Area 51: The Legend (2 page)

“I tried to do the right—” Merlin began, but Morgana held up her hand. There was such power in the gesture that he fell silent.

“You know so little, supposed wizard. Ignorant people should not act.”

To that Merlin had no reply.

“Have you seen Gawain?” Morgana asked.

Merlin pointed to his left. “There are numerous bodies in a group about fifty meters that way. Many of Arthur’s court and of Mordred’s followers. It must have been where the center of the two armies met. Gawain and many other knights lie there. But where is Arthur? And Mordred? We did not find them among the bodies.”

Morgana looked past Merlin at the two men with him. They all had an emblem around their necks, a medallion with an open eye inside a pyramid. Watchers. Who had broken their vow and done more than watch.

“Are you just concerned with them?” Morgana asked.

“The Grail and the sword,” Merlin acknowledged with a glance at the cloth-covered object in her hand. “Where are they?”

“Arthur had Excalibur. Percival takes him to Avalon.”

“And the Grail?”

Morgana lifted the cloth from the object in her right hand. She held a golden hourglass figure, eighteen inches high by eight wide at each end. The center, where she had her hand, was an inch wide.

For millennia it had been an object of legend and myth among humans around the world. One could see how it might be confused with a cup, but both ends were solid. The surface was translucent, emitting a slight golden glow. The Watchers with Merlin went to one knee, heads bowed, awed by the object.

“I feared it was lost to Mordred,” Merlin said. “Guides attacked us last night and took it.”

“It almost was lost.” Morgana held her other hand over one of the flat tops. Her skin tingled. She touched the flat golden surface and held it there. The surface irised open, revealing a six-inch-wide opening. Merlin came forward while the others remained in place.

“I feared to do that,” he said. “I do not know how it works.”

“It does not work by itself,” Morgana said. Four inches inside was a small, round depression, an inch and a half in diameter. “A stone is placed in each of these. One on each side.”

“And then?” Merlin was mesmerized.

“And then it does as promised,” Morgana said. “Eternal life.”

“And the stones that make it complete?”

“They are far from here.” She removed her hand and the top shut. “I had them once. Long ago and a long way from here.” She was lost in memories for a moment before returning abruptly to the present. “You cannot get to the stones. And the Grail is dangerous. As is the sword. As you should finally know by now. They are beyond you and all other humans right now. You must take them and hide them far away.”

“They are powerful—” Merlin began, but she cut him off.

“Look around. This is what happens when you meddle in things you are not prepared to handle. Death.” She stared at Merlin, her dark eyes boring into his. “You have violated your oath as a Watcher. The oath that was made during the First Gathering on Avalon and has been passed down through the generations.”

“What do you know of Watcher oaths?” Merlin demanded.

Morgana lowered her voice so only he could hear. “I know more than you or any other Watcher. I was there for the First Gathering. I wrote the oath.”

“That cannot be,” Merlin protested. “That was thousands of—”

“Over ten thousand years ago,” Morgana finished for him. “I have walked this planet longer than that. I stood in the shadow of the great spire of the temple of Atlantis. I saw Atlantis destroyed during the Great Civil War among the Airlia Gods. I came here to England and organized the rebellious high priests who became the first Watchers. I was there when the first stone was raised at Stonehenge. I have seen things of which you have no concept. I have fought these creatures, the Airlia, and their minions for all that time. And Gawain, whom you know, was there with me through all that.

“So I tell you, Merlin the Watcher, you must do as I order. You will take the Grail and Excalibur. You will travel to the roof of the world and hide them there. So that someday men can go there and claim them, but only when the time is right. When we are prepared to do battle with those who rule us from the shadows.”

“When will that be?” Merlin asked.

Morgana sighed. “A long, very long, time, I fear. Beyond the scope of your mortal life surely.” She reached inside her cloak and pulled out a chain. On it were two things. One was a small figure looking like two arms raised in prayer. The other was a medallion similar to the ones Merlin and the others wore, except hers was golden, like the Grail. “Do you recognize this?”

