Avalon: The Return of King Arthur

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  James sat for a moment, staring at the documents — looking, but not seeing. How was it possible, he wondered, for a few old scraps of paper to so alter the world?

  Howard moved a step nearer. “I was hoping it would not come as a shock, but I see it has.” He held out James’ glass. “Here, get some of this inside you. Steady your nerves.”

  James reached for the glass. “You knew about this,” he said, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice.

  “Yes, of course,” he admitted. “I’ve always known. I helped Robert prepare the fake annulment.”

  “You knew about my trouble over the estate,” James said. “You knew and never said anything.”

  “A very wise and powerful man swore me to secrecy,” Howard answered. “I have never been inclined to betray the trust that he, and your parents, placed in me.” He looked at James directly, his eyes moving back and forth over his face as if searching for someone he once knew.

  “This morning you said you knew my father,” James reminded him, pointing at the papers on the desk. “But it was Robert you were talking about, not John. You were talking about the Marquess.”

  “Yes, I suppose I was.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” James asked.

  Howard swiveled his head slowly. “I can’t answer that. All I know is that I was given instructions, which I put in my own will, to keep this envelope and give it to you when you asked for it. I made a promise to my friend, and I always keep my promises.”

  James stared at him and felt a great weakness drawing in upon him, as if all his strength were pouring through the gaping hole in the ground which had just opened beneath his feet. He drew a long, shaky breath and steadied himself. “I understand,” he said, not really comprehending anything at all.

  “As I say, I know all about your legal tussle,” Howard continued. “Hobbs at the office has kept me informed.”

  “He knows about —” James indicated the documents on the desk, “about all this, too?”

  “No,” the old solicitor stated firmly. “He knows nothing about any of it. I told you, I kept it secret. No one knew but myself and the people involved. That was the way Robert wanted it — insisted upon it.” He paused, looking at James in a kindly way. “With these documents, you now have everything you need to take control of the situation. I’m glad you came to me before it was too late.”

  James nodded, and the old solicitor raised his glass. “Here’s to the new Duke of Morven.”

  Shock does strange things to people. In Afghanistan James saw a soldier carry a wounded friend through a mine field — never once realizing his own legs had been shredded to bloody ribbons by the same mine that had wounded his friend. He had seen men suffering from shock who went on working, talking, eating, laughing… until they simply collapsed into moist, mumbling heaps.

  James was in shock as he drove home from Howard Gilpin’s that night. So many revelations so quickly, one heaped upon another, had finally tipped him over the edge. He’d fled London to get away from them, only to realize there was no escape. The cumulative effect was, simply, shock. Afterwards, he remembered thanking Gilpin for his help and saying good night, and he remembered climbing into the Land Rover and thinking, I’ve been awake for forty-eight hours. I should get some sleep.

  And that was it. Of the seven-mile drive to the estate, he could not recall a single moment. To James, it seemed as if it never happened. Yet, it did — because the next thing he remembered was coming up the drive to the lodge and seeing the place lit up like a beacon. Every single light inside and outside the house was on. That was what registered first. Someone’s broken in.

  The helicopter on the lawn registered next.

  “What in blue blazes… ” He slammed on the brakes and cranked down the window for a better look. It was a small, neat, McDonnell Douglas Tempest, painted black — which was probably why he missed it at first — with gold markings and searchlight array beneath.

  Whoever was ransacking the house had certainly arrived in style. James turned off the motor, and got out of the Land Rover slowly. There was no one around. The night was cold and deathly quiet.

  Stepping off the gravel path, he walked swiftly to the house, pausing beside a firethorn bush growing at the edge of the drive. He saw no movement inside. The house remained quiet.

  The fiosachd had given him no prompting, which was curious, in a way, because ordinarily this was just the sort of thing to set it off. Even so, to make certain he was not walking into something unpleasant, James circled the house, keeping well out of the light from the windows.

