Hello everyone! Welcome to my next fic.

Summary: Arthur starts to become agitated in his ignorance. He feels like he knows very little about his kingdom and his people. After Morgana and eventually Agravaine's betrayal he endeavours to ensure that no one will be able to hide things from him again. He starts small (or so he thinks) with the exploration of the vaults beneath his feet.

Warnings: Most likely to be a Reveal fic (unless I get a huge vote against it :P). No slash. Heavy bromance.

Set: Between season 4 and 5. About a year after Morgana's last attack. (Because I'm still in the denial stage of the grieving process for the show)

I'm writing this as I update so feedback and reviews are greatly appreciated for motivation and to make sure I stay on plot (I tend to go off on a tangent).

I have no beta. All mistakes are my own and I hope they don't detract from your enjoyment.

Chapter - 1

In your thirst for knowledge, be sure not to drown in all the information. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo

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Camelot's vaults were a mystery even unto it's king.

No one really knew the extent of the treasures that were hidden in its depths. Nor the amount of priceless artefacts, forgotten jewels in forgotten tombs, forbidden books and confiscated religious items. Books decaying in dust, fading slowly through neglect having not been read since ages past. The vaults had their own life in their dim and abandoned world. Occasionally a new piece would join their ranks or another would find a way to escape, having suddenly found itself useful again to the people of the castle above.

Whole rooms could be rediscovered again after a many years of secrecy. They would be hidden so long that people would forget why they were hidden in the first place.

Arthur did not like mystery.

He had asked Geoffrey, one day, if his father had ever kept an inventory of the contents of the vaults. If there were any list or description of all the items he had seized from sorcerers over the years. There hadn't been. Uther did not care to know, for he would not use anything that was magical and he would not destroy it for fear of its power. Or, Arthur suspected grimly, they were not destroyed just in case they one day became useful or valuable. Such were his father hypocritical tendencies. He admired his father for gathering such a vast collection of treasures but he also loathed Uther's complacency in ignorance. He would take an item and lock it away purely because it was magical. He would not learn anything about it or ascertain its danger to people, nor would he want to learn about it. He would just want it hidden.

Well Arthur refused to bury his head in the sand. He wanted to know what exactly was beneath his feet. He wanted to know the stories. He wanted to know the secrets. He wanted to remove the mystery from the vaults.

So Geoffrey was assigned a couple of assistants, three knights and two guards and was told to go down into the vaults with the most up-to-date map of its maze of rooms and document every single piece down there. Then, just for good measure, Arthur wanted investigations done of each item. He wanted to know where they had come from, who their last owners were and, especially, what their purposes were.

He didn't know where the sudden urge to know everything had come from. Over the last few months he had just felt something screaming at him to start learning, start looking, start seeing. He wanted to know this castle and the people in it like the back of his hand.

He had to start with the biggest mystery – the vaults.

Lately (and he couldn't remember how it started) but the need to find out about the secrets of the vaults had started to become a slight obsession. Geoffrey had, quite rightly, told Arthur that what he was asking the librarian to do would take months, maybe even a year or more. Arthur had accepted this, he didn't need to know everything right away, and it was never possible to know everything right away. Knowledge was gained through hard work and patience. He knew this.

So why did he always find himself wandering down to the vaults in odd moments of his day? Why did he find himself asking for reports to be sent up as soon as they were written? When did the desperate need to uncover the hidden truths of the vaults start seeping into his everyday life? He was becoming paranoid with it. Everywhere he looked was another secret, another mystery, another puzzle. The more he learned about the vaults, the more he began to think about all the other things he might not know about. If he hadn't known about all the treasures right beneath his feet, how many other things had escaped his notice. He was finding riddles where there were none to be found.

He had even become suspicious of Gwen! She had only gone to pick flowers in the meadow one morning and he had questioned her about her motives for this like she was a suspect in a murder investigation. Why did she want to pick flowers when she had a maid to do this? Why didn't she ask him to do it for her? He was romantic enough to want to pick flowers for his new wife. Didn't she like receiving flowers from him anymore? It was ridiculous and he had quickly apologised in a distracted way but the nagging feeling still remained.

