Next instalment! I fear that there is little interest for this fic, but one, at least, has made it his/her favourite and that merits another chapter. :-)
Disclaimers: Phyllida E. Dewhurst is mine, but the rest of BBC's – no infringement intended.
CHAPTER 1
Artefact
Wales, year 2012
Phyllida E. Dewhurst looked at herself in the mirror with a certain trepidation. For the umpteenth time she had tried to dye her hair another colour and she wasn't sure what it would look like this time. Being one of those rare persons who was born with genuinely carrot-red hair, Phyllida did her damnedest to get rid of it. Unfortunately, hair of such a light red colour could always be counted on producing the most extraordinary shade when dyed. It was, apparently, a law of nature, and one that Phyllida repeatedly challenged with zest.
The 28-year-old Ph.D.-student of archaeology reached for the towel that was wrapped round her offending hair with almost trembling hands. This time she had opted for a dark brown colour in the vain hope that the darkness of the dye would overwrite any diluting effect that the red hair could muster. Slowly, by inches, she removed the cover and saw … black hair! Black hair with a purple shine to it! Phyllida threw the towel to the floor in anger. I don't believe it!
It was not supposed to be black! The container had distinctly said UMBRA BROWN! and a very nice brunette had been shown on the box. It shouldn't be black!
The next item subjected to her annoyance was the container itself as it sailed out of the open window in her top floor flat. Only afterwards did her conscience remind her that she might actually have hit someone passing by in the street. Grumbling and listing several terrible atrocities she'd like to do to her hair and the dye manufacturer, the archaeologist proceeded to dress. At least, the rest of her body remained reasonably passable. She viewed herself critically in the mirror. Apart from the freakish hair, she was a relatively attractive woman. Granted, she was no model, but she was slim (her father thought she was too thin, but then, he was of the older generation who generally liked women to be voluptuous to the extreme) and quite muscular, compliments to several field trips of excavations, her face was freckled (that came with the red hair as did the pale hue), but oval in a nice balanced way and her eyes were auburn, a colour she actually liked. Now, why couldn't her hair have been auburn – oh, and her nose a little bigger; she put a finger to her tiny button nose.
The young woman sighed, knowing full well that she was a lucky girl; so many people were less blessed by life, being disabled, disfigured or struck by poverty. Of course, it most definitely depended on where you lived. Wales, her home state, was basically taking care of her inhabitants, yet her neighbour to the east, West Anglia, was infamous for the gruesome taxes and lack of social aide. However, if you travelled through West Anglia and came to Moor, wealth might be found there as well. Phyllida shrugged, digging round in her jewellery box to find matching bracelets. This was not a perfect island; the various states were fighting each other at any chance they got, often leading their relationships to the brink of war. Fortunately, there hadn't been a war for the past 40 years, but it did leave over half the British states in a terrible economic state, their deficits the size of the Russian continent.
Well … by taking her Ph.D. she was avoiding poverty for sure; Phyllida flung her bag over her right shoulder and exited her flat. Today was library day; field day wouldn't be until Wednesday.
x
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence was the one thing he had come to love and come to hate.
Silence.
The occasional drip from water that quite possibly had penetrated the cave.
Silence.
STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP.
He knew that of he continued like this, he would go mad. Mad.
Mad?
He would have laughed if he could. Mad? He was already mad.
Concentrate. Concentrate. It was not in vain. The powder was almost complete. He just needed a little more sulphur. Where was it again? Oh, yeah, outside. Outside. Outside. CONCENTRATE.
Silence.
So his mind reached. Reached. Reached. As far as it could get. Outside.
Silence.
To get the sulphur. It was possible.
To finalise the powder. Perfect it.
Silence. Concentrate. Someone would come. Someone must come. And then the powder would have to be ready. Concentrate. There it is.
Silence.
