Thirteenth of The Blue

XI

THE LAND SEEM TO rumble as the forklift exited the tunnel carrying  the spherical rock, where the sword was found stuck. As the vehicle intended for carrying heavy objects came out of the tunnel like a yellow monster out of its hole, it rolled on its tires which is maybe a week away good for the junkyard. The speaker standing on the rushed stage behind a podium went silent from his speech and is injecting to the air a dramatic effect as if an orchestra is playing a drum roll at the background. The forklift lowered the rock on a thick black carpet spread on the ground with the help of a man in orange coveralls.

            Archangel Michael and a handful of his warriors merely counting seven are spying on the event. Hiding in a safe distance away in a wood situated at the top of the hill, they concealed their existence and almost perfectly blended with the trees around them. He looked around at his warriors, fellow angels, four on his right who would be considered male in mortal standards. Two of them are armed with broadswords and shields all wrought from an unknown shinny silver metal. One of them carries a hammer which by the looks can level the entire hill in one powerful smash. The last carries an ax.

 He panned his eyes to his left where  female angels are silently eyeing the events unfolding below through their eye shields. Their arrows are loaded on the bow but still not aimed nor nocked. All this faithful warriors standing at each of his sides are wrapped in armors. They really look like winged knights; there is no other way to define them, all except Michael who is in his tunic.

            He looked down the hill, locating Geiki amid the cluster. The roofless rushed stage made of almost every kind of lumber from the woods came first in his evaluation. He looked at the faces of people on the stage, zooming his eyes, not missing every detail on them. There are twelve of them in the royal blue carpet dressed in corporate tuxedos that have old and worn looks but the people in the clothes have wise airs around them and all seem to be near the peak of their lives. Eleven were seated behind a long table draped with white tablecloth. At their back was a wall made of slabs of plywood painted in powder blue. There were cut letters from colored papers pinned or pasted on the backboard which states, “Mystique Sword of the Philippines.” The last member of the team of twelve acts as the speaker standing behind a podium, the leader of the digging team.

            A battery of cameras trained in almost every direction is evident just below the stage and crews from renowned knowledge channels are busy making live covers or recording clips for their own stations.

            Anyone of them could be a tiger amid the flock, he lectured to himself. Could be an enemy in disguise.

            Arranged in rows and columns, were armchairs where the audience is seated. There are too many of them, close to half a thousand but Michael did not miss his target, Geiki. He sits there in one of the slots at the front row looking like somewhat he is lost in deep thoughts. Unlike almost everybody around him who are all busy in taking some notes from the speakers lecture, he seems to be not interested a bit to the find.

            He knew Geiki well and has taken a watchful eye over him for twenty-one years. Many times he saved baby Geiki from falling when he got curious enough reaching for things that was sitting on high places. But as he grows and developed a good memory, he was forced to assign guards around him who have been perfect strangers, taking care of him yet unseen. This kid, when lost in his thoughts, is thinking of something, but nothing that borders too ordinary ideas. If only he could read his mind like any typical human, but he is not like normal mortals. He is way too different; too much way too peculiar.

            “What made the sword to be stuck on such rock?” It is a question from a known reporter of an international news channel. “Do you have some explanation?  Theories, perhaps?”

            Nobody took notice of Geiki as he stood up and took paces passing through different channel crews scattered at their front. He went directly to the rock which is at the moment was being bathed with white floodlights from the media crews.

            The speaker is about to give his answer to the question when he noticed Geiki with a strong right hand on the hilt of the sword, the other raised up high.

            “What are you doing, son?” He spat out, his eyes trained at him. “Who gave you permission to hold that?”

            “I just want to ask a question,” he said at the top of his voice which is nearly bordering a scream.

            “Stop this none sense, Blads” Doctor Nitzky, who was moments ago is nowhere to be seen, suddenly appeared at his side like a ghost out from his dwelling corner.

            “The hilt,” Geiki said without any permission. “As I observed is angled somewhere to thirty five degrees towards the sky.”

