Arthur's Sons (Book 1)

The Dragon's Call (Part 3)

Merlyn... Merlyn...

Merlyn had been lying awake in her bed when the ancient voice once again began calling out, Merlyn gets out of bed, sneaks out of the Gaius' Chambers and slips across the courtyard. Merlyn descends the Wrought Iron Stairway to find a pair of guards playing a dice game, with a flash of gold the dice fly off the table toward the open door way and the guards get up to retrieve them giving Merlyn time to slip past, light a torch and continue down the tunnel stairway. At the bottom she encountered an open empty cavern with a rock perch just inside, Merlyn looked around for the owner of the voice,

" Where are you?" Merlyn called her voice echoing through the cave. There was the beating of massive wings when suddenly a dragon descended land on the stone perch. Merlyn was in awe of the great beat whose scales shimmered gold in the torchlight.

" I'm here! How small you are for such a great destiny." The Dragon spoke.

" Why? What do you mean? What destiny?" Merlyn stuttered having just being spoken to by a bloody dragon.

" Your gift, Merlyn, was given to you for a reason." The dragon stated sagely.

" So there is a reason." Merlyn whispered, hope filling her voice.

" Arthur is the Once and Future King who will unite the land of Albion." Merlyn was confused, did the dragon mean the Prince or her son?

" Um, which Arthur do you speak of?" The Dragon looked down at her head cocked to the side.

" The young Prince Arthur Pendragon of course, who else could I mean?" The Dragon asked intrigued.

" Oh I have a 4 year old son named Arthur after his father the Prince." Merlyn explained. The Dragon looked shocked.

" You have a child to the Prince?" The Dragon probed.

" Yes, twin son's, Arthur and Rowan." The Dragon looked perturbed but said no more on the matter and instead continued his previous spiel about the Once and Future King,

" The Prince faces many threats from friend and foe alike."

" I don't see what this has to do with me." Merlyn replied confused.

" Everything. Without you, Arthur will never succeed. Without you, there will be no Albion."

" I don't understand what i'm supposed to do, i'm just one person." Merlyn said desperately.

" None of us can choose our destiny, Merlyn, and none of us can escape it." The Dragon finished.

" No. No way. No. No. I can't protect the Prince, raise two magical children and keep my head attached to my body." Merlyn ran her hand through her hair in frustration and the dragon merely laughed before taking flight.

" Wait! Wait! Wait, stop! No, I- I need to know more!" But the dragon was gone.

The next morning Gaius enters Merlyn's messy chamber and picks up her clothes.

"Oi!" Gaius barks, Merlyn startles awake. "Have you seen the state of this room?!"

"Sorry i'll clean it up in a moment." Merlyn mumbled trying to rub the sleep from her eyes.

"Yes. Well, you can clear it up without magic. And then I want you to get me some herbs: henbane, wormwood, and sorrel. And deliver this to Morgana. Poor girl's suffering from nightmares." Gaius hands Merlyn a bottled liquid. 'Mmm, I know the feeling.' Merlyn thought absently as she waved her hand and the room cleaned its self. She walked out grabbing and apple from the fruit bowl kissing both her children on the head where they were at the table doing reading a writing exercises that Gaius had given them.