Silence.
x
Caerleon. A godforsaken place, Phyllida thought. Yet, after having researched the references carefully, this was allegedly the place where Knights Templar had had one of their monasteries. The young student sat crouching in her borrowed car, fighting a lost battle with the map as it seemed to grow at each turn she needed to make. "Must be magic," she murmured, annoyed. They could send a man to Mars, but they couldn't make a road map that was easily handled. Carmarphen, Carephilly. Eventually she found what she was looking for. Catching a glimpse of her newly black hair in the rear-view mirror and getting just as annoyed as when she had seen it the first time, Phyllida put the car into gear and re-entered the motorway to reach her destination. Driving far out in the country didn't bother her. She had participated in excavations in the Andes Mountains and Himalayas and that was a good deal colder and more desolate than this, she thought.
It had already turned quite dark when she finally arrived; a wrong turn at a place where the road sign had been torn down (probably) by young jokers had taken her by surprise and led her to a ghost village; a detour that cost her 90 minutes! Now that she was here, however, the darkness didn't worry her. She used the headlights of the car to help her put up the camp and even managed to heat herself some tea before turning in.
The next morning a thick fog had enveloped the entire area, which made Phyllida very happy that she had camped so close to the site the night before. At least, she wouldn't have to grope her way through this soup. Reheating the tea, she yawned and quickly stuffed her mouth with bread and jam and started checking her gear. Phyllida loved field trips! She couldn't wait to get out of the tent and onto the site, armed with all kinds of tools and articles to help her examine artefacts and tracks. Donning baggy army trousers, a white polo t-shirt and sensible hiking boots, she was ready to conquer the archaeological world. She had set up camp only 20 yards from the site, making sure no tracks had been contaminated by her car and camp. Anyway, it's not like it was an excavation, unfortunately; Phyllida was only there to have a look at a flat stone that was believed to be engraved by Knight Templar symbols. Of course, there might still be other traces nearby which was why she still needed to be very careful.
Despite the fog, she managed to locate the stone soon enough. As she pushed away the leafy branch that covered it, she couldn't stop a broad smile from spreading over her face, beaming away like father Christmas. There it was! She reached for her gear which made the branch flick back in place as she let go of it, covering up the stone again. Phyllida took a small leaf trimmer from her gear and nipped off the twigs, disclosing the stone into plain view. It was beautiful! Weathered and withered, but still with clear markings – that could be construed as the famous Knight Templar code. The Ph.D. student took out a very small, soft brush from her gear bag, edged a little closer and carefully started brushing away dirt and moss. Slowly, the symbols began to stand out more clearly. There was a square with a dot in the left corner … and a square without dots … brushing on, she could make out a triangle – that would be either an x, y, v or z. Phyllida wrote it all down, adding her notes. Naturally, the symbols had already been registered and published, but the point of field trips was to see if the next researcher could find something new.
That was it, she rose to her feet, dusting herself down with some difficulty as the moist leaves and twigs effectively glued themselves to her clothes. She continued to concentrate on the dirty trousers and not so much on where she put her feet, which had the expected result in a weather like this with zero visibility: She fell!
With a crack and an ouch, she scooted down a slope, the wet grass making a terrific slide, and didn't stop until she banged into a humongous root. After moaning plaintively, she extricated her legs from the roots and attempted to get up.
And that's when it happened. The roots, as if they suddenly came alive, moved and mud and dirt slid down into a hole … followed by Phyllida, screaming on the top of her lungs.
No more!
Silence! Silence no more!
What is? Quick.
Powder. Powder finished? Silence no more.
Time.
It is time.
Okay, perhaps the fall really wasn't so deep. However, it was deep enough for her to see absolutely zilch once she dared open her eyes for falling dirt and pebbles. Phyllida blinked placidly, sneezing a bit from all the dust and plant spores and tried to focus and get some idea of where she was. She was patiently waiting for her eyes to get used to the dark when she felt a draught. Concentrating on the sensation, she moved her head to the source of the air current and tentatively reached out an arm in the direction. She was right! As she fumbled in the dark, her fingers caught a hole. And not just any hole: a rock cavity of which the edges obviously and unmistakably were carved by Man.
