Robin noticed that the others had arrived behind him, and so did Medraut. The evil one with glowing red eyes stood ready to kill us all with the power of an effortless gesture. When Robin saw me, he also saw what I carried in my right hand. He saw that I had by my side what he had once risked his life for—he saw the Sword of Gath.
Robin was still overwhelmed, but, without fear, he grabbed the sword from me. He swung it with vigor toward the neck of the enemy. Medraut’s eyes stopped their glow when he saw the threatening sword as it swung toward him.
Just as Medraut was going to try to take the sword from Robin, the distinctive sound of a crossbow pluck was heard. Joseph Habib had fired a single arrow, and it pierced the chest of Medraut—it was an arrow dipped in an onyx potion per my instructions. With the arrow extending out of Medraut’s chest, he fell to his knees. He was unable to move, his body completely paralyzed.
I grabbed Robin’s hand, and I removed the black ring off his finger. With haste, I took the sword from Robin and handed the weapon to John. I motioned him to perform the final deed. John raised the sword, and he swung the sword swiftly, with deadly accuracy. Medraut’s head, fully severed, fell to the ground. The head rolled forward for almost two complete revolutions, but it was just enough to reveal Medraut’s piercing eyes as they looked upward at us. It seemed, to some in the tent, that he looked directly at his executioner—little, but powerful John. Then the evil headless torso, that rhythmically tossed blood upwards, fell forward, and the arrow splintered and broke as it penetrated further into Medraut’s lungs.
As everyone caught their breath from the shocking event, I observed the strange and hideous stream of black blood as it continued to flow from Medraut’s fatal wound and seeped deep into the ground. I had never witnessed a beheading with a sword. I had heard rumors that it could not be done with one single blow, but John did it. Not many people knew that Little John was once an executioner for Henry II of England.
I went over to Medraut’s body to inspect it. I did not in fact believe that he was dead. I kicked him slightly with my right foot. I knelt down and shook his body. Then I searched his pockets. They were empty.
I opened his clenched fists, and I discovered my fatal error. I had entered the tent with the blue and white stones in a pouch around my waist—the stones that made time travel possible. Somehow, it must have happened when I first entered the tent. Medraut had moved the two stones, with the power of his mind, out of my bag and into his hands, just moments before his death. One fist held the blue stone, and one held the white stone.
Samuel was the last one to arrive in the tent. He watched me stand to my feet. I had a look of absolute dreadfulness on my face. He asked me, “Is he dead?”
“He is dead—here,” I said. “But, I fear he is alive somewhere else!”
I then walked over to Robin, who was lying on the ground in front of Marian. He was in extreme agony from the spell being partially broken. I took hold of Robin’s hand and placed the ring back on his finger. His physical pain immediately left, but his emotional pain was only just beginning. He looked at Samuel, whose spear had killed Marian, and his eyes spoke of vengeance and hatred.
In an attempt to help Marian in some way, and because he felt a sweeping sense of guilt, Samuel went over to Marian’s prone body and placed both of his hands on her naked back. Arthur and Joseph had to restrain Robin from attacking Samuel. They pulled him off and away from him.
“Get away from her!”—Robin yelled out while still being constrained. Arthur and Joseph asked Samuel to step away from the body. I saw blood on Sam’s hands as he moved away from Marian’s corpse. The blood on Samuel’s hands had a trace of a white, powdery substance on them. I was the only one that saw it. I knew precisely what it was, and I knew what Samuel had done. I knew that Samuel must have stolen some powder from a potion bag at my tent. The residue on his hands told the tale. After all, Samuel was my attendant. Who else would have the knowledge to do what he did?
Joseph and Arthur finally released Robin when he affirmed that he would not attack Samuel. Robin stormed out of the tent to take a walk in the woods, and John followed him. Joseph and Sam looked at the scene of death while I went with Arthur to the other tent.
Arthur slowly pulled back the flap of the tent to reveal the woman covered in black and white whelps. This woman, although barely alive, was very near to the eternal door of death. I wanted to give comfort to Arthur, but I could not find the words that would ease his pain or confusion. Although, given the urgency of the matter, I needed to act quickly and say the words that were in my spirit.
“Sire, this is most assuredly your queen, and I believe that you have the courage and will to save her, and, if not her, her son!” I advised.
“She is with child?” Arthur asked.
“Yes, the stones say so.”—I held a gold stone of divination in my hand. I showed it to him as he knelt down before his queen.
“What duty do I owe a bastard!” he quipped.
“No, sire. The child is yours,” I announced to him. “When your wife was killed, along with the other woman, at the stone table, her spirit was transferred into a dead body, to someone killed during this present time. Her child came with her. That child is your child, from a time past, but your child nonetheless! The golden stone never lies. You know this is the truth! We must act now!” As I spoke, I did not know if I would be in time to save the queen or her child. I concluded that the disease had already claimed the life of the woman that had traveled in time with Guinevere. Time was our forbidding enemy and our only possible savior.
I pleaded further in my efforts to save the woman and her child. But I added more news with deep regret, “Arthur! Medraut, I fear, is not dead!”
