“Of course we are,” I muttered. I sat back on my heels and looked around me.
We were in a room carved from rock, the chisel marks were all over the stone and at no point did I see a join in the walls from building. The floor was smooth and clean except where I’d been sick. A solid, blank door that didn’t have a lock or handle, just a barred single window high in the centre, looked like the only exit. A strange blue green light filtered through the glass but no sound.
“You checked the door?” I asked.
He nodded. “This is bad, isn’t it? This is really bad?”
I looked at him properly. The braid of his hair had sprung untidy leaks, making the long back strands stick to his body and face or left to drift around him. His eyes were very wide and the scars over his left cheek looked sore, as if he’d been rubbing the raw area. I watched his left hand rise and the back of his hand began the predicted torture. He shivered and started talking again, making no sense.
“Galahad, stop,” I snapped, reaching for this hand.
“But –”
“No. Tell me what you know. You’ve been awake longer than I have. What do you know? Think – don’t panic.”
“You don’t understand...”
“I’ve given you a fucking order, boy,” I barked in my best sergeant voice.
He snapped his mouth shut. Took a breath and began to talk.
“The light is the same as the light from home... From the place I lived with The Lady.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, making him talk to me directly.
“I don’t know.”
“Think, Galahad. Work it out.” I already knew the answers I was looking for but he needed to calm down and take control.
He paused, considered, took another breath and started again. “The light means we are likely to be underwater somewhere.”
I nodded. “Good. Now you can extrapolate from there.”
“If we are under water we could be back in my old home but we were a long way from her lake and at sea. Her affinity is for land locked water, not the moving ocean. Also, as far as I know, we did not have a room like this one, though I wasn’t permitted to go everywhere. Also, there are no portals under water except the one in her lair. I know of none at sea.” He’d calmed while he spoke and the shivering began to slow.
“So you think we are prisoners of someone at sea?” I asked.
He stared over my shoulder, thinking and joining leaps of logic together. His mind was swift and sure. “There are fey who live at sea. The Mer peoples. They have little to do with land-based fey and we don’t know much about them, they do not welcome intrusion and do not recognise our dominance over them. They will not join in our conflicts and will not help when we are in trouble on the water unless they feel like it. Whatever falls into their hands from wrecked ships we lose forever. They are intemperate and difficult to predict. They are selfish, isolationist and probably as dissolute as many other types of fey.” He reeled all this off as if sat in a classroom and I heard the teaching of The Lady in the final few sentences.
I patted his hands. “I think we’ll leave the opinions about their natures alone for now. We are alive and I for that I am grateful.”
He focused on me. “You came after me.” I watched him and remained very still. “I wasn’t strong enough and was swept off the Echo. The sea spat me to the surface quickly and I saw you dive off the ship after me. You didn’t even think about it.” He sounded slightly mystified.
I sighed and smiled slightly. “What did you expect, Highness? I swore fealty to you and I love you. It’s my job.”
“But you could have died,” he whispered and frowned as though confused.
I touched his face. “Galahad, it’s my job.”
“After everything I’ve done to you?” he asked.
I chuckled and moved back against the wall, he moved to sit beside me and I took his hand in mine. “You’ve had a confusing few weeks. I haven’t helped and I don’t blame you for last night. I’ve pushed you too far.”
“I seem to remember doing most of the pushing, Holt. You knew I wasn’t ready. You wanted to stop me and I’ve been cruel – again.” He was sad and sorry.
“Life is complicated and love is one of the most complex parts of life. You just need to find your own place.”
He paused for a long time and looked down at our hands, locked together in his lap. “I should never have said I loved you.”
Oh, that hurt. That hurt a great deal. I slowly pulled my hand from his and hunched slightly to protect myself from the next onslaught. We were no longer touching.
“No, you shouldn’t have said it,” I whispered past the lump in my throat.
“I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t love you, I just don’t know how I feel about anything right now.”
“So it is Valla,” I said.
He barked a bitter laugh. “You think I could love her after this?” He touched his face. “This was meant for you and I don’t want to think about what I’d have done to her for ruining your beauty.”
I glanced at him, surprised by his words. We slumped into silence for a while. The light didn’t change but we both grew cold from our damp clothing and the strange atmosphere. I couldn’t believe Galahad had spent twenty years in the twilight world. Horrible.
“You’re cold,” he said eventually.
I glanced at him and he held his arm out to draw me close. I relented and we curled up against each other. His stomach rumbled and I patted his tight belly, then realised I’d never be able to do that again. A wave of misery and fear took me, fear I would die in this awful place and never see the sun again. Fear I would die alone and I’d never know love. I wanted Galahad. Torvec wanted me and none of this was going to end well. The tears slid silently down my nose and I tried to hide my shameful breakdown from the young man holding me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and his fingers tangled into the damp curls, close to my scalp. “I am so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”
I shook my head and let the tears fall more potently. I cried for being stuck here and failing my father, I cried for losing Lancelot and Morgana, I cried because I was scared and alone in a world where I had to be the grown-up and I cried because I thought I’d never see my sisters again.
