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The sun is struggling up over the horizon when they arrive at King Uther’s door. They must make a mysterious picture, Merlin still high and trembling from the rush of his own magic, the unicorn-turned-woman wrapped in his patchwork overcoat, and Gwen leading her along like a child taking its first steps. And yet, the two guards at the door bring them inside to the throne room.
“I am King Uther,” says the older guard, pulling off his helmet. Beneath it, the man looks just as Merlin expects, and yet not at all; he isn’t shrivelled or ancient like the tales say, but his face is hard, his brow permanently furrowed into a grimace of temper and sadness. Then he gestures to the other guard, who removes his helmet as well. “And this is my son, Prince Arthur.”
Prince Arthur is...like a shaft of afternoon sunlight, too bright for this dreary room in this dreary castle in this dreary kingdom. Hair shining gold and falling into eyes the color of a clear sky; a forceful sort of nose and a wide red mouth, and a finely carved jaw. He is all over a prince from a fairy tale, even as he greets them with a skeptical look. “Welcome to Camelot,” he says.
The King sinks down onto his throne, posture somehow both indolent and staid at once. “Now, state your business.”
Merlin bows deeply, reaching for all the charm he has. “Your Majesty, we seek employment in your court.”
“I no longer keep servants,” Uther intones. “If that is all you seek--”
“But sire,” Merlin interrupts, forcing his brightest smile even wider. “Surely a fine cook and seamstress would be of use to you,” he gestures to Gwen, “and I myself am a sorcerer, an entertainer, the last of the Dragonlords.”
“The last of the Dragonlords, eh?” comes a voice from nowhere, curious and warm. Slowly a figure appears in the room as though walking closer through a great fog; it coalesces into an old man with long white hair and deep red robes. “Merlin, my boy, I knew your parents.” Then Merlin is wrapped in a hug the likes of which he hasn’t had since he last saw his mother, years ago.
It’s baffling to be greeted with such warmth by a stranger, here in the most inhospitable corner of the earth, and Merlin can only barely stammer out a reply. “Pleased to meet you...um…”
“Gaius,” the man says, and the name rings a faint bell.
Uther’s face has gone harder, if that’s even possible. “Gaius is my physician...and also my sorcerer. As you can see, I have no need of you.”
“I’d say you have more need of us,” Gwen pipes up, looking concerned. “How will you cope if you outlive your only servant?”
There is a beat of startled silence in which Uther scowls harder and Gaius raises an impressive and bemused eyebrow. With a squeak, Gwen claps her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say you’re old , sir,” she fumbles, bowing to Gaius in apology, “just that, well, the King is younger than the stories tell, and who will look after Prince Arthur when he becomes King, not that it’s going to happen anytime soon, of course, and I’m sure he can look after himself--” Prince Arthur snorts, his face a cross between offended and entertained “--and Merlin and I can learn, sire! Is all I meant.” Then she flushes to the tips of her ears, and ducks her head.
“And what, pray tell,” Uther asks, eyes hard, “will your third companion do?”
All eyes in the room turn as one to the unicorn; her human skin is inhumanly pale against the rough fabric of Merlin’s coat, shining out like the moon glimpsed through the trees, and it’s painfully obvious she wears nothing beneath. Her hair falls down her back in glittering waves, and only just obscures the mark on her brow where a horn was only hours ago. For a tense moment, Merlin can think of nothing to say; she is so alien, so strange, he can make no excuse for her. He looks at Gwen, who seems just as lost as he, and then at Gaius--and the light of understanding in the old man’s eyes sends a bolt of fear straight down to Merlin’s toes.
“This is my cousin,” he says with an attempt at cheer. “The Lady Morgana. We look after each other.”
With the slow deliberation of a predator, Uther rises from his throne and crosses the room toward the unicorn. She meets his gaze, steady and quiet--even like this, a unicorn is never prey--as he peers into her face. “And are you a sorcerer, as well?” he murmurs. “Your enchanted eyes show me no reflection.”
“I don’t know what you mean, my lord,” she replies quietly, and turns away from him toward the window. The King turns to look, as well.
“My wife, my Igraine...she loved the sea. She was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, the most graceful, the most shining. The sea is a little bit like her. You are a little bit like her, too.”
