Torr Badon

Chapter 1: After a Decade

Merlin considered using magic to achieve his goal.

On one hand, the argument could be made that it would hasten his return to Camelot. He'd already been gone twice as long as anticipated, and while it didn't make his magic itch to be separated from his king as it would have when they were young, there was the constant awareness in the back of his mind that he didn't know.

On the other hand… it was only breakfast.

He crouched on his heels a short distance from his campfire, the ashy smear on the ring of stones a silent testament to the length of his stay, holding his arms around his chest against the early-morning chill of the first month of spring. He wasn't the first one in camp to begin preparations for the day, but most fire-pits were still cold, most tent flaps still tied shut. That he could see from here, anyway.

A watched pot never boils, he heard his mother's voice echo in his mind – and especially if it's got grain-cereal mixed in. Times like these, he sympathized with Arthur's penchant for sausages, first thing.

Perhaps if he focused on something else. But everything was already packed that could be, waiting with his mare, everything that wasn't needed for one last assessment of his patients, this morning before he said his farewells. The last few lines of summary for the records could be made when he was home. Any deeper study into the cause of the disease – and he knew he'd be doing that too, as soon as it was possible – had to wait for the opportunity of hours-long solitude and quiet.

Merlin reached to stir the thickening paste in his small pot, and movement from behind a tree maybe five yards past his fire, caught his attention.

He sat back, pretending not to notice, and after a moment a tangle of brown hair, smudged skin, and curious eyes edged into view.

The druid children were a funny mix. The older ones, who'd grown up hearing the stories – Pendragon and Emrys, prophecy and adventure – were shyly awestruck. The youngest ones, who'd no doubt been scolded by their mothers not to bother Emrys, blinked and hid from him also. The ones in-between, though… they'd watched for a few wary days before deciding that if he slept in a tent and ate right out of the pot and yelped at the temperature of the wash-water, he was just a person like everyone else. They'd teased and helped and asked questions and gotten in his way and listened and watched and learned and before too long, any lingering self-consciousness had faded from the adults' treatment of him as well.

This little one seemed determined to show nothing but face, and fingertips on the rough bark of the tree.

Merlin grinned, leaned forward, and blew in an exaggerated fashion on the coals under his cook-pot, puffing out his cheeks.

Tiny sparks blew, coalesced, and formed – a dragon that would fit on the palm of one's hand, if one didn't mind the burn. It crept delicately from the coals, unfurling glowing orange wings.

The child ventured to show half his body, brown eyes riveted to the tiny magic-creature.

Fanning wings of exquisite flame, the dragon launched itself up to soar – more slowly than its more corporal cousin could manage – in a wide arc around the clearing. Merlin made a show of ducking when it passed him, and the child giggled, daring a few steps closer.

He directed the tiny spark-figure land on the rim of his pot, dip the miniscule serpentine neck, walk a few paces, and investigate again, as if it were hungry and curious, both. The child walked three more steps, almost as close to the fire now as Merlin was, on the opposite side, fascinated by the magic.

And the tiny flame-dragon sneezed. Inaudibly but very obviously, even to the sparks ejected from its mouth.

"It must be the spice," Merlin said gravely. "I suppose I've put too much in."

The child giggled delightedly, clapping his hands.

A voice spoke from behind Merlin. "Still playing with your food?"

He didn't turn, though the child took exception to the company and scampered off; Merlin let the dragon dissipate and rise in a shimmer of heat. The voice was familiar, and the implications and friendly tone of the remark made him reasonably sure he knew the man's name, though it had been years, and both of them boys, since they'd seen each other. He let his smile spread.

"You can share it if you like," he said. "I'm not going to eat it all."

"Your mother's not here to scold me, is she?" the other returned, stepping over the log Merlin perched on, to straddle the end of it facing him, tucking his cloak around him with practiced ease. "I think she thought it was partly my fault, how skinny you were."

"I'm still skinny," Merlin said, grinning at his childhood friend.

Brown hair cropped short, chest filled out – belly filled out a bit more but only noticeable since Merlin was more accustomed to seeing the knights' fighting-fit physiques – eyes still round but with an owlish look of quiet wisdom and experience.

"But it looks like you've found someone's cooking that suits you." Merlin reached out his hand. "Hello, Gilli."

"Good to see you," Gilli responded, the solemnity of his face breaking into a slow smile. He dropped a bulging pack to the ground by their feet as he shook Merlin's hand.

"Ah," Merlin couldn't help saying, feeling the tingle of magic, and turning his friend's hand instinctively to see the large flat-topped ring on the third finger. "Sorry – curious."

"It's all right," Gilli said with a smile, slipping the piece off easily to hand to him for a closer look. "I'm not surprised you noticed."

"That's the mark of the Old Religion," Merlin noticed, tracing the rune inscribed on the ring. It was the rune for fustrendel. Focus. Such rings, he knew, were rare – he'd heard of them but had never seen one – they acted as a conduit, a channel for magical powers. "Where did you get it from?"

Gilli accepted it back and slid his finger slowly through the ring before answering. "My father. He left it me when he died."

