Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  "Coincidences happen."

  He felt uncomfortable inside his skin. "Yeah. I guess so." He shook the feeling off. "What's your line of work, Mr. Taliesin?"

  The old man sipped from a mug of warm Guinness. "By training, I am an archaeologist. By inclination, an historian. By the infirmities of old age, a pensioner."

  "I thought you were in New York on business," Hal said. "You had to meet somebody at the Museum of Natural History."

  "Ah, yes. I do some consulting work for the London Museum from time to time. The people in New York were planning to reconstruct a medieval English town, and I was sent to assist."

  Hal felt a low-wattage jolt of electricity course through his entire body. "Your specialty is medieval English history?"

  Taliesin nodded. "I've always felt particularly at home in that era. They call it the Dark Ages, but it was only considered dark in comparison with the fireworks of the Renaissance. Actually, it was quite an interesting time, bringing about the amalgamation of the Celtic tribes with the influences left by the Romans . . ." He stopped abruptly and smiled. "What an old bore I am, lecturing in a pub . . . I say, Hal, are you ill?"

  Hal forced himself to swallow. "No, it's just . . . just another coincidence, I guess."

  Hal didn't like coincidences. He didn't like all the coincidences that had been occurring since the first time he'd met Taliesin. If he'd still been with the Bureau, he would have had the man investigated.

  But for what? Hal Woczniak didn't have a nickel to his name, and his penurious condition was obvious. He had no secrets, not anymore. Anyone associated with the Bureau would disavow any knowledge of him. Even the Chief had written him off two months ago.

  Taliesin ordered another pint for Hal. He drank it down. It tasted like dog urine, but it did the job. And truthfully, despite the vague sense of unease brought on by seeing the old man again, Hal hadn't been in such interesting company for a long time.

  What the hell. Coincidences did happen.

  Sometimes.

  "You might be interested in a project I'm working on now," Taliesin said several glasses later. He had kept up with Hal drink for drink, but was apparently unaffected except for a slight blossoming at the tip of his patrician nose. "A student at Oxford—an archaeolobaby, we call them—has made a claim announcing that the ruins of a medieval castle in Dorset may have been Camelot." He raised his bushy eyebrows in amusement. "The museum has asked me to go out to the site tomorrow. Care to come along?"

  "Camelot?" Hal said thickly. Even through an alcoholic haze, the name was still magic to him. "King Arthur's Camelot?"

  Taliesin laughed. "Dear boy, I assure you we won't find anything of the sort. Every village with a pile of moss-covered rocks on a hill claims to be Camelot, and every archaeology undergraduate in Great Britain hopes to find it. But it's a lovely bus trip, and I know of an excellent inn near the area. Will you join me?"

  Hal slogged down the contents of his glass, and while the barman refilled it, he thought of how much he disliked London. "Sure," he said. "Why not?" He hoisted his drink. "To Camelot."

  "To Camelot," Taliesin said, laughing.

  The old man came by the hotel at eight the next morning. Hal had managed to shower and shave so that he bore at least a minimal resemblance to a human being, although his brain felt as if it were in the process of shorting out.

  Taliesin understood. They walked in silence to Victoria Station, where they boarded a decrepit old bus along with three other passengers. Once inside, the Englishman offered Hal a thermos of coffee.

  Coffee was the last thing Hal wanted. The weather was getting warmer by the minute and the bus had obviously been built when air-conditioning was the stuff of science fiction novels.

  "It would be wise to drink it now," the old man said. "The roads on this route deteriorate considerably once out into the countryside."

  Hal drank the coffee. It was strong and sweet, just the way he liked it, and the open windows shot a cool breeze onto his face. Within a half-hour his hangover had disappeared.

  "So," he said, leaning back in his seat like a new man. "Where're we going?"

  "Dorset County, near the Hampshire border. A place called Lakeshire Tor. There's an old hill fort on an abandoned farm."

  "The one the archaeologist thinks is Camelot."

  "Not an archeologist. A student. They're always finding Camelot, or the tomb of Charlemagne, or other equally impressive things. Unfortunately, their findings are almost always false."

