End of the Century (39 page)

The waters themselves, which extended as far as the eye could see, however far that might be, were so dark as to be almost black, but without a single ripple or wave marring their surface. It presented a strange picture, white grasslands behind, black waters ahead, and cloudless blue skies overhead. Nothing moved or stirred, and when the seven came to a halt at the water's edge, they could well have stepped into a tapestry or painting, frozen and immobile.

“The island is connected to the mainland by a spit,” Artor said, looking left and right along the shoreline. “If the Summer Lands conform to the geography I remember, we should be able to find the island by following the coast to the north.” He pointing to the right, where the shore marched along until it disappeared into the indistinct blue of the twilit distance.

“And how long will that be?” Lugh asked, leaning over and resting his hands on his knees. His skin had taken on a greenish cast, and he looked queasy. “I'm not sure how much more of this blasted place I can take.”

“But we can't go back the way we came,” Bedwyr said, wringing his hands. “What if we can't find a way out at all?”

Artor was about to answer when a flash of movement caught Galaad's eye. He started, looking out over the black waters, no longer mirror smooth, but now rippling.

“Look!” Galaad said, pointing.

The others turned and saw something large cresting the water some few dozen feet from the shore.

“What is it?” Pryder said, narrowing his eyes, hand on his sword hilt.

“I don't know,” Artor answered, warily.

The thing grew larger, rising up higher over the waterline and moving in closer to the shore, while behind it another shape, just as large, crested the wavering water.

“Whatever it is, there are now two of them.” Artor drew his spatha with one hand and slung his shield onto his other arm.

The others drew their own weapons, settling their helmets on their heads and shields on their arms, instinctively stepping away from the water's edge. Galaad, for his part, drew his own Saeson blade, conscious of the fact that he'd come equipped with no other arms or armor.

The nearest of the creatures had now almost reached the water's edge and loomed above the water, standing some dozen feet tall. And “creature” was the only name to call it, conforming as it did to nothing else in the seven's collective experience. It stood on two legs like a man, with what appeared to be a massive vertical mouth in its chest, lined with bloated lips, with a single massive arm that sprouted from the top of its trunk, in the place of a head, with three elbowlike joints and a massive handlike appendage.

The one-armed creature was just stepping onto the shore as it stopped and turned back. At first Galaad thought the one-armed creature might be retreating already but instead saw that the seven had fallen into the unblinking gaze of four massive eyes that lined the middle of the creature's back.

Galaad, already in the grip of the disease that had plagued them since the
silver-branched trees, felt unsettled in the searing four-eyed gaze of the one-armed creature, but not so much that he failed to notice the arrival of the other creature. This one seemed almost like a massive slug, as tall as the one-armed creature but lacking any visible appendage or limb. Its body seemed to be covered in smooth, unbroken bone that bent and turned as the creature moved without cracking or breaking. Without limb to grasp or claw, it nevertheless presented a clear danger with its mouth, filled with three rows of sharp teeth and stretching from one side of its head to the other, above which was a single enormous eye in which three pupils contracted hungrily at the sight of the seven.

As the bone-slug turned its three-pupiled gaze upon the seven, the one-armed creature issued a roar of challenge from its chest-mouth and then thundered towards the seven on its massive legs.

Galaad cried out in alarm as the one-armed creature bore down on them but stood his ground, raising his sword high. The one-armed creature batted Galaad aside, knocking him to the ground, and reached for Caius. The fair-haired captain managed to scramble away as the one-armed creature snapped at him, but found that he'd lost his shield to its snapping chest-mouth.

At the same instant the bone-slug advanced, and not willing to wait for the creature to make its move, Artor charged forward, a battle cry in his throat. Its three rows of teeth gnashing loudly, and the bone-slug swung its massive head from one side to the other, bashing Artor aside, crumpling his shield and knocking his spatha from his hands.

