Archive of Our Own ^beta

Arthur came to in his bed, with Gaius poking at his face, and Father standing at the end of the bed, worriedly clutching the bedpost.  The last thing he remembered was the Norseman chief’s battle-hammer swinging toward his head, with skull-crushing force—

Except that it wasn’t.  The last thing he really remembered was the war-hammer slewing to one side, colliding instead with the pillar inches from his face, sending a scatter of debris upon him—

Except that wasn’t it, either.  The last thing he had seen was Merlin, reaching out as if to stop the blow, from several arms’-length’s away—

But even that wasn’t it. 

The last thing he had really, truly seen, was Merlin’s eyes glowing gold. 

Remembering all of that took a fraction of a second, and as he did so, Gaius was saying, “Ah, you’re awake,” or something obvious like that.  Arthur wasn’t paying attention, because he was turning instead to his father, with one question dying on his lips—did you see?

The realization that he couldn’t ask that question came first—seconds before he understood why he couldn’t ask. 

Because if Father hadn’t seen it, he would want to know just what it was that he hadn’t seen. 

And Arthur—

Arthur wasn’t going to tell him. 

It was treason not to, but he wasn’t. 

But now Father and Gaius were exchanging solemn looks.  “How much do you remember?” Gaius asked him.

“Enough to know I had a lucky escape,” Arthur said.  That was what it had been.  Luck.  It had to have been.

But Father was drawing in his breath.  Arthur hurried on.  “I assume someone stopped him before he got in a second swing.  Which of the knights was it?  I’ll have to give him a sword.  Or a horse, or something.  A title, maybe, if he doesn’t have one.”  He was babbling now, but it didn’t matter—some of those chunks of stone hadn’t been small; naturally his thoughts were a bit addled.  “For saving my life.”

“Sir Kay slew the Norseman,” Father said, a bit stiffly.

“Ah,” Arthur said.  “Good man.”

Gaius leaned over him again, and did a bit more medical fussing, prying open Arthur’s eyelids and peering at his eyes, and so on.  “It does appear that he’s escaped serious injury, sire,” he reported, his words seeming to have a strange weight to them. 

“Good,” Father said—snapped, really. 

Gaius looked at him levelly for a moment before turning his attention back to Arthur.  “You should still rest for the remainder of the day,” he went on.  “And you’ll be more comfortable with your armor off.”  His hands went towards the buckles.

“Merlin can do it,” Arthur said.  He looked around, his head swimming nauseously as he did so.  “Where is he?” he asked, attempting a tone of idle annoyance. 

Gaius cast his eyes downward, and Father lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. 

Oh, no. 

No, no, no, no—

“I’m afraid this will be difficult to hear,” Father said.  “But it seems that…Merlin is a sorcerer.”

Arthur had known that for literally moments already, but said out loud, it still sounded absurd.  It wasn’t at all difficult to say incredulously, “Don’t be ridiculous.  Merlin?” 

It was Gaius who answered.  “He used magic to stop the Norseman’s hammer in mid-air, sire.” Pointedly, he added, “Saving your life.  We all saw it.”

“Nevertheless,” Father said sharply. 

Arthur knew exactly what he meant, but wondered if, perhaps, saying that out loud might lead Father to hear how absurd it sounded.  “Nevertheless what?” he asked. 

“Magic is forbidden in Camelot,” Father told him.  “You know that.”

“Right,” Arthur said.  “But—”

“For any purpose.”  Father’s tone was gentler than Arthur would have expected, given that sorcery was involved.  “It’s…unfortunate.  But the law must be followed.”  He took a deep breath.  “Given the circumstances, I’ve decided to ask Gaius to supply a suitable poison.  Something painless.  We can display the body afterwards, so that the people can see that justice was done.”

“No.”  The word slipped unbidden from Arthur’s throat. 

“What?” Now Father’s tone wasn’t gentle at all.

 “You can’t execute my manservant for saving my life.”  Very well; he’d be the one to say it out loud.

“I think you’ll find that I can.”

“Sire,” Gaius said delicately, “It might be best to avoid upsetting Prince Arthur just now….”

Father took a step backward.  “Yes.  Yes, of course.  You aren’t thinking clearly,” he said to Arthur.  “Rest, as Gaius says.  I’m sure you’ll understand, once your ears have stopped ringing.”  He attempted a smile. 

“I won’t understand, because it doesn’t make sense!”  Arthur said, struggling to sit up as his head swam again.

“Now, listen here—”  Father thundered, only to step back again at a quelling look from Gaius.  “We’ll discuss it later.”

Discussing it later was a tempting idea, especially as it seemed likely that any second his highest priority might be locating a chamber-pot to be sick in.  Arthur allowed Gaius to settle him back against the pillows.  “All right,” he said.  “But you won’t—you won’t do anything until we have.  Discussed it.”

Father sighed, and Arthur made as if he were about to try sitting up again.  “Fine,” Father snapped. 

“Do I have your word?” 

Father looked away. 

So he’d been planning on sneaking off and killing Merlin while Arthur was still sick in bed.  “I mean it,” he said.  “I need to thank him for saving my life.  If you won’t give me your word that he’ll still be alive when Gaius says I can get up, I’ll have to do it now.”

Father and Gaius had a short but urgent conversation through the medium of facial expressions, and at last Father said, “You have my word.”

After that, things got a bit muddled.  Gaius poured a potion down Arthur’s throat, and a servant—one who knew what he was doing, and didn’t call Arthur a clot-pole—came and helped him out of his armor and into his nightshirt.  Arthur was fairly sure that he’d managed to get through it all without vomiting, and after that all was darkness, except for Gaius coming back two or three times to ask him if he knew what his name was and how to count to ten. 

It was some time before dawn—the sky just beginning to lighten a little—when he woke up for real.  And when he did….

Well, he still didn’t “understand” that it made perfect sense to kill Merlin for saving his life—

But he did find himself thinking more about the other salient fact, namely, Merlin was a sorcerer.  Had he been one all along?  Had he ever used magic on Arthur?  And, perhaps most importantly, what was he doing in Camelot? 

A sorcerer wouldn’t come to Uther Pendragon’s court to work as a servant; the idea was almost as absurd as Merlin being a sorcerer.    So he must’ve come for some other reason—and, knowing sorcerers, it couldn’t be a good one. 

But the idea of Merlin, of all people, worming his way into the Court—into Arthur’s chambers!—to carry out some dastardly sorcerous plot, was…well, Arthur just couldn’t believe it. 

After lying in bed for some time, with these thoughts churning in his head, he threw the bedclothes aside, pulled on some clothes, and went looking for his father.

Uther’s insomnia was one of the worst-kept secrets in the castle, and Arthur had been very young when he’d discovered that “accidentally” coming across him in the small hours, when everyone else was asleep, was the most reliable way of finding his father in a patient and forgiving mood. 

Not foolproof, but it worked more often than it didn’t. 

It had been a while since Arthur had gone looking for Father at night, but he found him where he usually had, staring into the fire and sipping a goblet of wine.  “Arthur,” he said, looking up at him.  “Should you be up?”

“I feel fine,” he said. 

Nodding, Father gestured at the chair next to his; Arthur sat. 

There had always been a second chair there, and it was only now that Arthur realized it was probably his mother’s. 

His mother, who everyone said had been killed by magic. 

“Father,” Arthur said, then fell silent. 

Father sighed.  “I know,” he said carefully, “it’s…upsetting.  During the Purge.  There were…men and women I knew.  Whom I had trusted, before.  I know it…isn’t easy.”

Another thing Arthur hadn’t thought of before.  Father had banned magic twenty years ago, and he was nearly fifty.  Of course there would have been people he knew.  Sorcerers he knew.  “Right,” he said.  “But…are you certain it was Merlin?  I mean, he’s….”  A bit of an idiot?  Stupid, but loyal?  Arthur wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, except that he was just Merlin.  “And he has saved my life before.  That’s why you saddled me with him in the first place.  What if this is just—some sort of misunderstanding?”  That had to be what it was. 

“He admitted it.”

God’s blood, he really was an idiot.  “Admitted it?”

“In front of the entire court,” Father added.  “I didn’t even put him to the question.  Some idiot guard said, Did he just?  And your ‘servant’ said, Yes, I just used magic to stop Arthur getting his brains knocked out.”    Father snorted. 

Arthur was going to wring his scrawny neck.  Once he’d figured out how to stop Father from poisoning him, that is.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t overlook it,” Father added.  “I’d be as much as telling every sorcerer in the five kingdoms that all they have to do to infiltrate my court is stage an attempt on your life and then be seen preventing it.”

“He didn’t stage it,” Arthur pointed out. 

