Chapter 18 Ghosts
Ghosts
"—lot? Lancelot!"
He snapped to attention. "Sorry. Fuck. Sorry. Did I really zone out that hard?"
Merlin huffed, but thankfully only seemed amused. "You were a million miles away. Good thing we didn't actually need you on guard duty."
Lancelot flushed with shame. "Sorry."
"Don't be. We've been fine, and we all wanted you to relax anyway. What were you thinking about so hard?"
Cheeks hotter than ever, Lancelot confessed, "That first night with Gale, after his surrender. I've been trying not to think about him at all, because I can't afford to be distracted, but…"
"It's good to remind yourself why you're fighting, all the reasons not to give up the fight or give in to the darkness.
Trust me, that night I cast the spell that resulted in all of this, Morgan and Arthur were at the front of my mind, along with bitterness that our victory had been stolen by such foul means, that we would never get the family we'd planned to start building.
Everyone else too, of course, but they're the two halves of my heart. "
Lancelot nodded and reached out to grip his arm in comfort.
Soulmates were always romantic in the tales, but if a friend could be a soulmate, then Merlin was his.
Literally, even, in a way, given the dark magic that now bound them.
Galehaut was everything to him, but so were his friends, and Merlin his oldest friend of all.
"We'll get him back, whatever it takes," Merlin said.
"In the meantime, cling to those good memories.
They'll keep you going." He smiled briefly, eyes glinting in a way that spoke of his incubus nature.
"I remember how you looked when you returned to Camelot with him beside you.
Happier than I'd ever seen you and reeking of recent lust."
"You're so nosey," Lancelot said with a sigh.
"I can't help noticing the obvious. You should have heard all the bets going on."
"Oh, I heard about them, don't worry. Dred couldn't wait to tell me. Tristan was in charge of it all. Don't think for one minute I didn't throw him around the training yard, the crass little upstart. How Iseult deals with that every day—"
Merlin's laughter cut off his tirade. "Well, he made out like a bandit, so I think he considered it a fair trade."
Lancelot huffed. Tristan had been his greatest trial—Tristan's uncouth mouth and his inability to keep it closed had been his greatest trial, to be precise.
"So you never did tell us, was Gale a perfect gentleman that night?"
"At first, yes, obviously. What he was or wasn't later on is still none of your damn business," Lancelot retorted.
"If you two are done gossiping," Arthur called out, "we're stopping here for a break."
"Why does that require I stop gossiping?" Merlin asked.
"Just get your ass over here," Arthur said.
Merlin gave Lancelot a flippant bow, or the best he could manage from horseback, before riding off to join Arthur and Morgan. Yeah, mystery there what Arthur wanted of him.
Rolling his eyes, Lancelot went to join Gawain and Guinevere by the fire. "You've been relatively quiet since we got you back."
Gawain shrugged, attention mostly on stoking the fire.
"Eh. You know me. In books or in my head.
" It was the reason most of the court had considered Gawain cold and untouchable, when his siblings were both so vibrant and sociable.
It had taken a mysterious stranger dressed entirely in green, his beautiful wife, both of them suffering from a terrible curse, to see the warmth that burned quietly in Gawain.
"Anyway, my sister is working me to death whenever we stop. "
"Whining is unbecoming a knight."
"Yet we all do it anyway," he retorted. "Why am I making a fire when we're only taking a break?"
"Because those three who just happened to need to vanish into the woods have been riling one another up all day, and for all I care, they can take their merry time while I drink tea and string all these berries I picked and dried yesterday."
Gawain groaned, but dutifully set to work helping her string them.
Lancelot caught some rabbits and made them lunch, which was ready by the time the miscreants emerged from the woods looking mussed and tousled. "You're pathetic," he said tartly to Merlin.
"I can live with that." His eyes glowed faintly in that way they always did when he was full of the power he absorbed from lust. Normally he simply absorbed small amounts passively, as there were always horny people around, but when he got to fully indulge, it was like giving him an entire case of energy shots.
