The Cosmic Logos (13 page)

‘Live as many years as thou hast already and I promise all will be clear to thee by then,' Noah granted with a confident smile and motioned to the hole in the earth. ‘May I?'

With curious nod, Maelgwn offered Noah the shield with which he'd been digging.

‘No, thanks.' Noah held out a hand and, manifesting a steel-headed shovel, he commenced work.

Maelgwn was well used to the High Merlin manifesting the strangest objects at will, and so did not blink an eye when Noah did the same. ‘A well crafted tool.' Maelgwn admired how efficiently the shovel did the job. ‘May I try?'

‘Surely.' Noah handed his tool over, gratified to have enthused the younger man into finishing the task.

‘I just want this episode over with, so I can pursue a quiet life.' Maelgwn explained his disgruntled mood and Noah could relate to his reasons for dreaming of a monk's lot.

‘Serenity stems from within and not from that which surrounds us.' Noah knew it was indeed Maelgwn's lot to go and study under the priests of the Roman faith for a time, but the young prince was also destined to return to
Gwynedd and become one of the most legendary Kings of his time. ‘And what would become of Gwynedd in thy absence?' Noah posed. The bitter look on Maelgwn's face brought home the grim reality of the era that Noah was only passing through.

‘Clearly, my
bastard
brother wants the throne far more than I do. So long as I am next in line to be King, there will be unrest in Gwynedd.' His jaw tightened a moment before he continued digging. ‘I have saved my father's kingdom and released him from prison. And, without so much as a word of gratitude, he lectures me for involving myself with Otherworldly forces to subdue the threat.' Maelgwn took out his anger on the earth he was cutting into. ‘I was not the one who picked the Merlin for my tutor; it was not my fault my mother insisted.'

‘But,' Noah hesitated to mention the fact, ‘I understand Caswallon lost his Queen in the uprising and must be grieving her loss —'

‘I loved her far more than he ever did!' Maelgwn hollered in response, tears bursting from his eyes, which he quickly wiped away.

Maelgwn's adverse reaction stunned Noah and he suddenly felt terrible for churning up the lad's pain. The Sage was so used to discussing the affairs of the past in a clinical fashion that he knew he would have done better not to lecture. He was no great emotional counsellor as Tory Alexander was, but he found comfort in the fact that she would be along in fourteen or so years to alleviate the pain of this fine young man.

‘Cadfer and his scum defiled my mother's dead body,'
Maelgwn uttered, full of hatred and disgust. ‘I want no part in this world any more.' The prince's anger gave way to exhaustion, and he collapsed to sit on the side of the hole he'd dug. ‘I am afraid I will never understand it or my kindred,' he mumbled, being haunted by the dreadful memories still so fresh in his mind.

The Sage crouched down beside the bemused prince to offer a little encouragement. ‘But thou art one of the few who can change thy world for the better.'

The lad fixed him with a look that implied Noah's view was naive. ‘I have seen enough horrors in the past few days to know that there is more evil in Gwynedd than good. To imagine that will change in my lifetime is a fool's dream, merlin, and I am no fool.' The lad's tears stopped as his resolve hardened. ‘For all my efforts of late, what have I achieved?' Maelgwn got up, and deciding the hole was deep enough, he fetched the crone's utensils from his Dragon's back. ‘The world be a sadder place for the loss of my mother.' He returned and cast the evil tools into the earth. ‘
Some change
.'

‘It seems the summer solstice shall be our best chance of success,' Taliesin called ahead as he wandered over to join them.

As Maelgwn could not understand the language that Taliesin used to communicate with the stranger, he returned to shovelling dirt.

‘I am sorry, High Merlin,' Noah apologised, ‘but I could have told you that.'

‘Good.' Taliesin sounded only semi-annoyed by the claim. ‘Perhaps you can advise of the hour, as the Key Stone and myself seem to be in dispute.'

‘Well,' Noah ventured, ‘I understand the midnight hour has always served your purpose. I —'

‘I knew it!' Taliesin smiled, gratified. ‘Goes to show these earth elementals don't know everything,' he whispered aside to Noah and then resumed his normal tone of voice. ‘The Key Stone thought midday, for extra power, but my argument was that midnight is for banishing magic and that's really our desire — to banish you to the future.'

‘Indeed,' Noah agreed, not really knowing very much about ancient earth magic. ‘So how long until the summer solstice?'

