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definewisdomMaster Post
part 5
The Dragon’s lair was more like a cave in the centre of a labyrinth: deep underground, and led to by twisting, turning passageways that intersected and doubled back on themselves. When Will finally made it to the middle his relief was cut out from under him. The place was destroyed, decimated and, slumped over the controls was the body of the Dragon, in a pool of his own blood. The operative had made it there first.
He knew that somewhere above him, his crew were fighting, and probably dying, to give him this chance, a chance that he was not going to get now.
He walked over to the body and reached out to close the man’s eyes, and as he did so he caught sight of a flash of gold, a coin held between his two fingers.
Will touched it softly and suddenly there was a roar from behind him.
He turned, his gun at the ready, to face a huge dragon, wings extended, from one side of the room to the other, its huge head reaching down to him. He was about to pull the trigger when it drew back.
“William, I knew you’d make it… I did it for my freedom,” it said in the Dragon’s voice, and Will gaped. It was clearly some kind of magical projection. He reached out to touch it, but it was no more solid than the air. “They killed me anyway. I just had enough time to leave this, before… I should have known not to trust them. But I didn’t tell them everything. There’s a second set of equipment, further down, near the generator. They won’t have found it. Use it.”
The dragon roared again before fading into nonexistence.
Will smiled grimly to himself and set off. He added the Dragon to the faces of the dead that watched him from his mind and nodded. The Alliance would pay.
*
From behind the crates, Merlin was keeping the Skinlaekers magic from touching them. His forehead began to drip with sweat. He was trying to hold them off Lancelot as well, but he couldn’t manage both at once. Arthur took down two with two bullets and then ducked down again to reload. When he looked up again Lancelot was still fighting, blade against blade.
Lancelot took out five of the monsters, hacking at them with skill Arthur had never seen before, even in the academy. His blade was almost a blur, and he wondered, not for the first time, what it must have been like in the war, facing men like this, who were not just fighting for words and duty, but for their land and their lives and their families.
But Lancelot was still just one man taking on an army, and eventually he left too much of an opening and a Skinlaeker took advantage of it, diving forward with a vicious, jagged, dagger extended.
The man collapsed and the Skinlaekers went to drag him back, but they were flung back. Arthur turned to see Merlin standing up, arm extended, breathing heavily.
Lancelot was pulled back by an unseen force until he was back behind the crates and Merlin paused to take a deep breath as Valiant growled and picked up his next biggest gun, turning to blow two more of the enemy away. But they were not even making a dent in the onslaught. The Skinlaekers kept on coming, one after another, a never-ending wave of death.
Arthur was running out of ammunition, and while he still had a sword, he knew that he didn’t want to be forced into close combat. On the other side, Lancelot, one hand clamped over the gash in his side, was struggling to reload his shot gun with one hand. Gwen was still firing determinedly, but her attention was drawn constantly to her husband.
Things were beginning to get desperate.
*
The escape pod had not landed far from the lair, directly on top of it in fact, and that was where the Captain would be, Edwin was certain.
By now he might even have found the mess of broken computers that they had left for him, and the dead body of the Dragon collapsed over his pride and joy. He might have finally come to realise that his cause was doomed from the beginning and that there was no way out.
But Edwin, or whatever his name had been before he had become the Alliance’s assassin, was not expecting surrender. He had seen the man’s war record. He knew the type – holding on past the time when things seemed desperate, past the time when things were clearly hopeless, and beyond to fighting battles that had already been lost – wars that had been done for years.
No, there would be no surrender. But there would be a final battle, which Captain Moore would lose, and which would bring this event to an honourable conclusion.
People were dying above them, people who were not involved in this fight. They were dying in horrifying ways.
Edwin was very nearly angry. As close to angry as he could ever remember being. It had been a long time since he had felt anything other than the steady assurance that what he was doing was right.
It tasted bitter in his mouth.
He came out into the Dragon’s quarters and it was as he had imagined it would be – chaotic and totally destroyed. But the Captain was not there. Perhaps he must wait, or perhaps he had already been seized by the Skinlaekers.
Edwin hoped not, that would be an ignominious and untidy end to this little debacle.
The Dragon was still slumped where he had left him, but one hand seemed raised.
Edwin crossed over and looked down into the man’s fingers, where the corpse clenched, between thumb and forefinger, the shine of gold.
“A lucky charm?” he asked the body, not receiving a supply. “Belief in luck is… irrational. It is governed by neither science nor magic. It does not exist. You cannot rely on luck, my friend. These things are organised by people who do not allow luck to tamper with their plans. There can be nothing so irrational in the quest for a better world.”
He reached down to touch it, more on a whim than anything, and as he did so, there came a terrible sound from behind him and he turned to find himself facing a true dragon – wings out stretched, eyes promising flame.
“William, I knew you’d make it…” the Dragon’s final words resounded again, to the wrong person. Edwin smiled, serene as ever. But beneath it all, he was beginning to feel the thrill of the hunt.
*
Arthur saw Valiant fall back out of the corner of his eye, and he heard the yell of pain.
“Fall back,” he said, “We have to fall back.” He remembered his lessons. When to fight and when to retreat was one of the most important things, his instructors had said. Better to fall back and regroup than to fight until every part of your force was gone. “Behind the doors… Merlin, can you buy us enough time?”
The Sensitive nodded, standing up again and extending his hand, although Arthur could see that he was not as strong as he had been before, the Skinlaekers were still gaining on them, inch by inch.
He bundled Morgana through the doorway first, then helped Valiant limp through as Gwen followed, Lancelot supported by one arm over her shoulders, still shooting as he went. Arthur kept firing as Merlin fell back through the doors and then he dived through himself as Merlin began to close the blast doors.
His jump through the doors took him crashing to the ground, and he could feel the projectile flash over his head, just grazing his hair. And then he heard the thud and the gasp as Merlin collapsed. He was on his feet and running in a second, skidding to a stop on his knees by Merlin where he lay, breathing heavily, his face a mass of pain.
“They’re…” he said, gasping for air, “the Skinlaekers, I let my guard down… they’re…” his words faded into what was almost a whimper.
“Merlin?” he asked. The mechanic managed to look at him, but Arthur could see that he couldn’t focus properly, “just stay with us.”
“The doors,” Valiant said, firing another round through the hole as one of the Skinlaekers tried to climb through after them. Arthur turned to see that the doors were still half open. Merlin had been prevented from finishing the job.
“Merlin… can the doors be closed manually?” he asked, trying to ignore how the mechanic’s breath was coming in little gasps.
“Yes…” Merlin wheezed slightly, his voice was small, “But… only from the outside... you have to… cross the red wires. Short circuit it…”
“There’s no way you can get back in after you do that,” Valiant pointed out. Lancelot began to struggle to his feet, but his legs gave way before he even got upright and he fell back with a gasp of pain. Valiant tossed his final grenade through the hole and the ensuing explosion made the world shudder.
Arthur looked around. Lancelot was out of the equation, and he could not ask Gwen, where she sat next to him, looking scared and determined all at once; Valiant could only just about fire; Merlin was rapidly losing consciousness and Morgana… He looked over to where she huddled in the corner, her hands clamped over his ears. He was the only one left. Not that it would have mattered, Arthur would have done it anyway.
As the decision solidified in his mind, Morgana looked over at him, their gazes fixing. She knew what he was about to do, he could see it in her eyes as she stared at him.
“I’m out of ammo,” Valiant said, swearing under his breath. “This is my last clip. I must have left the rest outside.”
“I’ll get it,” Arthur said, firmly.
“Arthur… that’s suicide,” Lancelot said.
“And who else do you suggest goes?” he asked. Lancelot didn’t answer. Gwen, beside him looked guilty and opened her mouth to speak, but Arthur stopped her with a wave of his hand.
It felt easier now, the fear wasn’t gone, but it was deep down inside him, squashed beneath the adrenaline and the knowledge that this was the right thing to do. He took a deep breath, feeling a little like he was walking a path that had been set down for him years ago, a path he had always known he would take.
He pushed himself to his feet, but no sooner had he turned round than he felt himself being propelled backwards by a force against his stomach, until he fell to the floor. It took a second for the shock to fade and the pain to set in. Arthur put a curious hand down to where the force had hit him and felt that it was wet. When he lifted it to see what had spilt on him, his hand was shiny red, dripping down.
“Ah…” he said, as it sunk in. He had never been shot before. The academy told you what to do when it happened, but they didn’t tell you what it felt like. They didn’t mention the way it took all the breath out of you, or the way you didn’t quite feel like you were in your own body anymore. They didn’t tell you that the pain got so bad that you couldn’t quite think straight. He knew that Merlin was lying next to him, he knew that Lancelot was dragging himself over and pressing his hands into the wound, applying pressure, he knew that Morgana was crawling to his side but he couldn’t focus on anything really, other than the pain and the fact that he was going to die here.
