Avalon (60 page)

The sun was hot, and he was beginning to get a headache from the glare of the sun off the water, and wishing he’d brought some dark glasses.

The boat engines dwindled, and James watched as a diver emerged from the cabin of the anchored boat, threw out the anchor, and began arranging something on the deck. Due to the angle and distance, he could not see what was happening, but guessed the fellow was preparing for a dive.

Jenny and Nicholas had reached the excavation site, a trenchlike pit dug into the cliff face. The place was marked with a number of red-and-white beams — grid sticks, used for measurement in photographs; some of them had white flags attached to help give some indication of the wind’s force and direction.

Reaching the excavation area, Jenny waved and called for Rhys to stop the winch. James relayed the message and watched as she dropped into the trench and unclipped the line. Nicholas likewise called for the winch to stop and eased himself into the excavation trench beside the Queen.

The two pulled tools from the bags at their belts.

James looked away and called to the supervisor, “You haven’t got a spare hat, have you?”

“No problem, Your Majesty,” replied the archaeologist. “I’ll be right back.”

When James turned back, Jenny and Nicholas were hunkered down in the trench. He could only see the backs of their heads and shoulders as they began scraping away the impacted sediment with trowels. Out on the sea below them, the boat rocked in the waves; the lone skipper was nowhere to be seen.

The supervisor returned with the hat, and James joined him and Rhys at the winch rig. As they began to talk, James felt the back of his neck begin to tingle as the
fiosachd
quickened. He looked around, trying to find the source. He saw Embries and Dr. Fuller near one of the huts, talking to a group of researchers. Moving to the edge of the cliff, he looked down.

“Something wrong, sir?” asked Rhys.

At first James saw nothing unusual — Jenny and Nicholas were still in the trench, digging away; the boat still rocked in the waves a little way off — but as his eye swept back towards the dig site, he noticed a shape in the water. It was difficult to see; the sun’s fierce glare on the surface of the water had obscured it the first time. But as he looked, the shape resolved into human form as the diver rose from the depths and swam to the near rocks.

When the diver climbed up out of the water and began ascending the steeply angled slope, the
fiosachd
sent a shock of recognition through him…

He spun around and shouted for Rhys. “It’s Moira!” he hollered. “She’s going for Jenny!”

“Who?” wondered the dig supervisor, ambling nearer.

“I’m going down there,” James shouted, taking hold of the nearest rope as Rhys came flying to the cliff top. “Try to get their attention.”

Seizing the loose rope, the King began walking backward down the steeply angled slope. His shoes were slick, and he slipped, banging his knee hard; righting himself, he pushed away from the slope, and kept going.

Rhys shouted to alert the security men, then grabbed the second rope and started down. Jenny, in the excavation trench far below, was enraptured. Under Nicholas’ expert direction, she had succeeded in freeing two more fragments of ancient pottery from the layer of soil under excavation. Scraping carefully with the edge of her trowel, she was tracing the outline of a third piece, larger than any retrieved so far, when she heard a cry from the slope above and glanced up to see James dangling on a rope partway down the cliff face, with Rhys right behind him.

Above them, the faces of two Special Agents, fierce with concentration, appeared over the cliff top. The security men were shouting and pointing.

what on earth
? she wondered. As she straightened for a better look, a shadow passed over her, and she heard a grating footstep on the rock. She turned instinctively towards the sound and saw the silver shimmer of a metal object arcing through the air. In the same instant, Nicholas groaned and collapsed at her feet in the trench, the top of his head peeled back, showing bloody bone beneath a loose-flapping scalp.

Jenny sensed a movement above and behind her and dropped to her knees. The silver object sliced the air just inches from her head — accompanied this time by a grunt of effort that ended in a shriek as her unseen assailant leaped upon her.

Jenny felt hands on her throat, and her head was driven down against the side of the trench. Doubled over, her attacker on her back, she felt her chest compressed and she could not breathe. The hands tightened on her throat, and her lungs began to burn. She could not speak or cry out.

Blood-red mist gathered before her eyes. She knew she was just seconds away from blacking out.

Forcing her hands under her chest, Jenny got her feet under her, gave out a groan, and pushed away from the side of the trench. She landed on top of her attacker, and felt the hands loosen their grip. She rolled, squirming onto her stomach, and came face-to-face with the woman she had last seen on the Glenshee road the night of her wedding.

The left side of her face and neck was shriveled, the scarred skin mottled and slick, bearing the livid bloom of a savage burn. Her hair was darker now, and cut mannishly short, and she was wearing a black wet suit, but Jenny would have recognized her anywhere.

“You!” she gasped. She saw again the snow-covered ravine lit by the flames of the burning wreck, and any fear she felt was swiftly engulfed by the surge of anger at what the woman had tried to do to James.

Moira loosed a wild scream and drove her hands into Jenny’s face.

