Page 18 of The Quest for Excalibur
I lost.
Galloping hooves. Muddy ground whizzing past in a blur of speed.
Galloping hooves.I raised my eyes to meet Arthur’s again. Mine must have been wide with terror because his were too. “My saddle,” I shouted, as I tipped further his way. He leaned precariously toward Alezan’s head, stretching to grab her bridle and slow her down. The saddle slid. I reached out my hand in one imploring gesture, the other still clutching Alezan’s mane, tangled in the long hairs.
Arthur lunged for me instead of the bridle. Our fingertips touched. The saddle slid down Alezan’s side, and I went with it.
“Gwen!” His shout of panic was the last thing I heard, our horses’ pounding hooves in front of my face, the last thing I saw.
Chapter Ten
Crying. Someone crying.Eyelids glued shut, leaden, sore. Breathing difficult. A burning sensation in my nose. Cheeks stinging. My head booming as though it would explode.
The crying stopped. Silence instead, and soft, cushiony darkness. I drifted away on a cloud of nothingness.
Floating. For a long time. For an eternity.
Whispering. Wordless whispering hissing in the dark.
Someone had weighed down my eyelids. They wouldn’t open. Had they placed coins on them because I was dead? I struggled against the marshmallow darkness.
The weights fell away. My eyelids creaked open. Bright lights flashed and my eyes throbbed with pain. I closed them again as my heartbeat filled my head, pounding loud as a beaten drum. I sank into oblivion, content to be nothing, no one.
I floated for a long time. Or no time at all.
Whispering again. A low, throaty giggle. Light in the darkness. Two people standing in the shadows, arms around one another, laughing. One of them tall and unmistakable. Arthur, holding a stranger in his arms, hungry mouth on her throat, eager hands exploring her lissome body. The woman’s softly provocative giggles filled my head, rising ever louder. In slow motion, she gazed at me over Arthur’s head out of triumphant doe eyes, a grin splitting her face open wide. She had uneven, crooked teeth.
No!
On a silent scream, I fell into a bottomless well, spinning out of control with bright lights flashing all about me, like some horrible fairground ride. I screwed my eyes tight closed but couldn’t shut out the lights.
After another eternity, the bottom came up and hit me hard. Not water. Not the bottom of a well at all. Grass, tickling my skin. Tall reeds rustled in a breeze and the sound of bird song filled the air. A sedge warbler’s distinctive chirring call. The smell of mud and cold air strong in my burning nostrils.
I opened my eyes.
Cool, misty daylight. A lakeside. Distant, shadowy trees fringing a dark expanse of peaty water. Windblown ripples breaking up the mirrored surface, silvering in the pale light. The warbler calling again. I strained my eyes to spot him as though finding he was real meant everything.
And failed.
I pushed myself upright, the damp ground soft beneath my fingers.
I’d somehow landed on a grassy bank, with reeds growing tall about the water to left and right, and a view across to those distant trees.
Moving my head, I found the pain had gone.
A flat-bottomed boat nestled amongst the reeds, its worn planks silvery with age. Waiting for me. Was this the River Styx? Was I really dead? On my way to the otherworld?No.Since when was the River Styx a lake with lilies growing on it?
However, instinct told me the boat was meant for me.
In the blink of an eye and without moving, I found myself sitting in the boat, my bare feet resting on the weathered boards. Slowly, it nosed out of the reeds, gliding across the water as though drawn by some invisible power. I sat motionless, unresisting, letting the boat carry me to the center of the lake.
Lilies thickly dappled the water, their flat green pads jostling for position, and their flowers open in pristine white cups. The boat slowed and stopped. Silence. The unseen warbler had ceased his song, the breeze had given up shaking the reeds, and even the sounds of the water had died.
Beside the boat, the surface stirred, drawing my eyes like a magnet. I couldn’t have looked away even if I’d wanted to. The lily pads gently parted. Beneath the dark, peaty water, a pale shape coalesced before my eyes, half hidden by the depths.
“She brings it for you.” A child’s voice spoke, soft, commanding, knowing.
With an enormous effort, I dragged my eyes away from the water. The child was seated in the prow of the boat. Small, scarcely eight years old, with long dark hair hanging loose to her waist. I stared.
