Children of Avalon

by Meredith Bond

  “I, er, well, this morning, I threw myself out of the second story window of the inn where I’m staying,” I said. “I was hoping I would turn into a bird, and I did, thank goodness.” I gave an awkward little laugh.

  None of them joined in, nor even cracked a smile, not even Bridget. They were still waiting for more information.

  “I suppose you want to know what led me to jump out of the window?” I asked, trying hard not to giggle at their stony faces. With some trepidation at what they might do about this, I told them what Dylan had done that morning—how he had invaded my dreams and done all that he could to get me not to go to meet them.

  “Just after I jumped out of the window, he spoke to me in my mind,” I told them, at the end of my story.

  “What did he say?” Thomas asked, not even giving any sort of recognition that putting words into someone’s mind might be odd.

  “He said something about a chalice.” I tried to remember his exact words. “Merlin’s chalice! That was it. Yes, and he said that it was his and that he alone would wield it. I have no idea what he was talking about. How can someone wield a chalice?”

  “A chalice?” The other brothers all began to talk amongst themselves, trying to figure out this new mystery.

  “The chalice of Merlin is no ordinary chalice.” The voice was quiet, quieter than any other in the room, but it could be heard clearly. Everyone stopped talking and looked over at James, who up to now had hardly said a word.

  Chapter Twenty One

  James alone had hair and eyes the same color as mine. He was almost frighteningly pale, and his white–blond hair did nothing to help that.

  Thomas asked what was probably on the tip of every tongue in the room. “What do you know of Merlin’s chalice, James?”

  “It’s no ordinary chalice. I don’t know a great deal about it, only what I’ve heard from Old Maud.” He paused and explained to me, “Old Maud is a very old and venerated Vallen who lives here in Gloucester. I’ve been helping her with some chores around her house, and in return she’s told me some of the old stories.”

  Everybody was silent, and I got the impression that although James didn’t say a lot, everyone listened when he did. He had their undivided attention now.

  “Merlin’s chalice is... well, I suppose it’s sort of like the Holy Grail. It’s a chalice of legends. We all know the story of Merlin, the great wizard who was enchanted by Nimuë. She learned all she could from Merlin and became a very powerful Vallen.”

  Everyone around the table nodded, except me. I had never heard these tales of Merlin. My childhood had been filled with parables from the bible.

  “Merlin was a great prophet and could foresee the future,” James continued, clearly for my benefit. “He knew he only had a short time left before Nimuë would trick him and entomb him in an oak tree. So before that happened, he created a chalice. What we now know as Merlin’s chalice.”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “This great wizard, he knew that he was going to be tricked and imprisoned?”

  Everyone turned to look at me. I feared that I was sounding ignorant, but they had accepted me so far, hopefully they would forgive me my stupidity.

  “Yes,” James answered.

  “Then why didn’t he stop her, or not allow himself to be tricked?”

  “Well, he didn’t know precisely what the trick would be, how she would do it. He only knew it would happen.”

  “But then why didn’t he do something about it—I don’t know, leave her or kill her or lock her up in a dungeon somewhere? You know, anything to stop this from happening.”

  James smiled.

  “You know, I think I asked the same question when I was told this story,” Matthias said. “I was very little, but I imagine everyone asks the same question,”

  “Everyone does,” Thomas reassured him—and me.

  James answered. “Merlin didn’t do anything to Nimuë for two reasons, Scai. First of all, he loved her. He loved her with all of his heart and all of his being. He was a slave to this love. He knew this and there was nothing he could do about it. He would have done anything she asked of him.”

  I scoffed. How ridiculous for a man—a great wizard—to be brought down by his love.

  “You may laugh, but just you wait until you’re in love,” Thomas said, smiling at Joan. She returned his smile, and the love that passed between them shamed me for mocking the emotion.

  “The second reason,” James went on, “is because although Merlin knew what the future held for him, he knew better than to try and change it. The future is what it is and there is very little we can do to change our destiny.”

  “As we see before us all now,” Thomas said. “Even though our parents tried to change Scai’s destiny by taking her away and leaving her in Wales, she still came back to us. Destiny will happen whether we want it to or not,”

  That left everyone thinking furiously. My brothers’ eyes sought out everything else but me. Only Bridget had the nerve to look directly at me. It was I who couldn’t hold her gaze.

  So I would kill myself. And I would probably be young when I did so. And there was nothing I could do about it. My only consolation was what Thomas had said—that I would die to save others.

  That wasn’t so bad, was it? At least I would be brave and die a hero’s death.

  “Before he was entrapped,” James said, going on with his story, “Merlin created a chalice. I don’t know of what it might be made. No one has ever seen it. But into this chalice he poured his remaining powers—all that he had not given to Nimuë.”

  “Given to her?” Bridget interrupted. “How could he give his powers to Nimuë? We are born with our powers. They can’t be given away.”

  James shrugged. “I don’t know, Bridget. I imagine that Merlin could do this because he was such a powerful Vallen.”

  “I don’t imagine anyone else could transfer powers the way Merlin did. Don’t even think about it, Bridget,” Peter put in.