“Not that one,” Father allowed.  “But the first one?  Think how convenient it was—he arrives in Camelot, and within days he foils an attempt on the life of a member of the royal family.”  He shook his head.  “And then I go and give him free rein of the entire castle, and unfettered access to my son.”

Looked at in a certain light, it made a terrible amount of sense.  “Father,” Arthur objected.  “Merlin is…not that clever.  He’s the worst servant in Camelot.  A year he’s been here, and he doesn’t understand that I eat breakfast every day.  Or that he shouldn’t go around calling me a dollop-head—which isn’t even a word.  Or—”  Belatedly, Arthur realized that some of these details might not exactly be exculpatory, in Father’s eyes.  “He’s basically a simpleton.”

Father sat back in his chair, his expression thoughtful.  “You mean, someone else is behind this?  Planted him here?”

Arthur hadn’t thought of that, but now that Father said so, that had to be it.  “They must have.  He’s a pawn.  He may not even know what he’s being used for.  They could have tricked him—or he’s under some sort of duress.”  Yes.  He couldn’t possibly accept Merlin as a nefarious sorcerer who masterminded a cunning plot to get close to the throne, but Merlin the idiot sorcerer, who’d agreed to come to Camelot and wait on Arthur because the real nefarious sorcerer said they’d put a hex on a puppy if he didn’t—that, as far as Arthur was concerned, was almost too plausible. 

“I see,” Father said.  “Well, then, we’ll have to get to the bottom of it.”

“Yes,” Arthur agreed.  He’d go and ask him right away.  Once Arthur promised he’d protect the puppy, or whatever it was, Merlin would tell him everything, and then—

And then he’d still be a sorcerer. 

“—may have some sort of potion, that would loosen his tongue, without the need for any…unpleasantness,” Father was saying.  “Or—well, if he’s as simple as you say, it shouldn’t be difficult.”

A sorcerer Father was going to torture, if he had to, to find out who’d sent him and why.  And then execute him anyway, because he was a sorcerer. 

Arthur hadn’t fixed anything; he’d just made things worse.  “Let me try,” he blurted out. 

“What?”

“He’s very loyal to me,” Arthur explained.  “In his simple way.  I’ll get the potion from Gaius, and give it to him without him knowing, and I’m sure he’ll explain everything.”

And then, once he knew everything, Arthur would…well, he’d decide what to do.

#

It was definitely getting a bit lighter in the cell.  The only window was too high up for Merlin to look out of it, but he could now see where it was—a lighter patch in the dark—and if he squinted, he could almost make out the toes of his boots. 

Well, that might have been wishful thinking. 

It might be time to try asking the guards again, if Arthur was okay.  Some of those chunks of masonry had been pretty big—not as big as the hammer, but still big.  They hadn’t answered him any of the other times, but hey, you never knew!  When he heard heavy footsteps coming his way, he decided to try it. 

When the door opened, his eyes watered from the sudden light of the torches the guards were carrying.  He had to blink them away before he saw that one of them wasn’t a guard at all. “Arthur!”

Merlin was so glad to see he was all right, that he hadn’t considered the fact that Arthur might not exactly be entirely thrilled to see him.  Arthur glanced at the two guards who flanked him and said coldly, “Leave us.”

The guards left, one fitting his torch into a bracket on the wall before he did so. 

There was a bench on Arthur’s side of the bars; when the guards had gone, he sat down heavily on it, cradling his head in his hands.  “Are you all right?” Merlin asked, in a small voice.

“No, Merlin,” Arthur said flatly.  “I’m not.  I just found out my idiot manservant told the entire court that he used magic to save my life.”

“Oh,” Merlin said.  “Sorry?”  He wondered if he should try to explain that there hadn’t been time for anything more subtle. 

But that probably wasn’t the part Arthur was mad about.  “But your brains are still inside your head,” he pointed out instead.  “So that’s a win.”

“Yes,” Arthur said, his voice distant.  “Thank you.  For that.” 

“My pleasure,” Merlin said.  “Any time.  Actually—”  He cut himself off before he could admit that he’d done it before. 

Arthur shook his head.  “Here,” he said, tossing a water-skin through the bars. 

Merlin was glad to see it—he’d actually already been thirsty when they put him in here, and he’d had nothing since.  He tried to catch it and fumbled, but fished it out of the straw at his feet quickly enough that maybe Arthur hadn’t noticed he’d dropped it in the first place.

What with how he wasn’t really looking at Merlin, and all. 

“It’s from Gaius,” Arthur added.

Oh.  Merlin paused in the act of raising the skin to his mouth.  Probably…not water, then. 

And it was almost morning. 

Well, given the choice between being awake—and thirsty—when he was burned, and being asleep and not thirsty….  He drained the skin, and settled down against the wall to wait.  “Thanks,” he said, handing the skin back through the bars.  “I mean—I’m glad you came.  They wouldn’t even tell me if you were all right.” 

Arthur snorted, scuffing at the flagstones with the toe of one boot.  “I’m fine,” he said.  He took a deep breath.  “So, how long have you been a sorcerer?”

It wasn’t surprising that Arthur had some questions, Merlin thought, but he might have asked them before he gave Merlin the sleeping draft.  Or poison.  Whatever it was.  “Always.  I was doing magic before I could walk or talk.  That’s what Mum says, anyway.” 

“What kind of magic?”

“When I was a baby?  Oh, I’d make the dishes dance around.  Turn things different colors.  I made Mum’s hair pink once.  Like a rose.  We had a rose bush near the house, and she’d point to it and say, pink as the petals on that rose, that’s what you did to my hair.  I suppose I must’ve thought she’d like it that way—she liked the roses.” 

And Merlin was babbling.  Why was he doing that?  He couldn’t seem to stop, but he managed to turn it in a less embarrassing direction.  “I don’t remember any of that, of course.  As long as I can remember, I knew I had to keep it hidden.  It’d come out sometimes, without me wanting it to, though.  Like when I dropped the branch on Old Man Simmons’s head.  He was kicking his dog,” Merlin confided.  “I wanted him to know what it was like.”

Arthur snorted again.  “Of course you did.” 

#

“—conjure food, but after you eat it, you’re just as hungry as before,” Merlin explained.  He’d been rattling on about how he used his magic, back in Ealdor, for ages now.  “That’s why I didn’t…you know.  When you killed the unicorn and everybody was starving.”  Merlin yawned hugely, and snuggled down a little against the stone wall.   “But if we had anything to eat, I could add things to make it taste better.  Honey to go into the porridge.  Things like that.” 

He really didn’t seem to have noticed that anything unusual was happening.

Then again, considering the way Merlin babbled normally, perhaps he wouldn’t.  “Do you mean,” Arthur said, “that you could have done something to make that rat stew taste like something other than…rat stew?”

“Maybe,” Merlin said, scrunching his face up.  “But it was your fault we didn’t have any food.”

“You could have warned me,” Arthur pointed out.  “Given you’re a sorcerer.”  That killing a unicorn caused immediate drought and famine seemed like the sort of thing a sorcerer would know.

“Pretty sure I did,” Merlin countered. 

Had he?  “Well—if I’d known you were a sorcerer, it might have occurred to me that you weren’t talking complete rubbish like you always do.”

Merlin didn’t answer for a moment, and when Arthur looked down at him, he was sitting up straight, for once, looking at Arthur with a serious expression.  “Arthur,” he said soberly, “if you’d known I was a sorcerer, I’d have already been dead.”

Arthur swallowed hard.  He’d forgotten that, somehow.  Just for a moment.  Just like he’d forgotten—for rather more than a moment—that he wasn’t here to listen to Merlin talk about his babyish magic. 

He was here to interrogate him about the other kind.  “Right,” he said.  “So—what are you doing in Camelot, anyway?”

“What?”  Merlin looked around, with a typically gormless expression.

“Why did you come here?  When you know sorcerers are—aren’t welcome here?”

“Oh,” Merlin said, flopping back against the wall.  “I told you that already.  My mum knows Gaius.” 

Merlin had told him that, at some point.  “That can’t be the only reason.” 

“Well, I had to leave Ealdor because, um, people were starting to figure out about the magic,” Merlin explained.  “So I had to…well, I had to go somewhere, and Gaius is the only person we know who…doesn’t live in Ealdor.  We figured he could help me find a job.”

Merlin grinned up at him as though that made perfect sense.  “So, because people in your tiny village were starting to figure out about the magic, you decided to come to—”  A place where we kill sorcerers on sight “—here, and find a job?”

Merlin nodded brightly.

“I’m not an idiot, Merlin,” Arthur said.  “There has to be more to it than that.”

If Arthur hadn’t already known that Merlin was trying to hold something back, the fact that he frowned so hard his eyes crossed would have been a clue. 

