Featherhill had its own train station. Built at some point in the last year, to transport the Athenida family to and from London. Edgar waited for them at the station, even though Alice lost track of him before the ball. His mother had told him about the incident in the palace and with the gods, so he hopped on the first train to Wales. He’d arrived just a couple minutes before them, as he explained while helping Alice and Athur descend the train.
“Was your mother at the mansion?” Alice asked, although she knew Mrs. Wilcox had to be.
“No, she wasn’t. Something happened at the Museum. Your grandmother told her after an emergency meeting they had after you ran away.”
“Do you think they’re too angry of what I did?”
Edgar stopped. He frowned for a moment, as if choosing his words with care. Alice worried not just for her safety, but for her future.
“I don’t know the details. Mother wouldn’t tell me. But someone spoke on your favour there. Someone high enough on the ladder so they had to obey.”
“Who?”
“No idea.” He shrugged. “Mother wouldn’t tell me. She just called her ‘Her’. Still, I would stay out of London for a while.”
“On exile again. Wonderful.”
Behind them, Arthur laughed to himself. Separated by millennia, but she reminded him so much of his old mentor. Stubborn to a fault, and making gods angry. Now, with everything surrounding the swords, things became too similar to those final days in Camelot. His mind began to remember, and soon he was too inside his own head, trying to figure out a solution to an inexistent problem. At least unexistent for him, his “role on the play” as Myrddin had told him once, was to wait until he was needed. Maybe this was it.
“Anyway. I don’t think you two know each other.” Alice’s voice came and took Arthur out of his head. “Edgar Wilcox, meet my uncle, Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons, and the once and future King of England, etc., etc.”
The king greeted the young man, but one word clinged to him. Besides someone knowing his family name -one he believed was lost to History- the fact that she called him “uncle”. How? When? Most of his family were long gone. He had a great -not sure how many times “great”- daughter around. But he had no idea how he could be an…
“Uncle?” The last word of his train of thought came out of his mouth.
“Yes, sir. Are you aware of what year is it?”
“Not really. Myrddin resurrects me each time we have a new coronation, to preserve the…transition of power, as he calls it.” He looked around. “I went to sleep on the Year of Our Lord, 521. I’ve seen around eighty kings and queens go. How long is that?”
“A bit more than thirteen hundred years,” Edgar chimed in. “We’re in October, 1870.”
“I remember that kid, the young monarch from the last time. She helped me with my English.” His face turned to worry. “Something happened to her?”
“Queen Victoria is still on the throne,” Alice added, and Edgar kept walking to the house, leaving them alone.
“Good to know. Now, again, why did you call me ‘uncle’?”
Alice explained it as best as she could. How “Myrddin” was her father, but he wasn’t some sort of old druid, but an old hero, son of a goddess. Her mother, however, WAS a druid, and a known one to boot.
"To make a long story short, I'm Myrddin's daughter with Morgan LeFay."
“Morgan as in my sister?” Arthur shivered, while looking fearful at the house. “Is she still…around?”
“Alive, yes. But not in the house nor in England. She’s in a diplomatic mission.”
“Thank goodness. I don’t think I have enough strength to face her today. I tried to hang her as a witch, she almost beheaded me, and I lost count of how many times we tried to kill each other before Myrddin interceeded.”
Arthur retold some of the tales from the old days on the path from the station to the house. He even stopped to marvel at the large glass windows which glistened at the last sunbeams of the dusk. Back when he lived, making glass was an art and something only skilled witches could make. Now, a sign of industry and the empire.
“This is nothing. You should see Hardrick Hall.” Edgar motioned at the house. “More glass than wall they called it back in the day.”
Since her father didn’t give more instruction than to get King Arthur to Featherhill, Alice knew nothing of what to do with him once they got there. She proceeded to give a small tour of the house, with Arthur asking about the use of some -if not most- things around the place. Though the ninteenth century had some advances, she wondered how the old king would face the wonders of the twentieth and the twentyfirst.
“I swear something here is strange,” Arthur pointed, as they walked from room to room. “I never been here, but I think I know this place.”
