Ceridwen smiled sadly and then spurred her mount down the path that led from the court across the countryside. Sophie followed, glad to leave the Court of the Final Word behind.
The path wound like a golden ribbon over the green, but after a short distance Ceridwen eased her horse off into the long grass. ‘We shall avoid the main byways,’ she said, ‘and make our way through the quiet, secret places, the silent forests, the mist-filled valleys, the whispering heart of the land.’ She flashed a comforting glance at Sophie. ‘Those places belong to me.’
The wind traced liquid patterns in the grass as the two horses eased down the slope towards a stream that Sophie could see glinting in the light. At that moment the sun came out from behind a cloud, transforming the entire landscape into a transcendent, hazy temple. The hairs on Sophie’s arms prickled as the quality of light and the subtleties of scent and temperature worked their spell on her.
‘I’ve dreamed of this place,’ Sophie said to herself, surprised at the force of the realisation. ‘When I was a girl, this was always where I wanted to be.’
‘The Far Lands stay in all our hearts,’ Ceridwen said. ‘It is the place from which we all spring and to which we all return, eternally.’
Sophie understood in that moment how she had been shaped as a woman by the thoughts that had come to her during her childhood, the yearning for a place where nature truly lived, where mystery was a part of daily life and where there was a profound sense of meaning underpinning everything. Without truly knowing, she had been on a quest from her earliest days; and it was this land that had called to her. The swell of emotion was so shocking that she couldn’t prevent a fugitive tear.
‘This place is your home?’ Sophie asked.
‘It is our home now. The Golden Ones are a race ruled by infinite sadness. Our true homelands are lost to us; we may never return. But the Far Lands and the Fixed Lands make adequate replacements.’
‘So much has changed since the Fall,’ Sophie mused. Images of the dark days following the gods’ return rushed through her mind: the burning cities, the failure of technology, the riots, the economic collapse, the desperation of people unable to accept the new rules reality had thrust upon them. In the end, only a few had the ability to adapt and survive, those defined by a particular worldview, perhaps; Sophie wondered if the ones who were truly at peace since the Fall were those who had been on the same inner quest as her. In the newly re-formed world, she had an abiding sense of coming home, despite all the upheaval and the suffering.
‘You talked about some kind of threat?’ she said eventually.
‘There are threats all around us,’ Ceridwen replied enigmatically. ‘Threats from within. Threats from without. For my people, the greatest threat is ourselves. We are at war. The battles rage even now across the Far Lands and no Golden One is safe. Never would we have thought to see this day.’ The devastation in her voice was heartbreaking.
‘Why are you fighting each other?’
Ceridwen raised her sad face high so that the wind made her hair billow behind her. ‘Because of you, Sister of Dragons. You and all your kind.’
‘What do we have to do with it?’ Sophie asked, baffled.
‘Fragile Creatures are at the point of rising and advancing… of becoming like the Golden Ones-’
‘Gods?’
‘Some of my people think that is the way of Existence. We have always had a close relationship with your kind. We would shepherd you to the next stage. Others…’ The word caught in her throat. ‘There are those who think you should never be allowed to attain your potential. That you should be eradicated as a race so that the Golden Ones can never be supplanted.’
‘So the fate of the human race depends on which side wins?’ Ceridwen’s silence was all the answer Sophie needed. A chill crept over her, for she sensed from Ceridwen’s conversation with Dian Cecht that things were not going well for those who had sided with humanity. ‘What about the threat from without?’
‘It is also the way of Existence that our races are tested to the extreme. Crisis heaped upon crisis. And the threat from without is the greatest crisis of all.’ Ceridwen’s horse carefully picked its way down a tricky bit of the slope where rocks and stones protruded from the grass. At the bottom of the incline, the stream trickled soothingly. ‘Something has crawled up from the very edge of Existence; it is the opposite of everything that lives — and it has noticed you Fragile Creatures. It sees your potential and it does not want you to shake off your shackles and become something greater, for to do so would make you a threat to its very reason for being.’
A dark shadow fell over them both, but when Sophie looked up, the sun still shone brightly. ‘What is it?’ she asked uneasily.
‘It is an idea, a notion of negativity. Where we see a threat, some would see nothing at all, for it is only defined by what it is not. Darkness and despair enfold it.’
‘Does it have a name?’
‘Many names, but none capture its essence, for how can you describe something that is not? Legends call it the Void. Even now it exerts its subtle influence on the Fixed Lands, attempting to eradicate all Fragile Creatures like an infestation. It is greater than anything you can imagine, yet smaller; more powerful, yet in the true and blinding light of the Blue Fire, completely powerless.’
‘And it was controlling those warriors who attacked us at Cadbury Hill?’
‘The Void’s very nature is to corrupt, to strip life and hope from a being and to control it. The act of giving up personal freedom is to surrender to Anti-Life. Even the gods are not immune.’
Sophie was lulled into a deep introspection by the motion of riding. She knew how powerful the gods were, had heard tales of them destroying entire army units with a wave of a hand. If the Void could take control of them, what chance did Fragile Creatures stand?
‘But if it’s so… vague, how are we supposed to fight it?’ Sophie asked.
‘Only the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons may repel it. The Quincunx, the Five Who Are One. But therein lies the problem.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The answer to that question lies ahead of us, and you will discover the truth for yourself. But for now, enough talk of dark things. Let us celebrate the life and the green that surround us.’
They moved into a thickly wooded area, the trees pressing hard along the banks of the brook, their branches crossing overhead to form a cathedral roof of leaf cover beneath which Sophie could feel the sanctity with every echoing splash of her horse’s hooves. Once the reverberations died away, there remained an abiding silence too sacred to shatter.
And so they rode quietly, with Ceridwen leading the way, and after a while Sophie began to wonder if she had indeed come to heaven.
The journey along the winding course of the stream continued for more than an hour. After the initial stretch where the trees bustled tightly against the banks, the wood thinned enough to allow Sophie a brief glimpse of a green world where fantastic fungi swarmed in ochre patterns over fallen trees and tiny, gleaming purple flowers sprang up in a carpet of colour that shimmered in the filtering light.
But after a while, the mist that had occasionally drifted across their path grew more constant until a heavy greyness lay over everything, sapping echoes and distorting birdcalls. The trees presented themselves like dark spectral figures before they were swallowed up again in the passing.
Sophie shivered in the damp air and wished she had brought some warmer clothes with her. ‘How much further?’ she asked. She instinctively lowered her voice to a whisper that was lost in the mist.
‘A while,’ Ceridwen replied. ‘We will follow the course of the stream through the Winding Wood to the great plain. And there, beyond it, we shall find the Court of Soul’s Ease.’
‘Is that like the place we’ve just visited?’
‘Each of the twenty great courts has an atmosphere that is peculiarly its own, but even so, nowhere else is like the Court of the Final Word.’ Ceridwen’s hesitant voice made Sophie think this was perhaps a good thing. ‘The Court of Soul’s Ease has been through a great many changes. Now, though, its destiny has been made plain.’
The low, mournful baying of a hound rose up somewhere away in the mist. The sound made Sophie shiver, but she couldn’t tell if it was near or far.
‘Should we be worried about that?’ Sophie asked. As soon as the words had left her lips, another howl arose, and then another, until soon there were several dogs baying.
‘They are the Hounds of Avalon,’ Ceridwen replied. ‘Also known as the Hounds of Annwn. Sometimes they
