Yeah, Merlin. You Know, From IT

The importance of wellies in the wet, boggy English countryside could not be understated in Maren’s opinion. Especially if red with yellow butterflies, she thought, shaking off a clump of mud from the heel. 

She only made it a few steps away from the tour bus before she stepped into a sinking, muddy mess. She scowled, muttering in a tempered Scottish brogue,

“Oh, you are kiddin’ me,”

Her nephew-- the reason for this excursion to the middle of nowhere Glastonbury-- burst into peals of laughter. Maren buried a smile underneath a facade of grumpiness. 

“Think tha’s funny, do ya?” 

He responded with a blinding grin. At ten-years-old, Jack was small for his age comparable more to a seven-year-old with spindly limbs and skinny torso. He resembled his aunt with matching red, curly hair and keen blue eyes covered by thick black glasses but also in more than the physical. Each of them heralded more academic interests in a family full of footballers and rugby players-- Maren choosing computers and Jack picking history. Neither of them was very outdoorsy, proved again when Maren stumbled. 

“Da’ said you wouldn’t make it through the whole day,”

The two of them walked on, catching up with the rest of the tour group which consisted mostly of pensioners. Maren caught the back of Jack’s backpack, pulling him back when he tried straying away. Glaring, he started rattling off facts about Glastonbury and King Arthur. She caught Jack halfway between Excalibur and a dragon, asking, 

“So he’s been in the ground the whole time? Canna they jus’ dig him up to check?” 

Jack rolled his eyes. He reminded Maren of a professor she had at Oxford who was never wrong even when he wasn’t right. 

“It doesn’ matter if he’s there or no. It’s about the story,” 

She regarded him with suspicion. “Are ye sure you’re jus’ ten?” 

Another eye-roll, and Maren grinned. Nothing ever really changes. The guide stopped; their group crowded around the older man. The guide was as excited as Jack, which said something about the guide with an oxygen tank trailing behind him. 

“Welcome to Glastonbury,” he smiled, gesturing to the grey stone ruins behind him. His voice was soft, an Estuary accent lilting his words. “Now before we get to the main attraction, I would first like to go over some equally exciting information that any fan of history and myth will find enormously interesting,” 

Maren opened her mouth to whisper a joking argument before she saw how enthralled Jack was. His gapey grin grew wider as he leaned forward. She supposed she could tell him the past never impacted the future like the guide said. Later. She could tell him later. While he explained the Dark Ages, he implied just enough wonder and miracle that Maren inferred he spoke about the possibility of magic. Or ‘Magick’ spelled weirdly with a capital ‘M’. He might as well have told Jack that the mysterious Arthur walked on water. 

Maren wanted to shake her head. Fairytales were all romantic and such but had no practical application, especially in the world of corporate technology. Although, she thought with a wry grin, she had thought about calling her new CEO a witch a time or two. Corruption failed to begin describing what Maegan Faraday stood for. A deep frown pinched Maren’s brow. Powerful friends allowed her to get away with it too. Britain had its moments of fear and peril, but perhaps, none like this. 

Her phone buzzed in her raincoat pocket. A familiar face popped onto the screen. Her stomach dropped because she told him only to call under life or death circumstances on her rare day off. She tapped Jack on the shoulder, showing him the incoming call. He barely acknowledged her. 

Maren turned on her heel, ducking around perturbed pensioners. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she murmured with a sheepish smile. She accepted the call when she had moved away. Her answer was sharp. 

“What, Henry?”

The line crackled while the man on the other line tutted. “No need to be so huffy,” 

“I can be as huffy as I like thank ye very much. I’s m’day off as y’well know,” 

Henry continued, “Yes, but this couldn’t wait. I’ve been thinking--”

“Now, Henry,” Maren chided. “We’ve talked about how bad this is for ye. Remember how tha’ turned out last time,”

“Well, if you were here, I would be letting you do all the work before I get all the credit,” 

Maren hummed. “On second thought, it could be fun to watch you crash and burn without my help,”

“That’s just mean,” 

She chuckled. “Now, really. What do you want? You know I’m with Jack,” 

Henry sighed. “Faraday just ordered a complete audit on the IT department,” 

All the air in her lungs evaporated. She nearly dropped her cell into the bog. “What?”