"I'm sorry to hear," Merlin said. He didn't recall Gilli's father well – when they spent time together in camp as boys, it was before Hunith's fire, not with Gilli's family. But considerable gifts were required to wield such a ring as that; he supposed that each of them had things to learn about their fathers, the last time they spoke.

"It's been many years," Gilli said easily. "It was a fine gift, though – without it I would not have had the magic or the control necessary to find my position among our people… And the girl whose cooking suits me just fine. They told you I joined Ruadan's clan?"

"Yeah, Iseldir said." Merlin poked his breakfast again, giving a quick wider glance to the early-morning activity of the rest of the camp.

"We're ranging on the edges of Mercia, north of the mountains of Isgaard, now," Gilli went on. "I married his daughter Sefa five years ago." Merlin remembered her distantly, an impression of a kind, shy smile – mostly because of what he'd been involved in with her father, afterwards.

"Mercia, huh." Bayard was still king; he kept his four – or five? – sons jockeying for the title of crown prince. Merlin left it to Arthur to keep track of which one was in favor, any given month.

Gilli answered obliquely, mistaking the point of Merlin's interest – perhaps by design, perhaps not. "Yep. Five years, and a babe for every year."

Merlin gave his old friend a glance at once skeptical and congratulatory, and reached with a stick to snag the handle of his little breakfast pot, pulling it from the edge of the coals. "Here, share with me."

Gilli put a hand into the mouth of his sack and pulled out a wooden spoon. "She loves it," he went on, happily wistful. "Loves the kids… loves carrying them…" He shifted on the log and his grin took on an unexpected maturity. "Loves making them…"

Merlin coughed a laugh, narrowly saving his own spoonful of porridge from spattering in the dust.

"What about you?" Gilli said, shrugging one rounded shoulder to where the child had been spying on Merlin when he arrived. He lifted his own spoonful to test the temperature, and added, "Do you have any children?" before gingerly taking the bite.

"Yes," Merlin said, feeling the same smile spread that he always wore when talking about his family. "My wife is an herbalist from Lionys. We met ten years ago – when King Arthur was supposed to find a bride, if you heard that story – we've been married now eight years. Our daughter will be seven next month."

"Just the one?" Gilli said, his attention focused on shoveling porridge into his mouth.

"Did you just get in?" Merlin asked, sliding his boot toward Gilli's pack.

"No – last night, but it was late. And I'm not staying." He paused for as long as it took to take, chew, and swallow two bites. "They said you were asleep – I guess it's been a rough couple of weeks."

Merlin snorted his affirmative. His return to Camelot was not so vital or urgent that he couldn't take an hour or so to catch up with his friend – but there was more to it than that. He had the feeling Gilli had come to the camp to see him. And that it was important.

"The healer for our clan took me as apprentice, when I transferred," Gilli went on. "He's been… vague, this past year, so mostly it falls to me. I'm nothing special, sometimes the magic's a bit rough, if that's what's needed, but we get along."

Trying to figure out if the reason for Gilli's trip was the same reason he himself was in the druid camp, Merlin said, "If you came because you heard – Gilli, I'm sorry if you expected –"

"No, no, nothing like that." Gilli blinked at him, unperturbed. "If Iseldir decided this illness needed Emrys, who am I to try my rough skill? No. I just – well, who would have thought it, when we were young? That you and I would both grow up to practice the healing arts?"

"Not Ari, that's for sure," Merlin quipped, remembering the tiny symbol for basic healing magic included in the tattoo on his left forearm. He gestured his willingness for the other man to finish the breakfast. "They're on the mend here, now – no new cases this week, and the last one turned a corner to the road to recovery day before yesterday."

Gilli nodded, chewing and swallowing placidly. "I saw you're all packed up this morning. Back to Camelot, then?"

"Yes."

The solution, the remedy, the cure, was only half the job. He still didn't know what had caused the outbreak, and when it was magical in nature – the strongest ones were the hardest hit; that connection was what prompted Iseldir's call for his help a month ago – it couldn't be left an unexplained mystery. He just wished Gaius…

"You don't mind having company for the road, do you?" Gilli's glance was round-eyed, unblinking. "At least a few miles?"

Merlin didn't have to say, you mean you? And didn't bother questioning him more closely; he'd caught his friends' disinclination to discuss. Merlin's tent was on the edge of the camp, but they weren't alone, by any means, even out of earshot. And druids – even children, maybe especially children, sometimes – were notorious for moving quietly in the woods. Whatever he had to say, he didn't want to chance being overheard.

"Come and welcome," Merlin said, scooping a handful of leaves for a quick scrub of the inside of the pot, then pushing upright to attach it to one of the strings on the saddle of the mare that waited, readied to go before Merlin's breakfast was.

Gilli shouldered his own pack, and passed his fingers gently over the brand on the mare's hip marking her a member of the royal stable of Camelot, without comment.

"Iseldir knows?" Merlin said. About whatever had prompted Gilli's visit.

"I talked to him a bit last night," Gilli said. A simple, but comprehensive answer.

Merlin loosened the mare's lead. "Let's find him to say goodbye, then."

A/N: Torr Badon chapter 1 is now up! Here we go again!