Return of the Grail King

by Theresa Crater

  Merlin began his chant, his deep bass grounding and intensifying the ethereal song of the women of Avalon, for the folk of the surrounding town and country had joined on the edges of the circle. A chant rose in Arthur’s chest and he added his own voice, sounds that budded and bloomed, becoming the call of the bull to his cow, the challenge of the buck to any others who would contest him.

  Through the line of priestesses now he saw another coming toward him, a woman wrapped in red and bedecked with flowers, her face glowing with light, transformed by the power of the Goddess she had already called into herself. She carried a chalice. Michael, watching from the back of Arthur’s mind, recognized it as the same vessel used in Grandmother Elizabeth’s temple at The Oaks. So the legend seemed to be true.

  Arthur pushed Michael back and sent out a call to the God and a shaft of light fell on him from the parting clouds. His sense of himself as an individual faded almost completely. He let the God take him.

  The Goddess danced around the God, slowly leading him away from the others toward a bower constructed further away in the meadow. There, she pulled at his robe, allowed hers to open, revealing the curve of her hip, a pink nipple, taut with desire. His body responded, energy flooding his limbs, his phallus rising fully to serve Her. At last, but it had only been minutes, she pulled off her robe to reveal her naked form, laid the robe on the ground under the bent willow branches, and beckoned to the God. A surge of joy filled what little remained of Arthur and Michael, such a gift to be welcomed into Her service like this.

  The distant chanting intensified yet again, and somewhere distant from his intense passion, the Lady and Merlin spoke of the sun and earth coming together to bring the tides of summer back, to bring fertility to the crops and lambs to the hills, to create new life in the people. To rectify earth and bring her into harmony with the realms of the divine. The people of the surrounding villages scattered to find their own mates.

  The Goddess stroked the God’s limbs, pushed his robe off his arms, and ran her hands down his chest, kissing the scars he had gained in service to the sacred land, which she was tonight. Finally, she lay back and he could hold back no longer. He stretched above her, the sky above the earth, the sun above the crops, and sank into her warmth, her depths, the vast mystery of her fertility. He lost himself to the thrusts and gasps and wetness of burgeoning new life.

  During that long night, he realized the priestess embodying the Goddess tonight was Morgan, the daughter of Morgause. Morgause had come here for safety after her father had died and Uther had married her mother, just as he himself had been sent away north and hidden from enemy eyes. Morgan was the product of a ceremony like this one, one between King Uther and the Priestess Morgause. This made the woman he made love with, laughed with, ate with from the baskets brought out to them, his sister.

  He pushed the thought away. It was the old way, before the Christians taught it was wrong. They did naught but their duty. There was nothing personal in it. She carried the maternal blood, and it was only fit that he should serve the Goddess as well as the royal line. The Sun Child would be worthy. He turned back to the business, the pleasure, at hand.

  Nina pulled on her black leggings and slipped a black turtleneck over her head followed by a black wool sweater. She matched this with black athletic socks, black sneakers, and topped her outfit off with a black slicker against the inevitable English rain. Studying her face in the mirror, she decided the hood of the slicker shadowed her face enough against recognition. She waited until the clock struck half-past two am, opened the door to her room at Pilgrim’s Bed and Breakfast, and listened. Hearing nothing, she snuck into the hall and made her way outside.

  Luck was with her. The street gleamed black beneath the lights, wet with light rain. She paused next to a vine-covered wall. Satisfied nobody was out at the moment, she made for the alley between the church and the Daisy Center Retreat. Huddled under her slicker, she walked across High Street to Silver, then up to Chilkwell, and finally onto Well House Lane. All was silent at the Berachah Guest House and it looked like her luck would hold.

  Nina made her way past the Victorian pump house, keeping her breathing even. The faery lights that decorated the building and wall had been turned off. No vagrants or late night celebrants stood inside the small courtyard outside White Spring. No one filled a bottle at the small stream of water that fell inside the nook just past the courtyard.