Rolling his eyes again, Lancelot got the rabbits carved up and served, alongside some of the countless mushrooms Morgan and Gwen had collected.
They were back on the road a short time later, and he took up the rear again, though Merlin kept him company this time. "I can't believe Arthur made us take a break so he could fuck you two."
"Well, it never hurts to be replenished," Merlin said primly, then laughed sheepishly. "Sorry, I know it was tacky, especially when we were just talking about Gale."
"It's nice to get what happiness you can while you can. Everything is going to get worse before it gets better." And hanging over their heads was the debt yet to be paid. "What are you anticipating for our shrouded kingdom?"
"I think the fog itself will be a challenge, if not the biggest challenge.
Bewitching fogs are super popular in gaming right now, especially the kind that torments the character with guilt over all their wrongs, their past…
other fogs are endless mazes where some key or secret must be found, so on and so forth.
I don't think we'll get a guilt-tripping fog, it's not that kind of game, but there will be something. "
That sounded like they'd be separated again, especially if Maleagant had gotten ahead of them again like he always fucking seemed to. "We'll need to stay close."
"Agreed," Merlin said, following his thinking like always.
The rest of the journey went peacefully, nothing but minor monsters handled by Arthur and Dred and their indecipherable competition.
Dusk was starting to creep along the horizon when they finally stopped.
Fog teased along the ground, as though they were wading through a river of it.
Gawain started a fire, which took little more than snapping his fingers, while Gwen set work on food, and Merlin and Morgan worked on setting up wards to protect them overnight.
Lancelot helped Arthur get the horses settled, while Dred made up all the beds.
As ever, the work was seamless, as easy between them all as it had been so many years ago.
When he'd finished with the beds, Dred went around the circle made by Merlin and Morgan and added torchlight, surrounding them in fire, driving off the cold and the dark, a warning to anything that might try to approach.
"Merlin, Lancelot, with me," Arthur said, and when they were with him, said to Dred, "Take command until we return."
Dred gave a playful salute before returning to gathering firewood that was just outside the perimeter of the camp, never straying entirely from the light of the torches he'd placed.
Lancelot walked on Arthur's right, sword sheathed but ready to draw, and he could feel every last drop of water in the vicinity, from a creek just southwest to a larger, deeper body dead north, the exact location they were headed.
Likely a lake, possibly an elaborate moat, the kind that would be impossible and impractical in the real world but a great feature for a hidden castle shrouded in mist.
In the cool dark of evening, the moonlight just beginning to really shine, only the towers of the castle were visible.
Achingly familiar, they would follow the cardinal points, anchoring the massive curtain that protected the veritable small village that was Castle Camelot.
Arthur and the architects he'd hired, all the laypeople he'd consulted for the little details that no knight or lofty architect would think of, had designed Camelot to be entirely self-reliant, capable of withstanding siege for an indefinite length of time, though of course that would be brutal living and an absolute last resort.
Which was why he'd also built secret, heavily warded tunnels out of the castle should that worst case come to pass.
Without the mist, there would be a well-paved road as good as anything built by the Romans, leading up to an enormous drawbridge that closed when the sun went down and did not open again until sunrise.
Beyond that was the gatehouse, with a dual portcullis for further defense.
After that were all the out buildings of the castle—the various homes of the people who lived and worked there, the blacksmiths, the bakers, the tanners, and so many more, long before the keep itself was ever reached.
Lost to time and legend long ago, now here as though transported through time as well, shrouded in mist, waiting to be woken like all the knights who called it home.
At their feet, the mist swirled about thicker than ever, up to their knees now, though they were still well away from the wall of mist at the castle.
"I was hoping to get a better gauge of what we're up against," Arthur said with a sigh, "but it seems the only way we'll know anything is to push through the mist, which makes my skin crawl."
"There's magic in it for certain," Merlin said. "It senses us and is coming for us, so I think it's time to retreat and wait for daylight to face whatever challenge awaits us. Nothing good ever came from fighting in the dark."