The Final Prophecy

Prologue: Earth, 15th Century

There seemed to be no end to the thick green canes around him. He came through the tree over an hour ago and was still struggling to find his way out. He considered using his sword to hack his way through the bamboo, but there was not even enough room among the canes to sit and rest, much less swing a sword, so he forged onward. Soon, however, and much to his relief, he came upon the edge of the canes at a small brown stream. Once across the thin ribbon of water, he sat upon the ground with his back against a tree to rest.

Although he had finally made it out of the river canes, he was still in a forest of tall, stately hardwoods. There was hardly any undergrowth and all around him as far as he could see great trunks of oak, chestnut, hickory, and ash sprang from rich, black earth that was littered with layers of leaves from countless winters past. He needed a new staff for walking but there were no young saplings to be found and there were no low hanging limbs within reach of his sword. With a sigh, he rose to his feet and drew the elfin blade from its scabbard. Gathering his tattered robes in his free hand, he stepped into the cold, slow moving creek to cut down a stalk of the bamboo that grew down to the water’s edge.

The moonsilver flashed brilliantly in the sun, slicing neatly and cleanly through the base of the cane. He pulled the cane down and lopped off a piece that was as long as he was tall, then sheathed his sword. The bamboo was both light and sturdy. It would make an excellent staff for walking.

He knew that his best chance of finding anyone would be to follow the creek. The creek would eventually lead to a lake or possibly a larger stream. That, in turn, would likely lead to a river and if there were any towns or farms to be found, they would be located near just such a water source. However, he decided to make for higher ground to see if he might be able to spot signs of habitation such as smoke from kitchen hearths.

As he trekked up the hillside, he removed the floppy gray hat from his head and stuffed it into the pockets beneath his robes. The day was warm and springtime lay across the land like a soft green blanket. Overhead, a cool breeze stirred the sun-kissed tree tops and, here and there, tiny green leaves were being coaxed out of hiding from among branches tinged with bright red buds. Somewhere nearby, a wood thrush greeted the day with his happy song. Tut-tut-oh-layo-leeee, tut-tut-oh-layo-leeee. This place was so much like Camelot when he first found it, wild, pristine, and beautiful beyond description. And, like Camelot, this place stirred something deep in his soul. It was a calling, a need, something he could not identify, but something that drew him nonetheless.

The game in this land was plentiful too. He spied a large herd of deer making their way through the forest and, as he stopped to watch them pass, a multitude of squirrels chattered at him from their lofty perches, while somewhere over the next hill, a flock of turkeys gobbled loudly. At least he would not starve to death in his search for civilization.

When he finally reached the top, he was dismayed to find nothing, but more hills and more trees. South and east of him, the hills shrank and the land became flat, while behind him and to the north, ridges of mountains in various shades of blue rose above the endless sea of trees. Even from this distance he could tell that the mountains were old. Eons of wind and rain had worn away all sharp edges, leaving smooth, round tops and gentle slopes, much unlike the tall, jagged peaks of the Iron Bones on Camelot. Rather than making for flatter land, he picked the next highest point and, after a brief respite, continued west. It took him a couple of hours to reach the next spot, but with persistence and steady plodding he finally made it to the top. His efforts were rewarded with a grand view of a wide valley full of tulip poplars. These were the biggest poplars he had ever seen. The trunks were so large that one could carve out a room within the bole of the tree and have a comfortable dwelling in which to live. As he stood there pondering how much effort it would require to carve such a dwelling, the smell of wood smoke caught his attention and the tree house was quickly forgotten.

He could not see any smoke, but the wind was from the west, so he continued in that direction. However, the hills eventually became too much for him, forcing him to veer southwest in search of an easier route. He stopped once, when the sun was at its highest point, to rest and to eat some of the food he had brought along in his sack. The meal was a simple fare of cold biscuits and hard cheese, but after a long morning of strenuous hiking it was quite tasty.

After eating, he hiked for a few more hours, still trying to navigate west and avoid as many steep slopes as possible. When the shadows grew long he decided to set up camp for the night. The landscape had started to change; the hardwoods giving way to a few tall pines and hemlocks. He crawled beneath the branches of one of the hemlocks and ate some more of his bread and cheese. Tomorrow, he would have to trap some small game or find a stream with some fish to catch, but for now he was tired and needed to rest. He placed his sack under his head, for a pillow, and folded his hands across his chest. Within a few minutes, before the sun had even set, he was snoring loudly.

The next morning he was awakened by the birds. The dim sky was an empty slate of steel gray, poised for the sunrise to paint its horizons with pastel pinks and blues. Every bird in the forest was singing at the top of its lungs, so sleeping in was not an option. He ate the last morsels of food in his sack and then crawled out from beneath the hemlock to greet the day.