The last straw was when he had become convinced that Merlin was hiding something from him, for Gods sake. The man was a blasted open book. If Merlin wasn't free from suspicion then no one was safe and Arthur finally decided rein himself in. (Merlin's wide-eyed terror at being suspected of having a secret over breakfast one morning was enough to make bring Arthur to his senses any day.)

So, for the safety of the kingdom, (and possibly Merlin's blood pressure) he had to know what was in those vaults before he went completely went up the wall.

Unfortunately, he was beginning to doubt that even when he knew everything there was to know about the vaults that his sudden thirst for information would immediately be quenched. When you started exploring, it was very hard to stop.

But he knew he had to be wary. There was a reason why his father had kept these things hidden, kept them secret, in the first place. Most of the artefacts were magic, and magic was dangerous no matter what the original purpose for it was. Magic corrupted even the most innocent of things.

Arthur knew that whatever he discovered in the vaults had to forever remain in the vaults. He could not be tempted to use any power hidden there, all that had been laid to rest there had to return to continue its eternal slumber. He had learnt too many lessons from Sigan to even think about taking advantage of any of the articles that were kept under the citadel.

That was, until there came the day that the library was discovered.

It was a library that had not been stepped foot in for many generations. The door had been hidden behind shelves of trinkets and it was not until those trinkets had been removed and the shelves pushed aside that the handle of a door had been spotted. And no one would have realised it was a door at all if Percival hadn't yanked at the handle and the whole wall appeared to give way. The door ran from the ceiling all the way down to the floor and was twice as high as a man. The seams that held the door flush against the wall were not visible under decades of dirt, not until the dust crumbled away under Percival's strength.

The report that Arthur was reading told him that the first to enter the library had been Percival, shortly followed by Merlin.

(And it would be Merlin, of course, because Arthur specifically remembered ordering Merlin to clean the stables that day so naturally he would be nowhere near them.)

The library was as high as the throne room and just as grand and full of nothing but towering shelves of small wooden carved boxes. Some were inlaid with gold; some were plain and made of inexpensive wood. Some of them were set apart at regular intervals and identified by an ancient script carved onto their lids and some of them were discarded, piled high on top of each other in corners, nooks and niches. One of these small boxes could fit into the palm of Arthur's hand comfortably. And for the whole room to be filled to bursting with them meant that there had to be hundreds on those shelves. Hundreds of small, carefully carved locked boxes.

They were calling it a library as this was what Geoffrey had translated the plaque on the door to read after it had been freed of a at least a century of dirt. The language was apparently old enough to predate the building of the castle which just brought up more questions than it answered. Did this mean there was a city here before Camelot? Did his father know about this 'library'? There were no records left from the time before his father invaded this land. It was possible that he knew about a city or that the city was still standing when he arrived and he just built a castle in its centre. But the library was so undisturbed and had looked like it had been that way for more like centuries rather than decades so Arthur deduced that Uther could not have known about the library and that any city that was here when his father arrived couldn't have been more than ruins already half-hidden by time.

So here was another riddle that Arthur had to decipher. A room that had been here before even the castle was built, in fact even before the city was built. Filled with small unassuming, wooden boxes.

Geoffrey, with the help of Gaius and Merlin, was already starting to translate the script that littered the walls, ceilings and floors. Gaius estimated that there must be at least a hundred page book written on the many surfaces of the library. Frustratingly, they had yet to find page one and Gaius explained that it would be foolish and almost impossible to try interpret any intelligible meaning behind the words without putting them in context. Starting from the beginning would give them that context.

On one of his impatient and investigatory trips to Geoffrey's study chambers Arthur had discovered Gaius and Geoffrey pouring over pages and pages of wax rubbings taken from the library as he had expected he would.

Merlin had apparently shirked his chores for the afternoon and joined them, he was sitting in the corner of the room, rocking on a very unstable looking chair, staring intently at one of the wooden boxes. He was turning it carefully over and over again in his slender fingers, occasionally stroking the carvings on the outside. He was so intent in his scrutiny of the box that he appeared to have completely missed Arthur's entrance. They all had. They were all transfixed.

Arthur couldn't blame them. The writing in front of them was not just any old scrawl. The letters had been carved so carefully in either stone or wood, it looked more like artwork than any kind of book passage. The calligraphy depicted on the boxes and the walls was some of the finest work Arthur had ever seen. Anyone who had even the briefest glance of it would be enticed to read it.