  “Oh no, well, I wouldn’t want to give away my powers, I can assure you,” she said, folding her arms over her chest.

  “No—and no one will give you theirs either,” Matthias said.

  “I wouldn’t want them.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t,” Thomas said, supporting her.

  She gave him a kind smile.

  “Ha! She’s powerful enough. I’d hate to see what she would do with even more,” Matthias said.

  Bridget stuck out her tongue at him. There was clearly some animosity between the two of them.

  “So what about this chalice, James?” Piers asked, bringing them back to the point.

  James nodded. “It is a chalice of the earth. It holds the powers of living things and brings strength to the one who holds it.”

  “So where is it?” Peter asked.

  “And why does Dylan think that it’s his?” I asked.

  “I can’t answer either of those questions. No one knows where the chalice is, and I don’t know a thing about Dylan,” James said.

  “And why was he so determined that you not meet us?” Bridget enquired with heat.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps because then you would tell me about the chalice? Does that make sense?” I asked the room in general.

  No one answered, although a few nodded their assent.

  “But I suppose it all fits. With the chalice, I mean,” I continued, thinking aloud. “If he thinks I’m going to try and fight him for this chalice, then he would certainly want to stop me from learning any more about it, right?”

  “But why does he think you would be going after it?” Piers asked.

  And Peter added, “It’s just a legend. We don’t even know if it truly exists.”

  “Well, clearly, Dylan thinks it does—and thinks it’s his,” Bridget put in.

  “What else has Dylan done, Scai?” Thomas asked me pointedly.

  I just looked at him in amazement. “How did you know he’d done anything else?”

  “Thoma
s knows these things,” Peter said.

  “It’s really annoying!” Matthias added.

  “And you’d better tell him everything or else he’ll just keep at you until you’ve said it all,” Bridget said. It was clear she’d had some experience with this.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, but then I answered him truthfully, as Bridget had recommended. “Soon after I first met Dylan, he tried to drown Sir Dagonet and me in a raging river. That was the first time I turned into a bird. I managed to fly out of the water and then pull Sir Dagonet to safety. After that, we went through days without water only to be deluged by incessant, torrential rain for another three days. That was when Sir Dagonet became so ill,” I explained to my brothers.

  “Tied to water, is he?” Peter said, with a derisive note to his voice.

  “I wouldn’t trust him. He sounds slippery,” Piers added, nodding his head.

  I laughed.

  “Not everyone tied to water is untrustworthy.” James frowned at his younger brothers.

  “So basically, ever since you met him he’s been doing everything he can to either stop you or kill you?” Thomas asked, ignoring his brothers.

  I shrugged. “Yes. I suppose he has.” I took a long drink of my ale. “Since we’ve been here in Gloucester, it seems as if he’s been trying to distract me from finding you by having me meet a lot of ordinary people he said might be my family. Although he told me he was trying to find my family, he didn’t even look in the Vallen community. And I hate to even think this, but I wonder if he deliberately didn’t try to find a healer for Sir Dagonet.” I gave an involuntary shiver. “It quite scares me to think he would want to kill good Sir Dagonet. He is truly the kindest, gentlest man. He would never hurt a soul.”

  “But Dylan tried to kill you as well,” Matthias pointed out.

  I could only nod. All of Dylan’s deeds sounded terrible when they were laid out on the table in this way. But somehow, despite this, there was a soft spot in my heart for him. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask these men to not take retribution for what he’d done. For the moment, though, I kept my thoughts to myself.

  Peter and Piers held an identical murderous look on their faces.

  Thomas simply looked thoughtful. “And he claims to have done all this so that you don’t go seeking Merlin’s chalice?” he asked.

  “Well, he hasn’t claimed anything. He just told me that the chalice was his—as if I would—”

  “Wait a minute,” Matthias said. “Did he say the chalice was his? Were those his exact words?”

  I sat back, thinking about it for a moment. “No. He said that it was meant for him. He would be the one who would find it and he would be the one to wield it.”

  “But how does he know that?” Peter asked.

  “Perhaps he heard it somewhere, or someone told him,” Piers answered his brother.

  “But if he’s scared that Scai is going to try and get it first...” Peter didn’t finish his sentence, and no one jumped in to do so. They were all too lost in their own thoughts.

  “Thomas, how did Mama and Papa know that Scai was going to die young?” James asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Could you ask Old Maud, James? Maybe she knows something,” Peter suggested.

  “It’s a good idea,” Thomas agreed. “I was really too young at the time...”

  “Where’s Bridget?” Matthias asked, looking around the room.

  All of the brothers rose at once.

  I looked around at them all. “What? Why are you so upset? Maybe she just went to, er, to relieve herself?”

  “If she’d gone for that, she’d have mentioned it.”

  “She wouldn’t have just snuck out,” Matthias added.

  “But where—?” I started.

  “I don’t know.” Thomas cut me off.

  “Where’s Dylan?” James asked, turning back to me. “Is he still at the inn where you’re staying?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so,” I answered, standing up with everyone else.

  With just a nod of agreement all five men headed out the door. I joined them, hoping I could do something to help, although I certainly had no idea what.

