The Second Circlet: The Old Places - 8. Segment 8: Pridwen

This time Viviane/Merlin’s scrying glass was a clear pool of ice cold water a short distance away from the Elven Hall.

The water in the calm pool swirled unnaturally as Viviane passed her hand over it mumbling unintelligible things. The water ‘shaped’ itself with a strange gesture of Viviane’s hand. Water rivulets arched above the surface seeming to defy gravity and began making glittering water shapes that were resolving into something recognisable.

The rivulets formed a hollow trapezoid that’s shape twisted to resemble a chain! At the bottom of the chained trapezoid, water thickened into a solid shape that then faceted before their eyes like a gemstone!

At another part of the pool, block-like shapes rose forming a circle of blocks. As the waters resolved to define the shapes they were making, the 3D image formed was of something unmistakable - the waters had formed a miniature representation of Stonehenge itself!

Just as the scrying waters finished with this feat of wonder, a dome of water began to rise to cover both the obvious necklace with trapezoidal pendant and the Stonehenge figures. When the dome completed itself, covering all the scryed water structures, it formed waves through it to make the dome shimmer twice and then all the water collapsed back into the pool with a suddenly chilly splash!

~~

Weeks passed and Moira pulled upon as many of her academic resources as she could to find out more about the lore of Stonehenge. Understandably, research on this most popular of all Celtic ruins is as vast as it is misleading. General consensus has it that the Great Stone Ring forms a solar calendar used by the ancients to detect the winter and summer solstices with sun alignment. Enhancing research also finds that the place was a primary religious centre for many different Celtic peoples and religious sects. Many ceremonial burial sites mark the place as being a place of ‘renewing’ which would be in keeping with Stonehenge being the centre of a great ‘Wheel Of Time’ - the Solstice observation being only one of the dimensions of time and space represented by the stone circle’s configuration.

Then…there is the mystery of how Stonehenge was formed and the disagreement on exactly how old the monument is! Most studies have carbon dated artefacts between 3000 BCE and 1500 BCE. Unfortunately, the great stones themselves defy carbon dating for some reason and so it is mainly theory and conjecture that point to Stonehenge being built sometime after the site was founded. There are, apparently, older features to the place that point to it predating the stone circle, though this information is, to wit, circumstantial.

Viviane was most helpful, however, in divining the more esoteric knowledge surrounding Stonehenge.

“It has always been, this Stonehenge. Since the foundations of the Earth! Of the old places in the world, it may well be the oldest! Merlin tells me that proto-humans came here too, feeling its power. A power to shield! A power to protect!” Viviane said as we all gazed in wonder at the most familiar Heritage Site.

“Wait, but I thought it was a Druid place for human sacrifices and all!” Sean blurted.

“Och, but there’s been no evidence of that sort of thing, Seanie! Those were graves of elders and important personages. If sacrifices there were then that would account for the animal bones in one of the outer trenches. There may have been such human sacrifice, but we haven’t found anything we would expect to find for that here.” Professor O’Brien admonished the ignorant Sean.

Or so she thought…

“Actually, the Claderghan Druids made regular human sacrifice here. No evidence would exist though. It was said the bonfires they used to cremate the dead were so hot that bones shattered in the flames. It must have been an old technique of husbanding fire such that the element could burn nearly star-hot! The scorch would have been covered in barrows…” Viviane said mysteriously.

“Further, those sacrifices would not have been possible within the circle of Stonehenge. The power there does not allow for destruction of any kind. This may be why the Claderghan are unknown in these times.” It was Merlin speaking through Viviane now, Myra was sure of it. The old wizard would have known all there was to know of Druidic magic, after all.

“A power to protect. A power to shield. I can believe it! Do you feel it too, My’n?” Joraan conferred with his fellow leprechaun.

“Yes. The place still thrums with powerful ley energy!” My’n took the added queerness to their behaviour to another level by getting on all fours and lowering his ear to the ground.

“This place…it is a nexus of leylines. It is the Northern Node. It is why Britain exists where it does and how it does, as an island. Stonehenge anchors this world to the Beyond, along with the Central Plexus, and the Southern Node.” Myra was nearly swooning with the electrifying energy she was trying to shunt away from her being! She had to stay further away than the humans and Sídhe did, apparently, lest she overload and dematerialise.

