Epilogue: The Calm

Cornelius Sigan had caused more damage than Arthur had thought.

Large portions of the castle were destroyed. Half the dungeons had collapsed in on themselves, crushing all the prisoners within, and two towers had fallen over. Cracks spidered their way up the walls. Doors had fallen off their hinges, and many windows had been destroyed entirely. Three-quarters of the building had to be cordoned off entirely either because it was blocked by rubble or because people were worried about its structural integrity. There had already been one incident when a heavyset knight had ended up falling through a supposedly stable patch of floor.

Statues littered the castle inside and out. Many of them had frozen in mid-step, their arms or forelegs extended, their teeth bared. Dried blood flaked from their claws and jaws, forming a faint brown-red powder beneath them. Some were gouged from bladed weapons, others partially smashed by the hammers brought in by Tom the blacksmith, who was rightfully being hailed as a hero. Uther had given orders that the remaining gargoyles should be destroyed entirely, and workers crushed and dismembered more of them every day.

The stables were almost entirely destroyed. As far as anyone could tell, a spark from a soldier's torch had somehow gotten into the hay, igniting an inferno. Thankfully most of the horses had survived; in their panic, they'd managed to kick down the doors to their stalls.

The lower town was in worse condition. A half-dozen sinkholes had appeared where the tunnels had passed particularly close to the surface, swallowing homes and businesses and people. Other buildings had been shaken apart from the base up, the roof caving in, the walls tumbling over, the floors cracking. Far too many civilians had been wounded, even killed, as they tried to escape.

Worse, no fewer than eleven fires had been started by fallen candles or torches. They'd ranged in size from a single house to conflagrations that destroyed entire blocks. Not many had perished in the flames, but dozens of families had lost all their worldly possessions.

What haunted Arthur was the knowledge that this could have been so much worse, would have been so much worse if not for Merlin's magic. It had been a clear night until after the statues abruptly stopped moving, when clouds had materialized above them and unleashed a downpour across the entire city. The rain had fallen almost until sunrise, at which point the clouds had begun to disperse.

It wasn't all Merlin, Morgana told him when they had a moment of peace. Alator had taken over after a while, and then she'd insisted that he teach her the spell so she could help too. But the rain had continued even after they stopped maintaining it, which shouldn't have happened on such a non-humid night. She suspected that there were other spellbinders in the city or nearby in the forest who had taken over once they grew weary.

All in all, twenty-one guards, including their captain Donald, and almost a hundred civilians died that night. Hundreds more were wounded, some severely, and there was no court physician to care for them. Actually, there were very few people with any sort of medical training; it turned out that physicians, herbalists, and midwives were more likely to be accused of sorcery than virtually all other careers, so they tended to avoid Uther Pendragon's domain. Hopefully there wouldn't be an outbreak of disease anytime soon.

The court had mostly moved into Lord Leodegrance's estate on the outskirts of the city. The castle was cramped and more than a few nobles raised a fuss about having to share rooms, but it would suffice until they could make the Pendragon fortress habitable again.

The best thing about their attempts to rebuild was that Arthur and the five other warriors who had used magic swords against the enchanted gargoyles had yet to face the music. After he'd had the blades confiscated, Uther seemed to have decided to ignore them, which suited Arthur just fine.

Gwaine was currently taking bets on how long it would be before Merlin stole the swords back. He'd already snuck in once to place a shattered gem on Arthur's pillow. The prince had no idea where the warlock had found the anchor, but he was glad it had been destroyed.

Sigan's body had been destroyed as well. Uther had made a spectacle of it, publically cremating the corpse. He'd delivered a speech about standing strong against the evils of sorcery and tried to end it by crushing Sigan's skull under his boot, but the bone had not broken.

The group who had fought with magic swords had yet to face punishment—and there would be punishment, Arthur was certain of it. Percival, a friend of Lancelot's who had somehow ended up in their group, suggested that the king was waiting to repair the dungeons before he did anything. Leon countered that Uther probably didn't want to punish Lord Leodegrance's son while living in Lord Leodegrance's house. Arthur thought they were both right and also that Uther needed to get things in general under control first. There was a war with Odin, the meeting of the five kingdoms (which was probably not going to be held in Camelot this year), and of course general reconstruction… and the rumors.

Any idiot could tell that magic had been used by both sides that night. Arthur wasn't the only one to realize that the rain was unnatural, and that bloody dragon wasn't exactly inconspicuous. Additionally, quite a few guards had seen gargoyles slamming into each other, propelled by an invisible force, and word had somehow gotten out that it was Merlin Emrys who had fought Cornelius Sigan to the death.

