Chapter Twenty
The Equinox
Professor Peter Cromwell stares at the countdown on the screens in the atrium of the SGCUK. His teams have taken up position in a mile perimeter around the Stargate pool and a news blackout is in place. In front of him group of engineers and scientists are still working to put together a containment mechanism to hold the gate should the teams in the field fall. Hours are whittling down to minutes and time is running out. The equinox is here and the Stargate waits, as it has for centuries, for the moment the planets align and the eclipse event takes place, mirrored across the universe in a moment of perfect alignment over which, despite all the state-of-the-art technology, it seems he has no control.
As the moon travels in between the sun and earth, its shadow runs across the northern hemisphere, travelling at speed up over the Atlantic until it blankets the south of England in a strange amber shade. At the Stargate pool, the team wait, poised and ready for the expected attack by the Dragon King and his army of ancients while back at SGCUK, engineers and scientists work to finish a containment field for the Stargate before it opens to the four worlds. All around the pool, the birds fall silent as the sky darkens and the air becomes colder as the moon travels on, devouring the sun until all but a diamond burst of light is left. And then the sun is gone, the moon and Earth align, cogs in a universal clock, and it feels as though, for a moment, time stands still.
The horse herd reaches the river confluence before Hall Mead just as the twin stars start to align behind Epona's moon. The ecliptic shadowing sends a shiver of unrest through the horses. Lore stares at the city before them, the air is heavy with smoke and the sounds of wailing can be heard above the din of battle. In front of him the horses restlessly move as the sky deepens and Lore instinctively knows if he is to try and save the city and his twin, it is now or never. He reaches into his saddle bag and retrieves a small, flat drum made of taut animal hide with two batons tied to edges covered with silver bells. He urges Castan to a trot as he rattles the drum above his head, the bells and batons ringing out in alarm. The horses first scatter before him then return to follow him in the open wake left behind as Castan, nostrils flaring and eyes rolling, charges at full gallop towards the city gates, Lore urging her faster and faster with the drum. The other herders follow Lore's lead and soon, the entire herd is on the move. The air is filled with the loud rumble of the herd and the ground trembles under their hooves as thousands of horses race to the city gates as one.
Inside the city, the besieged citizens hear the sound and feel the ground tremble and a ripple of hope runs through the desperate streets. The Naxen raiders do not heed the noise and do not notice as the fighting ceases and the enemy seems to melt away. Even the Valkyr retreat to the walls of the palace. By now the horses are in full stampede and Lore and the herders are doing all they can just to stay seated on their horses. At the very moment Lore thinks he is to be dashed against the gates of the city, they are flung wide open and the herd pours through into the narrow streets and lanes of Hall Mead, trampling the Naxen under their flying hooves. The screams of a dying army chill Lore to the bone but still he races on, Castan leaping bodies and building rubble, racing to the palace and its the maze of narrow passageways. Above him the stars align and the great shadowing falls and Hall Mead is plunged into a twilight gloom but only one thought is on his mind, to find Kyna.
The lake of the Infernus Gate lies silently shrouded with the army of Morrigna wraiths, waiting for the Moonshadowing to unlock the door and deliver them from their hunger. They will devour the enemy of the Dragon King on Celestia and feast on Nixor's restored power. High above the volcano, the sky changes from day to night, the moment of totality arrives.
Agnes stands a little nearer to Daniel wondering if she had known how it would end up, would she have sent all those emails and calls to him about the hoard coins. Her hand finds his and Daniel smiles at her and gives her hand a squeeze of reassurance. 'A penny for them?' he asks, sensing the fear in her, the fear in all of them wondering what could come through the Stargate any moment now. 'Not so much a penny, more a gold coin. I was wondering if I would have called you if I had known it would lead to all of this...this...' she trails off, unable to finish the sentence.
'For what it's worth, I'm glad you did, Agnes, it's been a pleasure to work with you.' His words are warm and Agnes takes comfort in them. After the battle the day before who knew what new terrors the eclipse would bring. She shivers slightly, suddenly acutely aware it is not from fear but from cold as the sky overhead darkens.