  "What'd this one find?"

  "A rock."

  "A rock?"

  Taliesin sighed. "He claims it's got an inscription of some kind on it."

  "What's it say?"

  "He doesn't know. It seems he spotted it during an outing of some kind. Picnic with his girlfriend, most likely. Archaeolobabies like that spot, even though it's clearly marked as private property. He spent a whole blasted day clearing away brambles. By the time he might have been able to see the rock clearly, night had fallen, and the little twit was so woefully unprepared that he had to go home."

  "So? Did he go back the next day?"

  "An Oxford student? Of course not. He went straight to the head of the archaeology department and demanded a university-sponsored team to retrieve the rock for study." He laughed. "That would be quite premature, of course, as well as illegal."

  "Then why are you going?" Hal asked.

  "Insurance. If Oxford mounts any sort of investigation, the popular press will be crawling all over the university and printing stories about 'CAMELOT FOUND!' To avoid any such embarrassment, the archaeology department head has asked the museum to look over the student's rock and dismiss any connection to the Camelot theory."

  "But . . ." Hal was bewildered. "Why would he connect the rock to Camelot in the first place?"

  "Because everything on Lakeshire Tor connects to Camelot, at least according to the people who live in the area. They're quite insistent, despite an almost complete lack of evidence."

  "You mean the place has been explored before?"

  "Countless times. Archaeolobabies adore Lakeshire Tor. There was even a preliminary exploration of the ruins in 1931. A cutting of earth was taken. Some interesting artifacts were uncovered—Saxon, mostly, on the upper layers, but there were some Celtic-style articles below them. Jewelry, pottery shards of the Tintagel type, as well as Roman tiles and even earlier, Bronze Age items. Apparently the castle was built on the site of several previous fortresses from different eras. But the archaeologists found nothing to warrant a full-scale excavation." He studied the passing countryside.

  "But the Arthur legend has always been popular in the villages around the Tor. The locals even claim that children can sometimes see the castle."

  "Only children?"

  "Oh my, yes. That's always part of a good legend. That children, in their purity, can understand things quite beyond the ken of their world-weary elders." He gave Hal a wry look. "It's how they explain the fact that no scientific study has ever been able to find anything."

  The old man nestled back in his seat, his eyes sparkling. "And yet the legends persist," he said quietly. "One maintains that on St. John's Eve in midsummer—just a few days from now, actually—the Knights of the Round Table ride their ghostly horses around the countryside, searching for their king."

  "Do the children see them too?" Hal asked, smiling.

  "No. The villagers hear them. Or they hear something. Tape recorders have picked up the sound."

  "Are you kidding?"

  The old man shook his head. "After receiving hundreds of tapes of the same noise, the museum sent its own team to record the hoofbeats. And that is what they are, according to the most sophisticated analysis. I've heard them myself, back in the late seventies."

  Hal realized that his mouth was agape. "Well, what do you think it is?"

  Taliesin shrugged. "An acoustical anomaly, most likely. Sound traveling from another source, perhaps from a riding school or stable. There are many i
n the area. It could be that at that time of year, when weather conditions are right . . ."

  "Then no one's heard the horses during, say, a rainstorm."

  "Some claim they have. Some of the villagers swear they've felt the ghost knights pass through their very bodies on their midnight run." He laughed. "But of course that's no more than the imaginations of some country folk with little else to entertain them. At bottom, there is not a shred of fact to establish Lakeshire Tor as Camelot. Or even that Arthur the King existed, for that matter."

  "But the legends must be based on something."

  Taliesin's laughter pealed. "My boy, you are the romantic."

  Hal blushed. In all his life, no one had ever described Harold Woczniak as romantic.

  "Forgive me, Hal. It's a compelling story. A boy, guided by destiny and aided by a beneficent sorcerer, who comes to begin a reign that will unite the world in peace and justice. It's the kind of tale we all want to believe. We all want to think that Arthur will come again, and so we keep the old legends alive." He was smiling kindly, every inch the gentle teacher.

