“The war raged on and many lives were lost. One day, in one of the most horrendous battles, Arthur was overcome. He was brought to Avalon seriously wounded, and he died, in spite of the fairy Gliton’s efforts to heal him.”
I sat there thinking, trying to digest all this. I hesitated a moment before asking her, “What happened to my grandfather?”
Tears began running down her cheeks.
“Our daughter Charis, your mother, was seventeen when Myrddin came home after being hurt during an important mission. Morgana had cast a terrible spell on him. He stayed with us on our island for several years, but day by day, he sank into madness. As guardian of the balance between our two worlds, Merlin had sworn to the king that he wouldn’t let them accomplish their wicked plans, so when he realized he was never going to get better, he won back the Comper castle, moved in, and recited a powerful incantation that closed the passage and imprisoned Mordred and Morgana on the island. Afterwards, Merlin became uncontrollable, and I bound him with a spell and locked him up. But I couldn’t save him.”
She was crying now, and had trouble continuing.
“It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do,” she lamented.
She broke off, and it took a while to pull herself together again. I understood now why she’d always been rather severe and distant with me. Feeling responsible for the death of the person you love must be difficult to bear.
Finally, she continued: “In taking away his magic and his freedom, the passage remained closed, imprisoning each of us on whichever side we had been when all this took place. Only a descendant of Merlin, possessing the same abilities, could break the spell. And despite the curse Morgana placed on our family, Myrddin always remained confident. He’d had a vision of the future and had seen the birth of a boy.”
A loving smile hovered on her lips as she said, “My two older daughters married Avalonians, and they had only daughters.”
“Did they also come here?”
“No,” responded the fairy with a pained, trembling voice. “They both perished, as did all their daughters, in accidents or during attacks by Mordred and his partisans. Only Charis was left to me. When you came into the world, you created a general stupor, and then hope. Perhaps the fact that your father was human broke Morgana’s spell… I wasn’t sure, because you started aging like a human, and I didn’t know if you possessed our gifts. But not only have you proven this evening that you’re the heir, but – and I don’t know why – your powers are even more potent than your grandfather’s.”
She caressed my cheek, murmuring, “Your scar… You healed yourself. Myrddin couldn’t do that.”
“I saw the battle where Grandfather was wounded,” I whispered.
“I know. You’re twelve now, and that’s the age when your powers begin to show themselves. Clairvoyance is one of them. You can now see the past and the future.”
“But I’ve already dreamed many other dreams before that one! I saw you too!” I insisted.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, seeming troubled. “Even though it should be impossible, as we don’t manifest our powers before the age of twelve.”
“What else am I capable of?” I asked her.
She shrugged, then reeled off a list: “You can unleash the fury of the wind or the sea, you can change appearance, treat and heal wounds or sickness… You can even communicate with animals.”
“I’ve been doing that for a long time,” I declaimed proudly.
She stared at me, astonished, before going on.
“You’ll have to complete your training with Avalon’s eight priestesses, the women I introduced you to tonight, and with me of course. And receive combat training from Galahad. Then you’ll go to Cambridge, in England, to finish your studies. All this will prepare you to take up the reins of our society when the time comes.
“I need you to be aware of one very important thing, Gabriel – the rules in this human world are different. No one must know who you are, and you must not use your magic within the sight of any human. Don’t attract attention! I may have been able to accumulate an immense fortune during my hundreds of years living here, but I’ve also been subject to interrogations by every possible State organization.”
“Really?!” I blurted out. “Well, why do I have to learn how to fight?”
“Many of Mordred’s followers are on this side, and they’ll do everything they can to win back the passage. They’re always looking for a way to re- open it, so far without success. When they figure out who you are, you’re going to be in great danger.”
She sighed. Viviane seemed like such a tower of strength, but right now, she was so fragile, and she was looking at me with eyes full of hope.
“You can make it possible for us to go back home,” she assured me.
“But how?” I exclaimed. “Yesterday I didn’t even know I could create a storm, let alone transform myself into a frog. And when Grandfather said I have to protect it, what did he mean? Protect the island?”
“It’s not yet time to tell you that. You have many things to learn before you can accomplish that task. Again, I want to make this very clear – no one must know who you are! You have to be cautious.”
After that day, my life changed. Now that all the secrecy was at an end, Viviane acted as if there were no more time to lose. My lessons became more intense. And every one of her sisters, fairies all, had her own specialty to teach me:
Moronoe taught me numerous spells linked to the alignment of the planets, and she showed me how to read the sky like a map.
Thiton gave me lessons in alchemy. With her, I learned all about magical formulas, how to use them, and how to make potions. That was fun. I put together my recipes like a master chef, with ingredients each as unlikely as the next. Sure, they didn’t always work at the first try, and I some of the mistakes I made cost me dearly. One day, for example, I made a mistake putting together a concoction for invisibility. Instead of adding spit from a Costa Rican frog, I put in chameleon spit, and the result showed my error beyond a shadow of a doubt: I wasn’t invisible – I was red as a strawberry! It lasted all day, subjecting me to many long hours of Thiton’s stony look of disapproval.