‘Why, it's only a few days away,' Taliesin advised, seemingly delighted. ‘Which makes your predicament all the more synchronous, don't you think? Here am I wanting to test my aptitude for wielding the ancient's technique for time travel and then the universe spits you forth to serve my end and I yours … which does seem to confirm that I am adept enough in the eyes of the Masters to accomplish our aim.' The Merlin was smiling, until he noted something amiss. ‘Where has the young Prince of Gwynedd gone?'

Maelgwn had completed the chore of burying the utensils and left the shovel alongside his finished task.

‘Rufus, where did he go?' Taliesin queried the snoozing animal.

The Dragon opened one eye.
He didn't say.

‘Well, go fetch him back, we need to talk,' the Merlin instructed, a little annoyed by the hold-up.

Now I remember. The one thing he did mention was that he hast no intention of ever coming back.
Rufus closed his eye once more.

‘What!' Taliesin nearly had a pink fit. ‘But with Sorcha dead, Caswallon will banish me from the court of Gwynedd. Without Maelgwn to report to me on court affairs, Gwynedd shall be doomed.' He paused to consider the kingdom falling into the hands of Caradoc and shuddered. ‘I must speak with him at once.'

‘He won't listen,' Noah informed, before Taliesin departed. ‘But he will return to assume the throne and take up the old ways of his people once he grows disillusioned with Christian doctrine.'

‘He's not going to study under those charlatans and ruin all my well-laid plans!' Taliesin vanished in a flurry.

Noah's head shrank into his shoulders. ‘Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it.'

He recalled Maelgwn's reports of this era and that the High Merlin and himself had not parted on the best of terms. How wonderful it was for Noah to discover that he'd just sparked the quarrel that would keep the prince and the Merlin at odds for the next fifteen years.

B
y the year 2108 all the lush green vegetation that had once surrounded the site of the King's Men stone circle in Oxfordshire had been reduced to dry, dirt by Gaia's erratic weather conditions. The Stones themselves seemed to be the only enduring landmarks in the vicinity. Even the elder tree that had grown over the witch's implements and endured through the ages had not managed to survive the twenty-first century. This was the case with almost all the planet's vegetation, due to over-exposure to the poisonous toxins humans had pumped into the atmosphere for so long and the many man-made disasters which occurred just prior to the great Gathering of Kings in the year 2037. Since then, all farming had been moved into biodome complexes
outside the larger domed cities which were located above ground, underground, under the sea, in space and on Gaia's moon.

‘Heavens,' Tory gasped, upon taking in the desolation of the site that held such sentimental value for her. ‘I'd forgotten just how awful the destruction we'd left behind us truly was.'

‘What do you mean?' Maelgwn pushed himself to sound positive. ‘This is much improved … at least the sky isn't black all the time now.' He placed an arm over his wife's shoulder and gave her a squeeze.

‘Why on earth did you bring us to this location anyway? I thought we were headed to see Doc Alexander?' Tory looked up at her husband affectionately, thinking it might be a romantic gesture on his part, as this was the place where they'd first met.

Maelgwn shrugged boyishly, as if to say his choice of destination had not at all been influenced by their sentiments. ‘I thought you might need to recoup your energies after all those farewells.'

Tory forced a smile and drew a deep breath to prevent herself from collapsing into tears again.

‘Hey!' Maelgwn hugged her. ‘All our long lives we've waited patiently for a time when there would just be you and me, and although I never seriously thought we could create this scenario for ourselves, here we are … just the two of us.'

‘And the problem of raising Gaia's consciousness … let's not forget about that.' Tory pulled back, and with a sniffle, smiled sincerely. ‘I just worry for our children and how they shall fare without us.'

‘My love …' Maelgwn drew a deep breath, knowing her doubts and thinking better of her for them. ‘We were an inspiration to our people, but lately, you know as well as I that we have also been a crutch. They must learn to survive without us, to trust their own instincts and make their own mistakes. We cannot —'

Tory gently placed a hand to her husband's mouth to subdue his rambling and nodded. ‘I know.'

Maelgwn kissed the hand that covered his mouth, and taking hold of her hand in both his own, kissed his wife's wrist, her shoulder, her neck, his soft caresses settling upon her lips.

The intimate attention was so welcome that Tory lost herself in the heights of emotion that he inspired within the humble vehicle that bound her soul and his to the realm of matter.

These two beings no longer needed to make love to invoke the sweet inspiration, calm and release that the physical act brought with it. Tory and Maelgwn were of one mind and one spirit these days; only their bodies had yet to merge on a permanent basis. Sex seemed an inferior substitute for the depth of union these two souls craved. Still, making love did manage to subdue their deeper yearning to a point. To a normal, happily married couple the idea that sexual relations were not an essential part of a relationship might seem odd, but to the spiritually advanced soul-mind a need of sex for sustenance meant that many physical world glamours were yet to be overcome. The glamours of personal magnetism, personal potency, devotion and the glamour of the physical body all thrived on such necessity. Tory
and Maelgwn had progressed beyond relying on constant love and attention from another so that they might feel worthy within themselves. What made the couple feel most fulfilled these days was working together and channelling their combined energies into whatever given task was at hand.

