Chapter Eleven
You. Are. A. Pendragon.
A Pendragon.
The words chased around in my head. In the back of the stolen car I sat with my head between my knees trying to stop the churning of my stomach.
As though taking place in a distant room, I could hear the low voices of Lance and Wyn. Part of me wanted to listen to them, rather than listening to my own thoughts, but I couldn’t, I was trapped in my own head.
A brief flash of fear surged through me. Was this what had happened to Mum?
No. You are not your mother. Arthur’s voice was low, as if he didn’t want to intrude on my thoughts.
I’m scared.
I was more than scared. I was terrified, but Arthur’s voice in my head was oddly comforting.
Fear is normal, Arthur replied gently. But you must accept it, deal with it, and find a way through it.
I can’t. I can’t just accept this. It’s too much. You. Those wraiths. It’s all too much.
Even as I thought it, it felt like a lie. I could accept it. Because somewhere deep inside I knew it was all true. I knew it with a powerful certainty. Some part of my soul claimed my inheritance eagerly, even as my rational side protested that it was all crazy, that I was crazy.
Somewhere in the midst of my mental confusion I fell asleep, slumping with my cheek against the cold glass of the window. My exhausted body overruled my mind, and my mind was eager to surrender.
My dreams were broken and confusing. One minute I was with my father again, living my old life, the next I strode down the halls of a great castle. In one instant I was sat in an empty room at Snedham, and the next I crouched by the edge of a great lake. I knew that some of those dreams were not my own, that they were Arthur’s memories. I saw the faces of Lance, Wyn and Percy, but superimposed over them were the faces of different men, older men. I felt my subconscious was trying to tell me something, but I was too confused to work out what it was.
The dream changed and the wraiths were closing in again. I was screaming but on the edge of my dream Lance simply stood watching, waiting, and I knew I had to face them alone. The dream flickered again and took on a different quality. One that was all too familiar. It was the clarity of it, the sense that somehow this was reality.
I stood in the ruins of a castle. The sky was clear blue overhead and the feel of spring was in the air. A light breeze teased at my hair and I tugged my jacket a little closer around me.
The crunch of boots on stone made me turn. Lance walked towards me. His face was pale and tired, but he smiled wearily when he saw me.
He held out one hand as he reached me and I took it. As my fingers were engulfed in his warm ones the castle around us changed. It was no longer a ruin. Instead it stood strong and majestic around us. Although we stood alone in an empty courtyard I could hear distant voices and the bustle of people.
“Walk with me, My Lady,” Lance said his voice full of archaic formality.
I turned to follow him up a narrow staircase but the car lurched over a pothole and I jolted awake. Blinking I glanced out the window of the car.
We were driving along a winding country road between towering hills. Everything was a lush green and ahead of us stretched a bleakly beautiful landscape of valleys and hills. Mist shrouded the peaks and a light drizzle fell, giving everything a faintly dream-like quality. It all felt familiar to me, and I had the strangest sensation I was seeing it through two sets of eyes.
I stretched and turned my head the other way. Lance smiled as my gaze fell on him.
“You’re awake. I thought you were going to sleep the whole day away.”
I frowned. “I was dreaming.” The last part of my dream stayed with me, the way Lance had looked at me, and my own bitter-sweet feelings. Things had felt different in the dream between Lance and me, like I had known him a lifetime rather than just a few days. Lance was looking at me curiously, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and changed the subject. “Where are we?”
“Wales,” Lance replied.
“Wales?” Of course, I recognised it now. The Brecon Beacons. Mum and Dad had brought me there once as a child. Mum was Welsh by birth, although her family had moved across the border to England when she was just a baby.
I’d been eight or nine when she’d decided we’d go to Wales on holiday. We’d spent a week in Cardiff seeing family and then headed up to the Beacons National Park. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was.
The barren moor sides of the hills rose up around us, dotted with white sheep and the occasional sure-footed mountain pony. In the distance the very roof of Pen y Fan was wreathed in clouds like a halo of smoke. The misty rain blurred everything to a dream-like haze. Even so I could see the dark shapes of walkers trekking up hillsides, battling the weather.
The road we followed weaved its way between the hills, snaking back and forth through deep valleys. At a sharp bend in the road water flowed down the hill before tumbling down a jumble of rocks and vanishing beneath the road as we speeded on.
I felt strangely at home.
Actually, you are home, Arthur said, his voice tinged with amusement.
Really?
We are no more than twenty leagues from Camelot.
His voice was desperately sad, and I knew it was because the Camelot he remembered was no more.
Was it really like the legends say? I asked.
More wonderful than you can imagine.
“Cara?” Lance touched my arm, bringing me abruptly back to the real world. “Are you hungry?”
I was starving, but I wasn’t going to admit it, so I gave a non-committal shrug. “A little.”
He reached down for a bag by his feet. “We stopped while you were asleep.”
There was nothing exciting in it. Just a bag of crisps and a slightly dry egg sandwich.
I ate the sandwich but when I looked up Percy was smiling at me over the back of his seat. His eyes kept straying towards the crisps in my lap.
“Do you want these?”