Elated by the kind of enthusiasm only an archaeologist can feel when a thesis is waving at her from a distance, Phyllida shot up from the hole. She had found something! And she was most likely the first on the spot! The carved rock entrance would carry her name: Rock entrance P.E. Dewhurst! Excited to the point of hysteria, Phyllida threw herself into the car and pulled out her I-pad. She knew there was no connection to the Internet out here, so she couldn't publish her findings and claim them already, but she could at least dictate them to the programme and tag the date and time, and that would have to suffice as ownership proof. As she entered the tent to get other registration tools, she forced herself to calm down. Take five, Phyl, she told herself, count to 1000 and relax. Otherwise you might miss something.
Armed with a rope, her I-pad, her gear and various cleaning fluids, she returned to the site and methodically started to secure the rope round a strong looking ash; once done, she secured the rope just as professionally round her shoulder, down her back and under her upper thigh and back into her hand. She had packed a second rope in her bag in case she would have to rappel further down later depending on how deep this monastery (as she suspected it was) was. Once safely rooted on the spot where she first felt the rock entrance, she turned on her head lamp and for the first time saw the entrance with her own eyes.
She gasped, almost unable to hold back a joyous squeal. It was, without a single shred of doubt, man-made. Several ornaments adorned the rock surface of the entrance and she didn't, she thought with boundless delight, know or recognise any of it! It certainly wasn't Knight Templar – it clearly was something very different. Very gingerly she began to remove the dirt from the opening, having just a little guilty conscience; this really should be reported to the proper authorities before anything was done to it; however, an opportunity like this was just too good to miss!
After almost an hour of diligent digging, Phyllida wiped her sweaty brow and froze. There was a rumbling sound. Knowing full well what it was, she quickly retreated, crabbing her way back edgewise and came free of the excavation just in time: A curtain of dirt, twigs and mud came rolling down and revealed a cave, only underneath Phyllida instead of, thankfully, above her head. She patiently waited till the last rumble had died out and the dirt stopped moving and then she carefully crabbed her way back, gently stamping the walls with her hands in a vain attempt to make them stick. Then she risked her neck literally, as she stuck her head through the rock hole.
Wow. She really should wait for back-up. If this thing caved in on her head, no one would find her. Then she blinked and very, very gently moved her head round to let her head lamp illuminate the cave.
My-dear-god!
Aladdin's cave! One crystal after the other shone back, reflecting a rainbow of colours on their surroundings as the light fell on them. Stalagmites, stalactites, small and big, broad and slim, short and tall – all crystal. She gasped.
Barely able to contain her exuberance, she carefully retracted her head. This was where she needed her second rope.
Nearnearnear. Silence. No silence. Someone here. Nearnearnear.
Concentrate. Must contact. Silence. No silence. Contact.
CONTACT!
When Phyllida landed in the middle of her Aladdin's cave, she pulled out two cave LEDs, broke the tube and threw them onto the cave floor. Their vivid light quickly spread and was reflected in the hundreds of crystals that virtually exploded in reinforced light, completely illuminating the entire cave.
"So cool," Phyllida murmured, "we won't even need cave lamps down here."
When the archaeologist put down her bag of gear, she noticed a staircase of man-made steps … with symbols on them. As curious as the proverbial cat, she moved to the landing, bowed down and scrutinised the characters. Then she straightened, her eyes shining with a peculiar green light – Old English! The language was Old English. She leaned down again and translated:
"And woe is he who disturbs the realm of the living dead; he shall be cursed and cleansed by fire." Wowser! She straightened and grinned. They meant business in the old days. She wondered very much when this was from. Obviously, the kind of Old English she had just read was spoken in the first century A.D., but it could easily have been added later as the language continued to be used poetically. Phyllida was a little surprised it hadn't been in Latin; inscriptions usually were.
Putting her musings aside, she rubbed her hands in satisfaction got and took out her I-pad. This was way too good to be true. She would make some recordings and a description and take some snapshots.
Phyllida turned on the I-pad, but in her eagerness, accidentally activated her I-tunes, making her all time favourite 80s hit song Footloose fill the cave. She muted it instantly, knowing full well what loud noise might do to a place with stalactite formations. Holding her breath, listening for any tell-tale rumblings, she silently sent a prayer to the almighty God of Archaeology and was apparently heard. No rumbling. The sudden noise had had no effect. Phyllida drew a sigh of relief … and then heard...