Tory felt the light of the Logos filling her to overflowing whenever she was close to Maelgwn. Her eyes were closed as they indulged in the healing energy of their kiss; it lightened her heavy heart and filled her with a sense of excitement for the adventures that lay ahead.

The darkness behind Tory's eyes was growing intensely white, and when her eyelids parted they beheld a white light and mist spewing forth from the centre of the parched stone circle in which they stood. She gasped in confusion.

‘Let's move,' Maelgwn suggested, racing beyond the ring and towing Tory along behind him.

‘Thank goodness,' Tory commented as they reached a safe distance. ‘Christ knows where we could've ended up.'

‘I believe this is an arrival,' Maelgwn advised. ‘You can tell that because the vortex of energy is spiralling outward. It's not being sucked inward, as it would be if it were a departure. Wait a minute!' Maelgwn cried out, appearing to have had a revelation. ‘It didn't click until just this instant … of course!' Maelgwn shook his head, as if attempting to get a grip on the extent of his epiphany. ‘I haven't thought about this since I first met you and you claimed to be from the future. The only reason I even considered believing your story was
because I had once before met a man who'd claimed the same. I was fifteen years old at the time.'

‘That was round about the time of Cadfer's uprising, wasn't it?' Tory assessed.

‘I met the man from the future during the course of those events,' Maelgwn confirmed, looking Tory straight in the eye. ‘And I do believe that man was Noah.'

‘Noah!' Tory looked back to the phenomena unfolding close by. ‘But …?'

‘Don't you see?' Maelgwn himself was only just coming to an understanding. ‘That would explain why he has not returned to report to Brian about his mission. With the chariot he can cheat time and so would have certainly returned sooner. But he couldn't return if he'd been trapped in the Dark Age and had to rely on Taliesin's as yet unperfected grasp of the ancient methods of moving through time.'

‘But how was Noah trapped?' Tory reasoned. ‘He is very accomplished in the greater mysteries and psychic arts of defence —'

‘Mahaud,' Maelgwn answered in a word. ‘I met the man from the future when I went to retrieve her evil implements from a cave in the Snowdon Ranges. The Goddess had bid me to bury the crone's tools beyond the borders of Prydyn, in return for Otherworldly aid to take back my father's kingdom.'

‘But are you sure it was Noah you saw?' Tory quizzed and her husband smiled.

‘Now that I have made the connection … I am sure.' He looked to the centre of the ring where the mist had cleared to reveal a lone body, unconscious on the
ground. As the illumined mist cleared completely, he saw the strangely clad mystery man from his distant past in the Sage he knew so well. ‘Taliesin's timing is impeccable, however coincidental.'

Tory followed Maelgwn to Noah's side, having had a thought that was not so amusing. ‘This does seem to confirm that Viper got his audience with Mahaud.'

Maelgwn grimaced and nodded. ‘But let us not jump to any wild conclusions before we've heard what our friend here has to say.' He slapped the Sage around the cheeks a few times, but achieved zero response.

 

The crone had taken up residence on the remote garbage level of the Aten's Star Chamber — the command centre for the huge mobile city. Her foul odour and that of the rotting corpse she inhabited was thus disguised and contained.

The smell didn't bother Viper. He thrived on the fact that he could withstand, and even enjoy, that which would drive most men to their knees and set them puking, or compel them to run for their lives. He'd noticed that whenever he entered the crone's space he felt an immediate affinity to the energy she generated. It was like coming home to mama.

Viper had murdered his own mother years ago for allowing him to be sexually abused all his life. Incest, child abuse, gang rape and orgies were all commonplace behaviour among the children of Dumuzi. That's what nurtured the dark nature of his people.

Mahaud was pure evil unrestrained by human morality; this Viper found very alluring. He aspired to be
like her, for with such lack of conscience and such dark psychic power to wield, no one would get the better of him again.

‘Bring me the woman who is the soul-mate of your Chosen incarnation,' Mahaud had advised, ‘for, in sacrificing her to me, you shall be committing the ultimate crime against your Chosen self and the great plan of the Allied Logoi.'

Under hypnosis Viper explored the past lives Avery and himself had had in common. Viper discovered that he'd already met the Chosen incarnation of the female soul they had repeatedly married through the ages during his research mission at the Institute of Immortal History on Kila.