  Hal grunted. "I guess you're right."

  He busied himself with the rest of the coffee and looked around the bus. Several people had boarded since Victoria Station, but his gaze was drawn to one man sitting in the first seat, opposite the driver. He was a swarthy, dark-haired man with biceps like hams bulging out beneath a blue polo shirt. There was nothing particularly unusual about the man, who sat chatting amiably with the driver and smoking occasional cigarettes, but all the same something put Hal on guard.

  It was a sense he'd developed during his years with the FBI, an almost psychic ability to spot a criminal. All experienced cops had it and relied on it heavily. They never included any mention of it in their reports, and even among themselves they used words like "hunch" rather than what it was, because what it was could not be defined.

  The guy's probably just stolen some cash out of the register at work, he thought. Or he beat up his girlfriend.

  He screwed the lid back on the thermos. Or I'm just a jerk.

  That, he decided, was the most likely possibility. He didn't have the sense anymore. Booze had washed it away, the way he'd seen it erase the edge in other cops. The man had never even turned around to look at him.

  Jerk.

  "Feeling better now?" Taliesin asked.

  "Huh? Sure. Fine. Thanks." He gave the thermos back to the old man. "So look at the bright side, Taliesin. Maybe this time you'll find something. Maybe you'll really discover Camelot."

  "It would be quite a nice thing to have in my obituary notice, wouldn't it?" Taliesin said. "Of course, I would be long dead before any such discovery could be announced."

  "I don't understand," Hal said, his eyes wandering involuntarily toward the dark man at the front of the bus.

  "Science works slowly, my friend. First, surveys of the land would have to be made, aerial photographs. Something like wheat would have to be planted to show the exact sites of previous habitation. They would show up dark in a photograph after the wheat grew. Then a series of earth-cuttings would be made . . . But it won't come to that."

  "Why not?"

  "Oh, a number of reasons. For one thing, the land is privately owned."

  "I thought you said it was already explored."

  Taliesin nodded. "The Abbott family gave the museum permission to excavate the preliminary cutting sixty years ago. We'd always assumed they would grant it again, if any new evidence turned up. Unfortunately, the last of the family, Sir Bradford Welles Abbott, died earlier this year in an automobile accident and willed the Tor property to a complete stranger."

  "Wouldn't the new owner give permission to excavate?"

  The old man shrugged. "We've no idea what he'll do. The sod may build a shopping center on the Tor, for all we know."

  A pair of wide blue eyes swiveled over the top of the seat in front of them. Hal stared back. Suddenly he felt horribly uncomfortable.

  A boy, about ten years old, craned his head above the seat back. He had red hair. He would have fit the profile of Louie Rubel's murder victims perfectly.

  "I wouldn't do that," the boy said. "Build a shopping center."

  Taliesin smiled.

  "I think the place you're talking about belongs to me." His accent was American. A woman who had been dozing beside him woke up then and crankily urged the boy to turn around. "Don't bother people," she snapped.

  She was small, Hal saw, but formidable-looking. Her brown hair was pulled back into a severe schoolmarm bun, and the only adornment on her face were a pair of thick glasses. Underneath them, she might have been pretty, but her scowl made it difficult to determine.

  "They know my castle," the boy whispered excitedly.

  She gave him an exasperated look. "Haven't you learned anything?" she said, her voice shrill. "Don't talk to strangers."

  The red-haired boy looked back at Taliesin, studying the old man's face. "He's not a stranger," he said finally. "At . . . at least I don't think so." Two frown lines developed between the bright blue eyes. "I know you, don't I?"

  Taliesin crinkled his eyes kindly.

  "Maybe it's your voice. You sound just like Mr. Goldberg."

  "Arthur, that's enough!" The woman grabbed the boy's shoulders and forced him to sit straight in his seat. "I'm sorry he bothered you," she said, blushing. "It's been a long trip, and boys sometimes get restless."

  "Quite all right," Taliesin said.

  The boy peered around furtively to steal another glance behind him. This time he was concentrating on Hal.