These things were known to be true. They'd spread throughout the citadel, and only the most deluded of nonbelievers even tried to deny them. These were facts, not rumors; the rumors dealt with how the facts fit together.

Merlin had worked on his own, for Arthur, for Uther, for Sigan. Merlin had taken over the king's mind or the prince's mind or half the population of the city. He wasn't the only sorcerer to infiltrate the castle. He was the only sorcerer to infiltrate the castle, chosen by a secret cabal of powerful magic-users for half a hundred nefarious missions. He was an old man in disguise. He was Nimueh's apprentice, or maybe apprenticed to the head of the Catha (not many people knew Alator's name). He was the son and heir of the bloody Fisher King. He'd originally been an assassin, but then he'd fallen in love with someone (the most popular suspects were Arthur himself and Morgana, who was once again vastly entertained by the entire thing) and switched sides.

The swordsmen were subject to rumors too. They were all sorcerers. They were all under Merlin's control. They had all been replaced by sorcerers wearing masks of enchanted human flesh and were planning to take over the country.

But the most common rumor, the one that was whispered on street corners and repeated in homes and only spread freely in taverns, was this:

Arthur knew.

Arthur had known who and what his manservant was, and he had chosen to let him live.

Nobody seemed entirely certain when Arthur found out. The wraith, the Questing Beast, at Tintagel. All they agreed on was that Arthur had known long enough that he could have done something about it if he'd really wanted to. Yet he hadn't. Instead, Uther Pendragon's son and heir had knowingly accepted a warlock into his service.

And the rumormongers wanted to know why.

People had very quickly realized that there were three possible explanations for Arthur knowing without doing anything. Some suggested that his mind was under the spellbinder's control, his spirit enslaved. They believed that Merlin intended to use him as a puppet king. A few even suggested that Uther would be assassinated soon, possibly at the hand of his own brainwashed son.

The second prevalent theory was that Arthur was playing some sort of long game, pretending to be on Merlin's side so he could root out the source of the magical resistance movement and destroy it. It wasn't an entirely unreasonable assumption; Uther had used strategies like that to great success in both his war against Vortigern and the Purge. It made sense that Uther's son would have a similar mindset. Other variations made significantly less sense. For instance, some people genuinely believed that Arthur had replaced the entire contents of the weapons vault with highly detailed fakes, then helped Merlin steal them, or that Pendragons were secretly immune to mind control and he was only pretending to be Merlin's slave.

The third suggestion was never spoken too loudly, never verbalized around men in red cloaks. Arthur wouldn't have known about it if Guinevere hadn't told him.

The third explanation for Arthur's behavior towards Merlin was the true one. Some people had puzzled out that maybe, just maybe, Merlin had managed to change Arthur's mind about magic without resorting to spells of control, that Arthur's mercy was genuine rather than a ploy. That Uther's son and his most hated enemy were friends, that the warlock had opened the prince's heart to magic.

That Arthur was thinking about repealing the ban.

"Are you?" Gwaine asked him bluntly.

Arthur sighed, leaning heavily against the half-collapsed wall. He closed his eyes. "…Yes."

"Do you mean that you're thinking about it or that you're actually going to—"

"Yes, Gwaine. I said yes."

"Ah." The vagabond nodded sagely, then looked in the direction of Lord Leodegrance's manor. "Does he know?"

Gwaine was not talking about Lord Leodegrance, and they both knew it.

"I don't know," Arthur was forced to admit. "I… can't believe he doesn't realize that I'm at least thinking about it, but I doubt he realizes that I've already made up my mind. And it isn't like I've figured out all the details yet. I can't just let magic users do whatever they want. Some spells or types of spells will be illegal, and some of the beasts my father drove out had a marked taste for human flesh. I'm not eating man-eaters or mind-enslavers into my kingdom."

A smile tugged at Gwaine's lips, but it was another of their companions who commented, "It sounds like you'll need a magical advisor of some sort."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "And I suppose you're going to suggest my idiot former manservant for the role, Lancelot?"

The would-be knight's eyes sparkled. "You do work well together, sire."

"No we don't."

Literally everyone else at the table—Morgana, Guinevere, and the five warriors who had fought off Cornelius Sigan's gargoyle army—snorted, rolled their eyes, suppressed a chuckle, hid a grin, or some combination thereof. Even Percival, who'd never met Merlin, seemed to find this ridiculous.

