Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

Yet strangely there was no panic. An abiding calmness slowly descended on her, and when she closed her eyes briefly, the sensation was accompanied by a blue colour. Increasingly, when she used her Craft, this was how it was: as if some power was visiting her from without, not arising from within.

Through closed eyelids, she experienced a sapphire flash. Every nerve in her body felt electrified and there was a smell of burned iron in her nostrils. And when she looked around, the little men had halted their advance; a dark smudge of charred material ran down the saddle and across the material of her dress, the attacker gone, destroyed or fallen by the wayside.

With a feeling of exultation, she leaned along the horse’s neck once more, the wind whipping at her hair as her steed galloped onwards. Ahead, Ceridwen glanced back at her, surprise turning to respect in her dark eyes.

The little men only fell back for a moment before the arrows started flying again, but Sophie’s defence had provided enough of a breathing space for the horses to gain some yards on the attackers.

The banks of the stream grew higher as they progressed, until eventually the brook was running along the bottom of a gully. At the top of the banks, the vegetation was thick and overgrowing the edge so that it almost closed over the top; it became as dark as twilight as they rode. The obscured view meant that if the little men made it up to the top of the gully, they would have trouble timing their drop on to Sophie and Ceridwen.

The sides became even higher, the bottom broader and rockier as the stream grew in size, but Ceridwen never once slowed their pace. Finally they emerged from the gully and passed through a final stand of trees into open countryside where the mist had almost dissipated. They were on the edge of green, gently rolling downs running away from them to flat plains beyond. Here the meandering stream became a great river winding its way into the hazy distance.

From the cracking of wood and the cries of birds on the wing, it was clear that the little men had not given up the chase. Ceridwen looked back to Sophie and yelled, ‘Spur your mount! Put the wind behind you!’

They rode as if they were part of a storm, adrift on a sea of green. The long grass parted before them and the mist burned away in the fading sunlight. With the thunder of hooves in her ears, Sophie allowed herself one look back and was shocked by what she saw. Swarming from the dark tree line were vast numbers of the little men, an army of them stretching out on either side as far as the eye could see. They didn’t slow once, even though they could see that they would never catch up and that their tiny, lethal arrows were falling further and further behind their quarry. To Sophie, they looked like an infestation, insects disturbed from a vast nest beneath the ground, surging up in ordered chaos to attack.

Only after three miles or more did Ceridwen slow down so that Sophie could ride beside her.

‘What were they?’ Sophie asked breathlessly.

‘My people.’ Ceridwen’s voice was wrapped in darkness; she did not look back.

‘But they’re nothing like you,’ Sophie said, puzzled.

‘They are diminished. They have chosen the downward path, as they did once before.’

‘I don’t understand. How can your people have turned into those things?’

‘These are not the Fixed Lands. Here in the Far Lands, everything is fluid. The closer one gets to the core of Existence, the more mutable things are. I told you that my people are riven. Those who stand against the rising and advancing of Fragile Creatures have their true nature revealed. They become-’

‘Diminished.’ Sophie thought of all the tales she had heard of the little people when she was younger, the exhortation to call them ‘Fair Folk’ for fear they would torment any humans who did not treat them with respect.

‘The Courts who have sided with them are attacking across the breadth of the Far Lands,’ Ceridwen continued. ‘The Golden Ones have never stood against each other before. We were one people, of one mind. Events have shown many of us that we do not deserve to stand above. We are all alike, Fragile Creatures and gods. Everything we believed in now lies shattered, and there is a sense that an ending fast approaches.’

Sophie looked back anxiously. ‘Will they keep coming?’

‘They will always keep coming. They will not rest until all the Golden Ones who have sided with Fragile Creatures are wiped from Existence. That is how deep the fault lines run. How can you condone the destruction of your own people and stay close to the essence of What Is?’ Ceridwen shook her head, consumed by disbelief. When she turned back to Sophie, her face had hardened. ‘We cannot stop,’ she said. ‘They will attack relentlessly, hiding beneath the dark of the moon or under the cover of clouds, to come in the night and slit our throats while we sleep. We must ride without rest. Are you ready for the challenge, Sister of Dragons?’

Though she was already exhausted and hollow with hunger, Sophie nodded. So much was at stake; she would not be the one who failed.

And so they rode, across the downs and into the night, and in the morning they swept across the plains in a light rain, their clothes plastered against their bodies. Through wooded valleys and by rocky foothills, they continued without rest until everything became like a dream to Sophie and she was convinced she was a girl once more, in bed, wishing herself to a land where anything was possible.

On the third day, a fortress city of white marble presented itself to them, gleaming in the sunrise. It rose up the foothills, so vast it seemed a hill itself, the upper reaches lost in the low clouds on the edge of the mountains behind. Sophie’s breath caught at the sight of the awe-inspiring assemblage of turrets and domes, obelisks, palaces, keeps and dwellings, all surrounded by a single monolithic wall. Along the ramparts, golden flags fluttered in a light breeze; majesty and wonder lay across the entire city.

‘Here it is, then,’ Ceridwen said. ‘The Court of Soul’s Ease.’

Great gates of gold and glass soaring up for six storeys above Sophie’s head swung open soundlessly as the two travellers approached. Once Ceridwen and Sophie were within the shelter of the walls, the gates closed with a musical chiming. All around, tall, thin, impossibly beautiful people went about their business, their skin touched by gold. As Ceridwen led the way up a winding sunlit street, the passers-by turned to smile, reserving much of their pleasant welcome for Sophie. Everywhere there was the peace of a lazy summer afternoon.

Ceridwen dismounted in a cobbled square beside a fountain of gold, glass and white marble, the shimmering water gushing twenty feet or more into the air. Beyond lay an opulent palace, the frontage ornately carved with beatific statues, all dominated by a stylistic sun motif high above the entrance.

As the gates had done before, the door swung open as Ceridwen and Sophie approached, and several guards rushed out. They wore armour that continued the white-and-gold theme, with the same solar motif prominent on the breastplate. Though their helmets threw most of their faces into shadow, their eyes glowed golden.

‘Your brother welcomes you,’ the captain of the guards said, kneeling and bowing his head. ‘He requests your presence in the Great Hall to inform you of the current state of the war and to hear news of the Court of the Final Word. Will you accompany us?’

‘Of course,’ Ceridwen replied. ‘It is a relief to be in a place of safety once more.’ She breathed the air, fragrant with the scent of clematis, and said softly, ‘Home.’

Sophie followed in awed silence until they arrived at an airy hall where sunlight streamed through glass skylights in the roof high overhead. A group of people had gathered in the centre near a large table on which lay what at first looked like a map, but as Sophie approached was more like a hologram, three-dimensional, moving, alive. The group talked and planned in quiet, thoughtful voices, overseen by a man who was clearly their leader.