by Terry Madden
But Guinevere took it without question. Ten quid for whatever was inside that old mine shaft.
Guinevere gave him a hard hat and instructions. “Ye’ll travel into the otherworld through the tunnel and there be met by your guide, Merlin.”
“Merlin?” Connor repeated with sarcasm.
She scowled at him. “Ye’ll then take a boat. Hands and arms must remain inside the boat at all times. No standing in the boat. Safe journey.”
When Connor looked up from her spiel, he thought he glimpsed a blaze of red hair disappearing into the dragon-guarded tunnel. With one last look down the lane, he was certain Celeste had not followed.
“Got it,” he said and took off into the tunnel.
“Your hard hat!” Guinevere called after him.
The hat smelled of a hundred other greasy heads. He pulled it on reluctantly, and took mental note of the security cameras at the mouth of the mine. Once he was inside, they could be easily spotted by the garnet glow of their infrared triggers.
He wandered down a well-groomed path, passing alcoves of wax figures. The first depicted a dark-haired king who must be Uther Pendragon, handing off a baby like a football to an old guy with a beard.
Connor hurried past several scenes. Not one alcove contained a little horse and a red-haired girl. Where had she gone?
From down the tunnel, a figure in a long cloak approached. The man, Connor assumed it was a man by his size, looked a little scary with the hood pulled down over his face. When he stopped before Connor, only his grizzled jaw was visible, lit by hidden LEDs from the ground. A gout of foggy mist billowed up from his feet, and his hands were tucked in his sleeves in a most wizardly way.
“Follow if you dare,” he intoned, “for we shall leave reality behind and travel into a realm beyond space and time, back to the time of Arthur and his knights. Back to the days of dragons—”
“Okay, can we get moving? I’m in a hurry.” Connor pushed past the wizard and headed for the boat that was waiting at the end of the path.
“Oh, yes, brilliant. Fine.” The man’s voice had risen a few octaves. He was probably younger than Connor, and the beard stubble, upon closer inspection, was make-up.
The three teenagers who had entered the cave before Connor were crammed into the front seat of the boat. They poked fun at the place while passing a vape back and forth.
Connor took the back seat, his eyes straining against the darkness where the canal of water vanished up ahead. Fuming fog barely covered the tracks the boat sat upon. He had a hard time imagining that Angharad had come down here. But it was underground, and there was water.
The Merlin dude stepped into the little boat and produced a magical lantern from his sleeve. He muttered an incantation in Welsh, and when the thing failed to light, he smacked it and let loose, “Bugger this thing!”
It magically came to light, flickering with a fake flame.
The teens laughed.
Connor said, “Best spell ever, man.”
The boat lurched forward on its tracks, just like the boats in a theme park ride. More harp music issued from speakers mounted in the tunnel, ghostly voices whispering things in Welsh—nonsensical phrases and snippets of poetic verse that Connor recognized from the Book of Taliesin and the Mabinogi.
The boat rounded a bend to an open pool. Colored lights danced on water that smelled of chlorine and mold. The boat slowed. Merlin launched into a badly memorized story of how Arthur had once found himself at the edge of a lake after beating the crap out of Lancelot. The story spooled out slower, and slower, as if Merlin needed another windup. Connor realized that he was trying to time the end of his tale with some kind of theatrics. A single beam of white light found a spot in the middle of the pool, and heroic music blared.
“Arthur’s gaze was drawn across the still water.” Merlin slowly pointed a knobby finger at the pool. “Where his destiny lay…” lengthy pause, “…with the Lady of the Lake.”
Suddenly, a sword, clutched in the fist of a plastic arm, was thrust up from the water. It rebounded a little when the gears hit the end, and the sword blade shivered.
The teens clapped and laughed, and took another hit from their vape.
“No smoking in here,” Merlin said, timidly.
“Will ye turn us into frogs, eh?” More laughter.
Just when Connor had decided he’d wasted ten quid, he saw the flash of red eyes at the far side of the pool. Brixia. She turned, and splashed away into the darkness of a cavern there.
