Goblin's Gold (Merlin 2)

Chapter 1

The Beginning

Merlin and Kiara walked down the corridors together, heading towards the library. He pushed open the door for her, earning him a bright smile from Kiara as she stepped through and her eyes caught sight of the books on the bookshelves.

“Wow,” she mumbled and Merlin couldn’t help but grin at her reaction with amusement. It was strange for him to think that Kiara had never seen anything like this before, the Druids lifestyle was so different to those living in Camelot. She had confessed to him that she had rarely seen any books before, as their people generally learnt from showing and copying.

“Come on, we can see more in a moment. I just need to ask where this book is,” Merlin replied cheerfully, linking his arms through Kiara’s and guiding her towards the old librarian’s desk. Merlin opened his mouth to speak, but the man silenced him with a raise of his hand. They waited in silence as the man finished what he was reading.

“Yes?” the librarian asked Merlin, as Kiara’s eyes scanned over the bookshelves behind him – trying to read the various titles from the short distance she was away from him.

“Gaius asked me to fetch a book,” Merlin explained, unfolding a piece of paper where Gaius had written the title down. “The…er,” he frowned, trying to make out the writing.  “Bestiary of Cumbria?” he asked, and the librarian let out a small chuckle.

“The Bestiary?” he questioned, “I haven’t seen that for many years.”

Kiara couldn’t help but smile lightly at Merlin’s look of aggravation, and patted his arm gently. If anyone was going to be able to find a certain book in a library this side, they would be capable. With their magic it would be almost easy to find.

“It’ll be somewhere in the East Wing,” the man told him, “No idea where,” he added in a voice which suggested he didn’t really care how long it took for them to find it. Merlin let out a quiet exasperated gasp, and headed off in the direction of the West Wing, while Kiara stayed where she was, her eyebrow raised – wondering whether Merlin would realise his mistake.

“East!” the man repeated, attracting Merin’s attention once more. “Is that way…” he pointed in the opposite direction. Merlin glanced that way, obviously trying to cover his mistake.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and turned on his heels towards the right direction.

Kiara couldn’t help but laugh as they started off the correct way. “Of course, you deliberately went the wrong way. Just making sure the old man knew what he was talking about, right?” She nodded, a smile spreading across her face.

“Oh shut up,” he nudged her with his elbow, but grinned too before letting out a sigh of annoyance. “He wasn’t exactly helpful though, was he? It’ll take us hours to find it.” He grumbled, and Kiara eye’s gleamed gold as she used a spell to detect its position.

“It’s down there,” she stopped walking, and pointed to the aisle on their left. Trusting her magic implicitly, Merlin gave her a thankful smile and followed her down the aisle of bookshelves, glancing on the shelves as they went.

Kiara was only half concentrating on finding the book that Gaius needed, she was too busy looking at the shelves completely full with books. She paused halfway down the bookshelf and gently traced her fingers down the spine of one of the books, before pulling it out of its place and flicking through the yellowing pages. She started reading with interest, for it was a book about ‘mythical creatures’ many of those which were actually very real indeed. She had met many of them with her people as they travelled throughout the forests to try and find a safe place to stay.