  By the time he reached the back door, he still had no hint about who or what awaited him inside. He paused long enough to pick up one of the walking sticks he kept beside the door, then put his hand to the latch and shoved the door open. It bumped noisily against the inside wall; the last thing he wanted was to surprise someone in the act. James waited and, when nothing happened, he stepped across the threshold.

  The two of them were sitting at the kitchen table, mugs in their hands and a teapot between them. Their heads turned as James entered the room.

  “I thought I locked the door,” he said.

  “You did,” replied Embries.

  “I hope we did not frighten you, sir,” Rhys said, jumping quickly to his feet.

  “Is that why you turned on all the lights?”

  “As you were not here to greet us when we arrived,” Embries said, “we thought it might be best to let you know we were here.” He stood slowly, looking at James, studying him; the concern in his pale eyes was deep and genuine.

  “You left rather abruptly,” Embries continued; there was no rebuke in his tone. “I was worried about you, James. I feared we might have overwhelmed you.”

  “I couldn’t stay there anymore,” James told him. “London is no place for me.”

  Unexpectedly, Embries smiled, closing his eyes. “Yes,” he sighed, as if this were a long-awaited confirmation. James stared at him, and Rhys stared, too. “Forget London,” Embries said after a moment. “There is something I want to show you. Will you come with me?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Oh, we all have a choice, James. Destiny calls but once in a lifetime, and every person has a choice whether to answer the call or to ignore it. Stay or go, the choice is yours.”

  “If I stay here,” James asked, “what will happen?”

  “Nothing too bad.” Embries shrugged. “The world will still keep turning. It will no longer be the same world, true, but things will go on much as they always have: ignorance, poverty, crime, and vice will increase, as they do. Factionalism, rivalry, greed, and corruption will render all political and social systems impotent — but that is nothing new. Misery will multiply, and this nation will at last fall beneath the shadow. If you stay, you will be well out of it, for a while at least.”

  He spoke softly, dispassionately — a seasoned doctor relating the symptoms of a common medical condition.

  “And if I go with you?”

  He smiled and spread his hands. “God alone knows.”

  “You do make it sound inviting.”

  “What would you have me say?” Embries asked. “That you will gain eternal fame and fortune, that you will blaze across the skies like a comet and your name will be written in the stars, that you will become the most revered human being in this or any other century — is that what you want me to say?

  “It might happen, but the truth is, I do not know. It might be ignominy and disaster; you might be reviled and vilified. You might even be killed.”

  “Triumph or tragedy,” James murmured.

  Embries made no move, but his golden eyes darkened with a wild, almost savage excitement. “Come with me, James. I cannot tell you what lies ahead, but I can promise you it will be the adventure of your life. Whatever happens, we will make a noise the world will never forget.”

  James believed him. His words had the unmistakable ring of truth, and his sincerity was p
owered by a conviction so pure as to be radiant. Even so, James could not make himself take that first step.

  Perhaps it was the fact that he had been roughly two days without sleep. Perhaps it was stupid bullheadedness. He said, “Can I have the night to think it over? I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  “No.” Embries shook his head slowly, his golden hawk’s eyes narrowing slightly. “Tomorrow will be too late, James. The time has come, and will not come again.”

  Still, James hesitated. He could feel the strain coming off Embries in waves — as if he were being shaken by a tremendous power which he was struggling to keep under control.

  “This is the moment. You must choose now.”

  Fourteen

  The Tempest swooped low over the smooth, winter-bare hills above Glen Morven, the land rippling beneath the bleached white glare of the searchlights. James’ admiration for Rhys’ skills had grown as the trip progressed; he handled the fast, sleek helicopter with cool, calm precision in the best tradition of the RAF.

  “Here,” said Embries, his voice sounding far away in the headset. “This is the place.”

  It was dead of night when they had left Glen Slugain Lodge. Like a man in a dream, James had stumbled across the black, formless lawn to the waiting aircraft. They had strapped themselves into their seats — Rhys and James in the cockpit, and Embries behind. Rhys handed around the headsets as he warmed up the engine, and then, finishing his preflight check, he opened the throttle and up they went, spinning slowly into an infinite, star-dusted darkness.

