The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids (13 page)

O

ne man
,
more than all others,
saw
to it that
Egypt benefit
ted
from
the use of ports and portals
, though few
at the time
knew how deep and great
was his knowledge
.  This must be
noted
as something of an ironie,
for
the person of whom I speak was the most revered scholar of his age.  I refer to none other than Eratosthenes,
Custodian
of the Great Librarie in Alexandria, that sam
e cittie of which I have alreadie
spoken.

     Much
has been written
of the deeds of this famous Gre
co-
Egyptian.  As keeper of all knowledge in the librarie, Eratosthenes learn
ed
of the secrets of ports and portals by piecing together disparate facts from
various
sources.  Through visits to
other
world
s
he encountered
both
geographical and ce
lestial
wonders
; these served him well
as he sought to understand his own world and the heavens surrounding it.
[80]

     Some among the Zelaznids believe that the great librarian shared his knowledge with at least one bosom companion.  Eratosthenes
knew several men of
wit and abilitie,
among them his
own tutor Euclid.
[81]
 
But
none
was
more noteworthie than Archimedes
,
whose coterie of inventions might
well
have owed something to the influence
of
port
s
other than his own.
[82]

    
In a later
age
the tutors of Ptolemie XIII and Ptolemie
X
IV
[83]
knew of ports and portals and
imparted
some of this wisdom to
the
ir
two charges. 
But
the
boys’
jealous
sist
er, Cleopatra, wished
to
gain this knowledge
for her own purposes
, by whatever means necessarie
.
[84]

     When the great and terrible Caesar descended upon Egypt, the queen
conspired
to set the Italian against her brother
-husband
.
[85]
  As Romans and Egyptians contended one with the other, Cleopatra sent troops belonging to
Caesar with orders to seize certain parchments from the Great Librarie, no doubt those dealing with ports and portals. 
But
the librarians would not allow the soldiers to gain entrance to their palace of wisdom.  To the great shame of the Romans, in the
struggle which followed a great conflagration
erupted
and
destroy
ed
much of the librarie.
[86]

     The Queen did not abandon her quest
; w
ith
the
assistance
of
Caesar
, she
seize
d
her brother
-husband
[87]
and torture
d
him
to death
in the waters of the Nile.  This action did not please Caesar,
but
he
g
a
ve Cleopatra her throne
, just the same,
with her
youngest
brother as
her new
husband and co-ruler.
[88]

     As Caesar’s concubine, the queen took
control of
Egypt,
but was ever
in search of the knowledge
that would allow her
to cross into another world.  Soon she learned that her new
brother-
husband, like her former, had received training in the use of portals
from a tutor
.  In desperation,
and
after hearing word of the murder of her lover,
[89]
Cleopatra placed such devilish pressure upon teacher and student alike that both subjected themselves to death by poison rather than endure
worse
tortures.  In this way, all knowledge of ports and portals passed from the land of Egypt.

~
168
~

Chapter 8

The Dark Ages

T

he age following the fall of the western Romans has often been called the Dark Ages, a phrase meant to
suggest a time
of ignorance. 
This era
was
thus
designated
, I know not
when
,
by those who purport
ed
to be wise.  Yet, it has
since
been noted that the first to use this term were historians of the eastern Romans, men who had no love for their cousins
in the west
.
[90]
  It
has also been argued
that the
time that
follow
ed
the sack of Rome,
[91]
dark though
it
seemed, w
as
not entirelie devoid of learning
.  Indeed,
Christian monasteries produce
d
and duplicate
d thousands of
tomes
over the centuries
. 
Although t
h
ese
began as
little
flames
of knowledge
in the west
,
one day such
smoldering embers
would erupt into the
intellectual conflagration we call the Renaissance
.
 
But
, alas, this would not occur for several hundred years.

    
O
ne area of
knowledge which
had an impact during this age of relative
i
gnorance
was that of ports
. 
I
do not
speak of
those
ports
which
explorers from
Portug
al would later visit
with
their sailing vessels, though I
may
yet
have cause to speak of them
.  No, I
refer to
those
ports which
are
other worlds
.

     Let me first say something on the subject of those Romans who perished
at the dawn of this new age.  The people of Rome
were not without their
own
remarkable advances.  The Zelaznids readilie admit
that
the Italians exhibited
great skills in
constructi
on and government
.  Could it be that some among them knew of the existence
of
portals
?  No man can say.

    
R
ecall for a moment the historie of that conquering people.  The Romans
possessed a culture full of
art and architecture, poet
ical and theatrical works,
a semblance of the democratic, and a pantheon of higher beings. 
However,
these
were but
counterfeits of those
traits
found in cultures
that
had been
invaded and enslaved
by the Italians
.
  Roman culture
, in fact,
was nothing
but
a
n amalgam
of those idea
s gleaned from
the Greeks, the Egyptians, the
Hebrews, the Gauls, the
Carthaginians, and the Persians.

     Rome did
numerous
things well,
but
she
did so
by stealing the knowledge of others and calling it her own.  This is why the Italians leave
no evidence that they were aware of ports and portals -
because
this k
nowledge
was guarded
well by those
Greeks and Egyptians
who fell captive to the Romans.

    
This, at least, is the opinion of those with who
m
I spoke.  Yet, I cannot help but see the wisdom in
what
they say.  How
minor
Rome seems to me now,
a
loud but shallow imitation of more revered cultures. 
But
this is not the subject of my missive.  I must now speak of those few
souls who
emerged after the
fall of Rome to utilize the knowledge of ports and portals
.