“How come?”
“You told me we’re at the edge of Broceliande, right?” Alice nodded and the king continued. “Camelot should be half a day north from here in a fast horse, but Myrddin’s old hut was around here. Then we made a feast hall on its ruins -after your mother burned it.”
“We have a ballroom, does that work?”
Alice led the men to the ballroom. The king’s eyes lightened when they entered. He walked around, his hands touching the walls and the fireplaces. He then dropped to the floor, examining every inch with an almost childish glee. He eventually stopped when reached the other side of the room. Back there, a small stage for speeches and musicians, with the backdrop of the forest through the large windows.
“I knew it! I knew the old kermudgeon wouldn’t destroy it!”
“Destroy what? My father built, and then rebuilt this place,” Alice noted, overcome by the confidence which made her family famous.
“Rebuilt, yes. But I built it. This may have new floors due to rot, and panelled the walls to adapt the fireplaces to your century, but this is my domain. Look!” He pointed at the stone baseboard. “These still have my shield!”
Edgar and Alice approached the board, and saw a pattern on the stones. Barely some paint flakes on a few. Daedalus might have modernized everything on the ballroom, but made special care of not touching those pieces at all. They couldn’t see much detail on them, but almost all of them had pieces or fragments. To uncover a Roman shield and four spears crossed on top of it, wasn’t difficult. To know what they meant, was. That is, of course, if you are Alice, since Edgar almost jumped when he realized the pattern.
“I saw it on Eton!” His excitement rivalled Arthur. “That’s the sign of Camelot.”
“One of them, at least.” Arthur hunched down to look at the floors, back in the small stage. His voice became difficult to understand. “I wonder if it’s still here. It’s been ages, maybe he paved over it…No, he didn’t! Here it is!”
His hand hover over one of the stones of the corner. The cranking and shrieking of old machinery came from all around them. It made the whole ballroom shake, and the glass on the windows threatened to break. The chandeliers swung in place. The deafening sound became almost intolerable. Alice looked all around her, trying to figure out what was happening.
Then, it stopped.
Nothing around them had changed. Even Arthur looked puzzled. His eyes fixated on a particular point on the parquet. He began walking to it, mostly muttering to himself.
“It’s been ages, of course. How broken…”
He couldn’t finish his thoughts, as the wood under his feet broke. A small gasp of surprise, and he vanished, plummeted underground. Alice and Egdar came to him, careful of not suffer the same fate as the old king.
“I’m alright. Nothing’s broken. Can someone go for a torch?” They heard him yell from the hole on the flooring.
Alice turned to Edgar.
“My father must’ve paved over this. How are we going to get him back?”
“Maybe the cave has another exit somewhere on the propriety.”
“That thing’s been down there since before the house. I don’t know if it’s a tunnel, a cave, or the ruins of Camelot.”
“My guess is it’s all three.” Edgar looked down at the hole. “How do we get down?”
“Like this.” Alice grabbed his arm, and jumped in.
At least, they didn’t fall on top of Arthur. The floor of the cave had rotten wood and debris, which made for a soft landing. The only light they had, came from the hole, so Alice made one small crystal ball with a flame inside. A small trick her sister taught her back when she was little. With that, the cave revealed to them to be storage of some sort.
Shelves, most of them rotten, with clay jars labelled in old etchings. A couple of scrolls covered in cobwebs. What seemed to be some furniture, and a large rusted cauldron on a corner. They had landed on the remains of a large table, now turned into a large pile of rot and rubble.
“He moved them! He had our history hidden here!” Arthur frantically looked around. “Where? To his tower?”
“Tower?” Alice jumped from the rubble.
“Myrddin has a tower up north. A library of sorts. He made a series of tunnels to go there without being bothered. I believe he made an entrace around here.”
Before anyone could stop him, Arthur grabbed a plank and began to hit the shelves on the walls of the stone cave. He crushed the clay jars, destroying everything on his step. Alice thought the man insane for a moment, until his hurls broke a false panel on the wall, revealing a dark tunnel.
“See? I knew he had one,” Arthur said, with pride at his work.
