Lancelot and the Wolf Page 20

  “My Wolf,” he whispered.

  “I will always protect you, my King,” I murmured. I kissed his sweat bathed brow.

  The air rushed into my lungs, cold and damp. A sharp orange light snarled its way into my eyes and a gruff voice said, “Thank God,” Geraint said. “I can’t find Arthur.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  I sat up, Geraint held a candle in his hand. It showed me a world of bleak isolation. Night shrouded the land, the stars a distant meaningless light. The fog had vanished and taken my heart with it. I sat on slightly damp earth, which remained soft under my hands. There were scrubby trees surrounding us, we were not where we had been, on the road.

  “What do you know?” I asked, reaching and checking our weapons.

  “I can’t find Else or Arthur. I’ve been awake over an hour. I tried to wake you but you’ve been out cold.” I heard the stress in Geraint’s voice.

  “Just as well, I’ve been dreaming again,” I said as I stood. “Where are the horses?”

  “I don’t know,” Geraint replied.

  “I wish them luck with that then,” I said, thinking of Ash and how difficult he’d be making someone’s life. “Do we know what happened?”

  Geraint shook his head and the candle fluttered, “One minute we were lighting the fire, the next I felt so heavy I couldn’t move, then this,” he waved his hands around and the candle’s flame vanished. “Bollocks.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said waiting for my eyes to adjust. I wished briefly the wolf lived somewhere other than my head.

  “How are we going to pick up their tracks without light,” Geraint snapped.

  “We aren’t, we are going to follow my instinct if you will just hold still a few minutes,” I said. I closed my eyes and thought about the feeling, which led me to Arthur’s dreams. The ache sprang back to life. I turned in a circle asking for guidance. The pain flared when I turned in one particular direction.

  I opened my eyes, “We go that way.” I pointed, uncertain of the direction until we could see the stars.

  “What about Else?”

  I threw my hands in the air, “What about her? The last I remember, she was the one telling me Arthur needed to be replaced,” I growled, trying very hard not to think too much about what she had done or why. “Let’s not worry about her until we have Arthur back.”

  “She’s a vulnerable woman,” Geraint said.

  “There is nothing vulnerable about, Eleanor de Clare.” I shivered. I realised she might have been tricked and might be working for Arthur’s enemies without realising it but equally she might not. And what of Guinevere in Arthur’s dream? Was she merely a representation of the evil in the court, or was she Queen of our enemies? When would I ever meet a woman I could trust?

  “Maybe she’s with Arthur,” Geraint said. I heard the worry, but didn’t care. I had to find Arthur. Merlin had said once I’d saved his soul, I had to save his body.

  We had nothing to carry, except the clothes in which we’d fallen asleep wearing. We had lost our swords and our horses. We both had some coin, but no food and the four knives we carried our only weapons. Two of which were eating knives.

  We set off along a rough path at a good jogging pace, the mail I wore hardly noticeable. While we ran, I told Geraint about the dream. He cursed softly, “So you think the Queen is a traitor?”

  “I have no idea if she is or if she is just a patsy. Either way she needs stopping,” I said sadly.

  I felt Geraint’s hand on my shoulder, “I am sorry, my friend. You have suffered much for Arthur’s sake.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so we fell silent and just ran through the night. I assumed we were still on the Levels because the ground under our feet remained the same. Travelling over such dangerous terrain made me nervous, drowning in the swamp not what I wanted, but I had no choice. The ache in my chest the only guide on this journey.

  We must have travelled miles at a hard pace until we noticed the ground rising. I pulled Geraint to a stop and looked around me, “We are not in Wessex,” I said.

  Geraint peered into the slowly brightening night. A moon finally appeared over a large odd shaped hill. “This is Avalon. It’s just an Avalon we’ve never seen. It’s like it was before the Sisters came,” he said, breathless from more than the run.

  I felt the same awe. We were not in the Avalon we knew. The small town built around an Abbey full of women who worshipped things I didn’t understand, never existed in this place. “I have a horrible feeling we aren’t even in our world,” I said quietly.

  Geraint stared at me, “We’ve crossed over into the land of the fey?”

  I shrugged, “Can you think of another explanation?”

  Geraint paused, clearly wishing he could, he slumped, “No, it is the only explanation. How are we going to find Arthur now?”

  “Keep following my instinct, I suppose,” I said, moving off once more toward the large naked Tor.

  The whole of Wessex grew up on the tales of Avalon. A place of mystery in the centre of Arthur’s lands. The Sisters of Avalon were a remnant of the old ways, the old religion, which Arthur protected when necessary and ignored most of the rest of the time. They were said to be prophets, healers, guides for the souls of the lost. I had the feeling Arthur knew a great deal more about them than he told us, but he wouldn’t be drawn into revealing all their secrets. Now, however, all Geraint and I faced was the barren hill. Devoid of all except a few bare trees and scrubby grass. We started to walk up the side.

  “We could be here forever,” Geraint moaned as we slogged in the mud.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “The springs are nearby aren’t they?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know? I avoid all this nonsense at every opportunity,” Geraint said. “These places are all over my land and they give me the bloody willies. I just let the locals do their thing and avoid upsetting the priestesses.”

