by Phil Maxey
Justin then looked confused. “OK, but what could a few hundred undead knights and a few monsters do against the rest of humanity? You know there’s such things as guns, tanks, and jet-fighters, right?” He wasn’t sure if his question was in jest or not.
Sparrow smiled.
“The technology of the new world is no match for the magic of the old. He who controls that level of power will rule the world. The nine houses were originally created to keep that power in check,” said Gus.
“And every day we fight to keep that power from those who will use it for evil,” said Finn. “Usually, that’s just a few rogue individuals from our own houses, but now it’s different.” He finished by looking in the direction of the closed shutters.
Jax looked uneasy. “There are the prophecies.”
Eden frowned. “They are just the scribblings of old monks, they don’t mean anything.”
Justin looked around at the others, waiting for someone to explain.
“There are some that say the monks knew a lot of the old ways but kept the teachings hidden, even from Arthur and Merlin,” said Jax.
“Prophecies?” asked Justin while shifting away from the fire which was beginning to make him uncomfortable due to its intense heat.
“A few hundred years after the houses were formed, some scrolls were discovered in the bowels of an Abbey. No one knows for sure who wrote them. Maybe it was the monks, maybe not, but they foretold of a time of great upheaval when the power of all the rings will be used in a great war and the house’s and humanity’s very survival will be at stake,” said Jax.
Bartholomew started to speak but hesitated.
“What?” said Miss Toper.
“If I remember my studies correctly it also says that whoever is custodian at the time of the upheaval will be brought down.”
Eden shook her head. “Well, I’m the custodian for house Lancelot, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Justin noticed again the dragon clasped jewelry they were all wearing. “What is so special about your rings?”
No one responded.
“He should know about Orichalcum,” said Gus eventually as he lifted his hand. “You think this is a gold ring?”
“Well, yeah?”
“It’s not, it’s harder than diamond. It was mined when giants roamed the earth and there was a great civilization called Atlantis.”
Justin sighed. Really?
“Forget what you have been told young man, Atlantis was a real place, and many of their machines were built with Orichalcum. It can harness the power of nature and the universe beyond. In the right hands that is.”
Eden shifted uneasily in her seat. “You have heard of Arthurs sword, Excalibur?”
Justin nodded.
“It was forged from Orichalcum, and gave Arthur great power.”
Finn continued. “But the metal only bestows its abilities on some. The sword chose Arthur.”
“And the rings chose each of you?” said Justin.
“Only Gus has the full power of his ring,” said Eden. “That is why he is an Ordained. That is what we call the most powerful of us. The rest, because of training and our bloodlines, can access a tiny part of the power of our rings. But the rings did not choose us as you say, we are merely custodians, protectors to stop the ring from falling into the wrong hands, until it is passed on.”
“When do you know it’s time to pass them on?”
Gus smiled. “Usually when the custodian is dead!”
“The Prophecies also mention that the four elements will be out of phase, perhaps what is happening outside is part of that?” said Jax.
Everyone sat in silence with their own thoughts.
“So, what do we do?” said Justin, realising that he had just included himself in any effort.
Miss Toper looked around those gathered. “What is happening right now is unprecedented. Our enemies have obviously been planning this for some time, perhaps decades, and now they are putting their plan into action.” She looked at Jax. “I don’t care how you do it, but you need to get word to the other house members, especially the Magi.” She looked at Finn and Eden. “I know we took a bit of a beating earlier, but we need to be prepared for another attack.” Finally, she looked at Gus. “Perhaps, in these old books, and the others in the vaults there will be something to tell us about what is happening?” He nodded, and she stood. “I will tell our guests of our plans, and try to settle them down.”
CHAPTER 14
Kat looked in stunned silence at the article’s headline on the news website. “FARMERS DOG CHIP, MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARS FROM INSIDE LOCKED ROOM!” She looked down at the golden dog sitting by her feet happily chewing on an old shoe she gave him.
Her rational mind was still trying to hold onto her old reality. Maybe it was her grandfather’s dog, and Joan really did drop it off a few days ago. I know I made that up though.
Suddenly she stood, making the dog jump. Moving away from her chair she paced up and down near her bed. The dog looked at her expectantly.
As the snow gently hit the outside of her bedroom window, her heartbeat raced as she tried to think through the events of the last few days.
My grandfather said that the ring will affect me. I had a funky dream about some place called Avalon, and he was there. He left me the shop. He—
She sat back down, and brought up a computer program where she could type out her thoughts. She was used to dealing with code, and logic, so that’s how she was going to proceed. As she started to type, Arnold or Chip, she wasn’t sure which to call him yet, sat up and started jumping and moving in a small circle.
Kat looked down at him. “Again? You did your business a few hours ago already!” Her thoughts went back to the television show she saw earlier. If this really was the dog from the TV, it had grown up on a farm and must have been used to running wild. Being cooped up in a sixteen by sixteen foot bedroom was probably driving it crazy. “OK, fine, but it’s the last time tonight!”
