Children of Avalon

by Meredith Bond

  They were here! They had come to her.

  She laughed. She should have known they would. Now, she just had to ensure that they found her.

  She went down to the chapel where a number of priests were administering to the faithful. There were knights about to go out into battle and others who had just come back. Women wept silently in the pews for lost husbands and sons, or prayed for their safe return. The quiet murmur of voices in prayer soothed Nimuë as it did others.

  Old Father William, the second most senior priest in the king’s household, looked up from where he was speaking to a young man with wide, frightened eyes. He excused himself and came toward her. “Father du Lac, to what do we owe this honor?”

  Father du Lac put his hand on Father William’s arm. “You are working hard. I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

  “It’s quite all right.”

  “I have come to offer my help. Young ones, like the fellow you are speaking with right now, they need guidance. I know that you are exceptional at caring for the needs of these men, but I would like to do my part.”

  “That is very generous of you, Father. But what of the king?”

  “He does not require my services just now. I am yours.”

  The priest bowed slightly, accepting and acknowledging her offer.

  “If you could send any young men, or women, up to my rooms, I would be more than happy to speak with them, console them.”

  “To your room? It is rather far, is it not?”

  Father du Lac lowered his eyes and looked saddened. “It is, and I am sorry for that. But I dare not stray from my room too long in case the king should call. I am sure those you send to me will not mind the climb.”

  “Is that why you ask only for the young ones?” Father William nodded his head in understanding.

  Father du Lac smiled at him. Let him think that the reason.

  “Very well. I thank you for your offer. I will be certain to send you any young people who come to ask for assistance.” The priest bowed again and then returned to the young man he had been speaking with.

