The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) (22 page)

“We organized new followers that supported a king from the Normans—proclaiming the unity of England. We did not care how we achieved it, but we knew that unity was the only answer to the factions that had kept us splintered and divided for so long in the history of the isles.

“How did
you
know about the power of this stone around my neck?” I asked Merlin.

Merlin winked and said, “I knew because I, and Arthur, and others with me, were once part of the Knights and the Guardians of the very stones you first questioned. We were transported against our will by the devil of a man that you met at a camp last night. All of us arrived with no memory of our past, but I was the exception. I protected myself with the powder of a magic potion, and you and John protected yourself from memory loss by the simple possession of the emerald stone.

“Now we must join together! We both must fight against him and his evil. I want you to become one of us! I want you to become a Guardian!” Merlin said as he reached out his hand to me. We both shared a look of understanding, and then I shook his hand in acceptance.

Merlin and I shared many other tales with each other later, but that night’s attention was strictly on Medraut and the trap that was set. The plan was for me to engage him first. Then, the others would shoot spears into his body and kill him.

Merlin watched from a distance, along with the others, as I carefully approached the camp. I saw the man, the one that Merlin named Medraut. He stirred another soup in his cauldron over a newer fire. I thought it was strange that he had no sense of pain when I saw him grab the pot with his bare hands to change its position over the fire. I heard the sound of burning flesh briefly. I continued to approach him as he made notice of me.

“You brought them?”—the man had a sterner look than before, and he had a sense of urgency. I told him that they were nearby, but I wanted assurance that Marian was still alive. He turned to me and raised his hand, and I was suddenly lifted into the air. My feet dangled below with no support. Total fear came into my body. Medraut called to the field in the dark.

“Merlin! Arthur! I know you are out there, somewhere in the grass! I will first speak with this archer before you advance. Hold your position, or I will kill him now and the two women! Do you understand me?”—his voice screamed of pure evil. His eyes blazed a fiery red. He waited for a reply.

I heard Merlin answer in acceptance for an Arthur who was nearby but silent, along with John and Joseph and some servants. They decided to bide their time, but Samuel, a servant of Merlin, was ready with a spear to throw at Merlin’s command. Merlin’s servant, Samuel, was not always a patient soul.

Medraut lowered me to the ground. He then gestured me to go forward, to the tent on the right, where I had left Marian. When I entered, I saw her body totally blackened by the disease that had taken its hold on her. Her mouth was open in obvious agony.

“I may need a man to support my efforts later, and I want your assistance!” Medraut said to me. The man’s eyes no longer glowed red. He attempted a smile, though it was wicked. This evil wizard, or whatever he was, needed me.

I told him that I would never assist him in anything that he wanted or needed. I only wanted the safety of Marian guaranteed. Then he made a fist, and I felt the clench of an unseen hand around my throat. I started to choke. He approached and whispered to me.

“Now, you listen to me, you Danite!”—as he spoke each emphasized word, my eyes gazed in recognition of the term. “What you are going to do is wear my servant’s ring. You will do my bidding. You will do whatever I ask you to do! In return, I will save your woman, and she will live! Is that understood?”—I nodded, and he released his fist. The grip on my throat and body was gone, and I fell to the ground.

Medraut ordered me to stand. I was then instructed to put on a ring that he tossed toward me. He said that the ring, once worn, would collect and store all of my hatred and fear. All would be bound securely within the boundaries of the stone. The ring was gold and the stone was black with speckles of white in it. I placed the ring on my finger. After my experience with magical stones and this sorcerer’s power, I was convinced that it would do exactly what he said it would, but my love for Marian was the master of the moment.

“The ring is not removable by anyone, except for a sorcerer, like me! Go ahead, try it!”—he was right. I could not remove the ring that was on my second finger of my left hand. “All of your fear from your past, all of your hatred, and all your future hatred and fear will be contained within the ring, until the day I remove it and release it within your body. That is your curse! However, while you wear the ring, you will hate or fear nothing! Observe! Even now you have ceased to fear, even me!”

It was true. My fear was gone, and I was calm.

“But guard this well, archer! If another sorcerer removes your ring by force, or otherwise, then you will be overcome with great pain and be eternally poisoned with revenge, even if the ring is placed back on your finger to ease your sudden pain. On the day that I need you the most, whether it is tonight or later, I will return and command you, and you will do whatever I ask of you!”—again, I nodded in agreement to his wishes. I had been bewitched.

“Who is the other woman in the other tent?”—I asked because I did not fear him any longer.

He grinned and gave a guttural chuckle, “That, my false friend, is King Arthur’s ever so faithful wife, and ever so enchanting...Queen Guinevere!”

Chapter 15

Jail Bait

Part One

“I’m going with you, David!”—when Mattie was adamant about something, her eyebrows straightened and drew closer together. David shook his head and looked at Mattie in unbelief. He wondered why she would want to put herself in such danger.

David was not intentionally a sexist. He thought he was logical. After all, he regularly attended hand-to-hand combat training, two Saturdays per month, at his security company in Salt Lake City, under the guise of “going to work.” Mattie, on the other hand, rarely exercised. David had designed, built, and had a working knowledge of technically advanced weaponry and spy gear. Mattie, on the other hand, was a violinist. David’s head was constantly thinking about his next security innovation while detailed specifications swirled in his brain. Mattie walked around the condominium on the weekends, in her pajamas, and hummed and sang tunes that someone’s grandmother would probably like.

“You should let her go. She might be of some help,” Tom pleaded as he turned off the lights in the briefing room and the three of them headed for the elevator. David had lost people that he had loved very dearly in his life, and he could not imagine the thought of losing Mattie.

David mumbled something back at him then Tom quickly changed the subject as he sensed David’s stubbornness. “What did you bring in your suitcases?” Tom asked him.