Belatedly, it occurred to Arthur that Merlin had, in his earlier ramblings, implicated his mother—what with all the dancing furniture, pink hair, and magic honey, she couldn’t possibly not know that Merlin was a sorcerer.  But Father wouldn’t—well, no, he probably would, if Arthur told him that Merlin’s mother had known he was a sorcerer and sent him to Camelot anyway.  But there was no reason Father needed to know that. 

Father only needed to know about whoever else had been involved.  The evil sorcerer who had tricked Merlin, or was threatening the puppy, or whatever it was.  He considered his next question carefully.  “But who else—other than your mother—said you should come to Camelot?”

Merlin did some more frowning.

“Or…told you there was something you had to do here?”

“Oh!” Merlin said, his face clearing.  “You mean about our Destiny.  Sorry, I was confused, because you were asking about why I came to Camelot, but I didn’t find out about that until after I got here.  But I guess it was why I came here, now that I think about it.  Because I was Destined to.”

“Our destiny?” Arthur asked. 

“Uh-huh.”  Merlin nodded again. 

“As in…yours and mine?”

“I only have the one,” Merlin said.  “Far as I know, anyway.  Maybe I’ve got more.  Do you?”

Arthur hadn’t even known he had one destiny. 

Not that he actually did.  The evil sorcerer must have told Merlin some story about a destiny, to get him to do…whatever the nefarious plan was. 

#

The more Merlin thought about it, the more certain he was that Arthur didn’t know about the Destiny.  And wasn’t supposed to—at least, not yet. 

Unfortunately, the sleeping draft was making it very difficult not to say everything that went through his head.  He’d barely managed to avoid explaining that Mum had hoped Gaius would be able to teach him to hide his magic better. 

Funny sort of sleeping draft.  Not only was he still awake, he didn’t feel especially sleepy.  More…floaty.

Merlin yawned. 

Well.  Maybe a little bit sleepy. 

“Sorry, is this boring you?” Arthur asked.

“No,” Merlin said.  Actually, he’d always sort of hoped he’d get a chance to explain everything.  One of the things he’d worried about—besides being executed—was that Arthur might not want to listen to him after he knew.

“I’m listening,” Arthur said.

Oops.  He must’ve said that out loud.  He was probably going to say other things out loud, too.  “But, um, maybe we should stop talking,” he said.  Even though there was a lot more he wanted to say to Arthur.  “Because it’s almost dawn, and I can’t fall asleep while I’m talking.  If you want me to be asleep, I mean.  When they burn me.  I thought that was the plan.  I want me to be asleep when they burn me.”

Arthur didn’t say anything for what seemed like a long time, and when Merlin finally got around to looking up at him, he had a stricken expression on his face. 

Like maybe he hadn’t realized what was happening.  “Oh, Arthur,” he said.  “You really are a dollop-head.  Of course they’re going to burn me.”  He considered.  “Or cut off my head.  One of those.”

But Arthur was shaking his head.  “No.  No, I—he—Father said he wouldn’t.  Burn you.” 

Merlin gave him a pitying look.  “D’you suppose he thought you might try and stop him?  I always kind of wondered,” he admitted.  “If you might.  If this happened, I mean.  Because of the Destiny.  But maybe I’m done with my part.”

“He isn’t going to burn you,” Arthur repeated.  “He gave me his word.” 

“Did he say anything about beheading?” Merlin wondered.  “Uther’s tricky like that, you know.  He could have given you his word he wouldn’t burn me, and then he beheads me instead.  That is a thing Uther would do.”

“He isn’t beheading you either,” Arthur said, and continued, “About this destiny.  What was it you were supposed to do, again?”

Merlin had a vague idea that he’d been trying not to tell Arthur about the Destiny, but he couldn’t remember why.  “Protect you,” he said.  “So you can be High King and unite Albion.  I kind of thought…I thought we were going to do the Albion part together, too.  But maybe he didn’t actually say that.  Maybe I just thought it.  Maybe the Norseman with the big hammer was the last thing I had to protect you from.” 

“Protect me,” Arthur said, with an unflattering amount of dubiousness.

“Yes, Arthur,” Merlin said patiently.  “Protect you.  Like I just did.” 

“The evil sorcerer told you that your destiny was to protect me?”

How was he this dim?  “I’m the evil sorcerer,” Merlin reminded him.  “Except for the evil part.  It was the dragon who told me about our Destiny.  You don’t actually think I’m evil, do you?  That’s really insulting.”

“No,” Arthur said heavily.  “I don’t think you’re evil, Merlin.  I—a dragon?”

“The one in the cellar,” Merlin explained helpfully.  “I know it isn’t a cellar when it’s in a castle, but I can’t remember the word right now—dungeon!  That’s it.  Except this is the dungeon, so I guess it’s the under-dungeon—”

“The Great Dragon, that is imprisoned beneath the castle, told you that your destiny was to protect me?”  Arthur’s voice rose in pitch and volume, until by the end of the statement, he was practically squeaking. 

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.” 

“There is nothing about what you just said that is not surprising!” Arthur squeaked.

Merlin considered it for a moment.  “I guess, when you say it all out loud like that, with no context, it does sound a little…odd.” 

Arthur stared at him.  “What…context…could possibly make any of that not sound odd?”

#

“So then, um, you know, I saw the giant, angry Norseman swinging his giant, angry hammer toward your head, and I stopped it, like I always do.”  Merlin’s tone developed a long-suffering note.   His answer to Arthur’s request for context had included, seemingly, everything that had happened to him since he’d arrived in Camelot.  Since he’d now caught up to the present day, Arthur could only hope he was nearly finished. 

One thing to be said for it all, it did prove Merlin’s loyalty beyond doubt.  Because not only was the Evil Sorcerer actually a dragon, it seemed that Arthur was the puppy. 

He made an inquiring noise, and Merlin continued, “But usually when I do that, there’s a fight going on, and everybody’s…you know, fighting, not standing around staring at you, so they saw, and now I’m going to die,” he concluded.  “I really—I’d almost have sworn the dragon said we were going to do it together.  Albion, I mean.  The Golden Age.  Maybe he meant, um, sort of…in spirit?  Or that seeing your father murder me is going to make you, like, a wiser and more just king?  But I just thought….”  He sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve.  “I thought I was gonna be there.  I thought he said something about me being at your side when you….”  He took a deep shuddering breath.  “When you ruled Albion.”  He wiped his nose again.  “Sorry.  I know I’m being a giant girl’s petticoat.  I just…I wanted to see….”  He pasted on an idiotic smile.  “How you got from being a royal prat to the greatest king the world has ever known.” 

“You’re not going to die,” Arthur said—and meant it.  He had, of course, been parsing when he said Merlin wasn’t going to burn—Father said he’d poison him. 

But he wasn’t going to die.  Arthur wasn’t going to let that happen, to this utter, utterly loyal, lackwit. 

“It’s all right,” Merlin said earnestly.  “I’m—I mean, I’m not happy about it.  But it’s all right.  You’ll still do it, and—who knows?  Maybe I’ll see it, from beyond the veil.”

“Merlin….” He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.  “Merlin,” he said gently.  “Merlin.” 

“What?”

“The dragon in the cellar told you that your destiny was to protect me, and then rule Albion by my side?  And you believed it?”

Merlin sniffled.  “I must’ve misunderstood the second part.”  He giggled nervously.  “I thought—I don’t know.”  He mumbled something into the scarf around his neck.

“What?”

Raising his chin, Merlin said distinctly, “Court.  Sorcerer.  I thought I was gonna be your court sorcerer.  And it’s really mean of you to make fun of me when I’m about to die.”

Court sorcerer.  God’s bones, blood, and bowels.  Arthur felt like weeping.  Of course that was what the little idiot wanted.  “I’m not making fun of you, Merlin.  I swear.”  He took a deep breath, and then another.  “It lied to you.” 

“What?” Merlin said.  “No.  No, he didn’t.”

“There is no destiny.  No Albion.  And definitely no court sorcerer.  How could I even have—magic is banned, Merlin.  How could I have a court sorcerer?”  That was beside the point, really, but Merlin was so exasperating.

“It won’t be banned anymore when you’re King,” Merlin answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“The dragon told you that, too?”

“No!”  Merlin shook his head.  “I don’t know—maybe he said that.  But he didn’t need to.  Of course it won’t be.  Not when—”  He looked around the cell.  “Not after this, at any rate.” 

Every once in a while, Arthur reflected, the idiot did make a solid point.  “No,” Arthur agreed.  “Not after this.” 

Merlin nodded.  “So that’s all right,” he said.  “But you have to promise me something,” he added, with a fair semblance of his usual mischievous grin.

“What?” 

Solemnly, Merlin said, “When you have a real court sorcerer….”

“Yes?”

“You can’t make him wear a stupid hat.”  Then he collapsed into giggles. 

