by Robin Jarvis
‘We'll park in front of the Chalice Well Gardens,’ Aidan said. ‘It's not far from there.’
‘Chalice Well,’ Neil murmured. ‘This is all so bizarre.’
‘Two springs does this town boast. The red spring and the white—perhaps that's where the story of Joseph's cruets come from. Do you know that even in the worst droughts they have never failed.’
‘When Miss Ursula spoke of a magical device that Woden wanted Veronica to find for him,’ Neil said slowly, ‘do you think she meant this Grail, Chalice—whatever it is?’
Aidan shook his head. ‘No,’ he said with absolute certainty. ‘What possible use could that be to them? If it is hidden hereabouts I doubt if it possesses any power the Nornir might desire—their sovereignty over mankind reaches further back than any religion. I can't see how The Grail could help them ward off Verdandi's Captain, can you?’
Turning into Chilkwell Street, they pulled into a gravel covered area before a high stone wall and, with a wry smile, Aidan said, ‘This is where the fun begins—welcome to Avalon.’
*
Opening the door, Aidan stepped from the van and waited whilst Neil clambered out of the passenger seat, but the raven refused to come with him and hopped stubbornly on to the handbrake.
‘Come on,’ Neil urged, ‘we're here now.’
Quoth nervously bobbed his head up and down and shied away from the open door.
‘Nay,’ he cried with a dread-laden squawk, ‘a miasma of blood doth taint the sweet air. Canst thou not perceive the violent deeds committed in these environs, Master Neil? Mine innards are as weak as blue milk, I doth bewail and afright to feel such vileness around us. This morn ‘twas gore and gizzard which did feed the dew dripped sod. The reek of death, most cruel and heinous, fair choketh this unhappy chicklet. Let us begone afore this evil o'ershadows our path.’
Neil looked at the bird in surprise. Quoth was genuinely frightened and he reached in to comfort him.
‘I can't smell anything,’ he said. ‘Come on, its probably just your scrambled brains playing tricks. I'd have thought you'd appreciate being let out of the van after all these hours.’
Quoth goggled up at him and shook his head, but Neil was anxious to find Miss Veronica and Edie, and wouldn't stand for any more nonsense.
Placing his hand at the raven's feet he told Quoth to climb on to his fingers and so, fearfully, the bird obeyed.
Neil brought him out of the van and Quoth waddled up the boy's arm to perch upon his shoulder again whilst peering warily about them.
‘What's the matter with your little companion?’ Aidan asked, seeing the bird's agitation.
Neil closed the passenger door. ‘Thinks there's something wrong about this place,’ he replied.
‘Although it might have more to do with having to leave the warmth.’
Placing the crumpled top hat upon his head, Aidan eyed the bird curiously.
‘Gall and wormwood art more toothsome to me than the fetor of this odoriferous stinkpot,’ Quoth cawed, glaring at the swarthy-faced man with an obdurate frown and a firm clack of his beak.
Aidan scratched his chin and gazed around them. ‘I think perhaps your pet might not be as addled as we would both like to believe,’ he informed Neil. ‘Let's waste no more time—to the Tor.’
Crunching over the gravel, they walked back to the road, but before they could proceed any further, there came the sound of running footsteps behind them.
‘Aidan!’ a voice cried. ‘Aidan, thank heavens it's you.’
The gypsy and Neil turned to see, hurrying from the entrance to the Chalice Well Gardens, a middle-aged man with a pot belly, dressed in dark blue overalls and carrying a hoe.
‘Did you hear?’ the man called. ‘Isn't it awful?’
Aidan's dark brows lifted high into his forehead as the man came puffing up to them.
‘George?’ he muttered. ‘What..?’
‘It was on the radio this morning,’ the man gasped, leaning upon the hoe and clutching his tummy to stop it wobbling. ‘Then Nancy rang—everyone's been popping in to talk about it. There's precious little peace in the garden today I can tell you. How did it happen? Do you know? The report was very vague. I still can't believe it.’
Aidan put his hand upon the man's shoulder and stared questioningly into his mournful eyes.
‘George!’ he said forcefully. ‘Calm down. I've been away and only got back this minute. What are you babbling about?’
