The red rays of the morning light begins to peer over the opening of the cave grotto’s ceiling. It’s light creeps down the moss covered western wall and embraces the surface of the pool. Next the sacred gem’s power flashes out of the stones on the pool’s bottom, tracing a kaleidoscope on the grotto’s high walls. The knight takes in all this in a solemn, stoic way. It’s a recurring event he has witnessed for over two hundred years, however it never ceases to amaze him.

  Over the years, he has seen many things come out of the pool. It began when he was twelve years old, he was a squire under Sir Henry and they had received orders to investigate strange lights in a nearby forest from the queen. They rode out to the adjacent village of Silvermoss and got directions from a farmer that had seen the lights while gathering firewood.
As they walked the boy thought about his beginnings. He hadn’t always been a squire. He had been born in another kingdom to a family of simple townsfolk. His father was a baker and his mother a seamstress. He had lived in that town for six years, then one night marauders had rode into town. They began to pillage and threw torches in windows and doors, setting every building ablaze. They killed the men that tried to fight back and cut down the women and children. As his father tried to fight back, his mother took him down to the stone cellar under the floor and then hide the door with sacks of flour. He heard his mother’s scream aside many others for most of the night. The house and shop were burned and the boy passed out from the heat coming from the stones. He awoke and hearing only silence cried and sobbed. Then, the sacks were removed from the heavy door and light shined into the small cellar. A man in metal armor with a longsword on his hip walked down the steps and looked at him in concern. “Are you alright son?” asked the knight. He could only nod his small tear streaked face. “ It’s ok now, they’re all gone now. My name is Sir Henry. What is yours?”, he asked. “Sa.. saaa… Samuel.”, the boy stammered. “Well Samuel, let us get out of this cold cellar and into the warmth of the morning sun.” Sir Henry helped the boy up off his knees and lead him out into the smoky morning remains of his town. There were bodies draped in red sheets everywhere. The boy could only turn around slowly and look as the tears washed his face of the soot. He noticed two hands linked from separate sheets and knew them to be his parents. He kneeled at their sides and cried some more as Henry stood nearby watching. Finally, he comes over and puts a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. “There is nothing left for you here anymore Samuel...,, How would you like to come with me and learn how to defend others against the evils of the world?” Samuel slowly rises and turns tears dry, he looks up forever changed. “When do we leave Sir Henry?” “First let us honor the dead. Let us bury their remains and mark them with a red cross, so that anyone who comes across this place, will pay homage to the innocent lives lost here today,” It took them most of the day and the early morning sun travelled across the sky until it was hovering over the horizon. Finally, the last cross placed and the last corpse buried, they rode away from the Samuel’s home never to return. 
The last lights of the sun began to fade, they glimpsed a clearing with an abundance of  rainbow light shining from the ground. They approached with caution but as they neared they saw that the rainbow wasn’t coming from the ground, but  actually an opening in the grass.  They strained to peer down into the inky darkness but alas the  light had gone and they hadn’t even a torch yet prepared. “We shall make camp over there and keep watch over this spot. They built a fire and cooked their rations of salmon they had brought along for the journey, and laid near the fire and spoke of their strategy for the hole. Sir Henry said in his deep soothing voice,”Our attack plan is simple, we will wait until there is ample light and then see what we can see. Until then sleep Samuel.”
The next morning Sir Henry and I were woken by a brilliant display of multicolored rays of light beginning to shoot out of the hole. It began with  red the color of rubies, followed by a orange the color of the setting sun, next came lemon yellow. Shortly after came green like the Irish Isles, then a brilliant blue sapphire ray, then indigo like the grapes that grow in the Castle’s garden, and finally ending with violet. Oddly enough the violets in the garden grow next to the grapes. The rainbow rays painted the walls of the hole with their colors thus revealing its true nature. It was not simply a hole in the ground, but a cave like grotto.
Sir Henry and I estimated the drop to be too great to jump and decided to go back to Silvermoss and use some of the gold the queen had given them to purchase a coil of rope. They returned several hours later and as they went to the grotto, a creature like nothing they had ever seen before came clawing up over the edge. It was the color of ink and had the head of a jackal, fleshless wings and claws of  what appeared made from bones, it moved like no other four legged creature. It seemed to emit a sort of distortion around it’s body, as if the world around had lost its link to reality. Sir Henry drew his sword reflexively from its scabbard while I fumbled with mine like a idiot. Henry advanced on the creature with amazing speed for a man of 53. The beast clawed at him and he rolled to the side bringing his long sword up and into the creature’s belly. At last I got my sword free to help but he was already cleaning his and looking the creature over. As fast as it had started, it was over. Once again, I was reminded of the skill and grace of the knight i wanted to be.
I kept my sword drawn and used it to poke the beast to assure it truly was dead. “What is it?” I asked. “The stuff of nightmares. A demon if I must guess” ,Henry replied, “ However why did it attack us now? If it could have killed us in the night.”  “Well maybe it couldn’t escape the grotto.” I replied. Sir Henry stood, and stared at the dead beast for a long time. He broke the silence with a simple sentence that somehow still chilled me to the bone. “Get the rope. We’re heading down.”
