Stone of Destiny

by Rowan Casey

  “We need to get this out of sight before anyone else comes into the room and sees us together. It’s going to take me a couple of minutes to do what I need to do and then it’s all yours.”

  “You still haven’t said how we’re going to get this thing out of here. Do you have a van to load it into?”

  “Not at all. You’re going to walk out of here with it in your pocket.”

  Matthias stopped asking questions and helped the man maneuver the trolley back through the door that Hautdesert had entered the room by. A couple of turns later they reached a storage cupboard and they wheeled the trolley inside. It looked like Matthias had wasted his time studying the layout of the building, Hautdesert clearly knew his way around.

  “So how am I supposed to get this inside my pocket?”

  “Patience,” Hautdesert said. “First, I need to know what you saw.”

  “I saw a stone in a clearing in a wood,” he began, and then described everything he had seen. By the time he finished he was not sure what he had seen in the vision, what was his imagination, and what were long hidden memories. He could certainly not be sure what was real any longer.

  “Then there is no doubt.”

  “Doubt about what?”

  “That this lump of rock is what we are looking for. I hope that it also proves to you that you are one of us.”

  “One of who?”

  “One of those who were there before. You were one of those who followed.”

  “Stop talking in fucking riddles!” For the first time since he had left the hotel he slipped out of character, no longer Cameron Argyle, but Bryn Mathias once again.

  “Very well. You were one of the men who tried but failed to draw the sword from the stone; this stone. You were one of those who thought that you were better than the others and had some kind of right to the sword and all that it represented. But you were never the best, no matter what you thought, and your failure proved it. But you were loyal to the man you called brother, the man you called king. The boy you called Wart, the man you called Arthur.”

  “So who is that supposed to make me?”

  “That makes you a knight. You were, or are, Sir Kay.”

  27

  Unlike when he had watched the spectacle that Grimm had produced in the States before he had headed back to Wales, Matthias found himself believing every word that Hautdesert was telling him. He believed it because it confirmed what he had seen with his own eyes, or at least with his own mind. And if Hautdesert was telling him the truth, why should he doubt what Grimm had been trying to tell him? What if the show he had put on had not been an illusion, but had been real? There was so much going on in his head that he found it hard to think straight and so he concentrated on the role he was playing. It was the only thing that made sense any longer; the only thing he had any control over. It was also the only thing that was preventing him from falling apart.

  “Kay?” The word felt familiar on his lips, like it belonged there, but he insisted and pushing it away.

  Hautdesert was looking at him as if they had all the time in the world, and yet Matthias knew that there was a danger that they could be discovered at any time. They needed to get out of there before someone discovered that the stone had not been moved to wherever it was supposed to be going.

  “It will come to you soon. Maybe you will remember it all in a rush, maybe it will come to you piece by piece, but you will remember who you are.”

  “And the Stone?”

  “We let it become.”

  “Become? Become what?”

  “Become what we need it to be. Things that are part of nature remain part of nature.”

  “More riddles. Do you never give a straight answer to a straight question?”

  Hautdesert shrugged. “Perhaps it would be better if you stopped asking questions. You might learn more if you simply watched.”

  He crouched over the lump of rock and ran his hands over its surface. The same blue sparks leapt from the time-worn Stone to his fingertips, and the room crackled and hummed with energy. Matthias desperately wanted to ask what was happening but knew that he would not get an answer that would make any sense. He simply had to watch and believe, but even as Hautdesert gave his attention to his task there was movement in the corridor outside.

  Matthias took hold of the door handle and held it tight, hoping against hope that no one would try to come inside. As he had feared, someone took hold of the handle from the other side and tried to turn it, but his grip held firm. The door rattled on its hinges as the new arrival tested it and it was enough to attract Hautdesert’s attention. The man raised a finger to his lips, as if Matthias needed to be told to remain silent. He had no intention of giving their presence away by a stupid slip like that.

  The tension on the handle relaxed a little and Matthias released a breath. With a little luck whoever it was had been fooled into thinking that the door was locked and gone in search of a key. Hautdesert waited for a moment before returning his attention to the Stone though Matthias did not relax his grip from the handle.

  A flash of light burst from the Stone and snaked across the floor, hissing and fizzing as it did before disappearing beneath the door and out into the corridor.

  “I know you’re in there, Matthias,” a voice boomed through the door, shattering the silence that had been filled only by the hum from the Stone. Hautdesert shook his head. “Almost there,” he whispered as the door shook again, this time with even more force. Someone was determined to get inside.

  “You’d better hurry then,” Matthias said, but it was too late. Suddenly the door burst open, the hinges torn from the doorframe, splintering the wood with a great cracking sound. Matthias was sent sprawling to the ground as he released his hold. Standing on the other side stood the man from the pub in Brecon; the man Matthias had thought he had seen so many times. The man who had haunted his dreams.