Connor was instantly out of the boat and knee-deep in water, wading after her.
“Hey!” Merlin cried. “You can’t do that!”
“It’s okay. I’m a professional. I can fix the gears on that sword arm for you.”
He headed for the plastic arm as if that were his goal. If he paused there long enough, maybe Merlin would buy it. The flesh-colored plastic had discolored to bleached white around the upper arm. Security would be after him in minutes. He had to reach Angharad.
He pressed on across the water, saying, “The controls are back here. No need to worry.”
Angharad waited astride Brixia. The water reached the little horse’s chest. Connor drew nearer, causing a wake to lap the horse and the gravel behind her. The child gave him a little nod, as if of approval, wearing the same impish smile. She whispered, her voice part of the hush of the water lapping upon the graveled shore, “Elbin Elfid.”
Then Brixia simply walked into the solid rock wall carrying Angharad with her. As they vanished from sight, a recorded roar came from the darkness before him; a gout of cold fog preceded a red dragon that rolled out on wooden tracks. The red had faded to pink in the places that had not been newly painted.
Connor fell backward trying to avoid being run over by the thing. The cracking plastic had scales painted in gold. The bat-like wings hardly flapped at the mechanical joints in the shoulders. The gears ground and ticked as the head moved with mechanical slowness, and the jaw fell open. Its overly white teeth gleamed, and steam issued from its nostrils.
“Oh, shit,” Connor moaned as the security guards splashed up behind him.
Connor shivered as he sat in the park security office. The red-faced guard scrolled through something on his computer screen, probably the police report he’d surely found relating to Connor’s little disappearance over the summer.
“Off on a little holiday, eh? Didn’t tell no one where you were.”
“Yes. You know. The girlfriend objects to gambling.”
“And now you’re wading around in our Excalibur pool. We don’t like you kids coming in here and smoking yer dope in the caves.”
“Actually, I dropped my wallet. That’s why I couldn’t give you my I.D. It’s in the water.” Way to think up the lie after the fact.
But the Welsh were such understanding and gullible people. The guard issued him a warning and cast him from King Arthur’s Labyrinth promising he would search the Excalibur pool after hours.
Once outside the park’s gates, Connor muttered, “Here. Elbin Elfid.”
It was almost dark by the time he’d hiked back to the stone with the cup and ring marks. Rain had begun to fall, soaking the other half of him. Celeste and her car were gone. She must have had a key hidden somewhere. If she was smart, she’d have left Wales altogether. But if she really wanted to return to Tiernmas…maybe there was a chance she’d have stayed. Connor needed her to stay.
But now, Connor had to focus on Angharad and what she wanted from him. Should he go forward with his own plan? Or wait to see what Angharad could conjure on Elbin Elfid?
Connor wasn’t good at placing his trust in anyone else, especially a goddess who’d opened his eyes to the gears that moved the universe, and then allowed him to fuck over his life for an eternity. His past with Arianrhod was painful, to say the least. He had to be ready to do what he’d come to do.
He looked down at the deep cup marks in the stone which had been chiseled by the Old Blood upon their first crossing. T
his stone was bound through the Void to a stone like it on the other side. It was their way to maintain contact with the land of living while they languished in exile; it opened the distorted view of a waking dream. He ran his fingers over the straight channels that connected cup to cup and the ripple of rings around them, intersecting, overlapping.
The sun, now low on the horizon, peeked from under the blanket of clouds. Its light accentuated every depression and dimple in the wet stone, creating a golden landscape of water and light. The depressions glistened with fresh rainwater. As he stared into the deep central cup, he watched the rain drops distort the reflection of his eye.
He pulled off his soaked sweatshirt and began to unwrap the bandage from around his forearm. Best do what he’d come to do, and be prepared to carry out his half-assed plan in spite of Arianrhod, or Angharad.
“Angharad…come on now. What is it you want? ‘Cause I’ve got some plans of my own, and it would be helpful if you could, well…help me.”
