Corbenic (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

I am a messenger to thee from Arthur, to beg thee come and see him.

Peredur

C
al stepped back. Behind him the sheer slope of the hill plummeted into darkness.

Kai looked anxious. “We're here to help.”

“Then leave me alone.” He glanced around at them. They were tense. They were afraid of what he might do. He realized how wild he must look and laughed, a hollow, vicious laugh that even scared him.

“For God's sake, Cal,” Hawk said hoarsely. “We're your friends. We just . . .”

“How did you know where to find me? Shadow?”

Kai flashed a glance at Hawk; the big man nodded. “You can't blame her. She was worried.”

Cal shook his head, savoring the irony. So she had done it to him now. Stepped in, interfered. She had shown him what it felt like.

“Come back with us,” Kai said quietly. “You can stay at Caerleon. No questions, no bother. The Company will look after you.”

They only wanted to help; he knew that. So he said, “I can't. I have to find this place. Corbenic. I'm close to it, I know I am.” He waved into the dark. “It's out there. Just out there.”

Kai took a step to the side. “You say you've seen the Grail.”

“And I don't suppose you believe me.”

The tall man laughed calmly. “On the contrary, Cal. We know about the Grail. The search for it goes on always. Don't you think we haven't searched for centuries? But then, you don't believe us either, do you?”

For a long moment only the wind raged between them. Until Cal said, very quietly, “I believe you are who you think you are.” Then he turned, and stepped off the edge.

Hawk's howl, the grab of his great hands, the thump of the grass: he remembered those, and then his whole body was out of control, a breathless, crashing, flailing roll down the sheer slope, banging, bruised, tumbled, flung out and smashed back against the ridges of the hill until he hit the stone and the night went black.

Maybe only for a second. Because when he came to, the pain was so intense he could hardly draw a breath, and he knew he'd broken a rib, maybe more than one. His arms and shoulders were so sore he groaned as he pushed himself up, but he could stand, and even run, in a doubled-up, uneven agony. The hill above him was alive with shouts and torches; they were coming down, skidding, wild with anxiety. He backed into a hedge, forced his way through, snapping the thick stalks of hemlock, wading through stiff grass.

“Cal!” Hawk's shout was a nightmare of fear; gasping, Cal stumbled away from it, through a field into the garden of a cottage, deep in weeds. They must think he'd broken his neck. It was a miracle he hadn't.

The castle had been close. Beyond Chalice Hill. At the bottom of the town.

There were hens in the garden; they cackled and set up a terrible clucking racket. Then a dog barked, and a back door opened.

Cal swore, flung himself at the wall and clambered over it. It hurt so much he had to stop then, coughing and retching, holding onto the wall to keep on his feet. Breathing was an agony. Maybe he should give up. Let them take him home.

Home. There was no home. Not Sutton Street, not Otter's Brook. Not the farm at Caerleon. Not Shadow's Georgian palace. None of them was his. Only Corbenic was his.

He lifted his head, dragged a breath in. “Show me,” he hissed to the dark. “If you want me to come, show me.”

“Cal!” They'd heard the hens. The yell was close. He ran, loping down the lane, around the corner into the main road.

Amber lamplight dyed the night; cars droned past him, a truck. He ran along the narrow pavements, past the entrance to the Chalice Well, every breath a struggle, an ache clutched tight to his chest.

They were close; too close. He could never outrun them. He ducked off the road into a garage forecourt; it was closed and dark, but he slipped into the shadows and found a doorway and slid down onto his heels, head on knees, a knot of pain, gasping.

Footsteps. Running, then slow. Still.

Then Kai's voice. “He can't be far. He's in no state . . .”

“When we find him, let me talk to him.” That was Hawk, sounding anguished.

“You two that way. The rest, up into the town. Work your way down to the abbey. Get a grip, Hawk of May. We'll find him.”

Cal knew that was true. Kai was relentless, and would find him. Soon. He waited until it was quiet. Then edged out.

Glastonbury was silent. The pubs had shut and in the houses televisions flickered blue and gray behind the curtains. He walked slowly, warily, his footsteps echoing, his shadow lengthening as he left the lampposts behind, until he came to a high wall on the right and he knew this was the abbey, the grounds of which took up most of the center of town. But the castle had been here.

If he stayed on the road the Company would find him, so he reached up with both hands and grasped the top of the stonework, then dug his toes in and pulled. The pain was so staggering he let go at once and crumpled onto the pavement; he wanted only to lie there and die, but it was already too late.

A sound in the street made him turn. Two dark figures flitted behind a parked car.

