Children of Avalon Read online

  She had their attention now. There was not one sound in the hall. She moderated du Lac’s voice and the magic. “It is up to you, my lords. It is up to you and your men to see that these witches are destroyed—for if you do not, you will see more and more of your men deserting you. But without the witches to teach them, without the witches to guide them, the young men will come back to you. They will fight for you because that is the good and Christian thing to do. Only, first, they must be torn from the sway of these witches.”

  She paused for the words to take effect and then turned to Lord Lefevre. “My Lord Lefevre knows of what I speak. He has been working with me, helping me to capture a trio of witches. It is most unfortunate that they were able to escape, but you saw them, my lord.”

  The man nodded solemnly.

  “They looked like ordinary young people, did they not?”

  Lord Lefevre sighed, but nodded his head.

  “And yet, they were able to escape from a locked room, walk through a castle full of knights, and escape in the middle of the day. This is magic. This is evil. This is the devil’s work! And it is this that is stopping your men from joining you in your fight against the Danes! Tell them it is not so, Lord Lefevre.”

  “It is so, Father. They looked like ordinary people. Two young women, not more than twenty years old, and a young man. They were witches of the most evil kind. They wove their spells on my men, deceived them, and thereby gained their freedom before we could put them to death.” Lord Lefevre looked rather sick. “If it is they who are responsible for my men deserting me, then I will double my efforts to find and kill them!”

  “Yes, my lord, it is they,” Father du Lac said. “It is those innocent–looking people—and many more like them. They are the disease in this realm! But once they are eradicated all will be well, Your Majesty. Once the witches have been destroyed, you will see the ranks of your armies swell just as they should.” Father du Lac ended his passionate speech, looking directly at the king. Nimuë had added an extra thrust of magic to the final words—then worried for a moment that it was too strong.

  The king’s eyes were unfocused, but he pulled himself together. Standing up before his noblemen, he said, “So be it. I charge you, my loyal nobles, to take your men and search out the witches. Search for them in every town and village of your domains. Search for them, find them, and give no quarter. They must be found and killed. Each and every one!”

  A cheer erupted in the great hall, rebounding among the rafters, bouncing from the stone walls. It was music to Nimuë’s ears. Sweet, beautiful music. In no time at all the three Children of Avalon, many more insignificant Vallen, and perhaps a few of those who called themselves witches, would be caught and killed. She alone would rule over the few Vallen who would be left. Oh yes, and very possibly over the country itself, as would be her right as the most powerful Vallen ever.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Do you know the way, sir?” Dylan asked, guiding his horse a little closer to Sir Dagonet’s.

  “Know the way? Of course I know the way. Traveled this way quite a few times, don’t you know?”

  To Avalon! Sir Dagonet had traveled to Avalon before and now we were going to that magical land—the land only ever heard about in fairy tales. I just couldn’t believe it. It was real, and we were going there.

  I wanted to share my excitement. I looked over at Bridget and Dylan, who were riding together on Dylan’s horse. The two of them were talking excitedly together. I could see Dylan leaning back a little to say something that only Bridget could hear. The sight of it had me sighing with relief. The two of them had only been at each other’s throats ever since they met. It was almost amazing to see them speaking to each other with civility.

  I really wanted Bridget to like Dylan, despite all he’d done. He was a good person, a kind person, even though he was also, sometimes, misguided. But there was something about him... I didn’t know what it was, but I felt something deep in my soul when it came to Dylan.

  Riding behind Dylan had been the only pleasant part of the day before: having my arms wrapped around his body as he sped his horse away from the castle and the horrible woman–priest. If there was anything about that day I wanted to remember it was just that—sitting behind Dylan on his horse. Just thinking about being so close to him sent warm shivers all through me. Just being close to him made me happy. Even now, I couldn’t help but admit that I wished that I was riding behind him today instead of Bridget.

  But here I was, with my hands on Sir Dagonet’s shoulders instead of on Dylan’s. I kept my sigh as quiet as possible.