“All right,” Arthur said seriously.  “No stupid hat for the court sorcerer.  You have my word.”

Merlin sighed dramatically.  “Thank you.”

“Unless it’s you.” 

Once he’d finished giggling again, Merlin said, “You would spare me from the flames just so that you could make me wear a stupid hat, wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Arthur said.  “In fact, until I’m king, I’m going to devote all of my days to designing the stupidest hat that has ever existed.” 

“Really?” Merlin asked.  “No hunting?  No jousting?”

“Mm,” Arthur said.  “I might do those things, but while I’m doing them, I’ll be thinking about the hat.”

“You’d better not,” Merlin advised.  “Do you know how many times people have tried to kill you while you were jousting?  I won’t be here to stop them; you have to pay attention, not be distracted thinking about my stupid hat.”

Funnily enough, it was that which made Arthur realize that, however much rubbish the bits about destiny and Albion were, Merlin really had been protecting him all this time. 

Impulsively, he said, “You really can, you know.” 

“What?”

“Be my court sorcerer.  When…when I’m king.”  Merlin cared so much, believed so hard, in the stupid fairy-tale the dragon had told him…the least Arthur could do was make that part of it true.  “And I’ll only make you wear the hat on special occasions.”

“Fair enough,” Merlin allowed.  “But I might turn your hair pink on special occasions.”

“That would be treason,” Arthur pointed out.  “As court sorcerer, you’re only allowed to use magic for my benefit.”

Merlin frowned.  “What about the kingdom’s benefit?”

“That, too.  Obviously.”

“It might benefit the kingdom if you learned some humility,” Merlin said.  “Like, by…having pink hair.  Or having your sword fly out of your hands when you’re showing off.  Or, um—”  He clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle whatever came out next.

Deep in his bones, Arthur knew that second example was…not hypothetical.  “You did that?”  Honestly, whenever Arthur thought he’d plumbed the depths of Merlin’s idiocy, Merlin admitted to something even stupider.

Merlin instantly looked miserable.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t—I wouldn’t do anything to really hurt you; you have to believe that.  You were just being so annoying.  You wouldn’t even believe how annoying you can be.  But it was just…you know.  A prank.” 

“The King wants to have you executed for saving my life with magic, and you’ve been using it for pranks?  Do you have any idea what he’d do if he knew you were—”  Arthur threw up his hands.

“Yeah,” Merlin said, with another theatrical glance around the cell.  “I have a pretty good idea what he’d do.”  He shrugged.  “And given the way everything turned out, it’s just as well I had some fun while I was alive.”

“You aren’t going to die,” Arthur said again.  Why was Merlin having so much trouble with that simple concept? 

“Arthur,” Merlin said.  “You couldn’t stop him from killing Gwen’s father.” 

“That’s different.  He—”

“Wasn’t actually a sorcerer.”  Merlin was completely serious now.  “I don’t want you to…blame yourself, when you can’t stop this from happening.  I understand that you don’t want it to.  And that—that means a lot, really.  And saying I could be your court sorcerer…I mean, it isn’t as good as actually being it, but it’s…good.”  He took a deep breath.  “It’s okay.  I hate it, that I’m going to miss all the good parts, but it’s okay.”

Arthur gave up.  For now.  Merlin would have to believe it eventually, when he didn’t die, but at the moment, figuring out how he was going to Not Die had to be Arthur’s first priority. 

The first thing to try, he decided, was convincing Father not to execute him.  If that didn’t work, he could smuggle Merlin out of Camelot somehow—he could always come back, once Arthur was king, to take up the Court Sorcerer job. 

But that could be a very long time. 

So he tried to imagine telling Father what Merlin had just told him—a much-abbreviated version, of course, sticking to the main thread, of Merlin repeatedly saving his life, and the dragon’s phony prophecy.

Looking at it from Father’s point of view, Arthur quickly realized what he should have asked, as soon as Merlin started babbling about the dragon.  “What did it want?  The dragon,” he added, at Merlin’s look of confusion.  “You said it gave you advice about how to…protect me.  What did it want in return?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,” Merlin said softly.  “Oh, Arthur, you’re going to be really angry about that part.  Do I have to tell you that part?  Because you’re going to be really, really mad, and I don’t want you to be mad at me.” 

“Yes, you have to tell me that part.  What does the dragon want?”

“Oooh.  Um, well, he wants to see Albion, too,” Merlin offered.  “And so do I.  So we’re, you know, in complete agreement on that part.”

“What else?”

“He kind of…mademepromiseI’dlethimgo.”

God’s blood.  “But you haven’t actually done it?”

Merlin shook his head so hard Arthur was surprised his ears didn’t flap.  “No.  I said I’d do it when the time was right.  I figured…I don’t know.  I figured we’d come up with something.  Make him promise not to…do anything bad, once we let him go.”  Merlin hesitated.  “He’ll probably say you still have to do it, once I’m dead.  But be careful.  He’s really sneaky.”

If the situation had been any less dire, Arthur would have laughed at Merlin warning him not to trust the “sneaky” dragon. 

“He never gives you a straight answer, about anything,” Merlin went on.  “I bet he’s lonely, though.  He probably only tells me a little bit at a time, so I have to keep going back.  That’s what I’d do, if I were chained up in a dungeon for twenty years and nobody came to visit me.”  He tilted his head to one side.  “How come you never go visit the dragon?”

Because it’s a giant, evil dragon, you dunderhead.  Though it had been Arthur’s great ambition, as a small boy, to sneak down into the lower dungeon to have a look at it.  It was only in the last year or so that Father had withdrawn the guards he’d assigned there for the express purpose of making sure Arthur didn’t “visit” the dragon. 

#

Arthur really didn’t seem all that angry about Merlin promising to release the dragon.  A little angry, yeah, but not nearly as much as Merlin had thought he would be.  Of course, that probably had something to do with how Merlin was about to die. 

Still, it was unusually considerate of Arthur to hold back, and not spoil Merlin’s last day of life by being angry with him. 

And spinning that story about Merlin being his court sorcerer after all. 

“That was really, really, nice of you,” Merlin informed him. 

“So I’ve been told,” Arthur said.  He stood up.  “Look, why don’t you…sleep the rest of that off?”

“You’re leaving?” Merlin asked.  Arthur was supposed to stay here until they came to kill him. 

“For the last time, no one is killing you.”  He sighed.  “I have…things to do.”

“Right,” Merlin said, nodding quickly. “Of course.  You have more important things to do than staying with me until I die.  I understand, really.”

“…I’ll make sure someone brings you some food later.”

“That would be nice,” Merlin told the empty cell.  “As long as it gets here before they kill me.” 

Honestly, Arthur was such an idiot sometimes.

#

“Arthur,” Father said, when the guards had finished explaining where they’d found him.  “I thought you had outgrown this foolishness—”

“I didn’t go down there to gawk,” Arthur said, straightening his sleeves where the guards had grabbed him.  “We agreed I would find out what Merlin was up to, remember?  The dragon’s involved.”  At least he’d had enough time to speak to the dragon before he’d been caught.  Not that the beast had been particularly forthcoming, but it had said enough to confirm Merlin’s story.

Father very carefully put down the quill he was writing with.  “Involved in what way?”

Arthur knew that the dragon’s lies would sound just as ridiculous to Father as they had to him, and he’d begun to think that it might be wise to say as little about them as possible—but he hadn’t precisely had time to think up a different way of putting it.  “The important thing to remember,” he began, “is that Merlin is a simple peasant boy.”

“He’s a sorcerer,” Father snapped.  “And don’t forget it.”

“Of course.  But also…simple.  Peasant boy.  Too unsophisticated to realize when he’s being manipulated by an evil creature.”

“Indeed,” said Gaius.  Arthur hadn’t quite noticed that he was in the room, but Father must have been consulting him about some matter.

Quite possibly this matter.

“He comes from a very small village, sire,” Gaius continued.  “Court intrigues are entirely beyond his understanding.”

“His simplicity is not at issue,” Father pointed out. 

Arthur attempted to get back on track.  “It was the dragon that convinced him to…er, infiltrate the court, as you put it.” 

“So he’s a sorcerer, and he consorts with dragons,” Father said.

Put that way, it didn’t exactly sound exculpatory.  “It ensnared him in a web of lies, preying on his good nature,” he suggested instead.  “Its aim was to convince Merlin to free him from captivity—which he has not done,” Arthur added quickly. 

“Yes, I like to think I’d have noticed if he had,” Father said dryly.  “While I’m glad he’s innocent of that crime—”

“The dragon’s a cunning beast,” Arthur went on.  “You were right to keep me from seeing it when I was younger and more impressionable—I’m sure it would have tried to convince me that it could help me to achieve whatever I wanted most in the world, if I would only free it.” 

“Yes,” Father said.  “I’m certain it would have.”