Morgana was kneeling over him now, looking down at him so clearly that he could almost imagine that it was before any of this had happened and she was about to tell him off for being an idiot.
“Idiot,” she said, touching him lightly on the forehead. “You always have to be so noble.” She smiled. “You’ve more than repaid the debt, you know.”
“Never,” he said, trying to smile, but the muscles of his face felt thick and unwieldy. “I swore I’d protect you.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I’m the older sibling,” she smiled. “It’s my job.”
She stood up swiftly, in one graceful movement, and Arthur was reminded of when they were younger and their father insisted they take dancing lessons. Morgana had taken to it like a duck to water, all grace and fine lines. Arthur had been suffering from his latest growth spurt, his arms and legs too big for his body and, as always, more suited to fighting than to grace.
“I’m supposed to take care of you,” she said.
Arthur wanted to stop her, he wanted to grab hold of her and prevent her from moving one centimetre more towards the open doors, but she was already gone, and his arms didn’t seem to be connected to his brain, so he could just see her disappear in a flurry of blue.
The ammunition and the last gun came through first, then Morgana reached to come back, but her arms were grabbed and yanked away by thick, scarred hands. He just saw her wave one hand at the doors so that they begin to slide away, moving them with only her mind, before there was nothing else and she disappeared into the crowd of bodies beyond.
*
Down below the Dragon’s lair was a bigger cave. Will couldn’t see the bottom. The walls just faded into darkness as he stood on the rocky outcrop that could have been a ledge. In the centre of the darkness, maybe twenty-five metres, maybe fifty metres, the sheer vastness of the cavern giving him little to judge distance by, was another rocky pillar with what looked like the secondary computer system standing on it.
“I don’t have bloody wings,” he muttered to the dead man’s ghost, in case of the somewhat spurious possibility that it was still hanging around.
Hanging around… Will looked up.
“Fuck… why is nothing ever sodding easy?” he asked of thin air as he caught sight of the chains and bars that were above him, making up some intricate part of the generator, no doubt. Or maybe the Dragon had just put them there as some sort of playground, for when he got bored of watching the ‘verse’s news and broadcasts.
Will walked to the edge of the outcrop and looked down. There were similar devices beneath him. Poles that jutted out from one side of the cave to the other, curious lattice-works of chain that hung from here and there and things that almost looked like ladders only horizontal.
It sounded as though some giant mythical monster was breathing down there in the dark. But as Will listened more closely, he realised that it was the whirr of the generator.
It was a long way down.
He shuddered and looked up again. The nearest of the projections – a strange metal hoop, was a good few metres away from the edge, but a little below his height. And he could just about make out a path from that – clinging to pipes and chains – to the centre.
Will stepped back, and back again, until he was almost out of the cave entirely, then he began to run
Before he could leap, flames leapt up in front of him and he had to skid to a halt to avoid being burnt. He turned to find the Operative standing behind him, watching with a curious half smile that seemed almost like victory.
“You cannot win this battle, Will,” Edwin said.
“Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. But I’m damn well going to try.”
“I have seen you are willing to kill for this,”
“I’ve got something that the ‘verse needs to see,” Will replied, “I’m sorry about those people up there, but this has to get through.”
“And this belief you are willing to kill for?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to die for it as well?”
“Yes,” Will replied, pulling his gun from its holster in a swift and practiced movement. The operative’s first mistake had been to only block him from his path, and not to surround him with flames. He had wanted to kill Will in a more personal, honourable fashion, and it would backfire on him. Prolonged exposure to Merlin had given Will more than the usual insight into Sensitives and those with abilities and he knew that the results of the abilities, particularly things such as fire, were difficult to maintain. They required concentration.
You could kill a man, because that only required a short blast of energy, but to keep a man unconscious could drain you because it required a consistent drain on your resources.
One shot went clean through Edwin’s shoulder, the second bounced off his body armour, but they were enough to distract the man so that Will could turn and run, this time managing to reach the leap that took him out onto that strange metal loop.
At first he thought he had misjudged the distance, he was reaching for the metal, but his arms didn’t seem long enough. But somehow he reached it, one hand grasping firmly, the other threatening to slip off with the nervous sweat that was building up on his palms. He readjusted his grip and began to swing his legs to gather momentum for his next jump.
There was a grunt of effort from behind him, and he saw the operative swinging out on a length of chain, one arm clearly far more able than the other.
Will let go and sailed through the air for a moment before grasping onto the nearest length of chain himself. It dipped down under his weight a terrifying amount, and as his full weight hit it, it seemed to be some sort of light switch, and the whole cavern was flooded with orange light.
Will looked down and immediately regretted it. He could see the generator now, right into its heart where things whirred and buzzed and glowed.
The Operative swung with expert ease onto the next chain, using his weaker arm to reach for his gun and shoot across at Will. The bullet came within a hair’s breadth of scoring him on the temple. And he hissed in relief as he heard it thud into the rock wall on the other side.
He swung easily onto the next chain and then the next, until something collided with his side – Edwin’s boot. Clearly fighting to hold on was taking too much of his attention and he couldn’t maintain that and his abilities at the same time, for which Will was grateful.
The glancing blow took the wind out of him though and Will couldn’t make it to the next of his hand-holds before Edwin’s swinging had brought his boot into contact with Will’s ribs again. The Captain thought he felt a rib crack.
He forced himself to breathe through the pain and jumped to the next chain, just barely making it.
He was feet away now, so close, he could taste it. There was a thud as Edwin crashed down onto the rock floor of the back up system and Will grimaced, hurling himself off the chain and through space once again, reaching out for the edge of the rock.
He made it, colliding his chest into the rock viciously, bruising his ribs even further, and he clambered up onto the ledge, turning to face the operative as he came closer.
*
“Morgana,” Arthur whispered. Lancelot leaned over him, one hand on his own wound, the other pressed to Arthur’s. “Why does she never do as she’s told?” he asked of no one in particular.
There were thudding, crashing noises from beyond the blast doors as something, or someone, was hurled into them. A bellow of what sounded like rage came through, muffled, or it might have been a cry of victory.
The five of them huddled together by the wall of the corridor, Arthur and Merlin flat on their backs, Lancelot clutching Gwen’s hand tightly in his own and Valiant supported by the metal. They all tried to imagine themselves somewhere else. But nothing helped.
“Do you think Will made it?” Arthur asked. Lancelot nodded grimly.
“He always has done,” he said, with far more conviction than he had.
*
Morgana was filled with rage, but it wasn’t hers, it wasn’t her own. They were all made up of it – anger and power and pain.
She couldn’t shut it out.
Beyond the door, she could feel hope slowly extinguish.
Deep in the heart of the complex, there was determination and exhaustion.
Alone, they were all alone.
Arthur on the ground, bleeding, trying to do what was right, like he always did beneath that hard exterior; Merlin, comatose beside him; Lancelot accepting his death, Gwen next to him, still hopeful in spite of it all and Valiant – who had never really seen violence as anything more than a game, who just wanted the money and the women, and maybe the power.
Arthur, her little brother.
Somewhere out there, she found something. Something beyond the rage of the Skinlaekers, beyond the despair of her friends, beyond her own worry about Arthur. Somewhere out there, maybe in space, deep in the black where there was nothing and no one, not even the souls, she found something. Something like serenity.
Morgana drew in a deep breath, and found it inside her. The power they had tweaked and toyed with until it grew. The ability they had stuffed inside her where it didn’t really fit, shifting things aside to make room for it.
She reached into it and she shoved it outwards, away from her.
And the monsters around her screamed.
She began to fight, to dance, to weave between them, like she had on Tintagel. But this time she was not following the footsteps, she was leading them. She could see the moves before they happened and she chose what to do.
Her abilities were part of her, like her arms and her legs, and she wove them in too. Shielding herself and hitting out.
No one could touch her as she moved. She grasped a sword, an axe and she cut. Always moving, never stopping, kicking and slashing out with every movement, she cut them down.
They fell around her in swathes, and she kept fighting.
*
Will was tired beyond belief. He ached to his bones, and he couldn’t catch his breath properly. But he didn’t stand down.
He landed a punch to Edwin’s head, full on, knocking the man backwards, but he recovered quickly. The Alliance agent was quicker than he was, better trained than he was, and fresher. Will had barely slept in the past few days, and he was worn thin with grief, anger and worry.
“Now we face each other properly,” the Operative said.
The Captain landed a few more blows, each clumsier than the last, but Edwin parried, and retaliated, the force of his fist making Will stagger back, almost to the edge of the platform.