  Rose Cottage, the Le Clair house, stood dark. She walked the length of the road to The Hermitage, which she’d heard a new Australian couple had recently bought since Garth had disappeared. It seemed many people in the magical community had recently turned up missing or dead. Its windows were dark.

  Nina retraced her steps to the round wrought iron door to the interior of White Spring, took out her hook picks and torsion wrench, and went to work. In a few seconds, the padlock at the top of the gate clicked open. With one more glance around, she slipped inside, closing the door behind her. She reached through and hung the opened padlock back in the slots of the gate. If anyone walked by, they probably wouldn’t notice it was open.

  Nina stood in the dark listening to the sound of gushing water and allowed herself to acclimate to the sacred cave. In the nineteenth century, an outbreak of cholera had led the local water board to desecrate the series of faery dropping wells that had lined the bank and build a stone well house, trying to contain the water in a series of pipes. The high mineral content of the water blocked up the pipes over several decades and the place had been closed.

  Magic always pushed through the attempts to contain it, Nina thought. She was grateful the locals had finally gotten control of the building and turned it into a temple. In nooks and crannies, altars to the Goddess and God stood, with beautiful paintings, lit by candles during the day.

  The spring itself fell into a round stone basin much like its twin spring across the street, but this one single, not double. The water brimmed over onto the floor, out the door and often, she remembered, down the street. Moisture had already seeped into her sneakers. Nina switched on her flashlight, thinking belatedly that a candle would have been more appropriate given that the Brigit ruled over this well and her day was a fire ceremony. She moved off to the left where she knew from an earlier reconnaissance that the stone would be dry.

  She leaned against the stone wall, sank to the ground, sat cross-legged, and switched off her light. She sank deep into meditation quickly, the atmosphere redolent with power, ritual upon ancient ritual layering more energy onto the primordial potency that already existed here, the vital force of water as life, of mother earth, the higher beings who used this place as an anchor, of the elemental undines, and the fae just out of sight.

  Nina sensed them watching. They were like her, she imagined, beyond the moral constraints of human religion. Primal beings, bringing comfort or cruelty as appropriate. She felt the brush of Brigit’s attention, but it moved off. In the dark, she waited, letting her awareness open, deepen. The black of the cave grayed and she made out the dim outlines of the well wall, the altar table near the back of the cave. Beneath the gush of water, she heard stirrings, whisperings. A splash that sounded to her ears like a frog jumping into the water. But it was no frog. Giggles.

  “Where is the Orion crystal key?” she whispered.

  A renewed silence came after these words, the wary quiet of wild creatures, but it was short lived. Another splash. The sound of tiny feet. Deep inside the Tor, a laugh. The strains of a harp.

  A breeze touched her face. Ghostly fingers? The breeze grew stronger. The gray of the cave sharpened and took on a touch of color—golden stone. The light seemed stronger toward the back of the cave. Nina stood as quietly as she could and walked toward the glow. She reached what seemed like a solid wall, but light escaped from one edge, revealing one stone overlapping another with a gap between them. Steeling herself for what lay beyond, Nina slipped through the hidden entryway. She switched on her flashlight with apologies to the powers that p
resided here.

  The way was ordinary enough at first. The path widened into a larger tunnel, the remnants of an ancient cave. A stream bed led deeper into the hill. She followed it to a fork and felt an urge to turn left. A few feet in, she found a large chamber. Nine Sentinel Stones stood around the perimeter glowing faintly. The ceiling of the cave glinted in response, mica picking up the light and bouncing it back. Nina pointed her flashlight up and saw a rounded ceiling dotted with crystals. Light reflected from the ceiling and walls, stars within the earth. Crystals and gem stones sparkled from every direction.

  Mentally she asked her question again. Where is the Orion crystal key?

  She sat in the middle of the cave, lotus-style, and waited, schooling herself to patience.

  Nimué, a voice whispered.