He swallowed hard. Prayer had never come easily. The green gods should rip his soul from his sorry flesh, reduce it to ash, and let him blow away. Angharad was a god who had been birthed by humanity. She was a prayer whispered by those who revere balance. Day with night, winter with summer, light with darkness. She understood Connor. That alone gave him hope.
The only reason Arianrhod would come to him again would be that she needed him. For something. Connor could only imagine what.
He placed his hands on the quickening stone as the rain pattered on it. It hummed with greenflow; brought it into focus like a lens. His eye found itself in the reflection of the central cup, and that eye became Lyleth’s eye, which became Tiernmas’s eye.
He tore the rest of the gauze bandage free to expose the gash that ran down his forearm. With the point of his soothblade, he worked to pull a few sutures free. One tore painfully, but the blood beaded on his healing skin like rain on stone. What is inside must flow out. What is living must give form to that which might have lived.
The eyes of the soul, the eyes of the stars.
Holding his arm over the rain-spattered stone, he let his blood drop into the cup. One, two, three, and the water took him in, and spun him down. The water drew the runes, shaped his blood and gave form to his will.
He opened his eyes inside the cup. The sky rained blood upon him, and the threshold of night opened. He drank down the greenflow from stone and water, shaped it with his blood.
He blinked. Drew a gasping breath like a dying fish and opened the eyes of the man outside the stone.
Reaching into the cup of rock, now humming with greenflow, he found the tiny salamander coiled within, tail-to-mouth, its limbs tucked beneath it so it looked more like a snake. Its mouth gaped and swallowed water and blood, shaped as it was from the stone and Connor’s soul.
It straddled his quaking palm, its golden eyes blinking a third eyelid, its black skin spangled with the stars of the rising night, with the runes written inside the stone.
“Come, little brother,” he said. “We have Arianrhod’s work to do.” Remembering the words of the Merlin from the labyrinth, he added, “We must go back to the days of dragons.”
Another good thing about the Welsh was that they were kind enough to pick up someone thumbing a ride in the rain. The bad thing was, not very many people were out driving country roads after dark.
By the time Connor got a ride, he was completely soaked and had begun to shiver. He’d rebandaged his arm again as best he could. It would have to do for now. The salamander was tucked into the pouch of his hoodie, nestled into his left palm.
“Where to?” the farmer asked.
“The little cottage called Golau Seren on the way into Corris. Thanks for the ride.” The Welsh, like the Cornish, named every house and farm. No numbers and street names; they used named landmarks. Every building seemed to have a soul for them. Connor liked that.
The guy must have heard Connor’s teeth chattering—he turned up the heater to high.
“You taking a holiday ‘ere?” he pressed.
“Yes,” Connor answered. “Rented the place for a week.”
“Lovely. Be sure to visit Slaters Arms, best pub in Corris.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
The Welsh also never missed an opportunity to advertise for friends. Connor admired that, as well.
To his surprise, Celeste’s Beamer was parked in front of the cottage…right next to Bronwyn’s Land Rover.
“Shit.” He must have said it aloud, for his ride gave him a quizzical look.
“Relatives,” Connor explained to the guy. “I thought I was going to have a quiet week.”
The big man laughed. “Isn’t that the way of it, eh?”
“Thanks for the lift. I’d offer gas money, but I’m kinda short.”
“No need. Nos da,” the man said, his kind smile lit by the brash interior light.
Kindness, Connor thought as he made his way toward the cottage. Bronwyn certainly brought no kindness with her. Bronwyn might have bound and gagged Celeste by now—or very possibly, it was the other way around.
Standing at the hobbit door, Connor turned to be sure his ride had driven away before he opened it. No telling what might burst out. He expected someone to be holding someone at knife point.
He cracked the door as silently as possible, and peered in.
The scene was far from gruesome. He was almost disappointed. Almost.
Bronwyn was sitting across from Celeste at the small Formica table. Between them, on a small stool which made her shorter than either of them, sat Elowen. Her living flesh warmed the air around her like the sun in winter. Yet, her eyes had the glassy vacancy of one who slept.