With Galaad on the ground a short distance away, and Caius still scrambling backwards, the one-armed creature reached for Gwrol, wrapping its massive hand around him in rib-crushing embrace and lifting him bodily off the ground. With shouts of alarm, Bedwyr and Pryder rushed to Gwrol's defense, hacking at the creature's arm with their swords. And though their swords only rebounded off its tough hide, failing to draw blood, the one-armed creature howled in pain and annoyance, bloated lips twisted wide and wicked teeth snapping side to side, still holding fast to Gwrol. The captains continued their assault on its arm, and at length the creature released its hold on Gwrol, who collapsed to the ground, struggling to catch his breath.

Pressing the advantage, Pryder rushed ahead, swinging his sword like a
woodsman's ax at the one-armed creature, but it merely opened its mighty hand and then closed it over his sword, tugging it away from his grip. While Pryder stood for a moment, empty-handed, the creature reared back its enormous arm and threw his sword away end-over-end into the water behind it.

Meanwhile, the bone-slug snapped at Galaad, who still lay sprawled in its path. Howling imprecations, Lugh leapt forward, his feet leaving the ground entirely, and tackled the bone-slug's head. The arc of his arm continued, driving his sword into the three-pupiled eye of the footless monster. In that same instant, though, his other arm came too near the creature's mouth, and before Lugh was able to pull his sword free and jump away, the three-rowed maw of the bone-slug clamped down. The bone-slug's fearsome mouth closed over Lugh's arm, and wild-eyed the Gael threw himself backwards, trying to tug his arm free and escape. He pulled free of the bone-slug's mouth, but his hand and forearm came away with it. As he fell screaming to the ground, blood gouted from the ruin of his arm just below the elbow.

The bone-slug, Lugh's sword buried in its eye, possibly piercing its brain, shrieked as it fell back into the water, kicking up a dark spray which rained down on the seven.

A short distance off, Caius, Artor, and Bedwyr stood their ground against the one-armed creature, while Pryder stood defensively over Gwrol, his shield held high.

Galaad rushed to Lugh's side, trying to staunch the free-flowing blood, unsure how they would manage against the remaining monster and hoping against hope that more creatures would not be climbing from beneath the waters to join them.

Just then, a high-pitched noise rang out, just at the edge of hearing. Galaad gritted his teeth, the sound buzzing in his skull, but as noisome as he found it, it was clear that the one-armed creature reacted much worse. Ignoring the trio of swords before it, the one-armed creature reared up, roars of pain issuing from its chest-mouth. Its enormous arm flailing above, the creature turned away and raced back towards the shore, the four eyes lining its back rolling around in agony. The creature crashed into the water and dove underneath, disappearing from view.

The captains turned, looking for the source of the sound.

“There!” Caius said, pointing with his sword's top.

A short distance off, what appeared to be a small silver ship rose up from the water. Lacking any sails or oars, it skimmed across the water towards them at speed, no larger than a one-man fishing boat.

Gwrol had found his feet, with Pryder's help, and the captains gathered around the prostrate form of Lugh, who clutched the bloody stump of his arm to his chest, tears streaming. Galaad stood, his sword in hand, and with the others faced the approaching craft.

There was no crew, but when the ship drew near the shore, Galaad could see that there was movement on her decks as dozens of beetlelike creatures whose skins glinted like silver scuttled about.

The crewless ship beached on the shore, half her bulk out of the water, and all movement on her ceased. Just then, a low hum could be heard, and a light shone up from the center of the ship's deck. There, before them, stood a woman, with white hair, white raiment, and glowing white eyes.

Hers was a face Galaad knew well. He dropped to his knees, throwing his sword to one side.

“White Lady,” he said, and bowed his head.

THAT EVENING, AT PRECISELY SEVEN O'CLOCK
, Blank and Miss Bonaventure rang the bell at Baron Carmody's Mayfair house and were ushered in by a servant. As they were escorted through cavernous halls lit by electric flambeaux and wide, carpeted corridors lined with portraits in gilt frames, it became apparent that the house had seen better days. Priceless furniture was covered beneath sheets of linen, gathering dust, vases and pots were choked with desiccated plants and flowers long past the point where watering would have saved them. The servant who escorted them was evidently one of only a handful who remained to keep the house in working order, the household operating with only a skeletal staff.

