Merlin and the Land of Mists Book Three: Galahad

by P. J. Cormack

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AVALON

  CAMELOT CASTLE

  THE COURTYARD

  “Raven Boy.”

  Galahad’s voice echoed around the Courtyard of Camelot Castle.

  “Raven Boy, wait.”

  Merlin stopped halfway across the Courtyard. He had made a vow to himself that he would get out of Camelot Castle as fast as he could and as far as he was concerned wild horse wouldn’t drag him back.

  Galahad quickly caught up with the boy enchanter.

  “You were incredibly rude to the king,” the fair haired boy said.

  “I don’t like him.”

  “Yes, well,” Galahad conceded, “I think we all picked that up, but he is Camelot’s king.”

  “That is nothing to me,” Merlin’s face still had a flush of anger on it from his confrontation with King Uther Pendragon.

  Galahad still couldn’t understand why Merlin seemed to hate the king so much, “What has he done to upset you so much?” The boy warrior asked.

  “It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he is and what he’ll become.” Merlin said grimly.

  “What do you think that’ll he’ll become?” Galahad asked, he didn’t understand any of this.

  “Not think,” Merlin retorted pointedly, “But know. I know that he will become a tyrant. A Deathbringer King.”

  “But he isn’t now,” the boy warrior tried to reason with his friend, “Perhaps you can help him not to become a tyrant.”

  “Not even my father could do that,” Merlin replied bluntly.

  “And what did you mean when you said ‘there is one to come’?” This was just one big puzzle to Galahad.

  “That is something between myself and my father. It is no one else’s concern or business,” Merlin told the boy.

  “I am always hearing about your father,” Galahad said sharply, he was becoming increasingly frustrated by all this talking that seemed to be in riddles. “But I never get to see him.”

  “Believe me, you wouldn’t want to,” Merlin said, “Not even Galapas is permitted to look on the face of Mithras Invictus.”

  “I can see why you annoy the king so much,” Galahad retorted, “You are always speaking in riddles.”

  “I’m sorry that I annoy you so much,” the boy enchanter snapped back, “And I didn’t ask you to come to me.”

  “I didn’t say that you annoy me,” Galahad replied, “You’re twisting my words, Raven Boy.”

  There was no placating the boy enchanter, “So now I twist your words as well as annoying you,” Merlin replied his anger beginning to show in his face.

  Galahad sighed with frustration, “Sometimes I just don’t understand you,” he told Merlin.

  “I don’t want you to,” Merlin answered, “Now just leave me alone.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Galahad replied stiffly.

  “It is.”

  “I’m going to the tourney field,” Galahad said with anger creeping into his voice for the first time, “Achilles will be better company than you, Raven Boy.”

  “I really don’t care where you go as long as it is away from me”

  Hurt the boy warrior turned away from his friend and stalked out of the Courtyard of Camelot Castle. Merlin watched the fair haired boy go but he did not call out. For some time the boy enchanter stood lost in his thoughts and then with a sigh that sounded as if he was carrying the whole weight of the world on his small shoulders the boy enchanter too left the Courtyard – in exactly the opposite direction to the one that Galahad had taken.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE SKIES ABOVE AVALON

  Come, Fria, Come Nevar,

  Come Graniza, Come Trona

  Come my Lords of Winter,

  Come to me Lords of Cold, Snow, Ice and Thunder.

  I summon you here for I am your Master.

  Let this Time see the Power of the Lord of Chaos.

  The storm clouds rolled and parted high in the skies at the very edge of Avalon. Four dark, purple ringed clouds sped towards Avalon, they came from the North, from the South, from the East and from the West for these were the Lords of Winter and they were answering the call of their Overlord, the Lord of Chaos. Each of these clouds was over a mile wide and long and as they obeyed their Overlord’s call faces formed in the dark Chaos Clouds.

