Time’s Legacy

‘To do what exactly?’

‘I don’t know. He just said he had to get back.’

Athena studied her companion’s face for a moment and suppressed a knowing smile. So Justin had made another conquest. ‘Did he take your crystal?’

Abi shook her head. ‘I’ve got it at the house in my suitcase. I’m not sure I want to see it any more. The story is told.’ She frowned anxiously. ‘You think Justin’s going to go after Kier again, don’t you.’

Athena shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’ She looked up at Abi. ‘You must realise he’s not the type to give up. He will do his best for Kier and for those others in the past.’ There was a short silence, as she sipped her coffee, then she glanced up at Abi again. ‘Have you ever heard,’ she began cautiously, ‘of people going into what is called a persistent vegetative state?’

Abi nodded.

‘And do they think that is what has happened to Kier?’

Abi shrugged. ‘They haven’t used that term.’

‘Well, say it is something like that. You called it a coma. Have you ever wondered where people’s souls have gone while they lie there?’

‘No. You are not trying to tell me that they have gone off into another world?’

‘Why not? It seems perfectly possible to me. There is nothing physically wrong with Kier, is there. You told me he was breathing unaided and his heart seems to be working and the brain scan showed nothing abnormal.’

Abi was silent for a moment, lost in thought. ‘You agree with Justin that he’s gone after Flavius and to look for Yeshua. To see for himself,’ she said at last.

Athena took another bite of her pastry. ‘In his shoes, I’d go.’

‘In his shoes?’

‘He’s messed up. He’s got this amazing power and he is terrified of it. He has lost you – not that he ever had you, of course,’ she added hastily after a glance at Abi’s face. ‘He has lost his job, maybe his faith, his home if he’s kicked out of the parish and he has the chance to go adventuring, to slay dragons for the lady Lydia, and perhaps to meet Jesus face to face.’

‘You’re saying,’ Abi glanced up and gave a watery smile, ‘that he’s got, what did you call it, “Avalonitis”?’

‘Precisely!’ Athena leaned across and pushed Abi’s plate towards her. ‘Eat! Otherwise I shall be tempted to finish it for you and that would be very greedy!’

Mora had not appeared. He had searched for her on several occasions and at last conceded that this was women’s magic. But Flavius and Kier, they were men. He should be able to find them. Had Kier caught up with Flavius? And if he had what had happened? Abandoning his latest attempt at travelling in search of them he gazed at the fire, conscious suddenly of the sound of rain against the window and of how remote his house was. Normally he revelled in being alone but today he was terribly aware of the miles of empty mountains and the high moors around him, the black, racing clouds, the brooks, the nentydd, turning to torrents as they hurtled down the steep hillsides, the sheer immensity of the coming darkness. Slowly he pushed himself out of the chair and went over to the log basket. A couple of nice dry blocks sent sparks rocketing up the chimney. He went back to his computer and glanced at the screen. Another e-mail from Greg; the two men had been trying to find common ground in their quest to help Kier. Justin’s confidences had not as yet extended as far as sharing too many details of his journeying with him, but Abi was another matter. He looked at the phone. His thoughts kept going back to her. He hadn’t mentioned Mora’s pregnancy to her, nor Lydia’s speculation as to the father of the baby. Would she understand? He knew why she was reluctant to look into her Serpent Stone again – she had seen too much terror and bloodshed – but in her shoes he would want to know everything.

It had been hard to part from her, but he could see she had more than enough to deal with without him irritating her further. Did he irritate her? He had thought so. Now he wasn’t sure. One moment he thought she liked him and the next…He wasn’t even sure where she was. She had murmured at one point that she might go straight back to Cambridge to see if her father was all right, though Ben had frowned and shaken his head and said, ‘Not yet’. So she was presumably still at Woodley. Waiting. He stared thoughtfully into the flames. Perhaps it was time for an attempt to consolidate brotherly reconciliation. And before that, perhaps, one more journey into the past in the hope of finding Flavius.

