The Seal of Solomon

by Jeffrey Ellis

  “More life to Camelot. More to feed,” it said.

  Several more ghouls came out of the ground though not as many as the first wave. “Sir Xavier, Lady Bethany, nothing enters that tower!” ordered Sebastian.

  “Yes sir,” replied Sir Xavier as he and Lady Bethany took flanking positions on the door.

  “Sir Bruce, Sir Mason, mow down those things, Chelsea and I will handle the big guy,” said Sebastian and he and Chelsea walked towards it.

  The creature engaged Sebastian and Chelsea as Sir Bruce and Sir Mason met the ghouls head on. The thing was powerful, of that there could be no doubt. It was surrounded by a feeling of hopelessness and just being in its vicinity gave them a nagging feeling they should give up.

  They fought valiantly against the creature but didn’t seem to be able to hurt it. Fire flew from its fingers but was deflected by the shields which surprisingly showed no scorch marks, nor did they get hot from the contact. It moved almost faster than the eye could see, claws slashing and parried against their newfound blades.

  The pair fighting the ghouls was faring much better and had dispatched them. They came to join the fray against the large creature and as they did so, Sir Mason stopped and stared at the thing and his eyes met the creature's. “Yes...mine...feed…” it said, and a dark energy stretched from it towards Sir Mason.

  “NO!” screamed Sebastian and his blade glowed red like earlier and a moment later so did Chelsea’s and they were able to wound it with the glowing swords. They cut into the fiend and it screamed in pain as they sliced and cut it to pieces.

  “That was intense,” said Chelsea.

  “It felt like that sword was a part of me and when that thing was doing whatever it was to Mason, I felt my rage pour into the blade, my only thoughts were on saving my people,” said Sebastian as he nodded in agreement.

  “Yea. I don’t know how but somehow my own emotions powered it,” said Chelsea. “I saw what you did and knew I could do the same, so I did. I don’t know how though it just sort of happened.”

  They headed back towards the tower and as they did so, the tree cover opened, and sunlight beamed in burning away the frigid air. The trees continued to recede returning to normal size. Sebastian looked at the bodies of the ghouls and stopped.

  “What's wrong?” asked Chelsea.

  “Look at them. It's in tatters but many of them wear armor. Some you can still barely make out the symbol of Pendragon on the crest. Others are dressed like servants. That one wears a heavy leather apron like an old smith. The people of Camelot didn't abandon the castle. That thing turned them into these abominations,” he told Chelsea.

  “I think you're right. At least we could give them some peace. Do you think our children were among them?” she asked.

  “I don't know. We may never know,” he said with the sorrow in his voice evident.

  Chelsea took his hand and gripped it tightly as they returned to the tower.

  “Amazing,” said Sir Bruce as they approached the tower and the sun shone brighter through the foliage. “That thing must have kept the sunlight away. Probably some variant of light-sensitive undead like a vampire. It seemed to be focused on feeding. I would suspect it got its power from draining life.”

  Lady Bethany gave him a look. “What? I can’t be smart? I am a Warden after all,” he told her.

  Lady Bethany smiled at him as they walked inside the tower. They entered, and Merlin was huddled over Anna.

  “Is she okay?” asked Sebastian.

  “Yes. She’ll live but she’s going to need rest for a day or two as will I. I just had to forcefully put her soul back into her body. That’s a bit stressful,” said the old man.

  Anna sat up. “Thank you for saving me Merlin,” she said.

  “Don’t thank me, thank the king over there,” he said pointing at Sebastian.

  “About that Merlin,” Sebastian remarked. “Anna is important. We’re all important. We have to change the old ways and how you and the Masters operated. Life is more important than anything and we can’t be so willing to throw it away. The toll has been too great, and it stops now. If you can’t live within that constraint, then go find yourself a quiet island somewhere out of sight and leave the world alone.”

  Merlin’s eyes widened. “You’ve changed Arthur. There was a day when you would never question the will of a Master.”

