She still held the broken sword. She gripped it tightly, still thinking of it as being little better than useless; but it was, after all, better than nothing.
A low growling, a vicious snorting, came from deeper within the tangled roots. At least, it seemed – she hoped – it came from far below her. In truth, the howling and rasps of heavy shuffling echoed everywhere about her, making arriving at any definition of its source fanciful at best, impossible more like.
There was another series of noises, these more uniform, more urgent, even almost regular.
Cracking.
The snapping of wood, even wood thicker than a row of carts.
Deep off within that virtually solid darkness, she caught glimpses of what could have been shards of light amongst the glistening streams of continuous rain. They weren’t splinters of light, however, but changes in what little light there was down here; the glow reflected from pieces of shattered wood violently tossed into the air.
The closer the onrushing dragon hurtled towards her, the more obvious it was that these supposed shards of light were actually a hailstorm of breaking, shattering roots, such that she called herself a fool for not recognising this earlier.
Not to worry, she thought.
The dragon was unstoppable, its jaw already open and ready to devour her as if she were just one more bad memory to take care of.
*
‘Stop!’
Viviana was there once again, this time dashing between Guinevere and the swiftly encroaching darkness that was the dragon.
Raising a hand, she controlled the darkness, telling it to retreat; for although there are some things we’d like to forget, sometimes we need to retain them, if only to remind ourselves of our own failings.
The darkness receded despondently, devouring instead other memories, other recollections that, maybe, should have been retained too.
Serpents, as silvery as moon beams, rushed past Viviana, heading both up and down the entwining roots, those heading upwards carrying within their mouths glistening beads of water. Seeing these, Guinevere recalled once being told of memories falling into and collecting within a far off spring.
Ignoring Viviana, refusing even to acknowledge that she might have just saved her from being devoured, Guinevere rushed along the branching root, seeking out the spring. It called her, this spring, with melodic sounds of rising, splattering waters.
It sprinkled her with its sparkling droplets as she eagerly dashed towards it, the drops that fell upon the broken sword blade making it sparkle in a way it hadn’t for years.
She recalled how the head of reason had said that it wasn’t a normal sword: and wasn’t he right? Wasn’t it something to do with a Well of Memory, with love?
It was a memory that partially eluded her in its detail.
A sword’s blade can’t be repaired but, sometimes, if the will is there, love can.
As long, of course, that that will exists within equal measure within both people involved.
Balance; hadn’t the head of reason also spoken of the necessity of an equality of give and take?
Love isn’t love at all if one’s love for the other is out of balance, if it’s greater than the other’s love for them.
The sword in her hand shrugged, quivered, and burgeoned anew.
It was, once again, a complete and beautiful sword.
*
Chapter 30
What might have appeared to the uninitiated as ancient earthworks were really burial mounds, a great number of them scattered across the fields and hills.
At the mouth of one such barrow, however, the great stones were more like those of medieval graves, the slabs cracked and toppled, the effigies on top of the tombs almost crushed out of existence by their own headstones.
Between the two tombs, a huge man in white armour labours at removing one of these fallen gravestones, his grunting bestial in its urgency, his strength that of a great bear. Despite his great exertions, and the overheating it causes, he still has the visor of his helm down, as if ashamed to reveal his face.
He abruptly halts in his efforts, believing he’s heard something odd, something akin to a dulled, constrained scrabbling and scratching. In the silence, he listens, more attentively this time.
Yes: it’s a muted cry for help.
And it’s coming from the tomb next to him.
*
The white knight whirls around, all his efforts on removing the toppled slabs now concentrated on the second of the two tombs.
As he moves the cracked headstone slightly aside, he gasps with a mingling of surprise and delight: even though he hasn’t managed yet to completely reveal the tombs effigy, he recognises it as being a rendition of his beautiful queen.
With renewed vigour, he drags the great slab aside, letting it slip to the floor and completely shatter.
Its legend is completely destroyed, of course.
But he doesn’t mind; he doesn’t need to read it.
He knows full well who lies within this tomb.
Calling up his last reserves of strength, he next pulls aside the tomb’s lid, this being even heavier than the headstone, the wonderful statue of his wife considerably adding to its weight. For some reason, even though it makes his labours so much harder, he ensures this lid doesn’t slip completely aside; he doesn’t want even this sculpture of his beautiful wife to be disfigured in any way.
