"Fear can become so intense it defeats itself."

ROBERT E. HOWARD
The Hoofed Thing

"You would've made a superb barbarian warrior, Blackthorn," Sir Edmund Gilbert said to me in a British accent I couldn't place.

I peered into the first of many glass cabinets in the lower chambers of his vast home and tried to remember my manners. I smiled, probably too long before saying the word, "Really?" for Sir Edmund's face took on the appearance that he caused me great offense.

"Dr. Blackthorn, I never meant to imply you were in any way a savage or an aboriginal man!"

My smile remained warm as I stared down on the wealthy, reclusive Englishman. He stood at a height of around six feet, but I still towered above him as we walked through the bowels of his manse. Well lit and intense, the walls were painted an auburn color as to greater show off the treasures around us. "Just because I have Navajo blood in me, that is no reason to think I am overly sensitive. Centuries of war make the skin tough."

Sir Edmund, a man in his late thirties, pasty of complexion, looked at me with bloodshot eyes. The solitary man's fair hair was thinning and his pallid features seemed to denote a sickly condition, yet his lean frame was robust. He waved at the cabinets and said, "Blackthorn, I knew of your adoration of ancient history and Celtic lore so I invited you to come see my collection. After reading your papers on the Beaker Folk and Battle-Axe peoples, I presumed you would take any relation to barbarism as a compliment."

I looked at the circular shields made of wood and steel, thinking them surely to date before the time of Christ and nodded, "That is true. It was a simpler time. My ancestry is Nordic as well as from the Navajo, sir."

Sir Edmund locked hands behind his back and the burgundy smoking jacket he wore popped open. He made no effort to close it over his white shirt and seemed very relaxed in his private museum. "Ah yes, the blue eyes you have made me wonder Blackthorn."

"You can call me Elijah, Sir Edmund," I stated as I knelt and gazed into another glass cabinet. This one was long and contained a bent sword covered in dried mud. It rested on a velvet blanket and looked bizarre in its surroundings considering the other relics were spotless as would be allowed.

"Elijah," Sir Edmund said with a smile and pointed at the ruined sword. "That piece isn't what I wanted you to see, specially, but can you guess why I have it here as such?"

I nodded and swept my long black hair back over my right shoulder. "It came from a bog?"

Sir Edmund chuckled. "Yes. We pulled many out from the bog and even donated some to the British Museum."

Gazing down the hallway, I saw so many relics from many far off lands. Any archeologist would kill to see Sir Edmund Gilbert's private collection.

"You let them have a few swords?" I said in a mild jab to him. "Nice of you."

"Not everything I acquire must be given to an unappreciative public, Elijah," Edmund quipped. "Items that I acquire by, what shall we call it, stealth?"

I coughed slightly at his term for robbery. "That is a good one."

"You know I make no money off of my collection nor do I ever plan to. My family respects history and will ever support its cause. If any child in my family ever betrayed this sacred trust our ancestors would rise up in mass and solve the problem."

"I reckon so. The Celts buried their damaged swords in the bogs like bodies, eh?"

"Probably where the lady of the lake tale came from, getting a blade from the water instead of depositing one there."

Aside from Celtic weapons, clothing and Pict double-headed battle-axes, Edmund had many curved swords from Saracens and even a few from Samurai culture. As we walked among priceless treasures I decided to throw the veil off the elephant in the room. "So, Sir Edmund, why have you really asked me here? Is it because of my unusual methods of pursuing archeology?"

Edmund slapped his pale palms together and gave out a single loud guffaw. "Excellent! They said you weren't a man to trifle with hidden agendas. I've heard tell of your abilities, Dr. Blackthorn, to touch a relic and see the past happening before your eyes. Psychometry I think it is called?"

I shrugged and never made eye contact with him. "That's what I hear, but it doesn't always work, nor is it admissible in any paper. The ability allows me a glimpse into the past thus usually showing me where other relics can be found to prove what I have seen."

Earnest wonder spread over his face and Edmund said, "Astonishing. Is that why you wear the gloves?"

Rubbing my fingers together, I usually forgot that I wore thin leather stylish gloves. "Not everything gives me the vision, Sir Edmund, but I wear the gloves just in case."

"Touching a doorknob would be maddening."

"Sometimes I pick up traces of many people. It can be a blessing from Almighty God, or a curse. Is there something you wanted me to see, sir?"

"Ah, to the point!" Sir Edmund smiled and led me to a small room completely cloaked in darkness. He turned on a switch and only a dim light illuminated the room. This place contained many more glass cases, but these were shrouded in heavy black covers. He walked to the left corner and lifted off the curtain to unveil and glass case angled 45 degrees. Under this glass was a series of parchments, compressed and illegible. Time had effectively obliterated the words and nearly consumed the material they rested on.

