Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1) (54 page)

Aimeé de la Chasse scrambled through the forest towards Greensprings, wind and brush snagging at her dress.

She turned momentarily at the sound of brush breaking behind her. Minion was there and he held a crossbow level. There was a
twang!
and a whizzing noise, and a bolt thudded in the tree next to her. Aimeé screamed and ran twice as fast away from him.

She finally crossed the ordered rows of apple trees behind the keep. She didn’t know anything about crossbows, but judging by Minion’s struggle with the weapon, she imagined she could make it within sight of the gate guards before he reloaded.

She broke through the orchard to the familiar path that lay between the keep and trees, but stopped in her tracks.

The keep was engulfed by a dark sphere. The towers and some of the walls were still exposed from the surface of the phenomenon, but in the moment she stopped to gape at the sight, the sphere expanded and swallowed a little bit more of the keep.

The globe was opaque, but with an oily veneer that gave it the appearance of sparkling obsidian.

Again she heard that twanging noise and the whiz of a bolt next to her ear. She screamed again, and with heart beating and chest heaving, she ran for the Back Door, not knowing where else to go.

As she approached it, she could alternately see the outline of the Back Door and her own reflection in the sphere’s surface. She stood before it tentatively, not knowing what to do. She touched it gently, and found that it was very cold, but her hand went through it. Like putting one’s hand into water. She withdrew her hand and found that, though cold, it was unharmed.

Another crossbow bolt shot past her head, and it made her mind up for her. She held her breath and jumped in.

#

A warm light engulfed Sir Gawain in the darkness, and he opened his eyes.

All was quiet. Not a sound was discernible. Not even his previously pounding heart.

Patrick approached the sourceless light. Walking or gliding
―
does one bother to make such a distinction in a dream or a vision? Or was he truly dead? He smiled listlessly, at ease.

No sooner had the smile come to his face, however, than the outline of a man obstructed the light. His sense of contentment turned to one of panic, then rage. It was the hooded Apparition, and what right did his worldly tormentor have being here in his afterlife, anyway? But then it occurred to him that perhaps it had been a banshee, come to guide him to the land of the dead. That would make sense.

Patrick Gawain stood before the Apparition. He did not know what to do, or what to expect. The warm light was completely blocked off from this perspective, and the dark hood was just as blank as it ever had been. Patrick reached up, and grabbed it. The Apparition did not move.

As he removed the hood, the light from behind was no longer blocked and for one brief moment, before he was blinded by the brilliance, Sir Patrick Gawain saw the man inside.

It was himself, smiling with a confident, knowing grin.

It grabbed Patrick by both of his arms, and he was hoisted heavenward.

He lost sight of his doppleganger and suddenly realized that he was once again engulfed by darkness and floating in the ice cold water. He was no longer at the bottom of the well, but was rushing towards the icy surface, lungs on the verge of bursting.

He struck the ice sheet like a missile and exploded into the crisp, life-giving air. He floundered at the surface and gasped, sucking in huge lungfuls of air.

When he had recovered enough, he made the arduous climb up the side of the well. The rocks were slick, but they were irregular and protruded enough to offer plenty of handholds.

At the top Patrick flung his leg over the rim of the well, pulled himself over the lip and landed heavily on the snow. He lay there for some time, his breath coming out in huge puffs of steam. The struggle to break through the ice, or perhaps a parting gift from the Apparition, had left his body heated. Whatever the reason, he felt the warmth leave him. After some time, he sat up and gazed in wonder at the sky, or lack thereof.

How could this be?

When he had fallen into the well, the day was a typical Avalon afternoon, full of sun and clear skies. Now it was dark as night, but with an eerie luminescence that lit up falling snow.

Snow?
He reached out with his hand and let some flakes collect there and disintegrate into little moist drops. He lifted his face into the cascade. Little crystals pricked his skin. He looked to the drawbridge and saw great stalactites of ice hanging from it and the gate. All was eerily silent. Gone was the revelation of the Apparition and gone was his anger towards Minion for pushing him in. He was in shock.