“Impossible! His head was severed! Just like the man of Gath was killed, so was he!”—Arthur still kneeled near his queen, and he tenderly held her crusted hand.
“Sire, I found the blue and the white stones in his hands! The stones of transference may have saved him.”—these words of mine made Arthur turn his head away from the queen, and he looked toward my telling eyes.
“Gather the others, Merlin! You will address them. We must not allow Medraut to destroy the world. He must be driven back to where he came from.”—Arthur was resolute when he needed to be. That was the strength of a king. Some would say he was callused, I would say he was authoritative.
Arthur finished his words, and then Joseph Habib came into the tent with some more mysterious news.
“The stone is gone!”—Joseph trembled as he spoke. He was not someone easily disconcerted. “The stone—the red stone around Marian’s neck—it disappeared, even before my eyes, while I looked at her wounds!”
“Samuel banished her! He was successful! She is safe—somewhere in the future!”—I announced. “Joseph, summon the others and gather them around the fire!”
A surprised Joseph left to gather the others while I continued to console the distraught king. I placed a hand on his shoulder and felt his almost rhythmic convulsions while he sobbed, and his tears poured onto the blackened and desiccated skin of Queen Guinevere. The body that was then hers was nearly dead, and she gasped for every breath.
The others quickly gathered around the fire, and Arthur and I met them and formed a circle around the cauldron.
“Friends, we have born a great tragedy tonight, even for Guardians!” I told them. As I spoke, I looked at the face of a more subdued Robin, and the eyes of a shaken Arthur and Joseph. Samuel still had the look of guilt on his countenance. John solemnly stood with Robin and offered him a firm arm of support around his shoulders.
“The Guardians have always lived through adversity, protecting the royal stones, and protecting those that supported that effort. I submit to you tonight that we have three new Knights to stand against the evil that the underworld may send against us. We welcome Robin and John of the former tribes of Sherwood, home of the oak and birch. We welcome Samuel, keeper of the Sword of Gath, and preserver of the lov
ely Maid Marian.”—I then saw Robin and Samuel as they looked at each other. Samuel hoped for forgiveness, and even gratitude, while Robin, who wore the impotent ring, hoped for an act of vengeance that could one day be performed in secret. He wished him to die.
I tried to explain to Robin what Samuel had done to Marian. Why couldn’t Robin see that Samuel, when he performed the ancient Danite ritual of banishment, had in reality saved Marian’s life? He did not merely send her away. Robin was still angry at Samuel’s rashness of throwing the spear that ended her present life. Although Samuel never intentionally killed her, Robin’s ring ensured the continuance of the unreasonable and uncontrollable thoughts of hatred and vengeance. It was the last part of a spell that had its fulfillment within Robin. I tried to convince Robin, but there was little success. I told him that eventually his hatred would leave him if he committed to an act of kindness. That was the cure that he needed. The ring could be shattered after such an act was completed.
“I charge you Robin, as a new Guardian, to take up the cause of caring for the king’s eventual child and heir, Prince Cai!”—I faced unenlightened stares, but I spoke the words anyway. They knew nothing of the child. To them, I was a babbling face in the night, an old man with a long white beard, a wizard in an old sorcerer’s robe.
“The gold stones of prophecy predict many wars in this field that we stand in. For the benefit of saving ourselves and the stones, and to save the queen and her unborn child, Cai, we must leave this place by the act of transference. This is the only way!
“The power of the black stone onyx paralyzed Medraut, which allowed his beheading. This should have ended his life. However, he held within his grasp the stones of transference, the blue and the white stones of Gan Eden. It must be assumed that he is still alive.
“The stones of blue and white, as our tradition teaches, never follow a traveler under certain circumstances. The stones do not follow the holder of the onyx. We know that an arrow dipped in onyx potion penetrated Medraut’s skin. Either he is dead, by beheading, or he escaped death and is somewhere else.
“My friends, I believe that Medraut was an Anakite, that evil race that arrived from the heavens during the beginning of time—that evil people that the Living Spirit destroyed by breaking up the bowels of the sea and throwing them into it.
“We must leave this place. We must stay alive to ensure the destruction of Medraut, in case he lives. We must save ourselves for this purpose. We must save the sacred stones.”
I concluded my oration and told them of the method of our transference. We all had to achieve this transference by way of a quick and painless death I told them. I would provide a potion of hemlock mix that would hasten our deaths, I explained. If successfully done, we would all awake, along with the queen, in a distant future, and very much alive.
In truth, I did not understand the full power of the stones, or how they worked exactly. I based my conclusions on the earlier experience of transference that I had gone through, along with Arthur and Joseph. I assumed that what I supposed would truly work. I also had the experience of waking my servant Samuel, just before I met King Richard. That tale I left untold. That matter remained between Samuel and me.
As for Joseph Habib, he volunteered to stay behind, and not journey with us. I told everyone that Joseph was being sent by me to Egypt, to find and join the group known as the Priests. We needed an alternate plan to safeguard the stones, in case we failed. The Priests in Egypt were the most knowledgeable and logical ones to be able to fulfill this plan. If the Priests still existed, for none of us knew for certain, Joseph would join their group. But if they did not exist, then Joseph would start a new order once he arrived in the land of the pharaohs.