The smell of smoke was a little stronger this morning so, with the rising sun to his back, he began another day of walking. Within an hour, he began to hear the sound of moving waters and soon came upon a wide rushing river. The fast moving stream was filled with great boulders and moss covered stones. Thick groves of laurel, their branches laden with fragrant pink blossoms, shaded the banks and speckled trout lurked in the dark pools along river’s edge. He thought about trying to catch one of these fish but something else caught his attention and pulled his thoughts away from food; he had stumbled across a trail.

The trail was not a game trail. It was wide and tall, weaving among the laurel and following the river in both directions. After filling his flask with the cold mountain water, he decided to follow the trail downriver. At one point, the trail dipped into a depression between two hills, where a small rivulet of water trickled down to join the river. Here, the ground was moist and the rich black earth of the river valley was mixed with sand and clay. Navigating around this marshy spot, he happened to glance down and there, in the soft damp earth, were footprints.

He knelt to examine the prints. There were three distinct sets and all of them were human. Two sets were leading in the same direction that he was travelling and the third set went the other way. Finally, he was on the verge of finding someone in these wild parts. Strange, though, that all three of the persons who left these tracks were not wearing shoes. He absently scratched at his dirty gray beard as he pondered the implications of this discovery. It could be a poor farm family. Back on Camelot, most farmers were poor and their families often went barefoot in the warmer months, saving their shoes for winter. He shrugged his shoulders and continued on, excited now and anxious to speak to someone who lived here.

He did not have to travel far to find what he was seeking. The trail spilled out of the forest onto a large grassy field with a tall pole erected in the center. On top of this pole sat a wooden fish and, below the pole, dozens of children ran about playing some sort of game. The boys that were playing carried sticks with small nets fashioned on the end. They were using these sticks to catch and throw a ball made of deer hide. The girls, however, did not have sticks and were using their bare hands to catch and throw the ball. Apparently, the object of the game was to knock the wooden fish off the top of the pole and the children, though this was just a game, played with a fierce intensity and determination to win. He watched them for several minutes and listened to their chatter. They spoke a language he did not understand and were unlike any people he had ever seen. Their hair and their eyes were black and their skin was dark, with a reddish tint. They were a very handsome people, but appeared to be somewhat primitive. All of the children were barefoot and dressed in skins.

After a few minutes, one of the players finally knocked the wooden fish off the top of the pole. While the game paused for the fish to be placed back on top of the pole, one of the little boys glanced over at the trail head and saw him standing there. The boy pointed at him and shouted.

"Nunne’hi! Nunne’hi!"

All of the children spun around, their eyes wide with fright. After the rambunctious and noisy game of stickball, the sudden silence seemed eerie and surreal. The wind rustled the grasses and, in the distance, a crow cawed. Suddenly, one of the boys threw down his stick and ran. This broke the paralysis that held the rest of the children and, swift as deer, they fled from him.

The smoke he had smelled since yesterday was rising just over the hill where the children had vanished. The old man watched them disappear over the hill. Should he follow after them, or should he continue on? He didn’t know anything about these people or how they would react to a stranger among them. He did not know if they would be civil or savage. If he continued on, it could be days, possibly even months before he met another human being. That thought was more than he could bear, so he hurried after the children.

As he crested the hill, the village came into view. Nestled between the forest on his left and the river on his right was one large building with many smaller ones scattered around it. All of the structures were primitive. The walls were woven together with sticks and plastered with mud and the roofs were covered in bark. The smaller buildings were family dwellings. Some of them were round, some were square. The square huts were larger than the round ones and some of them had lean-to structures connected to them, making them multi-room structures.

A large crowd had already gathered by the big building in the center of the village and more people were coming. The adults were dressed much like the children; in animal skins and hides. Most of the women were wearing wrap-around skirts with poncho-style blouses and were very striking with their long black hair and dark skin. The men had the same dark skin and black hair, but their heads were either shaven or plucked, so that they were bald, except for a single scalp lock on the back of their head. The younger men wore breach cloths and leggings, while the older ones wore tunics. Everyone was talking in hushed tones and pointing at him as he made his way down the hill.

When he made it to the assembly that had gathered by the long building, a tall proud looking man came forward to meet him and the crowd hushed. The man’s powerful arms were tattooed with strange symbols and a single eagle feather dangled from his scalp lock. Actually, with his stern gaze and arched nose, this man looked very much like an eagle and appeared to be the principal chief of this tribal village. Everyone waited breathlessly as their chief spoke to the newcomer.

The old man shook his head and the floppy gray hat slid down over his eyes. He pushed the hat back up on top of his head and held his arms out to his side. I cannot understand you, he complained. I do not speak you language!