“What are the Central Plexus and Southern Node? Where are these places?” Moira wanted to know.

“The Pyramids at Giza occupy the Central Plexus. The Annunaki built them to harness the vast electromagnetic power of the Earth that surfaced there. All leylines intersect at the Central Plexus! Giza has the most powerful resonance of any of the ley nexi.

Uluru, in the centre of the Australian continent, contains the Southern Node of equal power to Stonehenge, only polarised. The ley energies move counterclockwise there. The Ayer’s Rock rose naturally because of the titanic pressures the ley energies exhibited at Uluru. I learned this through the Trees. That is how I know of this.” Myra said simply.

“Wait, the Annunaki were real?” Moira seemed to miss all the other amazing things Myra was saying, but picked up on that one word. Sean would probably never understand Moira’s thinking entirely!

“The Annunaki are quite real! They are with us even today…in their interdimensionally phased craft - what have become known as UFOs in today’s words.” Myra had been holding out on them as far as info was concerned, Sean thought. She actually knows what flies flying saucers and what might do anal probes on poor innocent and unsuspecting barkeeps?

“Under Stonehenge is where we will find Pridwen.” Viviane said, bringing everyone back to the task at hand.

“What’s a ‘Pridwen’?” Sean asked with a complete look of consternation on his grizzled face.

“King Arthur’s shield, according to Arthurian Legend.” Moira said absently.

“So, you are saying, we need to dig up Stonehenge to find this new thing we’re supposed to get? How in Hell is that supposed to work?” Sean asked incredulously.

“Digging would be fruitless. This whole circle has a plate of solid rock under it. Dig a few feet and you’ll see.” Joraan said using reasoning neither Sean nor Moira could understand.

“And how is that so, Joraan? There are digs and trenches all about. No one’s hit bedrock yet!” Moira knew her dig sites and the earth here abouts is the most diggable of any site she’d ever been.

“None must go too deep, then. I can feel the rock about 12 to 24 feet down. It’s solid.” Joraan said with absolute certainty.

“Well, then how’re we supposed to dig to find this ‘Pridwen’ or what have you?” Sean asked after his down to earth fashion.

Joraan shrugged…irritatingly.

“One of the barrows to the south has an entrance to an underground complex. I believe it is there that we will find the way to Pridwen…if the catacomb does not collapse on us first.” Merlin must have said through Viviane, again.

“All the barrows here at Stonehenge have been thoroughly excavated! No one has ever found a ‘door’ in any of them!” Moira was losing patience! She knew Stonehenge, though she was never invited to a dig here. She was nearly encyclopaedic about her knowledge of the place. But, then, that was the problem from the start! Her knowledge could not fathom Stonehenge’s importance, at least not as far as Viviane/Merlin was concerned.

“It is there, just within the tree reserve of Normanton Gorse.” Viviane/Merlin said with authority.

“Oh, but I know those to be part of the Normanton Down Barrows complex! It’s been a well documented site since the 19th Century! Nothing there was found of any more significance than any of the other barrows save the Bush Barrow nearby.” Moira admonished Viviane.

“What was found at the Bush Barrow?” Sean wanted to know.

“The Bush Barrow Treasure. It’s a famous Bronze Age treasure found in the barrow’s grave cist. The primary item in the treasure is a solid gold diamond shaped device that was found on the chest of one of the skeletons within.” Moira explained.

“I would agree that something resonates over there in that stand of trees. I can sense a power there, but not one of an elemental nature. It seems almost…alien!” Myra chimed in, making Sean suddenly feel quite spooked!

Aliens? More Annunaki nonsense? Sean did not want an anal probe in his future!

“Well, there’s only one way ta be findin’ out!” Joraan announced and began trudging in the direction of the mysterious stand of trees just southward of their position.

“Now, hold yer horses, Joraan! That’s private land! We can’t just go trespassing, willy-nilly like! We’d get ourselves arrested that way!” Sean said, being the ground of reason among the troop.

“ ‘Private Property?’ You must be pulling me leg! We’ve a world to save, Lad! We can’t be worryin’ about people’s feelings about what they think they own!” Joraan blustered.

