The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) (25 page)

“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 lovely 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 us. 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

In the Words of Sam

I slightly stumbled as I navigated across the two seats to get into the window seat of the crowded commercial jetliner. I was not the man that I used to be. The narrowness of the cabin seating became more pronounced every year that I traveled. I arrived at the end of the cramped row, and I sat down with much relief. I engaged the whirling and spitting sound of the air conditioner above me and then confirmed the limited view through the usual dirty oval window. I sat in the seat thinking of my younger days and some of the events that brought me to my current state.

I was on my way to North Carolina to see Sylvia Reeves, to obtain the stones that enabled time travel. I had to arrive
before
Peter! As I reclined in my uncomfortable seat, soon after takeoff, I kindly refused any beverage, and then I drifted into a half sleep and remembered the old days of long ago.

Many time travelers suffered from something now called hypnagogia. It was one of the aftereffects of the experience—this half awake and half sleep state of mind. Many of us that experienced and suffered from this hypnotic malady, myself included, were deeply in touch with our feelings and dreams. Although, many people failed to regain their memories after the time travel journey was completed, which often resulted in unresolved apprehensions, hallucinations, and an absolute terror in the night! There were often good candidates to guard the ancient and royal stones, but only a handful of those chosen succeeded in guarding the precious relics. The total loss of memory and identity frequently drove people to insanity.

It was the reason transference was discouraged. It had extreme psychological consequences. It was a practice that was only allowed under threat of life or if the stones were in danger. I have often wondered if the terror of not knowing your past was greater than knowing your past and all of its details. I was fortunate because I had the latter experience—my memories remained intact.

As to the organization, the Guardians did not have a formal organization before the existence of the Knights because the Guardians were small and secretive. Usually represented by a very small family unit, members were often in groups of two to five people. A husband and his wife were a typical team. Children were possible, but not always. In fact, many Guardians became sterile if they participated in multiple occasions of transference. Small groups were the norm.

These smaller and localized groups attempted several times to develop some managerial or political relationships between other groups in other countries, or regions. There were attempts to bridge the great geographical distances, but most of them gradually lost touch with their initial mission, either because of misuse of power, or just simple memory loss.

The grounding of a memory attachment was essential during transference. It was why many of the fifty knights at the time of King Arthur either disbanded or went mad. Even today, you may be aware of someone who has lost touch with reality due to disassociation with his or her past or present memories. Having no memory—a vacant mind—leads to the destruction of the brain.