At the sight of Connor, Elowen startled, and took a sharp intake of her breath. The discussion stopped as she stared at the sight of him in the doorway. “Connor.”
“Elowen.”
All three women looked at him as if he were a ghost, a half-frozen and chattering ghost. Bronwyn swallowed hard, and rose to her feet. Was that fear on her face? Oh, fuck, Elowen had told her about Connor. Fuck, fuck, or maybe she had told Celeste. Told her what? That he was a blood scribe? No news there. Oh, Christ, his whole plan would end in his death. Again.
“Bronwyn?” He looked at Dish’s sister in complete bafflement.
Bronwyn had called the cops on Celeste after the well had opened. She’d even tried to have her arrested for kidnapping and torture, for chrissake. Now they sat here, chatting and sipping tea, like the best of pals.
“What is going on?” He tried not the squeeze the salamander too tightly. The last thing he needed was to lose it right now.
“Connor…” Bronwyn got to her feet. She came at him with open arms.
He backed toward the door on weak legs.
“Listen,” Bronwyn held her hands out to him. “Elowen told me everything. And Celeste…” she glanced at the showered and comfy woman in gym clothes, “Celeste has told me that you are suicidal, that you…you were a magician of some kind and you worked for this monster that threatens to consume the worlds.” Her matter-of-fact tone was disturbing.
“She did, did she?”
Connor’s eyes locked on Celeste’s. She was smiling.
How had Bronwyn so easily forgiven Celeste for her part in bleeding Dish to open the well? The look on Celeste’s face provided the answer. She had learned more from Caradoc than he had thought. If he looked closely at Bronwyn, he would find the blood rune drawn on her somewhere in Celeste’s blood. Her mind belonged to Celeste now.
Connor felt the salamander squirm in his palm.
And what of Elowen? Had Celeste marked her, too?
“Do you mind if I use the loo?” he asked.
Celeste gave him a prying look, then said, “Maybe I should help.”
She followed him to the small bathroom and closed the door behind them.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.
“What you taught me to do with enemies
. Control them.” Her comment led him to believe she still considered him an ally of Tiernmas, not an enemy. Yet…she possessed control over Bronwyn and Elowen. Connor couldn’t take control of Celeste now. For none but she could set them free.
“They’re neither enemies nor allies,” he argued. “They’re innocents. Let them go. You and I have work to do.”
“Exactly why I bound them. You left me out on the moor, ran off like a mad man after nothing. I came back to find them here. Bronwyn threatened me with the police again, claiming that I had kidnapped you.” She chortled.
“Let me piss in peace.”
She winked at him. Christ.
After the door closed, Connor found a jar of cotton balls in the cupboard, emptied it, and closed the salamander inside.
“It won’t be long,” he whispered to the blood beast.
Something in the golden glimmer of its wet eye reminded him that Arianrhod had come to him, that she had given him direction, maybe even hope.
But the salamander would have to wait like him for Elbin Elfid. As quietly as possible, he lifted the lid on the back of the toilet and wedged the little jar behind the standpipe, making sure the thing would still flush without getting water into the salamander’s jar.
Now he just had to get them all back to King Arthur’s Labyrinth with Celeste in chains.
“Connor?” Celeste called. “Love, your guests are waiting.”
Chapter 12
The inner ward of the fortress of Caer Sidi was lit by the fluttering swarms of the Sunless. The green glow of their tiny bodies gave the darkness its own beauty. These were the souls of the multitudes, sacrificed to sustain Tiernmas over the centuries. They’d come from the realms of the living and the dead, for he was worshipped by both kingdoms now.
A cloud of living light surrounded Tiernmas. Soon, they would live on in perfect beauty, deathless and awake. They would be joined by his followers who still wore flesh-cloaks. Those who still lived would be forged anew into that which cannot die. The Sunless would become the Deathless. And the revel hall of Caer Sidi would light up a new world with its radiance.