“I have read of it,” Merlin whispered, still trying to accept what she had told him. “It is the symbol of the head of our order. It is written that it disappeared a long time ago.”

“It did not disappear,” Morgana said. “I disappeared with it.”

“I do not understand this,” Merlin whispered.

“That is why you must do as I order. I founded the Watchers long ago and I still rule. I have the symbol.”

“Why do you not keep the Grail then?” Merlin asked.

“Because it is too tempting to me also,” Morgana said.

Merlin lowered his head and stood silent for a long time.

“You have only to look around you to see what happens when you meddle with things,” Morgana said. “Arthur is not who you think he is. Neither is Mordred. They are not men.”

“Arthur—” Merlin began, but fell silent, as the many strange things he had seen in the past decade fell into place.

“It is not time,” Morgana said. “You failed and many have died because of it. The burden is on you now to make things right. Or as right as they can be now.”

Merlin slowly nodded. “I will do as you say.”

Morgana held out the Grail. “Take it. Then go to Avalon and recover Excalibur. It will be in the possession of the Watcher who lives there, Brynn.” She reached into her cloak and pulled out a sheet of leather on which a map had been drawn. “This is where you must go.” She pointed.

Merlin tried to grasp the scale.

Morgana helped him by pointing to an island in the upper left hand corner. “This is England.” The destination she had indicated was far to the right and down.

“No one has ever gone that far,” Merlin protested.

“I have. And you will. It will be a noble quest, worthy of Arthur’s wizard.” Morgana handed the parchment to him and walked away, heading in the direction he had pointed to earlier.

She finally found the center of the battle. The corpses were piled three deep in places along a sandbar that rose out of the swamp. The sand was bleached red from blood. The smell of death was strong. The bodies had not had time to begin to decay but the odor of fresh blood and voided bowels was almost overwhelming. Morgana had seen—and dealt—much death in her long life but it had not hardened her heart.

She carefully stepped among the bodies, searching with both hope and trepidation.

She found Gawain where she had suspected he would be. In the very middle of what must have been a terrible fight. He was floating lifeless in the shallow water. Morgana grabbed one of his arms and with great effort pulled him clear of the other bodies. She could see he had been wounded at least a dozen times. His eyes were blank, staring with a dead gaze past her shoulder at nothing. Her hand began to tremble as she unbuckled his breastplate. An edged weapon had obviously hit Gawain horizontally just above the sternum, cutting through the metal, into the flesh beneath.

She lifted the front half of the upper body armor off Gawain and cried out in anguish as she saw that his
ka
had taken the blow as well. The front part of the arms had been sliced cleanly off. It was destroyed.

After so long, to have it end like this. In a stinking swamp, among bloody bodies. In a war that resolved nothing, a war caused by a fool who had not known what he was doing. After over ten thousand years. She could not believe it. Could not accept it. Morgana lifted her head up to the darkening sky as if she could see through the clouds and into space, across the light-years, to the very beginning, to the day when it should have ended, but had actually begun for both of them. She howled out her anguish like a stricken animal.

12,426 B.C.
EARTH
CALENDAR:
CENTAURUS
SPIRAL
ARM
,
MILKY
WAY
GALAXY

It was the fourth planet from the star, nestled in that narrow orbit that allowed human life to flourish. It had been chosen for that reason. Once its land surface had been green and vibrant but now most of the ground had been blasted by the weapons of war. Blackened and broken terrain covered most of the four continents and once-proud cities were battered graveyards. Even the oceans had not escaped unscathed—large areas of the blue seas were tainted black and lifeless sea creatures floated on the surface. Where once a large island had held the Gods’ temple and city, there was only black water, floating debris, and bodies.

The war—actually a revolt—was all but over. In only one place was there still fighting. A walled compound, a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, surrounded a totally flat space. Inside the twenty-foot-high wall, set on a cradle of black metal, was the Airlia mothership, a cigar-shaped craft over a mile long and a quarter mile wide in the center. Its outer hull was also of black metal, but the skin was scarred and blistered from heavy weapons fire and blasts that had struck it.

