The Hounds of Avalon (Gollancz S.F.) (45 page)

Hal’s first thought was that either Manning had launched some kind of coup or that Reid had arranged for her arrest and some kind of disturbance had broken out. Still half-asleep, he stripped off the several layers of clothing he’d taken to wearing in bed, splashed some water on his face and quickly dressed.

He was barely out of his room when Samantha came running up the corridor in a state of distress.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said, catching her in his arms.

She sobbed against his shoulder for a moment before she calmed enough to tell him. ‘It’s the prime minister – he’s been assassinated.’

‘What happened? Tell me.’ Hal gently pushed Samantha away from him so that he could look in her face.

‘I don’t know.’ She wiped her tears away with the back of one hand. ‘No one’s releasing any details. All we’ve heard is that it
happened about half an hour ago. They’re shutting down all buildings and instituting an immediate curfew while they search for the killer.’

Hal’s jaw gaped in shock. Is that what Manning had been planning? If so, Reid must be devastated at not having acted immediately. But then no one could have foreseen it. Who would possibly kill their leader on the eve of a battle that would determine the survival of the human race? He decided not to tell Samantha anything about Manning and his conversation with Reid in case it put her in danger.

‘If we’re being confined to our quarters, I wanted to be here with you,’ she said.

Hal took her back inside and quickly made up the fire. Once it was roaring, he brewed up and they sat warming themselves while they drank their herbal infusion.

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to us,’ Samantha said desolately. ‘I always had hope that things were going to turn out all right … they always do, don’t they? Or did. Even at the Fall, when it seemed as if it was the end. We pulled through that. But now I’m not so sure.’

‘Things will work out,’ Hal said with as much optimism as he could muster. ‘There are a lot of good people working on our behalf.’

Samantha didn’t look convinced, so Hal changed the subject. ‘I’ve been doing a bit more research on the mystery we found at Shugborough and I think I’ve made a breakthrough.’ He fetched a pile of books and papers from his desk and spread them out around her.

‘I don’t know how you can think about that at a time like this,’ Samantha muttered.

‘Because it might be our only hope,’ Hal said simply.

Reluctantly, she picked up a book of illustrations of one of the Grail romances. ‘What’s this? King Arthur?’

‘The stone with the Poussin image inside was found at Cadbury Hill, one of the supposed locations of Camelot. There are lots of Arthurian links floating around this whole business. I’m starting to think that maybe the legend of King Arthur is a code, too, like the Poussin painting and the Shepherds’ Monument – that the stories
themselves and elements of them are meant to be symbolic. And that somehow they tie in to what we’re looking for.’

‘Sounds a bit tenuous,’ Samantha said, unconvinced.

‘Not really. Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, was supposed to have come from the Otherworld. And that’s where he went when he died. And the Poussin painting is of a tomb, and the mystery surrounding it points to T’ir n’a n’Og.’

‘Arthur’s Tomb?’

‘Like I said, it’s a code. We shouldn’t take it at face value.’

‘But the King Arthur legend goes back centuries before Poussin, even. How long has all this been weaving together?’

‘Ah,’ Hal said with a smile. ‘That’s the mystery.’

Before he could say any more, they were disturbed by the sound of numerous booted feet running along the corridor without. Doors were flung open, orders barked. Hal’s door crashed wide and a grim-faced soldier stood there brandishing a rifle as if he was prepared to shoot Hal and Samantha on the spot.

‘There’s a curfew,’ he said. ‘No one’s to leave their quarters.’

‘We heard the news,’ Hal said. ‘Who’s in charge?’

The soldier’s cold eyes observed Hal with near-contempt for a moment before he replied, ‘The General.’ And then he was gone and Hal’s many other questions were left unanswered: what about the rest of the Cabinet? Where was Reid? And what did the General plan to do now?

