Grail of Stars (2 page)

T
he stables at Camelot were quiet after lunch, with the horses settled for the afternoon. Rhianna slipped into her mist horse’s stall and patted the white mare she had ridden from Avalon two years ago. “Keep watch, Alba,” she whispered. “I’m going
to wear my crown for a bit.”

The little horse snorted, pleased to see her mistress but disappointed Rhianna had brought the Pendragon crown instead of an apple.
I cannot eat jewels
, she complained.

Rhianna smiled. “I know you can’t, my darling. But these are magic jewels. They’ll show me where to find the Grail of Stars, and then I can take you home.” Taking a deep breath, she jammed the Crown over her unruly copper hair.

“Help me, Father,” she whispered. “Where should I look?”

She felt a warm spot at the back of her head, where the jewel containing King Arthur’s secrets had been restored to the third Light after they’d got it back from her evil cousin Mordred last year. She closed her eyes, hoping
the magic would show her something useful this time. A thick green mist surrounded her. She glimpsed shapes moving inside it and spent a frustrating time trying to follow them. Then the Crown became hot, and her spirit left her body.

She was flying over water. She heard the creak of wood as a ghostly ship appeared from the mist below. It had white sails and shone like a star. A tall, slender knight with golden hair knelt over a boy’s shivering body in the stern, holding something in his hands that lit up the deck.

“Wait!” she called. “Is that the Grail…?”

But already the ship was sailing away into the mist. She tried to follow it, but the green
clouds thickened again. Flying blind, she lost all sense of time.

Then a lone hill loomed ahead with purple lightning flashing around a building with a black tower. Screams came from below, and suddenly she was falling. Her spirit spun helplessly down towards the ghostly green sea. She could not see, could not breathe. Icy water closed over her head, and she heard her cousin Mordred laughing.

“Rhia! Wake up now, Rhianna Pendragon!”

The tinkle of an Avalonian harp banished the vision. She gasped for air and struck out at the hands trying to hold her down.

“Ow!” someone muttered. “I think she’s still dreaming.”

“No, she’s back with us.” That was her friend Prince Elphin’s voice, quiet but tense. “Get the Crown off her. Careful.”

Something caught in her hair, and Rhianna grabbed for it. Her hand closed about an unexpectedly hot jewel. She sucked in her breath and let go.

“That’s right,” Elphin continued. “You take it, Arianrhod. Wrap it up in something.”

Rhianna felt water drip on her leg and remembered her vision. “Mordred…!” she gasped.

The harp rippled again, and Elphin’s voice filled with magic. “This is Camelot, Rhia,” he sang. “You’re safe now. Prince Mordred’s dead, remember? He can’t hurt you unless you invite his ghost in here.”

A shudder went through her.
Ghosts, that’s
all I saw
. Warmth returned to her body, and the icy water became a puddle of wet straw. She brushed it off with a grimace and opened her eyes.

She was lying in a corner of Alba’s stall. It was dark outside. A single torch burned in the passage.

Three anxious faces peered down at her. Plump, fair-haired Cai, who was a knight now but still slept in the squires’ dormitory; her maid Arianrhod, whose dark hair covered the pentacle scar Morgan Le Fay had cut into her cheek; and Prince Elphin, with his violet eyes and extra Avalonian fingers. Her mist horse’s nose pushed between them.

You were making a lot of noise
, Alba scolded.
And you spilled my water! I told Evenstar to bring his rider.

It was such a relief to be safe with her friends that Rhianna laughed. She sat up and threw handfuls of wet straw at them. “Back off,” she said. “I can hardly breathe with you three staring at me like that.”

Cai grinned. “She’s all right!” he said, sounding relieved too. “Why are you sleeping in the stables, Damsel Rhia? Aren’t your rooms in the Damsel Tower good enough for the daughter of King Arthur?”

She pulled a face. “I wanted to be alone, and this is about the only place I can get any peace these days – until my horse decided to tell everyone where I am, that is.” She met Elphin’s whirling purple gaze. “You didn’t have to wake the others. If Cai’s here, the whole of Camelot will know where to find me by morning. Mordred’s ghost, too, no doubt.”

Her friend lowered his harp and frowned. “That’s not funny, Rhia! It took me ages to call your spirit back this time. And it is morning, nearly. What were you doing wearing the Crown of Dreams in the stables anyway?”

