The Legend of William Tell

A malevolent force threatens the peaceful Kingdom of Kale: Shaytana's Eye, the Dark Crystal, from which arch-villains Kreel and his protégé Xax derive their power. At the head of an army of Xaxian Warriors, Kreel and Xax invade the Citadel and murder the King and the Queen, keeping their daughter Vara, as their prisoner. The future of the kingdom is in terrible danger, and its only hope the legendary Crystal Arrow, Talisman of Kale: its strength alone can defeat Shaytana's Eye. Kalem, the super-being of Light as Kreel represents Darkness, must find a hero for the quest ... Kalem searches out William Tell, a dashing headstrong, charismatic young man named for an ancient hero. Will's life to date has been simple and secluded: he refuses to become leader of the resistance movement which, Kalem tells him, is his destiny. His mission is twofold: to find the Crystal Arrow - and to rescue the Princess Vara, the true ruler of Kale. E reluctantly sets out on his quest with his loyal dog Alvar - but on his way to the Citadel is captured and thrown into the Mines. There will meets two unlikely followers: Leon, the Heraclean, strong and wise; and Aruna, descended from a species of wildcats, beautiful, fierce and proud. Together, using their combined and characteristic talents, they escape the Mines and infiltrate the Citadel. Vara is rescued - but against her own will, for she has been hypnotized by Kreel and believes he and Xax will protect her in this strange and frightening world. As Will, Leon, Aruna, Vara and Alvar climb into the mountains where they will be safe, Kalem appears once more to Will, and offers him the Crystal Arrow pendent which represents his Quest .... and the adventures truly begin.

In the new reign of terror Xaxian Warriois have been pillaging the countryside, dispersing and destroying any tribes or villages which remain loyal to the old order. One of the survivors is Drogo - a boy close to Vara's age, descended from the wolf tribe. Drogo encounters the band and leads them to another survivor, the lovely Cyrana, who also joins the group. Will's crossbow has been broken a foolish attempt by Vara to escape; Cyrana suggests the master craftsman Mondar could fix it, and they set off to find him. But however they change their course, Xax remains hot on their trail. It becomes clear there must be a traitor in their group passing information somehow to the Warriors: but which of the newcomers is it? Mondar is being held prisoner by Kreel and Xax, who wish him to create a new super-weapon from the Crystals. Xax also holds Mondar's only child as hostage and whose life will be forfeit if he does not comply with their demands. The band discover Syrana is the traitor in their midst. She tearfully explains her predicament - Mondar is her father, and she must help Xax or he will die. Will plans a daring rescue attempt, during which Drogo is captured. Will gives himself up in exchange for the wolf-boy - but as Xax prepares to fire Mondar's super-weapon, it explodes in his hands, allowing the band, with Mondar and Cyrana to escape. Kalem comes to their rescue with the gift of a magical Shelter: as they enter it appears to merge with the countryside, concealing them completely from their pursuers. Before he and Cyrana take leave of the band, Mondar fixes Will's broken crossbow, strengthening and adjusting it so that it is better than before. He offers the orphaned Drogo a home - but Drogo cannot bear to leave his newfound friends. With the addition of Drogo, the rebel band is complete.

The Lords Xax and Kreel have put a price on the head of William Tell - and are distributing Wanted posters around the villages. As two slaves, Freya and Pieter, are about to be set free by their master Hugo, a Xaxian Captain appears and harshly reminds them that according to a new statute, slaves are necessary to the economy and can no longer be freed. Pieter is to be sent to the mines; the beautiful Freya, coveted by Xax, is sent to the Citadel. Princess Vara escapes from William Tell during a battle with Xaxian Warriors and is befriended by Tyrean nymphs, who are secretly in the pay of Xax. Hugo asks Will for help to rescue his beloved - Freya. Will says they must first recover Vara. In the battle, two Xaxian Warriors are killed - and in retribution, their Captain intends to execute twenty villagers, unless William Tell gives himself up. Will fells he has no choice. He is taken to the Citadel and imprisoned. Kreel and Xax cynically set up a mock "trial" to convict Will for the murder of King Tringnom and Queen Bethel. Freya, who has made a spirited attempt on Xax's life during her captivity, is to be hanged next to Will. Aruna, Leon and Drogo rescue Vara and appear at the Citadel disguised as Xaxian Warriors, just as Will and Freya are about to be hung. During the scuffle the band escapes with the Lord Xax captive. Leon and Aruna are all for executing Xax on the spot - but Will feels to do so would make them little better than Xax himself. Xax is allowed to run for his life. Vara, shocked into seeing the true nature of Xax, finally accepts that those she once considered her friends are her deadly enemies, and those she considered her enemies, her friends. She realizes Will and the band have not only saved her life, but are her only chance of one day returning to the throne as the rightful ruler of Kale.