“Be that as it may, Sean’s right. We need to seek permission. I know there are tours allowed of the Normanton Downs Complex. We just need to be a part of that and then break away from the main body of tourists.” Moira offered in way of an idea.

“Or, we come at night. I imagine the darkness out here can be fairly complete. My’n and I can lead you as we can see well in darkness.” Joraan offered his idea.

“Hehehe! You are all so very practical! You forget you have me with you! As I’ve made myself invisible to mortal eyes, so can I do for you! I can also call to being something else that might be to our service.” Myra said. True enough, the party had completely forgotten the fact that they’d been walking around in public with a full-on ‘Fairy Godmother’. Why no one was reacting to this didn’t dawn on Moira until now! How blind could a woman be?

Apparently, as blind as Myra wanted Moira to be! She had to be invisible or, at least, disguised from others, somehow, to keep from drawing all kinds of attention!

Myra raised her arms and head like in prayer or in a trance and that’s when, suddenly, the fog rolled in literally out of the blue! It was so thick the team lost sight of each other.

To remedy this, Myra made a ‘spreading’ gesture and a bubble of visibility appeared around the compatriots. All about them the fog bank roiled about like slow moving smoke, but they could see each other and the ground below just fine. Unfortunately, their destination was obscured.

“Well, that’s just fine, then! But, does anyone remember where the stand of trees is?” Sean said, crossing his arms crossly.

“This way yonder, aye.” Joraan returned to his trudging trek toward Normanton Gorse. He seemed to know the way by memory or instinct, but none questioned him. Joraan always seemed to know where he was going.

They all followed him across the highway. Considering the fog, Sean was more than just a little nervous they’d all be run down by careless drivers, but none came, thankfully.

They were presented with barbed wire defining the edge of the private estate. Moira was about to mention that she’d seen an access-way up the road, but Joraan was quicker with his blade than Moira was with her mouth.

With one slice, the barbed wire gave way as if Joraan’s glaive˜ was cutting through soft butter.

“Well, destroyin’ private property isn’t what I signed up for!” Sean groused.

“Just move yer hone, Seanie. It’ll be fine.” Joraan grumbled over his shoulder as he stood aside to let the others through his makeshift ‘gateway’.

When all others were through, Joraan reversed his slicing motion with the glaive and, to Sean’s astonishment, the fence healed itself right up, untwisting and mending just as quickly as it had been cut through!

“No. No, I’ll never get used to this. This is as near to madness as I’ll ever want to be…” Sean bemoaned, but was soothed by Moira’s gentle caress upon his arm.

They moved along, trudging through the moist grass and cloaked by the fog. Joraan led the way, stopping ever so often to lift up his head as if to catch a scent. Moira swore it was like following a dog tracking something.

Before long, the grove of trees appeared out of the fog before them. The grove was bigger than Moira thought and she was concerned that any of the three barrows that could be found in Normanton Gorse would be so overgrown as to be unrecognisable.

They entered the grove and it was a strange transition. Things went from flat, green, and nondescript to textured, green, and detailed. Going in deeper into the trees one could almost forget that you were in a small block of trees in the middle of a vast grassland. To think…all of this place would also have been covered by trees if not for the centuries upon centuries of the denudation of the countryside, Joraan thought with sadness.

“So, now what are we looking for?” Sean asked, peeking at the ground and around trees and such.

“There is a core to the resonance I’m sensing over…there.” Myra said with her weird ‘senses’ sensing things.

“Can you feel it?” Myra had to be asking the other magical beings in the cohort, because all Sean could sense was the feel of a wee chill and the smell of tree sap.

“Hmmm, my senses can only feel ‘absences’ like where the forest is broken in spots - disturbed. Can you feel anything My’n?” Joraan asked his fellow.

“Not specifically, but then my senses may not be as they were before…well…” My’n looked down, obviously recalling his trauma at the hands of Morgana, that Black Snake!

“A Sending, then…” Viviane/Merlin said simply, as if everyone in the group could know what a ‘Sending’ was!

Viviane picked up a stone from the ground, held it to her staff, and then set the stone on fire!