W

hen the great and powerful Justinian
[92]
held sway over the lands of the Roman east, in those days before the coming of the Prophet,
[93]
there were
none who held
the power to keep order in the disintegrating western empire.  The first lands to descend into chaos were those at the
western
borders, far from Rome,
for these were the first to lose the protection of her armies. 
The far-flung island of Albion,
[94]
which the Romans
l
oved for
its
fine weather,
[95]
was
soon
set upon by barbarians
from Germania.  Few Breton
s
stood in resistance to their invasions.

     Th
is is how
the uncouth Saxon
Ǽ
lah
[96]
c
am
e into power.  With his horde of barbarians, th
e
Saxon brute land
ed
upon
Albion’s
southern shore
and
descend
ed
upon its native residents, bending them to his will.  Each village in
his
wake quailed before the
determined warrior
, so that
his
Saxon
warriors
met little resistance. 
But
at Anderitum,
[97]
Ǽ
lah and his son Cissa
encountered
a stout defense. 
V
aliant though they were, the Bretons could not hold.  The Saxons thus took Anderitum and, as a lesson to
all others who might resist them, put
all of the town’s
defenders
to death.

     Into this madness came a boy.

I

t is not known by what name he was called upon his birth, for the child was a
forest
foundling and unknown to th
e
tribesmen who
discovered him
.  Yet
,
a wise man
predicted
great
things for his future, so the Bretons of
the
village look
ed
upon the child with
favour
and
accepted him as one of their own
.

     Having no name, as I have said, the
y called the
boy
‘Aurelius’
after that
wise e
mperor of old.  Yet few used this name
, for they
instead
took to calling him ‘Bear’, in consequence of the fact that h
e
had been found
in the woods,
wrapped in the skins of a brown bear.  This designation remained with the boy into
his
manhood, whereupon he had the wit to grow into his name
by
becoming a bear of a fellow.

     Indeed, the boy developed into
a strong and dependable man, a leader
of stature
who commanded great respect. 
As such,
the name Bear did not long survive the passing of his
youth,
but came to
be replaced
, in the tongue of the Romanized Bretons, by the name Arcturus Aurelius
.  This t
hey deemed a
fine
alternative to the uncouth
moniker which
he
had
borne for so long
; or so thought
those who
believed
that
the foundling had
f
allen from the stars.
[98]
  By this
name
he
was
known until
much later, when
the legends of men
dubbed him
Arthur.
[99]

     Up
on reaching adulthood, Arcturus -
whose
strange
origins
still
inspired much conve
rsation in his adoptive village -
acquired a
mysterious advisor.  He
was called
Emlyn, a speaker of pro
phecies and a worker of wonders.  He was
that same wise man who had
earlier
predicted such
a
great
future
for the foundling before vanishing from sight.  Seventeen years
had
pass
ed
while the boy grew
, t
hen E
mlyn returned to
advise
Arcturus Aurelius.  The you
ng man accepted him at once for -
being a fine judge of men
-
he could see that the aged Emlyn was wise.

     The Zelaznids believe that Emlyn came not from the stock of the Celts, but from th
e
same otherworldlie
port which
had brought forth
the boy
. 
They
further
believe that Arcturus
Aurelius
and Emlyn used
their
knowledge of ports and
portals
to bring
new ideas into the
world
.  These i
nclud
ed
more effective militarie
strategies as well as
a
secret
method by which
stronger weapons
might be forged
.
 
As
s
uch,
Emlyn came to
be called
‘wizard,’
a title
later
used
as an epithet
against his grandsons Myrddin and Taliesin.
[100]

  
As a result
of
these new ideas, a
s well as
the natural leadership
skills
of
the foundling, the Romano-Bretons quicklie joined into one force under the leadership of Arcturus Aurelius.  The Bear
then
rallied against
the forces of
Ǽ
lah at Mount Badon
[101]
in that
year
when
Father
Gildas came into the world.
[102]
There, with stout forces at his back, Arcturus defeated the
Saxons,
and
forced the cowardlie Cissa
[103]
to flee,
thus freeing the Bretons
from Saxon control
for a generation.

     For
several
years, the people followed Arcturus Aurelius, that chief giver of feasts, no matter where he chose to lead them.  Yet, the Bear’s valor and Emlyn’s wisdom could not forever counter the inconsistencies of men.

     Arcturus Aurelius married a fine woman called Gwenhwyfar, the fairest
maid
in the land
.  Second
to her in
beautie was her sister, Gwenhwyfach,
who possessed a heart as black as pitch. 
Gwenhwyfach, ever jealous of her
more
fortunate sister, hate
d
Gwenhwyfar for her marriage to Arcturus Aurelius.  Thus
Gwenhwyfach,
wed herself to
Medraut, a dark and ambitious lord.
[104]
 

     Using her wiles, this evil woman instigated a feud between
Arcturus and his
general
s.  This quarrel erupted into a civil war,
in
which Medraut
allied with
the Saxons, led by that same Cissa who had fled at Mount Badon. 
At
the hill called
Camlann
,
[105]
Arcturus Aurelius and Medraut dealt each other fatal blows, thus taking the heart out of both sides.
 
As such,
the Saxons took the day and regained
control
over the
Bretons
. 
In this way
, t
he secrets of ports and portals w
ere
lost
to
the island of Albion.