  “About how many days’ travel is it?” Bridget called out to Sir Dagonet.

  “Oh! Er, uh, quite a few. Let’s see, now. How long did it take me the last time?” He began to think about this.

  “How long ago was it that you traveled to Avalon?” I asked.

  “What? Oh, er, about, well, let’s see... The last time I went must have been...” Sir Dagonet tapped his stomach while he thought. It made a funny sort of hollow sound that confused me for a moment, until I remembered he probably had the top of his armor on underneath his tunic.

  Dylan and Bridget and I waited for his answer, only beginning to look nervously at each other after a full minute of deliberation.

  “Well, it must have been...er”—he paused and looked over at Dylan and Bridget as if they would know they answer—“about a hundred years or so? I, er, honestly can’t remember, don’t you know?” He ended with a weak little laugh.

  “One hundred years!” Dylan exclaimed but then burst full out laughing. Sir Dagonet twisted around on his horse as much as he could to look at me. He had a confused, although slightly bemused expression on his face, which made me giggle even more than Dylan’s laughter.

  Dylan must have caught Sir Dagonet’s expression out of the corner of his eye, because he stopped laughing. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Er, that was a joke, wasn’t it, sir?”

  This time Sir Dagonet’s cheeks pinkened. “A joke, wot? Well, no, not really.”

  “It’s actually been over one hundred years since you’ve been to Avalon?” Bridget asked.

  Dylan pulled his horse to a stop. “Just how old are you, sir?”

  “Eh?” Sir Dagonet seemed to be rather hard of hearing today, so I repeated his question.

  “Oh, eh, yes, about, well, let’s see...” He thought for another moment and then said very decisively, “Yes, about that!”

  “About what, sir?” Dylan asked, warily.

  “Wot, wot?”

  “Sir Dagonet, how old are you?” Bridget asked slowly and clearly.

  “Oh! Two hundred and thirty seven on my last birthday. Haven’t actually celebrated a birthday for some time, you know. Got rather depressing after a while, wot?”

  I sat back, away from the knight who was much older than I had ever imagined. “You don’t actually mean...”

  “But how is that possible?” Dylan asked.

  Sir Dagonet began walking his horse again. Dylan followed, but didn’t seem to be watching where they were going. All of his attention was focused on Sir Dagonet—as was Bridget’s and mine.

  “Ah, yes, well, you see, er, it’s rather a long story.” Sir Dagonet chuckled.

  No one else laughed.

  “I think we’ve got the time—and so, it seems, do you,” Bridget answered with a note of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Ha! Yes! Ha! Good one, Bridget,” Sir Dagonet laughed out loud.

  I reluctantly smiled, but I couldn’t help but begin to feel a little bit nervous about Sir Dagonet, a man I had trusted completely up until this point. Could I have been wrong about him, just as I’d been wrong about Father du Lac?

  I looked over at Dylan. He wasn’t smiling. I must have been looking very worried or nervous, because when our eyes made contact, he gave me a little smile and nodded his head as if to say, “It’s all right. Don’t worry.”

  It made me feel better, so I returned his smile and pushed a
way my fears. It wasn’t difficult. Sir Dagonet was a good man. Every feeling inside of me told me so, and clearly Dylan believed it as well.

  “Well, let’s see,” Sir Dagonet began. “Where shall I begin?”

  “The beginning is usually a good place,” Bridget said.

  “Why don’t you begin by telling us how you got to be so very old? I mean, why didn’t you...well...” I began but then faltered when I got to the touchy subject of Sir Dagonet’s death, or rather, the lack of it.

  “Die?” Sir Dagonet asked helpfully. “Why didn’t I die, wot?”

  “Well, er, yes,” I said, hoping not to offend the gentleman.

  “Yes, well, let’s see. It was about a year before the Lady Nimuë trapped Merlin inside of the tree, don’t you know. He came to me, Merlin did, and asked if I wouldn’t mind helping him out a touch.”

