Avalon: The Return of King Arthur

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Dour and gray in the thin predawn light, the plain and its low rise seemed as lost and forlorn as any forgotten scrag of land anywhere. Mist hung in damp, wraithlike patches, and water dripped from the low branches of the gorse onto the soggy ground. There was nothing at all distinctive about the place, nothing to catch the eye or spark the memory, much less tease the imagination.

  Even so, it was as if James had been struck by a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky. He saw that God-forsaken plain and thought: I have been here before.

  But it was impossible. He did not even know where he was — he might have been anywhere north of the border, and there were thousands of places he’d never been. Certainly, this barren landscape with its odd humps and ditches could claim no special place in his memory.

  Yet as he turned away from the flames and stepped toward the hill, he knew… he recognized, and recognizing, rejoiced with a wild exultation. He felt exhilarated, thrilled, excited, and awed all at once, for it was the recognition a soldier experiences on his homecoming from foreign wars. It was the recognition of a man for his bride when first he sees her on their wedding day. It was the recognition one feels on meeting a close and dear friend after a long absence.

  “Behold!” cried Embries. “The time-between-times!”

  And the thought came again, with greater insistence and deeper assurance. I have been here before!

  James gazed out upon the desolate landscape and shuddered, not with cold but with the unanswerable conviction of familiarity. But not — not as he saw it now. He knew it from another time, when it had been a city, when the mounds and humps and hillocks had been buildings and houses and walls, when the ditches had been streets and roads.

  “I know this place,” he declared, glancing across to Embries, who stood tall and erect, arms outspread, face to the rising sun.

  Turning back, James took a single step nearer, and the ground shifted beneath his feet. The covering of turf melted away, revealing shaped stone beneath. Another step and the stones appeared to realign themselves on their ancient footings. Dear God in Heaven, he gasped inwardly, what is happening here?

  Dazed by the surge and whirl of potent emotions, he stumbled forward. The walls rose before him, so that after a dozen steps he was no longer standing on a forlorn plain but moving ever more rapidly towards a wide open gateway set in the high protecting walls of a city, a fortress.

  Caer Lial…

  The word appeared of itself, and was met with the same recognition. It was the name of the fortress.

  Stiff-legged with wonder, he walked up the long ramp towards the high timber gate. He knew there was no gated entrance, no walls, or streets, and yet all those things were there, all around him. He had but to reach out his hands to touch them.

  Moving onto the ramp, he glanced back over his shoulder to see that the helicopter was gone. The wood had encroached upon the plain. Rhys and Embries were still there by the fire, silent and motionless, watching him. James moved on quickly, suddenly afraid that the vision would fade before he could discover its meaning.

  Once through the gates, he hastened along the narrow, stone-flagged street and made for the center of the fortress, passing an assortment of timber-frame buildings — some round, some oblong — but all with steep-sloping roofs and low doorways, dark beneath the heavy overhang of thatch. It came to him that these were storehouses and workrooms; and, as if in answer to the thought, he heard like a ghostly echo the clang of a hammer on iron and the whinny of a horse. The sound halted him and he turned; there, across a small bare yard, rose a great hall.

  Rather, it was simply a large, tall, rectangular building — far larger than any of the others. Four great rough-hewn oak trees formed the corner posts, and another, split in two, supported a lintel of carved stone. The walls were wide laths of timber below a high-peaked thatched roof. The doorposts and lintel were painted: red for the wooden posts, blue for the stone lintel. James saw the painted entrance and knew the structure was the great hall of a king.

  He had no need to look inside. He knew it as he would have known his own house at Blair Morven. Yet he did walk to the doorway and peer in. Though dark, James could make out the immense square hearth in the center of the hall, and the long boards and bankers of the tables. At one end was a wicker partition on which hung a huge square banner: a writhing red dragon on a field of green and white.

  The image was primitive and powerful. James filled his gaze with it, and his pulse quickened at the sight. He marveled at the inexplicable sensation of potency. He had never seen the flag in his life, yet one glimpse was enough to send the blood racing in his veins.

  I have lived in this place. I have eaten at those tables, and slept beneath this roof.

  With this thought came a picture: a great fire in the hearth and men lining the benches — eating, drinking, talking loudly of the battle they had won. One man stood out from the rest: wide of shoulder, he moved with the easy, graceful power of a war leader; a chieftain in a blood-red cloak, he carried a whitewashed shield with a crude cross painted in red. He was speaking to two others — twins, they were, both tall, with close-cut hair and bands of gold on their bare, strong arms.

  Before James could see more, he felt a weight in his arms, and another face appeared before him — the face of a woman: she had markings daubed in blue on her smooth cheeks and high, noble brow, and wore a warrior’s mail shirt; the mail, however, was made of exquisite tiny silver rings that shimmered like living light as she moved. The slender torc of gold at her throat identified her as a queen. Her hair was dark — black as a raven’s wing, and her eyes blue as ice under even black brows. Her lips were warm, and her hands rested with easy intimacy on his chest. She whispered a name, he felt her breath warm in his ear, and was overcome by such a powerful longing, his heart rose to his throat.

