OK, plot so far. An NSA satellite (don't tell me the NSA don't have satellites! :) has detected a strong x-ray burst in south-western England. On investigation turns out it came from an archeological excavation site on Glastonbury Tor, where a sarcophagus has been uncovered. It gets sent to the SGC, presumably because whoever's inside can wreak much more havoc with a Stargate at hand (joke :). After a bit of theorising that the x-ray burst was a signal to alert any orbiting Goa'uld spacecraft that the sarcophagus has been uncovered (a sort of SOS signal) Daniel has trooped downstairs to examine it, with the rest of SG1 tagging along for no good reason at all. We pick up the story as Daniel starts translating the hieroglyphs on the sarcophagus...“Lets see....Merwin, master of the secrets, keeper of the calendar and star watcher, that's astronomer, favoured of Arder the king....” his voice trailed off.
“Arder the king?” queried Jack
“King Arder...” muttered Daniel “and Merwin the astronomer..”
“You don't mean...” said Sam
“Daniel, you'd better not be about to tell me what I think you're about to tell me”
(OK, obviously needs some kind of bridge here. Jack expressing his disbelief a bit more, or Teal'c pretending not to know what they're on about so Daniel can explain it out loud. Then they go to talk to Hammond up in the briefing room...) “Do you mean to say we've got Merlin the Magician in that box down there?” queried General Hammond
“Well Sir, ‘magician’ is a modern interpretation. ‘Wise man’ or ‘Druid’ would be more appropriate. But, fundamentally, yes. That’s what the inscription on the sarcophagus says.”
(A bit more conversation ensues. Then Daniel goes off on a long, boring, archeological/anthropological rant...) “Sixth Century Britain isn't my specialty, but it's the general opinion that ‘King’ Arthur was the leader of a mercenary group fighting the Germanic invaders who started moving into Britain when the Romans pulled out in AD 410. We don't know a lot about him, what we do know comes mostly from some ninth and twelfth century documents put together by monks.”
(Yeah yeah Daniel. But he won't shut up, and continues on about legends of Kings buried in golden coffins inside just about every hill in the UK. Everyone else starts to doze...) “Merlin first enters the story years before Arthur was born, in the time of a King called Vortigen. Vortigen, who was generally regarded as a tyrant, brought a group of Saxon mercenaries into the country to fight his enemies. Instead they turned against him, and he fled into the hills of Wales. To protect himself, he started to build a fortress, but every night it's foundations collapsed.”
“Is this leading to something Dr Jackson?” asked Hammond
“Bear with me Sir. Vortigen called on his wise men to figure out what he could do. They came up with the solution of finding a boy who had no father, sacrificing him, and sprinkling the foundations with his blood.”
“Let me guess” interjected Jack. “Merlin”
“Exactly” resumed Daniel “Vortigen’s servants combed the countryside and eventually tracked down Merlin, who’s mother was a nun. She claimed the father was an invisible man who came to her at night.”
Jack snorted. “That’s a good one”
Daniel shrugged. “Well they seemed to believe it. They took Merlin to see Vortigen, but before he could carry out the sacrifice Merlin told him that the wise men were wrong, and that the foundations were collapsing because of a pool of underground water. So they dug down to the pool...”
“I think I know this bit” interupted Sam. “There were two dragons in the pool, and when the workmen dug them up they flew into the air and attacked each other.”
“Right. A red dragon and a white dragon. The white dragon killed the red dragon and flew away”
“Dragons?” queried Hammond “Death Gliders?”
“I wouldn't want to hazard a guess sir. In any case this is where it gets interesting. Vortigen asks Merlin to interpret the battle of the dragons. Merlin goes into a ‘Prophetic Trance’ and tells him that the red dragon represents the Britons, and the white dragon the Saxon mercenaries. Then Vortigen asks Merlin’s name, and rather than saying ‘Merlin’, he says ‘I am called Ambrosius’. A ‘trance’ in which you display more than normal knowledge, and answer to a different name. Sound familiar anyone?”
“Merlin was possesed by a Goa'uld” suggested Sam.
“Exactly, which would explain a lot of his ‘magic’. We barely understand how most Goa'uld technology works, what would sixth century peasants make of it?”
“Merlin was a Goa'uld?” questioned Jack in disbelief “I thought he was meant to be one of the good guys.”
“Well it depends exactly what you read” continued Daniel “The further back you go, the darker the character of Merlin gets. In some sources he's referred to as the son of the devil.”
“And this ‘son of the devil’ is downstairs in that sarcophagus?” asked Hammond
(Bit more conversation. Jack makes some coffee. Teal'c stares out the window into the gate room, until Jack pokes him. Sam wanders off looking for a video of *Excalibur*. Hammond feigns interest and wiggles his toes to pass the time) “What about Excalibur then?”