Silent and still after this quiet pronouncement, the King and the unicorn stare together out of the window; sudden discomfort blankets the rest of the room. Prince Arthur looks stricken, and it’s terrible to see. Merlin thinks he knows this tale, as well--Queen Igraine died giving her son life, and he has grown to manhood knowing only the barren land and loveless king she left behind. It makes Merlin’s chest ache.
It is Gaius, at last, who shatters the moment. “My lord, I believe I would very much like to take on these visitors as apprentices. It would be wise to pass my skills along to others, and good for Arthur to have company his own age.”
A long, tense silence follows before Uther turns back to the rest of the room. “Very well,” he says, grudging. “You may stay. For a time.”
***
The castle of King Uther gives Merlin strange dreams. On the first night he dreams that he is young again, not yet a man, and not yet the last of his kind. He dreams an old spell, breathes it into his cupped hands and from his grasp a blue-purple butterfly bursts forth. He used to create life out of thin air; out of the magic inside him, the magic in the earth and air around him. He can’t do that anymore; power slides through his fingers like sand. He is beaten down by loneliness, by the mundane horror of Mummy Catrina’s illusions. He remembers how it felt, though; in the dream, he can feel it again. He soars up into the sky with the butterfly, follows it across tilled fields and wild meadows, through thriving cities and barren wastes. They see the ocean, the crest of each wave gleaming white, and the startling red of magical flames.
Merlin and the butterfly follow the sea to a river, follow the river to a brook to a forest teeming with springtime life. Among the trees, a flash of white; they descend, and see the unicorn.
***
The unicorn withdraws day by day. She haunts the castle like a ghost, floating from room to room at strange hours. Every time he catches a glimpse of her, the dark circles beneath her eyes have grown.
Sometimes he spots her with Gwen, light and dark curled toward each other on a parapet or in some forgotten room; sometimes he sees Arthur following after her like a lost pup. Any why shouldn’t he? Merlin thinks. She’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. That’s how all the tales go.
Every sundown the castle shakes with the Red Bull’s roaring. Sometimes, strangely, it even sounds like Merlin’s name. He thinks perhaps he’s going mad here, looking for the unicorns, looking for a way to reach the Bull’s lair, until at last the beast’s voice solidifies, reverberates inside his skull.
Merlin, it calls. Merlin, when the Cup drinks itself, when the witch speaks, when the clock strikes the right time, only then will you find me.
Why do you speak to me in riddles? Merlin wonders. Why do you speak to me at all? But over their meager supper he tells Gwen what he heard.
“At last,” she says, “something to work with. She’s losing herself, Merlin, soon she’ll be all woman and no unicorn at all.”
“Would that be so bad?” he murmurs. “She could stay here, with Arthur.”
Gwen looks up from her soup, studies him intensely for a moment before sighing. “Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Seeing things, are you Merlin?” comes a voice from the doorway, and the Prince swaggers in with a teasing grin on his face. “Gaius working you too hard?”
“ Yes, ” Merlin replies. Arthur throws his head back when he laughs, showing his crooked teeth. Merlin’s heart squeezes, and he glowers into his soup.
“Please join us, Your Highness,” Gwen warmly offers, dishing up another bowl. Arthur flops into a chair beside Merlin, accepting the food with muttered thanks.
“Come on, Merlin, what’s eating you? I haven’t seen you smile these past three days.” Arthur elbows him companionably, and Merlin desperately hopes his flush isn’t visible.
“I don’t have that much to smile about.”
Arthur’s expression softens. “Worried about Morgana? I would be, if she were my family. She seems so...lost.”
“It’s very kind of you to try to talk to her,” Gwen says. “It can only do her good to have another friend.”
“I wish I could do more for her, help her find whatever it is she’s looking for.” He glances at Merlin again. “Whatever you’re all looking for, here.”
***
Merlin dreams of the Greenwood. His mind paints all the colors brighter, and the shadows darker; there are bursts of light through the green, and then a fire ringed around by merry faces. Captain du Lac and his chivalrous brigands, laughter and tales and thin, suspicious soup ladled up by a worn-looking woman with a smile like salve. Their minstrel, Elyan, sings songs of ancient honorable knights, and Merlin feels magic seeping into him like groundwater; he lets it pool in the well of his chest and the palms of his hands until it burns to hold on to. With a quiet murmur, he lets it go.