When he looks inside the tomb, his heart leaps in so many unimaginable ways: his queen lies there, untouched by either age of corruption, her beauty and freshness as alive and alluring as ever.
Yet her eyes are closed.
She’s unmoving.
She’s dead, lifeless; a shattered sword embedded up to its hilt in her heart.
*
Chapter 31
It has to be a broken sword, of course, because the tomb isn’t anywhere deep enough to protrude out of his dead queen’s back.
He abhors its presence, it’s despoiling of her otherwise perfect beauty. He decides that it must be removed, that his queen deserves more honourable sleep, deserves a better tomb than this broken one.
Taking a grip of the broken sword’s handle, he pulls its blade up and out of her heart. The blade glitters brightly, untainted either by his queen’s blood or rust.
More surprisingly, the blade isn’t broken after all. As it at last slips entirely clear of his queen’s heart, it’s revealed to be a completely unblemished sword, perfect in every detail.
Even in the dim light enveloping this dank burial area, the blade’s expertly burnished metal sparkles like a flash of flame.
Guinevere opens her eyes, awakes, as if from nothing more than a light sleep. Seeing the knight leaning over her, she smiles. She raises a hand to tenderly caress what would be his cheek, if it wasn’t for its solid covering of the helmet’s visor.
‘You?’ she says dreamily, as if not yet completely awake. ‘I love you!’
*
With the most ecstatic cry of joy, the knight deftly rips off his entire helm, casting it carelessly aside.
Seeing that the knight is indeed Arthur, as she had presumed, as she had hoped, Guinevere smiles more brightly than ever.
As Arthur elatedly reaches for and helps her sit up within the casket, she throws her own arms about his neck, brings him closer towards her, ensures their lips meet, entwine, sharing the dew of mutual adoration.
They only break off, at last, so that he can take her by her waist and raise her completely clear of the tomb’s walls.
Swinging her gracefully off to one side, he tenderly lowers her feet to the floor: and once again, she eagerly wraps her arms about his neck, once again brings him close, so that they can once again let their lips, their love for each other, deliciously meld.
Stepping back only slightly, Arthur triumphantly hands his queen the brilliantly sparkling sword of love.
With a grateful smile, she takes it, relishes the ease with which she can weld it
, its apparent lightness, its most perfect balance.
The blade isn’t entirely free of blood.
A minute yet curiously bright speck remains upon the blade, no more than a bead: little bigger than a dew drop.
Guinevere grins in amusement as she sees herself reflected oddly within that glistening globule.
She stares a little more intently into it, draws closer; until she's so close that she sees the darkness of an eye’s pupil in its very centre.
It’s like the dark seeds nestled between the scarlet petals of a poppy.
The sleep of indifference.
Guinevere frowns, fighting to recall something. To shake off a sleepy daze.
She looks at the blade, at the patiently waiting Arthur.
She looks about her at the shattered tombs.
‘Beware the betrayer,’ she murmurs uncertainly, struggling with her recollections.
*
Chapter 32
Guinevere stepped farther back from King Arthur, eying him doubtfully.
‘I know who you really are!’ she said, lifting her head high, determinedly looking up towards the heavens. ‘You, I mean: not him!’
Arthur appeared surprised, even briefly moving a little forward as if to embrace her once more, to reassure her: but Guinevere whirled around on her feet, her eyes still intently focused on the heavens, the sword unintentionally swinging out in a protective circle of sharp steel.
‘You…betray me!’ she stormed, glowering aggressively at the heavens. ‘Do you really think I don’t see what’s going on here? See what you’re trying to instil within me?’
And with that, she turned and began to spiritedly walk away from the tombs, from Arthur.
*
Arthur tried, naturally, to chase after her.
But his ankle was suddenly caught in a violently sprung bear trap, pinioning him no matter how much he raged that Guinevere should return, that it was her destiny.
‘No!’ Guinevere snapped back, not bothering to even briefly look back over her shoulder as she continued to confidently stride away. ‘It’s not my destiny to sacrifice myself for the good of my king. Not even for the good of the land!’
She flung the sparkling sword aside, shattering it against a nearby stone slab into irreparably glittering slivers.
‘I’m me! I’m Guinevere!’
*
‘Guinevere!’
‘She always was so…’
‘…very sure of herself!’
End
If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife
Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches
The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – Gorgesque
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