  “I’ll stay here in case she returns,” Joan called after us.

  Remembering my manners, I stopped briefly. “Thank you, Joan. And thank you for the meal.”

  Joan gave me a smile and an encouraging nod. “You’d better catch up.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  She wasn’t gone long before you noticed...” I started to say as I and my brothers strode down the street toward the inn. We were a formidable group—five men walking with determination down the middle of the street. But there didn’t seem to be anyone about to even notice. It was odd—I hadn’t been in the city long, but still, I’d never seen the streets so empty.

  I was about to comment on this, when a huge billow of smoke and anxious shouts of fear ahead froze the words on my lips.

  The men all stopped moving, and then as one they broke into a run, heading toward the burning inn.

  A long line of people snaked from the blazing building. They were passing buckets from hand to hand as quickly as they could without all of the water being sloshed from them. My brothers immediately joined in the brigade.

  “Scai, you run ahead. See if you can find Bridget,” Thomas shouted above the noise.

  “This is her handiwork,” Matthias said more quietly. I took a quick look around to make sure no one else had heard him, but, luckily, no one was looking our way. With a sigh of relief, I began to press forward through the crowd.

  There were masses of bystanders, all talking or attempting to direct those who were actually trying to help.

  As I got closer, the acrid smell of the burning building became stronger and denser. Smoke billowed into the air, threatening to choke me and bringing tears to my eyes. But still I pressed forward. I had to find not only Bridget, but Dylan and Sir Dagonet as well.

  I slipped through the throng of onlookers. Luckily, the closer I got to the actual building, the fewer people there were. No one wanted to get too close to the fire for fear of being scorched or having the building collapse on top of them.

  “Bridget! Sir Dagonet!” I called. The smoke billowing all around threatened to choke me. “Dylan!” I called out again. The more worried I got, the more frantically I searched. Where were they? They had to be here!

  I made my way through to one side of the crowd, breaking through close enough to the building to feel the scorching heat and fear the flying embers. But they weren’t here. They couldn’t still be inside? No! I prayed not.

  I moved even closer, dangerously close to the burning building, calling out again, “Bridget! Dylan! Sir Dagonet!”

  The heat was becoming unbearable as I got closer still. “Sir Dagonet! Bridget!”

  “Here, wot, wot?”

  The familiar voice came through the crowd. With relief, I shoved between two older men who must have been early morning customers. Sir Dagonet was standing in front of the door to the inn, a measly fifteen or twenty feet from the fire.

  Grateful that he was safe, I threw my arms around the old man.

  “Ah. Yes, er...quite all right, don’t you know, quite all right.” He chuckled and gave my shoulders a little squeeze before releasing me.

  “I’m so glad to see that you are,” I said with all my heart. “You haven’t seen Bridget, have you?”

  Sir Dagonet’s smile slipped from his lips. He angled his head toward the burning building. “In there. With Dylan.”

  “What?” I spun around to look at the inn.

  “Exactly.”

  The entire second floor was in flames. I could see fire licking out from the windows, and spots where the roof, too, was ablaze.

  The men of the fire brigade were doing what they could, but that was so very little compared to the ferocity of the flames. Every minute or so the man at the head of the line would toss a measly bucket full of water into a window on
the second floor, but he was just one man on a flimsy ladder pouring water into one window. The fire had spread throughout the building.

  “Why didn’t they come out with you?” I asked, watching the men doing their best to control the fire.

  “They did. Well, I thought they had, don’t you know?”

  “Then what happened?”

  Sir Dagonet opened his mouth to explain but then started to cough, choking on a gust of smoke that had billowed toward us. When he could speak, his voice was raw from the smoke. “I followed Dylan downstairs, and I thought Bridget was just behind me. But when I turned around, she wasn’t there. I started to call for her, but then we heard a crash upstairs and a scream.” Sir Dagonet’s knuckles were white as he held tightly onto the hilt of his sword in his hand. He seemed ready to spring into battle, but all he could do was look anxiously into the burning building.

  “Dylan ran back up,” he concluded in a voice so quiet I almost missed his words.

  “He went back in? To look for her?”

  Sir Dagonet gave me a sad smile and a nod. “Brave boy, wot? Especially after all she had just said to him. Gave him quite a piece of her mind, she did. That’s what started the fire, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, she was fit to be tied, dear girl,” Sir Dagonet explained. “She yelled at him, throwing accusations at him like balls of fire. Some of them hit him, scorched him terribly, too. But some missed, don’t you know? They caught the place on fire. First the bedclothes, then the curtains. Soon the whole room was an inferno,” he concluded shaking his head.

  I looked back at the building, not quite understanding, but just now I couldn’t focus my mind enough to question the knight. I was too concerned for Bridget.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. I looked up, hoping they wouldn’t fall and give me away. As I did so, a fine mist of rain began, despite the fact that the sky was a clear, cool blue.

  “Ha, ha!” Sir Dagonet exclaimed, a smile breaking out on his face.

  I immediately turned on him. “What? Are you...?” I stopped and looked around us. There were people everywhere, but none close enough to hear if we kept our voices low. I was terrified of being caught as a witch.