Bryn am Ddraig--The Dark Ages

The battered and beaten pilgrim stared back into the milky-blind, bicolor eyes of the incredulous old man and knew the source of the village elder’s astonishment. The swollen welts and ragged lesions on the stranger’s face and hands were healing even as the septuagenarian ran gnarled fingers over the disappearing wounds, as if to confirm what his vision could not.

The old druid’s tactile recognition confirmed the suspicion he felt growing in his heart. The chiseled features, the hawkish nose and brooding brow, the towering bearing, the incorruptible carriage: all belonged to a man--a legend--he was familiar with.

Earlier a mob had throttled the foreigner down to the dust with fists and rocks and branches and implements, finally subduing him and binding his arms and legs. Villagers carried the strange pilgrim along a wheel-worn path in a wooden cage-cart, arriving at a craggy triptych of stones outside their hamlet, where they strapped him to a flat rock at the roots of the cromlechs erected in supplication to the gods of their territory. He was a sacrifice to be devoured to appease the evil that gripped their settlement.

Now the village elder was desperate with doubt, as he watched the morsel his tribe had prepared transform miraculously, his wounds recovering the foreigner to full health and vigor.

The old man frantically swept aside the berries and apples and mistletoe that had been heaped around his clan’s offering and tore at the leather bindings that held the stranger to the altar stone.

This was not the first rejection the monk had endured on his pilgrimage to spread the Gospel of Christ, but it was the worst reaction he had received thus far. Many towns and shires in these western lands had clung rigidly to their ways and were reluctant to accept his message, but the worst he had suffered on previous encounters was being driven off the land by superstitious pagans unwilling to relinquish their old gods--harsh words and the occasional stone-throwing. As his discipleship had taught him, preach the word and move on, never linger. More especially when the reaction was hostile. This group, however, was not prepared to suffer his presence passively. Their rejection was fueled by violent repulsion.

“They fear the dragon,” the old druid stated, “more’s the pity, their fear blinds them to deliverance even as it is at their threshold.”

The pilgrim stood, rubbing the painful but fleeting lacerations at his wrists. He thanked the old man who rescued him.

The druid was old and crippled, using a gnarled staff to support himself standing and walking. The stick was fashioned from yew and topped with a green river stone crafted in the image of a serpent swallowing its tail.

The old man was cloaked in a robe of simple white cloth, a wide hood draped over his head hid most of his gray hair, all but the longest locks curling about his neck tethered with leather straps bearing ornate stones and bones.

The druid’s forehead bore a burn mark, a brand, of some curious cuneiform unknown to the Christian monk.

“What is your name?” the druid asked.

“Günther,” the pilgrim responded hesitantly.

The old man smiled, recognizing the lie, refusing to accept it.

“You are a miracle,” the old man crooned.

The stranger shook his head, “I am a man.”

“Nonsense,” the old druid spit. “You are a white dragon. The Barddus has foretold this. You are a blessing. A godsend to relieve this cursed place.”

The milky mismatched eyes of the old man glowed aflame.

“You are called Gaius. Or you were. Gaius. Cassius. Longinus.”

Now it was the pilgrim’s turn to flush with astonishment and the blind man could sense it.

“You … you know who I am?”

“You are the Man Who Cannot Die: Centurion. The soldier who stuck his spear into Jesus’ belly and relieved him of his earthbound misery.”

Gaius Cassius Longinus, Roman soldier in the Jerusalem garrison who stood at the base of the cross that bore Jesus of Nazareth, stood washed in His blood loosed from the hole in the Messiah’s side at the point of his spear, stood and listened as the Son of Man proclaimed that there were those who would witness His death that would not die until He returned. Now, over eight-hundred years later, Longinus still roamed the Earth, struggling with the memory of that day and wondering if he was blessed or merely cursed.

“I serve only to spread the word of the Lord,” Longinus managed to croak through a contracting and parched throat.

“Words Jesus must have spoken to Judas, as that disciple urged the Messiah to revel in His true nature.”

“I am not the Christ.”

“No,” the old man’s eyes narrowed, “but you could be a savior. Unlike Judas, I will not pay the authorities to try and force your hand. That approach failed to work then and it would most assuredly fail now, I reckon, given your unwillingness to forcefully resist your most recent tormentors. This village didn’t even have a clue as to who you are.”