The journey from Glastonbury had been hard, over roads and fields that resembled the Arctic wastes in the face of a wind that raked at their flesh day and night. Mallory wished he could have turned his back on his responsibilities and stayed behind in the magical atmosphere of the sunlit Tor. When the summer gave way to winter as he passed the limit of the Culture’s influence, he felt a palpable pang of despair and looked back repeatedly until the blizzard blocked the glowing uplands from view. The biting cold and the dark days felt more than just a physical hardship; they were signs of a world bereft of hope, winding down to die as the last candle guttered.

With his mood still tainted by the loss of Sophie, it would have been easy to give in to despair, but Shavi was there on the horse at his side with quiet words of encouragement. Mallory already felt
that he could trust the young Asian man with his life. Shavi was the most spiritual person Mallory had ever met; the peace he radiated was almost contagious, filtering in through Mallory’s pores, neutralising his blackest thoughts, shining a light into the dark areas of his soul. Mallory knew that over time the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons increasingly exhibited peculiar abilities, and this, he decided, was Shavi’s: the magic of the soul, given strength and weight. That description had an uneasily religious tang for someone like Mallory, who had little time for God or gods, but even he instinctively felt the truth of it.

With the wind howling in their ears, Shavi told Mallory of how he had fled a repressive family in West London for a life of searching. He had hungrily devoured the teachings of every major religion and most of the minor ones, eventually turning to more esoteric knowledge as he quested for his own personal grail. But then he had experienced colourful dreams that drew him into contact with the other Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, much like the insistent pull that had dragged Mallory to Salisbury where he had first encountered Sophie.

‘It’s difficult to get your head around the fact that you’re special,’ Mallory said as he futilely attempted to warm himself beside a raging campfire.

‘I do not consider myself special,’ Shavi replied. ‘I believe we have been given the tools to do a job on behalf of humanity. It is our duty to carry out our task to the best of our abilities. In truth, we are not special, we are servants. We act with humility, not arrogance. We accept sacrifice and suffering. That is our lot.’

Mallory jabbed a branch into the depths of the fire, watching the sparks fly up to meet the falling snow. ‘And is that it? We have to accept misery? There’s no cake when we get to the end of the road?’

Shavi smiled wryly. ‘Happy endings, Mallory? You do not seem the type.’

‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right. I’m an old cynic. But I do have barely repressed romantic leanings.’ Mallory pondered Shavi’s words for a moment, then said, ‘Not so long ago I was told that I come from another world that doesn’t exist any more. Somehow reality changed. My world disappeared, and this world is what we have in its place. Do you think that’s possible?’

‘I think we live in a universe where anything is possible. The only reality that truly matters is the one inside here.’ He gently tapped the position of his third eye, in the middle of his forehead. ‘Something is troubling you. Would you like to talk about it?’

Mallory was surprised; he always guarded his true thoughts and feelings carefully, but Shavi had seen inside him effortlessly. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so taken aback. The initial elation when the gaps in his memory were filled had faded and the knowledge had developed a gravity that was gradually sucking all of his other thoughts into it.

Mallory told Shavi about the Fabulous Beast and Jenny, the woman who had been possessed by it, or had become its avatar, or some other relationship he couldn’t quite understand. Shavi was both surprised and excited by Mallory’s account.

‘I feel this is very important,’ he said. ‘A bond established between human and Fabulous Beast. It could be a very good omen.’

‘The girl told me that I died in the last world … blew my brains out.’

‘I am sorry.’ Shavi was not being glib; he looked truly upset by Mallory’s bald statement.

‘But I died, do you understand? And now I’m here, alive. This place doesn’t look like heaven. It looks a lot like hell, but I don’t think it’s that, either. You visited the land of the dead on one of your transcendental super-jaunts, so tell me … what does it mean to die? Do you just carry on in some other place, like me? Or is all this some illusion playing out in my dying mind?’

‘Perhaps this world is the Bardo Thodel of the Tibetan mystics, the place between death and birth.’

‘They missed that bit out when I was doing my studies at Salisbury.’

