Chapter Text
If Arthur had known he was going to be kidnapped by some strange, magical entity, held hostage, and forced to choose between several magical, dangerous-looking doors, he would never have ridden out that day to go on a hunt.
Not that he was ever going to admit it, but he was beginning to regret not listening to Merlin's insistent protests and "funny feelings". His manservant had been strangely tense as they rode into through the clearing, his eyes darting about like he was suspecting a group of bandits to descend upon them any second. Naturally, Arthur dismissed him.
Maybe he should have listened. After all, annoyingly, Merlin was rarely wrong with these sorts of things.
But right now, that didn't matter. What mattered was the strange, magical entity peering thoughtfully at him from the end of his sword.
Arthur sword arm didn't waver as he brought his sword swiftly up, the metal ringing loudly in the ... he squinted dubiously at this strange, foreign location. Wherever they were.
"Who are you?" He demanded, scrambling to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he started to recognise his surroundings - the clearing he and Merlin had been riding through only moments before - but there was a strange, almost ethereal quality to it, the trees rustling silently, a wispy silver fog rippling around his boots. In the distance, he heard a scattering of wings, like a hundred birds taking flight at once.
The spirit in front of him only tilted his head slightly. It looked human, at first glance - layers upon layers of white robes that drifted aimlessly with the invisible wind, a twisted staff in hand - but when Arthur looked up at its face, it wasn't ... there. Not fully. A hundred, a thousand different faces, men, women, children, dark-skinned, fair, fading and morphing into the next face before Arthur could glimpse it. It made him almost nauseous just looking at it.
Something is very, very wrong, he thought - but at the same time, the strange air around him only subdued his anger, calmed his anxiety. It was far from feeling wrong - everything, the air, the trees, the shimmering figure before him - it felt right. Too right.
"Tell me who you are," he repeated forcefully, stepping closer and pushing his blade further towards the strange figure. "What do you want?"
He almost stumbled in shock as the figure began walking towards him, his blade passing harmlessly through its chest as if it were made of smoke.
"Arthur Pendragon."
The spirit's mouth didn't move, yet Arthur still heard its voice clearly in his head.
Telepathy?
"Not quite," the voice said again, sounding somewhat amused. "But close. Welcome, young king."
Arthur backed up a few steps as the being approached him. "Stay back," he warned, rapidly taking in his surroundings. It was definitely the clearing he had been in just before - but now there was no sign of the horses, no sign of Merlin. No tracks, no animals. If he headed back the way he had come from, would he find Camelot as it normally was? Or would he end up lost in the strange, ocean-like mist that seeped steadily from between the trees and cascaded around their feet?
Clearly, this was magic. A powerful, old kind of magic, almost reminding him of Anhora, the keeper of the unicorns. He didn't want to risk it.
"You will not find Camelot if you run now," the spirit confirmed, and Arthur scowled at him.
"Stop reading my mind!"
"But you will not speak your thoughts to me," replied the spirit, simply. "I have no choice but to read them from your mind." It paused thoughtfully. "It is a very loud mind," he added.
"Wh -" Arthur lowered his sword, glaring at the being in outrage. "That's none of your business!"
"Wrong, young king." The faint hint of amusement slipped off the rapidly changing faces of the spirit, leaving behind an uncomfortably serious expression. "As of now, your mind, and your thoughts, are my business. It is a responsibility I hoped I would not have to take, but the gods have given me no choice but to intervene. If it continues like this, there is a chance it will never happen at all."
"It?" Arthur gripped his sword tighter, shifting his body slightly into a defensive stance. Intervene? A magical being like that? That couldn't be good. "What's "it"? What are you talking about? What gods?"
Where the hell was he, anyway? Where was Merlin? Was he also in this strange sort of limbo state, with his own multi-faced, ethereal being?
He flinched back as the spirit raised a hand, holding the staff aloft, and began to glow, filling the clearing with a shimmering white light that forced him to shield his eyes from the burning brightness. A spell? he thought wildly. Was he going to kill him? Arthur's sword couldn't touch him, and he very much doubted his fists could, either. What was he supposed to do? He tightened his grip on his sword, struggling against the invisible winds buffeting his arms, and rose into a fighting stance. If he was going to end up be killed by an invincible sorcerer, he was going to die with a sword in his hand.