Viviane also reprimanded me, “You have to be more attentive and concentrate harder!”
“What use is that potion, if I can simply use a spell for invisibility?” I grumbled. “It’s a waste of time learning that stuff.”
“You can only use that spell for yourself,” she told me with that irritating tranquility of hers. “If you need to make a human invisible, you’ll need that potion.”
But later on, it turned out that I didn’t need the potion after all, because I found out that if I simply touched someone as I pronounced the invisibility formula, they disappeared with me. Another one of my hidden powers…
Gliton specialized in herb-lore. She brought me to the forest to study plants, and she taught me how to make unguents and herbal pastes to treat and heal wounds or sickness. But there too, I found I didn’t need to make cataplasms and concoctions – if I touched the right plants, they would deliver their energy to me, and by setting my hands on an injured or ill person, he or she was healed.
Gliton discovered this when we were walking through the forest one day, and I heard the desperate call of a chickadee. On the ground near the path, I discovered its fledgling, squeaking with pain and distress. It had a broken wing. I kneeled down, dug one hand under the moss it was lying on, and set the other hand on the baby bird. I felt a pleasant energy flash across my body, then my hand sent out a bluish glow and warmth enveloped the bird. A few seconds later, it flapped its wings and flew back to its mother in the nest.
My instructor stared at me, astonished. Apparently, no one could heal in this manner, not even Merlin, as she explained. It happened naturally, and this intrigued Viviane too, even more than Gliton.
As for Tyronoe, she helped me open my mind in order to master my visions and dreams. The most difficult thing, she told
me, was to read the future, and that I could never manage to do. On the other hand, I could easily see things that had already come to pass. I was also quite gifted in premonitions. I felt things coming, although I wasn’t yet able to define them.
Mazoe specialized in storms, and Gliten was mistress of water. These two areas were easier for me than the others. I upset them fairly often by playing tricks on them, to my grandmother’s chagrin.
But most exciting of all was learning how to change my appearance. Admittedly, it was not easy. My first experiment forced me to remain in the shape of a rat for two days; incapable of correctly pronouncing the formula that would render me human again. Our cat, Mystic, chased me all around the castle. Even though I kept telling him it was me, Gabriel, his hunting instinct was too strong to overcome.
Glitonea taught me how to communicate with animals. I figured it would be better to keep to myself the fact that I could do this much better than she could. I amused myself by asking animals to do the opposite of what she wanted them to do. When she asked Mystic to come to her feet, I told him to lay down and play dead, which he did instantaneously, to Glitonea’s mystification. I chortled to myself, pleased to be able to play with her nerves. In fact, she was practically a nervous wreck by the time Viviane caught on to my tricks and ordered me to cease and desist my futile games and to respect my professors.
The threatening flash crossing her cold countenance calmed my ardor, and I decided to pursue my education more seriously. Viviane was without a doubt the most powerful fairy of them all, and I had no desire to anger her.
What I loved above all else was my combat and swordsmanship training with Galahad, who was, incidentally, no other than the son of Lancelot, the chevalier. Raised by my grandmother from his earliest years, his loyalty to her had no limit.
His lessons were difficult, but they made me strong and agile. Handling a heavy sword was grueling, and required enormous energy. My muscles developed, and after several years, my physique began to resemble Galahad’s. By the time I was sixteen, I could look in his face almost without having to raise my eyes. I could parry most of his attacks and even force him into tight situations, but to my great frustration, I had never been able to beat him.
Although Henry was waiting for me down at the “Eagle,” I stood in the shower a long time, letting the hot water flow onto my shoulders. As I relaxed, memories of being sixteen took shape in my mind. I had reached perfect mastery of my magic skills by then, but I had no idea what I was capable of when confronting an enemy.
My nightmares about my parents and the car crash visited me far less often around then, but they were as intense as ever, and I could never push past the moment when I saw my mother’s horrified countenance. I spoke to my grandmother about it. She listened attentively, as concerned and eager as I was to know what had happened afterwards, and discover the reason behind her daughter’s terror. She enlisted Tyronoe’s help, but despite their combined efforts, they couldn’t get past the barrier that my mind had set up. Realizing how demanding my attempts were, Viviane decided to wait and see if time would bring it out.
I remembered looking in the bathroom mirror after one of those nightmares and realizing that certain things had changed, and others had not.
What was certain, though, is that during my sixteenth year, one event utterly changed my life for the third time… Melora’s image suddenly popped up in my mind, followed by a pang in my heart.
Abruptly changing the course of my thoughts, I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, rubbed my hair vigorously, then quickly dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. I had tried to get out of Henry’s little project that morning by pleading extreme fatigue, but without success, so it was with a feeling of resignation that I went down to meet him.
The fresh air did me good. It’s true that Henry could be a bit exasperating at times, but he was right – I was twenty years old today, and yet I acted – and felt – much older. The burden of my heritage and its responsibilities were making a drudge of me, and it was time I woke up to pleasure, to leisure, to the interests of other students my age.