I quickly lashed one end of the rope to the root of an old oak tree just off to the side of the hole and then nodded at Sir Henry  and began to climb down.  I was descending first in case there was more of those things and I could climb faster. I landed on a rock shelf and peered around cautiously. It didn’t look like much just a cave with a grotto from the rain coming in from above. It might have been  a volcanic cone a hundred years before but now it was just a cave gathering rainwater. I noticed the claw marks from the creatures climb and felt how they had left no less than six inches deep gouges in the solid granite. I try my best not to imagine what those claws could do to a living creature. I also noticed that there was paw prints from where the creature must have climbed out of pool, but where did it come from.
Sir Henry climbed down behind me and I pointed out the prints. “Perhaps the creature fell from above and then landed in the water?” ,he suggested. “The rock along the edge is completely dry and it would be wet from the waves. Also the water is only a few meters deep and it would have been killed” ,I pointed out. Sir Henry listened and thought then said,”Then maybe there is a another way in? If it lived down in this cave there would be traces of it’s waste or bones from its kills.” I shrugged, undressed down to my tunic and removed my boots and waded into the water. It went up to my shoulders but was surprising warm for being an underground pool. I felt around with my bare feet and into the darker recesses but found no holes  besides the porous ones of the hardened lava. I redressed and we climbed back up to camp and decided to stay until morning then return to the castle and report what we had found. The day went by uneventful, Sir Henry had me practice my sword fighting. “Arms up, hands steady. Swing strong and swift not harshly and clumsily.” I began with an overhead swing and he blocked. I thrusted and he parred. I began to see his movements, not his blade. I tried a savage clumsily downward swing and he parried it smiling, thinking he had me. I brought the deflected swing inward as it came down and used the flat of my blade to pull his leg out from under him. His smile faded as he fell sprawled and I slapped his sword away. I hovered my point just in front of his Adam’s Apple and smiling asked, “Do you yield?” He smiled and nodded and I pulled him up, for the first time since meeting Sir Henry I had beaten him at swordplay. We ate dinner and went to sleep early as a reward. The night was calm and peaceful, though the creature’s carcass began to smell. I tossed and turned for an hour or so before I finally fell asleep.
The next morning I awoke to a scratching noise and as I rubbed sleep from my eyes I saw an enormous creature claw its way over the edge of the cave. At first it was hard to see through the rainbow but soon it crawled into view. It had the long neck of a dragon, the back of a porcupine and the tail and feet of a scorpion, it was easily the size of a small cottage. I noticed the razor dagger like claws as it took stock of me. I grabbed my sword and ran at it without thinking. I took up my defensive stance and looked over to where Henry had slept, all that there was his blanket. He must have gone foraging for breakfast. The creature charged at me and I hastily sprinted to a nearby pine tree and climbed for my life. I didn’t climb in fear, I climbed to escape and get above the enormous thing. The creature attacked the trunk and the vibrations nearly made me fall. I climbed higher and then I leaped over to another pine. I look back but the creature hadn’t seen. I slowly climbed down and backed away slowly from the horrible abomination quietly, keeping my eyes on it. SNAP!!! The sound of the twig under my boot drew the thing’s attention to me again. It turned and Henry appeared out of nowhere, using a downward strike with his sword off came a claw making the creature reel with pain. Sir Henry glanced at me and in that moment the creature struck with its tail. I screamed in fear as he collapsed. In a rage, I charged the creature and slide underneath sliding my sword deep into its belly and leap from beneath just before the creature collapsed dead.
I ran to Henry and looked at his wound. The barb from the tail has gone clear through and blood was blossoming from his chest. “Henry! It’ll be ok. I’ll have you sewed up and walking in no time” ,I lied. He had a drawn look on his face and grabbed hold of my shirt to pull me in. He whispered his last words, “Guard the grotto this kind of evil but not be left unchecked in the world.” I kneeled over him and cried silently for some time.
When the tears finally stopped flowing I went to Silvermoss and borrowed a cart from the kind farmer. I harnessed up our horses to it and loaded up the two creatures each wrapped in a blanket to keep their nature hidden. Last I loaded up Sir Henry laid on the back with his sword laid on his chest. I advised the farmer to take the loaded cart to the castle and give them this scroll. I paid the farmer with the remaining gold and then went down to grotto and stood watch over the pool. I noticed a stone had turned black and was just now slowly fading back to its brilliant color. I drank and washed my cuts in the water and noticed all my cuts began healing. I felt stronger too and realized where the creatures were coming from and what I had to do.
The queen came ten days later and I regaled my tale of what we had found and then the queen commanded me to stay here and watch over the place. She had me kneel before her and knighted me on the spot. Then she left and I never saw her again. As the years passed I noticed changes, I didn't age and wounds didn't last long on my body. Each morning I watched the show of the gems and when a gem faded to black I prepared myself and waited to destroy any evil that ever appeared in the pool. Never letting its evil leave the grotto.