They were poorly matched, but Will appreciated the contrast they made – the Operative in his well tailored uniform and body armour, barely a scratch on him other than the arm, and Will, in his battered old brown coat, the bullet hole still there over his heart, and his filthy shirt and trousers, stained with blood, mud and sweat.
The disk was still in his pocket, burning a hole in his leg where it rested. He could feel it, and he could see where to put it into the machine, but he couldn’t reach it.
He drew his gun again, and Edwin kicked it out of his hand, and instead, they drew their swords.
Will’s style of fighting had always been clumsier, more hit and miss. He was good with a gun, his aim always somewhere between good and brilliant, but with a blade he was less sure and more force. Lancelot had despaired of his fighting style, saying the only reason he ever won a fight with a sword was because he was too damn stubborn to die, whereas Lancelot had been all about technique.
The Operative was much the same, every movement of his blade clean and swift. It was probably a text-book attack, but Will had never read a textbook on sword fighting (or any kind of fighting) in his life. He had never thought of fighting as something you could learn in any way other than experience.
As such it was a very quick fight, and Will had the impression the man was toying with him, like a cat with a mouse. Edwin didn’t use his magic to hold him in place, or to create more flames, just kept up his attack with the sword until he had struck Will’s away from him, kicking it over the edge so that it fell down into the heart of the generator.
Will was forced to his knees and the blade pressed against his neck, but the assassin made no physical move to hurt him, although the Captain could feel something worming its way into his mind.
He knew that touch, that feeling. He remembered playing games with Merlin when they were children on Ealdor. Hide and Seek with Merlin seeking, unconsciously reaching out to try and find him or, when they were older, Merlin trying to persuade him to do things and automatically trying to do so with his mind as well.
You didn’t grow up with those sort of abilities and not learn how to avoid them.
He made his mind as slippery as he could, burying everything important at the back, deep, deep down, beneath everything. Something that, he had to admit, the war had helped with. You had to separate yourself from what you did when you shot down people you didn’t know.
He pulled up a wall, like a shiny silver mirror, separating him from the thing that was in his mind, and then he stopped – he stopped everything and he waited.
“I am sorry about this, Captain,” Edwin said, “But, please understand, that this is for the best.” He stepped away, raising his sword, and as he did so, Will grabbed his chance.
He struck low and hard, two things that were always a good idea, and Edwin dropped his blade in shock, crumpling slightly. Using energy reserves he had not known he had, Will pulled himself to his feet and grabbed the operative by the pressure points he knew about, paralysing him temporarily, and with a hard blow to the man’s throat, he shut him up.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, Will propped the man against a jutting up piece of rock and limped over to the controls, every breath coming with a wheeze.
“Would you like to know what that secret was?” he asked, without looking back, “the one you’ve killed all those people to protect? The one that wormed its way inside Morgana’s head and drove her mad?”
There was no response, the man couldn’t make any.
“I’m going to show it to you,” Will said, hissing in pain as he reached into his pocket to pull out the disk. “I’m going to show it to the entire ‘verse. They created it you see, the cure you want, the one that will rid the world of evil, the remedy to cure all ills. They made a better world… would you like to see a glimpse of this future you’re trying to create?”
“It won’t do any good,” the man who had been Edwin said, his voice sounding triumphant. “We’ve blocked all signals from Camlann… it won’t get through.”
Will stopped, frozen, and he felt it all crash in around him, down about his ears. All that trouble, his friends upstairs dying for him. All of that was for nothing. He opened his mouth to swear, but changed his mind at the last moment, turning to the Alliance operative where he sat, pinned down.
“But maybe it’ll get through to you.”
*
Morgana stood, surrounded by bodies, the Skinlaekers were still coming, but just the dregs of them now.
She could see everything that was happening, the people beyond the blast doors, the Alliance troops closing in, Will and the operative down in the heart of the lair. She felt his horror, his disappointment, and she felt the block that the Alliance had placed on the planet.
The signal would not get through… they had failed. Will’s mind was full of it, failure.
She whirled around, slicing through another Skinlaeker as it charged at her and she realised… she could do something about that.
*
Everything was dark, as far as Merlin could see. Thick darkness all around him. Just black on black, and nothingness. The pain had stopped, but he was so tired. He tried to will his eyes to open, but they wouldn’t.
And then he heard Morgana’s voice.
Merlin, it was as though she was standing right next to him. He could feel her hand on his arm. I need your help.
I’m tired, he whispered back, feeling ashamed, I can’t.
Yes, you can. He felt her mind filter through his, going through everything, softly and gently, until she came to the part of him that linked him to his magic, and she drew it out, still ever so gentle. We need to show the world. He felt her strength pushing through him. Show me the base, so he did, and she showed him the signal block and the transmitter down below. Fix it, she said.
So he did.
*
Will clicked the disk into place, noting, as he did so, a button with the word ‘walkway’ above it. He entered the code to patch the video into every feed in the ‘verse, and then, with a moment of relish, he pressed play. It might not get through to the ‘verse but…
The system flared into life, and he heard the familiar beeping that indicated a connection to the cortex.
“That’s not possible!” Edwin gasped, “to get past that block you’d need a Sensitive with a technological affinity and you… you can’t. Morgana’s got no aptitude for that… it would take years of training.” Will smirked, thanking Merlin mentally.
He says you’re welcome, Morgana’s voice whispered in his mind, we both do.
The disc began to play and Will turned immediately. He didn’t need to see the images to know what was there, the woman’s face was already burnt into his retinas. He punched the walkway button and watched as it extended out from the platform he stood on, back to the outcrop on the other side. Behind him, the voice of a dead woman rang out from every screen, not just in the room, but every screen on every planet in the ‘verse.
“I thought I was going to be doing good. Helping people to control what they couldn’t help. And at first, we were. But… Things got out of hand…”
And, slumped against a rock, the operative watched, unable to look away as Will limped off back to his crew.
*
When he entered the corridor above, behind the blast doors, he didn’t know whether to be taken aback by how lost and broken his crew were, or by the fact they were alive at all.
Lancelot nodded at him as he appeared, though he did not raise either of his hands. One was wound tightly around Gwen’s where she sat next to him, her other hand covered in blood as it pressed against his side. The other hand was staunching a wound of Arthur’s, who lay in front of him. The blond man’s eyes were just that little bit too bright as he looked at the Captain upside down through his eyelashes.
Valiant gave him a half-salute from where he sat against the wall, still clutching hold of his gun.
On the floor next to Arthur, Merlin looked dead but, on closer inspection, Will could just make out the rise and fall of his chest – unconscious then, and spent physically and mentally, he could tell from the pallor of his face and the frown of his brow.
“It’s done,” were the first words out of his mouth, quickly followed by “Morgana?”
Arthur’s pained look and the sudden blankness of Lancelot’s face were all the answer he needed, but Valiant nodded towards the blast doors with a grimace.
Will looked ahead, confused. Her voice had been in his mind and she had not sounded in pain, or hurt. A shiver went down his spine at the thought of a ghost.
It was silent beyond their corridor. He couldn’t hear anything outside of the doors. No movement… none, until the hiss announced the opening of the doors. He raised the gun he had reclaimed from the ground immediately, and saw Valiant and Arthur do the same, though Lancelot could not move.
But it was not the Skinlaekers they saw as the doors pulled open, not the writhing mass of monsters. They didn’t hear their screams.
Instead the room beyond was still, and the only sound a steady, if quiet, drip… drip…
One figure stood alone in the centre, framed by the doors and by corpses that littered the ground around her. Morgana’s hair fell unruly past her shoulders, a sword was clenched in her hand, held at the ready, and her stillness was that of a snake preparing to strike. He caught her looking at him, clearly. Her eyes pure green, glowing in that way that Merlin’s did when he used his abilities.
The drip came from the blood on her blade.
The world was frozen like that for a moment, the five of them in the corridor all, with the exception of Merlin, tried to take in the scene before them.
Then Alliance troopers came swarming down the tunnel towards them, surrounding Morgana. Some pointing guns towards Will and the others as well.
He could see that Morgana was ready to fight them, he knew that the odds weren’t good – even with her abilities – but her blade lifted infinitesimally and her eyes flicked from one side to another before fixing on Arthur’s face.
One of the Alliance men requested orders on how to proceed, and Will knew immediately who was being asked.
His gun was still pointing towards the blast doors. He could probably take out three or four of them before they gunned him down where he stood. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Gwen was holding her own weapon ready as well, her hands not shaking in the slightest.
“Stand down,” the Operative’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Stand down.”
*
Funerals were held together, and they stood side by side at the side of the cairn they built. Hunith and Gaius’ bodies would be returned to Ealdor for burial. The Dragon they buried there, though, in the place where he had been imprisoned. Will felt a little bad about leaving him there forever, but he was dead now, he supposed that was freedom in a way.