  “The world changed and keeps changing Merlin, but the Masters don’t change with it. You’re fixed points and you treated the world as if it were populated by primitives in the bronze age but not this time around. Life is more precious than your magic and it’s time you learned this,” he told Merlin.

  By this point the room was silent. Everyone was staring at them except for Chelsea who stood by Sebastian facing Merlin.

  Merlin looked him in the eye. “There were eight of us in the end. Seven are still sleeping somewhere. I alone sacrificed for this world. I alone stayed to complete the Seal and stop the one person who was worse than the alternative. I expected to die that day. I was prepared to give my life. Thousands of years I had lived, and I was willing to sacrifice that so that life could flourish and not be razed by Mordred. I killed my own son to save your world. Mordred was my child. Don’t tell me about the value of lives!”

  No one spoke as Merlin and Sebastian looked at each other, then Merlin continued. “I treated you like my own children. I trained you to become Masters and had I more time, you would have ascended. I saw in you a spark that was lost on the Masters of old. We lost our path, our respect and love for life. Mordred was evidence of how far we had fallen when our focus was on stopping him, not preserving life. You however, you value life first and with you the end does not justify the means. You’re right. There must be a change and I will be the first to make that change. I cannot undo all the years of wrong the Masters wrought upon the world, but I can make things different going forward,” Merlin told him.

  “The days of the Masters are gone. You failed. Your actions did nothing to better humanity and only caused more death and destruction than Mordred ever did by the creation of that fucking Seal,” Sebastian told him.

  The foolish old wizard, nothing more than a puppet stringing himself back to his long years of wrong started to surface once more. “I cannot and will not apologize for the past!” he yelled then quickly calmed himself. “But I will work to make the future better.”

  “I give you a choice Merlin. Join us or get out of our way. The world will not bow to Masters again,” Sir Sebastian told him.

  Merlin without thinking, too many years of treating humans as pets, arrogantly remarked, “I will do as I see fit. I am a Master, not you and...” said Merlin but could not finish.

  “Shut up,” said Sebastian, his voice echoing again. “I gave you an ultimatum not an opening for a discussion. The Masters are not going to resume their position. You WILL fall in line, one way or the other!”

  Merlin stopped a moment and shook his head as if fighting a bad headache then kneeled on one knee. “Sir Sebastian and Lady Chelsea, Defenders of Humanity, I pledge my life to your cause,” the old man told him.

  Anna followed suit. “Sir Sebastian and Lady Chelsea, Defenders of Humanity, I pledge my life to your cause.”

  Each in succession kneeled and pledge their loyalty to he and Chelsea. “Stand up all of you and stop this foolishness. I’m no more a king than you are,” he said.

  Anna stood and spoke. “Merlin is right. We need a new direction. You’ve showed time and again your first duty is to preserving life and order. The Wardens have lost that path and have forgotten our duty to people and stood by as wars were fought, tyrants ruled, and horrors happened using the fey as an excuse. We were silent during the world wars. We did nothing as nuclear devastation and biological warfare savaged the nations of this world. We have lived in luxury as people starved. We tried to justify it by saying our duty was different because we had a cause. We had forgotten why we did what we did. Bad things are coming, and we all know i
t and we all feel it since the Seal broke. Things have been out of control except where you walk. Order follows you and now so do we. It’s going to throw the Warden’s council into fits when they find out who you are, but they need shaken up. They’re stagnant and idle and we can’t be idle any longer.”

  He looked at Chelsea and she stared back into his eyes and said, “You were born to this. The world is in shambles. We have the ALF fighting the government. The fey are going to get bolder without magical constraints. The Seal is broken and as magic gets stronger so will the fey. The world needs you.”

  “No, you’re wrong. The world needs us. All of us,” he said looking around.

  “What’s our first objective?” asked Anna.

  “Restoring Camelot and awakening the Masters. Merlin, can you help us with locations?” asked Chelsea.

  “I think I can find them. It’s still difficult in my weakened state. My powers are growing, but slowly. The Seal is broken and magic flows freely again, but it will take time to regain my full potential. I’ve already tried the locations we planned, and they aren’t there. They’re completely missing, chambers and all.”