The trees whisper to each other as a wind slithers through their arms; it feeds the fire and steals the outlaws’ breath.
Out of the forest, like a dream within a dream, glides a man gilded in silver and gold untouched by the rising gale. He glows as the moon does, and as he passes through their midst the glow spreads from man to man like a tide, and leaves the brigands shining in its wake, armored in silver and draped in red.
A murmur rises. “The King,” they breathe as the shining man passes; on his back a dragon curls, picked out in golden thread. Then he turns, beckons, and Merlin understands that this is more dream than memory--the shining king wears Prince Arthur’s face. The brigands--the knights --shout and hurry after him, disbelief and wonder warring in their faces.
They seem to chase the glow for hours, in the way of dreams; then Merlin is alone in the woods, and between one heartbeat and the next the unicorn is there. She shines even brighter, like the moon has come down into the trees with him. Beside her, Gwen looks even more worn and soft, homely as a well-loved blanket. Merlin watches her face fold into itself; watches her stare at the unicorn, weeping, lost. “Where have you been?” she hisses into the unicorn’s neck; the unicorn curls around her, nuzzles her with her velvet nose.
“I’m here now.”
***
Merlin comes suddenly and completely awake at barest edge of morning, the vivid colors and light of his dream lingering on the insides of his eyelids. Giving in to wakefulness, he tugs his threadbare tunic on over his hose before stumbling out into the hallway in search of breakfast. The castle is quiet, but that’s no different from any other time or any other day; in stocking feet he wanders the halls, not yet quite knowing his way, though he’s been here long enough by now that he should.
He doesn’t see the unicorn sitting by a window until she moves, turning her head toward him, and he leaps aside like an idiot. “My lady,” he squeaks. She doesn’t smile or laugh, as she once might have at his foolishness, just watches him with dull eyes.
“Who are you?” she says softly, a tremor in her voice.
Slowly he folds to his knees, lays his hand carefully over hers. “Merlin. I’m Merlin, my lady, don’t you know me?”
Her hands curl into fists. “Merlin. The sorcerer. And who...who am I? What is this place?”
“My lady.” Gwen appears from a darkened doorway, swoops to the unicorn’s side. “My lady, it’s early still. Won’t you try to sleep a little more?”
The unicorn turns to Gwen like a flower desperate for sun. “I was dreaming...I am always dreaming. Even when I’m awake.” Trembling, she lets Gwen draw her to her feet and wrap an arm around her shoulders.
“I’m here now,” Gwen murmurs. As Merlin watches, still slumped on the floor, they disappear down the dark hall and into the unicorn’s chamber.
Later, when the sun has crept almost fully above the horizon and the gulls’ cries carry over the sound of the ocean, Arthur finds Merlin still kneeling there in the hallway.
“Merlin?” Arthur asks, approaching slowly, just as Merlin approached the unicorn in her distress. Does he look equally as lost? “Merlin, are you all right?”
“I was dreaming,” he replies, and buries his face in his hands. “I think I’ve done someone a terrible wrong.”
A warm hand falls on his shoulder, then tentatively curls around the back of his neck. “Why don’t you come out with me today? Sometimes, in this castle...things feel worse than they really are.”
That’s true, but that’s not the whole problem, Merlin wants to say. Instead, he asks “Where are we going?”
“Dragon hunting!”
That cheerful declaration is enough to pull Merlin’s gaze upward, and he blinks at the Prince. “Dragon hunting? You do remember that I’m the last Dragonlord , right?”
“Well, of course. I thought it might be useful to have you around.” Arthur pauses. “Not that I need help vanquishing a beast, that’s the Prince’s job.”
Merlin sighs. “You have no idea what a Dragonlord even is, do you.”
***
“You’re really very sweet, aren’t you,” Merlin coos, scratching the scales behind Aithusa’s ears. She shudders with pleasure, settling down into a sprawl, and at his side Arthur huffs.
“I cannot believe this.”
Merlin grins. “I heard you the first four times, my lord. And yet here you still stand, with a Dragonlord and a rather tame dragon in evidence.”
“Shut up, Merlin.”