Lord Arthur received them in the library, carpeted in thick rugs the color of spilled blood, the walls covered in dark paneling, lamplight flickering off the steel of crossed swords over the fireplace. This was clearly the sanctum of an explorer, African tribal masks on the walls opposite the fierce visages of masked Japanese helmets, a towering pyramid of maps and charts piled haphazardly beside an enormous globe, totemic figures and amulets crowding every available shelf. The Baron Carmody himself sat in a high-backed, wingarmed chair upholstered in the finest leather, to all appearances a man of forty years of age or more, gone somewhat to seed, with a great shock of blond hair and a full beard, a brandy snifter in one hand and a cigar in the other, while on the nearby couch sat an ancient doyenne in a black mourning dress, her
skin white with bismuth, her hair lacquered into a tight bun. Standing beside the fireplace, in which only cool embers lay, was W. B. Taylor, leaning against the mantle, a holstered LeMat revolver at his hip, a cut-glass tumbler gripped in one hand.

“Ah,” said Lord Arthur on their entrance, waving them in with the burning ember of his cigar's tip, “you must be the investigators Taylor told us about. What were your names again?” He looked from the pair to Taylor, who shifted his gaze to the cold ashes in the fireplace, unspeaking.

“My name is Sandford Blank,” the detective replied, stepping into the breach, “and this is my associate, Miss Roxanne Bonaventure.”

Lord Arthur nodded, graciously, and indicated the ancient woman sitting primly on the couch with a minute movement of his brandy glass. “This is the Lady Priscilla Cavendish, and you know Bill Taylor, of course.”

“Lady Priscilla,” Blank said demurely, inclining his head in her direction. Beside him, Miss Bonaventure dipped momentarily in the ghost of a curtsey.

Lady Priscilla fixed them with a broad grin, and with the rolling r's of a Welsh accent, said, “Charmed to meet you, to be sure.”

“Now, what is it we can do for you?” the Baron Carmody asked. “Something to do with the unfortunate deaths of Mr. Brade and Miss Villers, I take it?”

“A reasonable guess,” Miss Bonaventure said with a smile, taking a seat. Blank leaned an elbow on the chair's back and rested his hip against its arm.

“I was hoping you might tell us a little bit about your little league, my lord,” Blank said. “I take it your ‘round table' is something to do with that of the legendary king whose name you share?”

The Baron Carmody bristled a bit at hearing his organization being called a “little League,” but nodded, scowling slightly. “Yes, indeed. I became somewhat obsessed with my namesake on my return from Africa. Nearly a decade ago I was traveling in the dark continent when tragedy struck and I lost my wife and infant son. On my return to Belhorm some time later, I resolved to contribute something of substance to society rather than sinking into a morass of grief and self-pity. So it was that I pledged myself to restoring Britain to her former days of glory, and to the rebirth of the Age of Arthur in modern times. Shortly thereafter I attended a dinner in the city and chanced to strike up a conversation with Lady Priscilla and found in her a
kindred spirit. So it was that the League of the Round Table was formed, and our mission of restoring the Age of Arthur begun.”

“A…laudable goal, to be sure,” Miss Bonaventure said, quirking a smile. “If perhaps a bit…ambiguous?”

“I believe what my associate means,” Blank put in, “is that we'd very much like to know the specific means by which you hope to reach your goal.”

“Well,” Lady Priscilla said, picking up the thread, “perhaps I can assist. After all, this
is
the point in which I enter Lord Arthur's story. You see, after the death of my second husband, rest him, I developed a positive passion for Welsh mythology in general, and the stories of Arthur in particular. A veritable mania, one might say. My original intention was to produce my own translation of a collection of songs and poems from the Middle Welsh, which I felt would redress some shortcomings in Lady Charlotte's interpretation, but the more I researched the topic, the more I became convinced that there was a lost root text behind so much of Arthurian and Welsh myth and legend, an original of which the later versions were simply garbled misremembrances. However, I quickly realized that my own skills were not up to the task of rendering the story into modern verse, and so suggested to Lord Arthur that we might enlist the services of others of greater talent to help bring my vision to fruition. It is our fiercest hope that, when ‘The Raid on the Unworld' is published, the public will be so edified as to accomplish our goal.”