  I want her. I want to make love to this phantom queen.

  Unable to endure the yearning, James turned and staggered quickly from the hall and back into the yard. Moving away from the hall, he began walking up one of the other streets, and came to a section of the fortress where the buildings were stone — very old; the stone was not simply found slabs, but shaped into blocks, some of which bore the quarry marks. Two of the buildings had upper floors with square windows. Another was a church.

  James could not have said how he knew it was a church, for it was a simple, square, rough-stone building roofed in slate. The crude wooden door was open, so he walked over and looked inside. The interior was small, with room enough for only twenty people at most, yet there was nothing inside the single, bare room save a tall candletree and an altar made of three large stones. The edge of the table stone was carved with a small cross at either end, and there were words in Latin etched between them.

  Again, even though James did not know Latin, he knew — as if from long familiarity — what they said. “Father of Light, illumine me,” he whispered, and felt and irresistible urge to go inside.

  He stepped cautiously into the room. It smelled of beeswax and fat — the way it would if someone had just extinguished a candle. He moved towards the altar slab and stood before it, gazing down on the surface where he saw, cut into the top, the long, slender, tapering shape of a sword.

  Stretching out his hand, he touched the carving and placed his hand on the hilt of the sword, feeling cold stone beneath his fingertips. It was no dream — solid matter met his touch. James drew back his hand as if he had touched molten metal.

  There was a movement at the chapel door, but James did not turn. He knew that Embries had followed him into the fortress. “Memory, they say, can play tricks on a person,” he said.

  “Is that what this is — a trick of the mind?” James asked, gazing at the sword in the stone, unable to take his eyes from it.

  “What do you think?” Embries asked, entering the chapel.

  His refusal to answer irritated James. “What am I supposed to think?” he shouted. His voice rang in the bare stone room. Again, Embries made
no reply. James demanded, “What’s happening to me?”

  “I could tell you,” the old man replied, “but it would be best if you came to it on your own.”

  “But why? I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do.” He hesitated, and James realized Embries had been about to speak a name — his name.

  “Why don’t you say it?”

  Confused and bewildered, James felt himself slipping, a man clinging desperately to a sheer rock face, every handhold turning to clay and crumbling away even as he grasped it. Forcing down the panic churning up inside, he looked Embries in the eye and said, “I have been here before, haven’t I?”

  “Yes.” That was all he said, but James needed no other confirmation. His own heart and soul had been telling him nothing else since he set foot on the mounded plain.

  “God help me,” he gasped, “how is that possible?”

  As Embries stepped beside him, James turned his head to confront him. One look, and his strength flowed away like water, for the old man had changed almost beyond recognition.

  Fifteen

  The man wore Embries’ face and possessed his elegant stature, but was far younger than the man James knew, and a virile, wild, restless energy streamed from him like heat from a dancing flame. He had a mane of wild dark hair, and the faint trace of a faded tattoo on his right cheek — a tiny spiral fhain mark. The word came naturally into James’ mind, but it was a word he had never used in his life.

  The man wore a long blue-and-white-checked cloak over his shoulder. The cloak, edged with wolf skin, was fastened by an elaborate silver brooch with the head of a stag; on his neck was a massive torc of beaten gold. His trousers were dark blue with tiny stripes of silver thread, and on his feet were tall boots of soft buckskin. In his right hand he held the same horn-tipped staff James had seen the night of their first meeting atop Weem Hill; when he moved, James caught the scent of peat smoke and fresh winter wind. His eyes were deep gold and gleaming with a keen, fantastic light.

  The change was complete, but it was not so much the alterating of his appearance as it was assuming another aspect; Embries had not transformed into someone else, he had simply become more himself. His manner was at once imposing and regal but also welcoming: one king greeting another.

  Raising his staff, he stretched out his other hand and held it palm outward, saying, “The throne of Britain shall become an iniquity to the nation, and a reproach to the people, ere Arthur returns.”

  His voice, rich and resonant, seemed to come from another world. “When Avalon shall rise again in Llyonesse, and the Thamesis reverse its course, then also shall Arthur take up the kingship of his nation once more.”

  The words meant little to James, yet he understood the fearful authority behind them, a power that could command and conquer. Who could stand before such mysteries?

  Lowering his hand, Embries said, “In you, these ancient prophecies are fulfilled. Let him hear it who will.”

  James’ knees gave way. He sank down before the altar and put his face in his hands. “How is it possible?”

  When Embries did not reply, James looked up at him. He continued to gaze down with his intense golden eyes, willing James to make the leap and join him on the other side. But the other side of what?

  When James could no longer bear the intensity of that gaze, he looked away. As he did so, he caught sight of the Latin inscription on the altar’s edge. “‘Father of Light,’” he whispered, making that prayer his own, “‘illumine me.’”

  “You are right to call on God,” Embries said. “He is your righteousness and your strength, and you will have need of both in the days to come. Without God there is no king.”

  James did not raise his head, but he could feel Embries’ eyes like hot coals burning into his flesh. Then, lofting his staff over his head, Embries placed the palm of his other hand on James’ still-bowed head. Heat and energy flowed from his touch — or perhaps through it — into James. He felt warmth flood through him from head to heel.