Instantly, without letting himself think about it, he grabbed the wall and climbed, got to the top, kicked out at the sudden tight grip on his ankle. Then he was over and running across the dark expanse of lawn, racing toward the twin stark ruins of the abbey, and behind him boots were scrambling over the wall, Hawk was calling his name, and his heart was thudding behind the pain of his ribs as if it would burst out.

“Where?” he gasped. “Where?”

The building was a bewilderment of shadows; in the cold dimness of the windy night its trees roared and small fragments of masonry rattled from the snapped stumps of windows. Cal swung into the vast roofless nave and stopped dead.

A man was sitting on an enclosed rectangle of grass there. A big man, in a scruffy tweed jacket. He stood up slowly. He seemed unsurprised.

Cal held out his hands. “Don't try to stop me.”

Arthur nodded. He looked down at the stone. “This is my grave,” he said wryly.

“What?”

“Only that nothing is what it seems. Death, even. It's never too late, Cal.”

Shadow was with him. She was sitting so still Cal barely registered her; the tattoo was back on her face, and for a second then he was absolutely certain that none of this was real, that it was all in his mind and that he'd wake soon, in the room at Trevor's maybe, and hear Thérèse singing in the bathroom.

Shadow stood up, and said, “What will happen if you find it?”

“Bron will be healed. I'll be healed. There will be no Waste Land.”

Sadly, she shook her head. “Will you come back?”

“Would you want me to?”

“Of course.” She glared at him.

“Then I'll come back. If I can.”

She went to step toward him, but Arthur held her wrist. “That's all I want,” she whispered. And for a second, it was all he wanted. Then he sidestepped past her, and saw the castle. It was there, over the grass. Heedless, he ran toward its open gates.

“Cal! Be careful!” The shout was Hawk's, close; Cal turned, stumbled backward, tripped over some stonework. Then he fell with a splash and a yell, and before he could even breathe, water closed over his face. He kicked, fought, swallowed black gunge, found the air, coughed it up, sank. Darkness filled his eyes and nostrils, choked his throat, rose into his lungs, webbed his mouth, trapping an unheard scream like a bubble that grew and grew and would never burst, and he was caught and tangled in a net of terror, drowning, dying, dead, surely, till the big hands came down and hauled him out, into an explosion of air, a lifting, a gripping of the wet grass with both hands, a retching, vomiting relief.

The hands held him tight, around his shoulders, till he had finished. Then they peeled the wet strands of net from his hair, passed him a rag that he took and wiped his face with, his fingers trembling with exhaustion. Finally, shaking, sick, desperate, he looked up.

“So,” Leo said sourly. “It's you.”

Chapter Twenty-six

What we have been longing for ever since we were ensnared by sorrow is approaching us.

Parzival

H
e was on the banks of a lake; above him a steep slope rose, spindly birch trees rustling against the dim sky. The wind was loud here too, rushing in the branches. There was no abbey, no pursuit. Instead only the black waters rippled, sloshing against the reed bed.

“I came out of that?” he whispered.

Leo laughed mirthlessly. “Didn't we all?” He pulled on a rope; Cal saw the small wooden boat loom out of the night.

“Get in,” the big man said.

Weary, Cal clambered in and sat, bent over the pain in his chest. He was soaked and cold and couldn't stop shivering. There was nothing to wrap around himself but his arms, so he gritted his teeth and stammered, “I've seen you. And the girl.”

“Can't have,” Leo muttered.

“It's true. A few times. And the osprey.”

“Not us.” The oars dipped rhythmically; the boat rocked on the current. Leo was a silhouette of blackness. “We don't leave here.”

“I know what I saw!”

“Do you?” The voice was acid. “You weren't so sure of it last time you were here. You didn't see a thing then.”

Furious, Cal shut up. When he could speak again it was in a quieter voice. “I was wrong.”

Leo rowed, saying nothing.

The wind buffeted them, and when the stone quay appeared out of the darkness Leo had to struggle to lay the boat against it; he grabbed Cal and handed him out roughly, so that Cal stumbled and turned angrily. But there was no one in the boat.

For a moment Cal stood staring at it; then he turned away. Because this was Corbenic. This was not a place where anything was as it seemed.

There was a small thread of path upward; he followed it, gasping and grabbing at tree trunks and low branches to haul himself up. The pack on his back weighed him down; he tugged it off, and threw it into the bushes. But before he had taken two steps he went back, and pulled out the broken pieces of the sword.

At the top was the lane. It looked just the same: dark, wet, leading into nowhere between high hedges. But now the sky had a streak of brightness, and there was a blackbird singing somewhere, as if the dawn was coming.