Apart from Gwaine who was currently asleep in the chair next to Merlin.

"Merlin!" Arthur barked and was immensely satisfied to see everyone in the room jump and Merlin set his chair back onto all four of it's legs with a surprised thump (Gwaine snorted in his sleep but otherwise was undisturbed) "I specifically remember telling you to get the dents out of my armour today. At no point did I say that you were spend the day twiddling your thumbs down here,"

Merlin placed the box on the desk with a collection of various other boxes from the library and got up. "Yes, well, I'd just finished so I thought I'd drop by here to see if Gaius needed any help," he smiled. "You know me, always willing to lend a hand,"

Arthur sighed but decided to ignore Merlin's blatant laziness in favour of asking Gaius and Geoffrey if they had got any further in translating the text. Gaius had little news other than to say that they seemed to know why it was called a library even though it held no books. The script seemed to imply that the small chests each held a piece of parchment inside sealed with a wax stamp.

"Has anyone actually opened one of them yet?" Arthur asked.

This seemed like the most obvious thing in the world to Arthur. Find a secret room, full of secret boxes, the next logical step is to open secret boxes to see what's inside. He picked up one of the more plain-looking chests, it didn't look like it would be hard to pry it open. His fingers itched to try. That urge to know more, to draw the veil away from the mystery, bubbled in his chest again.

"I don't think that would be wise at this moment in time, sire," Gaius said in warning and removed the box from Arthur's hand. Very much like he used to when Arthur was a child and had picked up one of his vials of potions to play with. Arthur suppressed the boiling curiosity in his chest for favour of another day.

"Why not?" Arthur said petulantly.

"We have no idea what kind of information could be found inside, if there are any traps and there are indications that magic could be involved," Gaius reasoned.

The last part caught Arthur's attention.

"There are signs of magic?" he asked.

"Sire," Gaius sighed "This is all written in an ancient dialect of the Old Religion. It is highly likely that this room has seen all manners of magic over the years,"

"This is the language of the Old Religion?" Arthur said pointing to a wax rubbing in astonishment. He was astonished because he had never seen it written down, and that it was so… beautiful looking. For some reason, he imagined the script of the Old Religion to be written in harsh forms and jagged lines (possibly in blood), but this looked natural and flowing like the author took great care and love in what was being said, like they wanted it to be kept treasured for an eternity. He was also astonished because nobody had seemed to think that it was important to let the King in on this little titbit of information.

"One tongue, if it were more modern I'd have an easier time translating but this appears to be an extinct dialect," Gaius continued but paused at Arthur's concerned glare. "We did not think it right to worry you with this information until we were sure, sire,"

Arthur nodded mutely.

But he also bristled slightly at the idea of information being purposefully withheld from him.

He was just being paranoid, he knew, but after everything that had happened… with Morgana… with Agravaine, he just couldn't have people keeping things from him. Not anymore. And if he was totally honest with himself, this was probably the root of this obsession with the vaults. And his general obsession with having to know everything.

"I'd like to be kept apprised of all new discoveries as they are made Gaius," Arthur said sternly "I want to know what we are dealing with,"

"Yes, sire," Gaius agreed. Geoffrey nodded his consent in the background. Merlin did not appear to be paying attention to the conversation at all. He was back to staring at the box he had put down again, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed.

"You can send Merlin with messages," Arthur decided "Seeing as how I can't get him to leave this project alone anyway. He might as well make himself useful,"

Merlin paid no heed to the gentle mocking. He was still staring at the box.

"Merlin?" Arthur waved an arm in front of his face.

"Hmm?" he blinked and looked up at Arthur.

"I swear, Merlin, you must be the most useless servant I have ever had the misfortune of employing," Arthur grumbled and left the room when Merlin just decided to grin in response.

Merlin took to his new assignment like a duck to water. He spent every available minute helping Gaius and Geoffrey. Apparently he was quite the research assistant. Arthur was fully updated at every meal. Merlin would come in with his lunch and give accounts of what had happened during the morning and then again at dinner, when he was serving Arthur and Guinevere in his chambers, he would witter on about another word they had just learnt or their differing theories on how old it is. The words didn't make a lot of sense on their own and Gaius and Geoffrey were just starting to piece them together and give them that all important context.

