On Avalon

'Heeellooo...' Aelixor's voice reaches the dais the gate pool is built on long before Daniel, Teal'c and Jack can spot the small coracle, barely visible in the mist, as it carries him across the Sands of Time. 'So pleased to see you again, my old friends. Only three of you this time?'

'Aelix! You have...' Daniel is about to say aged. It is hard to believe the man in the blue cloak standing in front of them was the young apprentice less than a year ago. Daniel changes his sentence in order not to offend Aelixor the Magus. '...You have arrived!'

'Yes, the Sands of Time spoke to me. Quickly climb in and we'll talk more back at the Tower, no time to lose. Are you in trouble again?'

'No, well...not yet.' Jack climbs carefully into the little boat, leaving room for the other two. 'We need your help in trying to identify an object we have found. Daniel thought your library might be a good place to look.'

'Of course, of course! A welcome break from my studies.' Aelix spins the little craft round with a deft move of the rudder and the boat starts to skim quickly over the fast running Sands of Time, a silvery wake rising up behind it. 'Now, no dangling your hands over the side.' Aelix looks directly at Daniel and Teal'c chuckles. 'I think he learnt his lesson last time. You look different Aelix, more like a Magus now.'

'Yes Teal'c, your words are very true. With Ninian gone, I have grown to try and fill his shoes. But the power of a Magus brings with it the weight of knowledge, wisdom ages us quickly. We live in the Sands of Time for a reason, it offers us a way to slow the process. Ah, here we are, home!'

The mist swirls away and reveals the Tower. Aelix guides the coracle to the landing stage and they step through the familiar portico into the ground floor library salon.

'A large silvery disc...' Aelix is almost talking to himself as he clambers across the bookshelves stretching up the curved wall inside the tower. 'Not a metal you know of?' he calls down to them.

'Not from our planet anyway...' Daniel calls back up.

'Watch out!' Aelix manages to pull a volume out from its shelf with a misstep and the book hurtles towards the floor below. 'Sorry!' His voice floats down after it.

Jack manges to deftly catch the volume before it hits the huge oak table and places it neatly on the smooth wooden surface. Daniel reads the title aloud. 'The Discovery of the Fortunate Isles... this is incredible! This book is...'

'Not for you! These ones are.' Aelix nimbly jumps down, plucks the volume from the table and throws it up into the air, out of reach. It seems to glide back into place on the bookshelf from where it fell as Teal'c, Jack and Daniel watch in surprise. Then Aelix places a large stack of books and folders on the table and spreads them out as though dealing cards. The books fall open at the relevant pages and soon the four of them are engrossed in reading various descriptions of silver discs, hoops and circles.

After a long while, when none of the descriptions match their object and they are all about to give up, Daniel spots something in a small pamphlet, caught in the dust jacket of another book, advertising a horse race. 'Look, look at this.' he points to a picture of a chariot, drawn by a team of horses, where the wheels are spinning fast, blurred by the artist into the shape of their UCO.

'Epona's Chariot Day.' Aelix picks up the pamphlet. 'They used to race chariots with their horses, very much like your Romans once upon a time.' The pamphlet starts to crumble in his hands. 'The object is a wheel? You said it was a disc. A wheel is a whole different handful of sand.'

'If it is a wheel, Aelix, it would belong to a giant's chariot.' Teal'c spreads his arms and hold the Ma'Tok staff out level. 'It is twice this diameter.'

Aelix stares at Teal'c's outstretched arms for a moment and then smiles. 'Not a giant, Teal'c. A giantess!'