            Now cameras are trained at him as he stole all the lights of the show. He looked around before speaking again, cannot fight the feeling that he is some kind of a wise analyst. He suppressed back a silly smile that should have crossed his face. “And when found should be pointing not more than two degrees away from the east of the compass.”

            He enjoyed the look as the speaker went towards the desk while the rest of the team flipped over their notes. One of them opened a manila folder and poured all the contents on the table not minding how will the contents fall and scatter. There were exchanges of murmurs, headshakes and nods.

            Geiki may have enjoyed watching them as they bit on his bait and could have stood there for all eternity in fact, but Doctor Nitzky gave him a vice-like grip at his left bicep and his face, that seemed to be draining out of blood, is now as white as a paper. From the looks of him, he is not happy and may go rampant any second. To Geiki, he appeared like a snarling human with a head of a cobra.

            “Just what do you think you are doing?” He is trying to force Geiki from where he is rooted. “You are going to take your seat and will shut your mouth for the rest of the day.”

            “No, doctor,” he looked at him squarely at the eyes and his words were above whispers. “I think I am handling myself well.”

            “Hey, mister,” the speaker spoke from behind the podium again, cutting the cold confrontation of Geiki and Doctor Nitzky. The situation may have escalated if not interrupted so soon. “Can I have your name to properly address you?”

            “I am Doctor Nitzky,” the professor yelled at the speaker on the stage with all his might. “Instructor from The Heart of Mary University. Forgive the stupid interruption but I think my student may have drunk too much last night.”

            The crowd roared in laughter, loving the comedy that is happening before their front. Some students were even plucked from their daydreaming. The knowledge channel crews were wrapped in a shroud of confusion undecided if they are going to cut the taping or waste battery training the lenses at the duo that has been the center of all the laughs.

            “I do not think the gentleman is throwing crazy punches, Doctor Nitzky,” the speaker announced crisply. It came like a bomb plummeting from the sky towards the doctor. He was frozen solid, mouth gaped wide open, his jaw stuck on a drop like a part of a rusty machine.

            “Your name, please,” he followed up.

            “Geiki Blads, sir,” he came with a proud smile etched on his face. “Double majors in General and Ancient History.”

            “How did you came up with these findings?” The speaker, an old and light man who have a balding top and tiny hairs merely counting less than a couple of hundred. “You knew so much about bearings and angles for a history student.”

            Geiki turned around, aiming his body to the east where the sun is clinging towards the cloudless blue sky. A memory came flooding in his mind and he fought hard to push aside the thought that he is sure he may have pinned pretty Marie if he did not grew curious at the signs he found evident in the woods. He made a quick glance to Marie who eyed him the way a tiger will at a prey and at that, he hurriedly turned his sight to the east. He raised and pointed an index finger towards the sun.

            “In the woods due east of this hill,” he began and let it trail for a while just to introduce an effect as if an announcer declaring a winner. “You will find trees bored with irregular diamonds which might align to the angle of the hilt of the sword from ground level and the direction it was originally pointed to.”

            “Holes bored through the trees,” the speaker mimicked, a hand sweeping over his clean-shaven chin. His eyes were turned upwards as if visualizing the trees with diamond holes. But not good at imagination, his mind can only come up with two-dimensional trees sketched and colored by a kindergarten kid, all in a straight line with diamond holes shaped like those on the playing cards. “Interesting.”

            He left the podium and leaped down the elevated stage towards the rock and the sword. “You know how historians and scientists come up with findings?” He seem to be asking the rock, his mind going in rampage  as lots of thoughts came flooding like tons of water  inundating the space of his limited mind.

            “They come with a conclusion based on given findings. They make theories solidified by a foundation made by fact findings.” He gazed up the sky as if the answer will come down from above, an action common to most of the humans. “They make stories wider, some based on what they believe in or what they have known from limited facts.”

            “Outstanding!” He fought his hands from clapping at a splendid explanation from a college student. “If what you say is true, that bored holes in the trees matches with the angle and bearing of the hilt, what story would pitch to the team if it just happened you are one of us?”