There were even times when Merlin had arrived on time for breakfast having just worked through the night with one or both of the older men. Arthur had never seen Merlin so enthused about something in all the time he had known him. And, for once, his constant chatter was actually interesting to Arthur.

Until one morning, just as they were getting so very close to putting all the pieces together and Arthur had actually been planning to spend the day in the librarian's study reading through the text together, Merlin had come up with his breakfast and hadn't said a word past the obligatory 'Good morning'.

Normally Arthur would just be thankful for the peace and quiet but he had grown accustomed to his morning updates on the writing.

"What is it?" Arthur asked Merlin irritably.

Gwen came to sit down beside him at the table as they waiting for Merlin to present their breakfast. She peered up at Merlin with a concerned expression. She too had become rather used to his incessant talking in the morning.

"Hmm?" Merlin does a very good 'innocent look' when he wants to. Arthur would have to look out for that in the future.

"Something is obviously wrong, Merlin," Arthur said as his breakfast platter was placed in front of him.

Merlin laid out Gwen's breakfast with a smile, which she returned and then he stood up straight and looked thoughtful or conflicted or puzzled. Any one of those emotions would fit.

"Out with it, Merlin," Arthur said impatiently. He didn't have time to worry about one of Merlin's mood swings. He was eager to go down to the study, the bubbling curiosity in his chest had finally reached boiling point.

"I don't think we should explore this library anymore," Merlin blurted just as Arthur was about to take a bite of sausage.

"Oh?" Arthur placed the food back down on his plate and looked at Merlin in exasperation.

"I just have a bad feeling," Merlin said and Gwen began to look concerned. Arthur wasn't nearly so worried. Merlin had a bad feeling every other day of the week.

It was usually something to do with Gaius' cooking, he was sure.

"And why is that?" Arthur decided to just humour him for a while. It was the only thing to do when Merlin was like this. It had nothing to do with Arthur actually wanting his opinion. Not at all.

"Gaius said that some of the words have meanings like 'sight' and 'foreknowledge' and 'foretell' and 'prediction'. I think… I think it will tell us of things that might not have happened yet. It might give us a glimpse into future events,"

"Well, that's a good thing, Merlin," Arthur scoffed "It will give us an advantage to know what is coming,"

"But what if you find out that something terrible is going to happen…" Merlin started saying, almost begging him to understand. Understand what though, Arthur was unsure. Merlin had a different way of thinking that was never really in sync with Arthur's thought processes. "…and you can't…even though you try… you can't stop it from happening because it has already been foretold that it would…happen,"

Arthur narrowed his eyes at his manservant. Merlin was imploring to Arthur to listen with everything in his body but his eyes. His shoulders were hunched forward, his arms respectfully behind his back. From the motion of his chest, Arthur could see he was struggling to keep his breathing even. But his eyes, his eyes were anywhere but meeting Arthur's gaze.

He could only assume that Merlin was suddenly afraid because he's probably worked himself too hard and was now seeing ghosts waiting in the shadows due to his exhaustion. He had been so eager to read the script yesterday. The library in the vaults did give out a certain aura. Something ancient and powerful, Merlin would be an idiot not be cautious at this stage. But just to make sure…

"Did something happen last night?" Arthur began "Something that I should know about?"

This caused Merlin to finally meet his eyes.

"No," he said quickly "I just don't think this is a good idea anymore,"

Arthur looked Merlin once over again. The servant had gone back to not meeting his gaze. Gwen was sending him a silent message of concern from across the table for which Arthur just shrugged in response.

"Well, thank you, Merlin," Arthur said sarcastically, chest tightening when Merlin's shoulders appeared to droop in disappointed inevitability. They both knew that this was the moment that Merlin's advice was deftly ignored by Arthur and they went and did the dangerous thing anyway (not that Arthur thought it was dangerous this time. Who ever died from reading?). Yes, Arthur was aware he did it. But when someone as stubborn and arrogant as Arthur got into a routine of behaviour with someone, it was difficult to stop. His and Merlin's relationship was based on a very simple rule: Merlin was an idiot, Arthur was a prat. Idiots shouldn't be listened to, prats didn't listen. It was only on those very rare and dark, dark nights that this rule was broken.