“Thrrach Nichthe Stchentharrah Pridwenechthe!” Came a voice out from Viviane’s mouth that didn’t even sound human, much less like her own!

The flaming rock launched itself from her unsinged hand and fell several yards away toward the centre of the wood. A pillar of smoke appeared that signified where the burning rock had landed and, perhaps, had touched off a forest fire!

They quickly navigated to the place where the burning rock had landed and the blue smoke was emanating. They found it near the knotted feet of an ancient yew tree that seemed to be lifting the earth into a fold with its peculiar strength! The tree was unharmed and the smouldering stone soon disintegrated after they arrived at the tree.

“That is one twisted-up tree!” Sean remarked pointlessly.

“It would stand to reason that the Sending should have found a yew tree.” Viviane said, also seemingly pointlessly.

“Did it misunderstand you and just find the first magical bush it could find?” Moira asked with a little irritation. She knew that, according to Celtic myth, yew trees were almost always magical for one reason or another. Since they were dealing with ‘magic’ it followed that the ‘Sending’ rock should find the first magical thing it was attracted to. She imagined ‘magic’ worked like electromagnetism since she suspected that such energies were the true nature of ‘magic’. A purely scientific property of the earth that these beings had, somehow, learned to harness.

“No. I can concur that this is the place where the resonance is coming from.” Myra said as she touched the tree. She closed her fair, sparkling eyes and seemed to fall into a trance.

“What is she doin’?” Sean asked Joraan.

“I imagine she is reading the tree. It has been time out of time that I’ve witnessed a Fae do such. It is strangely…comforting.” Joraan said. He looked over at My’n who looked…enraptured by the whole process as if he found something more to Myra’s reading than just plain comfort!

“Are you feelin’ alright, there, My’n, my lad?” Joraan asked his brother.

“Uh, oh…yes. Perfectly! That just brought back such…memories, if you catch my meaning.” My’n answered softly. He never once took his eyes off of Myra as she stood motionlessly, hand on tree root, seemingly to have become one with the tree.

Then, she DID become one with the tree! She completely turned to wood right before everyone’s eyes!

“By Rhiannon! She’s gone and ossified herself!” Joraan gasped! He ran up to touch the wooden effigy that had once been Myra. His hand fell to his side helplessly and he turned to look at the fellowship with large sad eyes.

“She’s completely turned to wood. I don’t know if she’ll be joining us for the rest of this trek of ours.” He said with sadness to match his eyes.

A sound of twisting creaking wood came from behind Joraan, who turned back to see the wood sculpture looking at him as it had NOT been doing before!

~ Fear not! I am one with the substance of The Ancient Yew! He shows me the paths below him. He has waited ages of men for our coming! ~

Myra’s voice sounded in all of their heads to their astonishment!

“Remarkable! She is one with the substance of that tree! I remember where the original Fae had been the Keepers of the Forests. It would make sense, magically, that in order to do this they would have to become one with the Forests! No wonder they went mad . . .” My’n remarked with mysterious knowing! Joraan supposed that if anyone should know the nature and cause of the Faeish Madness then it would have to be him. My’n suffered sufficiently enough from their madness while being their captive. Joraan growled within himself with unbridled hatred.

~ Moira? Could you draw out Excalibur? When done, please stab it into the earth just before that hollow in the Yew Trees front, just there . . . ~

Another creak of wood and Myra’s wooden form stood pointing at a depression in the soil just before a cavelike hollow at the bottom of the great yew tree.

Moira had learned, by instinct, how to ‘draw’ Excalibur from some extra-dimensional scabbard at her back. The ethereal sword appeared in her hand with a ring of metal. It’s strange greenish glow illuminated the hollow in the tree and Moira could just make out that there seemed to be a black depth to the hollow that went deeper under the tree’s roots!

Inverting the sword downward, Moira jabbed the point of the blade into the earth as Myra had instructed. Instantly, the Ancient Yew tree seemed to lift itself up by its roots to make of the hollow at its lower trunk a rough archway into a shadowy cave!

Everyone was all astonishment!

Alas, along with that astonishment came a touch of revulsion as a nauseating stench oozed from out of the cave along with a dark mist.