  Sir Dagonet smiled as he remembered. “Kind old fellow, Merlin. You see, I was rather known as being, well, as being a bit of a jokester in my day.”

  “I’d heard that!” Dylan exclaimed. “So you are the Sir Dagonet from King Arthur’s round table!”

  “Er, well, yes.”

  “And yet, you denied it earlier.”

  “Well, I couldn’t just tell you that I was over two hundred years old, could I now?” the old man huffed.

  Dylan didn’t say anything to this. It was clear he understood Sir Dagonet’s point.

  Before Sir Dagonet could continue with his story, however, there was a shout from behind us. “Make way! Make way for the knights of Lord Lefevre!”

  Sir Dagonet and Dylan both spurred their horses forward, moving quickly to the side of the road. We all sat and watched as the three men from the inn rode past us looking important in their armor, their tunics all bearing the same crest.

  There was a silence for a good minute after they had passed. The certainty that some poor innocent was probably about to be murdered in the name of witchcraft was heavy in the air.

  I shivered as the air temperature around me fell. Sir Dagonet’s hand patted my own encouragingly, but even he couldn’t say that it would be all right. We all knew that for some unfortunate soul it wouldn’t be.

  Slowly, we moved back into the road to continue our journey.

  “Now, where was I? Ah, yes, Merlin,” Sir Dagonet began again, trying to make everything seem normal. “Dear old chap, he saw what was behind my buffoonery, naturally. Said to me, ‘Dagonet, old man, you are the one knight I know I can trust beyond all else.’ ” Sir Dagonet gave a little chuckle. “Little did I know what he was going to ask, but I agreed to it before he had even done so. Was so thrilled to be asked anything by the great Merlin, don’t you know?”

  “What did he ask?” I said, determined to put those knights out of my mind.

  Sir Dagonet turned around as much as he could so that he could answer. “Asked that I look out for you three, didn’t he?”

  “What?” Bridget exclaimed. “Two hundred years ago? He knew then that we would exist? How could he possibly know that?”

  “Merlin was a great prophet, don’t you know? He knew everything—or well, just about everything.”

  “So he asked that you stay alive and look for us...and you just...did?” Dylan asked, clearly not believing a word of this.

  “Well, gave a sort of a spell, didn’t he?” Sir Dagonet said. “Made it so that I wouldn’t die until...well, until the time was right.”

  All three of us were silent after that. I supposed we were all wondering the same thing—when would the time be right? When would Sir Dagonet finally die?

  I didn’t want to think about it.

  “Why did he want you to look out for us?” I asked.

  “What? Oh well, knew you’d be important, didn’t he?” Sir Dagonet chuckled.

  “Why are we important? I don’t understand,” Bridget asked.

  “Does this have something to do with why Lady Nimuë captured us?” I asked, before Sir Dagonet had a chance to respond.

  Sir Dagonet flashed a smile back to me—it was one of the proud smiles he gave me whenever I made a connection. It always made me feel good.

  “Exactly so, Scai. You three are very important. Merlin knew, naturally. Never knew that man to get a thing wrong. Well, except for the one about him and Nimuë, but I suppose that was just wishful thinking on his part.”

  “You haven’t answered the question, sir,” Dylan prompted.

  “What? Oh, why are you important? Right! Well, you three are the Children of Avalon, aren’t you?”

  “The Children of Avalon?” Bridget and I repeated back in unison.

  “We are hardly children, sir,” Dylan said, obviously a little affronted.

  Sir Dagonet laughed. “No, not actual children, of course, but children as in, er, well, of that place, I suppose. The descendants, if you will.”

  Dylan drew down his eyebrows. “Well, I know I’m a direct descendant of Merlin. The only one, I believe.”

  Sir Dagonet nodded his head. “That’s right.”

  “That’s how I know I’m destined to find and wield Merlin’s chalice. It’s mine, by right.”

  Sir Dagonet gave him a broad smile. “Not just yours, Dylan. It belongs to the three of you.”

  “The three of us?” he asked, skepticism lacing his words.