It took a long time for all the grief to release me but it did and when I pulled away from that perfect, but damp, chest I felt stronger, better and even managed to raise a smile.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s alright, I’ve done it to you. Isn’t that what friends do? Keep each other safe when the world around them goes mad?” he asked. His dark eyes were earnest and also scared but he feared losing me, not our current situation.
I nodded. “It’s what friends do, Galahad, and we are good friends.”
He smiled with a kind of tentative shyness and my heart ached with the love I felt for the handsome young warrior. I coughed to hide the groan.
A sound came from the other side of the blank doorway, as if stone was being moved against stone. Galahad and I scrambled to our feet. We carried no weapons, none were needed on the Echo, so moved slightly away from each other to give the other person room.
The door grated to the left, although no hinges were apparent. In the doorway stood two men, much larger than either of us, and we stepped back.
They were a curious image to behold and I tried to take in everything quickly, looking for weaknesses, but there weren’t many. They were tall, yes, and broad but their bodies were heavily muscled, both arms and legs, which might well make them slower than either of us. We were trained for speed and endurance, these men were trained to lift heavy things. Their weapons looked heavy too, they were stone spears, no metal but the edges were razor sharp, you could see the light through the narrow honed edges. They also carried swords, although we could only see the hilts, but they were large and dense. Their armour looked like leather but didn’t move the same and I twigged quickly, fish skin. I’d seen a shark once on the Echo y
ears before and this looked like that – weird and knobbly. Their feet were bare, the toes heavily webbed and wide, as were the hands. The skin was thick, shiny and a blue grey, the hair a strange green – like kelp – and also slightly shiny. Over their faces were masks or maybe their equivalent to a great helm we’d wear in battle. It looked like two huge shells jointed near the jaw, covering both the mouth and nose for the lower one but the top leaving the eyes free and covering the head. There were no obvious ears. Heavily muscled necks would make it hard to snap spines and their arms were so corded with muscle they appeared almost deformed.
Neither man offered us hostility, they merely stepped either side of the doorway and indicated we should leave the room. Galahad glanced at me, I nodded and we walked out, one guard behind, one in front.
The corridor we used was much like all the corridors in all the castles I’d known which led to the dungeons. Plain, dark and fairly grim. Again, though, no obvious stone work as such, we were moving through a carved hallway, similar to those the wolves used or the other races in Albion that specialised in mining. Galahad walked in front of me and I couldn’t help but glance at the leather clinging to his shoulders and backside. I sighed mournfully and he glanced over his shoulder.
“You alright?” he asked.
The front guard lashed out with his fist and caught Galahad unawares on his scarred cheek. He screamed, the area too sore for such rough treatment, and dropped to his knees clutching his face. I reacted with predictable violence.
I kicked the knee of the guard behind me before he could move out of the way and I heard a satisfying crack. He bellowed a strange sibilant cry and dropped, his knee ruined. The other guard swiped toward my head with the razor sharp spear and I lunged backwards, bending my spine viciously. Galahad chose that moment to gather himself together and punch upward from the ground, straight into the bastard’s crotch. Nothing happened. The guard looked down at Galahad briefly before smacking me a corking sideswipe from the spear’s butt. I stumbled and my head took a blow from the wall. Everything blurred and I heard Galahad yell a battle cry as more figures poured down the corridor.
The fight became short and brutal. We were overwhelmed quickly and pinned down, then tied and gagged with salty tasting rope. I retched, my mouth not welcoming the taste of salt again so soon. They hauled us upright and dragged us forward. Blood covered my right eye and I heard Galahad breathing heavily as if in pain. I’d taken more than one beating in my life – a hazard of my sexual preferences and job – so I kept it together reasonably well.
We were dragged through a series of hallways, none of which I could see clearly except for the floor, and that became increasingly well polished the further we went. Eventually we were thrown onto the highly polished stone of a large room.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
The gags were pulled from our mouths roughly.
Galahad moved instantly to his knees and spat blood all over the nice speckled stone floor.
“Who dares to lay hands on the Prince of Albion?” he snapped.
I moved more slowly onto my knees and spat blood with less drama, choosing to watch those around us rather than engage in rhetoric. The strange light still filtered around us but now it glowed more brightly. There were rugs over the floor, mostly in bright reds and blues. Tapestries covered the walls and when I turned to my left I saw a vast mural painted on the stonework, blue sky, rivers, rolling hills and various herding animals and small white houses. It looked like some mythical version of a valley almost anywhere on northern Albion. The room itself was a large circle, once more carved from the living rock.
A long table sat off to the left, the rest of the room bare of furniture. A man rose from the table. Tall but not as bulky as the guards and slim, he moved slowly, limping slightly. Long dark green hair wafted around his body, looking even softer than Galahad’s, and his long thin fingers played with a length of shells, flicking over them repeatedly as if they were counting on their own.
Unusually for fey he’d allowed age to touch his face, the slight blue tint deeper inside the soft wrinkles. His eyes were sharp though and his mouth did not incline me to think he’d be generous.
“So you tell me who you are instantly? While you are held prisoner by a man you don’t know, that doesn’t seem to be a wise move, Prince of Albion,” he said. A soft voice but firm and used to getting its own way.
