Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank Read Online Free PDF Page B

thin, shiny, blemished, sagging skin that shows the bones beneath, tells me that I am ancient. (My other hand is fingerless today, but without pain. It serves to keep the parchment steady as I write.) Yet it surprises me to think that I know not how old you are today. Young enough to remain alive, and strong enough to come and find my bones and these my words? I know not.
No matter. I must place my trust in God and in His wish to have my tale made known. He has sustained me for long enough to finish my task, so I must believe that He has His reasons for keeping me alive to complete it. The fruits of that labour lie before you now, if you are reading this. Two of three bundles, as well protected against time and weather as my one-handed efforts can achieve.
The largest of these three contains the written words of Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus, as well as my own tale of my young life. The smaller bundle holds my thoughts on what happened here in Arthur's final days, and in the days before you and we met. I have not sought to write of the time when you were here with us, since you yourself can achieve that more fully than I.
The third, most precious bundle I have hidden where only you will know to seek it, in the spot you helped me to prepare on the summer afternoon when first you found my valley here among the hills. You will know what it contains as soon as you see the shape and feel the weight of it. Do what you will with it, for it now belongs to you. Its destiny achieved, it is become a mere tool, albeit the very finest of its kind that ever was. But with his death, whatever magic it contained was spent, vanished with his lustrous soul into another time and place.
And yet be wary. Call it not by name. It will attract attention of itself, even in Gaul. Name its name aloud, and you will be inviting grief and strife and misery from covetous creatures who would stop at nothing to possess the thing.
You will also find the two items that you helped me place in the spot of which I write. Destroy them for me now, if you will, for they are packed with evil tools—poisons and vehicles of death in many guises. I have used some of them myself, at times, and know their potency, but I spent years in learning how to know and use them, and with my death they now pose lethal danger to any finding them, including you yourself Be highly cautious. Handle none of them. I would burn them myself, but I have waited and deferred too long and now I have too little strength to deal with them. Should you not arrive, they will molder and rot, eventually, unfound. But if you come, burn them and complete the task for me.
My blessings upon you and on your sons, if a sorcerous old leper may bestow such gifts. I trust your wife is well, and that she is the wife whose husband fell to set you both at liberty.
And now, at last, this is complete and I am free. I am so very tired. It is winter again, and a harsh one. The snow lies thick outside and my little lake is frozen hard, its backing wall thick with sheets and ropes of ice. It only remains for me now to bind this missive and lay it with the others. Should someone else than you find it, it may remain unread, since none here, save me, can read today. But should they pull apart the other bundles, they will find more to read— far more—and they might well destroy what lies here, burning or scattering it all. So be it. They will not find the third gift I leave for you.
Now I shall go outside, one last, cold time, and gather wood for my fire, and I shall eat the last of some good rabbit stew I made but yesterday, and after that I will lie down on my old cot and sleep the sleep I have long wished for.
Farewell, Hastatus! May your lance fly straight and true forever, and may God grant you the power to tell of what we both knew here in Britain. Your friend,
Caius Merlyn Britannicus —

    How long since I have used, or seen, that name! Excalibur!

    No shred of doubt existed in my mind that this was what