Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

The rush of memory brought deep depression along with the shock. Since Sophie’s death, the world had already become senseless. But now that his own inner world was equally un-tethered, he felt as if he was going mad.

Gasping for breath, he didn’t see the figure that appeared suddenly in front of him until his mount shied away.

‘There’s a monster!’ It was a man of about eighty wrapped in several heavy jumpers and wearing a pair of ancient paint-spattered trousers. An old-fashioned hearing aid was visible in one ear and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses held together with a plaster was jammed on the bridge of his nose. Anxiety made him throw his arms up and down as if he was exercising.

Mallory brought the horse under control and barked, ‘What the hell are you doing, you idiot?’

‘There’s a monster!’

‘I heard you the first time. What are you talking about and what’s it got to do with me?’

The old man managed to calm himself enough to get his words out. ‘Over that way.’ He flapped his arm towards the east. ‘It’s got my granddaughter. And you… you’ve got a sword. You can fight it. Are you a knight? From Salisbury? We’ve had a few of ’em round here. They help out, when they’re not Bible-bashing…’ His words disappeared in another bout of panic.

Mallory couldn’t afford to break his journey, but the old man was so desperate that he was on the verge of tears. ‘How far?’ he asked with irritation.

‘Two miles-’

‘Two miles! That’s about a day’s travelling in this weather!’

‘No, no, the road isn’t bad. The trees overhang, so it’s kept the snow off,’ he protested. ‘Please… my granddaughter…’

He wrung his hands and, for the first time, Mallory could see that he was on the point of collapse; he must have walked the distance searching for help. Could Mallory ignore his plea, possibly sacrifice a woman to one of the nightmares that had stalked the land since the Fall? ‘Come on,’ he said wearily, holding out a hand to help the man on to the back of his horse. ‘Jesus, you’re lucky I’m such a soft touch.’

As they made their way along the lane, Mallory was relieved to find that the old man had not been lying. The snow lay thinly, marred only by the old man’s footprints.

‘What’s your name?’ Mallory asked.

‘Stanley Hahn.’

Mallory could feel the old man shaking from the cold as he clung on. ‘You’d better tell me what happened.’

‘My son and daughter-in-law died in the Fall,’ Stanley said in a fragile voice. ‘My granddaughter, Jenny, got us set up in Barnsley House just over the way. But last night there were strange lights in the gardens and then a fire… a big, big fire. We thought a plane had crashed. Jenny said she was going to investigate. I told her not to, but she never listens to me any more.’ He sobbed silently for a moment; when he managed to calm himself, he continued, ‘When she didn’t come back after half an hour, I went to see where she’d gone. There was a terrible snowstorm blowing. I could barely walk into it. And then… and then…’

‘You found her.’

‘The monster had her! It was all wrapped around her and they were both on fire. But Jenny wasn’t burning. I don’t understand it. I don’t-’

‘All right, calm down. She’s still with it?’

‘I ran back to the house to find a shotgun, but I was afraid of hitting Jenny. I went back this morning and she was still there… still standing with it… I didn’t know what to do. You’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll help?’

Mallory sighed, but it was answer enough for the old man, who proceeded to sob quietly with relief.

After a journey of fifteen minutes or so, the road brought them up to what looked like an enormous mansion, three hundred years old at least, built of Cotswold stone with large windows and tall chimneys, and set in formal gardens.

‘Is that it? Bloody hell, you’ve been living in a right old pile,’ Mallory said. ‘What’s this place again?’

‘Barnsley House. It’s famous. It used to have gardens that people came from all over the world to see. Bit overgrown now. Then it was turned into this plush hotel, but it was empty after the Fall so we moved in. Thought it would be safer here.’

‘The place is so big, if anybody came looking for you, it’d take them a month to find you inside.’

‘They’re in the pool garden. Will you go? I’m afraid.’

Twilight was already drawing in and Mallory considered leaving any confrontation to the morning, but he knew that the old man wouldn’t let him. ‘You get in the house. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thank you, thank you,’ the old man sobbed with pitiful gratitude.

Mallory lowered him to the ground, then turned his mount in the direction Stanley had indicated. An abiding stillness lay heavily on the thick snow. Yet as he surveyed the lengthening shadows of the black and white world, he felt an odd tingling deep inside him as though some invisible energy was radiating out from a source just ahead.

He rode on a little further and then dismounted. When he drew his sword, the blue light that always limned the blade was brighter than he had ever seen it. Cautiously, he made his way across the overgrown but still ordered gardens. He kept low, but it was impossible to progress quietly on the frosted snow.

Finally, he glimpsed a frozen pool through an entrance in a winding hedge. Blue light shimmered on the ice and surrounding snow and there was a tang of burned iron in the air. His heart beating insistently, he followed the light to its source.

The sight that greeted him was stunning; slowly, the sword drifted to his side. Blue Fire blazed without heat or sound, and at its heart, coiled around itself in a vast area of crushed trees, shrubs and hedges, was a Fabulous Beast more glorious than any Mallory had ever seen. In Salisbury, he had experienced them up close as they soared on the winds, leathery wings beating, metallic scales glinting red, gold and green as the furious flames belched from their mouths. But this one appeared to be made of the sapphire flames that raged around it; at times, Mallory could see through the scales to the vascular system beneath, and beyond, into its organs. It was completely blue, and its eyes, as they probed him, were the deepest blue, too.

Standing motionless amongst the flames yet untouched by them was a slim, attractive woman in her thirties, her face the colour of alabaster and just as unmoving, made even paler by the long black hair that framed it. But it was her eyes that held Mallory. Unblinking, they were the mirror of the Fabulous Beast’s, as blue as the sky on a summer day.

The Fabulous Beast’s tail coiled tighter around her legs, as if it knew Mallory was about to drag her free; the tip of the tail tapped at her shin, like a cat’s.

Mallory was not afraid. The Fabulous Beast’s flaming breath could turn whole cities into an inferno; they were unpredictable, chaotic, terrifying in appearance. Yet Mallory was convinced that they were inherently a force for good, tied in some way to the spirit-energy that coursed through the earth itself.

As the blue light on his blade gleamed brighter still, Mallory realised that his sword was calling out to the Fabulous Beast, which in turn was calling out to the sword, and through it, to Mallory himself.

‘I suppose this is what being a Brother of Dragons means,’ he said.

‘It is the First.’ The voice echoed so loudly all around that Mallory took a step back; it was deep, masculine, but with a hint of sibilance. More disturbingly, Jenny’s lips had formed the words, but the voice was certainly not hers.

‘Jenny?’ Mallory didn’t expect a response and shifted his attention to the Fabulous Beast. ‘This is the First? The original? The father — or mother — of them all?’ But as he said the words, Mallory realised it was more than that.