It’s the most Merlin has smiled since he arrived.
They leave Aithusa in her mountain cave after establishing basic ground rules--no eating humans, no burning inhabited areas, no hunting farmers’ cattle even though it’s more convenient than wild game--and ride back together on Arthur’s horse. It’s close and companionable, Merlin tucked up behind Arthur, pressed against his broad back. It’s a quiet ride, but comfortably so, until the castle just barely comes back into view. Then Arthur turns his head a bit to speak, not enough to look Merlin in the eyes but enough to be heard.
“Where did you come from, Merlin? What did you do, before you came here?”
For a minute or two, Merlin considers the many ways he might answer this question honestly. He’s been so many places and done so many things, become so many different versions of himself. “I’ve always been a wanderer,” he says at last, “but when I was young I lived with my parents, trained in magic under my father in a village a few weeks’ journey from here. After they passed, I struck out on my own. I’ve been on the road ever since, in one way or another.”
“It can’t have been very long,” Arthur scoffs, “you must be barely my age, and you’d clearly have starved if you had to feed yourself much longer with your paltry magic tricks.”
“I’m older than I look,” Merlin replies. Prat. “And I’m well-traveled enough to have heard a hundred different tales about your father and his kingdom.”
“And about me, I assume,” Arthur adds. “I am a great hero, don’t they tell tales about great heroes out there?”
Merlin snorts. “Yes, some of them are tales about what an arrogant, supercilious--”
“That’s a big word, Merlin, are you sure you know what it means?”
“--condescending, patronizing--”
“It doesn’t quite mean that.”
“No,” Merlin corrects, “these are other things you are.”
Arthur chuckles at that. “Honestly, Merlin. What do they really say about me, out in the world? About my father? I’ve never been beyond our borders.”
“Never?” Merlin repeats, surprised, and regrets it when Arthur goes a little stiff.
“My father--he’s always wanted to keep me where he can see me, I think.”
Merlin squeezes his arms a little tighter around the prince’s waist. “Losing your mother must have been very difficult for him. And for you. The tales say that she was the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen, and that she was endlessly kind. Some tales call her the Melancholy Queen, though no-one seems to know what she might have been melancholy about. All the tales agree that this land was green and beautiful before she died, a place of eternal spring.”
Arthur doesn’t reply, but he leans back a little into Merlin’s space as they ride. Merlin closes his eyes, drops his forehead to Arthur’s shoulder. He smells like road dust and dragon smoke, and it’s all Merlin ever wants to breathe again.
“They say,” he murmurs into Arthur’s leather armor, “that you look like her.”
***
He’s been in the castle a fortnight when he dreams, at last, of Mummy Catrina.
It’s an old dream and a new one both; when Catrina and Jonas picked him up off the side of the road, his parents were newly dead and his magic had retreated so deep in him that he could barely conjure enough card tricks to feed himself with travelers’ tossed coins. She thought him incompetent and desperate, and the one that was right was enough to make him agree, to make him stay through the years of swindling and lies and misery. He dreams of the sad old lion and the hobbled ape, the sorrowful eyes of the animals in their cages. He dreams of the harpy, Morgause; the pressure of her magic on his mind. He had a healthy fear of her, always.
He dreams, as he’s feared, of the night he freed the unicorn. The moon, high and bright, blotted out by the harpy’s wings. Mummy Catrina’s arms open, welcoming death. The chilling cry, the wet crunch of talons and tearing of a giant beak.
***
This time he wakes in a cold sweat, and he can tell by the angle of the meager sunlight that he’s late for his training with Gaius. Still, he takes his time washing his face in the basin, letting the cold water chase the dream from his mind.
When Merlin stumbles into his workshop, Gaius only raises an eyebrow and continues quietly incanting over a bubbling cauldron. It smells like hyssop--a lung tonic, then. He drops into a chair beside the cauldron, covering a yawn with his sleeve, and Gaius’ eyebrow rises higher. He sighs a last syllable, and his eyes and the simmering tonic glow; when the glow fades, he turns to Merlin. “You look exhausted, boy. Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Not very well,” Merlin admits. “This place...it gives me vivid dreams.”
Gaius frowns. “Evil dreams?”
“Not always.”
“And last night?” the old man presses. Merlin shrugs.