A bold plan of William Tell's to infiltrate the Citadel through his friend, the brilliant horseman Alexim, goes dangerously awry when Leon is caught talking to Alexim in the marketplace, and arrested. Rather than execute Leon immediately, as Xax would prefer, Kreel holds Leon prisoner - as bait, convinced that William will mount a rescue attempt. Will witnesses Leon's arrest and seizes a Xaxian Warrior's death-wand which he takes back to the Shelter with him. Will believes he can tune the death-wand tho his thoughts, but in fact the reverse is true: the death-wand works by turning the bearer into the Dark Crystal, and therefore making them vulnerable to Kreel's evil influence. Will lures Xax from the Citadel by proposing a duel with death-wands in the forest. With Xax out of the way and with the help of Alexim, Will slips into the Citadel to rescue Leon. But Kreel is expecting him, and the closer Will gets to Shaytana's Eye the more he is pulled into Kreel's sway. Alexim is filled trying to free Leon and finally Will is turned completely to the Dark Side, agreeing to become Kreel's puppet as Xax has been. Kalem, speaking through Vara, calls Will back to the Light - and he, the princess and Leon escape through the Citadel just as Xax returns to confront Kreel for his failure to destroy Tell and the resistance movement. Will has learned a hard lesson and lives to fight another day.

Will has become obsessed with bitter memories of his parents, dead at Xax's hands. Despite Kalem's warning that he must concentrate on his Quest, Will can not leave aside fruitless thoughts of revenge. Kreel has a new plan for subjugating Kale. He is beginning to form a Youth Brigade - "education" the children of the carious regions and villages to form a spy network. One of these is Lucien, a boy of around Vara's age, whose home - the Hidden Valley - is knows to Will of old. The valley can only be reached through a narrow gorge, over which hangs a vast rock known as the Sentinel. Legend has it that the Sentinel protects the valley; whoever moves it will die. Will believes the Hidden Valley will prove a safe heaven for his exhausted group - but in there people are strangely altered. Leon discovers Kreel has contaminated the water supply with the powerful hypnotic substance - the "waking sleep" - and in so doing has created a class of willing slaves. He can brew an antidote, but he feels that there is no time for this - amongst such zombies they are all in great danger, and should move on immediately. Will feels a loyalty to the villagers who treated him so kindly as a child, and insists they be save - but Xax, drawn physically to Will by the strength of his rage, is already on his way to the valley, with a phalanx of Warriors behind. At Will's insistence, the antidote is brewed and administered, and the villagers come to their sensed in time to defend their home. Aruna and Leon push the Sentinel from its resting place and close the only entrance to the Valley in front of Xax and his troops. Lucien, shocked by the role he has played in the subjugation of his people, abandons his role of spy. The Youth Brigade is dissolved. In the rock slide caused by the Sentinel's fall, Will has been grievously wounded. It was his idea to move the stone, and he must die. Kalem appears to the band and tells them that in order for Will to survive, they must forgive him for allowing his own passions to lead them into such danger. They agree. Will is restored in time to help the villagers escape from Xax. Will learns his lesson: bitter thoughts of the past will blur his judgment, and compromise the Quest for the Crystal Arrow.

