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 ispeculiarly 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 join with the Wild Hunt, pursuing lost Fragile Creatures through the night. At other times, they roam between the worlds, questing for who knows what. Some say they hunt the answer to a question that could shatter Existence. But they are most active at times of greatest threat to your world, the Fixed Lands. Our stories say that at the end of all Existence, they will be all that remains, baying for what has been lost. Their howls will join together into one shattering note of despair.’
‘So when the Hounds of Avalon come, that’s it? Game over?’ Ceridwen’s story made Sophie feel sad and troubled, but eventually the howling of the dogs faded away and Sophie gradually forgot them.
Twilight began to draw in, though in the mist the only way to tell was by a subtle shifting of the quality of the grey. By this time, Sophie was chilled to the bone and felt a deep urge for a warming campfire.
‘Should we make camp for the night?’ she asked.
Ceridwen, who had been distracted for a while, shook her head. ‘There are dangerous things loose in these parts. Better to be on horseback ready to flee than trapped on the ground and forced to fight a battle we would certainly lose.’
Sophie did not like the feeling of powerlessness that had descended on her since she had awoken in the Court of the Final Word. The realisation that she had been transported somewhereelse while she hovered between life and death had been destabilising, and everything that had happened since only underlined that feeling; she was operating in an alien
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 ispeculiarly 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 join with the Wild Hunt, pursuing lost Fragile Creatures through the night. At other times, they roam between the worlds, questing for who knows what. Some say they hunt the answer to a question that could shatter Existence. But they are most active at times of greatest threat to your world, the Fixed Lands. Our stories say that at the end of all Existence, they will be all that remains, baying for what has been lost. Their howls will join together into one shattering note of despair.’
‘So when the Hounds of Avalon come, that’s it? Game over?’ Ceridwen’s story made Sophie feel sad and troubled, but eventually the howling of the dogs faded away and Sophie gradually forgot them.
Twilight began to draw in, though in the mist the only way to tell was by a subtle shifting of the quality of the grey. By this time, Sophie was chilled to the bone and felt a deep urge for a warming campfire.
‘Should we make camp for the night?’ she asked.
Ceridwen, who had been distracted for a while, shook her head. ‘There are dangerous things loose in these parts. Better to be on horseback ready to flee than trapped on the ground and forced to fight a battle we would certainly lose.’
Sophie did not like the feeling of powerlessness that had descended on her since she had awoken in the Court of the Final Word. The realisation that she had been transported somewhereelse while she hovered between life and death had been destabilising, and everything that had happened since only underlined that feeling; she was operating in an alien
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