The man drew a sharp breath and sucked his bottom lip forlornly.
‘Then you don't know,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, I wish I didn't have to be the one to tell you.’
‘Tell me what, George?’ Aidan insisted, becoming stem.
‘Tales of blood!’ Quoth suddenly interjected and the man in the ill-fitting overall gawped at the bird in astonishment. ‘Grisly doings, I'll be bound. Murder! Treason! Fe, fi, fo, fum!’
‘George!’ Aidan commanded.
The man turned his attention from the raven and in a solemn, dejected voice said, ‘It's Rhonda and the others...’
Aidan stiffened, ‘What about them?’
‘Last night, their bus... it said on the radio it blew up... Oh, God, it's so dreadful.’
Neil glanced at Aidan's face, the swarthy features had frozen. He said no words, but Neil could tell by the fierce emerald blaze which burned in his eyes that the boiling emotion threatened to overwhelm him.
‘They used to love coming to the gardens,’ George said feebly. ‘Dot and Patrick were only here yesterday filling their bottles with water from the spring. Liked it better than the white one they did, said they could feel it doing them good...’
The green fires dancing in Aidan's eyes daunted the man into silence and he sorrowfully hung his head.
‘Accursed be the pasture that feasts on blood,’ Quoth chimed in, ‘and bitterer still the slaughter grown harvest of offal fed fruit.’
Aidan turned slowly and stared at the bird with a glance seething with such reproach that Quoth gave a plaintive quack and shielded his face with his wings.
‘I must go to them,’ the gypsy said. ‘I have to know what happened.’
Tearing back across the gravel he yanked open the van door and threw his hat inside.
‘Wait!’ Neil shouted. ‘You can't go—what about Veronica and Edie?’
Aidan's features twisted as the turmoil raged within him until, finally, he said, ‘I won't be long. This is all part of it—don't you see Neil? I have a horrible feeling I know what's happened to my friends. I have to find out for sure.’
‘But what about me?’
‘We can't both go. You'll have to remain behind. Go up the Tor. If Verdandi and the girl are there, bring them down here and wait until I return. An hour at the most, that's all I'll be. I promise.’
Neil ran forward, but his guide was already climbing into the van.
‘Why can't you tell me what's going on?’ the boy protested. ‘Aidan—what if something happens? Aidan, listen to me! Wait a minute!’
With a roar the engine started and the van reversed back into the road.
‘I won't be long!’ Aidan yelled through the closed windows. ‘Don't worry lad, don't worry!’
Neil ran after him. ‘I can't believe you're doing this!’ he bawled angrily. But the driver never heard him, for the tyres screeched over the tarmac and the van sped off, leaving Neil standing in the middle of the road—alone and confused.
Watching the exhaust fumes disappear around a bend, the boy worriedly turned to the raven upon his shoulder. They were stranded in an unfamiliar place, with no one to help or advise them, and it seemed that Quoth's foreboding portent had been confirmed. Something malevolent was at work here and Neil felt a twinge of fear grip his stomach.
‘That's it then,’ he muttered. ‘We've been dumped. What do we do now?’
Quoth squinted up at the clear, pale blue sky and, adopting an ominous, warning tone said, ‘Little under four hours doth remain of Phoebus’ rays. If
thou dost fail in the task set before thee, then beware the darkness when it falleth. This night we shalt all be steeped in a mere of blood.’
Chapter 16 - Two Lost Souls
Following Aidan's counsel, Neil took the Wellhouse Lane approach to the Tor. This route began as a narrow track fenced in upon either side by a thick growth of trees and bushes. It finished abruptly at a metal gateway, beyond which the great hill swept impressively upwards.
It was not until he was halfway up this momentously steep slope that the boy's anger began to diminish. The climb was not difficult, for a stepped pathway had been cut into the inclining turf, but his leg muscles ached all the same.
Tackling it from this direction however, a trick of perspective lent the tower of Saint Michael the illusion that it was retreating behind the mountainous hill—sliding steadily down the bank opposite to the one which Neil was doggedly toiling up.
