by Phil Parker
I drained my lavender tea. ‘And I have to find the portal that’s bringing them here and find out who is commissioning the assassins.’ I looked into Amelie’s grey eyes, saw pain there. ‘What are your spies telling you about my visitors?’
‘The first two went unnoticed but Solomon spotted the third.’
Amelia took up the mugs and started to wash them in the large enamel sink, her actions were laboured and occasional spasms of pain registered on her face as she winced.
‘Your rat boy was spotted at the foot of the Tor.’
‘But he couldn’t have used the portal in Saint Michael’s tower, it was demolished six months ago.’
Amelie turned to look at me and nodded. ‘The Tor is a limestone honeycomb Robin. Many years ago there were plans to build a huge pump inside it, to help drain the area and redistribute the water. Hidden so that it would protect the scenery, not affect tourism but provide a vital service. A clever idea that never got beyond the surveyor’s design table.’
It took me a few seconds to realise what she was suggesting.
‘The portal is inside the Tor?’
It made sense. There had been a similar one in the cave at Burrow Mump. Its energy supply would be nearer and it would be hidden from prying eyes, in a location where humans wouldn’t think to look. Legend had always maintained a door to fairyland existed beneath the hill, Saint Collen, a seventh century Welsh saint had even recorded evidence of it, though he hadn’t understood what he’d been describing. I could only sigh at the implications
‘But a honeycomb of cave passages would be like a labyrinth. It could take ages.’
‘If only there was a map eh?’ she chuckled.
I shook my head in admiration as Amelia walked across the room to a bookcase. She placed a large, leather-backed tome on the table, at a page she’d already marked, and stepped back with satisfaction. It showed black and white photographs of the Tor, visible on its topography where markings, reinforced by white lines, of a snake coiled around the hill.
A maze.
With her finger tracing the circular lines around the hill Amelia spoke like a general outlining the field of battle.
‘Weather has eroded the terraces, they’re visible running along the north face but you can see how they spiral up towards Saint Michael’s Tower, the portal Llyr used to attack the town.’
Robin looked up her and smiled. ‘All this time and I’d never noticed the pattern.’
She turned back a couple of pages, where a line drawing replicated the design.
‘’It’s called the Cretan Maze. You remember the story of Theseus and the Minotaur?’
Luke’s attention was fixed on the page in front of him, he nodded. Amelie smiled in appreciation of his fascination.
‘It’s a pattern repeated the world over, on Cretan coins, carved on pillars at Pompeii, on rocks in Cornwall and its found amongst the Hopi of Arizona. It shows you how influential the Fae were when they controlled this world.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ he said. ‘These are features on the surface of the Tor.’
He looked up from the map and into my face. ‘The pattern is repeated in the limestone tunnels below the Tor,’ I said.
‘And it’s been there all this time, over thousands of years. Amazing.’
I grabbed the book and tore out the page. Amelie didn’t appear to care, another reason for concern, in the past she’d have reprimanded me for such vandalism. I’d known this woman for such a long time that our bonds went beyond conventional friendship. One of the disadvantages of my long life was having to watch human friends and lovers age and die. Amelie had been more than a friend, she represented the last person in which I’d invested my love. As a young woman, she’d been like a force of nature, she’d aged into an irascible, cantankerous character but she knew me as well as I knew myself. Perhaps better. I watched her now, saw the pain she suffered and knew I was powerless to help her. I fought down the lump in my throat.
‘Have you heard from the twins?’ I asked, desperate to change the subject.
She turned away and shook her head, I knew she was close to tears.
‘They don’t allow them any freedom. I had a letter from Finn shortly after they arrived in London, I think he got it out secretly because I doubt they’d have let him share some of the things he wrote.’
‘Such as?’
Amelie took a deep breath and composed herself. Luke watched her anxiously, he’d clearly picked up on her anguish as well.