His smile broadened, but Lance snorted.
“Don’t give him your food. He already eats too much as it is.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at the wounded expression on Percy’s face, and I handed the bag across to him. “You have them.”
Lance rolled his eyes then touched my shoulder. He pointed through the window.
“That’s where we’re going.”
I followed the direction of his finger. It led to a valley between two hills, heavily wooded, with steeply slopping sides. The mist was lower there, filling the valley and writhing through the treetops.
Each bend of the road, each turn, took us deeper into the hills, but the traffic around us didn’t seem to lessen. Then, just as I thought we must surely be heading straight for Merthyr Tydfil, Wyn turned off the main road.
It was barely a single lane, covered in gravel rather than tarmac, and just beside it a sign with big red letters warned that trespassers would be prosecuted. Wyn didn’t even spare the sign a glance as he manoeuvred the stolen saloon car along the rutted road.
It wound through a cleft in the hills, almost too narrow to even be called a valley. At first the hillsides, rising steeply on either side, were just gorse and heather, but slowly the pines and furs grew ever denser until we were driving in the middle of a thick wood.
The car shuddered and groaned as it hit a deep rut in the road and Wyn rolled to a stop. Ahead of us the track narrowed further into a winding path, barely wide enough to walk single file, that snaked away into the trees.
“We’re going to have to go on foot from here. This car isn’t built for off-roading.”
Percy laughed as he shoved open his door, crushing some of the undergrowth. “You should have stolen a jeep then.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly have time to shop around. I was in a bit of a hurry.”
It felt slightly surreal, listening to them talk so calmly about stealing cars, like it was an everyday occurrence.
&nbs
p; “Are you getting out?” Wyn asked with a grin as he opened my door.
I hesitated before climbing out. My shoes sunk two inches into mud and I grunted. Lance, Wyn and Percy had already gathered at the front of the car and I squelched through the mulch to join them.
The forest around us was eerily quiet, which made me feel small and insignificant amongst the great trees. I rubbed my arms as goosebumps erupted on my skin. The back of my neck prickled as though someone was watching me.
The haunting call of an owl broke the silence and I glanced up. A large tawny owl sat on the nearest branch of a tree, watching me with big, unblinking eyes. I’d never seen an owl before, so it was hard to tell if the look of human intelligence was natural in those liquid eyes.
“Come on.” Lance touched my arm. He didn’t seem to notice the owl. Reluctantly tearing my eyes away from the bird I followed him as we slipped between the trees.
The deeper we moved into the forest the more my sense of unease grew. There was an ancient presence in those trees. It wasn’t evil, just watchful and wary.
Don’t be frightened. The only evil here is what people bring with them.
I relaxed a little and as I did the presence changed, the wariness faded to be replaced by the warmth of welcome.
I wondered if I imagined it, but beside me Lance sighed and tension eased out of his shoulders, as though he’d been feeling the watchfulness too. He glanced down at me and smiled.
I was just about to smile back when there was the second hoot of an owl.
Looking ahead I saw another tawny owl a few trees in front of us. Or was it the same one? It certainly looked the same, but I wasn’t exactly an expert.
I tried to ignore it and focused on making my way through the trees. The track had vanished and we were following a tiny game trail that wound between the tree trunks. The terrain was difficult going, roots and undergrowth caught at my feet and more than once I had to stop to unhook my jeans from barbs and thorns.
The track started to slope downwards and the going got even rougher. Even in the cold, misty air I was starting to sweat and I shrugged out of Lance’s jacket.
He smiled and took it wordlessly. I grimaced back, pushing my slightly damp bangs out of my eyes.
We’d been walking for over an hour by my guess and the sun was sinking behind the distant hills, turning the world beneath the trees to a green tinged twilight. The days were so short in the winter months.
I was almost ready to call for a break when through the trees ahead I caught a glimpse of something blue. The flash of water.
Almost instinctively I sped up. Percy had been ranging out in front of us, but now he stood by the tree line waiting for us. Lance took my elbow to help me scramble over a fallen tree and we were out of the forest.
A lake spread before us, nestled between the hills. We stood on a slopping, mossy bank, but to the left and right of us trees grew right down so that the water lapped at their roots, and they bent over at odd angles, looking like old men stooping to get a drink.
Something about the view in front of me didn’t seem right. The water was too blue beneath a grey, cloudy sky. When I looked closer I realised the calm waters were reflecting a totally different blue sky, with scudding white clouds. A shiver sped down my spine. The other problem was that the lake was too big to be contained by the small valley we’d driven into. The far shore was hazy with distance, a mile or more away. But the valley we’d driven into had been barely more than a crevice between hills.
I was about to mention it to Lance when something moved out over the lake. The owl circled, and I knew it was the same one, dipping its wings before flying straight towards us.
As it got closer a bright, white light surrounded it, growing in intensity so much that I had to close my eyes against the glare.
When I opened them again a man stood on the shore of the lake.
I had been expecting an old man. The traditional image of a magician. The man facing me looked no more than forty. His salt and pepper hair hung a little long, but he was clean shaven. There was no stoop to his shoulders and although he was smaller than the boys he was lean and strong. Instead of robes he was dressed in a pair of jeans, cowboy boots and a chunky brown sweater.