  He talked and whinged, I studied the ground. I had the feeling we needed to be curling around the base of the Tor more to the east and slightly higher. Almost to the base of the main part of the hill. Just as Geraint began another rant about the ills of messing with fey, I found it. A severed artery of water gushed from the side of the hill. My instinct for Arthur pulled me around the water, I walked above the spring and I found a hole.

  “Here,” I called Geraint. “I’ve found it. There’s a stone entrance.” I began tugging at clumps of grass and mud, scrambling to pull the earth away from three small lintels of stone, which formed a rough arch.

  “Oh, yes, that doesn’t look like a trap,” Geraint bitched. “A bit bloody easy.”

  “If you call this easy,” I grunted as I yanked back another sod of earth, “then help.”

  He cursed once, dropped to his knees beside me and we worked on the hole until we made it large enough for us to crawl through easily.

  Geraint peered into the darkness, “We need a torch if you are certain Arthur’s in there.”

  I rubbed my hands on the grass trying to clean them, “I’m certain. I can feel him.” My excitement grew. I ran off to find a branch, needing something to fashion into a torch.

  We did the best we could out of what we had, mostly our own clothing and managed to light the branch.

  “It won’t last long,” Geraint said. We watched it splutter in the darkness.

  I had nothing to say. Crawling into the side of the hill didn’t feel like a wise idea but I knew Arthur lived in there and I wanted him back. I crawled through first, the cold wet earth crumbling under my hands. The ground sloped away from the entrance dramatically. “Geraint, as you come in,” I managed to say before the ground gave way.

  Dirt and stones spilled from under my hands and knees. I yelled as I skidded forward into the darkness. It felt like miles but my hands found hard flat stone before my nose did and I stopped, scraping my palms in the process.

  “Lancelot?” I heard from above me.

  “Fine,” I snapped. “As
I was saying, be careful. The ground slopes away heavily.”

  Geraint chose to climb in on his backside, wriggling through the gap. The torch high over his head. He slipped the few feet I’d skidded down and landed with a grin beside me, “Glad you’re the brave one, going first and all,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” I muttered looking round. We were in a place, which should not have existed.

  “Oh, God, have mercy on our souls,” Geraint prayed as we took in what our feeble light displayed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  We sat a mere hands width from the edge of a drop into utter blackness. My head spun as we peered down and Geraint pulled me back from the precipice. To our left were steps leading downward and upward. We had entered the hill half way up, or half way down, depending on your perspective. We stood slowly on the only visible platform. The steps curled around the inside of the scooped out hill, matching the shape perfectly. An endless spiral of stone steps. Long and shallow, not man sized and they vanished into the darkness. The utter darkness and silence.

  The walls of this great cavern were rough and pitted, whereas the steps were smooth. The only sound came from our breathing and the crackle of our torch.

  “This is not good,” Geraint whispered. The sound escaped us and shushed around the hollow hill, making the hairs on our arms stand erect and our minds shudder at the possibilities.

  I swallowed and looked at him, unable to add to that acoustic terror. He recognised my expression and took a deep breath, nodding agreement. I turned to the steps, placed a hand on the wall for orientation and followed my heart down. We walked slowly and quietly to begin with, waiting with every harsh echo to snap back at us and show us enemies by the hundred. There were no enemies, only the endless journey into nothingness. The torch continued to burn fitfully, surprising us with its longevity but lighting only our small patch of this world. Nothing changed as we circumnavigated the great hill. I did notice a small patch of light when we drew opposite the entrance. It appeared high above us and so far away. Dawn had come. On we walked.

  My legs burned with the effort of negotiating steps, which were a pace and a half wide and half a pace deep. Each step became a form of slow torture and a lesson in patience. My legs, already weary from the run, trembled and my knees threatened to give way at any moment, to send me over the edge into the blackness below. Geraint, behind me, pulled me up short. He bent close to my ear, the echoes driving us both slightly deranged.

  He whispered, “I need to stop, just for a moment.”

  I looked back at him and he appeared ashen in the light. We had run all night and I knew I must look as bad as he did, we’d be no good in a fight. I nodded and we slumped against the wall, taking a step each, stretching our legs. I had possession of the torch, so I lay it down and watched the flickering light. It hinted at the vastness of the hollow hill. Who or what had done this to the Tor I could not imagine and truth be told, I tried damned hard not too. I wondered if the Tor in our own world resembled this one or if only the fey had a hole in their hill.

  I watched Geraint try to ease the burning in his legs by curling them up against his chest. I chose to sit cross legged. We gazed outward, sharing our silence but not our fears. Without comment, we moved simultaneously and rose. My back ached, my legs cramped and I felt sick with hunger but we continued our descent. I have no idea how long we walked. I no longer stared around me, just down at the step in front, so I didn’t trip in my exhaustion. Down, down, step, step, my left hand sore with the feel of the stone guiding me down, down into the pit. The hill smelt damp, felt cold, remained dark. The ache in my heart for Arthur beat in time to the pain in my legs.