"I think they work very well together," proclaimed Morgana.

Arthur grimaced. "Yes. Well." A sigh. "I suppose we do."

"So this is your dream world?"

"Yes."

Merlin looked around, a frown on his face. "It looks different from how you've described it."

"It is," Morgana confirmed. She gestured to her left. "That's where the other path used to be, the one that led to Morgause. It disappeared after I contacted her. Do you have any idea what that means?"

"None whatsoever. Someone on the Isle might know, though. I'll have to ask around before I leave."

Morgana turned to him. "Before you leave?"

The warlock nodded. "Something… something happened when Sigan had me. I saw something, or experienced something, and I made a deal. A promise." He sighed. "I just can't quite remember what it is."

"So where are you going?"

He met her gaze. "Back to the Impenetrable Forest, I'm afraid. Kilgharrah thinks that Queen Mab, the local place-spirit, managed to get into my head. He's got this theory that she agreed to keep Sigan away until rescue arrived in exchange for a favor, and I should probably not risk offending someone that powerful if I have any other options. I need to speak with her while I'm awake, then fulfill my half of the deal."

"What do you think you agreed to?"

"I doubt it was anything too terrible," he assured her. "I did agree to it, after all."

"You just admitted that she got into your mind, Merlin. That's not exactly reassuring."

"Oh." The warlock grinned sheepishly for a moment before worry slipped over his features. "That's actually a good point, but…. I think I wanted to."

"Still not reassuring."

"Either way, I do need to take care of this, Morgana."

"Just promise to be careful."

"I promise."

She nodded, understanding that this was all she'd get from him. She knew him too well.

They sat for a long moment in companionable silence, staring out into the dimly lit plains of the future.

"Do you think we can keep doing this?" Merlin finally queried. "Meeting in the dream world, that is. Or I could try and find you a different teacher or—"

"No, I'd like this." Morgana smiled slightly. "As long as my magic only affects this world, that is. Maybe we should just go over theory here and I can try to practice on my own." The smile faded. "Something tells me I'll get plenty of practice while you're gone."

Merlin frowned at her, confused.

"You know what Uther's like. He's busy with reconstruction and the war preparations now, but as soon as he has things sort of under control, he's going to start hunting spellbinders again. It will be like the worst days of the Purge." She met his gaze, her fists clenching. "I'm not going to let that happen."

He nodded, slow and solemn. "It'll be dangerous." A statement, not a reminder, not an attempt to make her change her mind. Merlin knew her too well.

"Then I suppose you'd better teach me quickly."

"I suppose I should." He stood, extended his arm. "The fire spell is forbaernan." Flames whooshed to life above his palm. They took the shape of a dragon, its wings outstretched.

Morgana stood. "Forbaernan," she repeated, tasting the word. "Forbaernan."

A spark appeared, a brief glint of gold and red and orange. It lasted only a few seconds, but that was long enough for her to get a feel for the spell. The next time she cast it, the flames were bigger, stronger, longer-lived.

Morgana could learn this. She had to. She would.

And so she did.

Uther Pendragon sat brooding on Lord Leodegrance's best chair, his gaze fixed on nothing. His thoughts were of war and peace, family and vengeance, but no one could tell that by looking at his face, which was as blank as carved stone.

A man entered the room.

The king frowned, jolted from his reverie by the creaking of the door. He'd given orders not to be disturbed; the guards had better have a damn good reason for disobeying his express command.

The petitioner knelt before him. "Sire."

"Speak."

The man glanced up, plainly nervous, plainly resolved. "My name is Maddox, sire. To my knowledge, I am the sole success of Captain Donald's plan to infiltrate the sorcerers' base."

Uther's eyes widened. "Tell me everything you've learned."

"Yes, sire." Maddox nodded. "I will."

END OF BOOK II.

Thank you to everyone who waited patiently through my writer's block and depression and busyness to stick with this story until the end. You guys have way more patience than I do.

My goal for NaNo was 30k, and a lot of that went to Book III, tentatively titled The Wanderer's Path. It will deal with a lot of the plot threads introduced in this book that were sort of brushed aside. I have about six chapters done, but my plans for the work are still evolving and I think I need to write a bit more before publishing so I have time to edit and change things if I need to. Consequently, Book III will be published on the first Friday of the New Year, January 4. After that, I'll go back to updating once every three weeks.

Again, thank you all for sticking with me. See you in 2019!

-Antares