While he unlocked the case I said, "I'm not a translator, Sir Edmund."

"But you can understand the ancient languages in your visions, can you not?"

"Yes, that always troubled me. You certainly know a great deal about me."

Sir Edmund Gilbert folded his arms and replied, "Would I let just any fringe fool look at my priceless treasures? Dr. Marsh at the Miskatonic Institute of Technology endorses you to the fullest." He then pointed next to the parchment and said, "This is what I want you to read."

Next to the parchment in a small holder was a tiny stick, ravaged by the ages, but an instrument of some kind. I squinted at this as I removed my gloves. "Is it a pen or marker of some sort?"

"Used by a scribe of some kind, I would speculate, but you are the genius. Please, tell me what you see, Dr. Blackthorn."

I flexed my fingers and reached out. Swallowing hard I touched the parchment with my left hand and the scribing quill with the other, and in a moment…the past crashed in on me.

* * *

I saw the episode before me as clear as if it were on television.

"Die, troll!" a deep voice roared.

Gildas the scribe watched in revulsion, but not abject horror as the giant Celtic King lashed his sword down over the troll's neck. The powerful blow separated the green skinned troll's head from his chunky body with ease; sending it rolling onto the withered, dead grass of autumn on the plain. The Celt warriors who held the diminutive troll in place released the body. It spun on the ground and then was upright on squat legs, running. Headless, the troll scampered, arms flailing, blood spurting from its shoulders until it dashed into one of its brethren…also scuttling eclectic, spraying blood into the air. The two trolls soon collided with several others of their kin in the field. Gildas made a note of their behavior on a slate as laughter filled his ears.

Hundreds of hirsute Celt fighters brought forth more trolls and lay the short, husky bodies before their leader. The massive Celt King swept back his mane of strawberry blonde hair and nodded. Again, a mass killing came to pass. Heads flew and bodies ran wild like chickens. Celtic children threw knives into the running naked bodies. Little Celtic girls, hair in braids and faces full of merriment, tripped the mindless cadavers as they scurried in feral abandon.

"Come now," The baritone voice of the Celt King rang out in the night. "Enough sport! Do not fear these insects! They will soon be vanquished forever. Next!"

A hundred warriors with powerfully sinewed bodies brought forth creatures much tinier than the trolls. They deposited these wriggling bodies on the hillside by the stone slabs. As the last troll was beheaded, his wort-hoggish face glared at the Celt King. He kicked this object away to see the new individual on the block. It was a being much smaller, skinnier, reptilian, but emerald in color. The King's face tightened, his beard ground about to show his disgust at the appearance of the humanoid face on the body of the bat-like beast.

"You have done well, Trystyn," Gildas heard the Celt King compliment the reddish haired soldier covered in gore from the afternoon's labors. "Cutting the wings from a goblin is as good as the sack from an amorous man!"

Trystyn hooted, but the scrawny fiend slipped out of his grasp. A small boy stepped from behind the King and stomped on the creature's delicate foot. The goblin went down rapid as if its paw were in a trap. Treading to the side of the boy, the King tussled the child's mane of kinky blonde hair. The King lowered his enormous foot on the goblin's back viciously. Gildas heard every tiny rib break punctuated by the liquid squirting sound as the entrails of the creature exited abruptly. While the white robed Wizard emerged from the dark hillside and stood by the King, this squelching sound became a din on the hillside. Gildas made notes, but the numbers of wingless goblins destroyed by the warriors would never be properly known.

"It is only right," The long nosed Wizard said in a crackly voice that made Gildas' skin crawl. From every wrinkle, every pore every inch of this Wizard's skin oozed power and arrogance.

The King, scratching a heavy beard, wore a bemused expression as two warriors conveyed him a nude man. This person was hairless, but at least completely human. They threw him down and he writhed on the slippery intestines of trolls and goblins. The King asked, "Why bring this to me?"

Trystyn smiled a dark grin. "He is a ghoul."

Full of power, the King still wore a look of surprise. "A what?"

The Wizard chuckled and informed his King, "He feeds on the dead, sire."

"Consumes human flesh?" The Celt King spat on the ghoul and looked him over. Gildas saw the nude man was very thin, but bore a bulbous stomach. His teeth were jagged and this ghoul's skin nearly as scaly as the trolls. The odor of the ghoul rivaled that of the innards of the dashed creatures, Gildas mused.

"I can serve!" the ghoul stammered, blood and teeth spilling from his split lips. "If I had a chance! If you give me an opportunity!"

"If?" The King laughed. "You dare to speak to me of ifs? You are a traitorous dog who feeds on bodies not burned! You are lower than a worm! Off with his head!"

Two Celts held the ghoul by the shoulders as two other men engaged his skull. Gildas thought it took longer than necessary, but the head popped off. The blood gouted, but this body did not rise to run. The ghoul fell flat like an abandoned bundle of sticks. The warrior holding the ghoul's head rotated the face to the King and declared, "Look, my King! He is astonished at the afterlife!"