The light and wind faded. Arthur blinked, slightly winded, half-blinded, but very much alive.
The spirit turned to look at him as if nothing had happened.
"A quest, of sorts," it mused. "You are familiar with quests, are you not? A journey, seeking something you have not yet obtained, towards a mission, a goal." The spirit nodded to itself, and Arthur looked at it blankly, his sword dipping a fraction. He turned his head to follow the spirit's gaze, and found ...
Blinking dubiously, Arthur frowned. A door? No - five doors. Plain, made of pale wood, bolted shut and glowing with a strange light, because nothing in this forest made sense and Arthur was still about fifty-percent sure that he had knocked his head on an overhanging branch and was dreaming. To add to the insult, upon further inspection, Arthur found that the doors were not only glowing, but floating, bobbing up and down in mid-air in an almost lazy manner.
"Quest," he repeated flatly. "Do you want me to drink poison again?"
Don't encourage the powerful sorcerer to kill you, he scolded himself immediately. For some reason, the nagging voice in his head sounded a bit like Merlin.
"I do not ask you to seek a physical object," the spirit said. For a creature with ever-changing, multiple faces, it looked annoyingly smug. Arthur didn't like it. "I ask you to seek knowledge. Wisdom. You have always been a little ignorant - forgivable, taking into account your upbringing. But you are an adult, and a king. A king must always be wise."
"... Okay," Arthur said again, trying not to feel too irritated by the fact that the sorcerer had basically just called him an idiot. "Fine. I find this ... knowledge ... and you let me go? What about Merlin? Is he here too? Will you let him go if -"
"Emrys is not here," answered the spirit. "And once you have obtained the knowledge you require, you will be released immediately. The door will lead you home."
I asked about Merlin, not Emrys, Arthur grumbled internally, but the spirit hadn't exactly said Yes, Merlin is here too, so he decided to interpret that as You're the only one in this weird magic forest with five floating doors.
"I'm guessing the knowledge has something to do with ... those," he said instead, jabbing his sword towards the nearest door. The spirit said nothing in response - wonderful - but the door, almost as if it heard him, unbolted itself and sprung open, revealing a shifting blur of colours that seemed to resemble a landscape. Arthur made a move to sheath his sword, then un-sheathed it again slightly. He didn't know what he was walking into - for all he knew, there could be a griffin or a dragon waiting on the other side of that door.
Or, the door could lead into the empty air at the top of a cliff, and Arthur would die instantly as soon as he stepped through.
He side-glanced at the sorcerer. It made a small motion with its hand. Go in, it seemed to say.
There wasn't really much else Arthur could do here, and he wasn't going to cower away from the unknown simply because it leaked strange colours and a magic-y smell. He stepped through.
There was a moment of whirling white mist and an echoing chorus of whispers, and for a split second that felt like a short forever, Arthur was falling through nothing, the wind screaming past his ears, blood roaring in protest -
And then he was walking through the training grounds in outside Camelot, Gwaine walking by his side.
Arthur stopped, staring dumbly at the ground. Spinning around, he stared wildly back before him - but there was no door, no sign of anything magical. It was just Camelot. Camelot, and the training grounds where the knights spent almost every day. Home.
Gwaine gave him a curious look.
"Sire," he said. "You see something?"
"I thought -" Arthur spun around again, staring suspicious at the forest. "I ..."
A bluff? Maybe the sorcerer couldn't hold that magical dimension for long, and simply sent him back to Camelot before he ran out of power, before Arthur could overpower him. Or maybe - "The door will lead you home." Maybe Arthur didn't need this knowledge the sorcerer was babbling on about. Maybe he already had it, so the door had dumped him back in Camelot. After all, Arthur may be young, but he certainly didn't feel like he was missing any crucial wisdom needed to run a kingdom. His father had made sure of that.