Longinus’ gaze fell to his feet.

“You seek to draw each settlement to you? To hear your message?” the druid asked. “I tell you, you could draw them all to you, under one banner. Remove the blight on this patch of earth, and the rest will follow you into Hell.”

The old druid shifted against his stave.

“Slay the dragon and these folk will cling to you as their very own. Others will follow in turn.”

“I have never slain a dragon.”

“Few have,” the old man laughed. “’Tis something no mortal can do, perhaps. But you are no mortal.”

“I am weaponless,” Longinus said, “I have not held spear or sword ...,” the Centurion faltered, “in a long time.”

The druid’s wiry eyebrows rose. Longinus noticed for the first time the dully liquid eyes of the elder were dissimilar in color--one a deep green, the other a tiny dot of violet--both masked by a filmy layer of grayish blue.

“I am called Merddyn,” the druid softly smiled. “Come. Follow me and I will deliver to you a weapon that will make you a slayer of dragons … and a king of men.”

The old man turned and walked away.

#

Across verdant hills and into mist-shrouded valleys, through blackened forests the two wandered. At night they would camp in the secret places hidden in the land and the old man would sing praises in an ancient tongue, bathed in silvery moonlight, to the sky above and earth below.

For days their journey took them thus, until they found the water’s edge. A grey-green sea illuminated in the glow of the Moon stretched out before them.

From there, they traveled by boat to an island--a fog-capped tower of jagged rock vaulting up out of the tumultuous sea.

The old man found a foot path rarely used and nearly intangible, but his decrepit form never faltered on the footpath that led beyond the veil that covered the mountaintop.

When at last they arrived at the summit, Longinus found himself at the rim of a basin, a cauldron of living stone, that held a lake in its grasp.

The water was deep, still but clear. Seemingly untouched by the wind that rushed about the place. In its depths could be seen the forms of those long trapped at the bottom. Despite the lack of sunlight, something scintillated below, reflecting the full moon glare off polished surfaces.

“Behold,” the druid intoned, “The World was once so wicked, God washed Creation clean.  Deluge waters that have never receded. The bosom that holds the sword of power. Excalibur.

“Your clothes will not be necessary,” the old man said, leaving go of his stave, which stood upright on its own as if held in place by unseen forces. The old man reached into the folds of his cloak’s sleeve and withdrew a talisman--a green stone circle bound by gut-strap.

Merddyn handed the necklace to Longinus and bid him to wear it.

“This marks you as one of the clan. You must withdraw the blade. The lady awaits.”

Longinus wondered at the man’s words. He was aware of a soft and lilting voice, as in song, calling to him, here and gone again, then back.

A ripple emerged on the water’s surface, small and at its center, growing wider to lap peacefully at the rugged edge of the lake.

With no more thought, the Centurion stepped into the cold water in the mountain.

The water took the breath from Longinus, enveloping him in a cold unlike he had ever known before, but he pumped his arms and kicked his legs and dove down deep to the bottom of the pool. His ears popped like the sound of shattering bottles, but he did not stop until he had reached the rocky bed.

The water was clear and clean, and he could make out the forms that lingered here in the lake.

The dead. Skeletons now, wafted in the turbulence the Centurion created. Remnants of cloth fluttered on the bones laying in repose on the floor of the lake, some bore rusty remains of iron armor and ragged shreds of animal hides. The glittering hint of bronze and gold shone in flashes off of jewelry or hilts of weapons.

A dozen or so corpses long since dead, drowned in the cold water lay frozen in time. One form in particular caught Longinus’ eyes. He bore an ostentatious crown on a skull still clinging with white strands of hair, his arms missing, snapped clean at the mid-point of his forearms. Gold bracers rattled against his dead elbows.

He gazed long at this, when he was suddenly aware of the calling he had heard before.

In the midst of this pile of long-dead carnage rested the form of a woman. Her long flowing white robes rose and fell in waves. The skull atop her shoulders was agape, looking longingly at Longinus. A gleaming hilt of gold pressed against her rib cage, pinning her to the rock beneath to her watery tomb. Her bony arms seem to beckon to the Centurion.