  “Hear the words of a True Bard,” Embries declared, his voice ringing with authority. “I sain thee with a strong saining. By the might of the Swift Sure Hand, I sain thee:

  “I set the keeping of Christ about thee;

  I send the guarding of the Great Light with thee,

  To possess thee, to protect thee,

  From death, from danger, from loss.

  “Let the encircling of the Three encompass thee in the battle to come.

  In the day of strife, let Michael militant be thy strong protector.

  In the twistings of the fight, let Blessed Jesu stand between thee and the hate of the enemy.

  “I set a cloak of Bright Angels around thee,

  To guard thee from thy back,

  To preserve thee from thy front,

  From the crown of thy head,

  To the arch of thy foot,

  A cloak of Bright Angels shielding thee always.

  “The peace of Christ is with thee, and his own loving arm is around thee.

  The aiding of the True Spirit is with thee, and his fiery sword protects thee,

  The shield of the Living God is over thee,

  Now, and always, wherever thou goest,

  Now, and always, wherever thou farest.”

  James thrilled to the words; he could feel them striking deep and quickening in his soul; already they were beginning to shape and change him. It was as if the words themselves were charms of strong enchantment and he was being transformed from the inside. A strange sensation, yet wholly natural — it felt to James like waking up after a long nap to find himself refreshed and ready for a great adventure. His heart beat faster. His spirit soared.

  This is how it was meant to be!

  He kept thinking, This is who I am. This is how it was meant to be. God in heaven, I have come home!

  “Stand up,” commanded Embries. “It is not fitting for a king to kneel before his Wise Counselor.”

  At his command, James found he could finally rise. He climbed to his feet and faced him. Surely, he thought, we have stood this way a thousand times — ten thousand! King and bard together, now and always.

  “Myrddin,” he said. The name appeared of itself. James was not thinking it but, once spoken, he knew it was right. “Myrddin Emrys.”

  A ghost of a smile played at the bard’s lips. “That,” he said, “is one of my names.”

  “And you have so many,” James replied. “I remember.”

  Myrddin’s glance was sharp and direct. “You will,” he said, his tone at once a challenge and an encouragement. “You will remember,” he said, “and when you do, all this will make sense. That I promise you.”

  He turned and started away. “Now, however, we must go. Time is running short, and there is much to do.”

  James remained before the altar. “Say it,” he demanded. “Say my name.”

  Myrddin turned back and hesitated. James could see him trying to read whether he was ready to hear it.

  “I have said yours,” James told him. “Now you must say mine.”

  Myrddin squared his shoulders to face him, his golden eyes prying deep into James’ soul, trying to read what he saw there.

  “Say it, Myrddin.”

  “Come away, Arthur,” he said softly. “Time flees before us, and we have much to do if we are to save this land.”

  Arthur!

  He spoke the name, and James opened his mouth, and laughed out loud.

  The name sent a flood of elation cascading through him, and with it a flood tide of remembrance. He saw Cal sitting astride a great horse; he was leaning down, his strong forearm resting on his thigh, a bracelet of heavy gold on his wrist, glinting in the light as he extended his hand to a dark-haired maiden with the offering of a cornflower blossom.

  He saw Rhys, arms folded inside his cloak, standing before a crackling fire on the bank of a reed-fringed lake. He was gazing into the flames, his face glowing in the flickering light. His long dark ha
ir was in a thick braid which he wore to the side of his head and over one shoulder. Behind him loomed the massive dark bulk of a cone-shaped hill surmounted by the towering walls of a fortress; overhead the twilight sky was streaked with stars. His jaw bulged and his brow wrinkled as he contemplated the thorny problem before him.

  “Come away, Arthur,” said Myrddin, and once again James felt a thrill of exquisite delight ripple through him. “Memories can wait. We must be about our work.”

  They turned and walked together from the chapel and into the narrow street. As they moved along the ancient pathway, the fortress and its buildings began to melt away. The walls and rooftops glistened, and then slowly faded, growing more and more transparent, until they could see through them to the hills beyond. The first rays of sunlight touched the phantom structures, whereupon they dispersed altogether, leaving the two men standing on the grass-covered mound in the light of a glorious winter morning.

  Gone were the walls and buildings, gone the ancient thatched hall and stout timber gates — everything asleep beneath the thick green turf. Caer Lial was but a scattering of low, grass-covered mounds and ditches once more. The walls were toppled, the streets broken and sunk, the fine kingly hall crumbled, and the handsome banner nothing but a handful of dust. Grass covered everything, hiding house and granary, church and hall alike; patches of swiftly dissipating mist hung where warriors had once walked.

  The Wise Emrys, too, had resumed his former guise, becoming once more the slender whitehaired man of imperious bearing. Gone was the wolf skin and torc of gold, gone the dark mane of hair and the checkered Celtic cloak and silver brooch, the tall boots of fine soft leather. But even as James beheld the change, he saw, faint as a faded line on parchment, the tiny blue spiral tattoo on Embries’ right cheek just below his eye.