‘The government agency, Finn didn’t know what it was called, treated them like specimens apparently. They tested them and analysed everything they did. But they didn’t understand the extent of Finn’s abilities, at least not then.’
She glanced at the young man at my side, then at me. I nodded. I was starting to think this man was different to the others and everything pointed to the fact I was going to need help to find solutions to the problems I faced. Amelie was clearly out of the question now, he was my only other option.
‘Finn said the government believe the Dark Court will attack again.’
I relayed what Colonel Crabbe had told me and it brought a nod of agreement.
‘They’re going to retaliate Robin. Finn said he’d learned from going through their thoughts their scientists are researching ways to reactivate some of the portals.’
‘They want to attack the Fae?’ The idea was suicidal.
Colonel Crabbe’s attitude made sense now, the army were still on a war footing.
I turned to Luke, my pulse racing.
‘Did you know about this?’
He shook his head repeatedly, held my eyes. ‘I’m sure it’s just a few hot-heads at the top. They wouldn’t want to start something they couldn’t guarantee they could win.’
‘What are you going to do Robin?’
Amelie searched my face for reassurance that I’d do something. She’d accused me of not responding to the threat when Llyr’s forces had invaded, she’d been right too. Now she trusted me to not repeat that mistake. Except I had no idea what I could do. I was persona non-grata as far as the government was concerned, now the reason was clear.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘But you have to do something, you can’t allow…!’
‘What though? What can I do? I’m Fae so they won’t trust me Amelie.’
‘Could you talk to your people? Get a guarantee they won’t attack?’ Luke asked.
His face held so much concern, I felt this was a guy I could trust, he’d spoken of men like Colonel Crabbe not understanding how fighting the Fae was different to everything they’d always been trained to do. The Battle of Swindon had changed this young man, for those who hadn’t been there, they would have very different perspectives. I remembered the same thing happening in the First World War.
‘I’m exiled Luke. They’d probably kill me if I returned now.’
I didn’t mention how I was sure such guarantees were out of the question. If the Dark Court knew what was happening they would retaliate immediately, before the humans were ready. This time the attack would be led by ruthless military leaders, probably someone like Cernunnos, Llyr had been an idiot in comparison. There was one step I could take that might help, I was Nimue’s paladin, her spy in this realm, I had to get a message to her. Except I had no idea how.
Luke and Amelie were watching me I realised. I stood up.
‘Come on!’
Chapter 3
‘Where are we going?’ Luke asked.
‘The first thing we need to do is find this secret portal. Once we’ve done that...’
I let the sentence hang, I had no idea what we’d do next. The problem was too big, too complex. One man couldn’t stop two races from going to war when they’d hated each other for millennia. I wasn’t even sure how finding the portal could help, other than destroying it to prevent more assassins getting through, that sounded like a priority to me.
The young man looked at me, no doubt expecting a
conclusion to the sentence.
‘I assume you’ll want to report these discoveries to your Colonel, earn yourself some merit badges?’ I said.
His chocolate-brown eyes held mine, but there was no sign of mutual attraction in them. They were assessing me.
‘Why?’
His question confused me, mainly because the alternative didn’t sit with the impression I’d formed of this man. He saw my confusion and smiled; perfect teeth, perfect lips, laughing eyes.
‘I’m coming with you.’
I looked to Amelie for explanation but all I got was a shrug and a knowing look, she knew what effect this guy was having on me. I decided to shrug as well. He had to understand the consequences of not reporting back to his superiors but I was glad he’d decided to come with me, he could prove useful.
I hugged Amelie, promised to tell her what we found and told her she needed to take good care of herself. She held my eyes, we knew each other too well for lies. I kissed her cheek, it felt cold. Luke thanked her for tea, she took a torch out of a cupboard and handed it to him, then winked.
‘Just don’t let him fuck you, because he’ll try.’
He left the cottage red-faced, repeating the assertion he was on a military assignment and nothing else was going on.
