Stranger

by Zoë Archer

  Low-lying mists swirled around the bases of the hills, brightened into silver by the moon. Yet the mists weren’t still. They shifted and eddied, without a breath of wind to stir them.

  Everyone pulled their horses to a stop on the northern outskirts of what appeared to be a small town. The animals stamped and snorted, agitated. Gemma understood how the beasts felt.

  “Where first?” asked Gemma.

  “The abbey,” Catullus answered. “That’s where the supposed remains of Arthur were unearthed.”

  Astrid held out her arm, and the hawk sailed down to perch there. She stroked the feathers along his neck. “Any sign of the Heirs?” When the hawk shook out his feathers, she translated. “Nathan cannot see them nearby.”

  Catullus was not comforted. “Might be using some variety of magic to shield themselves.”

  “Cowards,” Astrid snarled. Her hand lay atop a fold of her skirts, near her pistol.

  “If they do not turn up,” Catullus answered levelly, “we should consider ourselves fortunate. None of us need a fight.” He glanced at Gemma, and she understood it was her, more than anyone else, that he protected.

  She wasn’t a liability. Gemma had a gun and her wits. “If the Heirs are around, we can beat them to the abbey.” She brought her sidestepping horse under control, wheeling it around so it faced south. Her heels pressed into the animal’s sides. It surged forward. “Tea party’s over.”

  Behind her, she heard Catullus and Astrid also urge their horses into motion. A flap of wings as Lesperance took to the sky once more.

  Catullus drew up beside her. A smile tilted one corner of his mouth. “Bravado has its place—but you don’t know where we’re headed.”

  True enough. No sense blundering around Glastonbury like a reckless tornado. She pulled up slightly, allowing Catullus to take the lead. He tipped his head in ironic gratitude before moving forward.

  No one walked the streets, even though Glastonbury appeared to be a decent-sized town of both old and modern buildings. Had Gemma the time, she would have gladly studied the town itself——there was nothing like it back in the United States. Here, even man-made structures held the kind of history she had only read about. But this was not the moment for a journalist’s inquisitive ramblings.

  The hour wasn’t late. Yet the shutters were drawn in the houses and storefronts lining the streets, the lamps doused.

  None of this was nearly as strange as the mists that flowed over the pavement. They eddied around the cantering horses’ legs, as swift and deliberate as streams of water, heading in the same direction. To the south. It had a will of its own, the mist. The air smelled of ancient fire.

  Against the night sky loomed dark forms of crumbling walls with empty, arched windows. A ruin. In the middle of a town. She hadn’t expected that.

  Catullus held up a hand, and, silently, everyone slowed their horses to a walk. In a single, smooth motion, Lesperance glided down from the sky and shifted into a huge wolf. Gemma felt she ought to be used to that transformation by now. Yet she wasn’t. She’d wandered out of her life and into a fairy tale.

  A fairy tale with both light and dark magic—in which the intrepid hero, or heroine, might not live to see the happily ever after.

  Gemma fought her fear, determined to prove to herself her own strength.

  The wolf that was actually Lesperance padded alongside the horses as they all picked their way through the remains of what had been a medieval abbey. Maybe it was a sudden breeze pushing through the vacant gothic windows, or maybe something else, but the stone walls echoed softly with the sounds of chanting. Gemma looked up. The roof had long since vanished, so the moon shone down upon the ruins and the three people—and wolf—within. Vines, bare of leaves, climbed the walls as if trying to pull the remainder of the abbey into the earth.

  Instinctually, Gemma brought her horse closer to Catullus.

  “Where is Arthur’s tomb?” she whispered.

  He peered around the crumbling church. “There are two sites. Where the tomb was originally found, and then where the remains were reinterred about eighty years later.” “We should investigate both.”

  He nodded. “Astrid, you and Lesperance go to the second site. It’s in the chancel, near where the altar used to be in the church. Gemma and I will explore where the bones were first discovered.”

  Astrid agreed, and she and Lesperance moved deeper into the church, both tense as bowstrings.