  They made a long, lazy turn and headed northwest, away from Braemar and out over the wild hills of the Forest of Mar. After a time, Rhys shifted onto a southwesterly course and held it. James settled back and tried to enjoy the ride, but aside from the solitary light from a farmhouse or car on a road, or the distant glow of a town, there was nothing to see. Soon even those small markers dwindled and disappeared.

  Darkness above, darkness below, they might have been inside the belly of a whale or down in the deepest cavern. All sense of motion ceased. It seemed to James that they hung suspended between heaven and earth, frozen in time and space. Faces illuminated by the green glow of the instrument panel, they sat in a lightly vibrating cocoon, the universe around cloaked, hidden, unseen and unknown. James listened to the fluttering rumble of the engine — deadened by the headset, it sounded like a continuous low mumbling thunder — and felt himself enter a kind of waking sleep.

  Although he remained conscious of himself and his surroundings — Rhys alert and silent beside him, the thrumming whoosh of the blades, the dull wind wash, and all-encompassing darkness — his thoughts cascaded over him in a confused yet compelling jumble of incidental detail from the last two days: the metallic tang of the air in London, light falling on the carpeted stairs at Kenzie House, the slap of his windscreen wipers on the drive home from Pitlochry, the crumpled papers in Collins’ hands, the smack of his leather soles on the pavement in the park, the quavery organ at the church service, the slick feel of the old photocopied birth certificate, the boiled-cabbage smell of Howard Gilpin’s house, Cal’s goofy lovestruck grin as Isobel swayed from the room… and on and on.

  James remained in this peculiar state for an indeterminate time — an age, an eon — awake but dreaming, his mind turning and turning, thoughts spinning, revolving, images forming in bizarre kaleidoscopic combinations, only to splinter and reform in yet more strange associations. Time, like the world outside, dwindled away to nothing; it might exist, but it had no substance, no meaning. James, too, simply existed: alive but inert, outwardly immobile but inwardly a flurry of frantic, disjointed activity.

  Then, after an eternity, Embries spoke. “Here. This is the place,” and James started at the sound of his voice. In the pale globe of light below, he saw the undulating ground coming up fast beneath them. A moment later, the aircraft touched down. It was still dark. James had no idea how long they had flown or where they were. Rhys killed the engine and the lights, and they sat for a moment, waiting for the blades to stop whirling. They then stepped out onto a silent landscape. There was not a sound to be heard — no cars, no farm dog barking in the distance, not even the wind rustling the coarse, dry grass at their feet.

  “We need a fire, I think,” Embries announced.

  Good luck finding anything for a fire in the dark, James thought. Yet, he felt a sudden warmth and turned around to see yellow tongues of flame building to a decent blaze.

  They stood beside the fire, warming themselves. James, almost dead on his feet, found himself reflecting on what a peculiar situation this had become. Step by logical step, he had progressed from the mundane to the marvelous in the space of two days. Stranger still, despite the oddness of the circumstances, it felt perfectly natural to be standing there in the bleak midnight, feeling the fire on his face and hands — an activity as old as mankind, he thought.

  Then Embries started to sing.

  He simply opened his mouth, and an extraordinary voice poured out — liquid, rich, deep, and wonderful, like fine rare wine flowing out into the night.

  James was so amazed by the unexpectedness of this that it took him a moment to realize he could not understand a word Embries was singing. It sounded like Gaelic, but it was no Gaelic James had ever heard. The melody was at once piercing and plaintive — achingly bittersweet and soulful in the way of the best old Scottish and Irish ballads: songs about dead lovers, lost causes, fallen champions. James stared entranced as this remarkable man drew breath and with eyes closed released that splendid voice.

