The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1)

by Rae T. Alexander

  “You came here to rob me?” the surprised Sylvia asked. “I don’t have any stones. But you can tear up this place looking for them if you want to. Knock yourself out.”—Sylvia reclined her chair back and flipped through the channels on the television as she totally ignored his threat and his gun.

  With a sigh of disgust, Peter put the gun back into a sleeve underneath his jacket, stood up, and explored the living room and then the kitchen cupboards and cabinets.

  Peter lost his patience, and her nerves of steel annoyed him.

  “Are you sure you knew Mattie?—Mattie?—the girl that played the violin? She was born in North Carolina?”—as he spoke, Sylvia almost nodded off.

  “What?”—she yawned and looked back at him with cloudy and red eyes, and then she got up to get another beer.

  She came back to the living room, kicked off her shoes, and then peeled off her socks before she sat down. She lit another cigarette.

  “Look, first off, you ain’t no damn relative of Mattie. And, second, I don’t have any stones. She didn’t play the violin. She played the piano. She wasn’t born in North Carolina. I thought you were one of her old boyfriends, but now I don’t even care. (She paused to burp) Why don’t you just leave?”—Sylvia’s alcoholism was the only winner. Whenever she chain-smoked and mixed her liquor with Xanax, she was relentless, uncaring, and not mindful of her tactless behavior.

  Peter gave up, shook his head, and showed himself out the door. The rain was a very gentle mist by that time, and he slowly walked toward his car. Sylvia turned on her front porch floodlight that escorted him to his car. It was to encourage his timely departure. He never met anyone with her audacity and nerve. He was shocked into submission while inside a trembling Sylvia lit yet another cigarette.

  He opened his car door and sat down in the seat for a moment before he turned the ignition.

  She wasn’t born here. Mattie didn’t play the violin, but rather the piano? And, she was the possessor of the stones at one time. Of course! Mattie wasn’t Mattie at all! Mattie was someone else! Mattie used transference! But where are the stones? Perhaps I shall come back when Sylvia is not here and search her entire place!

  Peter backed out of the driveway and headed up the hill, and out of the trailer park. Just before he got on the main road, he noticed a white piece of paper on his dashboard that stirred as he turned on the air conditioner. He read the note.

  “Sorry, old boy, but I got to her first! I have the stones now!”

  It was signed, “Samuel.”

  With resentment and deep anger, Peter drove to his pre-booked hotel. He was determined to leave the South for good after a good night’s rest. As he drove to his old and unkept hotel, his only thought was to get back to Salt Lake City as soon as possible and to find the stones. An imprisoned Haj was there, and he was there for bait. He planned to trap his rescuers, secure the stones, and then fulfill his long-awaited dark goals.

  When he arrived at his hotel, just before he opened his door on the first floor, he was approached by two young kids that hoped to score some easy drug money. It was about 2 a.m.

  “Hey, why don’t you open the door, man!”—a gun was suddenly pressed against Peter’s jacket with the intimidation of a rookie holdup man.

  Peter turned around, and his eyes turned red and glowed at his masked intruders. He heard them shout some expletives that he could not pronounce, or even understand, and they immediately turned and ran in different directions.

  Peter went into his room and lay down in his clothes on the bed as his eyes returned to normal. He pulled out Sylvia’s diary out of his pocket. He had stolen it during his brief search of her kitchen. It was underneath some cookbooks in a drawer, along with some knives and plastic bags. Her organizational skills were severely lacking.

  The diary told of a very different Mattie and confirmed Peter’s suspicions of her. It also told another story, the story of Sylvia and Mattie.

  May 25th No Sex

  May 26th No Sex

  May 27th Visited Tarot Card Reader, told me I was in love with someone with a dual personality!

  Chapter 14

  Malkuth Stones of Gan Eden

  Part Three

  In the Words of Robin

  The memories of meeting and falling in love with Marian, in Egypt, often sustained me during a battle or crises. Marian and I lived through so many wars that we were used to being separated during campaigns. We thought that our love would survive anything that would happen in our lives, but that horrible night was a true test of that love. The taste of death itself was offered as a banquet. The rage of jealousy consumed the mind. The power of revenge sprouted its ugly seeds.

  I never will forget what happened on that dreadful night—the night that I journeyed back with the others in preparation to meet Medraut. My history of that fatal night that I shared with the others omitted some of the details of my first encounter with Medraut, in the tent of Marian. My shared stories also omitted some of my private discussions with Merlin. Although, I am sure that the priests with their mystics will discern the whole truth one day. The stories that will long be remembered will be the attack upon Medraut, and the banishment and tragedy of Marian. Those stories will be shared frequently among the Guardians.

  On the night before the great tragedy of Marian, Merlin confronted me and pulled me aside. John and I had just arrived at King Arthur’s camp. Merlin had figured it out. Earlier, he had seen my emerald stone with the coin embedded in it, and, with that, he had become aware of an episode in my past—by that one keen observation.

  “How did you know?” I asked him. We stood in private, away from the camp and behind several trees. I asked John to excuse us, and I agreed to listen to the bothersome banter of Merlin.