  “Why haven’t we heard this before” asked Anna?

  “Because it doesn’t concern you,” said Merlin. “The actions of Masters are not the concern of...” and he stopped. “The actions of the Masters are no longer above the concern of others. I’ll be more forthcoming in the future.”

  “Thank you,” said Chelsea.

  “It would be easier if I had my library. I could the knowledge contained in it for research. Its loss is profound. Do the archives of the Wardens contain any copies of the ancient tomes?” He asked Anna.

  “Library?” asked Sebastian.

  “Chelsea, do you remember, the tomb...the hidden chamber...could it be?” asked Sebastian.

  She looked at him and seemed excited. “Come with us!” she said and hurried back to the castle.

  As they walked, Bruce and Xavier were discussing what just happened.

  “Mate, why did we just swear loyalty to someone we just met?” asked Xavier.

  “Mate, I don't rightly know,” replied Bruce.

  “It was strange, his presence, it just felt like he should be leading us,” replied Xavier.

  “I know what you mean. Camelot, King Arthur, is this really happening?” asked Bruce.

  “I don't know but I feel like this is the right thing to do,” replied Xavier. “He gives an order and I feel like obeying it. You can hear it in his voice. He's in charge.”

  “We are Brits and Arthur was king of the Britons. Maybe it's in our blood,” Xavier said with a laugh.

  Bruce smacked him on the back of the head. “Don't be daft. The others are Yanks and they did the same thing.”

  “Yanks are just Brits who refuse to acknowledge the monarchy,” Xavier said with another laugh and Bruce just shook his head.

  Sebastian and Chelsea led the group through the castle along the hallways and down corridors to the dead end. Anna brought them up to speed on the events relating to the tower. They went down the hidden stairwell into the tomb with the open sarcophagi and the armored skeletons tossed carelessly to the floor.

  “Are those who I think they are?” asked Mason.

  “Yep,” said Chelsea and walked to the part of the wall with the carving of them on their thrones.

  “How can you be so casual looking at your own...your...bodies?” asked Lady Bethany.

  “They’re just shells. We’re not those skeletons. We’re right here with you,” Chelsea replied then pressed a series of gems in the carving. She tried a few times and eventually the wall opened. Inside were the books and other items from the tower.

  “How did they not rot like everything else?” asked Anna.

  “The books were imbued with magic when they were made that preserved them,” said Merlin. “The Seal only stopped the flow of magic into the world, it didn’t destroy what was already here. Minor enchantments preserved the pages.”

  “Arthur and Guinevere...I mean we...I mean...oh Hell I don’t know what I mean but we knew about the preservation magic, so they were saved in a secret library,” said Chelsea.

  “So, we restore Camelot and awaken the Masters. What if the Masters won’t cooperate with the new way?” asked Mason.

  “We hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Start accessing the archives and get me some options in the event they won’t join us. Masters are the magical equivalent of a superweapon and I want to know how to stop them if and when it comes to that. It will also help us against this unknown Seal breaker,” said Sebastian.

  “We also need to do more than restore the castle. We need to modernize it. Satellite relays, data feeds, shuttle pads, laser batteries and EMP cannons, all the amenities of the modern world need installed,” he added.

  “I’ll contact William to coordinate repair crews,” said Anna. “We lost a number of Warden facilities during the upheaval it won’t be hard to justify a new base to the Council, especially a potential source of magical power. They're already salivating in the hopes Camelot turned out to be just that. We’ll need manpower though and it will take time. At least funding won’t be a problem. The Wardens have a massive budget that’s mostly untouched during the recent fey decline. Supplies will take longer in the aftermath with all the rebuilding going on. I think the Director of Warden European Affairs will approve the expenditures,” she said looking at Sebastian.

  “Dad is a good man. He’ll be on board,” he told her. “Until then Facility 14 will remain our primary base. We need to start preparing. We have a new enemy in the world,” said Sebastian.

  “Why do you think that?” asked Bruce.