Back aboard Avalon, things were busy, far away from the peace and quiet of the small ceremony they had had away from any centre of civilisation.
Repairs and medical aid were offered, though Will refused the Alliance’s help. Avalon was his ship and he’d fix her. He didn’t need the charity of a broken man.
Engines were found and paid for – Arthur and Morgana, it turned out, had both inherited money from their father, which they could currently make use of since they had been removed from the list of fugitives, if only temporarily.
Things were going to be rough but they’d be in the air soon, flying again, and that would go a long way to settling things down.
When Will walked down the entrance to the cargo hold to find a man with a half scarred face staring at him, he very nearly shot him without asking questions but managed to restrain himself.
“I was on Nimueh,” the man said without looking away. “I’d forgotten – I was small at the time and I must have been there for too short a time for the drugs to have any effect. I remember the fire,” one hand lifted to his face, in wonder. “I always wondered how I got these scars. I remember the shuttle ride away.”
“Good for you,” Will said, turning to grab the crate that had been left outside.
“It’s not over for you, Captain… and it’s certainly not over for the Pendragons.”
“Is that so?”
“I know what I’m talking about,” the scarred man stepped forward as Will looked back over his shoulder. “It might not be soon, it might not be for a long time to come, but they will come looking for you, for vengeance, or for some other reason. The secret of Nimueh was not the only reason they hunted Morgana.”
“So I’ll keep a look out.”
“It might be wise.”
“You’d best be leaving,” Will told him in no uncertain terms. “Because I’m not forgiving either.”
“I understand. You will not see me again.”
“Good.”
When Will turned round again, the man with the scars, whose name had, for a short time, been Edwin, had disappeared into the rain.
*
“You almost died,” Gwen said softly, propping her head up on one hand and looking down at Lancelot where he lay. She allowed the fingers of the other to touch the bandage that lay over his wounds. She couldn’t quite look him in the eye, so he reached out to tilt her head towards his face and not the white expanse of bandage.
“I am still alive.”
“If I hadn’t been there…” she said, slowly, watching Lancelot’s jaw tighten almost imperceptibly.
“You are not to blame for my decisions.”
“I asked you to live for me,” Gwen whispered, her eyes drifting back to his side.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly, she did so. “I do not regret what I did for a moment. Had you not been there, I probably would not have done it, but that is my fault, not yours. I cannot stand back when your life is in danger, I will not.”
“You will not sacrifice your life for mine.”
“I love you… I cannot promise anything else, other than that everything I do comes from that.”
“Lancelot.”
“Hush…” he tugged her face downwards towards him and she went willingly. He kissed her cheeks and her forehead before separating them again so that he could look into her eyes. “It is done, we are alive, we are together. That is all that matters.”
She smiled and allowed him to pull her down once more.
*
In the engine room Merlin was fiddling with parts in a haphazard sort of way. He insisted that there was a system, but no one really believed him.
“Aren’t the parts supposed to go in the engine, Merlin?” A voice asked from behind him and he started, turning round to find Arthur smirking at him from the doorway.
“Like you know anything about engines,” he commented.
“I know they’re supposed to be in one piece,” Arthur commented taking a step forward, before frowning slightly. “How are you doing?”
“Okay…” Merlin said. “It hurts… well, it hurts exactly the same as it did before, but at least I can breathe now. All the way through that, I didn’t let myself think about it, about anything.”
“I know what you mean,” Arthur agreed, coming to crouch down next to the mechanic where he sat. “It’s the adrenaline, it keeps you going.”
“Yeah,” Merlin agreed, “but since it’s been over… I’ve had nothing to keep my mind off things. Fixing Avalon, sure,” he patted the floor affectionately, “but nothing… the terror sort of blew everything away, and now it’s all coming back. My mother’s dead, her body… I just buried her. And Gaius, he was practically my father in a way, and my home.”
“I thought Avalon was your home,” Arthur asked quietly, watching him with intent eyes.
“It is, and it has been for a while,” Merlin paused, turning to look at him, “I guess there was part of me that still thought that it was Ealdor, you know? And now that it’s gone, I can’t ever go back home. I feel like something’s broken.”
“Yes,” Arthur agreed. “It’s a lot like that.” Merlin looked at him in surprise before understanding dawned.
“Of course, your father.”
“Anyway,” Arthur commented, guiding the conversation away from his own loss with all the subtlety of a baby elephant in a glass shop, “what does this do?” he asked, picking up a lump of moulded metal and dangling it between finger and thumb. Merlin’s mouth fell open in horror before he snatched it away.
“That’s the primary conduction chamber, it’s very delicate.”
“Looks like a lump of metal.”
“Philistine,” Merlin snapped, but he had a faint smile on his face.
“What are you doing anyway?” Arthur asked, holding up his hands as if to plead truce. “I thought Will told you to fix the engine, not dissect it.”
“With all the damage, this is the only way to fix it properly… and all these new parts, they need a bit of help to integrate properly.”
“So you’re taking it all apart and putting it back together?” Arthur asked incredulously. Merlin gave him a huge grin and nodded. “Want some help?”
The mechanic looked at him searchingly before nodding slightly.
“You’ll have to do exactly what I say,” he said with a smirk of his own. Arthur blinked, looking horrified. “I’m not having you break anything. We only just got half of these parts in.”
“I’ll do what you say within reason,” Arthur argued. Merlin raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have to help you.”
“Everything I say,” Merlin insisted. Arthur held his stare for a second before nodding with a grimace. “Good… now, pat your head and rub your stomach.”
“Merlin!”
“You agreed: everything I say,” Merlin said with delight, “you are my bitch, Arthur Pendragon.”
*
The bridge was quiet. Lancelot and Gwen were in their cabin, taking some much needed time off. Not that either of them was usually particularly noisy, but their presence tended to keep Will’s mind away from… other things.
They would be flying again in minutes, out into the black, and he’d be putting these bad memories behind him again.
In his head the voices of his dead were a little bit more silent this week than they had been the week before.
“Time heals,” Morgana’s familiar voice came from behind him, and Will turned to see her leaning in the doorway, one eyebrow raised in a way that was almost mocking. But he couldn’t decide whether she was mocking her own words or himself. “Never look back, that’s your motto, right. Just look forward enough to get by, and never look back.”
“It gets you through the day,” Will told her, risking a smile. She returned it easily.
“So… back into the sky,” she said, looking out the windows at the clouds and the rain. “Are you ever going to stop running?”
He didn’t look at her again, just began the sequence to take them up, the same sequence he had seen Gwen use a million times over, the three switches of the ignition, and the buttons in order, before taking hold of the wheel.
“I’m not running anywhere,” he said calmly, as they lifted off the planet, slowly rising, through the rain and the clouds to the clear air beyond, before breaking out of the atmosphere, Avalon humming beneath his hands.
“No… I suppose you’re not.”
-
alternate ending
Translation|other notes|Time Line
part 5
The Dragon’s lair was more like a cave in the centre of a labyrinth: deep underground, and led to by twisting, turning passageways that intersected and doubled back on themselves. When Will finally made it to the middle his relief was cut out from under him. The place was destroyed, decimated and, slumped over the controls was the body of the Dragon, in a pool of his own blood. The operative had made it there first.
He knew that somewhere above him, his crew were fighting, and probably dying, to give him this chance, a chance that he was not going to get now.
He walked over to the body and reached out to close the man’s eyes, and as he did so he caught sight of a flash of gold, a coin held between his two fingers.
Will touched it softly and suddenly there was a roar from behind him.
He turned, his gun at the ready, to face a huge dragon, wings extended, from one side of the room to the other, its huge head reaching down to him. He was about to pull the trigger when it drew back.
“William, I knew you’d make it… I did it for my freedom,” it said in the Dragon’s voice, and Will gaped. It was clearly some kind of magical projection. He reached out to touch it, but it was no more solid than the air. “They killed me anyway. I just had enough time to leave this, before… I should have known not to trust them. But I didn’t tell them everything. There’s a second set of equipment, further down, near the generator. They won’t have found it. Use it.”
The dragon roared again before fading into nonexistence.
Will smiled grimly to himself and set off. He added the Dragon to the faces of the dead that watched him from his mind and nodded. The Alliance would pay.
*
From behind the crates, Merlin was keeping the Skinlaekers magic from touching them. His forehead began to drip with sweat. He was trying to hold them off Lancelot as well, but he couldn’t manage both at once. Arthur took down two with two bullets and then ducked down again to reload. When he looked up again Lancelot was still fighting, blade against blade.
Lancelot took out five of the monsters, hacking at them with skill Arthur had never seen before, even in the academy. His blade was almost a blur, and he wondered, not for the first time, what it must have been like in the war, facing men like this, who were not just fighting for words and duty, but for their land and their lives and their families.