He turned right, and came almost at once to a vast gatehouse. It must be the front entrance; it was not the way he'd come before. Torches of wood dipped in pitch smoked acridly in brackets on the wall; the gate was wide open but overgrown with ivy, as if it had been years since it was closed. Cal walked beneath it, and stopped in its shadow.

Before him was a wide, paved courtyard; on each side the gray walls of the castle rose into darkness. The courtyard was empty. Great weeds sprouted between its cracked stones; the half doors of the stables hung askew. There was no sound. Only the wind whistled in the high stonework and the windows; the castle was derelict, a stillness of shadows, its blown dust eddying in tiny whirlpools in the lee of buttresses. He had found Corbenic, and it was deserted.

He gripped the sword tight. “Bron!” His voice was small, pitiful; he scowled and called again. “BRON. I'VE COME BACK!”

No one answered.

A bat, high in the sky, flitted briefly between turrets. The wind gusted a shutter, banging it so that Cal turned instantly. Only the blank windows looked down at him.

He was too late. Maybe the mistakes he had made—no, not mistakes, the lie he had told, his betrayal—had been too much. Maybe he would search the world and beyond it for all of his life and he would never see the Grail again. Maybe you only had one chance, and he had blown it, as he had with his mother.

He went on, quickly now, over the slabbed yard, in through a rusted portcullis, squeezing through a gap, forcing the brittle bars to snap.

It was not the same. It was worse. The stairs were there, and the wide banqueting hall, but it had no roof now and the trees had sprouted inside; the ivy was a mass of leaves and the only table left was rotten and soft with green lichen and pulpy mushroomy growths, yellow in the paling light. Paneling had fallen from the walls; a chandelier lay in pieces among the brambles and willow herb; as he pushed his way through, glass cracked and crushed under his feet.

He found a door and beyond it was a corridor, filthy with dust, blocked halfway down by a roof-fall. Desperate, he forced his way back and found the stairs, but they were a tangle of bindweed and as he climbed them they became soft, creaking ominously, so that by the turn in the elegant ruined balustrade he dared not go farther.

“Bron!” he called, his voice hoarse. “Please. For God's sake!”

They were dead. All dead. Because they had never been here. He was as ill as his mother had been, undiagnosed.

He turned, sat down. His whole strength seemed to go. His legs were weak; he couldn't stand, or breathe. As he doubled up he felt the whole staircase creak, an infinitesimal shift. It was unsafe, on the verge of collapse. But he didn't care. He threw the sword down, at his feet.

Upstairs, a door creaked. He jerked around. It was above him, up there in the hanging rooms, the floorless corridors. As if someone was there.

He stood. “Where are you?” he whispered.

A whisper of sound. The drag of material over dust, a soft slither.

He grabbed the hilted end of the sword, held it tight.

And then, a flame. Tiny, in the distance, a candle flame; flickering, barely there, but it was coming toward him down the long corridor, as if it was being carried, carefully, with a hand cupped around it to keep off the drafts. In its light he saw doorways, a gilt mirror, a sweep of cobweb.

And a woman. The edge of her face. Her hair. On the broken landing she paused and looked down at him. “Come home, Cal,” she whispered. Her voice was far.

He took two more fast steps up, then the stairway was broken off, the shattered remains lying far below. “I can't . . .” he breathed.

She held out her hand. “Please.”

The flame flickered red over her hair; lit the blond highlights. They looked right.

For a moment he paused. Then he tossed the sword pieces over; they landed with ringing cracks that echoed through the vast ruin like lightning. He closed his eyes. And he walked on up the staircase.

There were no steps, and he knew that, and he knew that if he looked down he was lost, but he could make them come, he could feel them under his feet and they were solid, and when he felt her hand grab him she was solid too, and even before he opened his eyes he knew that he had forgiven her, that he had loosed hold of that anger, that he had made the world be as he wanted it to be, because the world was inside him.

She was laughing, proud, and outside the wind was roaring, and she hugged him tight. “You did that for me!” she said. He hugged her too, and then he kissed her, as he had not done for years. When she pulled away he saw she had the sword pieces in her hands, and that the candle was burning in its holder on the floor, though now there were two of them, tall slim tapers.

He nodded. He couldn't speak, but he held out his hand and took the sword handle from her, very gently. She held the blade.

Together they fitted the pieces together. The metal joined. It locked. Its very atoms rearranged. It was whole, and Cal held it steady, and she put her hands over his; they were cool and strong and together they held the weapon tight.

