Автор: Eleonore Magilinon
Фандом: Merlin BBC
Категория: adventure, drama, friendship, slight romance
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin BBC while my personal ideas aren't worth caring about.
Prologue.
Tap, tap, tap.
She was having her peaceful sleep without any dreams, the same way she did each night since the time her sister had given her the remedy presenting her with the enchanted bracelet, when she was woken up by the low sound of footsteps echoing in the corridor just outside her chambers. The room was plunged into darkness that even the moonlight did not penetrate, indicating it was well past midnight, hardly any time for someone to wander the castle's passages, someone other than guards who always marched in pairs... and herself on the nights she sneaked out of the castle to meet her sister. She didn't even think about calling for help – she had passed the time when she could rely on someone other than herself in that cursed castle, and she was not willing to hand the situation over until she were to understand what was going on.
So she just slipped out of her room to catch the shadow disappearing in the end of the passage. As followed it, she was astounded to find around the corner not another scarcely lit corridor with its old tarnished stones but the glorious hallway illuminated by two lines of torches. But somehow rather than unnatural all that splendour felt like it truly belonged to the place, more than the vision she was used to. In the strong light the shadow she was chasing after changed into a figure of a middle-aged man, raven-haired, tall and undoubtedly strong in both body and will, advancing forward in a purposeful stride. But there was something more to that unusual visitor, who was behaving more like the master of the castle than an uninvited guest, so sure of himself that one could start to wonder if he really was in charge of the place. But he, whoever he was, continued onward, one passage after another and she could hardly keep pace with him, no even thinking about being cautious not to get discovered. Actually, she wasn't even sure she had to hide, not after she almost lost the sight of the stranger to find him slowing his pace as if he was making sure she would be able to follow.
He proceeded down the staircases she vaguely recognized as the ones that led to the dungeons, and then, after taking an unusual turn to face the dead end, he approached the wall and started to count aloud in low and imperious voice. He finished his calculations by pressing two specific stones and turning the empty touch-hold to the side – to make the secret passage reveal itself and continue down and down for what seemed like hours to end in the huge square hall, lit not by the torches but by lines of candles circling round the walls. Candles that did not look like they burned more than a few minutes but clearly wasn't attended to for a long time.
Magic. Everything there, the niches with statues and stone tablets, the jewels mounted into walls, pedestals at for sides holding the tokens of four elements – everything in the room beamed with ancient and wise sorcery. Magic so powerful it made her unable to enter, stopping her on the last step of the ladder and only letting her be a silent observer to the ceremony unfolding before her eyes.
The man removed his his long robe and spread his hands in the air in one masterful gesture, and commenced to cast something that even she could recognize as a spell of great and unrivaled power.
“Eorthe, lyft, fyr, waeter, hiersumie me”, - he turned to the first token, incrusted with dozens of small ember stones gathered around the huge one in the very heart, ember stones which seemed like the fire itself was dancing inside them, - “Eorthe, lyft, fyr, waeter, hiersumie me”, - he turned to the same Aquamarine constellation, inside of which the sound of the rain and the waves could be heard - “Eorthe, lyft, fyr, waeter, hiersumie me”, - he asked the airy and clear Celestite with its soft whistle, - “Eorthe, lyft, fyr, waeter, hiersumie me”, - he demanded before the Emerald, to continue with the myriad of words she could not comprehend. She could, however, make out what purpose the ritual served, - and at the moment she understood that, she understood also who the man before her was... but how could this...
She couldn't finish the thought that ran through her mind, as at that very second the man whose face she had not once seen since the moment she had met him, turned to her and the sight made the mind go completely blank.
The black, bottomless eyes without sockets, staring at her, devouring her, freezing her very soul...
Heart-rending scream filled the air, - and lady Morgana woke up, breathing heavily as blinding daylight streamed into her wide-open eyes. But the worst of all was the piercing pain in her right wrist, where the enchanted bracelet now burned like fire.
She'd never had such a terrifying nightmare, not even before she was given the bracelet at all. And while it protected her for more than two years since the day she first worn it, the item didn't help this time. And while the explanation could theoretically lie in her growing magical powers, another answer was far more probable. Someone with enormous magical powers of his own presented her with that dream. Someone whose name Morgana learned and feared from her childhood but who now shared with her a common goal and thus entrusted her an opportunity she wasn't going to miss.
The Camelot will fall because of the ignorance of its own King and his hatred for magic.
Absolutely perfect.
Chapter 1. Wrath of the Earthly Gods.
It was the following morning the guards of the castle's dungeons brought the word of the secret passage being found open, the passage that led a long way down into the chamber in the very foundation of the castle, presumably created at the time of its construction as the “mystical heart” of the building by the great sorcerer Cornelius Sigan...