But Lancelot was still just one man taking on an army, and eventually he left too much of an opening and a Skinlaeker took advantage of it, diving forward with a vicious, jagged, dagger extended.
The man collapsed and the Skinlaekers went to drag him back, but they were flung back. Arthur turned to see Merlin standing up, arm extended, breathing heavily.
Lancelot was pulled back by an unseen force until he was back behind the crates and Merlin paused to take a deep breath as Valiant growled and picked up his next biggest gun, turning to blow two more of the enemy away. But they were not even making a dent in the onslaught. The Skinlaekers kept on coming, one after another, a never-ending wave of death.
Arthur was running out of ammunition, and while he still had a sword, he knew that he didn’t want to be forced into close combat. On the other side, Lancelot, one hand clamped over the gash in his side, was struggling to reload his shot gun with one hand. Gwen was still firing determinedly, but her attention was drawn constantly to her husband.
Things were beginning to get desperate.
*
The escape pod had not landed far from the lair, directly on top of it in fact, and that was where the Captain would be, Edwin was certain.
By now he might even have found the mess of broken computers that they had left for him, and the dead body of the Dragon collapsed over his pride and joy. He might have finally come to realise that his cause was doomed from the beginning and that there was no way out.
But Edwin, or whatever his name had been before he had become the Alliance’s assassin, was not expecting surrender. He had seen the man’s war record. He knew the type – holding on past the time when things seemed desperate, past the time when things were clearly hopeless, and beyond to fighting battles that had already been lost – wars that had been done for years.
No, there would be no surrender. But there would be a final battle, which Captain Moore would lose, and which would bring this event to an honourable conclusion.
People were dying above them, people who were not involved in this fight. They were dying in horrifying ways.
Edwin was very nearly angry. As close to angry as he could ever remember being. It had been a long time since he had felt anything other than the steady assurance that what he was doing was right.
It tasted bitter in his mouth.
He came out into the Dragon’s quarters and it was as he had imagined it would be – chaotic and totally destroyed. But the Captain was not there. Perhaps he must wait, or perhaps he had already been seized by the Skinlaekers.
Edwin hoped not, that would be an ignominious and untidy end to this little debacle.
The Dragon was still slumped where he had left him, but one hand seemed raised.
Edwin crossed over and looked down into the man’s fingers, where the corpse clenched, between thumb and forefinger, the shine of gold.
“A lucky charm?” he asked the body, not receiving a supply. “Belief in luck is… irrational. It is governed by neither science nor magic. It does not exist. You cannot rely on luck, my friend. These things are organised by people who do not allow luck to tamper with their plans. There can be nothing so irrational in the quest for a better world.”
He reached down to touch it, more on a whim than anything, and as he did so, there came a terrible sound from behind him and he turned to find himself facing a true dragon – wings out stretched, eyes promising flame.
“William, I knew you’d make it…” the Dragon’s final words resounded again, to the wrong person. Edwin smiled, serene as ever. But beneath it all, he was beginning to feel the thrill of the hunt.
*
Arthur saw Valiant fall back out of the corner of his eye, and he heard the yell of pain.
“Fall back,” he said, “We have to fall back.” He remembered his lessons. When to fight and when to retreat was one of the most important things, his instructors had said. Better to fall back and regroup than to fight until every part of your force was gone. “Behind the doors… Merlin, can you buy us enough time?”
The Sensitive nodded, standing up again and extending his hand, although Arthur could see that he was not as strong as he had been before, the Skinlaekers were still gaining on them, inch by inch.
He bundled Morgana through the doorway first, then helped Valiant limp through as Gwen followed, Lancelot supported by one arm over her shoulders, still shooting as he went. Arthur kept firing as Merlin fell back through the doors and then he dived through himself as Merlin began to close the blast doors.
His jump through the doors took him crashing to the ground, and he could feel the projectile flash over his head, just grazing his hair. And then he heard the thud and the gasp as Merlin collapsed. He was on his feet and running in a second, skidding to a stop on his knees by Merlin where he lay, breathing heavily, his face a mass of pain.
“They’re…” he said, gasping for air, “the Skinlaekers, I let my guard down… they’re…” his words faded into what was almost a whimper.
“Merlin?” he asked. The mechanic managed to look at him, but Arthur could see that he couldn’t focus properly, “just stay with us.”
“The doors,” Valiant said, firing another round through the hole as one of the Skinlaekers tried to climb through after them. Arthur turned to see that the doors were still half open. Merlin had been prevented from finishing the job.
“Merlin… can the doors be closed manually?” he asked, trying to ignore how the mechanic’s breath was coming in little gasps.
“Yes…” Merlin wheezed slightly, his voice was small, “But… only from the outside... you have to… cross the red wires. Short circuit it…”
“There’s no way you can get back in after you do that,” Valiant pointed out. Lancelot began to struggle to his feet, but his legs gave way before he even got upright and he fell back with a gasp of pain. Valiant tossed his final grenade through the hole and the ensuing explosion made the world shudder.
Arthur looked around. Lancelot was out of the equation, and he could not ask Gwen, where she sat next to him, looking scared and determined all at once; Valiant could only just about fire; Merlin was rapidly losing consciousness and Morgana… He looked over to where she huddled in the corner, her hands clamped over his ears. He was the only one left. Not that it would have mattered, Arthur would have done it anyway.
As the decision solidified in his mind, Morgana looked over at him, their gazes fixing. She knew what he was about to do, he could see it in her eyes as she stared at him.
“I’m out of ammo,” Valiant said, swearing under his breath. “This is my last clip. I must have left the rest outside.”
“I’ll get it,” Arthur said, firmly.
“Arthur… that’s suicide,” Lancelot said.
“And who else do you suggest goes?” he asked. Lancelot didn’t answer. Gwen, beside him looked guilty and opened her mouth to speak, but Arthur stopped her with a wave of his hand.
It felt easier now, the fear wasn’t gone, but it was deep down inside him, squashed beneath the adrenaline and the knowledge that this was the right thing to do. He took a deep breath, feeling a little like he was walking a path that had been set down for him years ago, a path he had always known he would take.
He pushed himself to his feet, but no sooner had he turned round than he felt himself being propelled backwards by a force against his stomach, until he fell to the floor. It took a second for the shock to fade and the pain to set in. Arthur put a curious hand down to where the force had hit him and felt that it was wet. When he lifted it to see what had spilt on him, his hand was shiny red, dripping down.
“Ah…” he said, as it sunk in. He had never been shot before. The academy told you what to do when it happened, but they didn’t tell you what it felt like. They didn’t mention the way it took all the breath out of you, or the way you didn’t quite feel like you were in your own body anymore. They didn’t tell you that the pain got so bad that you couldn’t quite think straight. He knew that Merlin was lying next to him, he knew that Lancelot was dragging himself over and pressing his hands into the wound, applying pressure, he knew that Morgana was crawling to his side but he couldn’t focus on anything really, other than the pain and the fact that he was going to die here.
Morgana was kneeling over him now, looking down at him so clearly that he could almost imagine that it was before any of this had happened and she was about to tell him off for being an idiot.
“Idiot,” she said, touching him lightly on the forehead. “You always have to be so noble.” She smiled. “You’ve more than repaid the debt, you know.”
“Never,” he said, trying to smile, but the muscles of his face felt thick and unwieldy. “I swore I’d protect you.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I’m the older sibling,” she smiled. “It’s my job.”
She stood up swiftly, in one graceful movement, and Arthur was reminded of when they were younger and their father insisted they take dancing lessons. Morgana had taken to it like a duck to water, all grace and fine lines. Arthur had been suffering from his latest growth spurt, his arms and legs too big for his body and, as always, more suited to fighting than to grace.
“I’m supposed to take care of you,” she said.
Arthur wanted to stop her, he wanted to grab hold of her and prevent her from moving one centimetre more towards the open doors, but she was already gone, and his arms didn’t seem to be connected to his brain, so he could just see her disappear in a flurry of blue.
The ammunition and the last gun came through first, then Morgana reached to come back, but her arms were grabbed and yanked away by thick, scarred hands. He just saw her wave one hand at the doors so that they begin to slide away, moving them with only her mind, before there was nothing else and she disappeared into the crowd of bodies beyond.
*
Down below the Dragon’s lair was a bigger cave. Will couldn’t see the bottom. The walls just faded into darkness as he stood on the rocky outcrop that could have been a ledge. In the centre of the darkness, maybe twenty-five metres, maybe fifty metres, the sheer vastness of the cavern giving him little to judge distance by, was another rocky pillar with what looked like the secondary computer system standing on it.
“I don’t have bloody wings,” he muttered to the dead man’s ghost, in case of the somewhat spurious possibility that it was still hanging around.