Life-sized statues of Xax, Lord Protector, have been placed in every village and on every road, to which the Kaleans must pay homage, under pain of imprisonment. The statues are actually a form of surveillance: the eyes of the crystals, relaying images from all over the countryside to Xax and Kreel. Two small children, Tilly and Flynn, are observed making fun of a statue and are dragged away to work in the Mines. The beautiful Lalia, who lost her fiancé Brodam to Xax and believes him dead, also refuses to worship the idol and is taken prisoner - but is rescued by Will, who is very soon in love with her. However, Xax, watching through the crystals, has also become enamored of Lalia, and sets out himself in search of her. Will has discovered that the crystals used to transmit the images are from a particular, rare, highly flammable kind of quartz; they would need to be regularly replaces, so that if he could destroy the source - a single mine - the surveillance would cease. The jeweller Florian gives him "star-silver" - a substance that if fired into a seam of the quartz would act as a catalyst to blow up the entire mine. The band, with Lalia, set off for the mine with Xax on their hot trail. Will, posing as a Xaxian captain, manages to fool the Head Guard into evacuating the mine before he fires the star-silver into the crystal. Xax and the Warriors are frightened away by the news that the mine is about to explode. Tilly, Flynn and the other prisoners are safe; but the kind man who had taken care of them in captivity cannot be found. Will realizes that this man is none other than Brodam, and faces an almost unbearable choice: he either lets Brodam die, or loses Lalia forever. Nobly Will goes into the smoldering mine and save the life his rival. Will discovers that his challenge in this adventure was to learn to really love, and therefore act selflessly ... Out sight of the band, Lalia turns to Brodam. He is transformed into a deer, and Lalia herself into ... Kalem.

Kalem, daring to the point of arrogance, transforms herself into a bird in order to spy on Kreel in his stronghold - but Shaytana's Eye senses her, and in the encounter she is badly wounded. She stumbles back to the heroes in a state of shock. In order to restore herself she must drink from the Crystal Stream, which contains her life-spirit. Kalem is far to weak to make the journey herself: Will and the wildcat Aruna must go in her stead, leaving Leon and Drogo to guard Vara and the ailing Kalem. Vara, still troubled by nightmares about the violent end of her parents and of her former life, has been touched by the psychic power of Kreel. He is sending her images of her old nurse Melba, which become so strong Vara is drawn back to the Citadel to find her. Drogo follows, powerless to stop the headstrong princess from putting herself and all the others in such peril ... Melba, who is secretly working for Kreel, agrees to come back with Vara and Drogo and join the rebels - but she carries a crystal through which she communicates with Kreel, betraying the location of the camp and invisible Shelter. As Kalem tosses and turns in her fever, Will and Aruna struggle back from the Crystal Stream, encountering and overcoming all the efforts of the magical Snowy Mountain to defend itself against intruders. Even as they return Kreel is accompanying Xax and a party of Warriors to the very site of the Shelter, which Kalem no longer has the psychic strength to hide. Aruna takes it on herself to create a distraction so that Will can reach Kalem and administer the life-giving water - but in the battle Aruna is blasted by Shaytana's Eye over the edge of a cliff. Her death seems certain. Just as Kalem's life is saved, the Shelter explodes in the faces of Xax and Kreel. An infuriated Kreel tells Xax that Kalem has made the Shelter vanish before he had time to destroy it, and her. The duplicitous Melba returns to the Citadel alone, but the heroes celebration are muted - until Aruna saunters through the door of the new Shelter unscathed. For she is of the cat tribe, and cats have nine lives ....

The Princess Vara has fallen ill. The band is taken in by Harana, a healer and leader of a group that calls itself the Watchers. Tucked away in a bountiful valley that does not appear on a map, the Watchers exist in a pocket of peace and plenty that the battle-weary heroes find difficult to credit can still exist in Kale. Stranger still, Harana and her followers have never heard of Xax and Kreel .... To Xax's exasperation, Kreel is toying with abandoning force as a method to subjugate the peoples of Kale - it is far too inefficient. Harana is the unwitting testing-ground for a new experiment. All Watchers must undergo a rite of passage in the so-called Chamber of Good Thoughts - where they are brainwashed and tortured in the name of the Master, who is really Kreel in disguise. The victims are taught to send out psychic shock waves whenever Xax and Kreel are criticized. Kreel's plan is to send Harana's converts out as Ambassadors of Good Will - subtly undermining any resistance to a complete takeover by Xax. Will discovers what is really going on through the beautiful Zefra, a fierce warrior-woman who alone has managed to escaped the Chamber. But it is too late for Leon and Aruna, who have become part of the Watchers. To save them Will must descend into the Chamber ... and he face Kreel alone. Will is on the point of defeat when Harana, horrified to discover she has been the agent of so much pain and misery, herself descends to the Chamber and destroys it. She dies in so doing - but her life has not been given in vain ... With the spell broken, her followers are restored to themselves, and an insidious and sinister scheme of Kreel has once again been thwarted.

