Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

MORDRED

Realm of Atlantis

The group had followed the tunnel after the guard post outside had been blasted into splinters, which had in turn collapsed the first dozen feet of the tunnel.

"Do you think this actually goes anywhere?" Zamek asked.

"Personally, I'm hoping for a big pot of gold at the end," Remy said. "I think we all deserve that."

Mordred noted that no one asked if Nate was okay, because the very idea that he'd be killed by what had happened to him was laughable, but even so, Mordred was slightly concerned about Nate having to face off against an army of red-armored whatever they were.

"How long have we been down here?" Diana asked. "I'm beginning to get a little anxious about being underground."

"We went into an actual dwarven city," Remy said. "An underground dwarven city."

"Yes, but the roofs of that city weren't three inches above my head," Diana pointed out. She'd turned into her werebear form almost the instant the cave-in had taken place.

"Not that I want to tell you how to live," Remy said, "but maybe change back?"

"I need to be ready for whatever we're about to face."

"The mole people?" Remy asked.

"Weremoles," Irkalla said. "That would be new. And I'm not sure that moles would be all that frightening. They eat worms."

"Depends on the size of the mole," Mordred said.

"This is not helpful," Diana told everyone, her tone suggesting they immediately shut up.

"My father was out there," Mordred said after a few minutes of silence. "Leading those ... soldiers."

"I saw," Remy said. "He's still a dick, then, yes?"

Mordred nodded. "I doubt that will ever change."

"It will when he's dead," Irkalla said.

"No, he'll still be a dick in ghost form," Mordred said. "There's no getting away from it."

The group stopped as the tunnel opened out into a large cavern with runes burning on the walls. "What is this?" Lucifer asked. "These runes ... they look familiar."

"A prison," Zamek said. "This is a prison."

"Where are the cells?" Diana asked.

Zamek walked over to the nearest rune and placed a hand on it. It flashed bright pink and vanished, the wall behind it folding away as if it had never been there.

"Oh shit," Remy said from beside Zamek as they looked through the newly created hole in the wall.

Mordred walked over to join them and saw the prison beyond. It was the size of a football stadium, with a dozen tiers, each littered with large cages. Each cage was separated from its neighbors by a few feet of empty space, and inside the dozens and dozens of cages were thousands of dwarves. The hole in the wall led to a set of steps that would take them down to the top floor of the prison. They would have to follow the floor around and use the steps at the end of each section to get to the lowest floor, a hundred feet below them, where heavily armed guards—all wearing red armor—patrolled.

Diana grabbed Zamek as he took a step forward. "Not yet," she said. "What's behind the other runes? We need to know what we're dealing with."

Zamek grudgingly touched each rune in turn. Two of the six chambers that were revealed opened into long tunnels with more cages, although these had shackles attached to the ground and blood splatter inside them.

"Torture chambers," Diana said with a low growl.

Two more chambers were full of weaponry and torture implements. Mordred wanted to collapse the chambers, but that might give them away, so it would have to wait.

The last rune opened a part of the wall that led to a set of steps heading upward. In the far distance, Mordred made out a small window of light.

"The way out, I presume," Diana said.

"They bring people here to torture or imprison," Irkalla said. "Now can we burn this all to the ground?"

"Why hasn't anyone come after us?" Mordred asked.

Everyone looked back up the tunnel they'd arrived through.

"Zamek," Lucifer said. "I think we should shut that tunnel down as a means of getting to us."

Zamek wordlessly touched the tunnel, collapsing it. "There's forty feet of debris between us and the open tunnel."

"They must know we're here," Lucifer said.

Mordred nodded. "I would imagine so, yes."

"So why haven't they come to get us?" Remy asked.

"Because they know where we are," Diana said. "They can come and get us whenever they like. There's no hurry, because we can either go up and get captured, stay here and stew in our own hate, or go into the prison and fight the guards."

"They know we'll go to the prison," Mordred said, looking back out of the hole in the cavern at the layout of the prison. "But I don't see any guards up here. There should be. There should be guards on every floor. Why take them away? Unless you're so confident you can win that you don't care—or you're trying to make someone believe that all is okay when it isn't. That it's safer than it really is."

Everything began to shake, and for a moment it felt like the entire cavern would collapse as pieces of it fell from the ceiling, but the shaking finished after only a few seconds.

"What was that?" Lucifer asked, looking around.

No one had a good answer.

"I think we really need to decide what we're going to do next," Remy said. "I don't think they're going to just let us stay here."

"My people are in cages and have been for who knows how long." Zamek said. "We will free them."

"And then what?" Mordred asked. "Not to be pragmatic, but we free a bunch of slaves who have lived here for who knows how long, and then what do we do with them? Leave them here while we go kill Arthur? Tell them to head back to the realm gate?"