  When Catullus brought his horse around, leaving the church, Gemma followed. She sighed in relief as they left behind the looming, sinister walls. Catullus guided them toward a grassy field that appeared entirely empty.

  “Nothing’s here. Is this really where Arthur’s bones were found?”

  “This used to be the monks’ graveyard, long, long ago. When excavations were done in the eleven hundreds, a stone slab and leaden cross were unearthed here. The cross bore an inscription in Latin proclaiming the burial site of King Arthur. Farther down in the ground was a coffin fashioned from a hollow log, and within the coffin were the bones of a tall man.”

  “A scholar of Arthur in addition to a mechanical genius,” Gemma murmured, appreciative. “Such a variety of talents.”

  Catullus actually looked a little smug, which charmed her. “Monomania makes for a limited intellect.”

  She pressed her advantage. “Nothing more stimulating than a man of many passions.”

  “Miss Murphy, you are an inveterate flirt.”

  “Just with you, Mr. Graves. Something within me can’t seem to resist.”

  They shared a smile, but briefly. Neither could pretend they were on a moonlight jaunt in a romantic ruin. As each minute passed, the sense of gathering energy grew, until Gemma felt it not only on the surface of her skin, but within herself as well.

  She and Catullus surveyed the tree-fringed field. The only stirring came from the mist carpeting the ground. “That mist …”

  “I noted it. Fogs come in sometimes from the Bristol Channel, but not like this.” Catullus swung down from his horse and lowered into a crouch.

  Gemma was half afraid the mist might harm him somehow, swallow him like a living thing, yet when he ran his hand through the silvery vapor, nothing happened.

  He rubbed his fingers together as if testing the texture of the mist. “I can feel it moving, being drawn toward something. Like a stream directed toward a cataract.”

  “But look.” She pointed. “It isn’t resting here. It’s moving elsewhere. Somewhere to the east.”

  He got back into the saddle. “If Arthur is being summoned, the abbey isn’t the place.”

  Astrid came riding up from the dark form of the church, Lesperance loping beside her. What should have been an odd pairing—the golden-haired woman and the dark wolf—seemed to Gemma to be precisely right. More linked the two than outward appearance. Each as fierce as the other, perfectly formed counterparts.

  It made Gemma wonder about the pull of other opposites. About possibility.

  But Astrid’s clear, strong voice brought Gemma back into the present. “Not here. We searched the site of the tomb, but I can feel it.”

  Lesperance gave a whuff of agreement. He nosed at the mist and whined lowly.

  “Follow the mist.” Catullus tilted his chin in the direction toward which the gleaming vapor streamed.

  As one, everyone turned to watch, and it became clear, with the moonlight burning down, where the mists were being drawn.

  A high, narrow hill jutted to the east, taller than all the other hills clustered nearby. Slight terraces ridged the formation. At the very top stood a single ruined tower. A sentinel over the whole of the eerie landscape. Toward this tower the mists flowed, even climbing up the hill itself to collect and spin around its base. And as they spun, the mists increased their speed, roiling like a river over stones.

  Gathering. Massing. The collective dreams of ruthless men, drawing magic toward a single point, with a single purpose.

  Gemma presse
d her palm against the back of her neck to keep the hairs there from rising.

  “What is that place?” she breathed.

  “Glastonbury Tor.” Catullus’s voice held a comforting authority. “The tower at the top is St. Michael’s Church.”

  “Not the burial place of Arthur.”

  “No,” said Astrid. “But his myth is bound up with the tor. It was said to be his stronghold. And—”

  “And …?” Gemma prompted, when Astrid gritted her teeth and fell silent. “What is it about that place that draws the mists?” She both did and did not want to know, fearful and eager for the answer.

  “Legend holds that the tor marks the entrance to Annwn.” Catullus turned to her, and the moonlight reflecting upon his spectacles transformed his eyes into ghostly silver mirrors. “The Otherworld.”