Or maybe he had just hit his head while out riding, and Merlin had dragged him back, and now Arthur was experiencing bouts of amnesia from the concussion.
Right, Arthur remembered. Merlin. Merlin was there. He would be able to tell him what had happened.
"Gwaine," he said, turning to the knight standing next to him. "Have you seen Merlin?"
It was a simple question. He always ended up asking it, almost every day, due to the manservant's tendency to just up and disappear at various times throughout the day. Arthur was pretty sure that he'd asked almost every member of the royal household, nobles and servants alike, the question "Have you seen my manservant?" at least once in the past month. It was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to warrant even a raised eyebrow.
The words had barely left Arthur's mouth before Gwaine flinched, his expression turning to once of raw grief and anger, and suddenly there was a fist flying towards Arthur's face that he was too shocked to dodge properly.
He collided with the stone wall so hard he swore he heard something crack. Stumbling back to his feet, he stared at Gwaine in a mix of astonishment and fury.
"What -"
But there was something wrong here, something very wrong, something Arthur was missing, because Gwaine was glaring at him with such venomous rage and shaking, a hand on the hilt of his sword.
Gwaine never looked at him like that. He never looked at anyone like that, period. He was never furious. Annoyed, irritated, drunken and brawling, sure - but never this.
"Don't you dare say his name," Gwaine hissed, voice trembling.
Arthur clutched his bruised-and-possibly-broken ribs, staring at up at him in shock.
Something's wrong, he thought, repeatedly, in panic. This isn't right.
"What are you talking about?" He said, carefully, tensed in case Gwaine threw another punch, or even drew his sword. Gwaine was still glaring at him, and Arthur fought the impulse to look away, to shrink underneath the pure, unadulterated anger that was flowing off the knight in waves. He didn't think he'd ever seen someone that angry. Not even his father. There was more than just anger bleeding through Gwaine's expression - sorrow, guilt, betrayal.
As if Arthur had betrayed him.
"Don't act like you suddenly forgot what you did," Gwaine said savagely. "Everyone remembers. Nobody's going to forget. Ever."
Arthur raised his hands placatingly, taking a step back. There was a horrible feeling of wrong, growing larger and larger with every passing second. He didn't know exactly what was going on, or why, but he was starting to piece something together and he didn't like the look of it.
"I honestly don't know," he said again, ignoring the way that Gwaine's scornful look almost felt like a physical blow to him. "The last thing I remember - there was a sorcerer, and I was in the forest ..."
If he thought that trying to explain would make Gwaine stop looking at him like he was the lowest scum on the earth, he was wrong. Gwaine just scowled at him, seemingly more furious than ever. He took a step forward, threatening.
"Listen closely, sire," said Gwaine, darkly. "The only reason why I won't kill you right here and now is because the last thing Merlin asked of me was to protect you. But don't you fucking dare test me. Not after everything you did."
Arthur's mind stuttered to a halt.
"The last thing?" He said, uncomprehendingly. "Did something happen? Where is he?"
Where is he? Arthur's gut was churning with something he dimly recognised to be terror. Where is he? What happened?
"If you think this is funny -"
Gwaine's gaze was boring into him mercilessly, and he looked downright murderous in a way that was so unlike the Gwaine that Arthur knew - he looked cold, broken, but in a way that made it clear that he would have no qualms about killing him. He would never admit it, but part of him felt almost scared. Arthur swallowed, forcing his gaze away from the sword that Gwaine had unsheathed moments earlier.
But then Gwaine stared at him for a few moments, scrutinising, and perhaps he saw how honestly lost Arthur looked, his confusion and shock and apprehension, because he lowered the sword ever so slightly, staring at him now in suspicion.
"You had him burned at the stake a year ago," Gwaine said, finally, and it sounded like a death knell in the near silence, shattering the last of Arthur's hope into pieces. "For using sorcery to save your life."
The world shuddered to a halt and froze over.
Sorcery. Merlin.
Burned.
"No," Arthur said, blindly. "No, I didn't. He isn't. I would know -"
The last few words had taken on an almost pleading tone. Any other time, Arthur would have berated himself for showing such weakness.