Hanging around… Will looked up.
“Fuck… why is nothing ever sodding easy?” he asked of thin air as he caught sight of the chains and bars that were above him, making up some intricate part of the generator, no doubt. Or maybe the Dragon had just put them there as some sort of playground, for when he got bored of watching the ‘verse’s news and broadcasts.
Will walked to the edge of the outcrop and looked down. There were similar devices beneath him. Poles that jutted out from one side of the cave to the other, curious lattice-works of chain that hung from here and there and things that almost looked like ladders only horizontal.
It sounded as though some giant mythical monster was breathing down there in the dark. But as Will listened more closely, he realised that it was the whirr of the generator.
It was a long way down.
He shuddered and looked up again. The nearest of the projections – a strange metal hoop, was a good few metres away from the edge, but a little below his height. And he could just about make out a path from that – clinging to pipes and chains – to the centre.
Will stepped back, and back again, until he was almost out of the cave entirely, then he began to run
Before he could leap, flames leapt up in front of him and he had to skid to a halt to avoid being burnt. He turned to find the Operative standing behind him, watching with a curious half smile that seemed almost like victory.
“You cannot win this battle, Will,” Edwin said.
“Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. But I’m damn well going to try.”
“I have seen you are willing to kill for this,”
“I’ve got something that the ‘verse needs to see,” Will replied, “I’m sorry about those people up there, but this has to get through.”
“And this belief you are willing to kill for?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to die for it as well?”
“Yes,” Will replied, pulling his gun from its holster in a swift and practiced movement. The operative’s first mistake had been to only block him from his path, and not to surround him with flames. He had wanted to kill Will in a more personal, honourable fashion, and it would backfire on him. Prolonged exposure to Merlin had given Will more than the usual insight into Sensitives and those with abilities and he knew that the results of the abilities, particularly things such as fire, were difficult to maintain. They required concentration.
You could kill a man, because that only required a short blast of energy, but to keep a man unconscious could drain you because it required a consistent drain on your resources.
One shot went clean through Edwin’s shoulder, the second bounced off his body armour, but they were enough to distract the man so that Will could turn and run, this time managing to reach the leap that took him out onto that strange metal loop.
At first he thought he had misjudged the distance, he was reaching for the metal, but his arms didn’t seem long enough. But somehow he reached it, one hand grasping firmly, the other threatening to slip off with the nervous sweat that was building up on his palms. He readjusted his grip and began to swing his legs to gather momentum for his next jump.
There was a grunt of effort from behind him, and he saw the operative swinging out on a length of chain, one arm clearly far more able than the other.
Will let go and sailed through the air for a moment before grasping onto the nearest length of chain himself. It dipped down under his weight a terrifying amount, and as his full weight hit it, it seemed to be some sort of light switch, and the whole cavern was flooded with orange light.
Will looked down and immediately regretted it. He could see the generator now, right into its heart where things whirred and buzzed and glowed.
The Operative swung with expert ease onto the next chain, using his weaker arm to reach for his gun and shoot across at Will. The bullet came within a hair’s breadth of scoring him on the temple. And he hissed in relief as he heard it thud into the rock wall on the other side.
He swung easily onto the next chain and then the next, until something collided with his side – Edwin’s boot. Clearly fighting to hold on was taking too much of his attention and he couldn’t maintain that and his abilities at the same time, for which Will was grateful.
The glancing blow took the wind out of him though and Will couldn’t make it to the next of his hand-holds before Edwin’s swinging had brought his boot into contact with Will’s ribs again. The Captain thought he felt a rib crack.
He forced himself to breathe through the pain and jumped to the next chain, just barely making it.
He was feet away now, so close, he could taste it. There was a thud as Edwin crashed down onto the rock floor of the back up system and Will grimaced, hurling himself off the chain and through space once again, reaching out for the edge of the rock.
He made it, colliding his chest into the rock viciously, bruising his ribs even further, and he clambered up onto the ledge, turning to face the operative as he came closer.
*
“Morgana,” Arthur whispered. Lancelot leaned over him, one hand on his own wound, the other pressed to Arthur’s. “Why does she never do as she’s told?” he asked of no one in particular.
There were thudding, crashing noises from beyond the blast doors as something, or someone, was hurled into them. A bellow of what sounded like rage came through, muffled, or it might have been a cry of victory.
The five of them huddled together by the wall of the corridor, Arthur and Merlin flat on their backs, Lancelot clutching Gwen’s hand tightly in his own and Valiant supported by the metal. They all tried to imagine themselves somewhere else. But nothing helped.
“Do you think Will made it?” Arthur asked. Lancelot nodded grimly.
“He always has done,” he said, with far more conviction than he had.
*
Morgana was filled with rage, but it wasn’t hers, it wasn’t her own. They were all made up of it – anger and power and pain.
She couldn’t shut it out.
Beyond the door, she could feel hope slowly extinguish.
Deep in the heart of the complex, there was determination and exhaustion.
Alone, they were all alone.
Arthur on the ground, bleeding, trying to do what was right, like he always did beneath that hard exterior; Merlin, comatose beside him; Lancelot accepting his death, Gwen next to him, still hopeful in spite of it all and Valiant – who had never really seen violence as anything more than a game, who just wanted the money and the women, and maybe the power.
Arthur, her little brother.
Somewhere out there, she found something. Something beyond the rage of the Skinlaekers, beyond the despair of her friends, beyond her own worry about Arthur. Somewhere out there, maybe in space, deep in the black where there was nothing and no one, not even the souls, she found something. Something like serenity.
Morgana drew in a deep breath, and found it inside her. The power they had tweaked and toyed with until it grew. The ability they had stuffed inside her where it didn’t really fit, shifting things aside to make room for it.
She reached into it and she shoved it outwards, away from her.
And the monsters around her screamed.
She began to fight, to dance, to weave between them, like she had on Tintagel. But this time she was not following the footsteps, she was leading them. She could see the moves before they happened and she chose what to do.
Her abilities were part of her, like her arms and her legs, and she wove them in too. Shielding herself and hitting out.
No one could touch her as she moved. She grasped a sword, an axe and she cut. Always moving, never stopping, kicking and slashing out with every movement, she cut them down.
They fell around her in swathes, and she kept fighting.
*
Will was tired beyond belief. He ached to his bones, and he couldn’t catch his breath properly. But he didn’t stand down.
He landed a punch to Edwin’s head, full on, knocking the man backwards, but he recovered quickly. The Alliance agent was quicker than he was, better trained than he was, and fresher. Will had barely slept in the past few days, and he was worn thin with grief, anger and worry.
“Now we face each other properly,” the Operative said.
The Captain landed a few more blows, each clumsier than the last, but Edwin parried, and retaliated, the force of his fist making Will stagger back, almost to the edge of the platform.
They were poorly matched, but Will appreciated the contrast they made – the Operative in his well tailored uniform and body armour, barely a scratch on him other than the arm, and Will, in his battered old brown coat, the bullet hole still there over his heart, and his filthy shirt and trousers, stained with blood, mud and sweat.
The disk was still in his pocket, burning a hole in his leg where it rested. He could feel it, and he could see where to put it into the machine, but he couldn’t reach it.
He drew his gun again, and Edwin kicked it out of his hand, and instead, they drew their swords.
Will’s style of fighting had always been clumsier, more hit and miss. He was good with a gun, his aim always somewhere between good and brilliant, but with a blade he was less sure and more force. Lancelot had despaired of his fighting style, saying the only reason he ever won a fight with a sword was because he was too damn stubborn to die, whereas Lancelot had been all about technique.
The Operative was much the same, every movement of his blade clean and swift. It was probably a text-book attack, but Will had never read a textbook on sword fighting (or any kind of fighting) in his life. He had never thought of fighting as something you could learn in any way other than experience.
As such it was a very quick fight, and Will had the impression the man was toying with him, like a cat with a mouse. Edwin didn’t use his magic to hold him in place, or to create more flames, just kept up his attack with the sword until he had struck Will’s away from him, kicking it over the edge so that it fell down into the heart of the generator.
Will was forced to his knees and the blade pressed against his neck, but the assassin made no physical move to hurt him, although the Captain could feel something worming its way into his mind.
He knew that touch, that feeling. He remembered playing games with Merlin when they were children on Ealdor. Hide and Seek with Merlin seeking, unconsciously reaching out to try and find him or, when they were older, Merlin trying to persuade him to do things and automatically trying to do so with his mind as well.
You didn’t grow up with those sort of abilities and not learn how to avoid them.
He made his mind as slippery as he could, burying everything important at the back, deep, deep down, beneath everything. Something that, he had to admit, the war had helped with. You had to separate yourself from what you did when you shot down people you didn’t know.