“She knows,”

“What!?” her tone rose an octave. “There’s no way she could know. You know our tracks are invisible,” 

“I’m not saying she knows it’s us planting all the trojans in the new software, but she knows something is definitely not right,” he said as Maren weakly returned Jack’s enthusiastic wave. “We’d be at the bottom of the Thames, luv,” 

She moved further across the field, pressing the phone closer against her ear. She turned her bsck to the tour group, advancing against taller and coarser dry grass. The grass hit her knees before she stopped. 

“Has she moved to IT security yet?” 

“You mean have our necks been caught in rat traps yet?”

She sighed. “Y’know what I mean,”

“No. The failsafe you’ve planted across the company network are holding them off for now, but the sooner you get your pet project going the better,”

Maren wanted to bristle, but Henry happened to be right. For once. The CAMELOT program, her baby, her life’s work. The acronym stood for something long and impressive, but really, Maren had just wanted it to spell out Camelot. Jack would approve. Her nephew was the reason for her whole white knight schtick. 

Without CAMELOT, all their work would prove worthless. CAMELOT, in her theories and dreams anyway, would be the IA backdoor to every information system in existence. She dreamt about the battles they could win with foreknowledge of every corrupt move in the Western world. 

She scuffed her boots against the ground. “Yeah. Ah’ know,”

Henry seemed to soften. “I thought you’d want to know,”

She nodded. “Yes, of course. This’ll put a knot in some of the protocols,” she considered. “Nothin’ unfixeable though,”

Maren turned her head, seeing Jack waving more animatedly than before. “Look ah’ better go. Jack’s wavin’,” 

“Right. See you Monday?”

She nodded again. “Yeah, Monday,” she said goodbye, ending the call, frowning. She tapped her cellphone against her cheek. She glanced at Jack, who moved to the front of the tour group and stood next to the guide. She allowed herself a small smile. The world could wait a day. Right?

She took a step, intent on returning to Jack and rescuing the tour guide from a bombardment of questions. She expected the soft give of the field bog, but her boot encountered a wavering platform. Maren made eye contact with Jack on chance before hearing a crack and groaning wood. She fell through the earth. 

A screech ripped from her throat. Dirt and mud sprayed around her. Agony panged across her back at the impact. 

She lay motionless for a long moment, groaning. She shifted her hips away from a jagged stone. When she opened her eyes, she threw an arm across her face, still shielding her eyes from falling dirt and sod. She shook the dirt from her arm before moving it away from her face. 

She blinked once. Twice, forcing her hazy vision to clear. The cloudy sky hadn’t allowed for much light into the hole. 

Maren raised her head, coughing up dust involuntarily sucked into her lungs. She heard pounding footsteps above her before she took in her surroundings. 

The place appeared like an old cave hewed out of hardened earth and sparsely spaced stone against rounded walls. No, not like a cave, she thought. A chamber or room was a better description. 

She pushed herself up further with another groan. She grabbed her lower back, rubbing tender and bruised muscle. She propped herself on an elbow, rolling onto her side when she heard Jack’s panicked yell:

“Aunt Maren!”

She coughed. “Jack?”

She could only see the top of his head and the sharp gleam of his glasses. He turned his head. 

“She’s over here!” he screamed. “Are you ok?” he lowered himself, leaning over the edge. 

She got to her knees, popping her back, holding her neck with her other hand. 

She held up a hand. “Don’t come any closer! The ground isn’t steady, alright?”

He nodded, his eyes still wide behind his thick glasses. He moved back carefully away from the edge, gripping the straps of his backpack until his knuckles turned white. 

Another cacophony of noise, and the tour guide leaned over unsteadily. 

