Layers of Time - Morgan Le Fay Post - Legends of the Veil Blog

My new blog post for Legends of the Veil is LIVE!

LINK: https://curseofthefallen.wordpress.com/2020/07/16/layers-of-time/

I rushed into the living room of our island home. Content that I wouldn’t bother Mino, I twirled my hand through the air, conjuring a bassinet to lay my sleeping child down in. I’d only just gotten her to sleep, and I had no way of knowing when she would wake again. I had to take the opportunity that I was given.

Once Baba Pasiphae was safely laid down in the bassinet, I found a place to kneel on the floor next to the coffee table. With quiet haste, I set down my compact shrine and began setting it up. Everything had its place, and I set them in their places by pure instinct.

I had lost track of how long it had been since Sammael had turned our lives upside down. Ever since that fateful night when my husband, child, and closest friends had to run to Hell for any chance of survival, I had been a wreck. In the panic, I had remembered one of Sammeal’s most damaging tricks; when he was posing as Merlin—an enemy I had come to love—he took my blood. He claimed it was for a spell of protection for my child. With the battle with Kane on the horizon, I felt like I needed all the protection I could get. So I believed him, despite some doubt that seemed to nest in the minds of our other teammates—my husband included. Once I had been reminded of this lapse in judgment, I couldn’t forget it. I worried every day and could barely get any sleep from that same worry. What had he done to my child? Neither I nor Minotauros had noticed anything that particularly worried us, but every time Baba Pasiphae cried, my heart stopped with worry.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had done almost nothing but watch my daughter like a hawk since we reached Hell’s safety and the safety of our home after that. Now, that was a full-time job, easily enough. Yet, it wasn’t enough work to stop me from worrying about her. Or about Sammael and his plans for all of us. 

I had to do something more to end this fight as quickly as possible. I knew only one way to do that.

Once my travelling altar was all set up, I mumbled under my breath, “Merlin. I really hope you were fucking predictable.” I filled my obsidian bowl with water, just like I did on the night that I went searching for Kane. Once the bowl was full, I focused on the perfect mirror that the surface of the water created. “Where is Excalibur?” I closed my eyes, falling into the trance of my scrying spell. 

The vision of my mind was thrown straight up, past the limits of hell and back into the purgatory of the living. My gaze sored above the Earth’s clouds at an inhuman speed, searching for its final destination. A final destination that I had been too; I recognized this path. I knew it well.

Stonehenge. Merlin’s—the REAL Merlin’s—old stomping ground and the sacred place I went to so that I could scry to find Kane. The old bastard threw me around like a rag doll there. I’m sure he could’ve killed me, but he held back. I was meant to be his warning to the rest of the legends; I was to return and frighten them with my account so that they would all give up the fight and let him kill us all. It didn’t work. We all fought back. And we won.

Just as we would against Sammeal.

My vision was taken into the center of Stonehenge, where the landmark’s magic was the most powerful. I was taken past the Stones and into the ground. Deep into the ground. My sight pushed through layers and layers of dirt, clay, and rock that have built up over the last fifteen-hundred years. It was like watching time turn back with every layer I pushed through. I could see how humanity has changed with the layers of the Earth.

Eventually, I started hitting bones, body, and blood. In England, everywhere you stepped, chances were that you were walking over someone’s grave, whether you knew it or not. It was one of the reasons why love my native land so much; the idea that you could always be walking on top of someone kept you humble. 

After several layers of bodies, armor, weapons, and dried blood. My vision found a different texture. It was rock, but different. It was formed and moulded. I recognized the shape of it. The rock had been carved into the form of a person, similar to many of the coffins and caskets in Westminster Abbey. And all of the Abbey’s casket’s that took on that shape held or once held the remains of King, Queens, and other Royals.

This particular stone was carved into a very familiar form. A handsome king draped in robes that were far more regal and impractical compared to what he really wore back in the day. Though the stone had no color to it—aside from the color of time—I could see the sun-kissed tone his short hair always had. His eyes were closed in peace, and it almost hurt my heart to know that his end wasn’t as peaceful as that. The only discrepancy was his beard; Arthur never grew a beard. He never wanted to age faster than he absolutely had to.

So this was were Merlin—the real Merlin—had buried King Arthur. And if the shape of the stone carving was any indication, Excalibur would be inside the casket, clasped in Arthur’s hands, which had surely withered to the bone.

“Of course! Why didn’t I think of that sooner!” It was so obvious. Of course, Merlin would bury the sword with Arthur in his old home.

Just as the realization was hit me, I was thrust out of my scry vision back into the living room of our island paradise. What the hell had happened? I hadn’t ended the spell. And no one had dispelled my magic, especially since I wasn’t scrying on anyone—well, no one alive. So what happened?

And why was I so tired? My physical body was heavy with exhaustion. My scrying spell had never taken that much out of me. Why now?

The screaming cry of my precious daughter cut through my haze. Had her voice always been this loud? It made my head throb with pain as I stumbled over to her bassinet.

She was glowing. My daughter, Baba Pasiphae, was glowing. It was an aura—very similar to mine in feeling and emotion. But something was off about it. Was this truly her aura? It didn’t feel like it belonged to her.

I reach into the bassinet to stroke strong Baba’s soft, bald, little head in comfort. I touched her. And I remember nothing else after that.