  “I warned you to stay away from this, Bryn Matthias. This is none of your concern.”

  “I guess I’ve made it my concern,” he said, scrambling to his feet and moving to block the doorway and putting himself between the stranger and Hautdesert, who still labored at the Stone. Blue flames snaked around his feet until they reached the big man. They writhed up the stranger’s legs as if he was connected with the Stone somehow.

  “You had more than enough opportunity to walk away from all this, and yet you chose not to.”

  “He is not to blame,” Hautdesert said, getting back to his feet and easing Matthias aside. “You are no longer needed, Guardian.”

  “No longer needed? Who are you to say that I am no longer needed?”

  “I do not need to explain myself to you, Guardian. All you need to know is that the Stone is safe. There may come a time again when you are needed, but that time is not now.”

  “I am not commanded by the whim of a mortal,” the man said. He seemed to have grown in stature so that he would have filled the doorway had he tried to come inside and seemed to be in no mood to leave. It was going to take more than words to end this confrontation, it was going to take action. As if on cue, Hautdesert produced a sword though Matthias did not see where it had come from. Hautdesert held it out in front of him, but it was unconvincing. The stranger did not wait for him to attack and lashed out with a fist, making contact with Hautdesert’s jaw. A moment later the weapon clattered to the floor and out of his reach. Matthias bent forward and snatched it up.

  It had been a while since he had held a sword in his grasp, and yet it felt as if it belonged to him. He felt its balance like an old friend, then used the flat of the blade to strike the side of the stranger’s head. He had no idea who this man was, or even what he might be, but he seemed determined to stop them. He had no desire to kill him, but he needed to get him out of the way if they were going to finish the job they had come here to do.

  The blow caught the man by surprise and he staggered back, clutching his ear and howling in pain. Matthias took a step forward, striking again wh
ile the man was disorientated. The man dropped to his knees and Matthias caught the man a final blow to the top of the head with the sword’s pommel. It struck the man’s skull with a sickening thud and he collapsed into a heap.

  “You handled that well,” Hautdesert said composing himself. “Even if you do fight dirty.”

  “It seemed the best way of dealing with him.”

  “You’ve see him before?”

  “A few times.”

  Hautdesert grew suddenly angry. “Why didn’t you say so before? I asked you more than once if there was anyone following you, or if you had seen anything odd, but you said nothing.”

  “I didn’t think it important. I wasn’t even sure that he was real.”

  “Not important?” he hissed. “Do you have any idea what this is?” He paused for a moment as if Matthias might answer. “Of course you don’t. You have no idea of anything.”

  “But how could I have seen him in different places? How could he possibly have followed me?”

  “He didn’t. There are many of them, and they all look the same. But what one knows, they all know.”

  Matthias wasn’t sure that he believed it, but it was at least an attempt at an explanation. So much of what he believed was starting to be turned on its head and it seemed no more fanciful than the idea of him being a knight from a time when things were so very different. He handed the sword back to Hautdesert.

  “You’d better hang onto it. It’s yours after all.”

  “Mine?”

  Hautdesert smiled. “We’ve been keeping it safe for you until the time was right.”

  Matthias turned the blade over, tracing an eye over the blade and knew that it was the truth. The length of forged steel was too familiar for it to be anything else. He nodded towards the unconscious man.

  “The rest of his kind will know that we are here,” Hautdesert said. “It’s unlikely that there will be others close by, but there is the chance that they will start coming in this direction. The sooner we are out of here the better.”

  “You’d better get on with it then,” Matthias said and leaned the sword against the wall beside the doorway and made to bring the unconscious stranger out of sight. He grabbed hold of the so-called Guardian’s ankles and dragged him inside the room. Leaving him in the corridor would only increase the risk of discovery.

  The man was light for someone of his height and build; pulling him took less effort than Matthias had expected. The discovery of who he really was had made him feel stronger, but this was more than that; the man weighed no more than a child.

  “Clearly that Stone is not the only thing that isn’t quite what it seems,” he said.

  “Nothing is ever quite what it seems. Far too much of this world is illusion, but in time you will learn to see what is truth and what is false. Or rather, you will remember how to do it.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Matthias turned after he had wedged the man into a corner and began to look for something to tie him up with. Even if there was time they would not be able to repair the door sufficiently to make the room secure, the man would be found soon enough. To Matthias’ surprise, the Stone was already much smaller than it had been when Hautdesert had turned his attentions to it. Even as he watched the two iron handles fell away, no longer secure in the rock, and once they were removed the process seemed to move much faster. It shrank before his eyes. For a moment a split opened in its center where a sword had once been lodged and then it sealed again. It became a wheel like the picture in Llandudno, shrinking ever smaller until Hautdesert was able to hold it in the palm of his hand.

  “How?” Matthias was determined not to ask questions, but this sprang to his lips unbidden. He knew that there could be no answer that would make sense.

