She heard a rustling of wings beside her, and Embries was there — a young man now, with a wild mane of long dark hair and a cloak made from the wing and tail feathers of ravens and crows. Sunlight glishtened on the black feathers in darkly iridescent rainbows, and flecked his pale eyes with fiery gold. He carried a staff of oak topped with a curl of ram’s horn inlaid with a delicate silver tracery of ancient Celtic design. His shirt was midnight blue woven with threads of silver which glinted like stars. On his feet were boots of soft leather, and he wore a wide leather belt on which hung a feathered pouch.
“Behold,” he said, his voice resonant with an authority she imagined even the wind might obey.
She looked down at herself, and saw that she was dressed in the garb of a warrior queen. Her cloak was scarlet, and bordered with red-gold key work; her shirt was white linen, over which she wore a mail shirt of tiny silver rings. A small shield rimmed with iron hung on her shoulder, and her sword was slender, long, and sharp. Her hair was braided, the plaits bound and held by a silver boar’s-head brooch. Her boots were soft white leather, and her belt was woven leather decorated with overlapping shells.
Raising his staff, the Wise Emrys stretched out his hand. “Behold!” he said again. Tilting his face towards a radiant sky, he said, “Lo! In Myrddin’s hand she comes through the quickening glow, joining her noble husband, who stands to look upon his realm and ponder thus: is the King made for his kingdom, or kingdom made for King?
“While beleaguered and downcast the Britons sang, doom in shocks split the burning gloom. Lo! God’s holy fire revives, the flame of life bestirs itself from ashes not yet spent. The Singer at the Dawn of the Age, the Bard at the Gate of Time, rouses, rises, and shortly wakes! The spark of Avalon glows, fades, and glows again. Lo! The Summer Realm’s ancient throne knows once more her master and her lord.”
And as the Wise Emrys spoke, she saw that the island of bare, blasted rock miraculously changed. All around her, like a sunstruck emerald aflame in a silver setting, was a land green and blooming with the first blush of summer — the fairest of Britain’s seven isles, surrounded by a gleaming silver sea. It was Avalon as it had been once long ago… and would be again.
About the Author
STEPHEN R. LAWHEAD (www.stephenlawhead.com) is an internationally acclaimed author of mythic history and imaginative fiction. His works include Byzantium and the series The Pendragon Cycle, The Celtic Crusades, and The Song of Albion. Lawhead makes his home in Austria with his wife.
Books by
Stephen R. Lawhead
PATRICK
AVALON
BYZANTIUM
THE PENDRAGON CYCLE
GRAIL
PENDRAGON
ARTHUR
MERLIN
TALIESIN
THE CELTIC CRUSADES
THE MYSTIC ROSE
THE BLACK ROOD
THE IRON LANCE
Credits
Cover art by Paul Stinson
Avalon Page 48