As she got to her feet she could hear her aunt and uncle in the passageway saying their goodbyes to her mother. She knew when they were gone, she would get a roasting on why they now have a dog to pay for.
She waited until she heard the front door close, then opened her bedroom door. The dog ran through the small gap and descended the stairs, Kat ran after it. As she reached the bottom of the stairs she refused to look in the direction of the front door where she knew her mum would be standing.
“Katrina!” Dawn shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me your grandfather gave you his dog? Do you know how much they cost?”
Kat was tired, she whipped around and faced her mother. “What’s the problem? When granddad died you saved yourself a thousand pounds per month! More if you include the extra costs they were going to charge!” The words came out with a fury which surprised even herself.
Dawn stood silent, her face full of emotion.
Kat instantly regretted what she had just said, but there was too much going on to be arguing about the cost of their new pet. “He needs to go out back again.” She then moved into the kitchen where the collie was sitting, wagging its tail eagerly. Her mother solemnly marched up the stairs.
The large white flakes slowly drifted down outside the kitchen back door. Kat put her boots on and some gloves, and turned the door handle. It didn’t budge. She then leaned into it, and slowly pushed it open. The dog seized the first opportunity it could to fit through the opening and charged off into the darkness.
She enjoyed the ice-cold air hitting her face and walked forwards onto the snow-encrusted stone slabs of the patio. Somewhere out there in the gloom she could hear her newly acquired dog moving around.
“Arn—Chip?” It was the first time she had referred to the dog by its given name and, somehow, it made the situation feel worse. She shook her head. “You done yet? Can’t stay out here all night.” She wiped some snow from her nose, and walked a few feet further forwards, standing at the top of the garden steps. The
light from the kitchen behind her only illuminated twenty feet into the night and she could only see the start of the white blanketed lawn.
“Where are you?” she said to herself under her breath.
The sound of snow being crunched came from the far end of the garden. Putting her hands out to both sides, she carefully stepped down the snow-covered steps until she was standing on what used to be their lawn, and strained her eyes to see as far as she could.
“Chip! Come on! What you do—” She suddenly remembered that their garden had lots of holes in the fence, especially towards the back.
The night around her was especially silent, but the crunching noise persisted. As she walked slowly forwards, she started to make out a shadowy form near the back wall of the property. She took another step, when Chip started growling from a few feet behind her.
Kat jumped and turned around. “You made me jump out of my skin!” She then grew concerned. “What are you growling at?”
Slowly she twisted towards where Chip was looking. It was where the crunching sound was emanating from. She patted her leg, “Come here,” but the dog refused to move.
The area they lived in was one of the better parts, but she had heard of several burglaries over the recent months. Who would try to burgle a house in this weather?
She wanted to return to the sanctuary of the house, but there was something thirty feet from her, and she wanted to know what it was.
“I can hear you back there! I’ve got a dog!” she shouted into the night in front of her.
She crept forward, the snow getting deeper the further she walked. Chip crept forwards with her, growling as he went.
What is that?
As she grew closer to the back of the garden, the shadows started to take the shape of a humanoid, but one that was draped in something. Maybe a rough sleeper was trying to get refuge from the weather in their garden?
“Hello?” she said into the shadows.
She was now only fifteen feet away. She looked behind her but Chip had stopped some distance away. As she was looking at her dog a noise of rustling came from the back wall. She turned back, screamed, and scrambled backwards.
It was the first time she had screamed in her life. She found herself on her backside in the snow looking up at the unraveling figure in front of her. Wings, it has wings!
Chip started barking.
She closed her eyes tight. It’s like before, it’s a dream, it’s not real. It will go away.
Opening her eyes just confirmed the nightmare, for in front of her was a creature from fairytales and low-budget horror films. A humanoid form, with bat like wings which were now stretching and unfolding to the entire width of the garden, stood in front of her.
It’s looking at me!
The creature’s eyes seemed lost in the darkness of its angular face, but its neck twisted and contorted so its head was pointing in her direction.
It stepped forwards awkwardly on hoofs as its wings retracted. Then she heard it. An almost inaudible hissing sound. “Ssss—new—cussstodian—such—power—but—suss—young—innosscent—” It then made what sounded like a giggling sound.
Kat’s eyes widened, her mouth agape.
“Sss—I—sstake—for—myself—” It lunged forwards and Kat flung her arms in front of herself instinctively.
A bright light, more luminous than anything she could imagine, lit up the garden, together with the sound of bubbling. Kat opened her eyes, slowly lowering her arms. Even in the chilled air around her, her ring finger felt intensely warm.
The thing had gone. The back of the garden was full of bushes and flower beds all lost in a sea of snow, but nothing else.
She sat not wanting to move, when she felt something jump at her. She yelped, then let out her breath when she felt the warm coat of her dog. She hugged Chip close to her. “It’s OK boy, I think it’s gone.”