After a moment of taking in the fantastical scene, he trudged through the snow to the rim of the crevasse, then to the drawbridge. And just when he thought he couldn’t be anymore amazed, he paused in the entryway. There before him was the usual activity of the courtyard, except horribly frozen in place.

He slowly passed them. First were a handful of chickens and ducks standing in place like woodcarvings in a garden. Their natural colors were gone, replaced with a bluish sheen of frost and a white mantle of snow. Some appeared to have been readying to leap or scatter, their wings splayed out, but were frozen just before they could make their move. One was tipped over on its spread wing, as if it had been in mid-air at the moment of calamity.

Next was a villager herding a group of sheep, now motionless with his flock like a life-sized Nativity scene. Patrick peered closely at the man and noted his skin was blue, his eyes white like a dead person’s.

Patrick backed away, a grimace on his face, and collided with the next victim.

He turned and an inexpressible sound escaped his throat when he looked up into the face of Sir Jeremiah astride his horse. In his full suit of duty armor, he looked like a war memorial. His usually smiling countenance was twisted grotesquely by obscuring ice.

Patrick looked to the keep entry and ran for it, bypassing other victims. Inside the doorway, he called out, “Hello, is there anybody there?”

Only his echo answered. He took a step inside the darkness and waited for his eyes to adjust and he soon found that here too was a strange glow, though slightly different from outdoors. He looked to the sconce on the wall; there was still a flame, but it too was impossibly frozen. It was now a glowing ice sculpture of fire, flickering from within. Snow fell on his shoulders—from the ceiling. He ventured deeper into the keep, having to high-step through snowdrifts. He passed Mother Superior, frozen in the act of handing an apple to a child.

His feet, which had been blessedly numb, were now starting to ache. Minion’s wet cloak that girded his waist was also starting to stiffen and sparkle with ice. He needed shelter and clothing, and decided to make his way to the Hall for Guests and his room, but at the edge of the practice field his feet ached so sharply that he had to stop and rest at some benches. There, he found a frozen Sir Corbin and he tried to pry off his surcoat, but it shattered in his hands. Patrick stopped for fear of hurting Corbin’s flesh.

He sat down on a bench and massaged his feet while staring at the eerie images of Trent and Willy flirting with two Lady Guests. He had never realized just how alive Greensprings had been. Likewise, he had never realized just how much it had become home to him, until now. Now that it was too late.

“My God, what has happened? What do I do?”

Suddenly, a sound and movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. He stood and moved closer to the white expanse of the practice field. He lumbered through the deep, flat snow until he glimpsed a form running through the Back Door. It was a girl, crying out loudly as she ran through the snow.

Aimeé. He picked up his pace and called to her. She heard him and turned her course toward him. Patrick met her halfway, and as she approached she shouted words he didn’t understand. Her face was flushed pink and her hair was loose; he put his arms out to catch her. Then suddenly, her back arched and she screamed as she fell into his arms. He hugged her limp form close to his chest and that’s when he saw the crossbow bolt sticking out of her back.

“Aimeé!”

Her eyes were pleading and her mouth tried to voice words, but nothing immediately came. Patrick looked up to find the source of the bolt.

There was Minion wrestling with a crossbow, fumbling to draw back the bowstring and set a new bolt.

Patrick gently laid Aimeé down and sprinted for the little man, crying out at the top of his lungs like a berserker. The sight of the half naked crazed Irishman barreling at him caused Minion to drop the bow and run like a scared rabbit.

Patrick gave up the chase once he realized that the little man had too much of a head start and Aimeé was alone. He went back to her and cradled her head in his arms, rocking her back and forth gently.

“Patrick...” A thin ribbon of blood was running from the corner of her mouth. Patrick tried to shush her, but she grabbed his head and forced eye contact. After several false starts where she fought for air, she finally rasped out a quick summary of what she had witnessed: Loki’s eviction and Katherina’s abduction at the chapel.

She started to cough and shake violently. Patrick held her tightly and stroked her hair, not knowing what else to do. He had seen similar wounds a hundred times on the battlefield. He knew that there wasn’t much to do.

