Chapter Fifteen

On Avalon

It is hard to tell whether minutes or hours have past as Daniel checks his watch for the umpteenth time, the hands still stuck on the exact moment they used the gate. Something, whether it is the mist, the sands or the planet itself is stopping his watch from working. Behind them, a vortex spirals up suddenly in the gate pool on the dias, making Daniel and Agnes jump as they crouch near the edge. 'I told you we'd be rescued!' Agnes shouts over the noise.

'Depends where the gate is being used from, there's no guarantee it's from Earth.' Daniel replies, immediately crushing Agnes's relief at the thought of returning home. 'Get ready to jump into the sand, just in case our visitors are not friendly...'

The vortex drops and the pool returns to flat calm as Jack ,Tara, Kyna, Teal'c and the away team step down onto the dais. Agnes lets out a sigh of relief. 'Ah, it's good to see you all! We seem to be marooned on a desert island.'

'This is no desert, these are the Sands of Time surrounding the Tower of the Magi. Do not touch the sands, they are the currents of magik.' Tara runs to the edge of the dais and peers out into the mist, warning the rest of the team to stand back from the edge. Daniel guiltily starts at the thought he put his hand into the sea and starts to speculate what the effects might be. Perhaps it explains his watch stopping.

Jack sets the way team to secure the dais perimeter and is about to organise a return through the gate when the mist clears and the most extraordinary view greets his eyes. An endless silver ocean stretches out to the night horizon where an aurora dances across the sky and, nearing the dais, travelling at speed in a small coracle, appears to be an old man robed in a blue and a young man, dressed like a medieval monk in grey, steering the craft straight at them.

As the coracle reaches the dais the young man nimbly leaps out and threads a rope through a metal hoop sunk into the edge of the dais. The coracle rocks as he leaps and the old man, already on his feet, is tipped straight into the sands of time. 'Magus!' Aelix shouts as the old man sinks to knee height into the sands. 'Aelix, you fool! How many times must I tell you, do not run!' As he walks towards the dais through the fast flowing sands they all stare as he changes, the years rolling away from an old man leaning on a stick to a young man of fierce beauty. His long, silvery locks turning to jet and his rheumy eyes clearing to fiery amber. By the time Aelix reaches down to help the Magus step up onto the dais, Ninian is barely as old as Aelix himself.

As soon as the sands shake free from the edge of his blue cloak, the magik is broken and Ninian is as ancient as before, back slightly bowed, hands gnarled. Agnes wonders if she actually saw what just happened and Daniel takes a deep breath, worrying about his hand.

'Tara? My Queen!' Ninian bows as best he can. 'I was not expecting you to return so soon to visit me.'

Tara smiles at Ninian's slim grip on the passage of time. 'It has been many centuries Ninian, far too long since I have seen you, my friend. But I come with bad news and we have no time to waste. The dragon King has been woken from his sleep.'

'Awoken? Who dares to break the seal of Epona?' Ninian cries, aghast at Tara's news. 'That seal was set for ten thousand years.' Ninian's mind whirls ahead with the implications of Tara's news. If Nixor finds a way to raise an army... 'The hours are against us, Tara, the equinox! Come, we must return to the Tower, there is no time to lose..'

Jack is about to protest, they have orders to return immediately to earth, when he notices the rest of the team, staring incredulously over his shoulder. He turns to see what they are staring at to find where, only a moment ago, an ocean of sand stretched out, now there is a tower rushing towards them. Or maybe they are moving to the tower. It is all too weird.

Ten minutes later with the away team standing guard at the gate, Agnes, Daniel, Jack ,Tara, Kyna and Teal'c sit around a table made of a single slice through the trunk of what must have been a giant oak. Teal'c runs a hand over it, feeling the way years of use must have worn it marble smooth. Nearby, at a vast bookcase stretching up and curving round the interior wall of the tower, Ninian and Aelix searching for a book the Magi needs. Daniel stares at the wall of books, some volumes are nearly a foot thick and all look older than the tower itself, on higher shelves stone tablets, scrolls and slim glass cylinders jostle for space and, with a conspiratorial nod at Agnes, gets to his feet and casually asks, 'What's the name? I'll help you look.' And with that he runs a finger along the spines of the books nearest, trying to read the titles. 'Hey, some of these are in ancient Greek... Margites!..'

'Yes, yes, collecting and transcribing books on my travels has long been a passion of mine.. we are looking for the Chroniculum Vitae... a modest volume... I'm sure it is here... somewhere.' Ninian smiles absent mindedly, finding a favourite volume and pausing to gently brush the dust from its cover.

'Chroniculum Vitae?' Agnes asks, joining Daniel as he searches the shelves.

'Yes, yes, the timetables of existence... an excellent guide to all the existential probabilities of our galaxy and within it is the account of the Oracle of Uto...'

'Uto?.. you mean Wadjet?... The Eye of Horus?' Daniel can feel a tingle of fear creep up his spine as a web of connections leading to Ra start to form in his mind.

'Her oracle was very accurate and left a very detailed account of a particular incident we hoped not to pinpoint in our collective histories...' Ninian is interrupted by Aelix as he holds up a small, tatty portfolio, bound with a leather strap and stuffed full of bits of parchment and shouts, 'Found it!'

Ninian unties the folio and spreads the content across the desk in a well remembered routine. He finds the papyrus he is looking for without hesitation and proceeds to read from it.

''As day equals night, as nature reverses and the moon swallows the sun, the gatekeepers of Duat will unlock the doors of all the kingdoms to the cataclysm of the serpent...' The destruction of our planets at the hand of a serpent using the gatekeepers of the underworld during an equinoctial eclipse, this is a prophesy set out thousands of years ago. The 'serpent' in your old English is the 'worm' or another for the 'dragon'. When we finally defeated and entombed Nixor on your planet it was meant to be for a period of time in which these equinox eclipses would pass unchallenged through our planets but the news you bring... the seal of Epona broken..' Ninan looks up from the parchment at the group around the table. 'The equinox will soon be upon us, Nixor will be raising an army, if he manages to enslave the Morrigna on Maere during the eclipse all will fall and the four planets will be lost. We must find Nixor before it's too late!'

Back On Earth

Professor Peter Cromwell stares out across the atrium from his office at the assembled group of gate travellers. His once smooth running ops floor is beginning to resemble some kind of science fiction cosplay convention. Two Eponian warrior women, one old magician and apprentice from Avalon, Teal'c, Daniel Jackson, Commander Jack O'Neill and Agnes Dale. Not forgetting somewhere out in the countryside, Robert Bowden aka the dragon king and a Naxen lizard man running around. The thought of the two on the loose focuses his mind to the immediate task in hand. Find and apprehend them before news of gates, aliens and Stargate Command found its way into the media. Bad enough trying to explain this lot in the atrium to the Minister, let alone the media frenzy it would cause if a member of the public stumbled across Rob Bowden and his companion. The professor straightens his jacket and squares his shoulders and heads for the atrium, it is time to restore some order to the whole proceedings.