Outside of the wall came the people. Hundreds of thousands of humans, the survivors of a worldwide army that had once numbered in the billions, surged forward. In the lead were the select few, teams of God-killers armed with the only weapons that could permanently kill their Airlia enemy.

Donnchadh was just behind the front wave of God-killers as they blew holes in the tall black wall that surrounded the landing field. She was a scientist, not a God-killer, but knew she needed to be near the front. They would need to move swiftly if they were to grasp success from the jaws of victory.

The first man through the nearest breach was hit with a golden bolt and knocked backward, dead. As was the second man. The third edged the muzzle of his weapon into the breach and fired blindly for several seconds on full automatic. The God-killers worked in teams of two—one man with an automatic weapon, the other with a sword. A strange, but necessary, combination in order to fight the Airlia.

Her name—Donnchadh—meant eldest daughter of Donn, who had been one of the first rebel leaders. He’d died at the hands of the human high priests who served their alien overlords, crucified on the wooden X, pinned to it by straps of wet leather that dried and squeezed the life out of him over the course of many hours. She’d watched him die over two years ago, as had thousands of other herded by the high priests and Guides who served the Airlia into the open plain in front of the very wall they had just blasted a hole in. The high priests and Guides were all dead now. There was just this last pocket of Airlia to kill and they would be free of the alien influence.

The next pair of God-killers threw themselves through the breach. The firing must have worked as there were no more golden bolts. Donnchadh scrambled after them. The man with the rifle was shooting as he leapt over the body of the alien who had been firing the golden bolts from a long spear clutched in its hands.

The creature was taller than a human, almost seven feet from the top of its head to the soles of its feet. Red hair framed a thin face with ears that had long lobes that stretched almost to its shoulders. The eyes were not human, but catlike and red. The hands that gripped the spear had six long, pale fingers.

Blood was still seeping out of the wounds in the alien’s chest and, from experience, Donnchadh knew they had about five minutes before the creature came back to life and the wounds healed. The second God-killer with the sword was there to ensure that didn’t happen. He swung the weapon with an experienced hand and sliced through the alien’s neck, severing head from body. It was not simply that the head had been removed that prevented the creature from coming back to life. There was something on the edge of the sword, stolen from an Airlia armory, that cauterized the wound and prevented the cells from regenerating as they would from the wound caused by a human-made weapon.

Looking left and right, Donnchadh could see that there were other holes blown in the wall, and more God-killer teams were pouring through them. The prize of the mothership was directly ahead.

The man with the rifle was hit by a golden bolt from an Airlia standing near one of the cradle’s legs. He was knocked backward and went down hard. Donnchadh darted forward and scooped up the rifle. She put the stock to her shoulder and fired as she’d been trained. The recoil of the gun felt satisfying, almost as much as watching the Airlia stagger as the rounds tore into its flesh.

The aliens were trapped. The mothership could not take off because the humans had already taken over the Master Guardian and isolated the ship’s controls. They had destroyed the mothership’s warships, the Talons, one by one over the course of the Revolution. It had cost billions of lives to get to this point. The planet was ravaged, the environment destroyed. Better that than slavery. But Donnchadh believed they had once last chance to make things right, to save her people.

Donnchadh reached the cradle leg and pressed her body tight against the metal. The arc was ten feet wide and deep, towering overhead to the bottom of the starship. The God-killer with the sword met her there, pausing to finish off the alien she had shot. He was a large man, solidly built, with long black hair that hung down almost to his shoulders. His face was like a block of granite, marred only by the fracture of a scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down to his chin.

“Gwalcmai,” he said, introducing himself as he searched the metal with his free hand.

She was doing the same. “Donnchadh.” She found an indentation. “Here.” She grabbed the medallion around her neck and pressed it against the spot. The outline of a door appeared, eight feet high by four wide. It slid open and an elevator beckoned.