  Was this the famous crystal cave where Merlin had been held captive by his traitorous apprentice? A different cave sprang up in her mind’s eye, smaller, lined with faceted quartz, dotted with amethyst geodes and smaller tabbies just beginning to elongate. Farther north.

  She let the image fade and sat in silent expectation. The back of the wall seemed to waver, like stone seen through water. A gleam caught her eye, something on the floor of the cave near the back. She stood and crept toward it. Another glint in the sandy bottom. She knelt beside it and felt around.

  Gritty sand. Tiny granules of harder stone. Her hand passed over something larger with a rigid edge. She brushed sand away and searched again, palm flat. A faceted edge seemed to bump up against her hand like a cat asking to be petted. She pointed her flashlight into the sand and there it was, a three-inch clear quartz point.

  She’d found it. She lifted the crystal. It was still on its gold chain. Under the light of the flashlight, she made out the detail in the setting, the head of Set, the brother of Osiris, the principle of duality.

  Something stirred behind her. Turning, she saw two figures standing in an open field under a canopy of stars.

  What had happened to the back of the cave?

  The female’s head was crowned with wild red curls, her skin ivory white. Her beauty made Nina’s heart stop a moment. The scent of spring flowers reached her nose.

  The male—something about him seemed familiar.

  “Cagliostro?” she called out.

  The male cocked his head as if trying to place the name. His eyes sharpened a moment, uncanny blue eyes that were lit tonight with an otherworldly glow. Then he threw back his head and laughed. The sound both thrilled and terrified her. One of the fae.

  “Finders keepers,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  The childish phrase in the mouth of one of the faery royalty unnerved Nina. She turned and fled down the corridor to the mouth of the cave. She tore the lock loose, ran outside, closed the iron gates to the spring, and then snapped the padlock closed.

  Had it been real? She opened her hand. The Orion crystal key lay in her palm, a reassuring weight.

  Chapter 11

  Michael waited while Tahir paid the driver. He’d managed to get some sleep during the day, which surprised him, although he’d had another dream about King Arthur. Now, he and Tahir walked toward the entrance of the Serapeum at Sakkara. Stars began to appear in the deep purple twilight.

  “I spoke to Grandmother Elizabeth and Winston. Anne is fine as long as they don’t move her. The baby’s vital signs are normal. I should get back there,” Michael said.

  “You must recover the crystal if you are to make her safe.”

  “I still don’t see how coming here will help,” Michael said. He took another breath to continue his argument.

  “Quiet. We go in silence now.”

  Michael stifled a protest. This command meant he was to prepare himself for ritual—to quiet his mind and gather his energies. He allowed his worries to flow through him, the images of Anne lying helpless, of the child stillborn, Anne in her coffin, of Mordred lording it over them. As they flowed, he imagined them as a river and moved away from the banks, matching this image to his steps. Slowly, his worries faded. He started taking slow, even breaths. Imagining the outcome he desired. A healthy family.

  Tahir nodded, feeling the shift and approving.

  They reached the sloping entrance to the Serapeum in the growing dusk. Michael bent his knees to keep his stride even. A man in a white galabeya glided out from the shadows and greeted Tahir, talking with him quietly as they approached the wooden door. He drew a key from his pocket and opened the door, stepped back and nodded. Tahir slipped the man some baksheesh. Michael would repay Tahir for his time at the end of their work, being sure he added enough to cover all these tips, but Tahir’s pride demanded that he pay now.

  Once inside the entrance, they turned left and made their way along wooden walkways until they reached a corridor about thirty feet long. Large chambers had been carved out on either side. Each held an enormous stone box. Most were diorite, the largest about ten feet by fifteen, weighing seventy to a hundred tons. The interiors of the boxes were smoothed to space-age precision and gleamed like glass under a flashlight. The engineer Joe Whyte had once measured one and found tolerances of two ten-thousands of an inch. Michael chuckled to himself. That meant the surface was so smooth that any deviation was smaller than a human hair split in half. But the Egyptologists still claimed the ancients had used stone balls and copper chisels to carve them out. And that the boxes were coffins for giant bulls.