Arthur was glad to hear it—he knew next to nothing about how dragons typically operated.  “But the impressionable person it caught instead, was Merlin.  And it promised him what he wanted most in the world.  Told him, in fact, that what he wanted was his destiny, and that it would help him to fulfill it.”

“Did it, now?” Gaius murmured. 

“And what destiny is that?” Father asked, sounding as though he were holding on to his patience with both hands. 

Arthur cleared his throat.  This bit was, to be honest, a little embarrassing.  “To protect me.”

Father stared at him.

“Yes, I know, it’s…but he did.  Protect me.  We all saw him do it.”

“Using sorcery,” Father noted.  “I suppose this is…interesting, but it doesn’t change the facts of the situation.  Though it is something of a relief to know that he wasn’t placed here by an unknown enemy.”  He picked up his quill again.  “We’ll have to put a stronger guard on the entrance to the dragon’s cave—make sure it doesn’t corrupt anyone else.  Gaius, you can proceed with preparing the poison.”

Gaius opened his mouth, but Arthur spoke first.  “It didn’t corrupt him.  That’s the point.  It couldn’t.  Which proves the goodness of his heart.  It didn’t seduce him with promises of wealth, or power, or anything like that.” Although court sorcerer probably fell under the heading of “power,” now that Arthur thought about it, but he didn’t have to mention that part.  Merlin himself had said he must have misunderstood that part.  “Just that he could protect me.”

Father sighed.  “Is that all?”

Arthur deliberately misunderstood.  “That was all.  And some…rubbish about me being destined to be a great king.”

Gaius drew in his breath sharply, and Father put the quill down again.  “What?”

“Of course I don’t believe any of it,” Arthur assured him.  “But Merlin does.  I’m supposed to rule over something called ‘Albion.’  It’s to be a golden age, apparently.”  He attempted to convey with his tone of voice his complete understanding of how ridiculous that was. 

“Albion,” Father said, his voice a bit strangled.  He cleared his throat.  “The dragon…told this boy, that…that you’re to be the High King of Albion?”

Arthur nodded.  “It told me that, too.  I wasn’t thick enough to believe it, but surely you can see how a simple peasant boy….”  Noticing that Father was staring at him, and clearly not hearing a word he was saying, Arthur trailed off. 

After a moment, Gaius said, “And the boy?  He’s…involved in this destiny?”

“He’s supposed to help me,” Arthur said.  “According to the dragon.  It said I couldn’t do it without him.”

Silence stretched for a long moment, until Father said, “Leave me.  Both of you.”

Slightly stung at being dismissed in the same breath as a commoner—even a highly skilled one like the Court Physician—but knowing better than to argue when Father took that tone, he left.  He’d have to go straight back down to Merlin’s cell, though.  In case Gaius turned up with poison.

But when they reached the point where their paths diverged, Gaius said, “I don’t believe I’ll prepare that poison just yet.”

Arthur glanced over at him sharply. 

“It seems the King has something to think about,” he added. 

What…. 

Wordlessly, Arthur followed the physician up into his tower.  Once the door was shut behind them, Arthur said, “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” Gaius said.  “There are a great many things I haven’t told you.  That bladderwort is a sovereign specific for—”

“You know what I mean,” Arthur interrupted.  “About this…Albion nonsense.”

“Hm,” Gaius said, gesturing for Arthur to sit down.  “One thing that has never been entirely clear,” he said, bustling about with some herbs and a pot, “in King Uther’s ban on magic, is the precise legal status of prophecy.  Some forms of predicting the future are, plainly, acts of sorcery, but others…may be a gift from the gods.”

“I had enough cryptic rubbish from the dragon,” Arthur said. 

Gaius stopped fussing with the herbs and turned to face him.  “The coming of the High King of Albion has been prophesied since before the Romans came.  Many thought it would be he who drove them from our shores.” 

That was…slightly less cryptic, but still not to the point.  Arthur gestured impatiently.

“When King Uther was a boy, a new prophecy came to light, suggesting that the High King would first be a king of Camelot.  Your own father…flattered himself that it might be him.”  He glanced sharply at Arthur.  “This was before the ban on magic, of course.  Once that…came to pass, he realized it could never be so, because the High King is prophesied to rule with a sorcerer by his side.” 

Merlin.  Arthur shook his head, to clear it.  “So the dragon…used this prophecy as the basis for its lies.”

“Perhaps,” Gaius said.  “But dragons are said to be the original seers, and the greatest.  Speaking a false prophecy is…not something any dragon would do lightly.  Much less that dragon.” 

“You almost sound as though you think it could be true,” Arthur scoffed.

Gaius was silent.

“But you don’t,” Arthur prompted him.  He couldn’t. 

Gaius sighed.  “Prophesy is…a difficult matter.  Often, the true meaning cannot be understood until it has come to pass.”

He wasn’t, Arthur noticed, saying that he didn’t believe it.

“But what the Great Dragon told Merlin was…astonishingly straightforward, as prophecies go.”

In some distant corner of his mind, Arthur noted that Gaius’s words implied greater knowledge of the dragon’s claims than he’d let on.  He promptly ignored it.  “Surely that indicates that it is a lie.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything,” Gaius mused, seeming to be speaking more to himself than to Arthur.  “I do believe it would have been best if you hadn’t heard it, so what profit is there in convincing you that it is true?”  He shook his head.  “But then again, you have heard it.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked impatiently.

Now, Gaius looked at him.  “Such knowledge is bound to change you, for good or ill, whether you believe in it or not.  Simply believing that he might be destined to be the Once and Future King led Uther to…do things he would not otherwise have done.”

Once and Future King—the dragon had used those words, but Arthur hadn’t repeated them.  “What things?”

“Things I’ve sworn not to speak of,” Gaius said. 

#

After depositing the Prince outside of Merlin’s cell—and seeing the boy sleeping soundly—Gaius made his way back up to Uther’s chambers, where he found him poring over a small, leather-bound book, that Gaius would have sworn had been consigned to the flames twenty years ago.  The King immediately moved to hide it under some parchments on his desk, like a guilty schoolboy, then caught himself and deliberately revealed it again, raising his chin.  “I won’t have him...taken in with these lies,” Uther said. 

So that was the way he’d decided to play it.  “I see.”

“He says he hasn’t been, but…no one could hear tales of such a great destiny and not at least wish for them to be true.”

Indeed, Uther would know that better than anyone.  “Sire, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that the signs Nimueh saw—the Pendragon banner over Camelot, and then over Albion—could apply as easily to Prince Arthur as to….” 

Gaius was not a cruel man, so he did not say, out loud, to you. 

Nor did he say that, perhaps, Nimueh had anticipated the possibility long ago, and that—perhaps—it was what had led her to finally agree to use magic to help Ygraine conceive a child.

“And yet she still tried to take his life,” Uther pointed out.

After Uther had driven her from the kingdom and killed nearly everyone she loved.  “As you say, anyone hearing of this destiny would wish it for themselves.  But if what the dragon says is true, then the destiny is not hers.”  And he still did not say, Any more than it is yours.  “Perhaps, in her bitterness, she sought to strangle Albion in its cradle, rather than see it brought about by another.” 

The shot that Gaius didn’t fire struck home, just the same.  “I would not deprive my son of his destiny,” Uther said sharply.  “I seek only to prevent him from being led astray by a mirage.”

Bowing slightly, Gaius said, “Of course, Sire.”

The King made no reply, but he didn’t dismiss Gaius, either, so Gaius simply stood there, waiting, with his hands tucked in his sleeves. 

Finally, Uther said—addressing some invisible point a few feet to Gaius’s left—“In the last year or so, he’s…been more thoughtful, less quick to act.  Taken his responsibilities more seriously.”

Gaius made an encouraging noise. 

“But all men become steadier as they leave youth behind,” Uther went on.  “He is of an age where one would expect a prince’s interests to turn from swordplay to statecraft.”

A little beyond it, in Gaius’s estimation, but he kept his peace. 

“If he’s become…more kingly, since meeting the boy—the sorcerer—then surely it’s coincidence.”

Gaius cleared his throat.  “Sire, if the boy hadn’t prevented the sorceress Mary Collins from killing Prince Arthur that night, he’d not have become anything.”

Now Uther looked at him.  “I am aware of the debt I owe the boy.  But if he possesses enough power to make this…story plausible, I cannot simply banish him, for some other king—or sorcerer—to find and use against us.”  He shook his head.  “If anything, this only makes it more certain that the boy must die.”

