The Hounds of Avalon (Gollancz S.F.) (4 page)

Hal laughed it off, but the unnerving sensation clung to him like autumn fog. Soon after, it was compounded. On the first storey of a building on the High Street, five windows in a row were lit, but one had a blind half-pulled down. Further on, four bicycles leaned against a wall, while a fifth lay on its side in the gutter.

Coincidence, his rational mind insisted, yet an age-old instinctive part of him couldn’t help feeling slightly uneasy at this pattern manifesting itself in the most mundane things. His mind conjured an image of the universe as one living creature, breathing slowly like a man at rest, an entity that had, at that moment, chosen to notice him in particular, and to communicate some incomprehensible but vital message to him alone. Shaking his head at the odd turn his thoughts had taken, he continued along the main thoroughfare.

Suddenly, a man lurched out of a darkened alley. His tattered clothes were filthy from a life lived on the streets, his skin so black with ingrained dirt that his eyes stared out wide and white, his hair and beard a matted mane of mud-stained grey and black. He reeked of engine oil and urine.

Hal stepped back, instantly on his guard. The man held out one filthy hand, fingers splayed. Four stood erect; the thumb was missing, a ragged sore seeping at the joint.

Involuntarily, Hal ran, not stopping until the comforting lights of Magdalen burned off his fear. He told himself how stupid he’d been, but nothing would have convinced him to return to the dark maze of ageless streets that night.

Hunter sat at the back of the auditorium, alert and serious. Hal knew it was only a front for his superiors. Six other men were scattered around the rows, waiting silently, all of them former SAS or SBS. Their cold inhumanity scared Hal; they were prepared to do things no normal member of society would consider. Hunter always insisted Hal go easy on them: he was allowed to sleep peacefully because men like them existed. Hal could see the logic of that argument, but in truth he didn’t think Hunter really liked any of them either.

The General stood at the front, relaxed and confident. Hal knew
that the military had been pushing for more direct involvement in day-to-day events for a while, but they had always been restrained by the intelligence corps and the politicians who feared showing the Government’s hand too soon. But the power base appeared to be shifting in the eternally baffling, subtle machinations that thrived in the shadowy corridors of the Government headquarters.

‘Some background,’ the General began. ‘The mission on which you are about to embark is to seek out and capture one of the group known as the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. You will recall the first stories of their appearance at the time of the Fall. We discounted them as rumours and concentrated on a traditional response to the threat facing us.’ His face grew grim. ‘A mistake. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were instrumental in preventing a catastrophic defeat. The powers arrayed against us were held back. Some – the worst – fled after the Battle of London. Others adopted a watching brief, but are still a threat.’

‘They did us a favour,’ said a man at the front, his face marred by severe acne scars.

‘Our advisors tell us that they are some kind of champions chosen by the … forces that are active in the world at present.’ Hal could see that the General was uncomfortable dealing with concepts that were alien to him.
Forces. Gods. Magic
. ‘They are empowered by some kind of subtle energy that runs through the planet. It gives them certain abilities …’ His voice trailed off.

‘Maybe it doesn’t.’ Hunter smiled a wry smile. ‘Maybe they’re just better than everyone else. You don’t have to be Special Forces to be a
champion
.’

The General stifled a hint of irritation and continued, ‘One of the abilities they do have is to cross the barrier that separates us from our enemy’s homeland. If we want to strike at them where it hurts,
we
need that ability. Our advisors suggest this energy may be intelligent in some way, that these champions appear where or when they’re most needed. Take that as you will. Sounds like a load of bunkum to me, but it doesn’t have any impact on the mission at hand. All you need to know is that a new group of Five is being formed. Two have so far been identified.’

‘How dangerous are they?’ the acne man asked. ‘The Five who fought at the Battle of London sound like nutters.’

‘Dangerous is a good word for them, Grieg. Particularly so in the
case of these two,’ the General replied. ‘The first one goes by the name of Mallory, Christian name unknown. He’s a mercenary. Most recently, he sold himself to the Church.’