After another mumbled word or two, he agreed to show the persistent Tom the suitcase’s contents upstairs in his bedroom. Maybe I am too protective, he thought, and then he led them up the familiar creaking steps, back to the room with the magnificent ocean view.

Once they arrived in the bedroom, Mattie rushed in front of David, reached with aggression and confidence into David’s briefcase, and grabbed his Beretta 21A Bobcat.

“You think I’m an idiot or something!”—when Mattie grabbed his semi-automatic pistol, Tom and David gasped with some exaggerated apprehension, but she waved them back. “Ok gentlemen,
now
who’s your mama?” she said to an unimpressed David.

“Ok, Mattie, take the safety off then.”—David teased her, and Tom rolled his eyes with skepticism.

“Mattie, can we stop playing around? Just give the gun to me. Please?” Tom begged as he stepped toward Mattie and held a nervous and opened hand in front of her.

“It’s ok, Tom.”—Mattie was in a cocky and playful mood. “Here is the safety.”—Mattie then pushed upward on the barrel release lever, and the tip-up barrel popped up which surprised Mattie for a second because she briefly thought she had broken something. Tom very quickly snatched the gun away, and the two men gave their chauvinistic sighs of relief.

“It’s not that you can’t learn or use this, Mattie.”—David attempted to smooth things out by being diplomatic. “I just don’t want you in any kind of danger. Peter’s factory will be loaded with people, and I am going to have to scope things out first. I’m going to be too preoccupied to worry about you.” Mattie sighed and crossed her arms, determined to show him what she was capable of but not knowing how.

“This is your highly technical bag of stuff?”—Tom withdrew David’s old Remington 1875 revolver from the suitcase. It was the same weapon that David’s father had used to commit suicide. The suitcase was full of opened cases—as if David had been reminiscing with his weapons.

Then in a jaw-dropping moment, Mattie grabbed the revolver out of Tom’s hands, she spun it around her right index finger by the trigger guard several times, just like a gunslinger.

“Now, this is more like it!”—against a backdrop of amazement, Mattie opened the loading gate, checked for ammunition, and pulled back the hammer. “This is a Remington that my…”—Mattie stopped herself, seeing the open mouths of both men.

Mattie realized that she had experienced another flashback, and this time it was in the presence of both Tom and David. She had these privately before, but seldom in front of anyone.

“That your who?”—David slowly took the revolver from Mattie’s frozen hand and secured the weapon as she stared at the bedroom wall.

“My husband!” she said.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Over 800 miles away from David’s Monterey house, a drugged and groggy Haj inspected his new surroundings. Peter had moved him to another prison, just before he left to seek out Sylvia Reeves in North Carolina. It was another level of Peter’s pharmaceutical facility in Holladay, Utah, and Haj observed that it was a stereotypical white room. The room was intentionally designed to drive Haj to madness. Intense bright lights lit the room, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, just like his previous surroundings, except it came with no view.

Peter, over a period of five years, had kept Haj barely alive with a minimal food allowance. Haj’s attention was only livened occasionally with television, magazines, and books. To be clear, Peter wanted Haj alive. He had tried on many occasions to drug Haj, in an attempt to obtain the location of the mysterious stones that he sought, but he was repeatedly unsuccessful. The drugs had little to no effect on him, and Haj remained silent about matters of stones, or any other subject that interested Peter.

It was not the glossy page of a magazine or the occasional pixelated image of a poorly streamed television show that kept Haj’s spirit alive. It was not the hope of revenge against Peter that kept him going. The expectation of finding David and Mattie in order to explain the things that he had hidden from them did not drive Haj.

Haj was alive because of one of the oldest forces on this planet. This force burned within him, as it does with anyone afflicted by its enduring power. Haj had a wife, and for five years, since the events of Egypt, he had not seen her. It was the profoundly soft and mysterious passion of love that kept him alive. Haj longed every single day to see his wife—to hold her, to feel her, and to know that she was safe.

He longed to hold his loving and faithful wife, dear, Aysha!

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The smell of grease and red and green peppers saturated Tom’s kitchen as Mattie scrambled and fried her squash fritters. David and Tom sat at the table while Mattie hummed a song and finished preparing the brunch.

“Does she always—I mean, does she have to do that?”—Tom raised his voice slightly higher than Mattie’s tune, grossly annoyed by her repertoire.

“You mean fry squash fritters, or cock a Remington at our faces?”—David attempted to enlarge upon the humor of Tom getting the boot from his kitchen, as Tom called it.

“No, that damned song!” Tom said.

“Oh, she either sings or hums that all the time. It’s called ‘Meet Me in Dreamland’ or something like that. It’s one of her favorites—but then again, she’s got many of ‘em,” David comically announced to Tom.

Tom forgot about the irritation of the loss of his kitchen, and the very old song being hummed, when Mattie placed the fried squash and flour treats on the table in front of his curious nose. He made a comment about the problems of cholesterol in the country, but eventually took a sample bite of the slightly greasy but Southern treat. It was then that he was glad that Mattie had insisted on making a trip to the grocery store on the day before. After an initial taste, Tom started to devour the fritters. It was after his third or fourth delectable bite that Tom found out that eating the dish was not mandatory.

“Mattie, I’ll take my usual yogurt and almonds,” David announced as he went to the refrigerator, and Tom continued his artery-hardening feast.

While they feasted, Tom opened up a subject that he found most curious.

“You said that someone, named Aysha, gave you the red stone?” Tom asked Mattie.

Mattie turned off the stove and took her plate to the table while she thought of a crafted answer. Then she sat down at the table and collected her thoughts. She spoke with frequent pauses as if she intentionally edited her words. It was as if she was trying to decide what to tell, and what not to tell. Her memory started to return gradually to her.