The night before, Gaius had suggested that banishment, rather than execution, might be a way out of Uther’s dilemma.  This was the first sign that his pleas had not fallen entirely onto deaf ears.  Sidestepping the question of Merlin’s power—Gaius feared that anything he might say on the subject could lead Uther to question whether Gaius had seen any prior hints of Merlin’s magic—he said instead, “I believe you know that Prince Arthur sought my counsel, sire.”  At least, Arthur had claimed Uther’s consent when he came looking for a truth-potion.  “I do not believe he can be persuaded that Merlin’s execution is just.”  Because it wasn’t, of course.   “And whether he is the Once and Future King or not, I fear for what it would do to him, to have such an injustice weighing on his soul.”

“It would be on my soul, not his,” Uther said.  “And he won’t turn against me.  Not over a serving boy.”

Gaius was less sure of that than Uther was—or than Uther wanted to be—but for Arthur to turn against his father might be the least of the consequences. 

Because Ygraine’s death had been unjust, too.  And before it happened, Uther had been a good and honorable man.  Losing Ygraine would have saddened him, in any case, perhaps made him harsher in some ways—she had always been a softening influence on him—but her death from a simple illness, or injury, or even the travails of childbirth, Uther might eventually have managed to move beyond.

It was the wrongness, the betrayal, and the lingering sense of guilt—that if only he had said the right words, asked the right questions, it could have been prevented—that had turned Uther into a bitter paranoiac, a murderer of women and children. 

It was a fracture in his soul, and while Gaius had long since given up any hope of healing it, he could not stand by and let Uther damage his son in the same way. 

Weighing his words carefully, Gaius finally said, “Sire, if the dragon is telling the truth, he isn’t just a serving boy.  He’s the other half of Arthur’s soul.” 

Gaius was not a cruel man, so he took no pleasure in seeing that shot strike home, either.  Uther had described Ygraine that way, in his joy at their wedding and in his grief at her death, and now he jerked back as if he’d been struck. 

But Uther had long experience at turning pain into rage.  “How dare you,” he snarled.  “That boy is not—get out!  Leave my sight at once.”

Bowing, Gaius said, “My apologies, sire.  Naturally, such a wound will never heal.”

And then he left, as quickly as his elderly legs could carry him, because he was not a stupid man, either.

#

“Oof.”  Merlin sat up, rubbing at his neck, which had a crick in it from sleeping sitting up against the wall. 

“Finally,” said Arthur, who was sitting on the bench outside the cell.  “I thought you were going to sleep all day.  Here.”  He shoved a sack through the bars. 

“Hi,” said Merlin, inspecting the sack.  It proved to contain a chunk of bread, some cheese, and a couple of apples.  No sneaky potions, this time. 

And he managed not to say that out loud, which seemed to suggest that the earlier one had worn off.  “What are you doing here?” he said instead.

“Guarding you,” Arthur said, as though it were obvious.

“Huh,” Merlin said, biting into one of the apples.  Arthur was Camelot’s best knight, so perhaps it made a sort of sense that they’d have him guarding the Scary Warlock—but at the same time, he’d have thought that Uther would want to keep his son and heir away from the Scary Warlock. 

Unless, he considered, as he started on the bread, Uther was bright enough to realize that, having gone to some trouble to save Arthur’s life, Merlin wasn’t about to go hurting him in an escape attempt.

Not that he would have had to.  “For the record,” he said, polishing off the cheese, “if I was going to magic myself out of here, you wouldn’t be able to stop me, any more than anyone else could.”  He bit into the second apple.  “So you might as well go and do something else.  I won’t tell your dad.”

Arthur stared at him. 

“What?” Merlin said. “We’re acknowledging the magic now, aren’t we?  I thought we had a whole conversation about it.” Unless he had dreamed that. 

“First of all,” Arthur said, “I’m not guarding you for my father, you imbecile.  I’m guarding you from him.”

“Oh,” said Merlin.  Now that he mentioned it, that did seem to fit in with all the stuff he’d said about Merlin not being killed.  “Okay.”

“Secondly, you can magic yourself out of there?”

“Yeah,” said Merlin.  If any of the other people Uther had thrown in here for being sorcerers actually were, they could have, too.  “You know, if you ever actually caught an evil sorcerer, you’d need some kind of…I don’t know…magic cell to keep them in.” 

“Then why are you still in there?” Arthur practically shouted. 

“I’m not evil,” Merlin pointed out, reasonably.

“Unbelievable!” Arthur said, getting up to pace.  “I have been sitting here racking my brains to think up some way of getting you out of there, and you—”  He sighed.  “You know what?  I don’t believe you.”

“About the evil thing?” Merlin guessed.

“You’re too much of an idiot to be evil.  No, I don’t believe you can magic yourself out of there.  You’re just trying to impress me.” 

“All the life-saving wasn’t impressive enough?” Merlin asked.  “Fine.”  He gestured at the cell door, and the lock dropped off.  “Happy now?”

“Yes,” Arthur said.  Darting into the cell, he grabbed Merlin’s arm and started pulling him to his feet.

“Ow!  Hey, my legs are still asleep…and I need to use the bucket.”  If Arthur was going to put him in the stocks or something, he really wanted to do that first.

“Oh, for—”  Having successfully gotten Merlin upright, Arthur picked a few bits of straw off of him, and then pointed at the bucket.  “There it is.  But hurry up.”

Merlin attempted to hurry.  “Um…are you just going to stand there and watch?”

Arthur turned his back. 

Once he was finished relieving himself, Merlin said, “All right—what are we doing now?”

“We’re getting you out of Camelot,” Arthur said.

“Oh,” Merlin said, nonplussed.  It wasn’t as though the solution hadn’t occurred to him—but he hadn’t thought he’d be able to talk Arthur into it, let alone have him be the one to suggest it.  “Okay, then.”

#

If Arthur had needed any more proof that Merlin was an idiot sorcerer, he’d have had it when, in the corridor outside Arthur’s chambers, Merlin turned himself invisible to avoid being spotted by a maidservant who had popped up out of nowhere.

“Why didn’t you do that sooner?” Arthur demanded, as soon as they were safely in his chambers and Merlin had turned visible again.

“I didn’t know she was going to turn up there,” Merlin said, in an injured tone.  “I can’t see the future—well, not usually.”

Honestly.  “Why,” Arthur said, through clenched teeth, “did you have me distracting the guards by pretending I needed them to show me pikestaff moves, when you could have just turned invisible and strolled past them?”

“Oh,” Merlin said, with a look of baffled wonderment.  “I…dunno.  Habit, I guess.  I don’t really think of using magic right out in the open.”  Before Arthur could remind him of the great, clanging exception to that rule—the one that had him sneaking out of Camelot under a death sentence in the first place—Merlin added, “At least, if it’s not an emergency.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Arthur started perusing the cold luncheon that some servant had laid out on his table, picking out the items that would travel well.  “Find a sack or something,” he said.  “And while you’re doing it, think about whether you have any more useful little abilities that I ought to know about.”

“What?” Merlin said.

“Can you, for example, vanish and make yourself reappear at a place of your choosing?” he asked.  “Because I don’t want to get halfway through stealing you a horse, and then find out you don’t need one.”

“Oh,” Merlin said.  “No, I can’t do that.”  He tossed Arthur a leather satchel, then went over to his wardrobe and started pulling things out. 

Arthur almost protested, then realized that, if Merlin couldn’t conjure up food that sated one’s hunger, perhaps he also couldn’t make clothing that gave real protection from the elements.  And it would be a lot safer for him to take a few of Arthur’s old things, rather than risk going up to Gaius’s tower to get his own.  

But when he saw Merlin getting out his best coat—the long, brown one that Arthur fancied made him look like a dashing bandit chieftain—he reached his limit.  “You can have my gray cloak,” he said instead.  He had no use for it anyway, now that he was a knight.

“Oh,” said Merlin, taking it out—but not putting the coat back.  “Thanks!  That’ll be really useful.”

“You’re not having my coat, too,” Arthur informed him. 

“I never thought I was,” Merlin said, in a tone of injured innocence. 

“Then what are you doing with it?”

“Arthur,” he said, as though Arthur were the idiot, “you really can’t take your red one.  Everyone in the neighboring kingdoms know that’s what knights of Camelot wear, and even if Uther doesn’t put a bounty on your head, it’ll attract attention.”

“Merlin,” Arthur said, in the same tone.  “I’m not the one escaping.  You are.”

Immediately, Merlin dropped the coat and the cloak.  “No,” he said.  “No, no, no, no.  I’m not leaving you here alone to die.”

“The one in danger of dying is also you,” Arthur pointed out.  Father did execute people for consorting with sorcerers, but he wouldn’t—and Arthur hadn’t even know that Merlin was a sorcerer.

Not that that made a difference, when it came to other people.  Gwen’s father hadn’t known he was consorting with a sorcerer, either.

“Do you have any idea,” Merlin demanded, “how many times I’ve saved your life already?  You must, because I told you all about them, when you drugged me.”