A horrible threat hangs over the Kingdom: but for once it does not issue from Xax and Kreel. The evil sorcerer, the Magus Zadrim, has been working in concert with the scientist Voss to develop a horrifying new strain of a deadly virus knows as the Yttrium Element. Voss has succeeded in rarefying the Element to the point where once added to water it multiples its strength a hundredfold: any living thing coming into contact with the contaminated water will die horribly. Triumphant, Zadrim comes to Xax and Kreel and issues his ultimatum: either they will surrender half the kingdom to him, or they will find themselves ruling a land up entirely of dead settlements ... At Kalem's counsel Will sends Aruna to the house of Athelstan, Voss' Master to pose as his assistant. She rapidly discovers Voss plan and she and the band pursue him toward Zadrim's Eyrie where Voss is scheduled to sell the flask containing his deadly invention. But on the way Voss is killed and Zadrim snatches the flask; and Will finds himself on a rescue mission with a most unlikely ally - Xax ... Aruna steals the flask back and the band is pursued in their turn by Zadrim. At the river marking to boundary of the Torrid Zone the two groups engage in desperate battle over the flask. In a curious twist of fate, Xax ends up saving the life of his sworn enemy - they are for once united by a common interest: saving Kale from wholesale destruction. As Zadrim magically pulls the flask out of Will's grasp and toward himself, Will fires a bolt from the crossbow - and the flask shatters over Zadrim. The sorcerer is killed instantly, and Zadrim's soldiers flee. Then the band turns on Xax - but Will cannot allow the man who has just saved his own life to be executed. He allows Xax to go unscathed - but the next time they meet it will be under very different circumstances ...

Xax has taken a convoy of Warriors out on a hunt - and has a fantastic piece of luck when Will and the band stumble right into his path. They are chased by the horsemen across an open plain, with nowhere to hide in sight. Capture seems inevitable, when out of the mists ahead of them their looms a dark and forbidden castle - which certainly wasn't there before .... With no time to think, the band rolls under the cast gate of the castle just as it clangs shut. Safe from Xax, our heroes discover a new dilemma now faces them. This is the Castle of Doubt, where every good thing has its evil counterpart, and nothing is what it seems. There are two exits to the Castle: one leads to safety - the other to destruction. The only inhabitants of the Castle seem to be the Master himself, a benign of infuriating old man who speaks in philosophical riddles, and his two servants, the identical twins Pinto and Tamlin. Tamlin can speak only truth; Pinto can speak only lies - but how is anyone ever to tell them apart? And learning to ask the right questions is the crucial lesson the Castle of Doubt exists to teach. Discovering how to trust your own instincts becomes imperative for Will when Drogo and Vara fall into deadly danger, and he must somehow work out how to escape the Castle in order to save them. Will realizes that a true leader must use his wits as well as his courage in order to be worthy of his responsibilities. The people of the nearby village rally around the rebels to protect them from Xax, who has set up an encampment and laid siege to the Castle. The band escapes to find Kalem once more: Kalem, who as spent this adventure masquerading as ... the Master of Doubt.

In this episode Will and the band discover that one must be careful what one wishes for, for the wish may be granted ... Fleeing from Xaxian Warriors, Will and the others stumble into the Sacred Valley - a place of startling natural beauty which seems to magically grant their every desire. An image of Kalem appears and tells them the Crystal Arrow has been found and the Quest completed: they are free to pursue their own dreams. Leon finds his old Professor and embarks on the life of study and learning the troubles in Kale interrupted; Drogo finds his father, who he has long believed to have been murdered by the Warriors, and begins to be inducted into the ways of the wolf tribe; Aruna finds Ortlan, the Arborean she was once to marry; Vara awakes to find herself crowned Queen of a happy, united Kale; and Will, the reluctant hero, settles down contentedly to farming - all he has ever wanted - with the woman of his dreams at his side. But the Sacred Valley protects itself from intruders at any cost. As our heroes become lost in their fantasies Kalem must confront her own dark side: Alter-Kalem, who tells her the Valley demands a death - either her own or that of her champion, William Tell. As Kalem desperately flees the evil Alter-Kalem, the band's dreams begin to turn horribly sour ... and it is only when William is actually laid out on an altar and apparently about to be sacrificed by his own mentor, that Drogor awakes to the danger and persuades the others they must abandon these addictive, seductive illusions and return to the real and difficult world.