Pausing to gaze at the odd, solitary structure, that tall stone finger which claimed the pagan site in the name of the Archangel, the boy assured himself that it could not be much further. Yet, just when he thought he had neared the summit, he discovered that he had only reached a shoulder-like formation and that there was still some distance to go along the Tor's deceptively long spine.
Exhausted for the moment, he took the opportunity to look around him and turned to gaze down upon the town of Glastonbury.
Neil was high above it now and, from that uncanny vantage point, it felt as if he was standing upon a circle of grass which had been cut adrift from the anchoring earth and was floating up to the clouds.
Sitting patiently by the boy's ear, Quoth delighted in the lofty airs which streamed through his mangy feathers and he flexed his primaries experimentally, longing to be able to soar over the tree tops. But his right wing was still too weak and he tucked it glumly by his side, jealously watching the other birds casually traversing the sky.
‘Thou must learn to endure thy affliction,’ he grumbled softly. ‘Envy may shooteth at others but doth ever wound herself.’
‘It doesn't look real,’ the boy said, contemplating the small houses below. ‘Like a toy landscape for a model railway.’
In the middle distance, the collection of buildings and streets branched out to form a spur of brick and slate—neatly lassoing a slightly smaller hump-backed mound than the one he was currently standing upon.
‘That must be Wearyall Hill,’ Neil muttered. ‘Aidan would know why it's called that. Do you think he really will come back? Miss Ursula said that I could trust him.’
Quoth rocked back and forth. ‘Trust him, verily,’ he chattered darkly, ‘yet look to thyself.’
Neil resumed the climb and the tower grew larger with every step until, finally, he was standing before its gaping arch.
Exposed to the ravaging gales, which on wild, wintry days whistled and ripped through the two door-less entrances at its base—those age worn stones had once been joined to a church, but an earthquake centuries ago had destroyed the nave. Now only the tower was left—a striking monument to resilience and a resolute, comforting beacon for every latter day pilgrim who came to the town in search of enlightenment.
Craning his neck to look up at the crenellated upper storey, Neil paced about the four solid grey walls before turning his back and gazing at the shrinking countryside around him.
‘Well, there's no one else here but you and me,’ he said to Quoth. ‘If Edie and potty Veronica did arrive before us, it looks like we missed them. Either that or they haven't made it yet.’
The raven proffered no reply, for he was shooting suspicious, darting glances into the tower's shadowy interior.
‘We'll just have to wait,’ the boy remarked, buttoning the blazer of his school uniform and wishing he'd had the foresight to bring a coat with him from home.
‘There's no rain due—not this day nor the next,’ came a sudden, unexpected voice.
Neil jumped in surprise and whirled around, wondering how anyone could have scaled the Tor so quickly without him noticing.
‘You be a real dafthead standing out there in the wind though!’ the voice added. ‘No scarf, nor bobble-hat neither.’
Neil stared into the archway and noticed, sitting upon a stone bench and half hidden in the shadows, a shabbily dressed old man.
‘Get a nasty head cold you will,’ the man commented, his wrinkle-framed eyes peering curiously at the boy and narrowing when regarding the bird perched at his shoulder. ‘But there's other reasons, better ‘uns. Only barmpots stand about in the open like what you do. Tommy wouldn't do that—he knows as to keep out of sight.’
Neil moved a little closer but remained outside.
‘Arr,’ Tommy continued, rising from the stone seat and shambling forward. ‘Gets you in under cover, afore they spots you, lad. Listen to Tommy, he knows, he saw ‘em, oh, yes, he saw ‘em all right and wishes he hadn't.’
‘Who did you see?’ the boy asked. ‘Was it an old lady and a young girl? Were they here?’
With a shake of his head, the trampish figure pulled off his grimy cap and pointed purposefully at Quoth.
‘Never been so scared in his life has poor Tommy,’ he gibbered, staring at the bird and shivering. ‘Almost had him they did, sure to come back an’ all. Makes him homeless again that does, for Tommy won't never dare kip down in that place again—not for a hundredweight of cabbages he won't.’
Neil folded his arms and Quoth muttered softly in his ear, ‘Methinks thou couldst truss up the wits of yon muggins in a wren's egg.’