“Not...not a good one.”
Gaius sighs. “This castle is too bleak for young people like you and your friends.”
This makes Merlin’s mouth tick up in an almost-smile. “Well, we can’t leave. Not yet.”
“Still searching, are you?”
Merlin’s eyes slide up to meet the old sorcerer’s. They’ve never spoken about the Lady Morgana, what she really is or her purpose here, but he knows that Gaius knows. Now, Gaius is watching him with a solemn expression, holding his eyes until Merlin feels the urge to squirm and apologize for all his wrongs.
“Do you know the tale about the witch who supposedly built this castle?” Merlin asks instead, and Gaius’ eyes narrow.
“I do. Her name was Nimue, and she did indeed build this castle, with magic. She was my predecessor as Uther’s sorcerer, and Queen Igraine’s closest companion.” Merlin blinks at him, surprised by the knowledge and by the giving of it; Gaius sits down on the workbench beside Merlin with a sigh so deep it seems to come from the soles of his feet. “Merlin, my boy, you’re sticking your fingers into dangerous pies. I fear what’s to come, if you find the answers you seek; but perhaps I fear more doing nothing and watching history repeat.”
“What do you mean? What history?” Merlin leans close, suddenly as awake as he’s ever been in his life.
“The Lady Morgana,” Gaius says slowly, as though he’s very tired. “Soon she will be too far gone to turn back. She will be human; she will fall in love. She will be trapped, as Igraine was.”
“ Igraine ..?” Merlin breathes, mouth falling open in shock. “But who--”
“Nimue.”
“The witch.” Merlin sinks his face into his hands.
Gaius’ voice softens. “She built this castle for Igraine, an elaborate cage to hold her; she brought Igraine and Uther together. Igraine bore a mortal child, died a mortal death, and Nimue could not save her. Uther had her killed for it.”
“She’s dead?” Merlin exclaims, looking up. “But the Bull said we have to speak to her, to find the other unicorns!”
“The Bull said?” Gaius replies, startled, but Merlin waves the question away.
“‘When the Cup drinks itself, when the witch speaks, when the clock strikes the right time,’ but how is the with going to speak when she’s dead ?”
“That, my boy, I can’t tell you. Even I don’t know every secret of this castle.”
***
Merlin and Arthur sit awkwardly in Gwen’s dank kitchen in flickering firelight, waiting for her to return. She likely wouldn’t mind if they started in on the stew bubbling in the cook pot without her, but they’ve been in the habit of having dinner all three of them together before Gwen brings an evening meal to Morgana.
It’s difficult to share the usual companionable silence with the prince, knowing that his mother was a unicorn. The fire’s glow plays over his face, glints in his hair; he’s beautiful, in his particular way. Knowing the source of his beauty doesn’t make it any easier for Merlin to ignore it.
“Listen, Merlin,” Arthur finally says, demeanor suddenly solemn. “I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to...to tell you something, and nothing seems quite right.”
Merlin watches him cautiously. He’s had quite a few revelations today, but he doesn’t think Arthur’s aware of any of them. Either way, Arthur looks rather sweetly nervous, and it makes Merlin smile. He reaches across the table to cover Arthur’s tense hands with his own. “You can just tell me. I’m not very intimidating.”
“Right,” Arthur replies with a huff of a laugh. “Right. Well. Anyway, I...I love you.”
The words drop between them like stones into a lake, and Merlin goes still; he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, and the crackle of the fire, and nothing else. The silence is too long, and Arthur swallows with an audible click. “That’s all I had to tell you,” he says, awkward. “That’s...that’s all I’ve got to say.”
Merlin lets out a slow breath, squeezing Arthur’s hands. “You idiot,” he sighs. “What took you so long?”
***
In the end, it’s Gwen who finds the witch, and solves the riddle; the barest trickery with an empty cup is enough to fool a skeleton, even a sorcerer’s skeleton, and she points their way through the clock. It all seems easy, too easy, until Gwen takes Morgana’s arm and draws her toward the passage.
“UNICORN!” the cry rises. “UTHER! GUARDS! UNICORN!”
They cross through a clinging mist, chased by the clanging of swords and a terrible, shuddering crash; when they emerge into the Red Bull’s cave, Prince Arthur comes stumbling after, clutching a bleeding wound on his shield arm.