Listen to me carefully
She jumped, nearly losing the I-pad. Then she froze, a shock of surprise running through her body. She had heard a voice. She was sure of it! Slowly Phyllida put down her I-pad and then straightened, concentrating on listening.
I said: Listen to me!
Phyllida jumped again, this time emitting a short scream.
Please, - stop screaming. Listen to me.
OhMyGod,SomebodyIsHere …. the Ph.D.-student turned and turned in fear and confusion; she knew she heard the voice – more in her mind than in her ear, really, but she had no idea where it came from.
Please...
Hyperventilating, Phyllida made herself calm down and sober; the voice had just said 'please'. It was a voice in need, she concluded. Somebody was in need for help. She started walking, still taking care not to step on something valuable, and whispered as loudly as she dared.
"Hello? Somebody there? Are you in need of help?"
Yes. Please. Take the powder.
"What? What? Where are you?"
The voice really didn't come from any point in particularly, it felt more inside her head. She stopped dead. Oh no. Was she going mad?
A little further. It is not far!
Phyllida got a grip and encouraged by the voice took a couple of more steps; her head lamp, following every movement of her head, swung to and fro, only illuminating crystals, it seemed to her. A sound made her turn her head and lamp to the left, yet after a scrutiny, she abandoned that direction, then turned right …
… and screamed, full throat, and stumbled back and tripped over a crystal stalagmite, still screaming.
In front of her, was a very big and tall crystal stalagmite – and inside of it was the corpse of man.
Please don't scream, please don't scream.
But Phyllida couldn't help herself; after her whopper scream, smaller and less shrill screams escaped her throat; it wasn't until small pieces of crystals started tinkling and rumbling and roll over the cave floor, that Phyllida clamped her mouth shut, forcing herself to silence.
For a while there was silence, save the sound of the girl's rapid little huffs and her wildly beating heart. Then the voice spoke to her again.
I am so sorry, but you really can't scream. Do not be afraid. No harm will come to you.
And that's when it occurred to her: The voice was speaking in Old English – and it came from the dead man inside the crystal.
x
Slowly getting a grip, Phyllida was gradually able to ignore her impulse to scream and she picked herself up off the cave floor and took a little closer look at the crystal sarcophagus. As an archaeologist, she had seen several ancient dead bodies and mummies; that was not what was bothering her this time. This time the blood chilling effect was caused by the fact that this corpse was perfectly preserved … and had its eyes wide open. Her breath quickened again and she stepped back to further control her reactions. Her head was spinning, trying desperately to make some kind of sense of what she saw and heard, and for a moment there, she actually toyed with the idea that this was some humongous setup, candid camera or its likes. She turned her head from side to side to spot the tell-tale cameras sticking out and the appearance of a show host, reaching out a mike with a big grin, telling her that she had been 'had'.
Please …
Yet, she decided against it. The lack of verisimilitude of the setup-hypothesis notwithstanding, there just didn't exist any kind of technology that could boost sound like that inside one's mind. She had to trust her own senses. SHE WAS NOT CRAZY!
Please …
The eyes were looking directly at her. Phyllida summoned all her courage and approached the crystal, submitting it to a thorough, scientific examination.
The crystal itself was unscathed, its surface completely devoid of scratches or dents. It couldn't be very old, then. Yet, when she pressed her carbon monoxide detector against the surface, the chemical compound appeared to contain large doses of carbon 14 - which indicated that it had existed for several hundred years. Phyllida drew back her hand with a jerk. What the hell was going on?
Next, she examined the corpse itself. It was completely and perfectly preserved. It was the body of a very young man, short black hair, big blue eyes and ears sticking out like you wouldn't believe. His stature was rather thin, lanky and tall and his bone structure pronounced. He was clad in nondescript blue peasant's coat with a brown jacket and a red neckerchief. These clothes could be of any age.
I am Merlin.
Phyllida jerked back her head again. The lips in front of her hadn't moved an inch and yet she knew that voice came from him. "I am Phyllida," she said out loud, feeling awfully stupid.
Will you help me break free, Phyllida?