‘Feathers black with beaks and claws deadly sharp! Tommy clapped his peepers on ‘em but he were lucky—he was watched over, so them nasties never spied him a-hidin’ there.’
The boy gave him a humouring nod. The old man's face rumpled into a sorry display of misery and he twisted the cap in his large hands and uttered a forlorn whimper.
‘Soon as he could, soon as day came, Tommy scarpered from that barn,’ he wailed, ‘but he forgot summat didn't he? He left it behind—not so clever as he thinks sometimes he ain't, but only natural under them circumstances. He had to leg it real quick. But, oh, how could he have forgot his precious belongings—lost without ‘em he is. When the night comes he won't have no protection this time. Tommy doesn't want them horrors to get him.’
Burying his ruddy face in the greasy lining of his cap, the old man gave a morose sniff, then his eyes lit up and he rammed the hat back upon his brilliantined hair.
‘You'll go with Tommy and see he's safe, won't you, lad?’ he declared suddenly, with a wide smile that revealed his few remaining teeth. ‘He won't be so afeared with a bit of company and it won't get dark for a while longer. Tommy's got to fetch his bits and pieces, see.’
Neil spluttered. T'm sorry,’ he began, wondering why he always had to contend with the local lunatics. T've got to wait here.’
Tommy stepped from the archway, glanced warily at the clear sky and grunted. ‘That's all well and good but we won't be long. Just nip down and collect Tommy's gear.’
‘I'm not going anywhere,’ Neil insisted.
Pausing, the old man lifted the peak of his cap and studied the boy carefully. ‘Funny, the company you do keep,’ he said, indicating the raven. ‘A right scruffy looking specimen that is. Been in a real skirmish that ‘un—nearly got plucked for Christmas did he?’
Quoth cleared his throat indignantly and let out a low, insulted caw.
‘Still,’ the tramp rattled on, ‘you always did have mighty rum pals. Tommy liked the look of that Teddy Bear of yours best though.’
Neil stared at him in complete amazement. How could he possibly know about Ted?
Tommy chuckled. ‘Oh, yes,’ he announced. ‘Hasn't always lived here hasn't Tommy. Used to live in London he did.’
‘In the war?’
The old man rubbed his stubbly chin in concentration. ‘Now which war would that be?’ he mused.
‘The second.’
‘Arr!’ Tommy agreed, snapping his fingers
. ‘That'd be it. He was out of the hospital by then and lodgin’ in one of them dingy houses right alongside it. He saw you then, boy, oh yes.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Enough to know you're a lad who'll help him get his belongings back.’
With that he turned and headed for a second track that lay behind the tower and which zig-zagged down the Tor.
Tommy!’ Neil called. ‘Wait.’
Uncertain of what to do, Neil gazed back at the road, but there was still no sign of either Edie, Veronica or Aidan.
'For all his years the clot is fleet of foot,’ the raven observed, watching the old man disappear below the rim of the hill.
‘Right,’ Neil decided. ‘I'll have to go after him. He must be linked to this. If only you could fly, then you could stay here and come find me when Aidan or the others arrive.’
Quoth hung his head in shame and trilled a pathetic cheep.
‘Oh, never mind,’ Neil told him, breaking into a run.
*
Down the far side of the immense hill they went, with Neil plying the old man with questions. But all Tommy cared about was the retrieval of his beloved possessions.
“Tain't far,’ he said, when they left the Tor path and entered one of the surrounding fields. ‘Tommy used to like it there, snugger than owt else he'd found for a long while. Been there a tidy few years now—a sore pity he has to leave it.’
Plodding alongside him, the boy listened to his concerned mutterings as they crossed the barren fields, until Tommy abruptly halted and caught hold of Neil's arm to prevent him going any further.
‘This is it,’ he exclaimed, jabbing a thumb over the hedge towards a dilapidated and disused barn. Tommy's homestead.’
‘Well, let's go and get your stuff,’ Neil prompted.
‘Not so hasty,’ the tramp answered, doubtfully scrutinising the derelict building. ‘Might not be safe. Though it's still early, they could've come back.’
The boy looked at him intently. ‘Who is this “they” you keep talking about?’ he asked. ‘Why won't you say? Is it social workers or something? Are they trying to put you in a home?’