As the mist congealed into a black swirling pool in front of the cave, Myra instantly extricated herself from the tree and shouted a warning - “Beware! All of you! This place is guarded! It hid itself so well I didn’t sense its presence until it was…too late!”

The mist rose and seemed to materialise into an ominous form: that of the tall, dark form of a Black Knight!

“Aos Sí!” Joraan hissed!

“An Eess what?” Sean said with fright as Gungnir came into his hand!

“A protector of the mounds! I imagine he is the spirit of an ancient warrior given the task of protecting this mound! Possibly, he was the denizen of this particular mound and now seeks to defend it.” Viviane/Merlin said with nerve-racking calm!

“By all the Saints, none of the other Barrows about were found to be haunted! Even the Bush Barrow met no one with anything supernatural!” Moira said, trying the beginnings of reason to settle herself on the fact that she was, once again, facing something far beyond scientific understanding!

“None may pass.” The Black Knight insisted.

“We’ll see about that!” Joraan shouted and then lept, glaive in hand!

“NO!” Myra reached out, but too late. Joraan had been too fast as had been the Black Knight.

The Black Knight’s shadowy mace was parried by Joraan’s deft blade just in time to avoid a crushing blow. But, the result was to find Joraan flying backwards through the air to impact against a tree several yards away!

“JORAAN!” Sean bellowed in fear for his friend!

In fierce anger, Sean levelled Gungnir at the unmoved Black Knight and blasted him with Gungnir’s shining lance-beam. The Knight merely deflected the beam off of his Shadow Mace and back at its sender!

Clumsily, Sean just managed to dodge his own weapon’s discharge, but only just! A tree behind him exploded into splinters!

Viviane/Merlin seemed to try some kind of binding spell on the Knight using some kind of clutching force from her staff. The Knight shrugged free and, with a powerful swat from his mace, created a shockwave that knocked the staff and Viviane away by several feet.

Just then, a raking sound shrieked from the Black Knight’s black armoured boot and shin guard. Sparks flew from the armour and the Knight visibly collapsed to his knee as his leg gave out.

My’n appeared, just out of reach of the giant black clad figure. With his right hand he held silver-blue glowing Carnwennan. With his left, he tossed Excalibur to Moira. The Great Sword’s hilt flew right into her hand!

“Take Excalibur up, Moira! Use it on the Aos Sí before it has a chance to recover from My’n’s attack!” Myra entreated Moira.

Moira took all the courage she had and charged at the dreadful entity! Predictably, the Knight, though made lame by Carnwennan, managed to swing his Shadow Mace at Excalibur to parry Moira’s slicing blow.

However, the sword cut clear through the Mace with no shock of resistance. The arc of the swing continued through the fel spirit, disrupting it and returning it to the misting dust from which it came!

“I did it!” Moira exclaimed incredulously.

“That you did, Luv! That you did! I can see why you were chosen to wield that majestic blade! You’re an absolute natural!” Sean came and took the liberty of hugging Moira to himself by her shoulders.

However, others were busy about the casualties, such as there were.

“Joraan, are you hale?” My’n was already at his brother-in-law’s side, propping him up and patting his face. Within short order, Joraan’s eyes opened one after the other.

“Do you mind, lad? ‘Tiz annoying, that is!” Joraan said groggily! Fortunately, Joraan’s Sídhe physiology is made of sterner stuff than a human’s. A blow that might have broken several human bones would could only bruise Joraan. Indeed, his healing factor was already at work clearing that away as well!

Viviane was another story, however. She was completely unconscious from the shockwave that the Black Knight had sent at her. Myra worked upon her using only arts and powers she knew to control. Before long, Viviane too was well enough to travel, though still quite groggy and limping a bit.

“Well, I’ll be supposin’ that our invoking that black creature must be a sign we’re on the right path, eh?” Sean asked no one in particular.

“It would certainly seem that way. The archway is still open and I suggest we proceed before the attention our battle will have attracted comes to find us.” Moira reasoned.

“Indeed, an Aos Sí is only set to guard things of exceeding value. They are employed by powerful Menethiri and Fae to guard things of power. I have no doubt that Pridwen must lie below this barrow somewhere.” Viviane spoke to something Merlin must have been speaking to her inwardly.