Daniel glances around at the rest of the team around the pool, Kyna, Tara and Teal'c are on the far side opposite them. Ninian, Aelix, Jack and the rest of the away team are spread out around the perimeter while Agnes and himself are standing by the radio, waiting to give the all clear if SGCUK get their Stargate containment device working.
Nixor rises from his lair under the old stones of what was once his temple, built by giants and tor trolls. The henge is almost toppled now, a scattered set of broken stones, pockmarked with age and lichen, nothing but a roost for rooks and rough grazing for sheep. What once were marshlands to rival the Naxenlands is now rolling farmland but soon it would all be his. Once the Stargates opened, his armies of Naxen raiders and Morrigna wraiths would scour the land, everything would fall before them and the fall of this temple would be nothing to the revenge he would wreak for the millennia spent imprisoned under the Seal of Epona. Nixor winds his body among the stones, his translucent scales taking on the grey pallor of the rock, blurring his form, his talons scour the ground and his eyes burn bright with the thought of battle. Once in the centre of the horseshoe of old stones, he spreads his wings and stretches, then, in one sinuous movement leaps skyward and beats his wings as the amber light camouflages his body and he swoops low across the fields to meet his armies.
Kyna stares at the blade of the xiphos in her hand, its bright metal dulls as the moon hides the sun on this strange planet and she steels herself at the thought of the battle about to unfold. On each of the four Stargate pools, in perfect unison as the eclipse reaches its zenith, a single ripple spreads out from the centre to the sides followed by the roaring sound of water forced, under great duress, into giant walls of spinning waterspout, forming a pathway through the void of space and time to link all four planets at once. 'It is begun.' Kyna whispers under her breath and she raises her sword in readiness.
Teal'c hears the dragon before he sees it, swooping out of the sky towards him, its talons raised and teeth bared. Instinctively he fires his staff and the blast glances over the creatures scales, chattering and screeching in whorls of flame and sparks. Nixor falls to the ground, barely winded by the blow and raises up on his hind legs, advancing towards Teal'c with a murderous look in his eyes. Teal'c holds his ground and fires again as Tara leaps at the wings of the beast, slashing a great rip in one as she dodges the dragon's thrashing tail. Before Jack can join in, the first of the Naxen raiders appears through the gate, shrieking and running as though the world is after him and Jack swiftly stuns him, ordering his team of guards to fire their weapons as more appear. For a moment Nixor falters, wondering why his Naxen raiders seem to be fleeing for their lives but his attention is immediately focused back on Teal'c and Tara as the two inflict an onslaught of blows.
The horses race through the city of Hall Mead like water from a tap, cleaning the streets of the fighting Naxen raiders, rushing and running through every courtyard and narrow lane. As the Stargate opens the horses reach the inner courtyard and pour into the vortex, oblivious to the destination, only certain of the freedom of the stampede. On Maere, the wraiths step into the pool as the vortex opens only to met with the thrashing hooves of horses racing after Naxen raiders, crushing them under the waves and throwing the lake of the Infernus Gate into a maelstrom of confusion. In the chaos, one wraith slips through, spying a Celestian through the wall of the vortex, it reaches through and grabs its prey, overwhelmed by hunger and hatred.
The radio sputters into life and for a moment Daniel's attention is drawn to it. He lets go of Agnes's hand and tries to tune the signal in a bid to hear the message from SGCUK. In that second Agnes is grabbed by the death-cold embrace of the wraith and her startled scream is cut short as the wraith feasts on her life force, draining the years from her in seconds as he drags her back into the vortex. 'No!' Daniel yells as he leaps after them and reaches through the wall of the water vortex with his hand, holding onto Agnes as best he can but he is too late, the wraith drops her lifeless body and slips away, back to Maere.
On the other side of the Stargate pool, Kyna and Aelix find themselves fighting back to back, pinned down by a group of Naxen, unable to cut a way free. Still searching for his sister in Hall Mead, Lore and Castan reach the Stargate pool and, without thinking, leap through the water to reach the other side of the courtyard. From the corner of her eye, Kyna catches sight of a pony she recognises leaping through the wall of water from the pool and she shouts out her brother's name as Lore races through the Stargate. 'Lore! I'm over here! Help us!'
Lore, catching sight of his sister, urges Castan straight at the Naxen raiders, making them scatter and freeing Aelix and Kyna. He chases a few of them down and then turns Castan round back to the Stargate to the battle unfolding there.