A sneering murmur ran through the assembled men except Hunter and Hal, who listened intently.

‘Don’t make assumptions or you’ll pay the price,’ the General warned. The Church – what remains of it – is based in Salisbury Cathedral, where they’re training up a new bunch of Knights Templar. Forget your history. These are fighting men. Hard. Well suited to the times we live in. Well trained in swordplay, archery, survival techniques. And they had a good teacher: Blaine.’

‘
The
Blaine?’ Grieg asked.

The General nodded. ‘Indeed. Bloody Blaine of Belfast. So don’t underestimate Mallory. If you don’t have your wits about you, you’ll be dead before you’re within three feet of him.’

‘Is he travelling with the other one?’ Hunter asked.

‘Yes. A woman.’ The General checked his notes. ‘Sophie Tallent. Special abilities: she can manipulate that subtle energy in some way, has certain supernatural powers …’

Hal found himself wondering what chance they had if the military couldn’t accept the profound changes that had taken place across the world. The supernatural was a fact of life: strange creatures, bizarre powers, hidden rules. Everyone knew it; they’d all seen the signs – much of the evidence lay in the cells of the high-security wing below Brasenose College, not far from the lab where Glenning had died.

‘Are they lying low?’ Hunter’s face had a strange expression that Hal couldn’t quite read.

‘They don’t realise that we’re aware of them,’ the General replied, ‘let alone searching for them. They should be relatively easy to locate. Our last reconnaissance placed them somewhere in the vicinity of Sparkford in Somerset. It appears they’re searching for something, though without much luck so far.’

‘Can we use the chopper?’

Hal flinched at Hunter’s request. With no new fuel being produced, vehicle use was rarely sanctioned, but the General acceded without hesitation. Hunter winked at Hal.

‘Get them back here as quickly as you can. Get them back in a
state we can use,’ the General said firmly. ‘And don’t come back empty-handed.’

Outside Magdalen’s main college buildings, Hal waited for Hunter in St John’s Quadrangle, in the shadow of the porter’s lodge. Hunter had stayed behind after the General’s departure to brief his men, which Hal knew usually meant threatening them with genital removal in the event of failure. Hunter called it
motivational therapy
; Hal wasn’t wholly sure it was a joke.

‘I’ve got a funny feeling about the way things are going at the moment,’ Hal said when Hunter emerged.

For once, Hunter’s response wasn’t glib. ‘We’re at a turning point, no mistaking.’ He forced a grin. ‘Let’s hope the leadership are up to what’s expected of them.’

‘You don’t have much time for anyone, do you?’

‘Not really. That way you never feel let down.’ He cracked his knuckles uneasily. ‘I can’t get this damned REM song out of my head.’

‘The one about the end of the world?’

‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? No, another one, an older one.’

Hunter paused as Samantha emerged from the buildings that housed the staff living quarters. She’d showered after her run and her hair was still damp. Her face lit up with an open smile when she saw Hal, but became instantly guarded when her eyes fell on Hunter.

‘Hmm. Fresh and squeaky clean,’ he said as she approached.

Samantha’s eyes flashed. ‘I gather you’re about to depart on an extremely dangerous, possibly lethal mission. Don’t hang around here on my behalf.’

‘Samantha, you’re the reason I’ll be back. You give my life meaning.’ He winked at Hal. ‘See you, mate. Put the champagne on ice.’

Samantha watched until Hunter had disappeared from view, and then turned to Hal and said, ‘He gives sleazy a bad name.’

‘You know you like him really,’ Hal joked and was surprised by Samantha’s indignation.

‘How can you say that?’ Her tone was unduly sharp.

‘I was just—’

‘Well, don’t.’ She softened. ‘Listen, have you heard the latest
gossip?’ Hal allowed himself to be dragged conspiratorially into an alcove. ‘The security forces have captured a god.’