  “The coin you have embedded in your emerald stone around your neck is from William Rufus, a Norman king of England. I know that because I traded for food over the last few months, and I have seen that coin before.

  “Your coin is embedded in a magic stone that allows its user special abilities if held or worn. My golden globe confirms the stone is magic. In truth, that stone you wear allows a person that uses transference to go back, and not just forward, to another time and place. The coin obviously marks the events, or the reasons that you transferred. It must stand for something, I thought.

  “So, I began to ponder the reason why you would go back to see or visit King Rufus, and then it came to me. It is said that about one hundred years ago this Norman king, King Rufus, was killed in the forest by an archer. It had to be a very skilled and cunning archer to have shot and killed the king. It is said that you were taught your skills by a Nubian archer, when you were in Egypt, no doubt. That deed would require tremendous skill, and a crafty and stealthy raid.

  “I began to speculate as to the reasons why you would go back in time a hundred years or so just to kill a king. Your family must have been wronged—a king must have killed someone that you knew—or maybe it was revenge. I ruled that all out, after I found out that King Rufus was counterfeiting the coinage during his day. I began to think that maybe you were after the king’s money. Then I ruled that out as the only cause as well. It had to be more than money, for you seemed much too altruistic for the singular cause of greed to be true.

  “You and Marian were known to be close, so I thought that it might have been love that compelled you to go back— or perhaps all three reasons...love, money, and revenge.

  “But you did travel back— and you did kill the king, didn’t you?—but, why?”—Merlin finished.

  I had to admit that I was impressed with this man. It was either his beguiling witchery or his shrewdness that had found me out. So I began to relate my entire story to the sorcerer known as Merlin. He seemed to be stranger than I was. He also knew of the power of the stones that I thought that only Marian and I knew about.

  “It’s seems strange,” I told him, “but I can remember details of lands, and people, in a distant past, even now. I remember more detail
s as time passes by. I remember a time before I met Marian in Egypt, before I trained with the bow in Nubia. It was a very long time ago. I do not know exactly when. It was before our love—before I rescued her from circumstances of a horrid nature.

  “It was long before I fought with King Richard in the land of the Christ. I remember living in a land I scarcely know details about. I cannot even remember its name. Was it called Laish, or was it Dan? I know you think I may be mad, but I remember another life and another person. It has haunted me in the dead of the night many times.

  “I remember a great leader called Danaus that led a group of freed slaves out of Egypt, through old Syria. I feel like I was part of that group somehow, like I was actually there.”

  “Go on, I believe you. Please go on.”—Merlin’s insistence encouraged me to speak further.

  “Danaus and his descendants,” I told him, “traveled in ships and gradually left Syria and migrated into Greece and beyond. The people of Danaus, or the Danes, as they were called, moved into Greece and merged with a new people, the Romans. The tribe of Danaus gradually lost their identity—it faded as the centuries past. Many became known as Macedonians instead of Danes, while others became Picts, or Zarians. There were many names, and many of them ended up eventually on the soil of the Saxons, or the Franks. From Egypt, they traveled through their generations and migrations to the British Isles.

  “They organized themselves into kingdoms, instead of tribes, and they were lead by kings. They were the Celts, the Saxons, and the Franks, although many of the Franks settled off the island, southward of it. The Kingdom of the Scotti and the Picts took the land furthest to the north of the islands.

  “The once strong tribe of Danaus was broken up, but with one exception. There was a group who kept a sacred treasure. The treasure was from Egypt, composed of sacred and ancient stones and gems. With the treasure, there were iron swords and spears. There were containers of gold that held the treasures. The knowledge of the treasure was kept secret to the point that only a select few knew about it. The few that did know about it divided their own knowledge. No one person knew the exact location of all of the treasure. No one person knew what exact power was in their possession. No one person knew how to activate the power. However, everyone in this group knew instinctively that they possessed a royal and an ancient secret. The secret of a great power was in their possession.

  “Marian had a red stone that she wore around her neck. She said that her stone spoke to her. It guided her, she told me. I suspected it a mere superstition and dismissed it, but then something happened that confirmed the power of their influence.

  “One night, she wakened me and told me that the stone spoke to her. It told her in a vision, she claimed, that our camp would be raided on the following morning. Being a responsible leader of a group of stealthy soldiers in the foreign land of Egypt, I ordered our group to relocate, merely as a precaution, and to silence the concerns of Marian, who tormented me on the matter. A messenger came to our men the next day. He explained that a band of thieves had taken over our former position and had burned and torched three cities in their efforts. We had been saved by the power of her mystical stone. It was then that I partially believed in it.

  “Marian’s mother told her that there were once ancient and royal stones of the pharaohs—and even before them—and these stones possessed great power over time and space. She said that she did not believe everything that her mother told her, but the power of the red stone made her believe that at least some truth was possible in her mother’s legends. I did not argue with her, although there was a part of me that thought that the red stone story was myth or coincidence.

  “Then I a met a man later in Nottingham who claimed he had been part of a group called the Guardians, or Knights. He joined our group of forest rebellers against the Normans. He was an old man, and I accepted his help. I hired him as a cook, for he was too old to fight.