The burning in his lungs became nigh unbearable at the sight of this ghoulish specter in the water, but Longinus ignored it, and pushed towards the lady.

He grasped the hilt and braced his feet, prepared to push off the bed of the lake with all the might he could muster, to drive him to fresh air above.

The sword shrieked against its rocky prison easily and Longinus felt himself launch upward with ease.

His escape was short lived.

The gnarled hands gripped his ankles and held him fast, and beneath him he could see her now--emaciated but draped in the dead flesh of a once comely vision. Her eyes burned with a luminous green rage and her shattered smile stole the victory from his heart.

Longinus kicked free from her hold, but her robes were now billowing impossibly outward, so that the entire lake bed was a twirling whirlpool of white death.

The other dead, save for the kingly corpse, now rose and took up arms in their horrid hands.

The stinging in his lungs moved to overtake him, but he held up the sword in his hand and a calm fell over him. His eyes focused through the nebulous gleam of the water.

He lashed out with the sword and found the water could not impede his action, severing two of the advancing corpses at the waist.

Three more moved upon him, and with swift strokes the dead fell, headless, their green stone necklaces in the same craft as was around his neck fell in silence to the lake bottom.

The others were to him now, driving their blades home with savage fury.

The water clouded with streaks of red against the pallid alabaster flows of the lady’s tangling shroud, and Longinus recoiled.

Along the rocky bottom he flew, throwing himself headlong into the fray. Hacking and slashing with all the power he could muster, the pain in his chest all but forgotten. Within moments the pieces of the remaining warriors fell dead again, leaving the tomb a scattered battlefield of bones and blades.

Now the witch-queen shrieked and the water pulsated with her rage. Her clawed hands rent chunks of flesh from the Centurion before her, but the attack could not stay his stroke, a cleaving swath that split her skull to her breast then followed through with rejuvenated force to cut her in twain, so that the blade came to rest in the gray slate beneath the witch.

The shriek of rage turned to a howl of death and the she-devil fell silent, even as the whole of the mountaintop shook under the might of Longinus’ blow. The rock under the sword’s edge cracked then separated with a sundering rumble, and the water as old as the mountain itself , the collected Wrath of God, spilled forth to finally rejoin the sea below.

#

“You live?” the old man’s voice betrayed him, as he watched Longinus gasping and choking in the relief that air provided, standing on the bed of the now emptied basin.

“Your voice is full of doubt, soothsayer,” Longinus hissed through shuddering pain. “Did you not foresee this?”

“I saw victory, to be sure …,” the old man smiled, “the sword freed--but augury’s illumination is rarely precise and ever fleeting. The Tree of Life is limbed with lies, beckoning you out onto barren boughs dangling with false fruit, even as it secrets Truth in its gnarled roots.

“It is a perilous path to count one’s eggs before they have hatched.”

For his own amusement, rather than Longinus’, he produced an egg from his hand with a flourish then made it vanish with a flick of his wrist. The old man was giddy and seemingly unaware of Longinus’ agony.

The druid’s delighted giggle became a disconcerted frown at his prestidigitation. The old man cleared his voice to hide his embarrassment, shaking his foot in an attempt to dislodge the cracked egg shell at his feet, now oozing yellow yoke.

The sun was up now and attempting to burn its way past the clouds that never seemed to part from the mountain’s peak.

Never releasing the blade from his grasp, Longinus used the weapon like a cane and righted himself on the gray stones at the lake’s stony bank.

Already his wounds were beginning to mend. Despite the tormented burning of his rendered flesh, the Centurion felt renewed. Powerful and alive. He examined the hilt in his hand and a smile escaped his lips.

Naked, steam billowing off his shoulders and pouring forth from his closing wounds, Longinus held the sword called Excalibur into the air, sure that God Himself had delivered him to this place and given him new purpose.

“Merddyn,” Longinus set his gaze to the old druid’s, “where is this dragon of yours?”

The old man grinned.

“Behold,” Merddyn whispered, then raised his voice to a shout, “Behold! You awake from your slumber! The bear in spring. You hold your destiny in your hand. You are king!”

The old druid held his stave high to the sky, “Behold, Arthur Rex!”

For a moment, the mists parted and a shaft of white-hot sunlight pierced the firmament with a flash, and shone down on a king.