It was time I learned to forget who I was, at least every now and then, and that time was now – for one evening, I wanted to forget all about Broceliande and Avalon…and Melora.
May 2009,
Broceliande, France
Spring had chased away the harsh, freezing winter. Nature was timidly awakening, and a golden afternoon was inviting me out – an invitation I intended to accept. I changed into an irreproachable riding habit and got ready for my usual long ride in the forest. I loved following twisting paths to some sunny clearing or to Broceliande’s ponds and lagoons, where I could listen to birds or the breeze ruffling the dense foliage of the trees.
I would spend hours playing with Eirian and Deryn the elves, talking to animals or climbing up tree to improvise a siesta in some cozy little nook of sheltering branches. From my perches, I observed the life of the forest, feeling the magic all around me, and becoming truly one with wild nature.
At sixteen, I had grown into a young man in the prime of life, ready to fight the enemies of Arthur, but to my surprise, I had still never had occasion to test my courage. I didn’t know whether I should be relieved or disappointed about this.
As I strode up to the stables, eager to get into my element, I saw Galahad waxing his saddle. He nodded at me in lieu of greeting.
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked him lightheartedly.
“Not today.”
Smiling at me, he waved a hand at Lightning and said, “He’s awfully impatient this morning. I don’t know what’s agitating him, but he’s been looking out for you since dawn.”
He was talking about the black stallion I’d singled out during my initial riding lesson. Lightning had grown into a powerful charger, and since our first ride together one night four years earlier, we had become very close. We communicated effortlessly.
I remembered with a grin the day I was officially announced his sole rider. It was the day after my twelfth birthday, and I was to meet Galahad for our daily ride. He was waiting for me with the horse he’d chosen for me to ride, but I had refused to mount it.
“I want that one,” I explained, pointing at a gigantic horse with a black coat in the paddock.
Galahad took one look at the agitated stallion, snorting with impatience and fixing me with his piercing eyes.
“Don’t even think about it!” he exclaimed. “He’ll break your bones. Choose another!”
But all his arguments couldn’t make me swerve from my decision. Finally, he capitulated, persuaded that I’d get a good lesson out of it.
A groom cautiously approached the horse, saddle in his arms. Lightning shook his mane in defiance, making the young man tremble, but nothing untoward happened, and the stallion let him put on the saddle and bridle. All the stable boys crowded around the paddock rails, thinking there would be a monumental fall to watch. They were laughing and making bets.
When I entered the paddock, they all held their breath. I walked up to Lightning calmly, in the church-like silence reigning in the stables, and without hesitation, put my foot in the stirrup and swung onto his back. To the amazement of my spectators, the big stallion paced toward the gate in the most peaceful fashion possible.
I looked at Galahad, and nonchalantly asked, “Are you ready?”
“Let’s go,” he barked, but not without giving me a look of admiration.
This morning was different altogether. Lightning did indeed seem nervous. I mounted him in one supple movement – thanks to Galahad’s training, I had become limber and energetic.
We set out, Lightning’s hooves hitting the ground lightly, but with a thumping sound. He flew through the air with long strides, carrying me along at dizzying speed and making my hair fly in the wind. His sweat-soaked muscles bulged and tensed with his efforts. I let him guide me to a spot where the path opens onto a tiny, luxuriant clearing I had never visited, but which somehow seemed vaguel
y familiar.
I dismounted, and let the stallion drink from a small wooden barrel filled from the last rains, while I studied more closely a pretty thatched cottage in the clearing.
A low rock wall around it sheltered magnificent rhododendron thickets with amethyst-colored flowers. The splendid weather contributed to its picture-postcard beauty, and the whole situation was so charming it invited contemplation.
“Are you looking for something?”
Immediately on my guard, my hand flew to the knife in my belt, as I spun around. I saw a young girl standing before me. She gazed at me inquiringly.
There weren’t many girls to compare her with at the castle, but her light gray eyes leaning toward green were so beautiful that they made me lose my bearings. I could only stutter a few weird sounds.
“For such a sturdy young man, you’re rather quickly overwhelmed,” she mocked.
“You startled me, that’s all,” I grumbled.
She looked at me with a perplexed expression, then said, “Gabriel?”
How does she know my name?
At my silence and obvious surprise, she explained, “It’s me, Melora!”
She smiled at me gently. I recognized the pendant she wore and after a second’s reflection, I cried out, “Of course! The little princess invited to my twelfth birthday, the one who wanted to kill all the monsters in the castle!”
She tittered, looking me up and down with interest. “I’m no longer little, and you’ve grown some too.”
Feeling self-conscious, I changed the conversation. “What are you doing here?”
She waved at the cottage, and explained in halting English, “That’s my parents’ vacation home. My mother and I often come here, as she loves this spot. I find it rather boring myself.”
I appreciated her effort to speak my native language. I observed her discreetly. Melora didn’t look at all like her mother Gliton. I wondered if she had inherited her powers, and if she even knew that her mother had such powers.
Heirs of Avalon: The passage Page 4