Arthur suspected that, in at least some of those instances, he’d have figured something out on his own, but before he could say so, Merlin went on, “If I’m not here, there’ll be no one to stop it happening again.”

“You won’t be stopping it if you’re dead, either,” Arthur pointed out.

“Thought you said you weren’t going to let him kill me,” Merlin said.

“I’m not!  That’s the whole reason I’m getting you out of Camelot.”

“Right,” Merlin said.  “But you’re coming with me.”

Arthur wished he was sitting down, so that he could thump his head on the table.  “I know this is difficult for you to remember,” he said, “but I am the Crown. Prince.  I can’t just go running off.  I have things to do here.”

“And you can’t do them if you’re dead, either,” Merlin argued. 

Arthur tried another tack.  “It isn’t forever,” he pointed out.  “You’re going to come back and be my court sorcerer, remember?”  Arthur wasn’t sure he’d been entirely serious when he had said that, but there was plenty of time for Merlin to realize later that he had other things to do with his life.  Or, what the hell, he could come back and be court sorcerer if he wanted—he’d made a good point, about the magic cell.  “I’ll expect you to be fully qualified, so you’ll need to go somewhere that you can train up.” 

Looking slightly less mulish, Merlin said slowly, “That makes sense…I only have the one book…all right, but you still have to come with me.”  He gave a firm little nod.  “You can be a knight-errant.”

Arthur opened his mouth to explain the many ways that suggestion was idiotic, but Merlin spoke over him.

“No, it makes sense!  We’ll go around the kingdoms, vanquishing magical creatures and defeating evil sorcerers,” he explained.  “It isn’t as though people will be terribly impressed if I turn up and say, sure, I’ll slay your gryphon for you, but they’ll believe you can do it.”

Experimentally, Arthur tried opening his mouth again.

“And I’m sure it’ll help with the Albion business.  You’re going to rule over all the kingdoms; you should at least visit them first.  See what they’re like, how the people live.” 

Another good point—if Arthur was really destined to be the High King, which he wasn’t. 

Another firm nod.  “The more I think about it, this is probably what’s meant to happen.  You can’t exactly bring in a golden age of peace, prosperity, and freedom if you’ve gone around conquering everyone.  The other kings will probably make you their heirs or something, after you’ve saved their kingdoms a bunch of times.”

“That really isn’t how it works,” Arthur began.

Merlin folded his arms.  “I’m not going without you,” he said.  “I’ll turn myself invisible, go back down to the cells, and lock myself in again.”

“No, you will not!”

“Watch me.”

#

“But how can I know that you are telling me the truth?” Uther demanded, brandishing the torch.  He couldn’t, was the answer—and, that being so, Uther wasn’t sure why he’d come down here in the first place.

“Indeed,” the Great Dragon said, folding its claws.  “It must be difficult to take me at my word, when, after all, I lured you here with the promise of a treaty, and then locked you in a cave for twenty years.” 

Unbelievable.  Now the beast was resorting to sarcasm.  “I’ve been told such lies before.”

“But not,” the Dragon said archly, “by me.”  It rustled its wings.  “The sorceress Nimueh misread the signs.   Her desire to see herself at the right hand of the Once and Future King blinded her to the truth—a human failing.”  The Dragon lowered its head.  “It was never you, King Uther.  It was always Arthur.”

“But if I hadn’t—if Nimueh hadn’t—”

“He’d have been born somewhere else,” the Dragon said, a wing-rustle that looked something like a shrug. 

Was it that simple?  If Uther had only left well enough alone, Ygraine might not have—

“There were so many possibilities,” the Dragon continued.  “I have seen the Once and Future King raised as a simple peasant boy, as the son of a minor lord…as the illegitimate son of a king….”  Abruptly, it swung its head, fixing Uther with one baleful eye.  “Your choices have narrowed the possibilities to…two.   Prince Arthur will rise—or he will fall.” 

With that, the Dragon stretched its wings and flew to the far length of its chain, and nothing Uther said could persuade it to come back.

#

An hour or so later, Arthur was riding through the Darkling Wood, in his best brown coat covering his armor, leading a horse with a conspicuously-empty saddle. 

Fortunately, no one had asked. 

“Can I come out now?” the empty saddle asked, a bit plaintively. 

Arthur looked around.  They were well into the wood now, and hadn’t seen another soul for some time. 

And it was fairly creepy, hearing Merlin’s usual stream of babble coming from the empty air.  “I suppose,” Arthur said. 

Merlin came into view, wearing Arthur’s old gray cloak.  “That’s a relief,” he said.  “I’ve never done that for so long before—it feels weird.  You know that heavy, close feeling you get, when there’s about to be a storm?  It’s a bit like that.”

“Would you shut up?” Arthur asked.  “I’m trying to think about where we should go.”  Merlin’s only suggestion on the matter had been, Not Ealdor—it’s the first place they’ll look.

“I had an idea about that,” Merlin said.

“God help us,” Arthur muttered.  But he didn’t have any ideas, so he asked, “What?”

“We should look for Lancelot.”  Merlin beamed at him as though this were the solution to all their problems.  “He’s been a knight-errant ever since Uther banished him, so he’ll know all about it.”

As Merlin-ideas went, it was…not completely terrible.  Father—correctly—considered the knights of Camelot more than up to any challenges that might face them, so any knights-errant who showed up at court were promptly sent packing.  Arthur had heard tales of them, of course, but those were all from olden times, and might not shed much light on the business of modern knight-errantry.  “He is a valiant knight,” Arthur allowed.  “I could take worse counsel than his.”  Merlin’s, for example.  “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Merlin said, with a helpless shrug.

“Then why did you—”  Arthur cut himself off.  “Is there, perhaps, some magic you might do, to shed some light on his whereabouts, O Great Warlock?”

 “…Maybe,” Merlin said.  “I’ll have to look at the book.”

Because, naturally, after Arthur had given Merlin half his clothes, they’d had to go to Gaius’s chambers anyway, to get Merlin’s magic book.  And now Merlin looked as though he were about to dig it out of the saddlebag here and now.  “We’ll stop for the night while it’s still light enough to read,” Arthur decided.

They rode on.  “You know,” Merlin said, after an all-too-short moment of blessed silence, “it’s very strange, to hear you suggesting I use magic for every little thing.”

“Apparently I have to,” Arthur countered.  “Since you’re too dim to think of it yourself.”

“I’m trying,” Merlin said, “to be considerate.  Since you’re afraid of magic.”

“I’m not afraid of magic.”

Merlin gave that a moment’s consideration.  “Your father is.”

That, Arthur could not deny.  “If he’d ever met a sorcerer who was as much of an idiot as you, I’m sure he wouldn’t be.”

“Hey!” Merlin protested. 

“No one could possibly be afraid of you,” Arthur went on.  “You know those stories about great warriors who were lost in the woods as infants, and suckled by she-wolves?”

“Yes?” Merlin’s tone was uncertain.

“If I hadn’t met your mother, I’d have sworn you were dropped on your head in the woods as an infant, and suckled by daffodils.”

“Daffodils can’t suckle anything,” Merlin pointed out.

“That isn’t the point.”

“I’m just saying.  They’re plants.”

“I know they’re bloody plants!”

“Then how would you think they suckled—”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

“Shutting up, sire,” he said.  “Great Warlock here, shutting up.  At the behest of Prince Dollop-head.”

Sometimes, Arthur wondered if shut up meant something different in Ealdor than it did in the rest of the world. 

#

“Do you know anything about this?” King Uther demanded, the moment Gaius entered the council chamber.  A short while earlier, one of the castle guards had come to Gaius’s chambers with the news that Merlin had escaped, and Prince Arthur was nowhere to be found.  It seemed, the guard had reported, that the sorcerer had made away with the Prince. 

 “I’m afraid I saw nothing,” Gaius said.  “I’ve been in my chambers all afternoon, and I’ve seen no one but Prince Arthur.”  He’d kept his eyes fixed carefully on him, as Arthur asked several pointless and distracting questions, and ignored the various rustlings and knockings-about that he heard from Merlin’s room.  Though at the moment, he wished he’d taken the opportunity to knock their heads together—departing separately would have been much less suspicious. 

“You saw Arthur?  When?”

“Perhaps two hours ago,” Gaius said.  “He…did not seem to be under any duress,” he added pointedly.   There were two or three others of Uther’s counselors in the room, and several knights; Gaius didn’t dare speak more openly.

Uther sidestepped the point, saying instead, “We’ll be riding out at once to search.  You know the boy—you must have some idea where he might have gone.”

Gaius considered the matter, and said, “He comes from a village called Ealdor, sire.”  Surely Merlin wouldn’t be foolish enough to go there.  Describing its location, he added, “He’s never spoken of knowing anyone anywhere else.”