“Arthur! Let me see it--”
“My father destroyed the clock,” Arthur tells them, looking from Merlin to Gwen to the Lady Morgana, her skin glowing faintly in the dark cavern. “He blocked our way back.”
“But how did you know the way through?” Merlin asks, tearing a strip from his sleeve and wrapping it angrily around Arthur’s wound. “Did you know all along?”
Arthur turns his gaze back to him, steady and warm. “What was there to know? I saw where you had gone, and I followed.”
“Then we’ll just go on, this way,” Morgana says suddenly, her voice trembling. “We can sneak out, escape this horrible place.” Gwen wraps her arms around the unicorn’s frail, shuddering shoulders. “We can find someplace else to live, away from Uther, away from the Bull, a human life!” She shoves herself deeper into Gwen’s arms. “Live a human life with me, that’s all I want.”
“My lady,” Gwen murmurs, tucking her close; there’s a tremor in her voice, too.
“No,” Merlin says, though it almost cracks in his throat. “We’ve come this far. We’ve found the Bull’s hiding place, we’re so close to finding the other unicorns! We can’t abandon the quest now!”
“I don’t care about the others!” Morgana cries, a terrible sound, sharp as glass.
Merlin throws his hands up in desperate frustration. “Of course you do! You may not remember, but you do! Everything we’ve suffered was for this, we must see it through!”
Arthur’s hand lands lightly on his shoulder, grounding, and Gwen twists to place herself between him and the unicorn.
“It’s awful about the others,” she says, her eyes shining wet, “but can’t we just let her be?”
Merlin opens his mouth to shout, but he’s overpowered by a rumbling roar so deafening that it shakes the cavern around them; argument forgotten, they cling to each other like lost children.
“The Bull,” Merlin realizes as the temperature suddenly rises; a red glow suffuses the room like the sun rising, and the ground trembles with heavy footsteps. “He must know what you are! You have to run!”
Then everything is confused panic and rising, flaming light. They run, and the Bull gives chase, snorting with rage and cracking the ground beneath its hooves. It’s impossibly large and impossibly fast, splitting them away from each other; then Morgana is sprawled on the ground, and Arthur, the idiotic hero , stands between her and the Bull with his arms thrown out as if his mortal body could protect her. He’ll be trampled, but before that he’ll burn to death, and Merlin feels the magic flooding his limbs and scorching in his blood. He can’t keep it back, and he doesn’t try. It comes screaming out of him like it hasn’t a long time, and the brightness of it is blinding; he can feel Gwen clutching his arm and hiding her eyes in his shoulder.
When he can see again, Morgana is gone. In her place stands the last unicorn in the world.
The Bull roars, its lost prey within reach at last, and the unicorn cries out like a pealing bell and runs.
***
It all happens so quickly, and Merlin is so drained Gwen has to hold him up. They watch, clinging to each other, as the Bull retreats and the tide brings waves teeming with unicorns, as Uther falls from the parapets, the castle collapsing beneath his feet.
And Arthur--Arthur lies facedown in the sand, deathly still. With the last of his strength Merlin throws himself over the prince’s body, Gwen tucked close at his side; the unicorns stream around them in torrents, and never has he felt such joy and such sorrow together in one awful moment.
Then, at last, the unicorn-- their unicorn--stands over them.
“You stayed,” Gwen sobs, throwing her arms around the creature’s neck. “Oh, you stayed.”
The unicorn curls around her, as she did in the forest, as she did in Merlin’s dreams. “I remember you.”
Merlin turns away from them, his eyes raw with tears, and lays his head down against Arthur’s back. He still smells of smoke, and warm leather; he’s still as warm as if he were alive. Then the unicorn’s brightness overwhelms him, blinds him, and beneath his ear, Arthur’s heart begins to beat.
***
The tales say that the kingdom of King Arthur is a place of eternal spring. That there is peace and happiness there like nowhere else; that the land is blessed with magic, and its people blessed with joy. Minstrels sing of the king and his sorcerer, his court of knights, the white castle at the edge of the sea. Travelers whisper of a gleaming creature who travels the roads, scarce as a ghost, and a woman who walks barefoot beside her, from this story, and into the next.