Then I looked into his eyes and saw eternity.
His eyes were ancient. They had seen lifetimes come and go, watching kingdoms rise and fall. They had seen love and hate, life and death, and everything in between.
“Caronwyn Page.” He held out both hands to me. “I am honoured to meet you at last. I am Emrys. Although, you may better know me by the name Merlin.”
Chapter Twelve
Lance, Wyn and Percy had found a fallen tree that stretched out into the water and were sat along it, having stripped off their boots and socks so they could dangle their feet in the water, looking more at ease here than I had ever seen them. They were talking in low voices, but their laughter drifted across the water.
I, meanwhile, stood on the edge of the lake with the man who called himself Merlin. We hadn’t spoken, but I had a feeling there was a conversation going on I wasn’t a part of, even though one side of it was taking part inside my head.
“You don’t look like Merlin,” I said suddenly, tired of the silence.
He chuckled. “And how exactly am I supposed to look?”
“Well, older for a start. Long hair and a beard. Robes. Something.”
“I can if you would prefer, but I thought this look would be less – strange – to you.” He smiled at the confused look on my face. “My form is not something that is bound by the usual rules. The image of the wise old sage had its place in the courts of kings, but this world is very different now.”
I didn’t reply, staring out across the lake. I could feel Merlin’s eyes on me.
“I know this must be confusing for you, Cara.”
“Confusing?” I snorted. “It’s a little more than confusing. Lance said you would be able to explain what’s happening to me.”
Merlin put one hand behind his back and ran the other through his hair. “I can certainly try. But tell me something first. How is your mother?”
It was such an odd question for him to ask that for a moment I simply stared at him.
“My mother?”
“Yes, I believe you visited her just a week or so ago.”
“She – she was the same as always.”
Merlin’s eyes darkened. “I am truly sorry. I wish I could have prevented her decline.”
“I don’t understand.”
He stared across the water, refusing to meet my eyes. “The line of Arthur Pendragon as always been touched by magic. It is in your blood. But it is dormant. Perhaps a certain foresight or the ability to sense a lie. Little things, easily explained away. Your birth heralded bigger things, because it coincided with the return of the old magic to this world. You were always destined to hold greater magic, the ability to see beyond this world, to know a little of the future.”
What he was saying was interesting, but it didn’t really explain anything. “What does that have to do with my mother?”
Merlin sighed. “Your magic was with you from the moment you were conceived, and whilst your mother carried you she dreamed your dreams. But the magic was not hers and her mind was not able to cope.”
As his voice trailed off my stomach clenched painfully and I wrapped my arms around my waist.
“Are you saying – it’s my fault?” I couldn’t believe it. My mother was the way she was because of me. It was my fault she was in Snedham.
Merlin caught my upper arms as my knees buckled, holding me upright. “No, Cara, it’s not your fault. The fault is mine, because I did not foresee her decline. And perhaps after all this I will be able to find a way to fix it. In fact, should you succeed; I believe your mother’s mental state may improve dramatically.”
“I don’t understand.” Those words were coming out of my mouth a lot lately. But nothing made sense any more.
“Your mot
her has dreams like you, but she sees only one thing. The confrontation between you and the one who summoned the wraiths. Can you imagine how that tortured her? That one vision drove her mad, and perhaps once the outcome of that vision has been decided her madness will lift.”
A tiny spark of hope flared in my chest. The doctors had told us so many times that we shouldn’t hope for a recovery, but if there was even the slimmest chance to cure her, I would take it. But that would mean confronting the faceless adversary who had summoned the wraiths.
Then I shook myself. Did I honestly believe in all this? Was I truly going to believe a man who called himself Merlin?
You really should stop being so stubborn. Your heart tells you this is all real, Arthur said quietly.
My heart’s betrayed me before, I replied, thinking of Anderson.
This is not the same and you know it.
I shut Arthur out, looking out of the corner of my eye at Merlin.
“You called yourself Emrys.”
“Yes, it is my name here in Wales. Emrys Myrddin. Here I am know as such, here in the birthplace of the old magic, but most legends know me best as Merlin – and one name is as good as any.”
“And you are really…” I wanted to say magician, or wizard, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Why do you find it so hard to believe, Cara?” He stepped forward a few paces and it took me a moment to realise he was stood on the surface of the water, little waves lapping at his boots. He turned to face me and lifted his hands. The water around him began to churn and his voice echoed like thunder. “I am Myrddin Emrys, the prophet of the past and the future. The seer of destiny. I know you, Caronwyn Page…and you know me.”
I stumbled backwards as his voice rose, but then he dropped his hands and his expression softened.
“I get the feeling you are not easily impressed. I could show you great magic and still you would doubt. You doubt Arthur, even though he is of your blood. You doubt me, even though I have watched over you your whole life. And yet.” He frowned. “You do not doubt Lance. Through all this you have trusted him. Yet he is the only one who conceals who he truly is. Although, I think in your heart you know.”
The Last Knight (Pendragon Book 1) Page 9