  These were Lords as old as Time itself and they brought the chilling cold of Winter with them, the cold that inevitable freezes and kills without pity. The faces where similarly cold and unfeeling, the Lord of Chaos had willed them into existence and even he could not undo his creation. For these Lords of Winter ruled over the World of Men so that there were huge expanses of cold blighted lands where crops could not grow and seas iced over and where a man could die in the cold in just the space of just a few minutes his extremities turning black as he fell into a sleep from which he would never wake.

  These Lords of Winter were as Titans to ordinary men and women but in comparison to the Lord of Chaos they were as ants for this was a Lord who had bestraddle the World of Men from its very creation. The Lord of Chaos had existed even before the forming of the globe that was itself to become the World of Men.

  As ever the Lord of Chaos sought to bring all back to his domain, a Time of Chaos and now having left the tundra of the extreme north and south of the World of Men he would bring those lands that were gentle and warm to his Kingdom.

  His eyes had turned towards the Isle of Britannia for this was but another stepping stone for the Lord of Chaos as he sought to bring his Age of Cold and Ice to the World of Men once more. In this Isle of Britannia the Lord of Chaos had spied Avalon, for there men worked cheerfully to bring order to the fields, forests and mountains of their land. This was an abomination to the Lord of Chaos and he believed that it was right that this should be the first that would succumb to his Power of Chaos and this was why the Lord of Chaos had summoned his Lords of Winter to him – to lay waste the whole of Camelot and Avalon.

  At the Great Stones of Avalon there was a flickering of blue fire around the area that Merlin had designated as Galahad’s training ground. There was no Silver Warrior nor was there the likeness of Achilles for the tourney field was waiting for another Being and one that belonged entirely to the Time of Chaos.

  Over all could be heard the steady drumbeat that was the heartbeat of the Lord of Chaos. The dark clouds of the Lord of Chaos rumbled over Avalon with the sound of sullen and distant thunder – the Invasion of Camelot and Avalon had begun.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE GREAT MOUNTAINS OF AVALON

  DRAGONS’ KEEP

  Draago was gazing out towards the west of Avalon as Stormrider and Firewing landed gracefully at Dragons’ Keep. The dragon had known that they were coming for nothing could come within a hundred leagues of Avalon without Draago being aware of it. Even so there was a feeling of menace in the air that the dragon had not felt before. If it had been the Dark Lord and his Dark Forces then Draago would have had no trouble in recognising the danger for what it was. But this was something different and for all the hundreds of years that Draago had lived he had not experienced anything like the threat that was now bearing down on Avalon. This was something more Elemental than the Dark Magic and the dragon recognised that it had no right to be in his world. This was something that had been forbidden entry into any world that was inhabited by living beings. The Dark Magic would always exist in the World of Men just as the Old Magic would for they were needed to counter balance each other but what was now threatening Avalon belonged to the Dark World of beyond the Abyss and should not be in the World of Men.

  The unicorn and the griffin followed Draago’s gaze for they too were aware that a great threat was building up above Avalon and they, like the dragon, could not fathom just what it was.

  “Whatever it is,” Draago said, “It will soon be here and it will need to be driven back – and driven back hard.”

  “What do you think it is?” Stormrider asked and his
eyes had that icy glint that they always took on when Avalon was threatened.

  “I don’t know,” the dragon answered, “But whatever it is, it has no right here. It does not belong in our Time or in our World.”

  “Then what?” Firewing asked, for the griffin was a creature that dealt with facts not guesses.

  “I don’t know,” Draago replied once more, “I have consulted the Dragon Lore and there is no mention of it. Kraak was here asking the same questions and I could give him no reply.”

  Kraak was the King of the Raven Kind and was Merlin’s closest friend, the ravens were the boy enchanter’s ‘eyes and ears’ throughout Camelot and Avalon.

  Stormrider had great respect for the King of the Raven Kind who was as large as an eagle and, it was rumoured, could be twice as fierce in any fight.

  “What did Kraak say?” The golden unicorn asked.

  “Only that whatever it is,” Draago answered, “It carries a Great Power with it and it wishes only Evil to Avalon and the World of Men,” the dragon continued, “Kraak said that it was impossible for the Raven Kind to approach it for there are whirlwinds that block any approach. He told me that ten of the Raven Kind had died in their attempt to fly into the Heart of the Storm.”