Alice didn’t mind, but Edgar did. He looked with horror to the remains of which was, by all means, a Sub-Roman Britain archeological site. Still, his pain subsided when he remembered that -probably- no one would ever check that particular point.
With the light leading them, they reached a fork on the road. One going back to the house, which Alice recognised as the one hidden behind the study, and the other going a couple miles underground back to the Tower. Alice knew the tower Arthut mentioned had to be the same as Sophia. She doubted her father had the energy to build another tower there, and, since they were using the same tunnel to reach Sophia anyhow, it was a sure bet.
They reached the door to the records room at Sophia. Again, as she found it the first time, the door remained locked and, for what appeared on that side, also barred from the interior.
“This entrance is permanently closed!” She heard the voice of Mr. Verne from the records room.
“Jules if you don’t open this door now, I’ll open it myself!”
With no other answer, Alice motioned to Edgar and Arthur to move away from the door. Times and necesities had changed in the last few years. Where once stealth had been her signature regarding the records room, now they had a need for urgency. She moved her hand, and the door shook on its hinges. Moved it again, and the nails on the hinges began to crack. Once more, and the entire door bursted into pieces of kindling.
Alice walked over the mess, and into the records room. Mr. Verne looked at her, absolutely horrified.
“I need this room, books on Camelot, and Ariel. Would you get them for me, please?” She forced a little smile, despite her head pounding from the inside.
“Yes, Alice.”
“Ms. Alice, thank you.” She sat on one of the chair. “I think it’s time for a change in management, and I’m getting tired of bureaucracy.”
Mr. Verne ran for the door. Once he left, Alice barricated the door with shelves and the debris from her actions. Edgar and Arthur helped, but were very confused about it.
“We have five minutes before he reaches Ariel.” Alice ran to the shelves. “Verne has no magic, and has to run there. We need to find the records on Excalibur and Caliburn now.”
“What was that?” Edgar worried, since Alice’s eyes flashed silver.
“I’m fixing my mess, and we need to find those swords.”
She turned to Arthur, who had began walking and looking at the scrolls and books on the shelves.
“Sir, I need to remind you I’m my parent’s daughter, and my father said you must stay away from trouble. I’ll condemn myself for this, but if you try to meddle, I’ll deal with you on the same way they would. Are we clear?”
“Yes. I’ll sit over here,” Arthur moved out of the way, taken aback by how much she reminded her of his sister.
“Alice, stop!” Edgar’s yell reverberated on the walls. “Think of what you’re doing! The country is in crisis, Olympus in disarray, and you just sieged the last safe place in Britain! Not even the Lady of the Lake would fix this!”
“What did you just said?”
Edgar repeated himself. Alice stopped, and looked at him with a smile. This was the first time she smiled sinc ethe whole ordeal had begun.
“That’s it! She can help. If she’s still around, she can just make another sword!”
“It’s been thirteen hundred years. Even if she is still alive, and that’s a big ‘if’, how are we going to find her?”
“Ariel told me ‘Nicholas, Barry, and Hilary’ may know something about this. I thought they were people, but what if they aren’t?”
“Cities? There’s a town called Barry near Cardiff.”
“Where?” Alice pulled a map from the shelf. “Show me.”
Edgar pointed at a small coastal town with the name ‘Barry’. Near it, about a dozen of small communities. Among them, St. Nicholas and St. Hilary.
“Sir, tell me if this area has changed since your times,” Alice said to Arthur. “I’m not talking cities, but forests, coasts, things like that.”
Arthur looked at the map. He pointed at a couple of rivers which now were missing. Most of the forest was gone. And, most important to them, a large lake -near Dryffryn and its house- had dried to the level of a pond.
“It’s a longshot, but there we should begin looking for her.” Alice startled herself, bolting from the table and looking at the barricade. “We have to go, now. They are coming.”
Before she could say anything else, an enormous headache almost made her fall to the ground. She grabbed Arthur and Edgar, but the pain continued. Her heart began pounding in her ears. At least she thought it was her heart at first, but soon realised it wasn’t.
It was the ticking of a clock.
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