Nodding, King Uther dispatched two knights in that direction—not, Gaius noted, two of the best.  And when he assigned the rest of the search parties, he proclaimed that he would personally lead the one to the Darkling Wood—which had always been Arthur’s first choice for hunting.

#

“Here we are,” Merlin said—sitting by the fire at his ease, while Arthur stomped about setting up camp.  “For finding that which is lost.  It doesn’t look too difficult.  I just need a map, and a pendulum.”

“We have a map,” Arthur said.  Luckily, he’d had one in his rooms.  “What’s a pendulum?”

“A rock tied to a bit of string,” Merlin said.  “Well—it says a scrying crystal, but I always just use a rock, when it says that.  Works fine.”

When Merlin said things like that, Arthur almost started to wonder if the dragon was on to something, when it went on about what a powerful warlock he was.  “Sounds easy enough.”

“Yeah…the incantation’s not a tricky one.”  He said a few foreign words under his breath.  “Then—oh, rubbish.”  He dropped the book into his lap. 

“What?”

“We need a lock of his hair, for the spell to lock onto.” 

“You haven’t got one of those, have you?”  Arthur asked.  If he did, it was probably under his pillow or something, back in Camelot. 

“No.”  Now Merlin got up off his lazy arse, getting something from his saddlebag. 

When he passed behind Arthur, on his way back, Arthur felt a tug at the back of his head.  “Hey!  What are you doing?”

Fumbling in his belt-pouch, Merlin said, “I just realized, I’d better have a lock of yours, in case you go missing.”

Great.  Arthur felt at the back of his head, wondering just how obvious the bald spot was.  “So you just grab it, with no warning?”

“I didn’t want to argue about it.”  Merlin tied a bit of string around the lock of hair, and stowed it in his belt-pouch. 

“If I catch you sleeping with that under your pillow, I’ll—”  He couldn’t threaten to put Merlin in the stocks anymore, he realized.  Knights-errant did not have stocks.  “Box your ears.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Merlin said, taking up the spell-book again.

Later, once Arthur had a rabbit turning on an improvised spit, Merlin said, “Oh, this one’ll be useful.”  He held up the page, which bore a sketch of a sorcerer standing under a sort of half-dome.  “For keeping the rain off,” he explained.  “Since we didn’t bring a tent.”

Leaning over, Arthur examined the illustration.  “Would it keep off anything bigger?” he wondered.  “Arrows, say?”

Merlin shrugged.  “It might,” he said dubiously. 

“We’ll have to try it, later.” 

Then, not too far away, a branch cracked.  Arthur stood, half-drawing his sword.  “Who’s there?  Show yourself!”

“Knights of Camelot,” said a dry, familiar voice. 

Merlin immediately vanished—a bare instant before Father stepped into the clearing where they’d made your camp.  Gesturing for the two knights behind him to stay back, he said, “The light from your fire was visible a furlong away.” 

Arthur probably should have thought of that.  “I’m not hiding,” he said, instead of admitting it. 

“Nor, it seems, have you been taken prisoner by the sorcerer,” Father said, sheathing his own sword.  His eyes fell on the two bedrolls laid out by their fire.  “Though I don’t expect it will surprise you to learn that he’s escaped.”

“Not really,” said Arthur.  “It stands to reason, you’d need magic of your own, to hold a sorcerer against his will.” 

The empty spot where Merlin had been said, under its breath, “Hah!”  Arthur glared at it.

“What is this, then?” Father demanded.  “You’ve decided to run away?  Abandon your duties?”

“No,” said Arthur, hotly.  But he couldn’t exactly tell Father that he was, on Merlin’s say-so, now a knight-errant, either.  “I’m…embarking on a quest.”

“A quest,” Father echoed, dubiously.

“Yes.  A quest to find out the truth about—”  In the nick of time, Arthur realized that he couldn’t say about the prophecy, without sounding as though he really thought there was a chance he could be destined to be the High King of Albion.  “Magic.”

Father scoffed.

“Learning that I’ve had a sorcerer under my nose all this time has made me realize how little I know about magic,” Arthur elaborated.  “And if I’m to defend Camelot from the evils of magic, I must understand it.”  That, Arthur realized as he said it, had the advantage of actually being true.  That some magic was used for evil purposes was just as undeniable as that Merlin’s wasn’t.  He’d have to learn how to tell the difference. 

“Hm,” said Father.

“And since you’ve so successfully banished it from our lands, I must leave Camelot to see it for myself.”

“Is that so.”

“It is,” Arthur said.  But Father didn’t look convinced, so he embroidered further.  “And I thought it best that I leave immediately, so as not to force you to make a terrible decision.”

Father’s hand went to his sword-hilt.  “What decision is that?”

Clearly, it had to be something other than Merlin.  “You’ve taught me that magic corrupts everything it touches,” he said instead. 

“It does,” Father said firmly.

“And….”  Arthur assumed an expression of shame.  “I have been touched by magic.”

Father made a strangled sort of noise. 

“Without my knowledge, of course, but so were many that you’ve sent to their deaths. To prevent the corruption from spreading in Camelot.”

Now Father looked stricken—no, more than that.  Gutted.  “Arthur, you cannot believe that I would allow…would order….”

“But can you make an exception for me?” Arthur asked.  “Not without undermining all the work you’ve done.  And if I have been corrupted by magic, how can I stay in Camelot, and put all our people at risk?”  Warming to the subject, he continued, “So that’s the second part of my quest.  To discover if I have been corrupted by the touch of magic, and if so, if there is some means by which I might purify myself.”

Father’s jaw worked silently for a moment.  “There…may be some wisdom in this.”

“Really?  I mean, yes, I’m sure of it,” Arthur corrected himself hastily.  “And if there is some means of cleansing away the taint of magic, knowledge of it would allow you to spare the families and friends of malevolent sorcerers, in cases where they are innocent of any role in the criminal acts.” 

“I suppose it would,” Father said, through clenched teeth. 

“Then we’re agreed,” Arthur said.  “I’ll go on this quest, and return if and when I have learned that it is safe to do so.” 

Father closed his eyes for a long moment.  “Yes,” he said quietly.  “Yes, I suppose you will.  But about the sorcerer.”

Damn.   Arthur managed to restrain himself from looking over at the empty-spot-that-was-Merlin. “Yes?”

“He has doubtless gained much knowledge of Camelot—our defenses, our routines.  Such knowledge, along with his powers of sorcery, would make him a valuable prize to Camelot’s enemies.”

What was he getting at?  Did he know Merlin was here, or not?  “I suppose.”

“He must not be allowed to roam the isle…unsupervised.”

Was he saying….  “I’ll keep an eye out,” Arthur said. 

“Indeed,” said Father, nodding crisply.  Taking a small bag from his belt-pouch, he tossed it to Arthur.  “To aid you on your quest.”

It was heavy, and clinked when Arthur caught it.  “Thank you, Father,” he said, with a nod that was almost a bow. 

“If necessary, you may call upon the royal treasury.  To fulfill your quest.”

“If necessary,” Arthur agreed.  He sort of hoped there would be rewards, treasure, for all the monster-slaying they were going to do. 

“Within reason,” Father added. 

“Of course.”

Then Father, crossing the clearing in a few long strides, embraced him.  “My son,” he said.

Awkwardly, Arthur patted his armored shoulder.  “Father.”

Inhaling sharply, Father released him.  “You will be a great king,” he said. 

Arthur wasn’t sure if it was meant as reassurance or command—nor, he would think later, which of them Father was trying to convince.  But either way, he knew how to respond.  “Yes,” he said.  “I will.”

The End

Epilogue:  And so, Arthur and Merlin spend the next many-several years roaming the isle of Albion, fighting monsters, righting wrongs, and bickering like an old married couple.  They do find Lancelot (eventually), and through their many adventures, encounter various beloved characters—including your favorite, dear reader, in a story which neatly elides-and-or-resolves the part of their storyline that was most infuriating in canon.  Everyone who is supposed to live lives, no one you like becomes evil, and everyone ends up with the person or people they are meant to be with (romantically or otherwise).   

At least once a season, Arthur and Merlin (and, later, their growing ensemble of fellow knights-errant, sorcerers, friends, and adorable creatures) end up in Camelot for some reason or another, Merlin in increasingly thin disguises, which Uther pretends to be completely fooled by.  On the last of these visits—after every other kingdom on the entire island has offered Arthur its crown—Uther finally dies, in a manner more satisfying than you or I could ever have imagined, and Arthur is crowned King of Camelot, and High King of all Albion.

Immediately after the ceremony, he calls Merlin forward and declares him Lord Merlin Emrys, Court Sorcerer of Camelot and Albion.

And then Gwen, who has been fighting a smile this entire time, whips out from behind her back, an extremely ridiculous hat. 

The (real) End