Merlyn - Arthur x Female Merlin [1]

Chapter Seventeen: An Afanc

"Here" Gaius announced his finger pointing at the beast they had seen in the cavern drawn as a picture, "It was an Afanc." Gaius, Merlyn and Arthur had all returned to Gaius chambers in order to find out what creature was currently swimming around in everyone's water.

"A what?" Arthur questioned. Merlyn lifted her head to stare at the Prince.

"Not a clue" Merlyn replied before Gaius answered the question himself.

"A beast born of clay, and conjured up only by the most powerful sorcerer." Merlyn nodded before she took the book off Gaius, it didn't say anything about how to kill the beast. How unhelpful!

"So we just kill it right?" Arthur said, his sword tightly gripped in his hand.

"I don't think it will be that simple" Merlyn whispered though she never lifted her head from the book.

"What do you mean?"

"The Afanc is 'conjured up only by the most powerful sorcerer', this means that it won't be easy to kill. Most likely no mortal weapon will be able to kill it, and there will be a specific way to kill the Afanc" Merlyn explained. Suddenly, a wave of exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks. It kept happening; she kept being hit by waves of tiredness and sickness. Her temperature kept flaring, it was becoming harder and harder to stay upright. Looking down at her skin, Merlyn sighed as she saw how dark her veins were getting – she was on her last hours, it seemed that the disease was faster than Gaius thought.

"Merlyn?" Gaius suddenly questioned his cool hand placed against her raging forehead. He frowned at the young witch in disapprove, she should have been resting.

"You need to rest."

"I need to find out how to defeat this thing otherwise I'm dead" Merlyn replied. "Look, we need an answer and you have hundreds of books to get through so you need my help." Secretly, Merlyn was just wanting Gaius and Arthur to leave – she had no plan on reading all the books for an answer, she had a sneaky suspicion that a great big beast chained up below her would already know the answer but she couldn't find out until they left.

"You need to inform the king" Merlyn suddenly said. Gaius and Arthur knew this was the truth. Gaius sighed in frustration. Arthur just watched on, frowning at the sight before him. He had to save her. She had saved him multiple times, it was now his turn. Gaius and Arthur had to leave to inform the king of the development but Arthur had never felt so helpless before. Merlyn's skin was as white as the corpse's and her veins were starting to darken. Before he left, Arthur shocked them all when he leant forward and kissed Merlyn's forehead before swooping out the room. Merlyn's pale cheeks bloomed red at the contact. Once the pair had gone, Merlyn threw down the large book she had been reading and made her way out of the chambers, she had a friend to see.

~8~

"Hello?"

The sound radiated around the giant cave. There was no sign of the Great Dragon but Merlyn knew Kilgharrah was around ... somewhere.

"Hello" the deep rich voice spoke as the chains rattled whilst the dragon flew down to the rock. "The great witch returns, as I knew she would. You are gravely ill young one." Merlyn nodded. Sweat was pouring down her face as she held out the torch to see Kilgharrah more clearly. She was beginning to struggle to do the simplest of tasks.

"I-I need to know how to defeat an Afanc" Merlyn said. "Will y-you help me?"

"Trust the elements that are at your command" Kilgharrah said after a moment of contemplation.

"Elements? But what is it ... I have to do?"

"You cannot do this alone. You are but one side of a coin. Arthur is the other" Kilgharrah continued cryptically.