  Her father’s tales of faerie realms beneath the earth echoed in Gemma’s mind. Hollow hills. The Fair Folk. Stolen brides and changeling children. Beauty—and danger. Mortals who strayed past the boundary and never came back. Or, if they did, they were never the same, wasting away as they pined for the distant land.

  And she rode straight toward its entrance.

  It didn’t escape her, either, that St. Michael the Archangel fought against the powers of hell and Satan. No coincidence that a church was built in his name. The monks must have known that Glastonbury Tor marked the portal between worlds, and sought to hold back its magic with their own fragile beliefs.

  Old habit made Gemma furtively cross herself as she, Catullus, and the others raced toward the odd hill. She’d take any protection she could get.

  Though she had an idea that Catullus would protect her far more than prayer. He was a living man, and capable. Gemma wasn’t used to relying on anyone other than herself—but she couldn’t deny a sense of relief, knowing she wasn’t alone as magic collected to summon … she had no idea what it would summon, only that it would hold a power unlike anything anyone had ever seen before.

  They sped toward the tor. The mists thickened, growing stronger. Dark fire scented the air. The horses began to struggle and shy as they neared. Lesperance leapt away as the animals lunged, dancing, their hooves nearly grazing him as he ran alongside. Astrid swore savagely, cursing her horse.

  Gemma’s horse reared up. She fought to control it, clenching her teeth, pulling hard on the reins. She struggled to keep her seat.

  Catullus immediately rode toward her, hand outstretched to grab her horse’s bridle. Then his mount, too, reared, tossing its head in fear. The horses grew more and more frenzied.

  “No good,” Catullus gritted. “Jump clear.”

  After gulping a breath, Gemma flung herself from her horse. She landed and rolled, arms covering her head from the stamping animals. A single blow from a hoof could split her head in two. Not how she wanted her English adventure to end, with her brains splattered at the base of Glastonbury Tor by a frightened horse.

  She looked up to see all three horses charging away. The mounts ran off, thundering, until they fled into the night.

  Two large, strong hands lifted her up until she stood, gazing up at Catullus’s concerned face.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “Fairly soon, I’ll be an expert at jumping off moving things.”

  “We can present our findings to the Royal Society together.” He offered a brief smile, and brushed her hair back from her face.

  Astrid appeared beside them, with the wolf Lesperance protectively at her side. She looked pained, but not by the jump from her horse. As the mists thickened, they seemed to pull on her, too, tugging on something deep within. She kept one hand on Lesperance’s neck as she staggered. Lesperance rumbled, pushing himself against her for support.

  The Englishwoman pointed up the hill. At the summit, the mists collected. They climbed up the tower like vines, and there was no way to know whether the moon made them shimmer or if they created their own glow. Didn’t matter. Not when they started spinning and swirling until the top of the hill became a vortex.

  Astrid rasped, “It’s beginning.”

  Chapter 8

  Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus

  Catullus’s life in his workshop was a series of choices which he carefully studied, weighing the advantages and disadvantages, the potential outcomes, if the result merited the risk. He loved being presented with a problem or situation and then slowly, methodically analyzing it. As Astrid had said, the best part of invention was the process. Copper wiring, or gold alloy? Spring-driven, or hydraulic? All possibilities could be entertained, explored.

  In the field, he didn’t have that luxury. Decisions had to be made in an instant. Lives, including his own, could be lost if he hesitated. So, he acted, using instinct and experience to guide him. His companions in the field were other Blades, trained, fully aware of the inherent risks of their calling. They all gambled.

  He enjoyed the dichotomy, the two halves of himself. He went into the field more often than any other member of the Graves family, for that very reason, because he relished the balance between deliberate thought and instinctive action.

  Here now arose a problem he couldn’t resolve.

  Leave Gemma at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, away from the danger at the summit. Or take her with him to the top. If he left her behind, she’d be alone and vulnerable. If he took her with him, he’d be leading her straight into the unknown—which was where danger usually dwelt. And the Heirs were still out there, somewhere, searching. Even now, the Heirs could be drawing closer in the darkness.