“Oh, good Lord,” his knobbly hand waved the dust away. His perch reminded her of a praying mantis. “What happened?” 

In the absence of initiative, Jack took charge. Jack grasped the old man’s hand. “We need to get her out,”

His thick grey brow rose, finally allowing a view of muddled green eyes. His back straightened. “Right..” he said before turning back to Maren, saying unnecessarily. “Don’t worry, miss. We’ll have you out in just a mo’,”

Maren could see the terror of his fear of lawsuits growing in his shaky smile. However, she wasn’t in an altogether comforting mood. “Well, i’s not like ‘m goin’ anywhere, am I?”

His smile collapsed. “Er, right,” and he whirled around, stalking away and barking orders to whoever would listen. 

Jack hesitated. 

Maren managed a teasing grin that she hoped didn’t look like the pained bearing of teeth. “He’s hopeless without ye. Better go make sure he doesn’t find another hole,”

Jack dumbly nodded, darting away, following the tour guide with his own yelled out suggestions for a plan of action. 

Maren’s smile fell into a pained grimace when her nephew disappeared. She brushed dirt off her shirt and jeans. Her red wellies fared better than the rest of her. 

She forced herself to her feet, her eyes adjusting to the afternoon shadows. She cleaned her glasses on the end of her sleeves.

Celtic carvings covered the back wall. Because of her mother’s work as an archeologist, she recognized a few-- ‘river’, ‘great king’, ‘honored’, ‘fallen’. Clay water jugs leaned against the wall before she finally noticed the putrid stench filtering out of the opening above her. The back of her hand covered her nose and mouth.

A rusted shield rested against the wall. She stepped forward before she saw it, wondering how she missed it. 

A worn, carved stone sarcophagus lay in the center. A gray hewn figure was ingrained on the lid. She edged closer. It grew darker as she retreated from the light streaming through the hole. 

She raised her hand, hesitating, before running her fingers across the coarse stone. Tilting her head, she examined the raised sinews of a knightly figure carved into the lid. Chain-mail covered arms crossed over his chest with tightly clenched hands clutching a board sword. The face was worn away, but she could still decipher a beard and a pointed helmet covering part of his forehead. 

An invented pattern lay perfectly visible on the stone shield. The preserved lines drew her attention. She stepped further along the sarcophagus. Leaning down, she focused on the shield’s length, noticing parts of the pattern were out of place. Her brow furrowed. 

“Tha’s weird…” she murmured. 

For a moment, she looked up again, scanning her surroundings more carefully. She wasn’t an expert on early medieval artifacts. There was a reason she didn’t follow her mother into archeology, but she realized enough to know there were millions upon millions of pounds of goods resting inside this forgotten hole outside Glastonbury. 

The things she could devise against Maegan… with all this… 

Her eyes drew once more to the wrongly arranged pattern on the stone shield. Lines and figures appeared skewed and jumbled. It reminded her of a replica puzzle box her mother bought for her last Christmas they spent together. 

She lifted her hands, her fingertips tracing over the inverses. One of the Celtic figures wiggled underneath measured pressure. She gave a small smile. 

A puzzle… 

She liked those, could handle those. 

The memories of solving her mother’s puzzle boxes flooded her memory; prompted by her recent blow to the head, she didn’t know. 

Maren heard her rescuers coming, but she couldn’t bring herself to care, spellbound. 

Her fingers moved against the puzzle lines with familiarity. She moved the last figure into place, the shape morphing into an intricate tree. A click resounded. The walls shook, raining dust around her. Maren’s head moved on a constant swivel. The stone underneath her fingers jolted. She jerked her hands back, but could not force herself to step away from the sarcophagus. 

The lid shifted, moved by the gears under the floor. Maren braced herself. She had seen more than a few skeletons on her parent’s dig sites; that didn’t mean she ever enjoyed the sight. 

She blinked when she thought the tree on the shield began gleaming a shimmering gold. When she re-opened her eyes, the light vanished as the lid’s final lock moved, releasing its ancient hold. 