CHAPTER 15
When the group in the study broke up and went about their separate tasks, Justin stood too, not knowing what to do, or who to follow. But then Sparrow asked him to help with their defences. He hadn’t expected that to mean freezing his arse off, walking amongst the strange carved stones and hedgerows in the garden. He also now had a sword, which was surprisingly heavy.
Sparrow walked alongside him with her bow over her back, and lantern in hand. “Why were you in Oxford?”
“Are we still even in Oxford?”
She smiled. “Very much so.”
“I was applying for a course at the University,” he said, his eyes glancing at the fair-haired woman to his side.
She looked impressed. “I went to Cambridge.” She noticed his surprise, and chuckled to herself. “You thought we were all full-time wizards and warriors, fighting the dark forces?”
“Err, yes?”
“Ha, no. I manage my own coffee shop in Bath, Eden and Finn work on a fishing boat together in Scotland, and I believe Bartholomew is a museum curator in London, we all have jobs of one type of another, apart from, well Jax.” She frowned. “His role just seems to be to bring his house into ill repute.”
“He looked OK to me.”
“Most of the time he’s banned from his own sanctuary. He’s someone you only need in small doses.”
Justin noticed tension in her voice and decided to change the subject.
“What was it like for you when you first found out?”
“About all this?”
Justin nodded.
“My parents told me tales when I was a child, but you think they are just that of course, stories for children, then the former custodian of my ring contacted me, and told me about what my future held.”
He noticed she said the last bit with a tinge of sadness.
“I had just finished my university course at the time, and was ready to enter the world of big business!”
“So, you opened a coffee shop?” It wasn’t meant to come out as a sarcastic remark but sounded like one nevertheless.
She smiled as the snow started to fall heavier around them. “It’s better if those that are inside the order are not too high profile, the less the public knows about this world the better.”
Justin looked unsure. “Some people must know about all this? People in government?”
“The people that know are the ones that need to …”
They had walked to a part of garden Justin didn’t know existed, and it was full of smashed and broken vehicles.
Sparrow shook her head. “They must have destroyed them before the attack yesterday.”
She walked up to a dark blue sports car, the front of which was completely crumpled as if it had been stood on by a giant. She looked sad. “My father bought me this car.” She looked back at him. “We might have a problem getting out of Oxford.”
He looked at the dark shadows around him.
“We need to be getting back, it will be witching hour soon and those we fight against particularly favour that time. I also need to tell the others about this.”
They soon were traipsing in the rear entrance to the house and through a back office, which was decorated no differently to the rest of the house. An impressive, large desk, proudly dominating paintings, bookcases and bureaus, all warmly lit by the gas lanterns attached to the four surrounding walls. They appeared back in the main lobby, which was disturbingly quiet.
“Where is everyone?” whispered Justin.
“No need to talk quietly, I doubt they’re sleeping,” said Sparrow, marching across the scuffed, tiled floor, and opening the study large doors.
She was right for as soon as she pulled the doors back, a hive of activity hit them. Most he had seen before, but there were others he had not. All were in small groups talking or arguing. There must have been thirty in the large study, some of whom had bandages on their arms, head, or legs.
Gus was standing with some others, behind a large table which was covered in leather covered books, most of which were open.
Justin went to take his sword belt
off so he could lay it down somewhere as the weight of it was beginning to make his hip ache, when he felt a presence to his side. “Too heavy for ya is it?” said Eden.
Justin took his hands away from his belt. “No, not at all, quite light actually.”
She laughed, and slapped him on his arm with enough strength for it to sting but he managed to control his response. “Ah, yer a wee slip of a lad, you need to build up those muscles of yours. Have you never used a sword before?” Before he could reply she laughed, “I’m messing with ya! Of course you haven’t!” She then looked more serious. “That needs to change though. You have kingly blood in those veins of yours, tomorrow when I’ve had some rest, we will go out back and I’ll teach you to at least not kill yourself or any of us with that thing.” She continued laughing as she left the room. His connection to King Arthur was the part of all this that he still didn’t believe.
He then drifted around the room trying not to make it too obvious he was eavesdropping on the others. A young man and woman, not much older than himself, were standing in a corner looking worried.
“I have to get back. My family think my plane comes back from Germany today!” said the woman with a French accent. The man nodded in reply.
Further around the room, two men, both looking like accountants, dressed in suits, each with a glass of a crimson liquid in their hands, discussed how the weather would impact the stock market.
Eventually he found himself not too far from Bartholomew and the impassioned conversation he was having with Jax, Gus, Miss Toper, and others.
Bartholomew looked over the top of his glasses at a small vellum covered book that he had open in his hands. “The Aragon grimoire, clearly refers to the prophecies when it mentions and I quote ‘The turmoil of nature will foretell the coming of a new balance of power’ I don’t see how that is not what is happening right now!”
“If it is, then all the custodians are in danger,” said Gus.
* * * * *
“Oww!” shouted Justin as the solid wooden stick that Eden was brandishing hit him on his backside.