Galahad tried to struggle to his feet but the guards kicked the back of his knee and he dropped again, their hands on his shoulders.
“I demand you release us immediately,” Galahad snapped, struggling against the guards.
A smile, cold and empty, came from the man still slowly advancing on us. “You want releasing, do you? I see your temper is as foul as that of your foster mother.”
Galahad stilled instantly and finally focused on the man who now stood before us. He opened his mouth but I opted to take over before he managed to get us beaten to death.
“Your Majesty,” I began and those black shark eyes turned to me. “Sire, I am sorry for our bad manners but we don’t know where we are or who holds us. It is making us both nervous and nervous men never behave well.”
The black eyes narrowed. “Lord of Camelot, I believe.” I bowed my head in acknowledgement. “Subtle, assuming I am King. Fey are prone to flattery.”
“If I am wrong then do please tell me to whom I am speaking,” I said.
The man clicked his fingers and a young woman, the first we’d seen, scuttled out of a shadow and picked up a chair from the table. Her muscles corded as she struggled to carry it to her lord. A veil covered her face and a dress hid her attributes, all I saw were her arms. She placed the chair down and the man sat, sighing softly.
“At least Aeddan never knew what it was to grow old,” he muttered.
Oh joy, old guard fey. This wasn’t going to be good.
His black eyes caught the light and shone. “Perhaps I should call you King?”
“You can call me whatever you like if it keeps us alive,” I said.
He laughed, a sibilant chuckle. “Hmm, well, considering what you’ve done by trespassing on my domain, King of Camelot, you are not exactly in favour.”
I allowed the pause to lengthen. Galahad shifted, about to speak but I stopped him, needing to keep control. “I’m not certain I understand what you mean, your Majesty, but if there is a problem between the men of Camelot and any race of fey I am happy to discuss the difficulties and find solutions.”
He nodded and a slight smile played over his thin lips. “You anything like your father, boy?” he asked me.
“Some would say I am, I don’t think I could ever match my father’s grace, integrity and honesty. He was a great man and good one,” my voice thickened as it always did when I remembered him.
“I think you have his gift for words, my Lord,” he said.
I inclined my head at the compliment. “So, how have the men of Camelot created a problem for us?” I asked.
“Your ships and fishermen are on my seas,” said the old man, his voice hardening.
“Ignorance isn’t a good argument but I am happy to discuss reparation for anything we’ve done wrong. We can create a deal, of that I’m sure.” My mind raced through all the possible outcomes and found a clever way through. “If you and your people agree, perhaps we can even devise reward systems for the men and cargoes that are saved when the seas grow rough as they did for the Echo.” If I could tie them into a deal with Camelot it would be unlikely he’d hand us over to The Lady.
“As I said, clever... But I have not brought you here for market trading, you are here because I was ordered to hand your pup here to his mistress,” he said, glancing at Galahad.
“And me?” I asked.
“What do you think, King of Camelot?”
“I think she wants me dead.”
“Good, then at least it won’t be a surprise when I hand your head to her.”
Galahad broke. “If you touch a hair on his head I
will have you torn from this place and boiled before feeding you to my dogs,” he snarled.
The old man sat back and laughed properly. A great hearty noise which bounced around the stone room. “And there’s the evidence I needed,” he said. “You love your new master far more than you loved your old mistress – don’t you, boy?”
I could feel the rage, confusion and fear rippling through Galahad. He really didn’t know how to negotiate.
“It’s alright, Galahad. He’s not going to hurt me, not yet, not really. He’s testing you and you keep playing into his hands.” I watched the old man, who acknowledged my understanding of his game. “Calm down, my friend, and help me think this through.”
“I won’t let her have you!” he cried out with such desperation it surprised even me. “You don’t understand what she’ll do to you if she knows, if she ever gets her hands on you, Holt. I can’t let that happen. Nothing else matters to me but keeping you beside me.” He’d turned toward me in his frantic fear. No cold-hearted killer this one – I’d touched him in ways I didn’t really understand and his reactions were baffling.
I glanced at the old man and he watched Galahad like small boys watch ants before setting fire to them with their mother’s best glassware.
“Calm down, Galahad. I’m alright and so are you. We are just talking, that’s all,” I said.
“Cut the boy loose,” the old man said. A guard stepped to Galahad and cut the ties on his wrists. Galahad didn’t even rub them, he just came to me and untied my hands, watching the guards. No one moved to stop him.
Once free he touched the swollen bruises on my face from our fight in the hall and brushed sticky hair off my cheek. “I can’t lose you,” he whispered.
“Calm down,” I said, taking his hands and putting them back by his side. I turned to the Mer King. “Forgive him, he’s young and The Lady is a harsh mistress. We’ve grown close.”
“So I see,” said the old man. “Your fathers were also close.”
“Yes.”
“I never did meet Lancelot du Lac. I knew his father well of course, we enjoyed similar sports when he first came to the throne, but Morgana and I had little to do with each other,” he said. “The trouble is I don’t actually know what to do with you, Loholt Pendragon.”
The Pendragon Legacy: Sons Of Camelot Book One Page 18