  That was easy, Nimuë thought as she made her way back to her room. Now, hopefully, she would not have long to wait.

  ~~~~~

  I couldn’t find the servant I’d spoken to, but the castle was certainly full of people. I found an older man who looked to be knowledgeable and asked for my father’s rooms.

  “Yes, sir. He’s got rooms on the first floor at the end of the hall in the east wing.” The man pointed to a staircase to my right to indicate the way up.

  “Thank you,” I said, but instead of going up the stairs, I ran back out to the infirmary. I ran into a squire a little younger than myself. A coin dropped into his outstretched hand, and the boy was convinced to come and help me carry Sir Dagonet to my father’s rooms.

  It was a slow and painful journey for the old knight. Every jostle caused him to grunt with pain. The man was soaked with sweat and flushed from holding back his screams when we finally laid him gently down on to the bed.

  I gave the squire another coin before I closed the door behind him. Then, turning back to see how I could help Bridget and Scai, I felt guilty with happiness that my father hadn’t been there when we’d briefly knocked on the door before barging in and taking over the rooms.

  “What can I do?” I asked Scai, who was helping to try to arrange the old knight on the bed more comfortably.

  “Nothing—no, you can do something. Go and find Aron. Tell him where we are. I’m certain Sir Dagonet won’t be able to move until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  Then I was certain to run into my father, I thought grimly. Well, but there was nothing for it. I’d have to face him sooner or later. Better to get it over with.

  It didn’t take me long to find Aron in the armory and relay the message to him. After that, I stood about in indecision. Should I seek out my father and get the worst over with? Should I return to the fighting, which was still going strong not one hundred feet away just outside the gates of the castle? There was nothing more I could do for Sir Dagonet, and Bridget had all the help she needed from Scai.

  I stood there, amidst the chaos of the inner courtyard, my hand on the hilt of Excalibur, when a priest rushed past me. I turned and watched the man disappear into the crowd. Where would Father du Lac be in this chaos?

  Aron came up to me before I could move any farther. “Going back?” he nodded toward the outer wall of the castle, indicating the battle.

  “No,” I said making up my mind right then. “I’m going to try to find someone who took something from me.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a straight out lie either.

  I returned to the castle and sought out the man who’d helped me locate my father’s rooms. I couldn’t find him anywhere, so I stopped a random footman. “Where would I find Father du Lac?” I asked, hoping beyond hope the fellow would know.

  The man shrugged. “In the chapel?” He clearly had no idea, but it was certainly worth a try.

  It wasn’t far, but once I got there, I hesitated in asking directly for Father du Lac. How would the other priests react? Would they be suspicious of just anyone walking in and asking to see the king’s confessor?

  “Do you need guidance, my son?” The older priest had been speaking to a knight nearby but had broken off his conversation to speak with me as I stood there in indecision.

  “Yes,” I responded hesitantly.

  “If you wouldn’t mind going for a bit of a walk, Father du Lac has offered his guidance to those engaging in battle for the first time.”

  “Father du Lac?” I could hardly believe my luck.

  “Yes.” The old man smiled. “You have heard of him? It would be a great honor for a young man such as yourself to be counseled by the king’s own confessor, would it not?”

  “Yes, yes, it would. Where can I find him?” I did my best to not sound as excited as I felt.

  The priest gave me directions.

  Chapter 18

  Father du Lac’s rooms were at the far end of the west wing of the castle all the way on the top floor of the turret. Nimuë certainly couldn’t have found a room any farther away from the commotion of the battle than this.

  As I went up the steps and moved down the hall, the noise from the courtyard and main hall of the castle faded away until it was absolutely silent. The sound of my own footsteps going up the stone stairs was all that could be heard. The silence made my skin crawl.

  I didn’t pause, though. I wouldn’t allow myself to. I had given away the chalice directly into the hands of the one person who should not have it. I would get it back. I had Excalibur and I would not hesitate to use it. I would kill Nimuë. No matter what. Too many times I’d either hesitated or been unprepared. This time nothing was going to stop me.

  The door at the top of the stair was ajar. Quietly, I pushed it open and then peered into the room.

  Nimuë was standing with her back to me, her hands resting on a table. The chalice sat directly in front of her. I resisted the urge to run and grab it. I would have to go through her first and all of my training would not allow me to attack from behind.

  I took a step into the room and prepared myself for battle. Slowly, Nimuë turned to face me. Although she looked to be unarmed, I reminded myself that she was never unarmed. Her powers were her weapons. I only prayed that Excalibur would be enough to protect me from them.

  The smile on her face made me pause. I would not be intimidated by her. I would not!

  I knew just from her expression what she thought of me, but she was about to learn that she had a lot more to fear than she thought.

  Her own feelings of absolute confidence suffused me. This time, instead of pushing away the emotions, I welcomed them. I would use them to my own advantage.

  I hesitated, though, to lower my wall. I’d taken in so much already that day that I feared losing control. I had a great store of energy there, but for now, I would have to do without it.

  I raised my s
word and attacked without a word. My sword slashed, cutting through the air with the speed and accuracy ingrained in me. I aimed straight for her neck, ready to sever her head from her body and wipe that smile right off her face.

  Her hand shot up and my sword stopped as if it had hit a wall. The reverberations shot painfully up my arm and through my whole body.

  “You think to kill me?” She sounded incredulous, as if we’d been friends and I’d suddenly turned on her.

  “I am carrying out my destiny.” I raised my sword again and struck out, coming from the other direction this time.

  Again, she blocked me easily with a lift of her hand. “Your destiny? Are you certain that your destiny is not to die at my hand? Merlin’s prophecy did say that it could go either way,” she pointed out calmly.

  “True,” I had to admit. “But I have no intention of allowing you to continue with your evil plans. It is you who will die.” I feinted one way and swung in the other, trying to trick her.

  It didn’t work.

  “Evil plans?” She laughed. “How very dramatic. I suppose it all depends on your point of view. To me, my plans seem perfectly reasonable. I will be the most powerful Vallen, just as I should have been. I will rule the people of Avalon in a fair manner and punish most severely anyone who dares oppose me.” The way she said it, it almost did sound reasonable, but my skin crawled at the thought of Nimuë ruling over all the Vallen.

  There had to be a way around her defenses.

  “Tell me, Dylan, how is your little friend, Scai?” she asked, the change in topic nearly confusing me. “Do you actually believe she might love you?”

  “Leave Scai out of this.” She was trying to distract me, but it wouldn’t work. I was confident in Scai’s affection for me.

  “She does not, you know. You are just a tool to her, a means to an end. Someone to rescue her when she gets herself into trouble,” she continued.