By a remote and beautiful lake a young man, the Sark Darek, has made his camp in the center of a mysterious, Stonehenge-like Ring of Stones. As he tends his fire a warrior from the rival mountain tribe of the Mendicans attacks him - but the Ring of Stones is a magical place, and we see that Kreel and Kalem are fighting psychically through the media of the two young men. A strange blue light fills the Ring; both Darek and the Mendican are suddenly overwhelmed, and shocked and frightened, the Mendican stumbles backward out of the Ring and over the edge of the cliff ... Meanwhile, Will and the band are on a diplomatic mission to Mendica. So far the Sarks and the Mendicans have been remote enough from the Citadel to escape the attentions of Xax and Kreel, but through the death-wands and the power of the Dark Crystal, the Xaxians are gradually taking over all Kale. Will is greatly concerned that the two tribes are too involved with fighting each other to understand or appreciate the threat to them that Xax's Warriors represent. But Assan, the Mendican leader, is preoccupied with the disappearance of his son Bruno ... When Darek comes to the Mendican camp, greatly wounded, bearing a note in blood that reads "Help Bruno", the Mendicans instantly give chase. Assan believes Bruno has been murdered by the Sark, and wishes to declare full scale war. Will persuades Assan to give him a day to find out what happened within the Ring. The band brings Darek back to Mendica, and he is put on trial for murder. At the last moment they discover that the Rings swapped the souls of Bruno and Darek: Assan was about to hang his own son, in the body of a Sark ... Through Bruno's tragic death the two tribes learn to see each other in a new light. They put aside their differences, and plan to form a united front against Xax. For as Kalem triumphantly tells Kreel, in the end "the wisdom of Light will always defeat the wisdom of Darkness".

In an attempt to defeat Will and Kalem, Kreel has brought forth the most concentrated evil in the form of the Memlok - creature of the Dark. The shape changing Memlok is sent out into the world in the guise of a pretty servant-girl, Arabella. Arabella is placed in the path of the rebels; they "resuce2 her from Xaxian Warriors and take her back to the Shelter with them. But this time Kreel may have gone too far ... Leon comes to the home of his old friend and teacher, Chow Chu, who tells him in his studies he has found a reference to the Crystal Arrow itself. He believes it may be found at the center of an ancient maze known as the Labyrinth. Could the Quest finally be coming to a conclusion? Will and Aruna set out to find the heart of the Labyrinth, leaving Leon on guard at the entrance - but they are quickly lost within the maze, for it is, of course, only another creation of Kreel's ... With the adults gone, Arabella manages to lure Vara back to the Citadel before revealing her true form. Drogo, frantic, rouses Leon, but their attempt to rescue the girls only leads to their own capture. However, evil cannot always be contained or controlled: as Kreel gloats over the prisoners that the Memlok has delivered to him, the creature turns on Kreel himself. The other prisoners flee, but the strongman Leon, realizing that the Memlok poses an even worse threat to Kale than Kreel and Xax, helps him subjugate it one more - and return it to whence it came - before escaping himself.

Kreel has a plan of diabolical cleverness to finally defeat Will, and turn Kale against the rebel heroes. He has created a doppelganger - Will's mirror image - who is marauding the countryside with a band of Barbarian as henchmen, leaving a trail of murder and destruction in his wake, and all in the guise of William Tell. Kalem does not understand why the tribes have turned against them, but she senses a sinister disturbance in the Eye - and persuades Xax to let her into the Citadel, and close to Kreel, by disguising herself as the startlingly beautiful warrior Thalestris. Will and the band go to the village of Zama for refuge - but even these old friends, led by the traitor Priestess, turn against them and they must flee for their lives. Vara is abducted by a second Doppelganger, who she goes with willingly, believing him to be William. Will sends Aruna, Leon and Drogo after Vara while he pursues Doppelganger I and the Barbarians. He is led to a cavern deep in the mountain, where the Doppelganger reveals his face for the first time and tells Will he is his own twin brother. Meanwhile the second Doppelganger has dragged Vara back to Zama, where the others follow. The villagers bind and gag the band, and Doppelganger II - still masquerading successfully as Will, and pretending to have seen the "error" of his ways - prepares to slay them in front of Vara's horrified eyes ... Back in the cavern, Will has left his guard down, bewildered by his mirror image - and he too is on the point of being killed as Xax and Kreel watch with delight through the image pool in the Citadel. Kalem, listening outside the door, is in despair: she bursts into Kreel's room, distracting the two villains for long enough for Will to shoot the imposter with his crossbow, but in do doing exposing herself to the full force of Shaytana's Eye. The doppelgangers are destroyed and Will and the band's live are saved - but Kalem has been blasted seemingly out of existence ... and without her, can the Quest continue?