“Aimeé, I am so sorry. I didn’t see him. I didn’t know he had a bow, I...” Patrick swallowed hard, the crushing realization that she was slipping away weighed down on him like a millstone. He felt as if he were in a confined space, like a coffin, helpless to move, helpless to act. “I should have tried harder.”

“Patrick...” Aimeé’s voice was now coming in wheezing gasps. “I am the one who is sorry. I didn’t mean to be a nuisance. I only meant to make you happy.”

He was shaking his head as hard as he could to stop her. “You didn’t drive me away, it wasn’t you. Please believe me.”

Something jumped in Patrick’s chest and caught in his throat. He tried to choke it down, but it still managed to escape his mouth, flaring his cheeks and spraying some spittle in the process. His eyes reddened and brimmed with moisture like water about to burst over a levee, but they could not overcome the barrier.

Aimeé’s eyes were glazing over and her chest rose and fell in quicker rhythm. She clutched his arm. “Patrick, you did...at least a little bit love me? Didn’t you? Please tell me that was so. Please.”

Patrick’s mouth opened to say something, but the only thing that would come out was a pitiful moan. Aimeé grasped his arm tighter and her chest heaved one last time, her neck relaxed, and her eyes stared into space.

Patrick’s mouth was frozen open with an unformed word. An icy dagger stabbed his heart as he realized he had squandered this moment. While he wrestled with his mind and heart, the thread on the loom of fate that offered him a final chance to do one kind thing for the maidservant was snipped right before his eyes.

He stared at her lifeless form, then slowly extricated himself from her. He stood on his knees over Aimeé’s body and lifted his head heavenward, forming his hands into white knuckled fists. A barrier snapped inside him and an elemental force broke loose all at once like a Biblical flood. It ran wild in a single explosion that shot forth form his lungs; a blast of anguish and frustration. The nearest icicles shattered and fell to the ground with the sound of broken wind chimes.

Once he had exhausted himself, he bent over with a sob and did something he hadn’t done in a very, very long time.

He wept tears.

Chapter Eleven

Patrick sat over Aimeé’s body for a long time.

He half expected her to yawn and blink her eyes open any moment, as she may have done that one morning in his room.

Snow continued to fall within the confines of the darkness that engulfed the keep at Greensprings. Yet none of it gathered any longer near Patrick and the body of the maidservant.

A tear formed in his eye and fell to the ground, making a small splash in the pool that collected there. By some magic of Avalon or miracle of God, a bubble of warmth and life clung to the tragic scene. Little by little, and almost imperceptibly, grass sprung in the moist earth around the girl’s body. While Patrick rocked back and forth in misery, then rested in destitute stillness, his tears had melted the snow away in the patch of earth. It wasn’t until the first colorful flower sprang up between Aimeé’s fingers that he noticed what was happening. Soon, she was lying in a bed of heather, daffodils, foxglove, lavender, and clover. His heart ached too much to care. What was another enchantment of the Isle? It was not bringing Aimeé back.

He thought about what to do next, but didn’t know what to do or where to go. The entirety of the authority of Avalon was frozen: Knight, noble, Church—all were rendered powerless. The keep grounds were filling increasingly with ice and snow. The Viscount Loki was somewhere out there, with the Lady Katherina in his possession. Patrick suspected that Loki’s eviction, Katherina’s abduction and the storm at Greensprings were not coincidences. Somehow Loki was responsible for all this. He had brought down Greensprings and the Avangarde. Patrick burned to do something, to take action.

He bent over and stroked Aimeé’s hair and kissed her forehead. He then slowly rose to his feet sniffling and staggered towards where last he saw the gate. Once leaving Aimeé’s side, however, the bitter cold attacked Patrick’s senses and he hugged his arms about himself. His feet pained him in the snow, and the cloak wrapped about his waist offered no warmth.

#

He crossed the drawbridge, and not very far from the gate he came to the sphere’s boundary. Brow furrowed in confusion, he approached what he thought was a solid wall, but after squinting into its depths he could make out the road and trees leading to Aesclinn. Curious, he reached to it and drew a breath when his hand passed through. After briefly examining his hand, he steeled himself and stepped through the wall.