  “Can you make a guess?” Stormrider asked. Like Firewing he preferred to deal in facts but if there were none then he knew that they would have to rely on Draago’s intuition.

  For a moment the Last of the Dragon Kind paused as if to gather his thoughts before speaking.

  “Last time we met we spoke of a child, a boy who seemed to have been transported here from the Future.”

  “Yes,” Firewing agreed, “His name is Galahad.”

  “It is unnatural for a mortal to be able to travel in Time,” Draago spoke quietly as if speaking to himself rather to his two friends of the Old Magic. “In fact, as we know, even some of the Elder gods cannot do this and if Mithras Invictus was still concerned with Avalon it would only be natural for us to assume that this was his doing.”

  “The Bull Slayer could certainly do it,” Firewing agreed, “He is the most powerful of the Elder gods.”

  “But Mithras Invictus takes no interest in Avalon,” Stormrider put in, “We are all well aware of that.”

  “Could it be the Raven Boy?” The Griffin asked, “He has his father’s powers.”

  “Even the Raven Boy could not tear aside the Fabric of Time,” Draago said, “Perhaps one day but certainly not now.”

  “And we know that the Raven Boy did not trust this Galahad at first,” the golden unicorn knew this to be the truth, “Apparently he as good as called Galahad a liar when they first met. In fact I’m told that he was as surprised as anyone at Galahad’s sudden appearance.”

  “It was not the Raven Boy,” Draago began to see some clarity in the puzzle. “Galahad was sent from the Future into Our Time so it can only be some powerful enchanter from the Future who has done this. He is the one who has torn away the Curtain of Time.”

  “Does the Dragon Lore foretell such an enchanter?” Firewing asked.

  “No,” was the dragon’s bleak reply, “It does not. In fact according to the Dragon Lore the Raven Boy is the Last Enchanter to be born and he is also the most powerful,” he added for good effect.

  “Then we are no closer to the truth,” Stormrider said grimly his blue eyes fixed on the storm clouds that were amassing over Avalon as if in a mockery to the inability of the Mythical Beasts of the Old Magic to answer the riddle that they posed.

  “I think we are,” Draago disagreed, “We don’t know exactly who it was that send Galahad to Our Time but we certainly know what he was.”

  “A powerful enchanter with the Powers of the Elder gods,” Firewing put in.

  “Who he is it not that important at the present time,” Draago was now beginning to see some light in the darkness of his reasoning, “It is what he has done that is the cause of this,” the dragon tilted his huge head to the rolling thunder clouds. “The only way that Galahad could have been sent from the Future was, as we have just said, to tear away the Fabric of Time. I believe that when the enchanter did this something else crossed through. Something that should never be allowed into the World of Men but should remain imprisoned in the Chasm that exists between all Worlds.”

  “Then it was foolish and dangerous that this enchanter should send Galahad to us,” Stormrider felt that he was stating the obvious.

  “It would appear so,” the dragon agreed, “But it may well be that he was well aware of the risk but unless Galahad was sent out of his own time to us something so cataclysmic would occur that the enchanter deemed it worth the danger.”

  “Cataclysmic for us or for the Future?” Firewing asked.

  “That, I fear, we shall never know,” Draago said bleakly.

  For a moment the three Mythical Beasts of the Old Magic did not speak for they were all lost in their own thoughts. Each of them realised, in their own way, that what Draago spoke was more than likely the truth of it.

  A huge crash of thunder came from the darkest clouds that were now, very obviously, moving towards Avalon at great speed.

  “Whatever it is,” Stormrider said bleakly, “It will be here very soon.”

  “What can we do to stop it?” Firewing asked.

  “Probably nothing,” Draago replied, “For whatever it is I do not believe that it is for our Commanding.”

  “Then whose?” Stormrider questioned for the golden unicorn was not used to meeting any threat to Avalon that was outside the control of the Old Magic.

  “The Raven Boy?” The griffin said what they were all thinking.

  “Perhaps,” Draago replied, “But this may be beyond even his enchantment.”