“That's your project, is it?” Blank glanced at Taylor loitering near the fireplace. “‘The Raid on the Unworld?'”

“Just so,” Lord Arthur said, waving his cigar, the smoke ribboning like a banner. “‘The Raid on the Unworld: The True History of Arthur.'”

“The text will be by Mr. Taylor,” Lady Priscilla explained, “based on my outline, of course, and it will be illustrated with photographs by Miss Villers, with costumes and designs by Mr. Brade.” She paused, her excitement flagging and her smile beginning to droop as she recalled the circumstances which had brought them together that evening. “Of course, it
was
to have photographs and designs by Miss Villers and Mr. Brade,” she went on, deflating, “but now I suppose we'll have to find some new talents to take up the torch.”

“Do you have any examples of their work that we might see?” Miss Bonaventure asked.

“Of course,” Lady Priscilla said, brightening. “Mr. Taylor, could you fetch that envelope I brought, the one you sent me yesterday evening.”

Taylor obliged, grudgingly, and Lady Priscilla slid a stack of photographic reproductions from the slender envelope. These she handed to Miss Bonaventure, who held them up for Blank and her to see. There, in crisp halftones, were images of actors and models in elaborate Arthurian costume, posing in gardens astride uneasy horses or against painted backdrops with prop swords held aloft. There was a frankly amateurish quality to the whole production, but Blank managed a smile when he looked up in the proud, expectant faces of Lady Priscilla and Lord Arthur.

“Charming,” he said, forcing an approving tone into his voice. “Quality work, I should think.”

Returning to his post by the mantle, Taylor shook his head, dismissively. “Aw, it's sophomoric junk, and you know it,” he said, exasperated. “I had a list of notes as long as my arm I was going to share with Cecilia, things she needed to correct before taking another shot, but I never had the chance.” He shook his head, ruefully. “She was a nice lady, sure, and could work a camera, but I don't think she understood what we were after.”

“Bosh, my good man, pure bosh,” Lord Arthur objected, smoothing his blond beard with his thumb and forefinger. “There was room for improvement, to be sure, but you shouldn't dismiss their labors so cavalierly.”

Miss Bonaventure fanned out the photos on the low table before her and looked up to meet Lady Priscilla's gaze. “My lady, would you mind explaining the essence of the story? I'm afraid I'm having trouble getting a sense of it from these images alone.”

The Lady Priscilla struggled to keep her smile from spreading too broadly across her face, trying to maintain some decorum, but it was clear she had a passion for talking about her cherished subject. As her accent and manner indicated, she was a native of Wales and had only later in life begun to move in the rarified air of London society. So it was that there was something coarse and unrefined in her manner, which may not have endeared her to all of the doyennes with whom she was required to mix in polite society, but which Blank could not help but find refreshing.

“Certainly, my dear,” Lady Priscilla said, clapping her hands excitedly.

