirt tumbles down to partially bury one of the lion’s paws.
“I meant,” expounds Arthur, “why haven’t you magicked yourself out? It’s your hole, after all.”
“It’s not, actually. I don’t know how it got here, I didn’t do it.” Merlin sounds genuinely uncertain.
Arthur narrows his eyes. “You’re telling me your not a sorcerer now? After that?” he indicates the over-cooked lion.
“I’m telling you I didn’t dig this hole, and that I can’t get out of it. I suppose I’ll be able to live off of lion for a while,” he says consideringly.
“You can’t just … levitate yourself out?” He makes a rising gesture with his hands. Merlin shrugs.
“No. But you should finish the test, whatever it is. The people in Camelot have a lot less than this lion,” he looks up, suddenly serious. Arthur’s gut twists; he’d almost forgotten.
“And you’ll just stay there?”
Merlin sits down and closes his shoulders, taking an elbow in each hand and staring at the wall. “I don’t have much choice. I can’t get out on my own, and you believe I’m your enemy. Checkmate.” His tone is almost completely resigned, but Arthur still hears – thinks he hears – the twinge of pain in it.
“Merlin –”
“You should go, Arthur. You prat,” he adds, looking up. He’s trying to smile, but it just makes the hurt in his face shine all the brighter, a single clean spot accenting the blood dripping from a blade. “I’m not your servant anymore, so I guess I can call you what I want.”
“I don’t recall you ever letting your status stop you before,” says Arthur, slowly, while his thoughts turn ponderous as the world spinning. While teaching battles trust, and learning fights loyalty. While years of lectures and sermons and curses screamed from the scaffold come up against a single man with messy hair and the balance of a three-legged table and a wide, sudden smile.
“Yeah, well, I never really got the –”
“Merlin,” says Arthur abruptly, and the man falls silent. “Take off your belt.”
He stops, sits so still that Arthur knows he isn’t even breathing.
“Come on, idiot, I don’t have all day,” he snaps, and begins to unbuckle his own. Merlin stumbles up as if struck, and his fingers scrabble at the buckle of his own belt. Arthur already has his off, and is undoing the straps which fasten the sheath to it. He buckles that onto the end of his belt, and then hooks on the sheath. Merlin has by now pulled off his own, and is standing uncertainly on top of the lion with it bunched in his hand, staring up. “Well hurry up! Throw it to me!”
Merlin does, and it hits the pit wall three quarters of the way to the top before falling back down along with another small avalanche of dirt. Arthur rolls his eyes. Merlin tries again, and this time it’s high enough for Arthur to be able to snatch it out of the air. He promptly buckles it on to the end of the makeshift rope which, with his sword’s hilt at the end is more than six feet long. He lowers the end over the side of the pit; on his knees, it’s still several feet above Merlin’s head.
“D’you think it’s strong enough to hold me?” the idiot asks, staring up at it doubtfully.
“Just grab it already.”
Merlin blinks and sets himself. Steps back to give himself a run-up, and then dashes forward. He springs up lamely, pushing off from the unstable wall for an instant, and then his frantically waving hand grabs the end of the sheath. Arthur hisses as the weight hits, and then leans back against it. Merlin’s heavier than he looks.
“Hurry. Up. Idiot,” he hisses through his teeth. Merlin scrambles up the side, feet setting off huge downpours of dirt while he climbs the make-shift rope. The dirt at the edge of the pit is starting to trickle away as the wall beneath it crumbles. Merlin climbs past the scabbard – the grass begins to sag downwards – past Arthur’s belt – Arthur’s feet beginning to sink into the ground – onto his own belt, and then –
Arthur snaps out his hand and grabs Merlin’s wrist just as the edge of the pit gives away. Yanks him back with all his weight, suddenly thankful for the mail, and takes three long steps backwards before falling flat on his ass and pulling Merlin down beside him.
They lie there for several seconds panting for breath before Merlin sits up, and Arthur has no choice but to follow him. He’s staring at Arthur with confusion, and gratitude.
“Arthur,” he says, making to reach out. Arthur stares, wary but unmoving.
And behind them, someone appears. Anhora, the unicorn keeper.
Arthur grabs his sword and uses it to push himself to his feet. “You!” he says, pointing the blade accusingly.
“You have passed the first part of the test, Prince Arthur,” Anhora says calmly, spreading his hands. “You broke with your beliefs to do what you felt was right. You judged, not on accusations, but on evidence. The second part awaits you at the end of the labyrinth.” Anhora steps back and disappears, serene as ever.
“It was a test?” spits Arthur, staring after him. He rounds on Merlin, and sees nothing but green grass behind him - the pit and the lion both are gone as if they never were. “It was a test? Why didn’t you say so?” he demands.
“I – what?” Merlin looks somewhere between confused and cagey, like a schoolboy who has been caught with a question he has no answer to. Arthur rolls his eyes.
“’I didn’t dig the hole,’” he says, giving Merlin a mincing tone. “Why didn’t you just bloody say you aren’t a sorcerer? I might’ve left you in there, you know! Making me think you were a sorcerer – you really are a complete idiot! Gods!” It’s only years of training that keep him from throwing down his sword in frustration.
“Right,” says Merlin slowly, looking like he still hasn’t fully grasped the implications. “But –”
“I mean, imagine if that damn games keeper or whoever he is hadn’t come along.”
“Yes?” says Merlin, looking up at him with a strange eye.
“Well I’d probably have left you here, wouldn’t I’ve? And then who’d clean my armour and muck out the stables? Honestly, Merlin, you might have a little more foresight. Try to think about me just a bit more. I’m only your prince and master, after all.” He sighs and picks up the makeshift rope to take it to pieces.
“Yes, sire,” says Merlin quietly. Arthur pulls off his belt, throws it at him, sheaths his sword and begins walking while still reslinging his own around his waist.
“Come on, then. We’ve still got to finish this second test, whatever it is. Today’s just full of irritating digressions.”
“Yes, sire,” says Merlin again, in exactly the same flat tone. Just a little talking-to, and now the fool’s sulking. Well, he was wrongly accused of sorcery. Arthur supposes that merits some patience. He leans over and claps the man on his shoulder, Merlin stumbling slightly.
"Never mind about all that. Should've known better," he says, buckling on his sword.
"What do you mean?"
"Should've known you weren't a sorcerer. You're not like that. Right?" He looks at Merlin, smiling in his most kindly manner.
Merlin's face spreads into a slow, crooked kind of smile, obviously unused to praise from his master. "Right," he echoes, looking slightly pole-axed.
Arthur nods and turns, immediately dropping the face to roll his eyes. Really, it's a wonder he tries. Taking a deep, long-suffering breath, he strikes out in what he hopes is the right direction. Merlin plods on behind him.