  I took another swipe at her, but she blocked it just as easily as she had the others. Immediately, I followed up with a direct attack, point first, straight at her heart. Her tunic was cut as my blade was pushed away just in the nick of time.

  “How dare you!”

  I followed hard with another swipe, this one aimed at her right arm, but once again she was too fast.

  “Did Sir Dagonet teach you to fight? You use that sword like a girl,” she snarled, showing the anger I knew was just below the surface. I could feel it washing over me. I let it move through me as I’d been practicing, instead of shoving it behind my wall.

  “Sir Dagonet is one of the best swordsman I have ever seen. I only wish I had studied under him when I was first learning,” I responded, still trying to catch her off guard.

  “He’s a jester!”

  “No, he only plays the role of one. He’s a brilliant man and a fearless knight,” I said, attacking again and again as quickly as I could, certain that one of my strikes would get through.

  One finally did. Maybe there was something to this chatting while fighting like Sir Dagonet always did. If I could keep my concentration, it had the possibility of confusing my opponent.

  Nimuë grabbed her arm as blood dripped down from the slice I managed to inflict. “Flinging that sword around will not get you points for style,” she said, through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t care about style just now. As Sir Dagonet once told me, it’s not how you fight, it’s that you win.” My arms were beginning to get tired. Excalibur was a magnificent sword, but a heavy one.

  “And you want to be a knight? Where is your nobility? Your honor?”

  “It is with me every moment, I can assure you.” I launched into another series of attacks and managed to cut her hand as she raised it to ward me off.

  “Taught by the best, I suppose?” she said, clapping her hand over the cut. Immediately, her skin turned red and the cut healed. I realized that she must have done the same thing to the cut on her arm, which was why it wasn’t bleeding any more. How was I going to win over her if she could heal herself as fast as I could hurt her?

  “I fight well enough,” I answered, standing at the ready as I tried to think through a strategy. There had to be a way to do some more serious damage to her.

  “Ah, your father farmed you out, did he not?”

  I tried attacking again, but too easily she stopped me.

  When I didn’t answer her taunt, she continued. “Did he ever come to visit you, your father? Ever spend any time seeing how you were progressing?”

  I allowed her rage—or was it my own—to give me extra strength. I struck out with another direct attack, but I was getting tired and sloppy.

  “I’ll take that for a no.” She laughed, her anger fading.

  “He did,” I answered her. It was definitely my anger now. Hers was fading fast, being replaced with a feeling of triumph. I couldn’t figure out why, she hadn’t won yet. I may be tiring but this was far from over.

  “Did he really come to see you, Dylan, or just the progress of your training? Did he even speak with you or just test your abilities?”

  I flinched as a sharp pain sliced across my chest. What had she done?

  I attacked again, aiming once again for her right arm. She had to have done something with her hand that I hadn’t noticed.

  “He didn’t even say one word to you that wasn’t a criticism,” she ventured.

  This time the pain went deeper. Blood began to seep onto my tunic. I lashed out at her again.

  “He doesn’t love you, Dylan. He doesn’t care. Why do you?”

  More and deeper cuts slashed across my chest and stomach, sharp and stinging as if she had taken a whip to me.

  “He does love me!” I shouted, and drove at her with my sword.

  She sidestepped me, raising her hand to block me, but it was the smile and the triumph she was exuding that truly angered me.

  “How could you even think that after all he’s done to you? When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Today!” I didn’t mention that he hadn’t even spoken with me. That he’d gotten away from me as fast as he could without stopping to arrange to meet. That I feared actually having the opportunity to sit down and speak with him, knowing that my father wouldn’t have anything kind to say.

  “You didn’t talk with him; you saw him on the battlefield,” Nimuë guessed. She must have done so—she couldn’t be reading my mind.

  Oh, you idiot. Yes, she could! I cursed myself and strengthened my mental barriers.

  Nimuë shook her head. “You poor boy, your father doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t care enough to hate you.”

  I snapped back at the sharp sting of the whip slashing across my body, bringing tears to my eyes.

  “You have been unloved your whole life. Uncared for. Your mother dead, your foster family treating you more like a servant to be picked on than a member of their family.”

  The lashes came faster, harder. I could hardly raise my sword without causing pain to shoot through my body. I focused my mind on shoving the hurt behind my wall and fought back anyway. I would not let her win.

  “What you need is a loving grandmother,” she said, her voice growing softer even as she raised her hand to block my attack.

  “I don’t have a grandmother, loving or otherwise.” I swung at her again, ignoring the pain and the futility of it.

  “But you do.”

  I paused for the briefest moment. No, I would not give in. I tried again, slashing left, right and then lunging in, once again going straight for her heart.

  Again I pricked her tunic before my sword was pushed away. “Dylan, stop this nonsense. You have me.”

  “You?” The word exploded from me, and I suddenly wanted to laugh. What in the world was she talking about?

  She held up her hand, even before I could try to attack again. “I am your grandmother. You know that.”

  “No, I don’t, and you are not.”

  “Well, if you want to get technical, I am your great–great grandmot
her, six times, I believe. You are the seventh generation, are you not?”

  “What do you mean?” It felt so good to rest my arms, even for a moment.

  “You are the seventh generation descendent of Merlin, are you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who was the woman with whom Merlin had this child? He did not do it by himself, you know.”

  She was laughing at me now; I was certain of it.

  “Have you never noticed how much we look alike, Dylan?”

  My heart, already beating fast from my exertions, started to pound in my ears. I had known of our relationship, but to hear her claim it...

  “Merlin and I loved each other. Greatly.” The words came from her heart. I could feel it. I could feel the truth in them as well.

  “And I will love you, Dylan, my great–grandson.” The words reverberated through my mind. I could feel them intertwining with my own thoughts. She was using her magic, but I didn’t care. She would love me. She was my grandmother.

  ~~~~~

  That was it. He was hers. It was hard not to gloat.

  She had to admit he’d fought hard. He’d even managed to cut her a few times, she marveled. But in the end, naturally, she had won.

  “I am proud of you, Dylan,” she admitted to him. “You are a strong and brave young man. I will proudly stand with you by my side.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, his voice sounding hollow.

  “You will join me. It makes such perfect sense; I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Together we will be even more powerful than Merlin. More powerful than anything anyone could ever imagine.” The thrill of it sent shivers through her.

  Yes. She could see it clearly now. She and her grandson, sharing power, sharing the magic of the chalice. “I will rule with you by my side.”

  “No!” His voice echoed off the stone walls.

  The boy was attempting to escape? Well, it just proved how strong he was. She admired him for that, too. It was useless, but a good sign nonetheless.

  “You are powerful, Dylan. Very powerful. You can harness the power of the chalice.”

  “I will have the chalice,” he countered.