"They're warriors," Zamek said. "They will fight."

"They might," Irkalla said. "But slaves aren't known for being kept in good conditions at the best of times. If they fight, if they really want to, then fine, but I think you'll find a lot of them aren't up to it no matter how much they want to. We go and free them, we've got to leave them here until we can sort out safe passage out of here."

Zamek nodded, although he clearly didn't like the idea. "We save them; we come back for them."

"Any other way is going to get them killed," Diana said sadly. "Those who can fight, fight, or stay and defend those who can't, but there must be several thousand dwarves in that prison."

"Yes," Mordred agreed. "And we don't know exactly what's waiting for us down there. This isn't going to be a fun time."

"We must do this," Zamek said.

Mordred looked out of the hole at the prison. "Right, so we need help." He looked left and right. "Zamek, Diana, Lucifer, you head to the left. See if you can find anyone who might be able to give us a hand. Stay low—the guards aren't on this floor, but I'm getting the feeling that's not normal."

"And what plan do you have for us?" Remy asked as he stood beside Irkalla.

"We go right and do the same thing," Mordred said.

"I was hoping to cause mayhem," Remy said.

"Mayhem will come," Irkalla said. "It always does."

Remy smiled. "Yeah, that makes me feel a bit better."

Mordred, Irkalla, and Remy moved to the right of the opening. They crept along, stopping every few feet to take a look over the rock formation that doubled as a banister, keeping them from a nasty drop.

"The guards are just milling around," Remy said. "It's like an illusion of patrolling."

"They're waiting for us," Irkalla said.

They continued on until they reached the first cells on the top floor. The cells were fifteen feet square and contained mattresses and two buckets, and that was about it. Three dwarves lay inside the first cage, which Mordred noticed had runes burned into the floor.

"Hey," Mordred said in Dwarvish. "Any chance any of you want to get out of here?"

One of the dwarves sat up. It was impossible to know his age, due to the amount of grime on any part of his face that wasn't a massive beard.

"Get away," he snapped. "Is it not enough that you beat us, make us work night and day? You have to toy with us too?"

"Seriously, take a long hard look at me," Remy said. "I'm half-fox. Do you see a lot of half foxes running around the place?"

The dwarf looked confused.

"My name is Mordred," Mordred said. "This is Remy and Irkalla. We're here to ... well, rescue you."

"My name is Dethian," the dwarf whispered as the others in his cell stirred. "I have been here a long time. They freeze us, keep us that way for centuries, bringing us out to work for them before putting us back."

"How long have you been out?" Irkalla asked.

"A few years, I think. Some have been out decades, some longer. Most go back under if they don't die first after a few decades."

"How many die first?" Mordred asked, trying his best to keep his temper in check.

"There were thousands of us," Dethian said. "After the blood elves came, many of us fled to Valhalla, but the majority of us—those who had access to the realm gate in the citadel—we came to Atlantis, but it was a trap. We were slaughtered, imprisoned, forced to build and create. Forced to make this realm into Arthur's military base. Many died during those first few centuries, before they started putting us in stasis."

Mordred looked over the top of the low wall they were crouched behind and watched the floor of the prison below. "Something is happening," he said.

Remy and Irkalla looked down, too, at the soldiers, who were moving to the sides of the prison and standing to attention. Merlin strolled into the prison and stood in the middle of the lowest floor with fifty soldiers behind him.

"Mordred," Merlin shouted. "I know you're there."

"Bollocks," Mordred said, ducking back down.

"That right there is a massive bucket of fucking dicks," Remy said. "I know he's your dad and all, but he really is a giant sock of wank."

Mordred stared at Remy for a few seconds. "No, that sounds about right," he said eventually.

"Do you have a plan?" Irkalla asked. "Just curious. I'm okay with winging it."

"I'm going to hand myself in," Mordred told them both.

"That's a stupid plan," Remy said.

"Yes, probably," Mordred said. "But it's also the only plan we have at this exact moment, so stupid or not, here we are."

"What about Excalibur?" Irkalla asked.

"It's okay with me," Mordred said. "I don't think Arthur can use it. It's sort of bonded with me. I think I have to let people use its power, otherwise it doesn't work."

"If you don't come out, Mordred," Merlin said, "my Horsemen will happily come find you. And they have no problem killing a few dwarves on the way."

Remy turned to Dethian. Several of the other dwarves in the cell and those surrounding it had woken up and were staring at Mordred, Remy, and Irkalla with a mixture of curiosity and outright fear. "We really are going to save you," Remy said. "It just might take a while."

"I'm not going anywhere," Dethian said. "Thank you for even trying."