  “Then it can only be Mithras Invictus who will save Avalon.” Stormrider felt as if, once again, he was stating the obvious. “If he still cares for Avalon.”

  “Which we all know that he does not,” Draago said, “But it may be that the Bull Slayer will be so affronted by the threat of this Elemental Evil that he will confront for the pure pleasure of destroying it. Mithras Invictus may not care for Avalon anymore but he is jealous of any threat to what he considers to be his realm that he will meet it head on.”

  “From that encounter there can be only one victor,” the golden unicorn put in, “For no one and nothing can stand against the Power of the greatest of the Elder gods.”

  “And I believe that Mithras Invictus would relish the destruction of this invader of his land. Remember as well as great power the Bull Slayer carries great cruelty with him. Whatever dies by his hand does not die easily,” Draago continued.

  “But what if he does not come to Avalon’s rescue?” Firewing, ever the pragmatist, asked, “What then?”

  “Then we will confront it ourselves,” Stormrider answered quite simply, “The Old Magic will always rise to Avalon’s defence and one thing that we can all be certain of – the Raven Boy will be there to lead us. He will never let any threat to Avalon go without standing in its defence.”

  “And if the Raven Boy’s life is in danger then Mithras Invictus will certainly intercede,” Draago said, “The Bull Slayer would not stand aside should his son’s life and very soul be at risk. I am quite sure of that.”

  “This Galahad puts us all at great risk,” Firewing said grimly.

  “It is not the boy’s fault,” Draago disagreed, “The Fabric of Time was split by his passing through it and he did not cause that. He seems to be even more perplexed than anyone as to why he should be here at this time and in this place. The fault, if fault there is, lies with the enchanter who sent him here.”

  “Any enchanter who has that much power must also have great wisdom,” Stormrider agreed, “I’m sure that he would have been very aware of the risk of something else crashing through into Avalon with Galahad but he must have considered the risk worth taking. Whatever threatened his world in its own time must have been so great that he could see no other protection for it than to remove
Galahad from it.”

  “Whatever the cost?” Firewing said bluntly.

  “Whatever the cost the golden unicorn replied, equally bluntly.

  Another enormous crash of thunder brought them very quickly back to the present for these three Beasts of the Old Magic were warriors and it was not in their nature to sit idly chatting while Avalon and Camelot were being so sorely threatened.

  Draago rose to his full height and spreading out his huge wings roared his defiance at the dark storm clouds that were coming ever closer. An enormous bolt of fire leapt from the dragon’s mouth and for a moment the clouds seemed to be blotted by the flames. Draago knew that at this distance his fire would do no harm to the Forces of Evil that were rapidly closing on Avalon but even so it made him feel very much better.

  Stormrider took his cue from Draago and reared up also in defiance, his silver mane catching the last disappearing rays of the retreating sun.

  “I will go and raise the Unicorn Herds,” the golden unicorn promised his friends. “Whatever the cost we will defend Avalon this day.” With that and as straight as an arrow Stormrider leapt for the sky and soon was no more than a rapidly disappearing dot for such was the speed of the King of Unicorns when his temper was aroused.

  “I must remain here and wait for my Dragon Master’s summons,” Draago told the griffin for Merlin was the dragon’s Dragon Master and Dragon Rider and Dragon Lore only permitted the dragon to come to his master’s aid when so summoned.

  Firewing nodded his agreement and then with a battle cry that was definitely half eagle and half lion the griffin too flew fast and true into the skies over Camelot and Avalon.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE HIILS ABOVE AVALON

  So disconsolately was Merlin sitting on a rock on the hillside approaching the Crystal Cave that he did not hear the ghoul approach or smell him. The boy enchanter was lost in his thoughts and they were not good thoughts. First there was the obstinacy of King Uther Pendragon who seemed intent on driving the worship of Mithras Invictus far from the boundaries of Avalon and Camelot. The king seemed to be totally unaware that, by his actions and the disregard to the altars of Mithras Invictus, Avalon was now more open to attack from the Forces of Darkness than it had ever been.