Tara and Teal'c are struggling to hold off the Dragon King and are slowly being forced to defend rather than attack. High above them, Ninian, in the shape of a merlin, hovers watching the events unfold below him, seeing it all as though in slow motion, when it is, in fact, only a matter of seconds. Ninian watches Daniel pulling Agnes back through the vortex and sees Aelix fighting on the other side of the pool and for an instance, glimpses all four worlds through the vortex and realises that time has finally caught up with him and he can see a way to save them all. The Sands of Time have found a way to reclaim him. He smiles at the thought and swoops low to Aelix, whispering in his ear, 'You will make a fine Magus some day Aelixor of Avalon, remember sword to stone!'. Aelix whirls around at the sound of his master but Ninian flies to where Daniel is cradling the lifeless body of Agnes. He regains his human form and kneels down beside them. 'Is she gone?' Daniel asks, still aghast at what he has just witnessed.
'Not yet, perhaps someone delved into the Sands of Time and then held onto her for dear life?' The Magus smiles at Daniel's guilty jolt of memory. 'No harm done. You had enough time stored in your hand to save her but not to give her life back. That requires a little more.' Ninian gently lays his hands on her head and whispers something into the air. Through the open Stargates, the Sands of Time hear the words and very slowly unravel the hours Ninian has kept, unwinding him into nothing but grains of sand that flow over Agnes and then, as if caught by a sudden breeze, flow back through the vortex and he is gone. Agnes's eyelids flutter briefly, as if dreaming and then she opens her eyes and smiles at Daniel.
Lore grabs the mane of a passing nearby horse and reigns in Castan, giving Kyna a chance to leap up onto the back of it. She nimbly reaches down and pulls up Aelix to sit behind her and then leaps up, suddenly seeing a way to help save her Queen, Tara and Teal'c as the horses of Epona start to pour out from the vortex. 'Follow me!' she shouts at Aelix, nimbly running across the backs of the horses like a bridge to where Nixor is. Aelix, stumbles and missteps but the horses are so close together he does not fall and he follows with just enough time to see Kyna take a flying leap at the neck of Dragon King, the blade of Raizor, her xiphos, reflecting the total eclipse in it's polished metal. 'Sword to stone.' Ninian's words suddenly make sense and Aelix leaps up shouts out an old incantation, learnt by heart long ago as Kyna buries the blade deep in the ear of the beast just at the moment Nixor is about to crush Tara and Teal'c in his talons. The sword rings dimly with the words and Nixor roars in anger, knowing he has been defeated. The blade bites deep but the words bite deeper, turning Nixor to stone from the inside out.
High above the sun and moon move on and the eclipse is suddenly over and the Stargates close as quickly as they opened, the water falling to flat calm in an instant. For a moment everything seems to be spellbound and then, somewhere in the trees surrounding the pool, a bird starts to sing. The radio beside Daniel and Agnes starts to work and the voice of Professor Cromwell breaks the spell by announcing the containment field is finally working and asks for an update on the situation.
Later after Tara, Kyna and Lore have said their goodbyes and stepped through the Stargate to Epona with their horses and Naxen prisoners and Aelix returns to Avalon to take Ninian's place as a Magus. Jack, Teal'c, Daniel and Agnes stand in the atrium of Stargate Command UK while Professor Peter Cromwell tries to explain via a secure video channel to the Defence Minister just exactly what happened during the eclipse, it is not going well.
'A dragon? And Merlin... and a magic sword...I suppose next you are going to tell me there was a Lady in the Lake?' The Minister is definitely not impressed with the Professor's report, his voice heavy with sarcasm. 'Do you really expect me to submit this ...this... report to the Prime Minister?'
'Well... yes... sort of.. what I mean is...'
Trying hard not to laugh at the poor Professor's improbable explanation, Jack takes a gold coin from his pocket and flips it high into the air, asking 'Anyone for a coffee? Heads I'll buy, tails it's back through the Stargate...' Daniel, Agnes and Teal'c all laugh and they turn and leave, heading for the lift up to the cafe at the truck stop above ground while the Minister shouts at the Professor in the background.
The End