He pulled up a wall, like a shiny silver mirror, separating him from the thing that was in his mind, and then he stopped – he stopped everything and he waited.
“I am sorry about this, Captain,” Edwin said, “But, please understand, that this is for the best.” He stepped away, raising his sword, and as he did so, Will grabbed his chance.
He struck low and hard, two things that were always a good idea, and Edwin dropped his blade in shock, crumpling slightly. Using energy reserves he had not known he had, Will pulled himself to his feet and grabbed the operative by the pressure points he knew about, paralysing him temporarily, and with a hard blow to the man’s throat, he shut him up.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, Will propped the man against a jutting up piece of rock and limped over to the controls, every breath coming with a wheeze.
“Would you like to know what that secret was?” he asked, without looking back, “the one you’ve killed all those people to protect? The one that wormed its way inside Morgana’s head and drove her mad?”
There was no response, the man couldn’t make any.
“I’m going to show it to you,” Will said, hissing in pain as he reached into his pocket to pull out the disk. “I’m going to show it to the entire ‘verse. They created it you see, the cure you want, the one that will rid the world of evil, the remedy to cure all ills. They made a better world… would you like to see a glimpse of this future you’re trying to create?”
“It won’t do any good,” the man who had been Edwin said, his voice sounding triumphant. “We’ve blocked all signals from Camlann… it won’t get through.”
Will stopped, frozen, and he felt it all crash in around him, down about his ears. All that trouble, his friends upstairs dying for him. All of that was for nothing. He opened his mouth to swear, but changed his mind at the last moment, turning to the Alliance operative where he sat, pinned down.
“But maybe it’ll get through to you.”
*
Morgana stood, surrounded by bodies, the Skinlaekers were still coming, but just the dregs of them now.
She could see everything that was happening, the people beyond the blast doors, the Alliance troops closing in, Will and the operative down in the heart of the lair. She felt his horror, his disappointment, and she felt the block that the Alliance had placed on the planet.
The signal would not get through… they had failed. Will’s mind was full of it, failure.
She whirled around, slicing through another Skinlaeker as it charged at her and she realised… she could do something about that.
*
Everything was dark, as far as Merlin could see. Thick darkness all around him. Just black on black, and nothingness. The pain had stopped, but he was so tired. He tried to will his eyes to open, but they wouldn’t.
And then he heard Morgana’s voice.
Merlin, it was as though she was standing right next to him. He could feel her hand on his arm. I need your help.
I’m tired, he whispered back, feeling ashamed, I can’t.
Yes, you can. He felt her mind filter through his, going through everything, softly and gently, until she came to the part of him that linked him to his magic, and she drew it out, still ever so gentle. We need to show the world. He felt her strength pushing through him. Show me the base, so he did, and she showed him the signal block and the transmitter down below. Fix it, she said.
So he did.
*
Will clicked the disk into place, noting, as he did so, a button with the word ‘walkway’ above it. He entered the code to patch the video into every feed in the ‘verse, and then, with a moment of relish, he pressed play. It might not get through to the ‘verse but…
The system flared into life, and he heard the familiar beeping that indicated a connection to the cortex.
“That’s not possible!” Edwin gasped, “to get past that block you’d need a Sensitive with a technological affinity and you… you can’t. Morgana’s got no aptitude for that… it would take years of training.” Will smirked, thanking Merlin mentally.
He says you’re welcome, Morgana’s voice whispered in his mind, we both do.
The disc began to play and Will turned immediately. He didn’t need to see the images to know what was there, the woman’s face was already burnt into his retinas. He punched the walkway button and watched as it extended out from the platform he stood on, back to the outcrop on the other side. Behind him, the voice of a dead woman rang out from every screen, not just in the room, but every screen on every planet in the ‘verse.
“I thought I was going to be doing good. Helping people to control what they couldn’t help. And at first, we were. But… Things got out of hand…”
And, slumped against a rock, the operative watched, unable to look away as Will limped off back to his crew.
*
When he entered the corridor above, behind the blast doors, he didn’t know whether to be taken aback by how lost and broken his crew were, or by the fact they were alive at all.
Lancelot nodded at him as he appeared, though he did not raise either of his hands. One was wound tightly around Gwen’s where she sat next to him, her other hand covered in blood as it pressed against his side. The other hand was staunching a wound of Arthur’s, who lay in front of him. The blond man’s eyes were just that little bit too bright as he looked at the Captain upside down through his eyelashes.
Valiant gave him a half-salute from where he sat against the wall, still clutching hold of his gun.
On the floor next to Arthur, Merlin looked dead but, on closer inspection, Will could just make out the rise and fall of his chest – unconscious then, and spent physically and mentally, he could tell from the pallor of his face and the frown of his brow.
“It’s done,” were the first words out of his mouth, quickly followed by “Morgana?”
Arthur’s pained look and the sudden blankness of Lancelot’s face were all the answer he needed, but Valiant nodded towards the blast doors with a grimace.
Will looked ahead, confused. Her voice had been in his mind and she had not sounded in pain, or hurt. A shiver went down his spine at the thought of a ghost.
It was silent beyond their corridor. He couldn’t hear anything outside of the doors. No movement… none, until the hiss announced the opening of the doors. He raised the gun he had reclaimed from the ground immediately, and saw Valiant and Arthur do the same, though Lancelot could not move.
But it was not the Skinlaekers they saw as the doors pulled open, not the writhing mass of monsters. They didn’t hear their screams.
Instead the room beyond was still, and the only sound a steady, if quiet, drip… drip…
One figure stood alone in the centre, framed by the doors and by corpses that littered the ground around her. Morgana’s hair fell unruly past her shoulders, a sword was clenched in her hand, held at the ready, and her stillness was that of a snake preparing to strike. He caught her looking at him, clearly. Her eyes pure green, glowing in that way that Merlin’s did when he used his abilities.
The drip came from the blood on her blade.
The world was frozen like that for a moment, the five of them in the corridor all, with the exception of Merlin, tried to take in the scene before them.
Then Alliance troopers came swarming down the tunnel towards them, surrounding Morgana. Some pointing guns towards Will and the others as well.
He could see that Morgana was ready to fight them, he knew that the odds weren’t good – even with her abilities – but her blade lifted infinitesimally and her eyes flicked from one side to another before fixing on Arthur’s face.
One of the Alliance men requested orders on how to proceed, and Will knew immediately who was being asked.
His gun was still pointing towards the blast doors. He could probably take out three or four of them before they gunned him down where he stood. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Gwen was holding her own weapon ready as well, her hands not shaking in the slightest.
“Stand down,” the Operative’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Stand down.”
*
Funerals were held together, and they stood side by side at the side of the cairn they built. Hunith and Gaius’ bodies would be returned to Ealdor for burial. The Dragon they buried there, though, in the place where he had been imprisoned. Will felt a little bad about leaving him there forever, but he was dead now, he supposed that was freedom in a way.
Back aboard Avalon, things were busy, far away from the peace and quiet of the small ceremony they had had away from any centre of civilisation.
Repairs and medical aid were offered, though Will refused the Alliance’s help. Avalon was his ship and he’d fix her. He didn’t need the charity of a broken man.
Engines were found and paid for – Arthur and Morgana, it turned out, had both inherited money from their father, which they could currently make use of since they had been removed from the list of fugitives, if only temporarily.
Things were going to be rough but they’d be in the air soon, flying again, and that would go a long way to settling things down.
When Will walked down the entrance to the cargo hold to find a man with a half scarred face staring at him, he very nearly shot him without asking questions but managed to restrain himself.
“I was on Nimueh,” the man said without looking away. “I’d forgotten – I was small at the time and I must have been there for too short a time for the drugs to have any effect. I remember the fire,” one hand lifted to his face, in wonder. “I always wondered how I got these scars. I remember the shuttle ride away.”
“Good for you,” Will said, turning to grab the crate that had been left outside.
“It’s not over for you, Captain… and it’s certainly not over for the Pendragons.”
“Is that so?”
“I know what I’m talking about,” the scarred man stepped forward as Will looked back over his shoulder. “It might not be soon, it might not be for a long time to come, but they will come looking for you, for vengeance, or for some other reason. The secret of Nimueh was not the only reason they hunted Morgana.”
“So I’ll keep a look out.”
“It might be wise.”
“You’d best be leaving,” Will told him in no uncertain terms. “Because I’m not forgiving either.”
“I understand. You will not see me again.”
“Good.”
When Will turned round again, the man with the scars, whose name had, for a short time, been Edwin, had disappeared into the rain.
*
“You almost died,” Gwen said softly, propping her head up on one hand and looking down at Lancelot where he lay. She allowed the fingers of the other to touch the bandage that lay over his wounds. She couldn’t quite look him in the eye, so he reached out to tilt her head towards his face and not the white expanse of bandage.