Gildas enjoyed the smirk spreading out on the shaggy face of the King as he waved to his men, "Throw that rubbish on the fire."

The Wizard then said to the King, "It is only correct that this happens. All the workers of the darkness must be crushed. The modern Kingdom will be one of light!"

As the pieces of the bodies were cast on the raging fires, a dark Roan dragged in a gigantic man near to them on the end of a rope. His wrists still bound, his privates barely obscured by a ragged loincloth, this giant arose to his feet and towered over the Celt populace. Gildas witnessed countless bruises and lashes on the skin of this vigorous opponent. While warriors seized this bound man, the King enlightened the Wizard, "Every spawn of darkness must perish this day for the greater virtue of Briton."

Suddenly, the giant broke the attachments on his feet and screamed. "That is foolishness!" His language was Germanic, but Gildas comprehended him. "The forest creatures are not children of any Devil!" The giant kicked at the men holding him, but a Celt sporting a thin beard and darker hair came into view from behind him. He wielded a curved axe, a toothless smile and planted his feet so he could get a greater advantage to his coming activity. This soldier buried the blade in the left knee of the giant and the wail of the doomed man overwhelmed the hillside. Quickly, the giant was grappled down and lugged to the fire, minus part of his limb.

"Everything dies," the King told the Giant, still tussling with four warriors. "Every race will fall. These beasts dire work mischief and take the eyes of the children of God from the truth. From the Cross."

As the giant was thrown in the fire, the Wizard registered concern on his face. "What did you say?"

The Celt warriors loomed behind the Wizard as the King turned to him. "I have renounced the shining spears of Lugh, the very wisdom of the wood, and taken the cross of Christ."

Gildas heart raced as the Wizard's mouth opened wide to scream, "You have betrayed me! I have compelled them all here this day as a grand sacrifice for greater power! These beings came out of their tunnels, creeks and caves at my bidding!"

"I thank you for that."

"This is not what the kingdom was to be! I have led my minions to the slaughter! You cannot do this to me--slave to the Carpenter's Son! I now call upon—"

The words stopped as the fighters snatched the wizard's arms and the King produced a tiny dagger from his belt. His huge paw of a left hand kept the Wizard's mouth open as he inserted the dirk and twisted. A sickening echo escaped the Wizard's maw, and Gildas stomach churned as the King beamed. When he extracted the tongue from the mouth of the ancient man, the King's face was splashed with the blood of the Wizard. The King stated calmly, "Take him to yonder tree and crucify him. He will call on his dark lords no more. Let him pray to his wooden idols. Perhaps the tree will save him."

Gildas heart was elated as the men grunted in approval to these words. The King turned away, watching the pyres stoically. In the billowing smoke of the pyres of burning creatures, Gildas observed the mighty man they all held in almost god-like status. In the darkness broken only by the flames consuming the dead, Gildas' chest swelled, knowing he would follow this Celt King anywhere. He walked closer to his King, fighting off the stench of the roasting dead, trying not to think how it smelt of pork.

"Gildas," The King muttered as his blue eyes lit from the glow of the pyres. "Record what you will. Perhaps your work will carry on or mayhap it will be lost in time. Many of these ruddy fools about us still embrace the pagan ways. They will carry the tales of these myriad beasts of woe beyond. This cannot be helped for I cannot purge every epic of such ogres. I will not have them stealing babies, copulating with virgins and ruining my Kingdom."

"Understood, sire."

"I seek to blot it out and purify the isle of these vermin just as I repelled the Angles from the shore. I have accomplished what I have for the betterment of Briton. I worry little if posterity evokes my sacrifice for the truth."

The tall scribe nodded and stood very near his Sovereign. "Mighty King, these tiny monstrosities are a weak mind's paradise. They will be forgotten. These combatants about you may fade in memory and my tale my not be imparted correctly. But as long as time is, I pray to the risen Son of God, that no one ever forgets the name of Arthur."

* * *

Sir Edmund looked at me with intense, red eyes as I drew my hands back. He said quickly, "Dr. Blackthorn…Elijah…what did you see?"

"The end of an epoch, Sir Edmund," I whispered through dry lips. "But I think I have one over on you."

Almost angry, Sir Edmund snapped, "What? Explain?"

"Men would kill or pay dearly to have your collection," I said as I put on my gloves and shuddered at the gory memory of the hillside in the past. "But I have something you would sell your soul to see." I think pointed to my forehead. "In here."

"Good God! What was it?"

"Let's go have a drink. I'm dying of thirst," I said, not sure if I would tell him that the face of the Celtic King framed in strawberry blonde curls was that of Sir Edmund Gilbert.

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