Jenny kicked free, landed on her back, half on top of the unconscious Nicholas. Moira, spitting mad, shouted something and leaped at her once more. Jenny managed to get a foot up and drove her heel into Moira’s knee, pushing the leg back. She crashed down on her elbow and came up swinging. She was bleeding from a cut to her forehead, but the silver object was in her hand again. This time Jenny saw it clearly — it was a stainless steel diving knife with a wicked, serrated edge. The blade glinted hard in the light, and Jenny scrambled backwards over Nicholas’ inert body.

Moira, triumph in her eyes, dived forward with the knife. Jenny lashed out with her foot and connected solidly with Moira’s chin. Her jaw snapped shut with a teeth-shattering crack, and she pitched sideways against the back of the trench. Somehow, she held on to the knife. Gathering her feet beneath her, Moira scrambled closer, the knife glinting in her hand.

There came a shout from the slope above the trench. Moira glanced up to see James and Rhys on ropes above her, half sliding, half skidding down the sheer cliff face. Above them, the two security men, guns in their hands, were shouting for Moira to throw down her weapon and move away.

Jenny saw her attacker look away, and rolled to her feet. As she made to stand, her hand closed on the trowel Nicholas had been using. As Moira’s eyes swung back to her prey, Jenny lunged forward, swinging the trowel with all her might.

The sharp-edged tool caught Moira under the arm and gouged a ragged hole in her wet suit up across one breast to her collarbone. Blood gushed crimson from the wound and she staggered back. Jenny seized the advantage and drove in on her. Moira tried to fend her off with the knife, but Jenny knocked it aside with the trowel, nearly severing Moira’s fingers with it.

The knife went spinning from Moira’s grasp. It flew up out of the trench and Moira lunged after it, throwing herself half out of the excavation trench as the blade went skittering down the slope just out of reach.

Jenny saw Moira’s body arch away, and dived for her assailant. Stiffening her arms, she struck Moira in the small of the back. Unbalanced, Moira flipped up over the edge of the trench. She slid forward on her stomach and snatched up the knife; gathering her feet under her, she turned toward Jenny once more.

This time, Jenny was ready. As Moira turned and stood, she pulled one of the metal grid sticks from the soft earth and swung it with all her might, sweeping Moira’s feet from under her.

“No!” she screamed. Tumbling backward, she struck the sharply angled slope, slewed sideways, and started to slide. She tried to flatten herself to the rock to slow her descent. “
Exis gorim fortis
!” she cried, scrabbling for a handhold.

Her hands flailed, fingernails scratching. But the bare stone did not yield and the angle dropped away beneath her. Sliding faster, gaining momentum, she struck a rocky outcrop and was pitched into the air.

Moira screamed again — a hissing, spitting sound like that of an enraged cat — and Jenny watched her sail out in a graceful arc as she plunged down and down onto the wave-washed rocks far below.

James was there beside her as the echo of Moira’s final, defiant scream faded into the startled cry of the frightened gulls. “It’s over,” he said, gathering her into his arms. “She’s gone.”

Embries stood at the summit, surveying the scene below. He and Dr. Fuller had been alerted by the shouts of security personnel, who were now swarming all around the scene, alternately chattering into their microphones, listening to their earpieces, and desperately assuring the royal couple that everything was now under control once more.

Within moments a police cruiser had reached the rocks, and Embries watched in stony silence as Moira’s battered body was dragged limp and lifeless onto the boat. As the launch bobbed on the ocean swells, Embries raised a hand to his eyes as if to shield them from the sun and whispered, “Good-bye, Morgian.”

As James extended his hand to pull her up beside him on the cliff top, Jenny heard him say her name, and the world seemed to take a peculiar sideways lurch. In that instant, everything was changed. She saw her husband not as the man she knew but as a stranger dressed in a leather cuirass studded with tiny iron rings. His hair was long, and bleached by long hours on horseback in the sun; he wore it in a gold-clasped braid at the side of his head. A whitewashed shield was slung over his shoulder, and a well-used sword hung at his hip. He was leaning on the haft of the longest spear she had ever seen.

A wide band in the shape of a serpentine, tail-swallowing dragon gleamed on his upper arm, and a thick golden torc encircled his throat. His cloak was purple, the color of the emperors of old, and it was folded on his shoulder and secured with a brooch shaped like a winged dragon. He was watching her, his lips curved in a smile of pride and admiration.

Rhys stood a little way off, resting his arms on the iron rim of a large oval shield which had been whitewashed and painted with the sign of the cross. A great hunting horn hung from a strap across his chest, and the blade of his spear was whetted to a keen brilliance.

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.

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.

PATRICK

AVALON

BYZANTIUM

THE PENDRAGON CYCLE

GRAIL

PENDRAGON

ARTHUR

MERLIN

TALIESIN

THE CELTIC CRUSADES

THE MYSTIC ROSE

THE BLACK ROOD

THE IRON LANCE

Cover art by Paul Stinson