The Hounds of Avalon (Gollancz S.F.) (36 page)

The pilot brought the chopper down on the common at Milford, the tiny village next to the Shugborough estate, now buried somewhere beneath the thick snow. Hal and Samantha jumped out and hurried away as the chopper rose quickly into the sky. That part of the Staffordshire countryside had been designated a potential danger zone because of its proximity to the wild expanse of Cannock Chase, which had become home to so many inexplicable creatures and events since the Fall. Hal checked his watch: they had an hour and a half before the pilot returned.

It was a clear night, sharp as a wolf’s tooth, with the stars glittering overhead and the moon bright. The crunch of their feet in the snow was the only sound. When they reached the trees bordering the estate, Hal looked back to see their line of footprints scarring the pristine white cover. The whole countryside was at peace, still and sleepy as a Christmas card. There was an affecting beauty to it; so much of humanity’s mark had been obscured and what did remain – the few houses, a lone road sign – nestled in the snow as if gradually becoming part of the natural world.

Stone gates marked the entrance to a long lane with trees on either side forming a thick cover overhead. Even with the moonlight reflected from the snow, it was unsettlingly dark. Anything could be watching their passage, waiting for the right moment to strike, and they wouldn’t know until it was upon them. Samantha felt it, too, for they both stopped on the threshold. Hal felt her fumbling for his hand, which she gave a quick squeeze.

‘Still glad you came?’ He couldn’t help whispering.

‘Of course. I just didn’t think we’d be coming at night … or that it would be so isolated.’

‘You can wait at one of the houses in the village, if you like.’

‘No,’ she said adamantly. ‘Let’s do it.’ She stepped on to the lane before him.

Their progress along the road was slow. It wound around the
edge of a steep bank so that soon the sight of the gate was lost, yet it was still impossible to see how much further they had to go. Both of them jumped at the slightest noise in the sound-deadened world. Just branches creaking under the weight of the snow, foxes and badgers foraging for food, Hal told himself. But he wasn’t so sure. There was a strange, oppressive atmosphere that grew stronger the further they progressed along the lane. It felt very much as though they were moving away from the world they knew into one where some dark power waited for them.

Samantha stayed so close to Hal that their shoulders were touching most of the time. Hal regretted bringing her along; not that she couldn’t look after herself – she would probably be more effective in a fight than he would – but because he couldn’t imagine her being in any danger, and he would never forgive himself if anything happened to her.

The atmosphere was so tense that most of his energy was taken up searching the trees and listening for fugitive echoes, other feet breaking the snow behind or in front. Sometimes he was sure he heard them; other times he convinced himself it was just his imagination.

Finally the lane broke through the trees and deposited them on an area of flat, open countryside. Shugborough Hall was visible in the distance against the skyline, a large, brooding presence.

With the threatening atmosphere of the lane behind them, their mood lightened. Samantha even laughed in a release of tension, then apologised in case Hal thought she was going mad.

As they trudged across the white plain, Samantha said, ‘Have you any idea what’s happened to Hunter?’

Hal had considered that question long and hard and guessed that Hunter was embroiled in heroism somewhere, fighting the good fight. ‘No idea,’ he replied blithely. ‘You know Hunter. He’s a law to himself.’

‘That’s the problem. They’re talking about treason this time. Some are saying he’s deserted.’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘No. Of course not. He’d be the last man out. What about all those rumours that he freed the prisoner and they took off together?’

Hal guessed this was probably true. Hunter wouldn’t have told
Hal his plans so that he would be able to stand up to questioning, but it was logical that he’d seek the support of another Brother of Dragons. ‘Why would he do that?’

‘Oh, I have no idea,’ Samantha said with frustration. ‘I can’t understand him at all.’

They fell silent as the hall loomed up before them. The mansion house looked empty, the façade gleaming as white as the snow all around, the ten-columned portico hinting at the mysteries of ancient Greece. Two wings spread out on either side, giving the building an impressive bulk. It looked out across the sweeping fields, grand yet stern and brooding.