  He sang with such authority and understanding, with such command of tone and inflection, with such presence, it seemed that he was not merely singing but inhabiting the song. Or that he was becoming himself through the song. Even as James watched, it seemed as if his normal outward appearance was peeled away to uncover a much more intriguing, much more mysterious and compelling creature beneath — as if Embries had lifted a mask he was wearing, only to reveal a yet more fantastic face.

  Then again, maybe it was James’ peculiar frame of mind — physically close to exhaustion and, thanks to the recent revelations, emotionally fragile — whatever it was, as Embries sang, James felt the fiosachd quicken. The skin at the back of his neck tingled, and he began to feel as if he were being pulled in two. It was as if his spirit was a square of cloth snatched up between two monstrous fists determined to tear it in half. He imagined he could actually feel his soul stretching.

  At the same time, it seemed to him that the air was hardening around him. He thought, This is what it feels like to be an insect caught alive in amber.

  The sensation was unnerving: to feel himself stretching, growing ever more tenuous and insubstantial on the inside, yet more concrete and solid on the outside, caused his vision to blur at the edges. He stood before the fire, listening to that magnificent voice and felt himself surrounded by a gentle yet unyielding force; each note of the song seemed to trail a golden silklike thread which encircled James, binding him in shining, luminous whorls.

  Then Embries lifted his face to the unseen heavens high above, and the song rose high into the black night. James looked up and saw a glittering spray of red-gold sparks sailing up from the fire. All at once the terrible stretching inside him ceased and he was free. But now it seemed as if he were ascending up through space with the sparks, and that these scintillating flecks of light had somehow gotten inside him. He tingled from head to toe as the fiosachd descended upon him with a force he had never experienced. He could feel sparks streaming from his fingertips.

  The fiosachd enveloped him in a heightened awareness. His senses grew sharp. He could hear the flames rippling over the wood as it hissed and sizzled, releasing the trapped moisture of its cells as steam; each crack and pop of the fire burst upon him like the report of an automatic weapon. He saw not only the flames themselves, pulsing and quivering, but the ultraviolet aura of the flames as well: intertwining coronas surrounding each tongue of flame with a rainb
ow of multihued crimson. He smelled not only the dusky sharpness of the wood smoke but also the earthy dampness of the moss growing on the bark of the logs.

  Slowly, he became aware that Embries’ song was not a meaningless jumble of unknown words; there was movement and repetition within a tightly ordered cycle. He could detect a rhythm involving repeated phrases and gradually, as he listened, an intricate rhyme scheme emerged from the blur of unfamiliar sounds. Curiously, even those foreign-sounding syllables were becoming less unfamiliar all the time.

  He concentrated and, to his amazement, plucked out a word from the flow: croidh. He understood it as “heart.” Another word passed by and he snatched it up: anrheg… “gift.” And so on, like a bear swatting fish from a swift-moving stream, he began to seize the sense of the song. The meaning grew gradually clearer. The more words he captured, the more coherent became the meaning, until he understood that Embries was singing about a man, a hero, the defender of his people, who had gone away, leaving his nation without a… roof? No, leaving his nation open and vulnerable, like a house without a roof.

  Away to the east, the sky began to lighten. James noticed that the clouds which had obscured the night sky were breaking up and moving off with the approach of dawn. The darkness dimmed around them to a misty luminescence, and all at once Embries stopped singing. He threw wide his arms and cried, “Behold!”

  James understood this as a command, and turned. He saw that they stood at the edge of a treeless plain. Before them rose a low, broad hill — not more than a few dozen feet in elevation, it nevertheless occupied a considerable acreage. On the bank of the hill the ground was broken and uneven, the grassy turf pushed and bunched as if giant fists beneath the surface were trying to break through. The top of the hill was more or less flat, and there were numerous low hillocks scattered haphazardly around, and one sizable mound rising roughly from the center. Several shallow ditches ran at angles across the plain and up the gentle slope of the rise, cutting into the bunched and broken mounds. Everything was overgrown with wiry gorse and thistle and sad clumps of sheep-ravaged heather.