  “By letting it become,” Hautdesert said holding the stone out to him. “Take it. I’ll meet you back at your hotel.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because no one will think to question Cameron Argyle even if they discover there is something wrong. They are more likely to hurry you out of here even faster so that you don’t get caught up in anything.”

  “But you would be the first to be stopped.”

  “Me?” Hautdesert said as he stepped out of his workman’s overalls to reveal a dark suit with an open-necked shirt underneath. “Do you really think Cheryl will recognize me dressed like this? I doubt it very much. If she saw us leaving together then perhaps she would make a connection and think that there was something wrong, but not if we leave separately. Take it, and go.”

  “What about the sword?” Matthias said, feeling the weight of the stone in his hand.

  “Leave it and I’ll get it out of here for you.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The stone felt heavy in his trouser pocket, but at least he could walk with his hand inside supporting its weight rather than having it in his jacket pocket and become more noticeable. As he reached the entrance he spotted Cheryl inside the glass-fronted booth talking to someone inside. He gave her a smile and a brief wave of his free hand but did not break his stride. If he paused he knew that she would come scurrying out to say goodbye in person and to hope that he had enjoyed his visit.

  He had almost forgotten that he had caught a glimpse of Rhys and his girlfriend when he had been heading toward the castle, but now it came flooding backing to him in a sickening memory. When he reached the street he had seen them on, he turned in the opposite direction in case they were still waiting in the same place. It would only take him a couple of minutes to work his way around the back streets and approach the hotel from the other side.

  His heart sank when he heard a voice calling, “Bryn!” But rather than stopping and turning, he ignored it and kept walking. He was sure that they would come hurrying after him, but he needed a moment to think about what he was going to say to them, and he didn’t want to have a confrontation with them on a busy thoroughfare. He waited until he had stepped onto a side street before he paused long enough to see that they were following him. Clearly he was going to have to try harder if he was going to give them the slip, but the danger was that if they kept calling out his name while everyone else around them was seeing a local politician, it was going to attract attention.

  He pressed himself into a doorway, relieved to see them walk straight past the narrow street he had turned onto. It might only be a matter of time before they realized that they had missed the turn but he had to make the most of it. He hurried along the street then turned again until he was heading back towards his hotel on a road parallel to the one he had been on. He entered the hotel not through the main entrance, but through the car park, without encountering anyone other then another guest leaving.

  He felt a moment of panic when he spotted the assistant manager he had encountered in the lift earlier. If he was seen, the man would make a point of asking who he had come to visit, and so he waited until the man’s attention was taken by another guest and slipped into the lift without being seen. By the time the door closed behind him, his heart was beating far too fast. He had always thought that he was able to control his nerves but so much had happened to him in such a short space of time that his life seemed to be spiraling out of control.

  When he reached his room at last he stepped inside and pushed the door closed with his back pressed against it as he sank to the carpet with an overwhelming sense of relief. He found himself shedding the persona of Cameron Argyle, feeling something disappear from him as he became himself. He was still not sure how he had done it, but he had done more than simply impersonate the politician.

  Somehow they had managed to get the Stone out of the castle without anyone even realizing that it had been taken. Apart, that was, from the man they had left lying unconscious in the storeroom, but he didn’t seem the sort to bring in the authorities. If Hautdesert was right, and he was just one of many, there could still be trouble ahead. They needed to get out of the city as soon as they could.

  The urge to open the minibar was strong but he
knew that he still needed to keep his wits about him. Clouding them in alcohol was hardly going to help. The Stone was weighing heavily in his pocket and he had no idea how long it would keep its present shape. He pulled it out and examined it.

  There was nothing particularly remarkable about it. It would pass as any rock in a stream without drawing attention to itself. Eventually he moved and dropped the Stone on the bed. He had given into the temptation to retrieve a beer from the minibar when there came a knock on the door. It had not taken Hautdesert long to get out of the castle, but then why should it as long as he had been able to conceal the sword? He rushed towards the door and flung it open, but it was not Hautdesert standing on the other side.

  28

  “Surprise!” Rhys said as Matthias opened the door. “We saw you outside. We shouted, but you couldn’t have heard us. Mind you, you looked like you had a lot on your mind. Nice suit though.”

  The words seemed to come at him like a tidal wave and all he could do was stand there and let them come gushing out He had done everything he could to avoid the man and his girlfriend and yet they ad still managed to track him down. He resisted glancing over his shoulder to reassure himself that the Stone was still on the bed, wishing he had kept it in his pocket.

  “How’s the search going?”

  There was a pause before Matthias realized that the man had finally finished talking and was waiting for some kind of response.

  “Another dead end I’m afraid, but as I’d come this far I thought I’d spend a couple of days in the city while I’m here.”

  “You weren’t in the castle very long,” Megan said. She was standing behind her boyfriend, almost unnoticeable, her comment seeming strangely out of character.