Stale, tepid air released from its confines. She reeled back, coughing. Waving frantically, she wafted the stench away from her. The coffin definitely held a body at some point. 

The opening in the coffin spanned about three inches. She approached again. She reached for her phone in her pocket, realizing it was empty. Panicked, she spun around, scanning the ground for her lifeline to actual society. 

Her chest constricted when she saw the device lying shattered on the ground. 

She groaned in a different kind of pain. “No, no, no, no,”

She turned back to the sarcophagus with a withering glare. 

“I blame you for tha’,”

Then she remembered the small flashlight Jack had tossed at her for adventuring purposes. She was definitely taking that kid out for ice cream after this. 

She found it with a noise of triumph, brandishing it in front of her. Mashing the button on the end and sending an LED light stream through the room, she mentally prepared herself. A slight dread twisted her stomach. 

She shone the flashlight through the crack. She caught a flash of silver and fine red fabric. Maren considered the lid, thinking how much it must weigh.

She stuck the end of the flashlight in her mouth, keeping the light on her new target. Bracing her red wellies against the dirt floor, Maren wrapped her fingers around the stone edge. 

A mantra spun around in her head while she leaned and pushed, shoving against the lid, gritting her teeth. 

Don’t scream at the skeleton, don’t break the lid. Don’t scream at the skeleton, don’t break the lid.

Maren, with one last push, opened it. She heard the guide yell. 

“Miss Wallace! We are throwing down a rope after we finish tying it up-- Would you please hurry up with that, Anderson?” 

She rolled her eyes. It's no small miracle he hadn’t lost anyone else to a sinkhole leading to a weird, probably haunted, grave. 

She snapped back to the present. This could possibly be the only Indiana Jones moment of her life, and she was going to enjoy it or die trying. 

Her flashlight shone through the crack. Any sign of a body remained out of sight. She moved the light, catching the ingrained lines of worn letters carved into the box’s side. 

She shook her head when the unfamiliar letters blurred. She must have fallen harder than she realized. Her eyes opened again. She comprehended the first line first, a small pain forming behind her eyes. 

‘Here lies…’ 

Another shout from above her, but she didn’t understand what Commandante Tour Guide said. 

The lid blocked the rest of her view. She braced her hands again, ignoring a sharpness against her palm. She hoped the gash wouldn’t need stitches. She hated hospitals. 

She forced the lid more to the side. She first saw the silver armored helmet. She finished reading the inscription. Her heart raced. 

‘Here lies Arthur…’

Her mouth went dry. 

‘Who was once king…’ 

She heard the rope drop through the opening. She moved the lid away, the next lines melding into her thoughts with the rest. 

‘And will be king again.’ 

Maren expected a weathered skeleton covered in rags and rusted armor.

Yes, she had expected a skull peeking out from the helmet, not the preserved face of a blonde middle-aged man with ruddy color still in his cheeks. Red fabric showed from underneath the armor and an angled shield. Long eyelashes rested against dirt-smeared skin. His fingers lay across his shield, outstretched ready to defend. 

Her voice came out in a bewildered murmur, “Arthur?”

The dirt walls shook again; this time her knees nearly buckled. The shaking increased as did the yelling above her. 

She thought she saw his index finger bend and twitch. Time slowed. Someone--maybe, Jack?-- called her name over a different cacophony, awakening a burgeoning part of her soul she never knew existed. Then, silence. The world stopped. 

Her eyes remained on the man’s face. She chastised herself when she looked for signs of life. 

Both his hands flexed violently, jerking away from the shield. Grey eyes flashed open to instant alertness. A sharp gasping breath flooded his lungs. 

Maren screamed, but she refused to retreat. 

The man gasped. Gasped again, throwing the shield from his chest. The clatter of metal hit the ground as their eyes met. 

Grey relief met blue terror. He outstretched his hand, leaning feebly,

“Merlin!”