The Hounds of Avalon (Gollancz S.F.) (34 page)

Mallory woke on a rough wooden pallet, his head thick and his limbs heavy. The aroma of wood smoke filled the air. When he finally accepted that he had survived his ordeal, he managed to lever himself up on his elbows to look around. He was in a roundhouse like ones he had seen as a child in history books about the Celtic era. A small fire crackled in the centre of the room, the smoke winding its way up through the hole in the centre of the turf roof. His bed was positioned so that he could see straight out through the open door across the lush Somerset countryside. The sun was rising, framed perfectly between the door jambs, golden and large and misty.

‘You’re bloody lucky.’

Mallory strained around to see who had spoken. A man leaned on a gnarled wooden staff, watching Mallory with a suspicious expression. Mallory guessed he was well into his sixties, but he was so fit and lithe that it was difficult to tell his true age. He could just as easily have been a hundred. His skin was browned from days in the sun, but his long grey hair was matted with dirt and grease and hung lank around his shoulders. He wore a dirty cheesecloth shirt, open at the front, shapeless, filthy trousers and a pair of well-worn sandals. He looked like someone who had spent his life at the music festival they used to hold annually just outside the town.

‘If someone hadn’t seen you getting wrapped in the defences you’d have been gone for good,’ the old man continued.

‘Who are you?’ Mallory said. He was already surreptitiously searching for his weapon. His scabbard was empty.

The old man realised what he was doing and gave a brief, hard smile. ‘Where did you get the sword?’

‘None of your business.’ Mallory swung his legs on to the floor, his head spinning.

The old man brandished his staff. ‘See this? I’ve split more heads open with it than you’ve had hot dinners. You couldn’t beat me even if you were fit, and look at you now. Better answer my questions before you’re out cold again.’

‘I’m not answering any questions,’ Mallory said defiantly.

The old man moved his bony, angular body like a ballet dancer, swinging the staff in a blur. The tip thudded against Mallory’s windpipe before he had even seen it coming.

‘All right,’ Mallory choked.

‘The sword. That’s one of the three great swords. Too powerful a thing for a weedy little weak-arsed runt like you. Who did you steal if off?’

‘I didn’t steal it. It was given to me.’

The old man eased the pressure of the staff a little and eyed Mallory curiously. ‘Who gave it to you?’

‘A woman called Rhiannon.’ Mallory saw the flicker of recognition in the old man’s face and added, ‘In the Court of Peaceful Days.’

‘You’ve been to T’ir n’a n’Og?’

Mallory nodded and the old man lowered the staff and paced away. ‘They’ll let any bugger in these days,’ he muttered, opening a box in one corner. The familiar blue light of the sword illuminated his face. ‘You’d better take it, then. But don’t think it’ll give you an advantage.’

Mallory’s legs still felt weak, but when he plucked the sword from the box the familiar energy surged into his limbs.

‘You’re a Brother of Dragons?’ the old man asked.

‘Yes. The name’s Mallory.’

The old man snorted. ‘Sounds like a girl’s name to me.’ He leaned on his staff once more and surveyed Mallory’s face. ‘I’m the Bone Inspector. I run this here college.’

‘I’ve travelled a long way to get here,’ Mallory said. ‘I’m looking for someone who used to be a Brother of Dragons … someone who fought in the Fall.’

‘Then you’ve found him.’

Mallory turned to see a tall, slim young man with Asian features standing in the doorway. Long black hair framed a handsome face with perfect bone structure, and his natural beauty was accentuated by the black clothes he wore. ‘My name is Shavi,’ he said.

Mallory emerged from the roundhouse into the beauty of a Glastonbury dawn. The air was fresh and sharp, a pearly mist drifting ethereally in the hollows, shimmering in the golden sunlight. The only sound was the birdsong rising up from the green landscape spreading out on all sides far below.

The roundhouse was set on the side of the Tor, just beneath the level of the terraces that formed a processional pathway to the top. Mallory observed that the college covered a vast area, from the roundhouse down the hillside, across the streets of formerly residential houses and into the grounds of the abbey. It encompassed the Chalice Well, nestling on the slopes at the foot of the Tor. The new college buildings were plain, built in a Celtic roundhouse style, and were dotted throughout the area. Nature was being allowed to reclaim parts of the old town, with new trees sprouting here and there, ivy and climbing plants swarming over brick and concrete. It was a place that looked at peace with itself.

‘Breathe deeply,’ Shavi said softly. ‘Let the tension ease from your body. Here you can be yourself. Here you can be everything you ever wanted to be.’

His words brought an unexpected juddering sigh from Mallory; he had the sudden feeling that he wanted to stay there and turn his back on the harsh daily battles of life.

‘This is a mystical place,’ Shavi continued, ‘and now the true power in the land is being allowed to rise up. We have returned it to its old use, as a college for learning and study of the mysteries of Existence. Here the important things are life and love, faith and hope.’

‘And don’t you forget it,’ the Bone Inspector said gruffly.

Mallory could feel the magic in the very air as Shavi and the Bone Inspector led him to a small campfire where they would watch the dawn turn into day. Down at the foot of the hill, Mallory could see people emerging to greet the morning. ‘You’ve taken a lot of people under your wing.’

‘Many feel the call to come, in their blood, in their dreams.’ Shavi looked beatific with his eyes closed as he felt the warmth of the sun on his face. ‘Nearly two thousand years ago there was a great race of wise men who knew the secrets of the stars and the trees and the land. They were almost eradicated by the Romans during the invasion.’

‘Druids,’ Mallory said.