“It's quite simple, really. It concerns Arthur, a Roman war duke in the days of the Saxon invasions, going with a group of men to a tower of glass on an island in order to rescue a woman held hostage by a magician.” Lady Priscilla leaned forward, his eyes twinkling, her hands moving expressively. “This is the story found in the Welsh poetical fragment, ‘The Spoils of Annwn'—Annwn here meaning ‘not-world' or ‘Unworld'—and found also in the stories ‘Branwen, Daughter of Lyr' and ‘The Voyage of Bran.' The former features Bendigeiduran, or ‘Blessed Bran,' supposedly a different Bran than the voyaging cognate, though I think it's clear the two stories are garbled remembrances of the same tale. Bran, while it means ‘raven,' also means ‘king,' which suggests Arthur, does it not? And it's suggestive that both Bran and Arthur, when they are dead, are said to have had their severed heads buried beneath the White Mount, where the Tower of London stands today. Ravens, I should point out, feature heavily in the myths of the Welsh and Irish, attending the goddess Morrigan. In any event, the voyaging Bran, son of Febal, is summoned by the vision of a woman in white to an island on which silver-branched apple trees with crystal blossoms grow upon the white-silver plain, this island alternatively named ‘many-shaped Emne by the sea' and ‘Emain Ablach,' or ‘Island of the Apple Trees,' which later chroniclers corrupted as Avalon.”

Blank opened his mouth to speak, but the Lady Priscilla soldiered on, unflagging.

“In each of these stories there are four main objects, repeated in variations. First, there is a cauldron that can heal wounds and raise the dead, remembered in later times as a grail. Second, there is a sword, which we remember as Excalibur, and which Geoffrey of Monmouth called Caliburn, but which the Welsh knew originally as Caledfwlch, or Caledbwlch.
Caled
, of course, is Welsh for ‘hard,' and
bwlch
is Welsh for ‘gap' or ‘space.' ‘Hard space' or ‘Hard gap' hardly makes sense etymologically, but perhaps there is some connection with the sword of Fergus mac Róich, Caladbolg, which means ‘Hard Lightning,' and which the legends said had the power to slice the tops off hills and take out several men at a stroke. Or perhaps the sword of Manannan Mac Lir and Lugh Lamfada from Irish myth, the Fragarach, or ‘Answerer,' which was said to be a sword no armor could withstand. Or perhaps even the sword of Nuada of the Silver Hand, Claiomh Solais, or ‘Sword of Light,' which was one of the Four
Treasures of Ireland, an irresistible blade which had the power to cut enemies in half. In ‘The Spoils of Annwn,' Llenlleawc the Irishman wields a ‘sword of lightning.' One wonders if there might not be a connection between these sundry sword bearers. After all, the Irish Nuada is one of the Tuatha de Danaan who loses his hand fighting against the Firbolg at the First Battle of Magh Tuireadh, whereupon the god of medicine, Dian Cecht, made him a new hand of silver. Nuada, then, is cognate to the Welsh Nudd of the Silver Hand, and Nudd is cognate with Lludd, or Lludd Lllaw Ereint, or Silver Hand. By extension, then, both are cognate with the Welsh Llwch Llawwynnyawc, or Windy Hand, and the Irish Lugh Lamfada, or Long Hand. In any event, in both Chretien's ‘The Knight of Two Swords' and the Post-Vulgate ‘Suite Du Merlin' there is a sword that only a worthy knight can draw from its scabbard. In Chretien's version of Percival's story, which is itself a dimly remembered version of the story of the
Mabinogion
's Peredur, the hero is presented with a magical sword, like which only three had ever been made, and which could never be broken, except in one perilous circumstance. It was in that same account that Perceval saw a white lance with blood oozing from its tip, the Bleeding Lance being the third of the four objects which recur so often in these stories. It brings to mind Luin, the Flaming Spear which belonged to Lugh and which was another of the Four Treasures of Ireland. In the
Mabinogion
version of the story, Peredur sees such a spear but also a platter upon which is carried a man's severed head. The later romancers, embellishing the story of Percival, identified this head with John the Baptist, but might the original chroniclers have meant that of Bran, or perhaps even the head of Arthur himself, borne back to be buried beneath the White Hill, where the Tower of London stands today?”

Lady Priscilla paused in her lecture for a brief moment, musing.

“Cauldron and sword, spear and shield. These come down to us as the suits of the Tarot—cup, sword, staff, and coin—which themselves have devolved into the suits of playing cards over the centuries—hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds. Interesting to think that the original story of Arthur, lost to us for millennia, might have been encoded in every deck used to play whist or poker the world 'round, isn't it?”