“Using it to look for the Grail of Stars, of course,” Rhianna said. “I saw a ship in the mist with a knight and a boy on board. The knight was holding something bright, but I couldn’t see what. When I tried to follow the ship I saw an island in the mist, and then I heard Mordred laughing…” She frowned and rubbed her head in memory. “Is the Crown all right? Let me see.” She lurched to her feet, but only managed two steps across the stall before her knees buckled. She sat down again in the puddle, dizzy

Elphin shook his head and knelt at her side. “Take it slowly, Rhia,” he said. He glanced up
at Cai. “See if you can find her something to eat. She’s missed supper, if Arianrhod’s right.”

“I thought she was having supper with her mother,” Arianrhod said. The maid hung back in the shadows, keeping the third Light wrapped in her cloak.

“The queen always eats with Sir Lancelot in the evenings, you know that,” Rhianna said with a scowl. “And stop treating me as if I’m sick! I’m just a bit dizzy from using the magic, that’s all. I’ll be fine in a moment.”

Elphin’s harp tinkled again, soothing her bad temper. But she caught his wrist to silence the strings. “Enough, Prince Elphin!” she said, trying to force lightness into her voice. “I don’t want to fall asleep again. I’ve already spent most of a day and night wearing the Crown of Dreams.”

She lifted his hand and examined his slender fingers for blisters. She knew what it must have cost him to play his harp in the presence of the third Light. At least there was no blood this time. She let go of his hand and smiled. “Thank you.”

Elphin pressed his lips together as he bagged his harp. “You should be more careful. Don’t forget that crown killed Lady Morgan and Mordred.”

“It won’t kill me. I’m heir to the Pendragon throne.”

“What did the knight on the ship look like, Damsel Rhianna?” Cai asked, returning with a bucket of bruised apples they kept in the stables for the horses. “He might be one of the knights who died on a Grail Quest.”

Rhianna tried to remember. “Young,
I think… I couldn’t see his face, but he was tall and slim… and he had golden hair.”

“Could be Sir Percival or Sir Galahad,” Cai said doubtfully. “The boy you saw on the ship was probably his squire – none of them came back. Did you see Mordred’s ghost too?”

“No,” Rhianna said with a frown. “I just heard him laughing… but that was probably one of my own memories from last year. I think the shadrake was part of the vision too. That crown’s as bad as Merlin – it never shows me anything useful!” She shook her head in frustration. A whole winter of wearing the third Light, with its secrets of the Pendragons stretching back to the ancient Dragonlords, and the only thing she’d seen clearly was a ghostly knight on a ship!

Elphin smiled. “Father once told me it
doesn’t matter how much someone knows. You have to know what questions to ask.”

“I know what questions to ask it!” Rhianna said, scowling at him. “I want to know where the Grail of Stars is so I can take the four Lights back to Avalon to wake my father, but all I’ve seen so far is water and mist!”

“Maybe the Grail’s in the lake where you found Excalibur?” Cai suggested, munching one of the apples he’d found. “That’s usually misty.”

“Or across the sea?” Arianrhod ventured. “Where the Romans live? That might be why you saw a ship?”

“They don’t have mist in Rome, silly,” Cai said. “Too hot. If it’s across the sea, it’s more likely to be in Dragonland, like the Crown was.”

“I hope we don’t have to go back there,” Arianrhod whispered, hugging the
cloak-wrapped
crown. “That’s the gateway to Annwn!”

“You weren’t even with us in Dragonland,” Cai pointed out. “You were safe here at Camelot with Gareth. I was the one who had to fight dragons and rescue Damsel Rhianna from the shadrake’s lair! Good thing I was carrying the Lance of Truth, that’s all I can say.”

“And who rescued you
and
the Lance from the shadrake?” Rhianna reminded the boy with a smile.

The very thought of Dragonland, where Mordred had tried to bury her in the shadrake’s lair, made Rhianna break into a cold sweat. But if the Grail did turn out to be in Dragonland, she’d have to swallow her fears and go back. At least her cousin wouldn’t be there this time,
and the roads were safe now. Gareth, the older squire who had helped them defeat Mordred last year, had even been allowed to ride out by himself to visit his family on the Lonely Tor.

But Cai’s words made her think. Nimue’s lake…? Could the Grail be so close to Camelot? What if someone had thrown the fourth Light into the lake as an offering to the fish-lady Nimue, as the knights had done with Excalibur after King Arthur died? That might be why nobody could find it.

Shouts from outside interrupted them, followed by an urgent pounding at the gates. The horses pricked their ears and whinnied, hoping for breakfast.

Rhianna got to her feet, more carefully this time, and fed Alba her apple core. “Something’s going on out there,” she said, taking the crown
from Arianrhod. “We’d better get back into the castle.”