  Torn. He didn’t know what to do.

  Then he realized he didn’t have a choice. Astrid and Lesperance charged up the terraced hill. And Gemma was right behind them.

  Damn that courageous woman.

  At the least, he managed to keep his shotgun when he’d jumped from his horse, and he had one cartridge belt lined with ammunition. Everything else was lost when the animals ran off. With his gun slung across his back, he raced up the tor, his long legs making quick work of the slope.

  He still wasn’t entirely certain what any of them planned to do when they reached the top, but he’d think of that when he got there.

  Overhead, the moon seemed to grow larger, its cold light burning down over the mist-shrouded hill. Halfway up the hill, what had been a slight breeze down in the abbey turned now into a squall, pulling on Catullus’s coat and lashing the women’s skirts around their legs. Lesperance snarled into the gale, supporting Astrid as she staggered on her feet. Gemma, too, swayed from the wind buffeting her.

  Catullus was at her side instantly. He pulled her against him, shielding her from the gale that tore tears from eyes and stole breath. She held tight to him but didn’t burrow or hide.

  The mists disengaged from the tower. Serpentine, they shimmered into a tall column that stood level with the tower’s high, arched doorway.

  The mists formed a distinctly human shape.

  “Bugger,” said Catullus.

  They were too late. It was happening.

  He planted his feet then drew his shotgun, holding it with one hand and pointing toward the inchoate human form. At the same time, he thrust Gemma behind him.

  “What do we do now?” Gemma cried above the frenzied wind. Her copper hair whipped around her face as she stared up the ridged hill.

  Trouble was, there wasn’t anything to do, but hold on and hope. Catullus loaded two shotgun shells and snapped the gun closed. A bit of firepower could prove useful where hope failed.

  The mists rioted with colors never seen in the known world. A figure coalesced within them—huge, but human. Massive legs, enormous arms. Easily twelve feet tall. God, had the Heirs summoned a monster?

  More and more the mist solidified, until the moonlight revealed a giant, bearded man. His eyes burned like superheated iron, white and piercing. Atop his head he wore a golden crown the size of a wagon wheel. Around his colossal body, the mists formed into armor, a miscellany of chain mail, plate, and leather, all t
opped with a golden surcoat. As the moonlight struck the armor, it reflected back in dazzling beams that spread out from atop the hill like a beacon. Surely the Heirs would be drawn to such light.

  Catullus squinted to shield his eyes from the glare. Astrid and Gemma did the same, holding their hands up against the blinding light, but none of them could look away.

  “Oh, my God,” Gemma whispered, pressing closer to him. Catullus held her tightly.

  There could be no mistaking who stood at the summit of Glastonbury Tor.

  Arthur. The once and future King of England. Summoned by the Heirs of Albion to lead the nation back to glory.

  He glowed, the light of myth and legend blazing from within, as he surveyed the kingdom he had left behind. Confusion furrowed his vast brow. He seemed to be searching for something.

  Catullus, who’d spent much of his childhood immersed in books and read tales of chivalric adventure late into the night until his mother admonished him to put out the light and go to bed, could hardly believe he was looking upon the face of King Arthur.

  This moment was horrible, or wonderful. Catullus couldn’t decide.

  The mists dissipated, the moon dimmed, but Arthur remained.

  Catullus turned to Gemma. “Stay with Astrid and Lesperance,” he said lowly. Gently, he disengaged himself from her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To talk to him.” And he started up the hill.

  He felt Gemma’s hand gripping his arm, staying him.

  “Genius or madman,” she whispered. “You don’t know what he might do.” Her face was a pale oval, her eyes wide with apprehension as she took in the giant standing at the top of the hill.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Acting on impulse alone, Catullus leaned close and kissed her, hard and brief. Her lips opened beneath his, he tasted her sweetness, the fierce energy of her that sent bolts of heat and life through him. Her hands came up to rest on his shoulders.

  Much as he wanted to continue the kiss, there was such a thing as time and place. So he pulled back. “Stay with Astrid.”