William Tell is in despair - he believes Kalem is dead, and that without her the Quest is lost. Drogo arrives with news from the Citadel of Xax's impending Coronation. Xax has declared he will go on the Pilgrimage of Kings alone, as the Statutes require ... But when has Xax ever obeyed the Statutes? Will is convinced this must be a trap, and not a very subtle one at that. Aruna, however, has become impatient and angry with Will's passivity since Kalem's "death". Against orders, she goes after Xax - and is herself captured. Will joins a ragged band of prisoners, and thus creeps into the Citadel to rescue her, but cannot escape from the Giant Gar, who has been set the task of training the prisoners. They will perform as gladiators during the Coronation festivities: fighting to the death for the amusement of the crowd. Meanwhile, Xax has an extraordinary plan for Aruna - to make her his Warrior Queen. Confused and angry with Will, Aruna is vulnerable to Xax's manipulations of the truth. To the horror of Leon, Vara and Drogo, who steal into the Coronation disguised as peasants, she appears on the dais next to Xax. Can Aruna, who has fought so many battles for the rebels, really have changed sides? Kreel has a failsafe plan to find out. To prove Aruna's loyalty to Xax, she will fight the first combat to the death - and her partner will be: William Tell. But will cannot kill his companion of all their adventures - and just when it seems his own life is most in danger, Kalem awakes from her trance-like sleep and calls to him. He is the Chosen One; his life is paramount. Kalem orders will to kill Aruna. Gar creates enough of a disturbance for the band to escape - but with the death of Aruna all seems lost. The others turn on Will, they cannot believe he could have betrayed one of them so callously. Will, equally appalled and equally heartsick - abandons the Quest - and the Princess - and he and Alvar set off on their own once more ...

With Kalem apparently destroyed, the band dissolved and the leader of the rebels Kreel, no one knows where, assures Xax, that the battle to win the Kingdom is to all intents and purposes won. But super-beings cannot really "die". Will has been eking out a living which seems designed as self-punishment - on a pig farm. Kalem appears to him here and tells him this is no way for a great leader to behave: the Quest for the Arrow is his destiny. Will is incredulous to find Kalem alive, but also angry. He holds her responsible for Aruna's death, and cannot forgive her for the order which prompted him to kill the woman he loved. Kalem tells him, Aruna could still be saved and disappears. Will is lead by a black cat - perhaps a symbol of Aruna herself - to Leon, Drogo and Vara, who have been working in disguise in a sordid eating-house. The band sets out, together once more, to find the last of their number. However, Bolino, the crafty owner of the eating house, has found out who they are, and sends word to the Citadel. The black cat leads them to the Throne of Thrones, the ancient resting-place of all great Kalean heroes, pursued by Xax and Kreel. In the Throne of Thrones lies not only Aruna, but the original William Tell, the legendary hero Will was named for. In his grasp lies ... the Crystal Arrow. In seeking Aruna, the love of his life, Will has reached the end of his Quest. Greatly moved, Will takes up the Crystal Arrow ... and Aruna awakes. Kreel cannot bear to see his life's work lost. In desperation he abandons Xax, seizes Vara and gallops back to the Citadel. There he makes a last gamble: he turns the full force of Shaytana'a Eye on the princess. Kalem warms Will, that there can't be any waste of time. He shoots the Crystal Arrow into the heart of Shaytana's Eye ... and the Dark Crystal is destroyed. With it the hopes and the power of the villains are gone. The Light has won!