‘Their true name was the Culture. But they never died out. To avoid persecution they slipped into the background, hiding in plain sight in the old communities, dispensing their wisdom where they could, ensuring that all the knowledge they had gained was passed down the generations.’ Shavi nodded to his grim-faced companion. ‘The Bone Inspector was the last of them.’

‘In this world,’ the Bone Inspector said obliquely.

‘But here we are building the Culture up again, training a new generation with the knowledge of millennia past and sending them out into a newly made world. Everything has been done over so that we can make a fresh start.’ He smiled at Mallory. ‘And this time we intend to get it right.’

‘You chose a good place. Better than Wolverhampton.’

‘Symbolism,’ the Bone Inspector grunted. ‘The Culture had their best college here. But it’s also the place where the land’s power is focused.’

‘The Isle of Avalon,’ Shavi said. ‘In the Dark Ages, Glastonbury was as you see it now, an island in the waters and marshland of the Somerset Levels. Avalon was the Celtic heaven, the Otherworld, Land of Always Summer, the mystical land of the dead where the fabled apple trees grew.’ He made an expansive gesture to indicate
the apple trees that were now growing all over the area. ‘Glastonbury was considered to be the entrance to the Otherworld, a place that straddles the borders between this world and the next.’

‘And is it?’ Mallory asked.

‘Oh, yes.’ Shavi’s smile was enigmatic. ‘This is the place where legend said Arthur’s body was sent after his final battle. And all places linked with Arthurian legend are tied to the Otherworld, focal points of the Blue Fire, which is the epitome of the power of transformation. But you would know all about that.’

‘Bits and pieces. No one gave me a manual when I got the job,’ Mallory said.

‘That’s for a good reason – so that you grow into it,’ the Bone Inspector said. ‘The only knowledge worth having is the stuff you learn yourself.’

Beaming, Shavi clapped Mallory on the back in a surprising show of bonhomie. ‘It is so good to meet another Brother of Dragons.’

‘How did you cope when you first found out? Because I’m worried we’re making a bit of a mess of it. Letting the side down.’

Shavi glanced at the Bone Inspector, who burst into deep laughter, clapping his thigh as if Mallory had said the funniest thing in the world. ‘You should have seen the last lot in the early days,’ he said as he caught his breath. ‘About as pathetic a bunch as you would find anywhere.’

‘We came together just as the Fall was starting to happen,’ Shavi said. ‘At that time, no one really knew what was going on. Technology was failing; magic was springing up all over. Fabulous Beasts were flying over the land, but no one would believe in them unless they’d nearly been burned to a crisp. And then the gods came back, the Golden Ones the Celts called the Tuatha Dé Danann when they were first in this world. They wanted control over everything.’

‘Except their natural enemies had different ideas,’ the Bone Inspector said, ‘and the Fomorii were the nastiest bastards you’ve ever clapped eyes on. Ugly as sin, shape-shifting, meaner even than me. With that lot going at it hammer and tongs, the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons had to hit the ground running.’

‘We all had our special abilities, which we had to hone,’ Shavi
continued. ‘I was the spiritual one, the seer. Ruth Gallagher mastered the Craft to become quite formidable—’

‘I know about her,’ Mallory said. ‘She became the big witch-queen. Trained up my girlfriend.’ Mallory was overcome with a deep sadness. Sophie would have loved it there in Glastonbury, with its peace and abiding spirituality. He had thought his grief would diminish, even if only a little, with each passing day; instead it was growing stronger and more difficult to contain.

‘There was Laura DuSantiago, who gained great powers over natural things. And Ryan Veitch, who became a fearsome warrior.’ Shavi’s face darkened. ‘Ryan died in the Battle of London. He was manipulated to betray us.’

‘And the fifth? He was the leader, wasn’t he?’

‘Jack Churchill, though we knew him as Church.’ Shavi grew sad. ‘A good man. A great man. The Blue Fire burned in him the strongest. He filled the symbolic role of King. He died in the final battle, too, though we never found his body. And Ruth, who loved him dearly, was broken-hearted. She put on a brave face and attempted to get on with her life, but the last time I saw her she still looked as if she’d had a part of her cut out.’

‘You’ve made yourselves quite a reputation,’ Mallory said. ‘The word’s gone around about the Famous Five Who Saved the World.’

‘We were just normal people, trying to do the best we could.’

‘Try telling that to everyone out there. These days you’re on a par with the gods. Everyone keeps talking about how you’re going to come back, save the world again.’

‘That’s your job now,’ the Bone Inspector said.

Mallory ignored him. His attention was fixed on Shavi. On the surface he appeared to be a calm, simple man, but beneath that façade lay complexity, Mallory was certain. If Shavi had once been a ‘normal man’, Mallory didn’t believe that was the case any more. He had grown into the role thrust upon him, and even sitting there on the hillside enjoying the dawn he exuded a great strength and charisma that made him a natural leader.

‘There’s even a movement out there that’s elevated Ryan Veitch to some kind of Anti-Christ,’ Mallory said. ‘The Great Betrayer, who’s going to come back and put the world to rights. Or wrongs. Everything gets twisted in the telling. Your story keeps doing the
rounds, with little bits added here and there. You’re all mythical now.’

‘Poor Ryan is not coming back,’ Shavi said. ‘He was misunderstood, troubled, but not really bad. He simply could not overcome his failings. He was buried on a hillside in North London.’

‘Better not spread that around or they’ll be digging up his body for the resurrection.’ Mallory could see that Shavi was enjoying the peace he had found. After so much sacrifice, how could Mallory ask him for more?