‘Do you know where we’ve got to go?’ Samantha whispered.

Hal had researched the hall and its history in such detail that he could find his way around the rambling old pile blindfolded. The quickest way to the Shepherds’ Monument was to head to the formal gardens on the far side. But that would entail walking past the front of the mansion house with its windows like dead eyes, and that spooked him for some reason he couldn’t explain.

‘We go this way.’ He indicated the outline of the nearest path that wound through shrubs past the side of the building. ‘It’s called the Lady Walk, takes you through to the gardens at the back. If we follow it around, it’ll bring us to the Shepherds’ Monument.’

They moved through another area of thick trees where the feeling of being watched returned in force, but then the path led them back into the open along the banks of the River Sow, its waters slow-moving and black. On the other bank, the floodplain stretched out towards Milford, the snow unmarked.

‘Nobody around,’ Hal said to reassure them both.

Another feeling descended on them as they left the cover of the trees and moved along the river bank, not oppressive or threatening this time, but still potent. It felt as though they had pushed through a veil into another room where the mood was alive with numerous possibilities.

‘Can you feel it?’ Samantha said, her voice hushed but intrigued. ‘It feels as if something’s about to happen.’

The sensation was so strong that Hal looked around to see if they had moved through some kind of physical barrier. To their right, they were presented with a vast area of formal lawns with stone steps leading the eye to the magnificent rear aspect of the mansion
house. In the foreground was an ornate pond with a fountain in the form of a cherub and a swan.

A ruined monument rose up on the riverbank on their left, but as they passed it, Samantha grabbed Hal’s arm tightly and grew rigid as she looked up at a statue of a druid mounted on the top.

‘It moved,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it did.’

Hal watched the statue for a long moment. Something about the face unsettled him. ‘We’re just getting jumpy,’ he said.

‘You’re right – I’m sorry.’ But Samantha couldn’t help glancing back several times as they continued on their way.

The crunch of their footsteps echoed loudly over the still gardens as the path wound back towards the house once more, passing into another heavily wooded area. A strange building shaped like a Chinese pagoda appeared out of the gloom to their left.

‘What is it with all these odd monuments and buildings?’ Samantha said. ‘I’ve been to one or two of these old houses, but none of them had things like this.’

‘That one’s called the Chinese House,’ Hal said. ‘In the mid-eighteenth century, two brothers from the Anson family who owned the hall restyled the house and gardens. Thomas Anson had travelled pretty extensively – maybe he brought back designs he particularly liked. There’s a Doric temple in the ancient Greek style further on. He was a member of the Society of Dilettanti, who were basically a bunch of connoisseurs of history and architecture who went all around the eastern Med collecting knowledge and artefacts and generally showing off their good taste …’ The word died in his throat.

‘What is it?’ Samantha asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he began hesitantly. ‘Maybe that society was only interested in art and culture. Or perhaps they were searching for something.’

‘Something linked to the mystery of the Shepherds’ Monument?’

More connections clicked into place in Hal’s mind. He began to glimpse a grand scheme reaching back through history. ‘A lot of the societies back then were interested in esoteric knowledge but hid it behind a façade of mundaneness. Secret knowledge shouldn’t be for the masses, that was the general belief. Painters, musicians, writers – they’d often use codes, sacred geometry, all sorts of things
to bury secrets in their works so that only the initiated would find them.’

‘You’ve done a lot of research,’ Samantha said, impressed.

Hal stared at the Chinese House. ‘Symbolism,’ he mused to himself before turning to Samantha excitedly. ‘Things that look normal and meaningless on the surface, but which have hidden meaning underneath. Secret symbols.’ In his rush of thoughts he was starting to gabble and he could see from Samantha’s face that he wasn’t making sense. ‘The Shepherds’ Monument clearly means something beyond what it appears to be on the surface – a garden ornament. What if all the things in this garden are part of the wider secret? All linked. All meaning something when they’re placed in context.’ Suddenly excited, he grabbed Samantha’s hand and pulled her along the path.