The chief seemed shocked and a murmur went through the crowd. Another man emerged from the crowd; this one also had the strange tattoos on his arms and he too was wearing a single eagle feather from his scalp lock. There were two chiefs! Both men huddled together and talked in hushed whispers for a several minutes. Finally, the first man approached him once again. This time he rapped his fist against his chest when he spoke.

"Onacona!"

"I’m very sorry, but I have no idea what you are saying!"

He rapped his fist against his chest again and repeated the word, Onacona!

"Ah-ha! the old man replied. Could that be your name? He pointed at the tall red man standing before him and repeated the word, Onacona!"

The red man smiled and nodded. He thumped his chest again, Onacona! Then he pointed at the man that was wearing an eagle feather like his; the other chief. Galegina!

"Galegina!" the old man repeated.

The two red men laughed and the crowd laughed with them. The tension was broken and the moment of danger had passed. Onacona, still smiling, walked up to the old man and poked his finger into the old man’s chest. Although he didn’t speak, it was very clear what he was asking.

The old man responded by straightening up and thumping his fist against his own chest. He then cried out with a loud voice, so that everyone could hear him…

"I am…"

MERLIN! Wake up! the young page shouted. He shook the old man who was asleep at the table and shouted again, Master Merlin, sir; Arthur wishes to see you in his quarters at once.

The old man raised his head from the table where he’d been napping and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He fell asleep studying the faded parchment on top of his desk. He had been studying it for several weeks now, although he didn’t really need to; he had memorized the words years ago. Nevertheless, the pulling sensation that drew him here, through miles of wilderness and across vast frozen oceans, never entirely went away. Even when the sword left him and chose Arthur as its new master, he still had that faint nagging feeling that his work was not yet complete and, whenever this sensation became too strong to ignore, something always drew him back to the worn and ragged parchment spread before him.

Tell him I’m on my way, the wizard yawned.

The young page bowed low and backed out of the room.

Merlin rose and slipped into his dark blue robe. The castle’s interior hallways were chilly, even in the summertime, and living in civilization these past years had softened him quite a bit. As he padded down the tower stairs in his fine leather slippers, he remembered the dream from which he had just been wakened and thought back to his very first home here on earth; a small wigwam on the banks of the Keowee River. The house was constructed from mud, bark, and sticks and, as primitive as it was, it was one of the coziest homes he had ever owned. Oftentimes his mind wandered back to the days he spent with the Aniyun-wiya and his old friend, their war time chief, Galegina.

Drat! he exclaimed. Whenever he let his mind wander like this he tended to forget things. He had forgotten his staff and his poor knees were reminding him very loudly now. He turned around and trudged back up the stairs to his room. At least I remembered before I got to the bottom, he mumbled as he opened his door and grabbed the gnarled wooden stick leaning against the door jamb.

Merlin had traveled far in his lifetime and had seen more worlds and more strange sights than anyone on Earth. On his home world of Zorn, he had lived in a little stone cottage located in a beautiful valley called Camelot. When the floods came and everyone needed to escape from Zorn, Merlin used an ancient and powerful magic to open a portal to a new world. He named this new world Camelot, in remembrance of his former home.

Once everyone had been relocated to Camelot, Merlin and his fellow wizards used the same magic and opened portals to Faerie, Crag, and Earth. The wizards of Zorn had such high hopes for Camelot, but all of their plans went horribly awry when Mordred, one of their own council members, betrayed them. By sheer luck, Merlin was the only wizard that escaped from Mordred’s wicked plans and, in his anger, he banished Mordred to another world and closed the portal, so that Mordred could never return.

With his fellow wizards gone from Camelot, Merlin left for Earth to start a new life and to live out his days in peace. Or so he thought. His first two years on Earth were spent with a primitive race of people who called themselves the Aniyun-wiya. These people believed that Merlin was one of the Nunne’hi; a race of invisible spirit people that lived in houses up on the bald rocks, high in the mountains. Sometimes the Nunne’hi were known to take on human form, in the appearance of an Aniyun-wiya, so that they might communicate with the tribe. The problem with Merlin was that he did not resemble any of the tribe members in any form or fashion and, even if he had, he could not speak their language. The tribe finally decided that Merlin was a very ancient Nunne’hi; one so old that he forgot what the Aniyun-wiya looked like and the language they spoke. Thinking him old and senile, they revered him greatly and took enormous care of him because, after all, he was still a Nunne’hi.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he paused a moment to rub his aching knees and then hurried off into the dim castle corridors. His staff thumped against the tiled floor and echoed loudly off the stone walls as he made his way to Arthur’s quarters. His real staff was still on Camelot; hidden away in a cave beneath a sleeping dragon, where he hoped it would remain undiscovered for all eternity. This new staff he carried was nothing more than a walking stick; it had no magical properties and, even if it did, there was only one place on earth that he knew of where there were any magic at all. At any rate, he had carried a staff all his life and it had become an extension of his body. When he arrived at Arthur’s quarters, he rapped twice on the great double doors with the knobby end of the wooden stick.