“I also imagine we are missing an interesting idea. I may actually know what Pridwen is and how we’ll recognise it.” Moira said.

“How’s that then?” Joraan asked curiously.

“It’s decoy was already found! The Treasure of Bush Barrow. The oldest golden artefact found upon these shores, the Gold Lozenge seemed either to be an amulet or some ceremonial device that resembled a diamond shaped shield, but only in representation. It is far too small to be a buckler or true shield of any kind. What its true purpose was or what it was suppose to mean to the peoples who buried it are cause for conjecture to this day. I believe that our finding this barrow answers that question. The Treasure of Bush Barrow served to deflect interest from a true treasure that could be found nearby!”

“So Pridwen would be the true treasure?” Sean asked the obvious.

“Indeed, it must be.” Moira surmised.

“So it is. That bit of archeology simply documents, scientifically, the truth of this place. A truth we who can sense these things already know.” Viviane/Merlin asserted.

“Then let us, again, cease our gabbing and get on with it,” and again Joraan led the way into the darkness beyond the archway under the yew tree.

“OI! WHAT’S GOIN’ ON IN THERE? THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY, MIND!” a voice came from somewhere inside of the tree grove! Obviously, the row with the Black Knight being had attracted the attention of whoever was managing the property. To avoid any more unnecessary unpleasantness, all piled into the dark dankness of the hole.

Though the initial ‘entryway’ was muddy and mucky, it opened up into a most unexpected sort of cavern. While playing about the place with a torch, Moira was able to see that what they were in could not be best described as a cavern for that would indicate that the surroundings were naturally made.

The room they were in was definitely not naturally made, but was an exquisitely and perfectly domed vault!

Viviane spoke a word and a small jet of white fire appeared atop her staff. This added more ambient light which gave better definition to the vault. She was able to light a ring of wooden torches that completed the lighting.

All were awestruck by what the light showed to them!

All about were beautifully adorned vessels of beaten gold! In the centre of the horde, a litter there was and in it a small skeleton. Something that looked like a child’s skeleton, but with a head too large for a normal child’s head!

“Ah, but this little one had hydrocephalus! How…sweet of these people to honour he or she with such…wealth!” Moira said, obviously touched by what she thought she was seeing.

“You might want to check again, Moira, me Luv. This here…this was no human child…” Joraan said as he stood on the opposite side of the litter from Moira.

Moira and the others moved over behind Joraan’s position, all gasped at the face on the skull!

In life, it would have had huge eyes, a narrow jaw, high cheekbones, and a much larger aural complex than any human’s! Also, though smaller than a human’s, the skeleton was in proportion to the the larger head with shoulders broad and a more robust ribcage. It was definitely not the skeletal remains of a deformed child!

“This one was Sídhe!” Joraan said with a touch of tremor in his emotionally thickened voice.

My’n knelt beside Joraan and concurred, “Indeed! This was, perhaps, one of the Pixies - our younger Britannic cousins!” The Pixies had migrated from Avalon to the Eastern Isle of Briton ages in the past.

“It would seem, then, that we may have found the prime architects for this whole Stonehenge complex! Stonehenge was Gorias - the Capital of the Easternesse! The city of the Eastern Treasure!” Joraan said brightly!

“I’ll be stuffed for Christmas! You mean that Stonehenge wasn’t even made by humans? That…would answer a lot of questions! However, Eastern Treasure?” Moira exclaimed with excitement.

“Mayhap, a joint venture would be more precise. Yes, Eastern Treasure. The Old Gods were said to have had four cities in which they stored treasures. Each city dominated a cardinal direction of North, South, East, and West as positioned from Avalon. Gorias was of the East!” Joraan told while he examined his ‘cousin’s’ dead bones.

“I see something…a ring!” My’n exclaimed over Joraan’s ear.

“It must be used here…” Viviane said from a blank wall she’d been surveying while the others were focused on the Pixie remains.

Viviane fondled a depression in the wall face. The wall was made of solid rock, by the looks of things, but the depression seemed to be carved into it. After a bit of picking at the dust, Viviane was able to show a hole that looked like it could just take the size of the gem found in the skeleton’s ring!