Abi had unwrapped the stone and was looking at it a little quizzically. Outside it was dark; the rain had not stopped for three days. Already the levels were flooding. Downstairs in the kitchen Mat and Cal were sitting by the fire with their cocoa and the dogs but she had pleaded exhaustion and come upstairs to bed. Her thoughts kept turning to Justin. He had been disappointed in her determination not to go on with her quest, she could see that, but just for the moment she hadn’t been able to face it any more. She was prepared to leave it to him. Until now. Until, realising that if she wanted to see him again she would have to come out of her seclusion and face the unravelling of the story. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the stone and stared into its face.

‘So, Mora. Where did you get this thing?’ she said out loud. ‘Who gave it to you? Who showed you how to use it?’

‘Sorcha?’ Mora looked up at the figure in the doorway with an incredulous smile of joy. ‘I thought you were dead!’

Sorcha came into the house and, at Mora’s gesture of welcome, sat down near the fire. She shook her head sadly. ‘I should be. I should have stayed. I loved them as though they were my own, but when he killed Gaius, stabbed him in cold blood in front of lady Lydia, I fled.’ Tears gathered in her eyes.

‘You couldn’t have saved him, Sorcha.’

Sorcha shook her head. ‘He chose a time when there was no-one there. The men were in the fields or hunting or down to the eel traps. He murdered his own brother with a knife in his chest.’ Her voice was husky with pain. ‘The lady Lydia is still crazed with grief.’ Lydia and Petra were living now in a house in the small settlement of Glaston at the far end of Ynys yr Afalon. It was too soon, Fergos Mor had said, for Petra to decide if she still wanted to train as a druid. He wanted mother and child to have time to recover, to reclaim their lives. ‘Lydia’s punishment, Flavius told her, was to live, while Gaius died. To remember forever what had happened.’

‘Punishment!’ Mora echoed. ‘For what did he think she needed punishing?’

‘She chose his brother.’ Sorcha shrugged. ‘I have come to ask you to tell the gods what he did. To tell them of the injustice. To tell them of the evil and to ask them to punish him in his turn.’ Her face flushed with anger. ‘I want his name to echo down the centuries with the story of his betrayal.’

Mora gave a wry smile. ‘God,’ she hesitated, ‘the gods, will know already, Sorcha. They know everything. But my father has told me to tell no-one. He feels we should keep all this to ourselves. For the sake of Yeshua.’

Sorcha shook her head stubbornly. ‘No! That is what Flavius wants. He tried to kill Petra so that no-one would know what an amazing healer Yeshua was. If we keep Yeshua’s name secret we are doing exactly what Flavius wants.’

‘But I can’t defy my father,’ Mora said anxiously.

Sorcha stared at her. ‘Write it down then.’

Mora shook her head. ‘You know that is not our way. Everything must be committed to memory.’

‘And so, one day, if something happens to this place, all this will be forgotten?’ Sorcha stared down at the fire for a moment then she looked up. ‘I saw Yeshua. I watched as he healed Petra. He is a great man. Someone so special.’ She clasped her hands to her heart. ‘And yet in a hundred, a thousand years, people will know nothing of his visit to this land. That’s wrong. He chose us. He chose you. He chose the druids to live with and study with from all the people in the world.’ She shook her head. ‘You cannot allow him to be forgotten, Mora.’ She hesitated. ‘My aunt lives near the great caverns in the hills. There are stones there which can hold memories. They have been used from ancient times as talismans and sacred tools.’

Mora nodded. ‘My father has one,’ she said quietly. ‘They are as you say objects of great power.’

‘If you come with me to my aunt’s we will find you one and you can tell it your story. You would not be disobeying your father, but you would be preserving the memory of everything that happened here.’ Sorcha smiled. She held out her hand. ‘Please. So that one day someone will know the truth.’

‘So, that was it,’ Abi addressed the crystal in her hand. ‘You came from Wookey Hole or Cheddar Caves. Somewhere up there they found a seam of natural crystal in the limestone, and people knew exactly what its properties were.’ She gave a shaky laugh. ‘You’re not even a magic Atlantean stone from deep within the Tor! It wasn’t magic at all. They had invented the precursor to the crystal set; the CD; the mobile and two thousand years ago they were calling it an ancient art!’ She glanced at the table where her mobile lay amongst the clutter of books.