- So, off Merlin goes to Ireland to defeat the young King Gilloman. There's really not much to say about that situation, since Gilloman is inexperienced and quickly beaten. The whippersnapper.
- Killare is not as swank as everyone, including Ambrosius, said. There are some big stones, but Merlin's not impressed.
- Merlin finds the great Dance of Stones (not to be confused with The Giants' Dance, by the way, which is back in Britain) in the innermost ring of the fortress.
- Merlin goes to check it out in the evening after the battle. Just like when he visited Stonehenge, he finds a stone that gives him the creeps. He decides to leave that fella alone.
- Merlin finds an altar-type situation there, with some animal bones and the ashy bits of a fire.
- Then, just as at Stonehenge, McKlutzy trips on a stone hidden in the grass.
- Freaky stuff happens then: there's coldness around Merlin, there's moonlight on the stone, there's wind moving in the grass. And it hits Merlin: this is the King stone he'd talked about with Ambrosius.
- Just to seal the deal, the bright white king-star is burning above Merlin in the sky.
- Merlin has a bit of a visionary experience here. As he stands at the foot of the huge stone, it seems to him that he's standing at the foot of a dying man's bed.
- We don't know yet who that dying man is. Merlin falls asleep on top of the freaky stone.
- Uther wakes Merlin in the morning. He's brought an Irish poet-prisoner with him to tell them which stone is the right one. The Irishman tries to put them off by pointing to the altar.
- Merlin tells the Irishman to get lost. He already knows which is the right stone. The Irishman doesn't really care. He says the stone is cursed and Ireland will be better off without it.
- The Irishman tells the story of how the stone came out of Britain in the first place: it was carried across the Irish Sea by the king/hero/bad boy Fionn Mac Cumhaill (that's pronounced "Finn McCool," because Irish is crazy and wonderful.)
- Merlin digs this story and tells the Irishman to get on out of there and stick to making poems.
- Uther tells Tremorinus that he only needs to take the King stone back to Britain. He can just trash the rest of the standing stones.
- But it turns out that it's pretty hard to move the King stone. Tremorinus isn't happy with Merlin for insisting that this is the stone they have to take.
- In the end, Merlin figures out how to move it—but not by magic. Pure science.
- As Merlin travels with the stone back to Britain, he's not really there. Instead, he's sitting in the King's bedroom in Winchester. This is the deathbed he talked about earlier.
- Merlin learns that Ambrosius had been poisoned by someone after he defeated Pascentius. Merlin sees the king-star rise again, and he knows that the king has died.
- The story speeds up from here. Merlin goes back to Amesbury and repairs Stonehenge to honor Ambrosius. Uther is crowned king in London.