Enter, a muffled voice from within called out.

Merlin pushed the doors open and stepped into the king’s private quarters. The first room was a great library with high vaulted ceilings and polished marble floors. Behind plush sofas, deep shelves filled with books, scrolls, and parchments lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The wizard had instilled a great love of learning in the king and his private library had grown to the point where it would rival the libraries of the finest universities back on Zorn. Near the doorway, two over-stuffed chairs sat before a large fireplace, where bright flames caused the shadows around them to leap about. In one of the chairs sat Arthur, king and protector of the realm. Merlin walked over and sat beside him. They had spent countless hours in the past sitting in these very chairs; discussing politics, science, religion, war, and even love. The king was staring into the fire, a thoughtful expression on his face. Merlin waited patiently for him to speak. However, sitting in the soft luxurious chair, with a gentle fire crackling before him and warming his legs, he began to feel sleep stealing over him again. He stretched out his legs to the fire and, as he nodded off, his chin came to rest upon his chest. Once again he dreamt of his days with the Aniyun-wiya…

The autumn morning dawned cool and crisp. Merlin threw off the warm furs and sat up inside of his cozy wigwam. When he first arrived here, he had stayed in the long building in the center of the village throughout the summer. However, the long building was the council house and meeting place for official tribal business, so the men of the village soon built him his very own lodging. He stepped outside and adjusted his soft leather robes. His thread-bare linens had been discarded last year and some women in the village had stitched together some garments of supple deerskin for him to wear. In addition to the robe, they had made him a long winter coat of wolf skins, a pair of moccasins, and a fur hat fashioned from the head of a wolf. When he was wearing the hat and the coat, he looked so much like one of the gray wolfs that roamed the forest, that people in the village began calling him Agayvli Waya, which means old wolf.

Most of the tribe was down by the water, going through their morning ritual of greeting the day. Galegina came up from the river bank to greet him.

"Agayvli Waya! It is good morning?"

"Yes, yes, yes, Merlin glowered, I suppose it is a good morning." These cool nights always made his bones ache and Galegina’s good mood was not at all contagious this morning.

The chief smiled and clapped Merlin on the back. Come, we eat. Walk. Talk.

Although these people were living in primal conditions, they were extremely intelligent. Merlin had picked up some of their words, but their language was difficult for his tongue and, much to his dismay, they had no written language at all. However, many of them had been eager to learn his language and their minds were like sponges; absorbing the words and phrases with astonishing speed.

Galegina had, perhaps, one of the sharpest minds Merlin had ever encountered. As their friendship blossomed, it became a ritual for them to breakfast together and then take a stroll through the woods.

"Not long until cold days, the chief commented. Already, cool nights."

"Yes, not long, indeed, Merlin replied. We must be leaving soon, before it does get cold. I will not stay another winter here."

"Why is Agayvli Waya eager to go?"

The dry leaves crunched under their feet as they strolled beneath the hardwoods and the musty smells of the fall season filled the forest. Why was he eager to leave? He loved it here. He loved the people here too; they were kind and caring, very much unlike any other humans he had dealt with in his long years on Camelot and Zorn. But something was calling him and, whatever it was; it was growing stronger every day.

"The Aniyun-wiya think I am Nunne’hi. What does Galegina think?"

Galegina paused to reflect upon the question. He had spent much time with Merlin, teaching him the ways of the Aniyun-wiya; how to live off the land and survive in extreme conditions. He had seen him sweat in the mid-day heat of summer and shiver on dark winter nights. He had seen him toil, tire, and sleep. He had seen him bleed. He was not Nunne’hi. He was just an old man.

"Agayvli Waya is not Nunne’hi. Agayvli Waya is like Aniyun-wiya, but different color."

"Ha! Galegina is wise. I am just a man. Just a feeble old man."

"Agayvli Waya not feeble. Agayvli Waya sly, like fox. Still not answer question. Why leave? Seek people of own color?"

"Yes. I mean no! Merlin scratched absently at the gray whiskers on his chin. Well, actually, yes and no. I am seeking my own people, but not because of our color. I love the Aniyun-wiya. I would live out the rest of my days here with them, but something calls me. It is something that speaks to my heart, something urgent and very important. Every day, I feel the time is growing shorter and the urge to leave gets stronger."

"Agayvli Waya answer yes and no. I change my answer; Agayvli Waya is like