Kingdom of the Magician

1: Separation

Merlin forced himself to press forward through the trees. The fear he felt did nothing to slow his heart—actually, it was only aggravating the shallow but jagged wound in his side.

"So stupid…" he panted. He hadn't really noticed but the blood loss was making him spout out complete nonsense for the past hour. He paused and sagged against a tree. His horse had been killed in the attack.

The memories were still fresh in his mind, they made him jumpy and Merlin thought that one of the arrows that had got past his shield may have been poisoned. It seemed like something Sir Logan would do…sadistic bastard.

He and Arthur had been travelling, going to various towns on the borders between Camelot, Cenred's lands and Mercia. They were searching for magicians and warriors to protect Camelot when Morgause and Cenred would inevitably strike at Camelot. They'd just left one small and nameless town of about forty people and had made it to the tree line before being ambushed by Sir Leon and several knights from Camelot. Not just any knights, either. Aside from Leon who was too young, the rest of the group had been the older generation of knights who had led the massacres in the Great Purge. Some of those men were more evil at heart than any three sorcerers Merlin had encountered…and he'd traded death-bringing spells with Edwin, Nimueh and the psychotic Morgause. Of course, Uther turned a blind eye to them simply because they had no magic. They couldn't be evil if they were knights in Uther's eyes.

Sir Logan was the worst. Merlin had only seen him twice in Camelot; he'd retired a few years before Merlin came to work for Arthur and had settled in a small castle a three day ride from Camelot. However, each time he had seen Sir Logan, dread had frozen over Merlin's thoughts. He'd had nightmares for days and he never slept while the older knight was within two leagues of Camelot's walls. It was like the man could instinctively feel the presence of a sorcerer. For Merlin who practically radiated magic like the sun gave off light it was a wonder the man didn't try to kill him. In the Purge, Logan had discovered that one way to keep a sorcerer from being able to use magic was to somehow introduce a powerful hallucinogenic drug to their bodies. Such drugs prevented the infected person from speaking spells or even maintaining coherent thought. It made people who relied on magic and therefore the steady mind needed to use magic easier to kill.

This was what was happening to Merlin now.

As he stumbled blindly through the forest, Merlin could not see properly or hear anything that may have been real. Any thoughts of Arthur's fate had been drowned out by the drug-induced hysteria. It was hard to keep track of Arthur in that fight. Merlin had chosen to use lightning spells to turn the knights' metal armor against them. He hadn't killed any of them but he had stunned Sir Leon and Sir Ignatius before a cross bow bolt from Sir Logan had grazed his side just under the rib cage. The instant pain prevented him from finishing the wording on a particular spell. He couldn't find the words; he couldn't focus on any coherent magic.

The only thing that had saved him was that he needed neither.

Merlin had forced his magic into the pain, causing the forest to tear itself apart in a shower of wood chips and falling timber. It was a rather large oak tree that had cut him off from Arthur who was facing off against two other 'Purge-Knights' as Merlin had often referred to them as. Sir Logan had been forced to Arthur's side of the tree before it went down. That left Merlin with two other conscious knights. The saw dust in their eyes had allowed Merlin the few seconds he needed to send them flying into trees that hadn't been disintegrated.

After that, he ran. If he had not been suffering the effects of Logan's anti-sorcerer drug, he may have been able to help Arthur but at the moment, he didn't even know who Arthur was. He didn't know who he was.

A twig snapped to his right. Merlin looked. There were three men, not knights just common folk running towards him waving their arms. Merlin bolted in the other direction using stamina that wasn't there to run. He heard the men shouting but he couldn't understand the words. It just sounded like loud whooping noises to him. Still he ran until he reached a clearing. There was a camp here full of people like those other three. They started calling to him. The noise hurt his ears. He covered them and cried out as the wound started bleeding again. He tried to back away into the forest but the people had surrounded him. Running was no longer an option.

He had to fight.

Merlin loosed what was left of his magic…which was rather a lot. Still, he couldn't do much more than push them slightly back—even primal instinct had to give way to blood loss.

Someone else shouted and everyone backed away and gave Merlin a lot of space. They didn't break the circle, however so he was still trapped. A woman approached him; she had long dark hair and fierce green eyes. Merlin thought that he should recognize her but he couldn't focus enough to make the association. She spoke to him in calm soothing tones and took one step at a time towards him, hand out-stretched. When she was close enough, Merlin raised his hands and lightly brushed her fingers. The moment he did, the woman's eyes flashed gold and Merlin felt himself fall into the darkness that had been creeping around the edges of his vision.