“A ring as key? How very lyrical.” Moira mused.

“I am loathe to desecrate this burial site by disturbing this find, but…” Moira went to reach for the ring but had her hand pushed back by Joraan.

“No. Let me do it. It may be less of an offence if one of the slumberer’s own kind borrows his treasure for a moment.” Joraan gently reached, took up the dust crumbled hand, and gently removed the ring. Joraan’s theory seemed to have been sound…nothing at all happened when he removed the beautiful jewelled ring.

He passed the ring to Moira who held it up to her torch to inspect. It looked like two dragons spiralled together either in a mating twining or a death grasp. Where the two mouths of the dragons met, a strange rhomboid jewel of fiery orange was clutched.

“You may need to put it on to operate the lock to this door. I surmise that is how this lock must work.” Viviane advised.

To her surprise, the ring fit Moira’s finger perfectly! It was, as if, the ring was designed for her in mind or, perhaps, it could reshape itself depending on who was putting it on.

“Good! It accepted you! I’m impressed!” Joraan said with maddening matter-of-factness.

“Well then, I suppose…” and Moira aligned the rhomboid gem’s shape with the rhomboid hole in the wall and inserted the gem.

Something inside the wall groaned ominously, a sound like the dead rising or something of enormous weight being shifted.

Moira quickly extracted her finger with the ring to be sure she didn’t loose either to whatever was behind that wall!

She was none too soon either, because the wall suddenly shot open, drawing itself into the ceiling of the round room! Beyond what had been a great stone door was a breathing darkness that seemed to go back forever as if into a horizontal pit!

It was an unlit hallway carved entirely from the same blue stone of which Stonehenge is made. Moira and Sean cast their torches down the hallway and it was featureless blue stone as far back as the light would travel.

“It would follow that this hallway should lead all the way to a similar vault at the other end under Stonehenge. That would be half a kilometre north-east from our position.” Viviane informed, more than likely continuing to take instruction from Merlin.

So they moved on through the dank darkness. Sean was glad for what lights they had with the weird magical things Joraan and My’n were using, Viviane’s phosphorescent ‘candle’ on top of her staff, and Moira’s simple torch. It made things seem less like he was trying to burrow his way out of his own coffin!

Myra, their Faery Godmother, said she could not enter. Something about ‘too much iron’ resident in the rock. Sean had half-remembered fairytales where the fairy folk would have an aversion to iron. He supposed they must be true.

After what seemed an eternity, the passageway began to widen out. There was no obvious door of separation between the corridor and the vault they soon entered. The corridor simply widened until it became a great wide circular vault similar to the one under the ‘tree barrow’ they had initially entered, but much bigger. This one seemed to take the entire circumference of Stonehenge which, Moira surmised, was right above them!

The vault and the corridor leading to it all reeked of Sídhe magic, My’n thought. It had all been shaped out of solid rock by powers and with tools only known to the Pix. Tyrax within My’n surfaced for a moment to sneer at the debasement of working underground like dwarves!

Within moments Viviane had lit torches that had been set in the walls all around the vault. They all seemed to burn with the same eldritch phosphorescent power that Viviane’s ‘candle’ had been made.

The illuminated room immediately revealed its treasure. At the centre of the room, an amulet and its chain floated inside of some invisible force! The beautiful rhomboid gem within the amulet glittered in the torchlight occasionally shedding sparks of purple and red luminescence. All were beguiled by the hen’s egg sized jewel!

Sean was not satisfied with merely looking and went for the treasure so he could touch it.

“Whoissst! NO, SEANIE! Stay back! I sense…a trap!” Joraan warned in vain. As soon as Sean passed some unseeable threshold, he was repulsed backwards by some invisible force! He landed a feet away, shocked, but otherwise unharmed.

“Och, ye caocha! You know nothing can ever be that simple with this magical nonsense!” Moira said, helping Sean back to his wobbly feet!

“Mother Mary’s Kerchief, that thing packs a better wallop than Kathy McDougall after a fine goose!” Sean muttered as he shook out the last of the shock to his system.