But this was not any other time.
Sorcery. Merlin -
Gwaine was looking more alarmed than angry. He slid his sword back into his scabbard, taking a step back.
"Did you hit your head?" he said warily. Arthur didn't hear him.
Sorcery. Burned.
"No," he said again, and he didn't know whether he was answering the question or not. "No, no - that's not right. It's not right. I - Merlin - he -"
The words caught in his throat and died.
Gwaine was talking again, saying something, and Arthur should maybe have felt a little more relief at the fact that the knight was no longer threatening to kill him, but his words were drowned out by the sound of blood rushing through his ears, a thundering noise that reduced every other sound of the world to a weak murmur.
Merlin.
That's not right, he thought, desperately, but no. It was right. It made sense - so much sense, and suddenly the memories came rushing back - saving Arthur from the witch's dagger. How he knew about Valiant's shield. Why Anhora had decided to give him a second chance after he failed the trials - Merlin was a sorcerer, he must have managed to sway him, as a fellow magic practitioner. How he survived the Dorocha. Every time they were attacked by bandits, mercenaries, foreign armies - all those times when he came out unscathed. Luck, Arthur had called it.
How wrong he was.
The thundering in his ears was beginning to sound like a chant. Sorcerer, it whispered. Sorcerer. Sorcerer. Sorcerer -
Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw a flash of blinding light that faded rapidly to reveal an open door, bobbing up and down in midair. The spirit was standing in the doorway, observing him with an almost curious air. Gwaine hadn't flinched, seemingly unable to see either the door or the spirit.
Arthur doesn't fight back when the spirit takes him back through the doorway.
He never thought he would be glad to be back in the misty enchanted forest, but when he stumbled through the doorway back into the now-familiar silvery backdrop of trees and foggy air, it felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He collapsed into the grass, the words still circling round and round through his mind.
"You have learned something new," the spirit stated, and Arthur whipped around to glare at him.
"What do you want," he bit out, and he knew, he knew he shouldn't be letting his emotions ride over his judgement - he should sit back, clear his head, think through this rationally, calmly - but how could he? Maybe for anything else, for anyone else. But not for magic. Not for Merlin.
"For you to learn," the spirit said simply, and with a wave of its hand, a second door opened. Arthur lurched away from it, a sick feeling arising in him and threatening to swallow him whole.
"No," he said, his hand going instinctively to his sword. "No. I don't want to. I already know everything I need to know. Let me go."
Sorcerer, his mind chanted at him, mercilessly, ruthlessly. Merlin. Liar. Traitor.
How long? He pleaded, fruitlessly. Why?
He thought about Merlin, tried to remember what he had been like. The manservant, clumsy and downright rude and loyal, maybe. He tried to remember his idiotic grin.
He couldn't. There was a stain on those memories, one he couldn't wipe away now.
But he was still sitting in the grass, still surrounded by the stupid magic mist. He swiped at it angrily. "Let me go," he said again. The spirit just shook it's multi-faced head.
"You do not know everything yet, young king," it said, serenely, and Arthur wished vehemently that it was solid, because he wanted nothing more than to run it through with his sword, hack it to bits, because there was a bubbling molten rage building up inside him, searing and unbearably painful, and he needed to let it out, somehow, before it ate away at him completely.
Calm down, he told himself forcefully, then wished he hadn't, because the voice inside his head still sounded like Merlin.
The second door opened a little wider, inviting, deadly. Arthur didn't want to look at it.
"What else is there to know?" He said, bitterly. The spirit only motioned towards the door silently, and Arthur raged silently, but stood up and walked towards it anyway. He was powerless to do anything else, here.
Merlin, traitor, liar, betrayer -
Arthur stepped into the doorway, and even the hurricane and chorus of echoing whispers weren't enough to drown out his thoughts.
I never knew him, did I? The one person I hoped was my only friend.
I trusted him, he realised, in horror. Oh god. I gave him everything he needed to destroy Camelot.
I'm the son of Uther Pendragon. Every sorcerer I've come across wanted me dead, to avenge their fellow magic brethren.
Was Merlin just the same?