"Get everyone out of here," Mordred said, standing. "Hey, Dad. Still a contemptible bellend, I see."

Mordred walked to the staircase and descended slower than he usually might, ensuring that he gave his team time to get back together and get out of the prison before the mass of red-armored soldiers—Mordred refused to call them Horsemen—were sent after them.

"And your friends?" Merlin shouted after there had been silence for several minutes while Mordred made his way down two more floors of cells.

"We were separated," he said when he reached the ground floor, where Merlin had walked over to meet him. "The tunnel collapsed. I was on one side, they on the other. I told them to create a tunnel and go elsewhere. I imagine they're either back in the city or outside of the walls by now."

The look of irritation on Merlin's face made Mordred quite happy.

"Go check," Merlin said to one of the soldiers, who immediately obeyed like a good little lapdog.

"You've made your own set of mindless drones," Mordred said. "Do they sit and do tricks too? Or is it just the murdering?"

"Do you want to know something interesting?" Merlin asked. "You helped create them."

"What?" Mordred asked as two of the soldiers grabbed his arms.

Merlin's smile was unpleasant. "You remember when you worked for Hera? You were still under the control of what had been done to you all those years ago, but somewhere in your brain you knew you wanted to kill Hera for the part she played. You remember?"

"Mars Warfare," Mordred said. "Yeah, I remember."

"You remember a doctor who worked there? He tried to re-create the Fates, but you helped him create a method to use children and put them through the Harbinger trials. You remember the trials, yes?"

"Yes," Mordred said, nodding bitterly. "You get put under, and you live in your mind for months while your body goes through changes to make you more powerful, more used to using your abilities. And yes, I remember what I helped the doctor do. We created a lot of monsters, and then Hera sold them to the highest bidder."

"Which was me," Merlin said. "We bought them all. We then made some ... modifications, but they're still the same people you helped create. Your work helped create the Horsemen. This is your doing."

"And you did this to adult humans?" Mordred asked.

"Well, the method has a few issues. We had to burn away their eyes, but as a bonus, they have extra sensory perception. It's quite clever."

"You burned away their eyes?" Mordred almost shouted.

Merlin smiled.

"You turned them into a really shitty version of Daredevil," Mordred said and burst out laughing. "And then you put them in red armor. Holy shit, you're so getting sued if you ever take these to the Earth realm."

One of the soldiers punched Mordred in the stomach, doubling him over, before driving a knee into Mordred's exposed ribs, breaking at least one. Mordred dropped to the ground and tried to remember how to breathe properly as his magic started to mend his broken bone.

"Do you think this is a time to be funny?" Merlin asked. "You are going to see Arthur, and he's going to take that blade from you and use it to murder you. And his Horsemen will destroy everything you love."

"You're the new Horsemen?" Mordred asked the soldiers. "You fucking idiots. And there's no way you can use this sword."

"Because you won't let us?" Merlin asked.

"Because I've bonded with it," Mordred said. "Arthur can't use it without my say-so, can he?"

"The sword was never Arthur's," Merlin said. "It was a bone of contention for him. It did not work for him properly, and we were never sure why. Turns out it was meant for you and you alone, and it can only be used by people you've allowed to use it."

"Lucky me," Mordred said, getting back to an upright position. "We done here?"

"I'm pretty sure that if you die, the sword can be used by whoever killed you," Merlin said. "Want to guess where this is going?"

Mordred raised his hand. "You're taking me out for a father-son bonding day. Can we play catch, Pop? And can I have an ice cream as big as my head?"

Merlin's expression darkened. "You were always the buffoon."

"And you were always an asshole," Mordred said, suddenly serious. "You know that your own people rose up against the assholes you left in Avalon."

"Then we'll bathe the realm in their blood," Merlin snapped. "The Earth realm will be Arthur's."

"That's what this is about?" Mordred asked. "Arthur got told no, so now he's throwing a temper tantrum."

Merlin nodded to a Horseman, who punched Mordred in the stomach again. Mordred dropped to his knees.

"Why did you follow him?" Mordred asked through clenched teeth. "Why go against everything you taught me as a child? Everything you taught Nate too? I know there was some mind-control stuff going on, but that's not all of it; you're too powerful for that to happen by itself."

"I wanted the same thing as Arthur," Merlin said. "Peace, an end to war. And he offered it to me if I followed him. I did so gladly. The mind-control thing was a long time ago, to stop me from having issues with the more ... unpleasant aspects of what needed to be done. By the time you tried to kill Arthur, I was already fully working for him."

"So why did the paladins and Gawain keep playing with your mind?" Mordred asked. "Why let them?"

"Because I needed to let them think they had one over on me so that if the time ever came, they wouldn't know what hit them. If they ever betrayed me, it would be the end of them. Arthur tried to have Abaddon do the same to me, but she knew what I was doing. She was ... pragmatic about it."

