The Golden Effect

The Mark of Nimueh

EDITED.

CHAPTER 7 - THE MARK OF NIMUEH

Merlynn didn't like being bored. Being in Ealdor, she usually had something to do or somewhere in the forest to go and escape boredom - boredom gnawed at her being, crawled under her skin, made her restless and anxious and frustrated. She hated boredom. But, in Camelot, it didn't take long for something to pop up, and for feeling to be induced by a new sick patient, or new herbs to collect, or a new duty arranged by Arthur to do. It was sad, she knew, but she needed the distraction from the poison that was boredom.

So, when Gaius told her that a dead man had appeared on the streets that morning, she was all too willing to join him - she had to hide her excitement from him as she grabbed his kit and chased after him out the door. Merlynn hid behind the physician slightly as he surveyed the body, but she peeked over his shoulder curiously every once and a while. The corpse was splayed, face-first, in the dirt; people who passed barely paid the man any mind, ignoring him even. Some would believe he was just a drunkard.

"Aren't you... worried?" she asked as he touched the man's shoulder.

"Of what?"

"That he might have some flesh-eating virus that eats you from the inside out, or - or some virus that cannot be cured and you die because of it?" at that point, she was rambling, her voice and movements becoming more animated as the thoughts entered her mind at an alarming rate. Gaius had to put a hand on her arm to stop her.

"This is my job, Merlynn. I'm the court physician - if it is a flesh-eating virus, I'll know," he answered, and turned the body over. Merlynn could barely contain her gasp.

The face of the corpse was sunken in, and a milky blue color; his veins were raised and a deeper blue, almost black. His eyes, white and blue and frozen, stared up at them. She stepped back a couple of paces, but she could not look away. "Are you worried now?" she blinked.

"People," he gulped, "people mustn't see this. They'll panic."

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Not only was she Arthur's personal servant, she was also assigned as Gaius' assistant - as if she needed the extra duties. Uther had been the one to agree upon it, saying that his physician needed 'all the help he could get'. Merlynn wasn't allowed to complain, so she just kept her mouth shut (about her list of chores) and watched as he boiled a vial of sickly yellow liquid. There had been six deaths, each similar to the last, over the past few days, and Uther was getting suspicious that it was sorcery.

"What, er, exactly is that?"

Gaius barely even glanced up at her to answer, "The contents of a man's stomach - the dead man's stomach, that is."

"Is that going to help us discover what killed him?" she felt sick, a terrible feeling at the bottom of her throat as she stared at the vial.

"No, but it might tell us how it spread." He sighed, brows knitting in the middle. "This is magic of the darkest kind, that I do know."

Merlynn rolled her eyes; it was always magic, wasn't it? Uther hated magic enough already without people coming to try and destroy his kingdom with it. If sorcerers thought that by using magic they would exact their revenge - they were wrong. It only caused her, and them, more trouble than necessary. "Why do people use magic like this?" she sighed in frustration.

"Magic corrupts people. It gives them power, it makes them hungry for more," he told her. "People use it for their own benefit."

"But my magic isn't bad. It's harmless," she defended.

"Merlynn, surely from what you've seen thus far magic is anything but harmless. And, it is neither good nor bad - it's how you use it."

Then, Arthur was barging through the door and guards peeled out across the room with their hands already tearing at each object they could reach at a fast pace. Merlynn was on her feet in an instant. "Over there," the prince instructed, turning to Gaius. "Sorry, but we're on orders to search every room in town."