“I imagine, this will need some sort of ‘authorisation’ before one will be allowed to take Pridwen.” Viviane said offhandedly.

“What sort of ‘authorisation’ did ye have in mind?” Sean groused.

Viviane became silent and thoughtful, but generally didn’t manage an answer which drove Sean to distraction.

“Well, let’s consider the myth of Pridwen” Viviane began.

“As per legend, it was the shield of King Arthur, granted holy powers by Blessed Mary, the Mother Of Jesus. It was the protector of the king’s life, his soul, and his virtue. It was the focus of his mandate to protect England from her enemies. Where Excalibur was the executor of the King’s will, Pridwen was the defender thereof.” Viviane continued.

“…Ok!” Sean blurted.

“So, what you might be intimating, Viviane, is that the ‘authorisation’ needed is that of King Arthur’s ‘heir’ as protector of the realm?” Moira said, picking up on Viviane/Merlin’s train of reasoning.

“ ‘Tis a fair observation.” Joraan answered.

With that, Moira drew Excalibur and, with one blow, disrupted the interference field that had been protecting the amulet. The resultant magical feedback shock seemed to forewarn against some future calamity as the room shuddered and blue stones from above pelted everyone.

With no impedance, Moira stepped up upon the low circular dias over which Pridwen floated within its suspension field. Tentatively, she reached for the amulet with her right hand while she held the impossibly weightless Excalibur in her left. She expected some kind of electrical shock or some other strange effect of the field holding Pridwen, but nothing affected her as she took the necklace and pendant. It felt a bit heavy due to the weight of the stone and, for what she expected to be, the solid gold chain.

Gingerly, she took it from the field expecting something, anything really, to happen. Nothing seemed to be triggered. This was too easy, she thought to herself.

Indeed, things had been too easy. As the nearly imperceptible hum of Pridwen’s stasis field stopped, the room began to rumble! Cracks formed in the ceiling above them as gravel began to pour down upon everyone’s head! The cracking and rumbling increased geometrically as the seconds ticked by!

Moira stood frozen in terror as the others, by some instinct, closed in around her. All expected to be crushed by tons of rock at any second, and when that second came everyone was astonished that they stood in sunlight! Heavy slabs of what had once been the blue stones of Stonehenge slipped away above them as if sliding off some impenetrable and invisible glass dome!

In Moira’s hand, Pridwen’s Jewel glowed with a scintillating reddish glow that radiated from her hand. Silken beams of energy made by Pridwen formed rays that projected a dome of invisible force around the whole cohort!

“…by all that is holy!” Moira whispered, looking around at the crater in which they stood.

The Circle Of Stonehenge, Britain’s foremost ancient monument, lay in collapsed ruins all about them! That which had stood for at least 4000 years, stood no more! The Great Stone Circle had been the marker for the power that lay buried under it! Pridwen was that power! Pridwen must have been what held Stonehenge in stasis for all these millennia! Stonehenge had stood sentinel, waiting for the chosen one for which Pridwen was meant. Only such a person would Pridwen protect from the Fall Of Stonehenge, the moniker by which this catastrophic event would come to be known!

In the distance sirens rang out as the Park Guards mobilised following the obvious catastrophe that had taken place.

“Best to make ourselves scarce, I’m afraid!” Viviane said as Merlin’s power again invoked the magical doorway they had been using to transport themselves.

They would leave no trace. The catastrophe would always remain a mystery. The great Blue Stones so efficiently covered the Well Of Pridwen that none would ever have suspected its existence.

All that could be surmised is that there must have been some great cist under Stonehenge making it the greatest of the many barrows in the Wiltshire area.

Even the underground passage to the Well collapsed leaving no trace of its existence except an inexplicable trough the ran from the Circle and split into hundreds of tributary troughs all about the Heritage Site. Archaeologists would later suspect that an entire underground complex had once existed, but had also collapsed along with Stonehenge!

Moira, though sad of this great loss to anthropological science, would later come to accept it as a necessary sacrifice in the protection of the realm.

Pridwen, King Arthur’s Shield, completed Moira’s battle ensemble. She put it on and left it on knowing it could well be the very thing that would save herself and her friends someday…

…and that someday was coming far too soon!