We followed Solomon’s ghost-like trail from the cottage and turned in the direction of Glastonbury Tor.
‘We’re following an owl?’
Nothing in his army training had prepared the guy for anything like this. That control he valued so highly was already fragmenting.
‘Yes. It knows where the Fir Darrig arrived in this realm.’
‘How?’
We jogged along a narrow country lane filled with flowers as I explained Amelie’s ability to communicate with animals. It generated the inevitable surprise but he accepted the news with a willingness that surprised me. The lane narrowed, turned into a footpath which disappeared into an avenue of flowering Hawthorne. There were no houses, only fields and occasional copses, a deserted location where any strange creature wouldn’t be noticed by the local population.
The owl sailed majestically ahead of us, perched on branches and ancient fence posts until we caught up. The footpath narrowed, branches of Hawthorne stretched across to block our way, forcing us to duck or push them aside. The Tor loomed over us now, I could just make out its spiral of terraces. I pointed them out to my travel companion.
‘You don’t think they’ve left anyone to guard this route, do you?’
The thought hadn’t occurred to me. My soldiering was getting rusty. I nonchalantly brushed aside his concerns, implying such things were insignificant for fighting men like us. All the same, I kept my eyes open just in case.
At the base of the Tor, what remained of the footpath forked. We could see how it climbed upwards, where it was joined by another footpath and was well trodden. Where it divided, the same Hawthorn route circled the hill, following a natural contour. Had we not known of the division, the natural direction to take would have been uphill, our route was hidden by briars and nettles. They had recently been pushed aside.
‘We’re on the right path.’
I plucked a scrap of non-descript material from a briar thorn.
‘This is from the rat-boy.’
I pushed through jungle-like undergrowth until we stood in front of a wall made of limestone. Small trees and bushes perilously clung to its steep sides but, at its base was a small hole just big enough to crawl through on all fours. I dropped to my knees and peered inside. Inevitably it was dark. Luke handed over the torch. Its beam told us little, I could make out a wall on the other side of the cave that had been used by badgers, judging by their claw marks and droppings. I looked over my shoulder at the eager expression of the other man.
‘Still want to come with me? I don’t know what we’ll find.’
‘So let’s go and look.’
I smiled to myself, I liked this guy. He faced court-martial for desertion if he didn’t report his position, yet his enthusiasm suggested that didn’t matter. Perhaps I needed to re-evaluate my impression of him. I called out as I crawled through the hole.
‘Don’t go staring at my arse as you follow me then.’
‘That’s going to be impossible, with something that big. Just don’t fart.’
I laughed out loud.
The hole quickly opened up into a cave, the torch showed us there was enough space for a dozen men to stand upright. Luke was a tall man but even he didn’t need to crouch. We moved deeper and found the cave turned a corner, in the distance we could see a dark yellow glow emanating from a recess in the limestone wall. Luke pointed at it.
‘That’s not natural,’ he said.
‘Now I know we’re on the right path. The Fae use them to illuminate their mines.’
We walked deeper, our path narrowed but maintained the same height. Just like the map of the Cretan maze, I could tell our route was leading us in a smooth arc. We reached the yellow light, set into a recess carved specifically for the crystal and a few steps further another yellow glow provided enough light that we turned off the torch.
Four light crystals later, and with the temperature increasing, the pathway broadened out again and formed a perfect circle. At each of the four compass points archways had been carved out of the rock.
‘Which way now?’ Luke asked as he investigated each entrance.
There was nothing to tell them apart, each one had more yellow light crystals and were the same dimensions. I pointed to the left.
‘According to the map, this takes us to the centre of the maze,’ I said.
Without hesitation, Luke marched through the archway, turned and gave me a questioning look. I grinned at him.
‘You’re not going to ask if I’m sure, if Amelie’s right about the maze?’
He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Only one way to find out.’
I really did need to reconsider my opinion of this guy.