            ”That…” Now he looked at the ground not sure if  he will make a clown out of himself from what he is going to say. “That sword, broken or not is unlikely to be the Excalibur.”

           “Okay, and…” The first is partly accepted but he wanted to squeeze more from this kid who interrupted his part of the program and stole the highlights.

           “That someone did not dig through the hill just to plunge a sword on a rock and cover his way out. Not a fat chance too that King Arthur sailed the seven seas carrying aboard his cargo a rock and the Excalibur just to dump it on one of the islands that he found at the mouth of the pacific, which has black small people as residents or some yellow-skinned tribe when perhaps the Malayans or the Indonesians have taken territories over the archipelago.”

           “What brings you to that conclusion? What if he did?” Now it is turning up to be battle of the brains. “What if he sent a ship across the seas to hide away the sword that should never be in the grasp of anyone other than him?”

           “Would you believe yourself if you are the one listening to it?”

           “What if I do?”

           “Not a fat chance. There were never tales of foreign invaders who came conquering any islands of the Philippines just to keep a treasure somewhere. This part of the world never existed to the empires stretching over the Middle East, Russia and Europe included, until the Galleon Era. I would like to stand on the fact that they consider the world flat during those times and they will slip down the oblivion should they go over the edge which is the horizon.”

           “Good point! Nicely defended! Then how do you think this got here?” He looked at Geiki squarely challenging his thoughts.

           “If the angle from the ground level and the bearing of the hilt of the sword tallies with the holes bored through the trees in that wood, I cannot come up with any crazier idea that to whomever that sword belongs to, it must have been shot from up above the eastern sky, through the woods and the hill and later homed unto the rock.”

           “You said it yourself, that was crazy. A sword shot up from the sky making bores through the trees. How much force does it need to plunge such thing through the trees and into the hill which may rocks far bigger than this one? And that’s not counting the amount of friction that should have stopped it from being embedded to this rock. And would not the sword shatter from such amount of force the moment it hit the first tree?”

           Believe me, sir, I am no scientist. And I am not studying a degree that deals with joules, tons, calories, friction, momentum and Newton. That work may be up to you and your team.” He gave a challenging look to the speaker. “But will you dare say the angle and the bearing do not tally?”

           “It does. I believe in your thoughts as well. Both of our minds walk hand in hand.” Then he turned around and motioned towards the stage where his team is busy in comparing notes. Some of them are lost in deep thoughts of either computation or imagination. “But that does not explain anything rationally”

           Did anyone test what metal it is made of?” He shot to the departing speaker who paused amid  the stage as if a robot that was connected to a depleted battery.

           “Stop it, Blads.” Doctor Nitzky, who all those times watched in fascination how the two battled each other, cracked his silence and blocked Geiki’s view to the stage with his face which seemed to be calm for the first time since he can remember.”They are scientists and historians, not fiction writers.”

           “but it tallied,” he reasoned out like a kid explaining to his father why he was forced to fight back to a bully after receiving enough blows.

           “Yes, it did, congratulations. Now the whole team got new ideas to chew on and thanks to you. But better leave it up to them for the moment.”

           At that, Geiki decided to quit on it but he felt undefeated. He ordered his wildly-churning brain to calm to idle as the flames of excitement died over his body. He decided on heading to his seat, turning around, when he caught a glimpse on the hilt of the sword.

           It felt for him like every second is running like a day, each fluid movements of the whole world was like a film running in a slow motion. The hilt of the sword seems to be tempting and there seems to be whispers calling from it, asking, or even commanding him to take a grip and pull it free from the rock. There is a different voice inside his head too that he is sure not his conscience, but a different one, a booming voice that is often used in motion pictures to dub God’s thundering and reverberating voice. I t is saying the same thing. It felt like a different kind of gravity is pulling his towards the hilt. He is not in control of his own body anymore. And before he forced the tempting voice and whispers aside, his right hand was on a tight grip on the sword. His hand must have got a mind on its own, or a different soul is in control on it which summoned a mighty flowing strength in his veins as he pulled the sword free from the rock’s grasp.

           It is a thing he should have not done; for it marks a celestial was gas begun again.