“Teal’c do the Goa'uld ever use any kind of swords?”
“There is an ancient form of combat, a competition with blades.”
“Is there anything particularly special about these ‘blades’?” asked Jack
“They are made of special alloys, many times stronger than steel”
“Capable of cutting through an ordinary steel sword?” asked Daniel
“In the hands of a skilled combatant”
(That settled, Daniel continues with his life and times of King Arthur, including the fact that he suffered a terrible head wound at the battle of Camlan. Jack considers giving Daniel a terrible head wound. Sam returns, having only found a copy of the musical *Camelot* in the SGC video library.) “Well after the battle of Camlan Merlin took the dying Arthur off to Avalon to heal his wounds. In some stories Arthur was already dead, and Merlin took him away to resurrect him.”
“In a sarcophagus obviously. This sarcophagus.”
“It makes sense”
“Then what happened”
“Nothing, the kingdom fell to bits, Arthur and Merlin were never seen again.”
“I thought Arthur lost the battle because Merlin had been imprisoned underground by Nimu” suggested Sam.
“Nimu?” questioned Jack
“A forest sprite. That part of the story doesn't show up until the middle ages, but it's interesting, given
(I've got no idea why it's interesting. It's certainly not interesting to me. Daniel rabbits on for a few more hours, mentioning that Glastonbury is generally associated with Avalon, then Jack stops poking at his molars with a toothpick and stands up...) “So what have we got? A Goa'uld comes to earth, without using a Stargate by the way, carrying a sword. He possesses some kid, sets him up as a wizard, then runs an entire kingdom from behind the scenes for years. Then when the king gets killed, he resurrects him in a sarcophagus, and they both vanish into thin air.”
“Well do you have any better explanation?”
(Well obviously not because they decide to open the sarcophagus. Weapons are produced. The base is put on alert. Hammond changes into clean underwear to greet their special guest.)
“Open it” ordered Hammond.
Daniel manipulated the glyphs, then stepped hurriedly back. The troops leveled their weapons as a low, electrical hum filled the room, putting teeth on edge. With a loud crack, the lid of the sarcophagus split in two, and started to open. A blinding burst of light leapt from the opening, then died back to a soft golden glow as the wings of the sarcophagus locked into their open position. Strange gasses bubbled and roiled out of the chamber.
Nothing happened
Pointing the muzzle of his weapon at the chamber, O'Neill stepped forward carefully. He slowly peered over the edge.
“It’s empty!” he called, waving the other forward.
Jackson’s face fell. “What!?” he demanded, stepping forward for a closer look.
He peered in his brow wrinkling. He peered in again, fanning gas out of the corners of the chamber in case Merlin might have been hiding in them.
Jack spoke. “Like I said, it's empty. So much for Merlin”. He snorted in disgust and glanced around the room in annoyance.
“I don't understand it! Why bury a functioning sarcophagus with no one inside?!” Daniel questioned the thin air. He thumped his fists on the lid in frustration. “He should be in here!”
“Ideas Dr Jackson?” asked Hammond
“Sir!” interupted Carter “Our sensors detected a strong burst of x-rays when the sarcophagus opened”
“X-Rays?” asked Daniel in confusion “But that was just a signal that the sarcophagus had been uncovered. What...” His face froze in horror.
“Daniel...” prompted Jack warily.
“He can't...” Jackson muttered
O’Niell’s eyes widened “You don't mean...”
Adam had been drinking steadily for quite a few hours by the time the Star and Compass closed it's doors that night, and was a little unsteady on his feet. He was wandering down an alley, looking for a place to throw up, when his path was blocked by a strange figure.
He was tall. Tall and heavily muscled with greying hair, and dressed in a mixture of coarse cloth and roughly tanned furs. His bare forearms were laced with scars, and he was carrying an exotic looking sword which glinted strangely, even in the faint light of the alley.
“Wha...?” blurted Adam, stumbling to a halt.
The figure grabbed his arm with an iron grip. His eyes glowed beneath the deep scar crossing his forehead. “I am called Ambrosius” he announced. “You and I are going to be great friends”.
Adam decided not to argue.
THE END(Actually it's not Ambrosius the Goa'uld inhabiting the body of King Arthur preserved in a sarcophagus for 1500 years, it's an 80 yr old Sylvester Stalone come back from the future in a plutonium powered Delorean, but the readers aren't to know that. Kamarwwat by the way is probably the closest an ancient Egyptian could have some to pronouncing "Camelot". Same with Arder and Merwin.)
Stargate Sg-1 and its characters and concepts are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. These works are for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended. These works may not be copied, reproduced, posted elsewhere, distributed, put on CD-ROM or other digital media, sold or otherwise exploited without the consent of the author. "KAMARWWAT" ©Copyright 2000 Denys the Purple Wyrm All Rights Reserved.