"Of course," she had stopped feeling stupid, "how did you get in there in the first place?"
Cannot tell you..
"We'll save that for a nice whiskey by the fireplace, then," she said, smirking. "Tell me what to do."
Behind you. Powder.
Phyllida turned gingerly and discovered a bluish powder on top of one of the rocks.
"Yeah? What's that for?"
I can muster the magic, but the words must be spoken out loud and I cannot do that.
"Magic?" she smirked even wider, gradually returning to her former hypothesis of the whole setup being a part of a candid camera show. Well … she would play along and see how it all ended.
"So where did you get the powder? And how, seeing you're sorta caught by this giant crystal?"
Concentrating hard. Levitating. Has taken hundreds of years.
"Aha." (As if!)
Take the powder when I ask you to. Careful, not to spill any of it. When you see my eyes glow, throw it on this crystal and say álæte. Please, repeat it.
Phyllida repeated it dutifully, having no problem pronouncing it.
Good, the voice applauded.
She grinned widely, now completely convinced that she was part of a TV-show.
"Well, you're in luck, matey – I happen to have majored in archaeology, specialised in ancient languages."
Please, say it again. Phyllida repeated the word – flawlessly.
Thank you, I ….
The voice faded as if it was being taken over by emotion. The young archaeologist stopped smirking. That was real emotion she heard there, no doubt about it. What was going on?
I want you to take the powder now.
She bent down and carefully scooped up the finely ground powder. Out of curiosity, she scanned it with her components detector which registered various components like sulphur, mercury and lunar caustic. She wrinkled her nose. If she threw that, it would produce smoke. Would she gag in it? Deciding to take the chance (she was sure the TV-channel involved knew what they were doing), she lifted her hand with the powder high over her head, locking eyes with the eerie body in the crystal, waiting for instructions.
Now, when my eyes glow, say the spell I have taught you, throw the powder on the crystal and stand back.
She nodded, excited and eager to find out what would happen. And that's when she actually saw his eyes glow.
With the same enthusiasm as an actor, she shouted the spell, threw the powder and jumped back quickly, wide-eyed with exhilaration. She didn't have to wait long.
With a flash and and muted crack and yes, lots of smoke, the crystal split open and the body of the young man fell out and collapsed unceremoniously on the cave floor.
x
Phyllida instantly knew that something was wrong. She didn't waste time, but ran to the fallen figure, grabbing her gear to take out the first aid kit that she was always carrying round when she was doing field work. And this was some field work!
Her first impression, as she touched the 'corpse' for the first time, was intense coldness; it was so icy that she instinctively retracted her hand with a yelp. Then she took out the folded silver foil blanket and unwrapped it, stuffing it round the young man and underneath him. He had began to shiver violently. This was no acting.
"Easy, there. It'll be all right. Just concentrate on breathing."
When he answered her, it was still in her mind. No. I haven't got very much time. I must go back and set it right.
"You're kidding, right? You're not going anywhere. You need time to recover."
Phyllida took his wrist to check for his pulse and noticed, with some concern, that his flesh was not turning rosy – it was turning ashen grey and quickly too, blue veins beginning to show quite clearly. His glance met hers and she saw that he knew what she was only just realising. The boy was dying.
Listen! I have no time. It would seem … I can't go back. You must … you must. I have power for only one more spell. You must go back and find me – and convince me to tell Arthur everything.
"Hush, hush – what the hell are you talking about?"
Ha... hadn't happened if he had had my back ... He must know.
"Know what?" Phyllida asked, gingerly trying to support his head, yet having the distinct impression that if she touched him, he would shatter into pieces.
He was finally able to move something: His eyes. They turned upwards and gazed directly into her auburn ones. Who and what I am. Go back. Tell me this – all. Have power ... for only one more … spell.
And then just as she thought he was fading and dying between her hands, his voice suddenly yelled into the cave, making the crystals sing and jiggle with the decibels, and her stomach felt as if it was being sucked through her spine while her vision blurred and the young man disappeared from her view.
xxx
So what happened to poor Merlin? Is he really dying?
You want more? Tell me, please! I have no idea if this works or not.