  Michael almost bumped into Tahir who had stopped in the middle of the corridor. Tahir raised a finger and stared into Michael’s eyes. He began to chant in the ancient Khemitian language, his voice low and insistent, somehow dissonant but soothing. The effect was eerie. Michael felt himself detach even more from time and space.

  He allowed himself to float with the sound. Gradually the silent, dusty corridor on either side of them lightened, as if torches had been lit or some crystalline light had been turned on. Then came sounds, voices talking quietly. Michael looked around to see who had joined them and saw shadows moving toward them in the hallway. As they drew closer, he noticed they were not dressed in Egyptian costumes, but in the garb of many times and places. He blinked, but the shadows only grew more solid.

  Tahir grunted in approval.

  “What the—”

  “Shh,” Tahir commanded, his finger to his lips. He motioned for Michael to follow him.

  They walked past the huge chambers filled with stone boxes. Once the chambers had held only the gigantic diorite structures, but now in each one an attendant stood expectantly. Every person held a staff with a different sigil at the top. And the stone walls of the back of the chamber had dissolved and now revealed distinctive landscapes. One opened to a water world with sun-dappled seas and a pod of orange and cream fish with bulbous, faded blue eyes. Another revealed an expanse of green lawn. A city crowded the horizon, soaring spires of crystal rising into a lavender sky. In the next, jungle vines draped over taller trees. Exotic birds sang. Michael paused, and a jaguar leaned out and licked his face.

  He wiped his cheek with his sleeve and looked up to see Tahir trying not to laugh. “What—Where did—” Michael sputtered.

  “Shh,” Tahir said and gestured for Michael to follow him.

  Dumbstruck, Michael trailed behind Tahir without another word. He did not understand what he was seeing. He’d always thought of the Serapeum as some sort of elaborate energy generating device. Others thought it was a storage facility for seeds. He’d never thought the place was a burial ground for the sacred Serapus bulls that it was currently named for.

  As they passed by, Michael hesitated to look into the next chambers. Tahir stopped and nodded at the attendant in the room. Michael stepped up behind him and found a Druid priest standing next to the huge, dark box that gave off a deep hum. The man wore a white flowing robe with a torc around his neck. His beard almost matched the white of his robe. His skin was smooth, but his eyes seemed to have watched centuries go by and they took Michael’s measure in one quick glance.

&nb
sp; “Just in time,” the man said in a curious, lilting accent.

  Michael was rooted to the spot. He was afraid to look at the back wall.

  “Come along, now,” the Druid said.

  Michael looked wildly at Tahir. He peeled his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “What’s going on?”

  “You need to recover the Sirius Crystal Key and save your wife and child,” Tahir said in a firm voice.

  Michael opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked from Tahir to the Druid, who stood with his arm out to usher him inside the chamber. Tahir started down the short flight of steps that led into the chamber, reaching behind him to grasp Michael’s hand and tug him along. Michael allowed himself to be pulled into the chamber.

  The Druid nodded and pointed his staff at the box. He sang a series of tones and the twenty-ton lid shifted. The man turned to offer Michael a hand up.

  “In there?” Michael asked, his voice almost a squeak.

  “If you please,” the Druid answered.

  Michael’s chest flooded with heat. His heart pounded. He backed away and ran up against Tahir.

  “It’s okay, Michael. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “What is happening?” He spat each word out with great emphasis.

  “It’s best we don’t talk much.” Tahir turned him around and took his face between his hands. “I promise on my life that it will not harm you. You have two lives to save.”

  “And a prophecy to fulfill,” the Druid whispered.

  “What? But—” Michael started to object, but then two nine-foot beings with conical heads walked by dressed in iridescent loose pants and tunics, laughing, one slapping the other on the back.