  Geraint placed a hand on my shoulder once more. He now held the torch. He raised it high and pointed. I blinked, my eyes unused to focusing on anything other than the steps, steps, steps. I didn’t understand, until I saw him grin, “We are near the bottom, look, the wall.”

  I peered into the dark and realised he’d seen something I hadn’t, we were now circling the hill so tightly we saw the other side in the torch’s light. I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall, “Thank God.” My voice rasped in my throat, I needed water. We took a moment and then started down again, this time faster as the steps began to actively spiral downward. I sensed Arthur more strongly, almost smelling his scent on the air. His name pounded inside my head matching the pace of my feet. I stepped toward a flash of colour at the edge of the torch’s capacity. Geraint yanked me back. I lost my balance and crashed to the step.

  “What the hell?” I snapped.

  Geraint crouched beside me and ignored my protest. The echo had become small, almost non existent this deep inside the hill. “Look,” he said pointing.

  I looked, at the floor. We stood on the final step and tiles reached into the distance. The shape copied the strange elongated flat top on the outside of our Tor. “I don’t understand,” I said crossly. My sense of Arthur pressed against my heart, pushing me forward.

  Geraint rose, walked past me and stood on the last step with the torch high over his head. I saw in the distance a large slab of stone, tall, on a raised dais and a body. Faint light glinted off blonde hair. My legs acted like springs, I rose fluidly, “Arthur,” I pushed against Geraint’s back.

  “No, Lancelot, wait, please.” Geraint actively pushed me back. “Let me think. This isn’t as simple as it looks.”

  “He’s there, it’s that simple,” I yelled, finally setting off the echo. “He must hear us and he isn’t moving, so he’s hurt. I have to reach him.” I felt frantic with the need to go to my King.

  “Just bloody wait,” Geraint said. “Let me think. This isn’t as safe. See, there, the marks on the floor.” He pointed. “It’s a maze without walls, a trap. I don’t want to lose you because you have no brains and no patience. Arthur isn’t going anywhere.”

  I drew breath to argue when I glanced at the floor. Marks covered the earthen tiles. The tiles were large rectangles and on each was a mark, deeply imbedded, cast in red. It made them hard to see in the flickering light.

  “What is it?” I asked, slightly mollified.

  Geraint knelt down, careful to avoid touching the tiles. “It’s an old language, something not used for a long time. I’ve seen its like at home. My land is littered with these markings.”

  “How do we get to Arthur?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet, Lancelot, this is a dead language and I only speak our mother tongue, Latin and Greek, would you like to take a guess?” his exasperation at my nagging made me back off.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just trying to help.”

  “Well, you aren’t helping so sit still and be quiet,” he pointed to a step. I sat and watched as he began pacing back and forth across a narrow strip of tiles free from markings. He muttered under his breath and held his head a great deal. Geraint really is the most intelligent of the three of us. Arthur is the natural leader. I am the killer.

  I contemplated this as I watched him and realised Geraint should be in a monastery somewhere writing and studying the skies for answers to questions I wouldn’t even think to ask. I thought about Arthur’s gift of leadership, the inspiration he inspired in those who followed him and I tried to work out why Stephen de Clare wanted him dead. Jealousy I supposed, a powerful motivator. Me? I sighed. I began to see the faces of some of those I killed, all in the name of my King. I thought about those I had saved because of the death I am capable of creating and I prayed for the strength to save Arthur, “And Else,” I muttered to myself.

  With my mind firmly focused on Arthur, I’d managed to avoid thoughts of Eleanor. I didn’t want to think of her as a traitor. I wanted to believe something, anything else had happened to her. I prayed a reason existed for this madness and I would find her safe but held prisoner somewhere. She no longer occupied my dreams, nor did I see her in Arthur’s, what did that mean? Was she dead already? The thought made my mind scream and my stomach knot painfully. I did not want Eleanor de Clare to be
dead. I wanted her as my wife. Even if I didn’t understand her.

  “I have it,” Geraint announced. He paused, “At least I think I do.”

  “About time,” I rose on stiff legs. “What do I do?” I asked.

  “I should go first,” Geraint said. “It’s my theory that needs testing and it’ll be easier for you to follow me than for me to explain.”

  “Just run it by me, I’m not that thick headed.”

  Geraint raised an eyebrow but remained silent. I stared him down, “Fine,” he consented. “It works like this, these marks are an old language called Ogham, it’s a tree alphabet.” He pointed to the nearest tile, “This one is oak, here is ash,” I guessed he used these as examples because of our coat of arms.

  “I understand, but what did you mean about a maze?” I asked.

  “Some of these marks are not real, some of them make no sense in this context and some form a pattern.”

  “What’s the pattern?”

  “A story, the story of a king, a love and a,” here he paused, “a knight who should be king to return the land to the old ways.”

  “Is it talking about Arthur?”

  “Yes, the tiles are using the oak and the ash to represent both of you.”

  “How is that possible?” I asked as a sense of something horrible swept up my back and sat on my shoulders pulling my hair. I shivered.