  “Merlin says those runes are dark magic and I doubt whoever did that is after peace and love. They also managed to walk past the ghouls. Whoever did that is either allied with, in control of or able to sneak past those undead creatures and those possibilities all spell possible problems for us. We’re at war we just don’t know who or where the enemy is, so we prepare, learn and wait,” Sebastian told them.

  Sir Mason and Sir Xavier returned to Caerleon to get the shuttle. The vegetation had receded greatly since the creature’s destruction, so the shuttle could reach the castle now.

  Sebastian and Merlin were discussing training plans while the others were doing assessments of the castle for repairs and updates. Anna and Chelsea were walking along the grounds.

  “A few months ago, I was training this cute guy to be a field agent so we could go off a few fey together. Now I’m the reincarnation of an ancient queen and engaged to the king and part of a subversive group of Wardens out to make the world a better place and on top of all that I have a wedding to plan`,” said Chelsea.

  “Maybe that’s what everyone needs,” said Anna. “In all this strangeness we need something normal to keep us grounded. I know a great caterer,” Anna told her.

  Chelsea laughed and put her arm around Anna. “Sure, why not. Let’s plan a wedding.”

  Chelsea went back to the castle and found Sebastian talking with Bruce in the throne room. “I’ll talk to dad as soon as we return, and he will get your transfers approved,” he said. “Oh, hi. Bruce, Xavier and Trish are transferring to 14. We need all the friends we can get,” he told her.

  She looked at Bruce. “That’s fantastic. After seeing you in action, I can say you’re as good as your profile. You’re an asset to the Wardens and I suspect under that ego you have a good heart,” she said to Bruce.

  “About the pub, I was a bit upset that I was passed over to lead an expedition into Camelot to give some upstart command but now, after I’ve seen who that upstart is, I’m sorry. I didn’t believe what I read in the reports but it’s true. You’re them and I believe in the oath I swore. Arthur, Sebastian, Guinevere, Chelsea, whatever you call yourselves now, you’re my High Lords and I will follow you into the jaws of death,” said the big guy.

  “Thank you, Bruce. I never doubted you or I wouldn’t have asked
you to join us. I’m a pretty good judge of character and you’re on our side, I know that,” Sebastian told him.

  “Do you mind if I steal my boyfriend away from you, Bruce? We have a lot to talk about,” said Chelsea.

  “Aye, I’ve other things on my mind anyway. I’m going to go chat up that bird, Bethany,” he said.

  “Let me give you a tip. She likes her men strong and forceful so don’t be a pussy and you might get some of hers,” said Chelsea.

  “I like you. You’re a proper naughty woman, you are,” said Bruce and he laughed as he walked away.

  “You’re incorrigible,” said Sebastian.

  “Oh, you know you love it,” she said smiling as she pressed up against him. “Every time you blush, every time you get embarrassed, every time I make you push the limits of your shyness, I get a little hotter and you get a little harder,” she said pushing him back to a wall. “Take me right here, right now, you sit on the throne and I’ll sit on you,” she said rubbing against him.

  “This room isn’t exactly locked, and anyone could walk in,” said Sebastian.

  “I don’t care,” said Chelsea as she pushed him back towards the throne, pulling off his shirt in transit and undoing his pants. He took her shirt off and pants off and they hastily removed each other's armor. They made love on the throne and afterwards, she sat with him and they held each other.

  “Anna thinks we should plan the wedding soon and I think she’s right. We need to keep moving forward with our lives and not let things change that. I want to marry you and you want to marry me so let's get married,” she said as they held each other.

  “You’re right. We should but I have an unusual request,” he said.

  “You? Unusual? I have to hear this,” she replied.

  “I can remember fragments of the wedding of Arthur and Guinevere. It was a ceremony presided over by Boudicca. If we can find and awaken her, I want her to perform the next ceremony and repeat our first wedding, assuming she agrees. But we have to face the fact that might not be possible, so we can give it a time limit, say three months and if we can’t pull it off, we have a more modern ceremony or whatever you want,” he told her.