"You were sleeping with Arthur's right-hand woman, weren't you?" Mordred asked, getting back to his feet. "A woman who used to be his lover, when he was Asmodeus."

"I was," Merlin said. "Arthur isn't very good with women. If you let people think they have power over you, it gives you leverage. Playing your hand all the time does you no favors. Like now, Mordred." He blasted Mordred in the chest with enough power that his hastily created shield protected him from harm but couldn't stop him from being thrown against a nearby wall.

"How'd that feel?" Merlin asked as Mordred got back to his feet.

"You do understand that my friends will realize you have me and they'll come to rescue me," Mordred said.

"Let me show you something," Merlin said, and Mordred was marched behind Merlin as he walked through the prison, out of the main entrance, and up to one of half a dozen huge elevators. They waited as the fifty Horsemen took their places on the elevators, and then they all rose up through the left shaft together, until they reached the top and exited to the outside.

"Pretty," Mordred said as they entered a black stone building, leaving the Horsemen outside. "You not worried I'll do something?" he asked as Merlin shoved his son onto another elevator that took them both up ten stories to the roof.

"This was a guard tower," Merlin said, ignoring his son. "We thought we might need one closest to the prison, but we never actually had a problem with the dwarves. They do as they're told."

"Or you freeze them in stasis?" Mordred asked.

"Yes, that's part of it," Merlin said. "But it turns out when you have thousands of prisoners being forced to work for you and you murder a bunch of them, the rest behave exceptionally well."

"Ah, aren't you the lovely boss," Mordred said. "Do they give you cookies at Christmas for being awesome?"

Merlin ignored his son again and pointed across the city.

Mordred squinted to try to see what he was being shown. "I don't get it," Mordred said. "It looks like a smudge on the ..." Then he realized what he was looking at. The plains were scorched, the realm gate missing from where it had once been. There were bodies littered over the landscape. Even from this distance, Mordred knew that a lot of people had died.

"We sent a group of Horsemen out to attack your people," Merlin explained. "Thousands of them in tunnels underground. They collapsed large parts of the plains and went to work," Merlin said with a smile. "Did you think we didn't realize you'd come? We planned it. Gawain knew what to say. We wanted you here, Mordred. Arthur wanted you here. Wanted to gather you all together and wipe you out in one go. He has other plans, too, but to see you all die—that will be his glory."

"The shaking," Mordred said.

"That was the explosion," Merlin said. "The realm gate itself isn't actually gone. It's still there; you just can't see it because that fog is blanketing everything. The fog kills people. It was poisonous to pretty much everyone, something that Hera also created at Mars Warfare all those years ago. The realm gate was fitted with enough explosives underground that it killed pretty much anyone standing too close. And then that fog was released. Your friends are either dead, wishing they were dead, or scattered to the winds. There's no backup coming through that gate while that fog remains, and the one thing that might be able to remove it is strapped to your back."

Mordred reached for Excalibur.

"Your friends and allies are no more, Mordred," Merlin said with a chuckle.

Mordred turned to look at his father. "You really shouldn't have brought me up here."

"Because you're sad?" Merlin asked.

Mordred took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "No, Dad. Because your arrogance will eventually be your undoing, and you've just sealed your fate."

"Are you going to kill me, Mordred?" Merlin asked with a laugh. "Do you know how powerful I am?"

Mordred nodded and looked back over at the distant field. The trees that had kept them hidden were gone, the ground turned over, the fog swirling. He had to find out how many of his friends had survived. He needed to find them. To help them.

Mordred turned back to his father. "Where's Arthur?"

Merlin laughed again. "You want to be dead that quickly?"

"You loved me once," Mordred said. "That's what I was always told—that your hatred of me grew as your love of Arthur did. You're going to hand me over to him to kill me; I just thought I'd like to know where I'm going."

"The top of the citadel," Merlin said. "It'll be a long journey. And then the pain that started in that dwarven realm all those centuries ago will feel like a gentle kiss."

"I wish it had been different," Mordred said. "I wish we could have had an actual father-son relationship. I think I would have liked that."

Merlin stared at Mordred for several seconds and then twitched slightly. "I wish I didn't have such a disappointment for a son."

"I know," Mordred said with a sigh. "But tough." Mordred blasted the roof beneath their feet with pure magic, destroying a large portion of it and sending Merlin and Mordred falling the long distance to the ground. Mordred wrapped himself in a shield of air, but when he hit the ground, he immediately started springing through the city to the drawbridge. He would find his father later. He would end all the hate and pain that Merlin had caused, but first, he had to help his people. He was their king, and he was damned if he was going to let them fight and die without being by their side.