It hadn't got that dark yet.

"But if you don't mind…" Arthur continued regardless "I'm going to read what Gaius and Geoffrey have spent days translating anyway. You're dismissed,"

"Yes, sire,"

Arthur watched Merlin leave the room with a sigh.

"He could have stayed, Arthur," Gwen said once Merlin had shut the chamber door behind him.

She looked at him with the same kind of disappointment that Merlin had left with. He knew Gwen didn't like it when he treated Merlin more like a servant than a friend. But he was a servant for gods' sake. He didn't need to feel guilty for that.

"Do you still think uncovering this library is a good idea?" she asked with a searching voice.

"Why? Because of what Merlin said?" Arthur said angrily.

"Yes," Gwen admonished. Arthur almost sat back in an attempt to get away from the glare she was directing at him. "He was genuinely worried about you, Arthur. His concerns should not be dismissed so readily. Merlin has been a good friend to you,"

"You're right," Arthur admitted. He would like to say that this meant he would listen to Merlin next time.

But he knew he would be lying.

Gwen smiled at him anyway.

It didn't take long for Arthur to finish his breakfast and arrive at the study in time to see Gaius placing his quill back into it's inkwell with a very definite air of finality.

Merlin was standing nervously in the corner of the room, his arms hugging himself with his hair stuck up at odd angle like he had just spent the last few minutes running his hands through it. Gaius was frowning at him and then down at the parchment and then the frown was very much directed at Arthur and his appearance in the room.

The atmosphere had definitely taken a turn for the worst since Arthur was last down here.

Geoffrey had yet to arrive but the room already felt small with only the three of them standing in it. There was no excited talk or hushed whispers of men focused on their task. The air was still and the tension was high.

"Sire," Gaius began. "The translation of the first passage is complete. I would like you to read it carefully, the writing on the floor and the walls appears to be some kind journal, each paragraph is a new entry,"

"What do you mean?" Arthur asked warily and began to walk over to where Gaius sat, huddled over his parchment.

"They were keeping a diary," Gaius finished and handed over the parchment filled with his neat uniform handwriting. "Geoffrey has read this and has gone to the castle library to find some old tomes that may shed some light on this…"

Arthur hesitantly took the parchment, with a brief glance at Merlin who looked like he was a man who had long ago accepted his sentence and was walking comfortably to the gallows. Arthur dismissed this as

"On these walls, in this room, is written was has been, what is and what will be. The Kings have instructed the Seers to make a record of the future, where somebody can come to know their destiny if they so wish. So all may be blessed with the foresight. So we can all live enlightened. One will only have to open their chest to read their prediction."

There is a break in the script and Gaius has started a new line.

"The Kings will soon fall. Word has arrived from the Northern borders, the betrayer has been found. The time has started. The Old Prophecies will begin to unravel. Albion will be divided and will call upon the Once and Future King to unite us now and for all time. The Seers and the Prophets under the library's care can no longer See any future other than the life of our King."

"So much destruction. So much death. We will be hunted. We will be massacred. The Once and Future king will forsake us. Magic will fall. But Magic will follow him. For all his days Magic will follow him,"

"The Seers and the Prophets have moved aside the chests that have no relevance to Old Prophecies and have now begun to fill the remaining chests with new writings of the Once and Future King and the Sorcerer Immortal. We do this in the hope that he will one day find this place and See what we See. For such an important Destiny, it is so fragile. He will be our greatest King. This, no one can argue but there is a potential for great tragedy as well as great success."

"There is so much darkness in one lifetime. The Sorcerer Immortal will suffer greatly. Our prayers are with him always."

"The armies are drawing nearer. They surround us on all sides. Such knowledge that we have gathered here needs to be hidden. Any man that possesses this knowledge solely will be greatly burdened but have great power. This knowledge is not ready to be revealed at this time."

"One soul, one coin, one destiny."

"Read this our King and know that you have a choice. You may continue to read and gain great Sight or you can turn away and these secrets shall be hidden forever. These prophecies are only for you and the Sorcerer Immortal's eyes to see. Choose wisely Arthur."

The king looked up from reading and locked onto Gaius' serious expression. He didn't know what he must look like. Probably something like a rabbit caught by a fox.

"It's talking about me?"

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