  “Yes. The daughters of Morgan have as much right to that chalice as you do, don’t you know?”

  “Daughters of Morgan? Do you mean Morgan Le Fey?” I was beginning to feel like a parrot, but Sir Dagonet just wasn’t being very forthcoming with his answers.

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. You and Bridget are the direct descendants of the Lady Morgan, don’t you know?”

  “No, I didn’t know!” Bridget exclaimed. “What do you mean, the direct descendants? After so many generations, how could that be?”

  “That’s why she called me daughter in my dream last night,” I said under my breath, almost to myself. I just shook my head in disbelief. I not only had a family, I had ancestors—powerful ancestors.

  “Yes, indeed. You are all the children of Morgan Le Fey and the great wizard Merlin. The greatest Vallen of Avalon.” He stopped, his cheeks turning a little red. “Well, not together, I mean, well, Morgan and Merlin never were, er, they didn’t actually have... well, not together at least.”

  “You mean that Morgan wasn’t the mother of Merlin’s children,” Bridget said, setting Sir Dagonet more at ease.

  “Er, yes, that’s right,” he said with a sigh, and then an embarrassed laugh. “Just so.”

  “But then there must be hundreds of Children of Avalon after so many years. I know I’ve got dozens of cousins. Both my parents had many brothers and sisters.” Bridget paused for a breath and then added, “I’m sure Dylan does as well.”

  “Ah, yes. Excellent point,” Sir Dagonet began.

  “Actually, I’m an only child. So is my father, and so was his father before him,” Dylan interrupted.

  “Right. The male line was all of single children, don’t you know? Through the female line, however, there were seven children in each family. It is the seventh through which the magic runs.”

  “But I’m the sixth child,” I pointed out, feeling a little easier. Maybe I wasn’t part of this after all. It was Bridget...

  “Er, yes, the strongest magic, I should say, wot, wot?”

  “Oh.” So it was that her magic wasn’t as strong as Bridget’s?

  “That doesn’t mean you’re not as strong, mind you,” he added, as if he could read my thoughts. “Lady Nimuë was the sixth child in her family.”

  “Oh,” I said again, not exactly reassured.

  “Yes, and, er Lady Morgan was the seventh,” he continued. “But I was the eighth! Ha!”

  “You aren’t related, are you, sir?” Bridget asked.

  “No.” Sir Dagonet chuckled. “Just the eighth child in my family.”

  A giggle bubbled out of me. I couldn’t help it; it was just so silly.

  “Nearly named
Octavius, too, don’t you know. That was a close one, wot, wot?”

  Even Dylan began to laugh a little at that. Bridget just rolled her eyes.

  Still chuckling, Sir Dagonet went on. “The prophecy actually talks about the sixth and seventh child of the female line. Your mother was the seventh child, and her mother before her, and so on back six generations, wot, wot? Bridget is the seventh child of the seventh generation, very powerful.”

  So I was one of the “Children of Avalon.” I didn’t know what to think about this. Within just a matter of weeks I had gone from an outcast with no family, to a descendant of Morgan Le Fey with five brothers and a sister. It was all a little...uncomfortable in a way. I didn’t feel like myself any more, but I wasn’t exactly certain I understood this new person I was turning out to be. It just wasn’t... me.

  “What has the prophecy got to do with it?” Bridget asked, looking a little uncomfortable herself.

  But her question didn’t get answered. The road we were riding on became the main road of a little village, and within moments we were entering the hamlet.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  I glanced around, amazed at how ordinary everything looked. We passed a blacksmith’s workshop and then an inn that reminded me very much of the inn in Tallent. The grocer’s and baker’s were next on the other side of the street. There was only one thing missing in all of this normality.

  People.

  There wasn’t a soul to be seen. A chill wind blew down my back.

  Sir Dagonet slowed his horse to a standstill and Dylan followed suit. “Where has everyone gotten off to, do you suppose?” the old knight asked, looking around.

  “I hear people up ahead,” Bridget said, nodding in front of us with her head.