As a second safeguard, I told them that I would perform a physical act of transference first—as a test. It would be a corporeal transference and not a spiritual one. I would transfer in my body for a brief moment into the future, I told them. I would gather knowledge to ensure our survival, and then I would return to them.
I remember seeing the highly suspicious faces that night. They were extremely doubtful of most everything that I said. When it comes to matters of a mystical nature, seeing is believing—but not always. Amidst the skeptical frowns, I did it. I pulled out two stones of blue and white and held them over my head.
I yelled out, “FUTURUM EST PROSPICIT!”—I vanished from their eyes in an instant! I was gone! Although to the onlookers, it was a matter of a brief moment. To me, it was to be much longer.
I appeared in front of them, and I flickered in my appearance before them, like a dying candle in a sudden and rushing wind. I left and returned to them for what to me was a voyage of several years. To them, it was an instant, like the blink of an eye.
King Arthur pulled me to a private area, once I returned from my journey, and he questioned me about my appearance, my different clothes, and my new manner and presentation.
“What is the meaning of this suit, and your manner, Merlin?” he asked of me.
“Arthur, I have been to many places, and I have seen many wondrous things! But we have no time—no time at all,” I insisted. “In order to save everyone, including your future son, we must leave now!”—I stood before him in a tweed suit, and I was clean shaven. I had been to the future to secure knowledge. It was knowledge that we would need to survive. It was knowledge that we would need to keep the royal stones in a safe place.
My journey into the future was successful. I had the names and locations of several mineral mines that would provide us with future income, along with the names of stocks and investments that were advantageous. I secured possible places of residence for us. I brought back with me several syringes full of antibiotics and vitamins. But I knew this would not completely cure us. It would only buy us time. I did not reveal my full knowledge of our plight right away with the others, or with the king. Eventual death comes to everyone.
After a self-demonstration, I was able to convince the king to allow me to inject him with my potion of wonder drugs that originated in a time and place that was hundreds of years in the future. Eventually, I convinced everyone to partake of this needle ritual. I even injected the dying queen with my liquid of mystery. I gave everyone two separate shots, one in the arm and one in the loins.
What I did not tell them was this. The first shot was full of vitamins and antibiotics, but the second shot was a time released death sentence. The full ingredients I never disclosed, but its results were inevitable. We were all going to die, and we did die, just after dawn broke. I also did not tell them of the inevitability of our actions. To survive, we would have to take these drugs continually, for the rest of our lives, or face an excruciating death because of the poison of the stones within our veins. It would cure us, but we would carry our eventual death with us. We were forever tied to this magical and forbidden drug. That was the curse.
I found out later from Robin that when I had disappeared from the camp, on my trial expedition voyage, I had appeared and reappeared several times. I told Robin that I had made about five or six trips to various locations, although I was not quite sure how many trips that I had made. The stories were too many to tell. There was a lot that had happened. After all, I had been gone for five years—five, very long years! To the group of men at the cauldron, I had been gone for just a few seconds.
I was glad that we expired at dawn, just before King Richard and his men found our camp. I was most certain that he was going to confront us for the crimes of kidnapping and horse stealing, and possibly treason. I was sure that he would come up with his own conclusions as to what had happened to us, once he found us dead on the ground. Tales of magic would be invented, and legends would be born out of the event. But in our new bodies, we would start a new life, and Robin would faithfully perform his act of kindness to a child by his mentoring of little Cai.
Inside the first syringe, along with the vitamins, there was a sardius stone potion. That was the main ingredient injected into every one of u
s. For the first time in the history of the Guardians, sardius stone serum flowed inside a human vein. With this improved and ancient miracle, we would live for a very long time. It was a powerful fountain of youth that charged within our bloodstream.
Each of us awoke in a fresh body, whether in a morgue or a streetcar accident. And because we had this potion within us, our memories were maintained—we forgot nothing!
We changed our names to match a more modern or different image—Robin to Robbie, John to Tom, Samuel to Sam. Arthur stayed with his name because kings rarely like change. Since I had the first grey hair, I went with the image of an uncle. I became Uncle Willie, Willie Myre.
Meanwhile, back at the camp, hundreds of years before our new lives, King Richard rode into the camp and found all of our bodies collapsed on the ground. On each of our necks was a gold chain with a cross, a symbol to Richard that we had died like true Christians. I had brought the chains from the future for us to wear at our death. I thought it would be nice for a Norman king to remember us well, at least in his mind. Perhaps, that is why, even to this day, King Arthur, the legend, is remembered for being a Christian. If the world only knew the truth, then I imagine that they would be terribly disappointed. For a brief moment in time, a pagan ritual was performed for the benefit of saving the world from evil. Only time would tell if we did the right thing.
King Richard saw all of our dead bodies except for one. Joseph Habib was missing from among us. Joseph Habib had collected any jewels he could find, prior to our death, and he had left with urgency and caution for Egypt. With him, he took the Sword of Gath, Excalibur, or Caliborn as we called it, Cali for short. Others knew it by its other historical name, the Sword of Goliath!
Chapter 17
The Witch, the Sword, and Samuel
The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) Page 18