Finally they came upon the Shepherds’ Monument, just off the path to their right, set in an avenue of shrubs with a wall of trees behind it. Hal felt a shock run up his spine when he saw it: everything about its position in the landscape suggested that it was important.

‘The atmosphere is even more electric here,’ Samantha said quietly. ‘There has to be something in this.’

‘Did you ever doubt me?’ Hal walked slowly down the short avenue; the crunching echo of his footsteps now sounded strange, distorted.

When he finally stood before the monument, none of the pictures he had seen in the books had prepared him for its scale: he was dwarfed by its size. The reversed image from Poussin’s painting was only one small, though central, part of the whole monument. It was framed by two giant stone columns topped by a megalithic block, with another ornamental block on top. On the large stone that straddled the columns, two faces had been carved, one smiling, one sad, like the Greek masks for tragedy and comedy. The size and shape of the framing monument reminded Hal of nothing less than one of Stonehenge’s trilithons.

Underpinning the whole monument was the mysterious inscription: O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V. with a ‘D’ and an ‘M’ carved partly beneath the line. Another clue left by the Society of Dilettanti, perhaps, its meaning now lost to time. Cautiously, Hal reached forward and scraped his fingers across the rough stone surface of
the Poussin relief, picking out the legend ‘
Et in Arcadia Ego
’ carved on the tomb.

But as he removed his hand, a large blue spark jumped out from his fingertips and crackled into the monument. Hal jumped back in shock.

‘What was that?’ Samantha gasped.

Before Hal could answer, flickers of blue energy appeared on the relief, sizzling around the outline of the tomb before moving down the monument. Though the ground was thick with snow, Hal could see the sapphire electricity sparking beneath the surface as it surged away from the monument in straight lines.

‘What are you looking at?’

Hal turned to Samantha, who was staring at him, puzzled. ‘The electricity, or whatever it is.’ He pointed to the lines of force moving out across the gardens.

Samantha followed the line of his finger, but shook her head. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘You can’t?’ Hal was baffled. The blue light now burned brightly through the snow, the lines reaching out across the landscape far into the distance, interconnecting – a network of fire. The brilliant blue energy was the same as that which formed the image locked into the Wish Stone. Hal could feel it resonating inside him, filling him with a tremendous exhilaration. He felt as if he could do anything, that he was linked to everything. Was this part of what it meant to be a Brother of Dragons? Was that why Samantha was blind to the power?

There was a sudden rush in his heart and the blue light exploded upwards from the ground, soaring into the sky to form a cathedral-like structure high over the Shepherds’ Monument. Hal was stunned by the wonder of what was happening around him.

He turned back to the Shepherds’ Monument and was shocked to see that it was transforming. The blue light had made the stone relief translucent and now the image had turned the right way around. As Hal watched, the stonework began to fold out like two shutters.

‘It’s like a window,’ Samantha said, entranced.

‘You can see that?’

‘Of course I can.’

Hal’s heart thumped even harder when he realised that what he
was seeing through the gap where the relief had been was not the trees behind the monument, but another landscape entirely. Hal made out rolling grassland, and in the distance a thick forest before a row of breathtaking mountains. In that place, the sun was just rising, casting the land in a magical light, picking out the mist in the hollows, illuminating the dawn clouds. The ethereal quality was palpable and sparked in Hal a deep yearning.

‘Where is that?’ The awe in Samantha’s voice told Hal that she felt it, too.

‘Otherworld,’ he said softly. ‘T’ir n’a n’Og. The Land of Always Summer.’

Across the magical landscape, Hal could just make out tracings of the blue energy that was spreading out across the countryside behind him. It was in everything, linking this world and the Otherworld, and the instant that thought entered his head, more pieces of the mystery fell into place.