Damn, his head hurt. Waking up was the cruelest torture that could have happened to Merlin at that moment. When he opened his eyes, it was nightfall and he was in a green tent. Merlin tried to remember what had happened after he'd shocked those knights.

Those knights…

Arthur!

Merlin bolted straight up and off the mat, hitting the tent pole and using it as for stability. He'd taught Arthur how the druids communicate through their thoughts. He searched for his mind but found only the calm minds of druids. No knights. Merlin relaxed at their presence. A few issued wordless greetings to him.

The entrance to the tent opened and a face Merlin had not seen in just over two years appeared.

"Morgana," he smiled.

"Merlin," Morgana walked over to him and hugged him while being careful of Merlin's healed but tender cross-bow wound. "What happened to you? Where's Arthur?"

Merlin tried to remember. He sat back down on his mat and Morgana joined him. "We were attacked," he began as the memories started to trickle back. "It was Sir Logan and his men…from the Purge," he shivered, Morgana did too. She didn't like those knights either.

"They have Arthur!"

The memories of him running through the forest all flooded back, the tree, the forest, the pain, Sir Logan and his men—the flow of memories made Merlin dizzy. Morgana steadied him and forced him to lie back down.

"We'll search for Arthur later; remember, Uther doesn't want him dead. It would be far worse if you had been captured instead. We'll talk about him more when you've recovered. I'll get you some food. You should be dead, after all," Morgana stood up and left for a moment. Merlin realized that his shirt and boots were gone and that his wound was tightly wrapped up. He gave it an experimental poke. It was definitely healed but touching it sent a shooting pain up his ribs. Morgana came back in and sat down with a bowl of soup. It smelled wonderful; Merlin sat up and started eating it slowly.

"That poison isn't completely out of your body yet but it's a good thing we found you when we did. The druids here are familiar with it and you've only now confirmed that it was Sir Logan. I can't believe that Uther brought him out of retirement," Morgana clenched her fists.

"Where are Gwen, Gaius and my mother?" Merlin asked. He didn't want to talk about Logan right now.

"Hunith was able to return to Ealdor last year; the patrols don't go there anymore. Gaius is gathering herbs with a few of the children; he should be back in a few hours. He's doing wonderfully by they way. When we traveled as just the six of us, he looked so withered but the amount of herbs that the druids eat in their food has restored him to a better level of health than he ever had at Camelot," Morgana laughed.

"And Gwen?" Merlin prodded.

"She…felt that she didn't belong here. She stayed a while after Arthur left but about a year ago she decided that it was time she stopped being useless and set out to find her estranged brother Elyan and to track Lancelot," Morgana chewed her lip, obviously she wasn't too happy with this.

"And what of you?" Merlin took her hand.

"I've been learning. Kadish, the leader of this band of druids, is a patient teacher. Healing is actually coming easier to me than most of the others who have studied their whole lives," Morgana rolled up her sleeves showing several bracelets and a dark green knotted tattoo that covered the back of her right hand and spread to her wrist and forearm. It was the mark of a full fledged practitioner in the arts of healing. When she turned her hand to be palm up, Merlin saw the druidic rune for fire imprinted on the palm of her hand.

"You have been busy," Merlin remarked and traced the markings. He silently noted to himself that the bracelet Morgause had given her was absent from the five bands that represented various druidic rites of passage and one other healing bracelet made from a leather band with crystals stitched into it.

She twisted it for him to see. "I didn't feel right using the one Morgause gave me so I threw it into the crater by Ealdor and made this one to help with the nightmares."

"I see," Merlin let her hand go and returned to his meal. "How long was I asleep?"

"A good two days. Gaius and I were watching you but he has a pile of students learning to be physicians so he's teaching them," Morgana pulled her sleeves back. She was wearing a tunic and pants that were the colors of the forest and her cloak was a deep, leafy green. Merlin caught a whiff of incense, herbs and pine forest. It was nice.

"We have to find Arthur," Merlin tried to stand but Morgana pulled him back down.

"You need to recover. You could quite possibly be the only person to survive an encounter with Logan and his infamous gang of knights…as if they deserve to be called that," Morgana stood up. "I'll see if Gaius is back with the children. Do not go anywhere, you here me?"

Merlin nodded. Morgana left the tent and Merlin lay back down, still tired. Despite Morgana's instructions, his thoughts still wandered to what had happened to Arthur back in that clearing.

Chapter 1 done! So yeah, I'm back for now, I know it took a while to end the first one but really the last two chapters could've been the same one. Damn naming pattern. I will never do that again.