‘You must seduce this woman, Viper.' The crone read his thoughts. ‘But as your foe are already on guard, we must use your ship's unique advantage to our advantage … we head for the time zone just prior to your theft of this vessel, before our foe were alerted to a threat.'

How clever she was. Viper smiled broadly at the rotting old man in which the crone resided, concentrating on her eyes of glowing red that reflected the dark soul within. ‘How shall I ever resist you once your soul-mind is in the body of my soul-mate?'

‘You are a demon, Viper …' she lustfully admired the healthy young demi-god bewitched by her power, ‘… as sick and twisted as any I've known.'

‘You have no idea how sick I can be.' He kissed the back of her cold, dead outstretched hand and then licked her palm.

‘How about I let you prove your devotion to the cause?' She licked her dry, cracked lips with her corpse's rotting tongue, and grabbing hold of Viper she drew him close.

 

Tory was about the last person Noah had expected to greet him upon his arrival in the present, but the event was most pleasing to him. ‘You are a wonder, Tory Alexander,' he mumbled, realising how groggy he felt when his words came out sounding rather slurred.

‘Hey, that's my line.'

‘Dragon!' Noah sat up to look about and spotting the large dark-haired, dark-eyed warrior, he scrambled up, excited to see him. ‘I just left you in —'

‘The Dark Age,' Maelgwn finished the sentence for him. ‘I know, I was there. Still, I must confess that I only just made the connection myself.'

‘You met Maelgwn as a lad?' Tory clarified, enchanted. ‘I wish I'd been there.'

‘I feel I owe you an apology,' Noah told Maelgwn, ‘for enlightening Taliesin as to your intention to pursue a monk's life.'

Maelgwn slapped a hand down upon his old friend's shoulder and gave a hearty laugh. ‘I did wonder at the time how the old wizard had discovered the details of what I'd planned, for I didn't take your claim to be from the future very seriously at the time. Still, it all turned out for the best, did it not?' He motioned to Tory, who'd been the second time traveller to visit Gwynedd in the Dark Age.

The response brought Noah's perception rocketing back to the present. ‘Viper intends to team up with
Mahaud,' he spluttered out. ‘The crone has given him the means.'

‘We figured,' Maelgwn advised. ‘You should report your findings to Lahmu at once.'

‘Yes,' Noah nodded and then frowned as he hesitated to comply. ‘How did you know exactly when I would return to the present, when even Taliesin couldn't predict an exact date or time within the desired year of my destination?'

‘The Merlin will come to learn,' Tory intervened to remind Noah, who was obviously not thinking clearly, ‘that the doorway through time only links from summer solstice to summer solstice of any given year.'

‘I knew that.' Noah whipped himself verbally under his breath. ‘In fact,' he realised, raising his voice, ‘I told Taliesin as much.'

The bemused look upon the scholar's face made Tory laugh. ‘It's one of those “what came first, the chicken or the egg” questions … but fear not, I've created a few of those in my time travels.'

‘I'm hooked already,' Noah admitted with a grin, but as his thoughts returned to seeking his Governor, another query sprang to mind and he frowned again. ‘So, are you coming with me to report to the Governor?' Noah recalled that Maelgwn had made it sound as if he intended to stay put.

‘Our meeting is pure coincidence,' the Dragon advised, considering it was rather nice that creation had allowed them this opportunity to say goodbye to an old and trusted friend.

‘So, if you're not on Gaia to meet me, then why are you here?'

‘We are taking the advice of a wise sage,' Tory informed him jovially, moving to take hold of her husband's arm. ‘We are answering the call to Gaia's defence.'

‘We have inspired our people to spiritual, mental and physical greatness,' Maelgwn continued, as their friend's mouth was gaping wide. ‘We aspire to do the same here, so that Gaia, too, can join the interplanetary alliance and become part of the grander scheme.'

‘Why do I feel like this is goodbye?' Noah could barely speak as his feelings were choking him.

Tory left her husband's side to hug their dear friend. ‘You know goodbye is never really goodbye.'

‘Yes. But then, I never thought that you'd be saying that to me.' Noah felt the pain of all those souls over the ages who had had to allow this amazing woman to vanish from their lives. He knew damn well he could find her with a thought, no matter where she resided in the universe, and yet, at the same time, he felt he might never see her again in this life. ‘I don't understand this premonition of mine.' Noah pulled away from Tory, unable to prevent the teardrops from tumbling down his face. ‘Are you planning to depart this world, Nin?' This was the only explanation Noah could conceive of.