  "You, too," he said, his soft voice filled with wonder. "I know you, too.”

  Hal forced a grin. "You do, huh?"

  "Yes." The boy smiled at him, his face filled with innocent trust. "You were the best."

  Hal felt as if a cold fist had just punched him in the gut. "What did you say?"

  "Get over here," the woman commanded. She rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a prescription bottle filled with enormous lozenge-shaped pills. She shook one out and held it up for the boy. "Take it."

  "No, I'll miss everything." He shielded his face.

  "Lady—" Hal interrupted, but she wasn't listening to him.

  "I said, take it." Fighting the boy all the way, she finally stuffed it into his mouth.

  He spat it out, then ran down the length of the aisle to the door of the bus.

  "Arthur!"

  The driver screeched the bus to a halt. He looked back at the woman, then leveled a stare at the youngster and jerked his thumb toward the rear. "Better go back to your seat, lad," he said.

  The boy didn't move.

  Hal saw the pill lying in the aisle and picked it up. "Just what is this?" he asked the woman.

  "None of your damn business." She rose to move toward the boy, but Hal blocked her path.

  "I'd like to know what kind of stuff you're forcing down the kid's throat," he said.

  Blushing furiously, she peeked beyond Hal's big frame and pleaded to the boy with her eyes. The driver and the other passengers were silent, watching the scene with interest. The swarthy man in front smiled and winked at her.

  "You don't understand," she said, her voice quavering, her eyes not daring to look at Hal's implacable face.

  "No, I don't. Why don't you explain it to me?"

  She began to tremble. She covered her face with her hands, and a great sob welled up inside her and burst out.

  Hal felt extremely awkward. The lady's wire was obviously stretched to the limit. She looked like some kind of bird quivering in front of him, or a little girl playing dress-up in her too-long dress and clunky shoes.

  The boy finally broke the silence. "It's Seconal," he said quietly, walking back toward them. "I haven't been sleeping well." He took the pill out of Hal's hand and swallowed it dry. "This was my fault."

  Then he squeezed past Hal and put his arm around the woman, who was no more than a foot taller than he was, and led her gently back to her seat
. "Sorry, Emily," he said. "It won't happen again."

  The woman kept her hands over her face, but allowed him to seat her. Then the boy chose another seat for himself, directly across from Hal's, and slumped into it.

  The bus started up. Hal sat down quietly. When he glanced across the aisle, the boy was watching him.

  "Will you wake me when we get to the castle?" he asked.

  Hal nodded. "You bet."

  The boy smiled and closed his eyes.

  You were the best.

  There was no mistake about it: He had used those very words.

  You're the best, kid. The best there is.

  Hal shuddered. He looked over at Taliesin, but the old man had also dozed off.

  He stared out the window. He wouldn't sleep, he knew. Not now, not tonight, maybe not for a long time.

  Things had gone far beyond coincidence. The chance encounter with Taliesin, the strangeness of the game show questions, the boy quoting from his dream . . . They were all connected somehow. He believed this with the same instinct that had singled out the dark man in the first seat as trouble. He believed, but he didn't understand a damned thing.

  No, he wouldn't sleep. The dream was too close to the surface.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A few minutes after the boy fell asleep in the seat beside Hal and Taliesin, the woman with him came over from her own seat to cover him with a jacket. She touched him tenderly, Hal saw, smoothing the red hair on the boy's forehead. When she turned to face Hal, her eyes were glassy with tears.

  "I apologize for my rudeness," she said quietly. "My nephew and I have been under a strain for some time. I was afraid that you might try to harm him."

  Her hands were still trembling. Probably chronic, Hal thought. His own hands shook for months after Jeff Brown's death, until he discovered the no-worry of the bottle after his release from the hospital.

  "I thought the same about you," Hal said.

  She nodded. "That's understandable, I guess. The Seconal—I wasn't forcing it on him. He hasn't been able to sleep. He has nightmares . . ."

  She stopped abruptly, as if sensing she'd said too much. With another tight, controlled smile, she stood up.