There were legends, of course. Of Gods who had ruled a land in the middle of the ocean, a place called Atlantis. Of war among Gods, and how their battles soon became man’s. Of priests who came to England from over the sea. Some spoke of sorcerers and magicians moving the massive stones with the power of their minds. Merlin, the counselor of the king, was said to have had something to do with the stones when he was young, hundreds of years earlier. There were even whispers of those who were not human and the Undead walking the Earth, but such talk was mixed with tales of pixies and fairies and other strange creatures. There was even a tale that the center, most massive stones, had been brought up out of the Earth, sprouting like plants at the command of the Gods.
The screams grew louder as the flames rose higher on the wicker man, their volume matched each time by the Druids. Away from the brutal scene, in the darkness, a slight female figure, wrapped in a black cloak with a silver fringe, led a horse pulling a litter on which another, larger cloaked figure was lashed. She stumbled and almost fell, only the support of the horse’s bridle keeping her upright. Her cloak was dirty and tattered, her step weary, yet there was no doubt of her determination as she regained her step and pressed forward into the megalithic arrangement, passing the outer ring of stones.
The fiery light of the wicker man fell on the man on the litter. His robe was also worn and bloodstained though he wore armor beneath the cloth. The metal was battered and pierced. His lifeless eyes were staring straight up at the stars.
The complex they passed through had been built instages. In the center where they were headed were five pairs of stones arranged in a horseshoe. Each pair consisted of two large upright stones with a lintel stone laid horizontal on top. A slab of micaceous sandstone was placed at the midpoint of the entire complex, to serve as a focal point for worship and an altar for the various local religions that flourished briefly, then were swept under by the weight of the years. Later builders had constructed a second smaller ring around this, using spotted dolomites. And even later, a third encircling ring thirty meters in diameter was built consisting of sandstone blocks called sarsen stones.
The woman led the horse and litter up to the oldest set of stones, an upright pair covered by a lintel stone. She threw back her hood revealing lined skin and gray hair shot through with remaining black. She untied the litter from the horse.
“We waited too long, my love, and we became too noticeable,” she whispered to her partner in a language no one else on the face of the planet would have understood. It had not yet really sunk in to her that he could not hear her and never would hear her again.
She noted the orientation of his dead gaze and she too peered upward for a moment searching among the stars. She pointed. “There, my dear Gwalcmai.” He had been known as Gawain at Arthur’s court and had fought at the Battle of Camlann, where the leaders mortally wounded each other. It was there he had received the wounds that had drained the life from his body.
However, it was not the wounds to his body, or even his death, that frightened her. It was the damage to an artifact he wore on a chain around his neck, underneath the armor. It was shaped in the form of two hands and arms with no body spread upward in worship.
A mighty blow had smashed through the armor and severed the artifact in half. A tremor passed through her body at the sight, and tears she had held in for the week of travel burst forth. An earthquake of fear and sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. She could hear the chanting and see the flickering fire to the north and knew she did not have time to wallow in her pain before the Druids came here to worship what they could not comprehend.
She ran her hands lightly over the surface of the left upright stone, searching. After a moment, she found what she was looking for and pressed her right hand against the spot she had located.
For a moment it seemed as if even the chanting of the Druids and the screams of the dying halted. All was still. Then the outline of a door appeared in the stone. It slid open. She unhooked the litter from the horse and grabbed the two poles. With effort almost beyond the capability of her aged body, she pulled it into the darkness beyond. Freed of its burden and smelling the foul air, the horse bolted away into the darkness. The door immediately shut behind them, the outline disappeared, and all was as it had been.
Merlin slowly rowed across the placid water toward the tor. The bottom of the boat grated onto a pebbled beach. He stowed the oars, tied the boat off to a stunted tree, then made his way up the track that wound its way up the hill. He walked as if carrying a great burden, stoop-shouldered and with stiff legs, but all he had in his hands was a long staff of polished wood which he leaned on to aid his climb. His face was hidden in the shadow of an overhanging hood, but a white beard poked out at the bottom.
When he reached the top, he paused, taking in the shattered stone of the abbey. Then he looked all about, at the country that surrounded the lake. Nothing moved under an overcast sky. It was as if the land had been swept clear of man and beast. A gust of cold wind caused the man to pull his robe tighter around his body. Ever since the great battle of Camlann the land had appeared bleak and cold.
He walked to the abbey and through a doorway. The interior was open to the sky, the floor littered with stone blocks from the collapsed roof. With a gnarled hand Merlin reached into the neck of his robe and retrieved a medallion. On the surface of the metal was the image of an eye. He placed it against the front of the small altar where there was an indentation of similar shape. He held the medallion there for several moments, then removed it, sliding it back inside his robe.
He rubbed his hands together as he waited. He started as a door swung open in the wall of the abbey and a figure stepped through, cloaked in brown. He too wore a hood, which he pulled back revealing a lined face adn silver hair. His eyes widened as he recognized the man by the altar.
“Myrddin!”
The old man wearily smiled. “I have not been called that in a long time, Brynn. At the court of Arthur the King they called me Merlin.”
“So I have heard,” Brynn said.
Merlin looked about. “They would have brought Arthur here.”
“He died right there,” Brynn pointed toward the nearest stone wall of the abbey.
“And Excalibur?”
“No sorrow?” Brynn folded his arms across his chest. “No sign of grief for the death of your king?”
“I knew he was dead,” Merlin said. “I have grieved in private.”
“I doubt it.”
Merlin straightened, drawing himself up, and despite his worn condition, Brynn took a step backward.
“I did what I did for the land, for the people.”
“It did not work,” Brynn noted.
“It was better than hiding in a cave with old papers,” Merlin snapped.
“Was it?” Brynn didn’t wait for an answer. “The land is worse off than it was. Many have died. The Grail was almost lost. The sword too. It is good that you don’t consider yourself one of us any longer. You betrayed our order.”
“I went beyond our order as must be done at times.” Merlin stamped his foot on the tor impatiently. “Our order has watched since the time of Atlantis. We once worshipped the ‘Gods.’ And when they fought among themselves, many of our people died and Atlantis was destroyed, the survivors scattered. I talked with Arthur many times — he was a Shadow of one of these creatures. He knew much of the great truth.”
“ ‘The great truth’?”
“What do we know?” Merlin asked Brynn. “Do we know where the ‘Gods’ came from? Why they are here?”