A Change in Perspective

Chapter 4

The king had been busy all morning and well into the afternoon, forcing Gaius to delay his revelation until two hours after noon. He had since found only one other mention of the Écnes in the Camelot library, which hadn't surprised him, as the druids were naturally secretive and tended to seclude themselves away from the world. However, the second source had confirmed his fears that this enchantment was one of their making.

Gaius carried this second book with him, as well as the other he'd found, as he walked up to the pair of dark wooden doors that marked the entrance to the counsel room where Arthur met with his advisors and ministers. The doors were open and flanked with two pairs of guards, one inside the doorway, one out. The outside pair nodded to the old physician and Gaius passed them, entering the chamber.

The counsel room was well-lit at this time of day by the sunlight pouring in through large windows, and only a few candles were lit in the shadowy corners of the room. A wooden table stood in the center of the hall as it always did, with eleven chairs around it, none filled at the moment. Arthur stood at the foot of the table where there was no chair with a map of the kingdom laid out in front of him.

As Gaius entered the room, the king handed a scroll to an exiting minister, and then noticed the physician standing to one side of the doorway.

"Hello, Gaius," he said with a warm smile. "What can I do for you?"

Gaius came forward and set the books down atop the table, resting his hand on them. "Well, Sire," he said, "I believe I may have found out who cursed the knights."

Arthur had been looking over the map as Gaius explained, but upon hearing this, his head snapped up, all attention now directed at the physician by his side. "Really?" Gaius nodded. Arthur's eyes flicked between the books under Gaius's hand and the physician himself. "Well?" he urged. "Who did it?"

Gaius picked up the journal and showed it to Arthur. "Do you know these journals, Sire?" he asked.

The king took the book from him and inspected it. He opened to a random page and skimmed it, then closed it and handed it back. He shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Gaius. What is it?"

Gaius pulled back a chair from the table, his old bones beginning to protest the fact that there happened to be a chair right there, and that he was not sitting in it. "It is one of many journals," he began. "There are some two dozen of them in the library, and a likely two or three more that went missing. They were written around two centuries ago by a man called Cedric Thorne, who was a traveler native to Camelot."

"Where did he go?" Arthur wanted to know.

"Many places. Too many to discuss now. The point is, he went about the kingdom, and beyond, collecting adventures and stories, making a few of his own, and writing them down in his journals--now called the Thorne Chronicles. He encountered a very similar enchantment to the one affecting Leon, Elyan, and Gwaine." Gaius opened the yellowed pages, red leather creaking a bit, to the indicated adventure.

Arthur rounded the foot of the table and came to stand beside Gaius so he could read the journal. Gaius pointed to the description of the enchantment. Arthur murmured the words. "'The man was no longer a man, but a child, no more than eight years of age. His wife was quite distressed . . . '" He looked over at Gaius. "Gaius, that's it."

The physician nodded. "I have a second source confirming it. The enchantment is the work of a group of druids who called themselves the Écnes--The Eternal."