‘What?’ Hal said, suddenly uneasy, although he didn’t quite know why. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s true. They used some super-secret weapon, apparently. Anyway, he’s been brought in for interrogation—’

‘Brought here? Is that wise?’

Samantha looked at him, puzzled.

‘I know we’ve got secure cells—’

‘They’re already holding some powerful things down there,’ Samantha said.

‘I know. But not a god. How can they contain a power like that?’

‘He’s not a
real
god—’

‘You know what they did to London. Besides, even if we could hold it, that’s got to attract the attention of all its kind. Do we really want all that coming down on our heads?’

A flicker of disappointment crossed Samantha’s face. It stung Hal harder than he would have expected. ‘We’re at war, Hal,’ she said gently. ‘We have to take risks, for the sake of everyone.’ She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, as if he was scared for his own safety. ‘Don’t worry. If I hear any more I’ll let you know.’ She flashed him a smile and headed towards the refectory for a late-night meal.

Hal stood in the silent quadrangle for a long moment, turning over what she had said. He wished Hunter was still around; he needed to discuss it with someone. It was too big to deal with himself. But there was no one else and, with a mounting sense of disquiet, he headed out into the night.

After everything that had happened that evening, Hal felt distinctly out of sorts. Glenning’s death had shaken him profoundly, and the random numerical manifestations of five minus one still haunted him. He tried to pretend that his mind had only noticed the similar numbers because it was already troubled, but he couldn’t shake an overwhelming feeling that it meant something, although he couldn’t begin to divine what.

Yet he found no ease in the moon-shadows of the Deer Park. The night was too hot and appeared to be growing warmer by the minute; his sweat-sodden shirt clung to his back. But it wasn’t the
temperature that continued to turn the screw on his psyche. With mounting disorientation, he looked around at the cityscape visible beyond the ancient rooftops. It was like looking at the city through a heat haze: a transparent curtain of shimmering sapphire light rippled back and forth, and through it Oxford appeared transformed. The medieval buildings and their modern counterparts merged and flowed into more fantastic structures: towers reached up into the night, some constructed from gleaming blue-white stone, others seemingly of brass and gold; lofty-roofed halls and gargoyle-riven battlements; arching bridges; steeples and spires and domes.

The illusion came and went with every eye-blink, fantasy and reality, reality and fantasy, so that in the end he couldn’t tell on which side of the line he stood. With it came a tingling in his fingers and toes, energy drawn from the ground itself, curling up his spine like the snake that slithered across Hunter’s back. Hal’s breath was taken away with wonder, while his rational mind ran wild in search of understanding.

Yet he was distracted after only a few seconds by a figure emerging from the haze as if it was slowly gaining solidity from a phantom existence. It was a giant of a man at least eight feet tall. His long black hair and beard and the dark coals of his eyes reminded Hal oddly of the disfigured tramp he had seen earlier that evening. Though his height was daunting, it was the man’s clothes that instantly set him apart. He wore a rough brown shift fastened at the waist by a broad belt. His left forearm was bound with a thong, from which several malicious-looking hooks gleamed.

Hal thought it prudent to retreat to the safety of the buildings as quickly as possible, but was sickened to discover that his legs wouldn’t obey his thoughts. Yet despite the stranger’s foreboding appearance, Hal felt no sense of threat. Instead, it was almost as if he was in a dream, watching the scene through someone else’s eyes.

‘I have searched for you across the worlds, for time upon time upon time,’ the giant began, ‘and now I find myself summoned to the place where you stand. Existence weaves a pattern that none of us can see.’

‘Who are you?’ Hal asked. The taste of iron filings numbed his mouth.

‘I am the Caretaker. I am the lamplighter. In the darkest of the
dark, I ensure that a single flame burns. In the midst of chaos, I ensure that the home is kept safe and secure.’

Something supernatural
, Hal’s sluggish brain thought.
One of the gods?

‘Are you causing all this?’ Hal gestured towards the shimmering phantom city that kept overlaying itself on the Oxford skyline.