“I am still alive.”
“If I hadn’t been there…” she said, slowly, watching Lancelot’s jaw tighten almost imperceptibly.
“You are not to blame for my decisions.”
“I asked you to live for me,” Gwen whispered, her eyes drifting back to his side.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly, she did so. “I do not regret what I did for a moment. Had you not been there, I probably would not have done it, but that is my fault, not yours. I cannot stand back when your life is in danger, I will not.”
“You will not sacrifice your life for mine.”
“I love you… I cannot promise anything else, other than that everything I do comes from that.”
“Lancelot.”
“Hush…” he tugged her face downwards towards him and she went willingly. He kissed her cheeks and her forehead before separating them again so that he could look into her eyes. “It is done, we are alive, we are together. That is all that matters.”
She smiled and allowed him to pull her down once more.
*
In the engine room Merlin was fiddling with parts in a haphazard sort of way. He insisted that there was a system, but no one really believed him.
“Aren’t the parts supposed to go in the engine, Merlin?” A voice asked from behind him and he started, turning round to find Arthur smirking at him from the doorway.
“Like you know anything about engines,” he commented.
“I know they’re supposed to be in one piece,” Arthur commented taking a step forward, before frowning slightly. “How are you doing?”
“Okay…” Merlin said. “It hurts… well, it hurts exactly the same as it did before, but at least I can breathe now. All the way through that, I didn’t let myself think about it, about anything.”
“I know what you mean,” Arthur agreed, coming to crouch down next to the mechanic where he sat. “It’s the adrenaline, it keeps you going.”
“Yeah,” Merlin agreed, “but since it’s been over… I’ve had nothing to keep my mind off things. Fixing Avalon, sure,” he patted the floor affectionately, “but nothing… the terror sort of blew everything away, and now it’s all coming back. My mother’s dead, her body… I just buried her. And Gaius, he was practically my father in a way, and my home.”
“I thought Avalon was your home,” Arthur asked quietly, watching him with intent eyes.
“It is, and it has been for a while,” Merlin paused, turning to look at him, “I guess there was part of me that still thought that it was Ealdor, you know? And now that it’s gone, I can’t ever go back home. I feel like something’s broken.”
“Yes,” Arthur agreed. “It’s a lot like that.” Merlin looked at him in surprise before understanding dawned.
“Of course, your father.”
“Anyway,” Arthur commented, guiding the conversation away from his own loss with all the subtlety of a baby elephant in a glass shop, “what does this do?” he asked, picking up a lump of moulded metal and dangling it between finger and thumb. Merlin’s mouth fell open in horror before he snatched it away.
“That’s the primary conduction chamber, it’s very delicate.”
“Looks like a lump of metal.”
“Philistine,” Merlin snapped, but he had a faint smile on his face.
“What are you doing anyway?” Arthur asked, holding up his hands as if to plead truce. “I thought Will told you to fix the engine, not dissect it.”
“With all the damage, this is the only way to fix it properly… and all these new parts, they need a bit of help to integrate properly.”
“So you’re taking it all apart and putting it back together?” Arthur asked incredulously. Merlin gave him a huge grin and nodded. “Want some help?”
The mechanic looked at him searchingly before nodding slightly.
“You’ll have to do exactly what I say,” he said with a smirk of his own. Arthur blinked, looking horrified. “I’m not having you break anything. We only just got half of these parts in.”
“I’ll do what you say within reason,” Arthur argued. Merlin raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have to help you.”
“Everything I say,” Merlin insisted. Arthur held his stare for a second before nodding with a grimace. “Good… now, pat your head and rub your stomach.”
“Merlin!”
“You agreed: everything I say,” Merlin said with delight, “you are my bitch, Arthur Pendragon.”
*
The bridge was quiet. Lancelot and Gwen were in their cabin, taking some much needed time off. Not that either of them was usually particularly noisy, but their presence tended to keep Will’s mind away from… other things.
They would be flying again in minutes, out into the black, and he’d be putting these bad memories behind him again.
In his head the voices of his dead were a little bit more silent this week than they had been the week before.
“Time heals,” Morgana’s familiar voice came from behind him, and Will turned to see her leaning in the doorway, one eyebrow raised in a way that was almost mocking. But he couldn’t decide whether she was mocking her own words or himself. “Never look back, that’s your motto, right. Just look forward enough to get by, and never look back.”
“It gets you through the day,” Will told her, risking a smile. She returned it easily.
“So… back into the sky,” she said, looking out the windows at the clouds and the rain. “Are you ever going to stop running?”
He didn’t look at her again, just began the sequence to take them up, the same sequence he had seen Gwen use a million times over, the three switches of the ignition, and the buttons in order, before taking hold of the wheel.
“I’m not running anywhere,” he said calmly, as they lifted off the planet, slowly rising, through the rain and the clouds to the clear air beyond, before breaking out of the atmosphere, Avalon humming beneath his hands.
“No… I suppose you’re not.”
-
alternate ending
Translation|other notes|Time Line
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Date: 2009-10-19 06:35 pm (UTC)Valiant playing Jayne confused me, but thinking back on it... who else would have? Thinking on the characters, there are so many different ways they could all be put together... Morgana and Merlin as the siblings, Morgana as Inara, Gwen as Kaylee... Though, for character-interaction purposes... A lot of points would change between the characters. (i.e. if you have Arthur as captain and want him with anyone but Morgana - as Inara - things have to change).. It still makes things really interesting though, and I loved your take on this.
So many great lines throughout the fic, I wish I could quote them back to you, but that would just be ridiculously long by the time I'd be done.
Fantastic job on this, you haven't ruined either series for anyone, I'm sure. ♥ Thanks for sharing this!
no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 01:09 pm (UTC)Half way through I was so tempted to start again with Arthur as Mal and Merlin and Will as River and Simon, but I had too many words and I liked Morgana as River. I can see it working a million different ways, but this was the one that stuck with me.
Thanks for the comment.
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Date: 2009-10-23 04:25 pm (UTC)And, I love your icon. I need to get my 'interesting - oh god oh god we're all gonna die' icon back up here on LJ...>.>
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Date: 2009-10-19 07:14 pm (UTC)and a fun story to boot!
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Date: 2009-10-23 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 01:13 pm (UTC)I loved writing Morgana, I think that's what made this fic for me. I did fear that she ran into River a little too much in places, but I found it difficult to convey the insanity without a bit of character overlap. ^_^ I'm glad that it wasn't just me being happy at myself.
This is my only firefly icon, because Jayne rocks.
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Date: 2009-10-20 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 11:16 am (UTC)I particularly loved the insights you give to Morgana - what the influences around her are doing to her, and how she reacts to them. I was actually able to read this and have it flesh out not only this story, but also my interpretation of River Tan. It was sensitively and insightfully written, and I thank you for that.
Your original twists on the Serenity canon were perfect for this 'verse. You kept the heart and momentum of the film (and series), but you shifted everything just slightly into new shapes and textures which fitted better with Merlin canon - the magic/sensitivity, the language, so many other little details.
Knowing the source material so well, it's inevitably hard to disassociate from it, but you gave me a real ride despite that, and one that stands alone as an excellent piece of story telling.
Bravo!
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Date: 2009-10-23 01:25 pm (UTC)To be honest, I wasn't sure I could divorce myself enough from the film to write it properly, and there were several sections that I rewrote about five times to try and get the balance right. I made the mistake of rewatching Serenity halfway through as well. I really shouldn't have done it, because Joss's characters have such loud voices, it's difficult to overlap them with others.
I'm really glad you liked it so much, and to get such a nice comment from someone who is clearly a big fan of Firefly as well just makes me deliriously happy. Thanks!
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Date: 2009-10-25 11:31 am (UTC)i totally have no idea of the movie and never watch even an episode of Firefly but I LOVE THIS!!!! :D
the suspense was so good and the paced is just my kind of favourite ride.
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Date: 2009-11-09 05:08 am (UTC)This is one of those times I wished Serenity had more sexin' *Cheshire grin* I loved it; loved, loved, loved. I preferred the first ending to the alt (because you redid the saddest scene and I appreciated that). And Will - look how he captains *snickers* This was a great fusion, it worked rather well without Amara. Of course now (being me) I started pairing Morgana and Will, and would dearly love to see another fic... oh wait I'd like another movie too. I'm seeing a theme.
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Date: 2009-12-04 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 01:49 pm (UTC)I thought you chose who was what character perfectly; Morgana as the River character was absolutely brilliant, as was Merlin and his 'magic touch' with the Firefly. Everyone and everything else fell into place so perfectly.
A great adaptation! You obviously put a lot of thought and work into it, and it shows. (Also, the use of Old English was brilliant!) I loved it!