  “In those days, my men fought against the greed of landowners, their taxes, and their enforcer, the Sheriff of Nottingham. During one of our battles, the old man foolishly attempted to help us on the battlefield, but he died from a stray arrow. He died in my arms and gave me his entire possessions, a bag of gold, and two stones. He told me to guard the bag with my life. One stone was blue, and one was white, or sand colored. He said that they had great power that no evil one should possess.

  “The bag in its appearance was plain, and the stones of blue and white had a scribbled snake emblem on them. It was then that I started to recall some kind of ancient past regarding a snake. I recalled it to be a symbol that a tribe once displayed. I thought it might be a memory that I was once involved in. I did not exactly know. I only recalled that the snake seemed to symbolize the message of a people. The mark of the snake symbolized a journey, a journey that left behind its influence as the group of people slithered or migrated through many lands.

  “In the very dark corner of the bag, I found a green stone. This is the stone that I am wearing even now.

  “I shared the story of the dying man with Marian, who compared the old man’s words with the words of her mother. Marian’s mother had told her of two similar stones, one of blue, and one of white. They had the power to remove someone from danger and to deliver them to a place of safety. Her mother said that the stones, together with a stone of green, could transport one to a place of safety in the time past.

  “I refused to believe in the old man’s words, or the words of Marian’s mother. I was a skeptic from the beginning, with only a possible belief in Marian’s prophetic abilities. I thought Marian was a seer, but I thought that her visions had little to do with her red stone around her neck. I could not deny, however, or even explain my own memories of another time and another place. That was my personal mystery.

  “Then, during another battle with the Sheriff, there came an opportunity to test the possible power of the stones. The kings in that day took over many lands for purposes of providing areas of exclusive hunting for the royalty. Hundreds of families, over several generations, lost their own lands as a result of pillaging by a king’s army. Our own money to finance our campaigns was difficult to obtain. So, we obtained our wealth from the lords that we saw as corrupt. We used that money that we stole to fight the ones that were victims of our thievery.

  “My ancestors, grandparents and beyond, had been victims of the abuse of power. My family history contained the displacement of families out of the hunting forest. Kings like William the Conqueror made forest laws that allowed the blinding or killing of anyone that killed a deer that belonged to a king. William’s son, King Rufus, followed in his footsteps.

  “In our search for money, there was a suggestion made by one of my men, John. He thought we could obtain some rare objects that were said to be in some castle ruins, not far from Nottingham. John suggested that we find and sell the objects, in order to finance our war with the kings that had taken our lands.”

  Merlin interrupted me, “But I don’t understand. You fought with King Richard! King Richard had possessed lands and displaced families as well! Why did you unite with such a king, given your family history and motives for revenge for your family’s honor?”

  “Marian and I became Christians in Wessex,” I told him. “I eventually forgave the past hurts and dismissed them. I was attracted to the vision of King Richard and his holy quest. It is true that he disguised himself as a Knight Templar and that he used his role to kill and to exploit...but...something happened in the forest of Hampshire that altered my mind and course of direction.”

  “You Christians have killed many a soul in the name of a carpenter from Nazareth!”—Merlin interjected and denounced emphatically,“Damn you!”

  “Maybe so, but hear the rest of my tale,” I pleaded. “During one campaign, it was rumored that an ancient sword—‘The Sword of Gath’—and an ancient spear—‘The Spear of Gath’—were held and locked in a treasure room. It was said that they were in the ruins of a castle long since destr
oyed by invaders. The legend said that men of renown, about a hundred years earlier, had secured these treasures, while they illegally made corrupted coinage for the king. The coins made were not genuine. The men sold the copper that was supposed to be in the coins, and then they used the stolen copper to finance their secret operations. They distributed, in the name of the king, coins that were not legitimate, being made with other metals in place of the copper. They were counterfeiting the king’s money.

  “These men were possessors of great treasures and ancient knowledge, it was said. It was John that suggested, very strongly to me, that we might somehow find the Sword of Gath and other possessions in the ruins, even valuable stones and gems, where the coin makers once forged their metals—and, once obtained, sell the treasures for our own benefit.”

  “But the sword, stones and the treasures were not there as expected!”—Merlin told me with a smirk—as if he had suspected that.

  “No, they were not there,” I admitted to Merlin. “And, when we arrived at the ruins, we were attacked by the Sheriff. John and I hid behind a mound for cover, while enemy arrows sailed toward us. My bag of stones from the old man fell to the ground, and they spilled out of the bag. John fell to the ground too—but he had arrows in his shoulder and thigh.

  “I quickly crouched down and picked up the stones and put them in my bag. I saw John was in great pain, and he reached out his hand to me. I grabbed his hand, and then an event happened that changed my beliefs in the stones from Egypt forever.

  “At that very moment, John and I were transported to another place and to another time. The mound was gone. The arrow in John’s shoulder was gone, and the men were gone. The enemies that had come upon us in surprise were all gone.

  “The place was different. Instead of being in an open field, we were in a deep forest. We heard a horse approach and quickly found cover behind some trees. John and I were shocked by the event, but we saw the chance to raid a nobleman. We temporarily forgot our sudden and extraordinary experience, and we focused on the monetary opportunity.