“I love you, Cal,” she said to him. “I always loved you. Before you were born I loved you. When you left, when you didn't come. Drunk. Sober. Always.”

He looked away, then back at her. His breath came, shuddering. The sword was in his hand and the words came from him like small red moments of joy and terror, and as he said them they burned his lips, because they were true. “I love you too,” he said. “I love you too.”

He was alone. He was in the banqueting hall. The roof was new, the floor swept, a great fire roared in the hearth. Around the room the candles were lighting themselves, sparking on, great banks and stands and sconces full of them, a brilliance of wax.

People appeared, out of the air, out of nowhere, halfway through a sentence, talking, drinking, winking into existence without even noticing; a juggler catching balls he'd never thrown up, a steward pouring wine into a cup that was there just in time to receive it. Music sounded, midtune, harps, viols, a gallery of harmony. Servants walked out of emptiness carrying trays that filled, second by second, with grapes and fruit and cheeses; a spit appeared over the fire and then a boar to roast on it, hot fat spatting and dripping into the flames. Heat came, and laughter, and smells of mint and rosemary and cabbage and crusty bread. Chatter came, a thousand voices. Clatter, birdsong, the osprey's squawk.

And all the while, across the room, Bron was watching him. The Fisher King's eyes were dark. He sat still, and watched Cal, until Cal had to come toward him, sidestepping the juggler, the dancers. When he stood on the other side of the great table, food appearing between them, its smells and steams, Bron said, “I feared you would never come back.”

“So did I,” Cal said quietly.

“You're hurt.”

“That makes two of us.”

Bron smiled wryly. He looked over Cal's shoulder. “You've done well.”

Leo came out of the crowd almost smiling. The big man's fingers tightened on the handles of the chair.

“I've been a fool,” Cal said to them both.

“And now you have made your world again.” Bron nodded, his face gaunt. “Look. It comes.”

The crowds were quieting. They moved apart.

“I don't know what to do or say,” Cal said rapidly. He turned back, panicky. “I don't understand what's happening, what I'm supposed to be.”

Bron nodded. “I know.”

“Then tell me!”

“I am the Grail's guardian. You will be too, one day. When the time is right.”

“I want Shadow here, and Hawk and Kai. I want Merlin. And Thérèse!”

“They are here,” Bron said tensely, “if you want them to be.”

And they were, he saw, in the crowd, watching, silent, Shadow with her dark straight hair, and Merlin slouched at a table, the dog's head on his knees. They were here, in some way, because he was here and they were part of him, and that was enough. Even Trevor was there in an impeccable suit, and Phyllis from the office, drinking wine, and Arthur, leaning just inside the door, and quite suddenly he realized that amongst this crowd were all the people he had ever met in his life: Sally and Rhian, the train conductor, men and women he vaguely recognized or had no memory of, as if he'd maybe just passed them in the street once, and that was enough. Old teachers, schoolkids, enemies, doctors, all his mother's men, all her cronies from the pub.

He turned back. “What do I do?” he said, desperate. “What do I do?”

Bron's face was gaunt with tension. “You just look, Cal.”

The doors were opening. Into the silence the light came, that glorious, golden light, the two boys with their candles, and behind them the tall, pale boy, the one with the lance. Bright red, the drops of blood fell from it; they made a trail across the floor, spattering on the shaven wood and the scattered trampled rushes, soaking in.

And behind them, the girl came, with the Grail. She held it high, and he saw that this time it was covered with a white cloth, but even then the light burned from it, the fierce white purity that he remembered, that he'd longed for, a light that scorched him and warmed him and gave him peace, and the people looked down, away, anywhere but at it. But the girl looked at Cal.

He recognized her. She was younger, his age. Before the nightmare, the drink, before everything had gone wrong with her. She was young and calm and strong, and she carried the vessel without fear, and she crossed the room and paused at the secret door with it.

Cal turned to Bron.
“Who drinks from the Grail?”
he whispered.

The room was utterly silent. Then Bron put both hands on the table, and gripped it, and with a terrible, almighty effort he pulled himself up shakily, and he and Cal were face to face. Leo kept close, but Bron was standing, shaking, exhausted, his knuckles white on the table edge. When he spoke his voice was hoarse with joy. “You do, Cal,” he said.

Cal nodded, and turned. The Grail was carried through the secret doorway. He went after it, into a room brilliant with light. She handed him the cup, fingers over fingers, and he drank from it.

And he drank in its light, its terrors, its marvels. He saw the flame and the blood and the five mystical transformations
, and when he handed it back to her he was healed, and she took it from him, and they laughed.