We kept walking, along the path with its spiralling arc that meant we could only ever see a short distance in front of us. As the heat increased I realised we weren’t properly prepared for such an expedition. We ought to have brought drinks to stop ourselves from dehydrating. Sweat made our clothes stick to us, to avoid thinking about cool drinks I admired the musculature of the man in front of me. He caught me ogling him a couple of times, chuckled and shook his head.
We must have been walking for fifteen minutes when the path led us into darkness.
‘One of their bulbs has blown,’ Luke joked and turned on the torch.
I’d given him it so I could hold the map and the danger didn’t occur to me until it was too late. The torch’s beam picked out something in the rock face that glowed red for an instant.
‘Turn the torch off!’ I yelled.
Luke obeyed instantly, without question, but it was too late. There was a deep, thunderous rumble all around us, dust filled the air.
‘Run!’ I bellowed.
We sprinted into the darkness, regardless of the dangers of what we might run into, or off. The cave walls vibrated and heavy thuds behind us told us the passageway was collapsing. A yellow glow in front of us became our destination as cracking and rumbling noises reverberated, small pieces of limestone pinged off the walls and the floor vibrated as huge lumps landed on it behind us.
Finally, breathless and hot, we reached safety, defined by a working light crystal. We stood and looked at the scene behind us, the yellow glow bathed a chaotic mass of rocks, sometimes three feet high. It was passable I assumed but getting back would be anything but easy.
‘Booby trap,’ I gasped. ‘The Fae would have known to stay in the dark.’
We stood in silence for a minute. I assumed Luke was thinking the same as me, whether to carry on and risk more dangers or to press on. I looked over at him, he was brushing off rock dust.
‘Do you want to go back?’
He looked at me, searched my face without self-consciousness.
I returned the quizzical look.
‘I know why I want to carry on. To be honest, I’m not sure why you do.’
He nodded his head very slightly.
‘I’ve been wondering why you haven’t asked already. I assume you still think I’m spying on you, so I can report your actions back to Crabbe. Isn’t that why you think I’m here?’
I snorted a laugh. This guy was clever but more than that, he hadn’t challenged me on it, he’d waited until I decided for myself. He knew this was that moment.
‘No, I don’t. Not now. I did at the start. But as you’re not spying, you still haven’t answered my question.’
The searching of my face continued but now with a grin.
‘OK. If the Fae are to try invading again, they’ll need to use secret portals. If that’s what we find here, I can go back and warn people. Crabbe is an idiot. He’s all about containing the situation, just like so many of the top brass at the start of the war. They didn’t know how to fight a war without technology, against dragons and the like. The only way we can avoid another invasion is to try to understand what’s happening. In this instance, that means finding any back doors the Fae might use, and keeping them shut.’
He looked at me and waited while I considered his thinking. It made sense, especially his view of Crabbe and his cronies.
‘Let’s carry on then,’ I said and set off without waiting for a reply.
The path continued to spiral, the air grew warmer but there was no shortage of it, there had to be vents in the limestone fissures I assumed. The Cretan snake pattern on our map told me that we should approach the centre soon.
‘How long ago was all this created Robin?’
‘The Fae lived in this realm while your people survived in caves. I suspect the subterranean portals like this one may have been the earliest. In Celtic legends the Fae lived beneath hills, it’s how they earned the name Sidhe. It was their way of avoiding contact with the violent local inhabitants I expect.’
Another archway, like the one we’d seen earlier, appeared in front of us. It was well lit but I checked the walls and floor for any more booby traps and when I was satisfied it was safe, we walked through it. We arrived in a wide circular space, like the one we’d found earlier, except this had only one exit. Stalactites and stalagmites merged to form another archway, they shone eerily as light from the yellow wall crystals reflected in the damp limestone. It made the entrance look like something from a fairground. Our map told us this was the end of the line, I grabbed Luke’s arm as he went to step through it, felt his muscle in my grip.