‘The Bardo is central to the Tibetan concept of the afterlife,’ Shavi said. ‘The word means “intermediate state”. The Tibetan mystics believe that all of Existence is nothing but a series of transitional states, which they called Bardos. In the Bardo Thodel, there are three distinct stages between death and rebirth. The Chikai Bardo includes the process of dying and the break-up of the elements that make up the physical body. The Chonyid Bardo is next, with visions of gods, heaven, hell, judgment and so on.’

‘That sounds familiar.’ Mallory found Shavi’s information disturbing in the light of his experience.

‘Finally there is the Sidpa Bardo,’ Shavi continued. ‘During this, the consciousness chooses a new body into which to be born.’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘I believe there are many, many paths and that we must all be detectives, searching along them for any clues that might help us.’

‘There’s got to be some reason for all this misery,’ Mallory said. ‘If it’s all just the result of some random chemical reactions at the dawn of time, it would be so crushing.’

‘The search for meaning is the greatest quest of all.’ Shavi’s smile suggested that he knew much more than he was saying.

‘When I was in Salisbury training to be a knight, I had to study a lot of Christian philosophy.’ Mallory continued to prod the fire, watching the sparks leap heavenwards. ‘There’s a philosopher called Hicks – you’ve probably read him. He says that this world is basically a school for souls. All the struggles and hardships we go through, all the evils we face, are designed to challenge us and shape us until we develop our souls and become more like God.’

Shavi said nothing.

‘There are a million explanations as to why we’re here, putting up with all this shit.’ Mallory was entranced by the fire, almost talking to himself. ‘Where do we look for answers? Science or religion? Are there any answers? Or should we just stop wasting our time thinking about it and get on with it?’

‘The answers are inside us,’ Shavi said softly. ‘We all know the truth instinctively. Many have forgotten how to listen to that part of themselves. We need to relearn.’

‘If we don’t know what’s expected of us …’ Mallory flailed around for the right words. ‘How are we supposed to know whether what we’re doing is right?’

Shavi could see the distress that lay behind Mallory’s questions and moved quickly to calm him. In soft tones, he said, ‘Consider, then, Hindu beliefs. To Hindus, the universe is a vast place filled with immeasurable numbers of thinking beings, gods and demons continually being born, dying and re-born. The time-scale is vast: three hundred billion years for the entire wheel of existence to turn. How can humans, so insignificant in this big picture, so powerless, make decisions about how to live? The Hindus find their answer in
the Sanskrit word
dharma
. It is defined as each person’s unique path in life, and the knowledge of how to find it.
Dharma
is always there to be discovered, and it is the answer when faced with something too immense to comprehend.’

‘But how do you find
dharma
?’

Shavi smiled. ‘That is the simplest path of all. To find
dharma
, you must be yourself, as fully as possible. All the information you need lies within you. Recognise that each human consciousness is unique, that each is an experiment in seeking the eternal truth.’

‘Just be myself? I’m lucky to get across the room if I do that.’

This time Shavi laughed heartily. ‘Mallory, your self-deprecation belies your true essence. I can see it. Allow yourself to see it.’

Mallory nodded, but the question he really wanted answered died on his lips. He wasn’t concerned about himself. His desperate need to know the meaning of life and death, and whether death itself was an ending, was driven by Sophie. Was there hope for her, somewhere beyond the world? Would he ever meet her again?

They travelled for as long as they could, but the cold forced them to take regular breaks in any shelter they could find. At Barnsley House, Mallory searched for the Fabulous Beast and Jenny at Shavi’s insistence, but they were gone. Yet there was still a faint echo of their presence in the air, like the intense atmosphere in a cathedral.

Somehow they made it across the freezing wastes without dying from the cold or starvation. They had come across many people frozen in their homes, their last fuel now ashes in the fireplace, their cupboards bare. After the Fall and the plague, humanity was barely clinging on; the new ice age was a crisis too far.