3 Glastonbury

In ancient times Glastonbury had been surrounded by lakes and marsh, and had been called an island. To the celts it was a magical, enchanted place, the fabled Isle of Avalon. It was where King Arthur's sword was forged, and where he was taken to die. Then in later centuries the low flat landscape was drained, man-made channels carrying the water away to the sea. Glastonbury was left a small rural village, set amidst a cluster of small rounded hills. But memories of its former greatness lingered, in folk memory and in legend.

Glastonbury entered the third millenium as a quiet Somerset community of seven or eight thousand people, a market town with a few cottage industries. While society warped, crumbled and began to disintegrate, it remained what it had long been - a quiet safe backwater. But the obscurity that had cloaked it for one and a half millenia would be shattered within half a century. Already the levels of the seas were rising, and the weather changing, as the Earth's temperature rose and the ice caps melted. The sea walls along the Somerset coast were raised, and raised again, as a series of massive hurricanes spun out of the Atlantic and across the land. For nearly 20 years the walls held, battered and bruised yet still unyielding. But as the Chaos worsened their upkeep was lessened, then finally terminated.

On a cold night in the November of 2047 the Great Storm drifted lazily in from the poisoned ocean and slammed into the weakened and neglected sea defences of the South-West. When the sun rose the next morning over 20,000 Britons had been killed, and the Somerset sea walls fatally breached. The high tide reached over 5 miles inland that night. In the morning the waters retreated, but with no one to repair it, the breach widened each time the sea returned. Every high tide increased the erosion, and travelled slightly further inland. And always threatening were the hurricanes; eleven of them within five years, smashing many more breaches in the walls, churning the muddy waters further inland. Month by month, year by year the sea advanced, reclaiming what had once been its own.

The coastal towns were the first to be abandoned; Western-Super-Mare and Burnham-on-Sea, then towns further inland, as the fingers of the sea snaked forward. Bridgewater was finally abandoned in the mid 50s, then the villages of the low-lying moors - Highbridge, East Huntspill, Westhay, Meare, Godney - until the waves reached the very edge of Glastonbury. There the sea's relentless advance was checked, as the flood waters divided and swirled around the low hills. The land around it was gone; but the town itself, and the sacred hills it was built around stayed dry, above the waves. After hundreds of years Glastonbury stood alone once more.

And with the re-emergence of the island, came the re-emergence of the legend. People came - first singularly, then in groups; and finally in hundreds. All wished to see the sacred isle, the place where the invading seas had been checked - the place where the miracle had occurred. Amongst them travelled a new breed of pilgrim. The Knights had arrived, and they claimed Glastonbury as their own.

After more than a thousand years the Isle of Avalon had been reborn.

I ducked down in the prow of the boat as the air-car hummed overhead, invisible in the thick fog. "Air Force?" I asked Jacob, his still figure hunched over the rudder bar at the stern of the small open boat.

He shook his head. "Knights. Air Force don't come within miles of Glastonbury. They generally stay over at Wells." Behind us, the noise of the air-car grew faint, and then disappeared. I turned back, and looked ahead, at the dark shadow rising up from the sea. Avalon.

"How do you know where to go," I asked him, wondering how the fisherman could see anything in this thick, impenetrable murk.

"I get to the general area by dead reckoning," he whispered, "then for the final stage we'll be guided in by a torch."

I nodded, and returned my attention to our destination, watching as the island grew larger and larger as the minutes ticked by. It was now fifteen miles, and nearly an hour since we had left the beach at Chedder. Our journey had taken us west along the long inlet of Axe bay, between the high ridge of the Mendips peninsular to the north and the lower bulk of Wedmore Island. When we had reached the open sea, we had turned south, passing between the island and the tall cone of Brent Knoll that stood alone to the west. Finally we turned back to the east to sail along Glastonbury bay, a long four mile wide inlet between Wedmore Island and the narrow Polden peninsular to the south. We had nearly reached our destination, and were at the most dangerous phase.

After a few minutes search I saw our beacon, a dim red light - presumably a low-powered torch, highly shielded so that it was only visible from directly ahead. I said nothing, letting the fisherman see it for himself. Within a few seconds Jacob spoke, pointing at the dim glow.

"There it is," he muttered. I gave him a thumbs up, watching him give the tiller a minute nudge, changing our course by a few degrees. I nodded approvingly to myself, for his dead reckoning must have been nearly perfect. Within seconds we were gliding between the steep rocky, partially man-made walls of a small cove, the torch now clear. I saw the thin white line of the surf on the stony beach and braced myself, feeling the impact through my feet as the boat's flat bottom scraped onto the thin gravel of the beach. We had arrived.

A figure emerged from the darkness, a hand extending from his green robes. "Welcome to Avalon brother, it is good to see you."

"You too," I replied, accepting his outstretched hand and clambering out. The figure grasped the side of the boat, and leaned over to talk to Jacob. "Thank you brother, and blessings for your return journey." Then he pushed forward, his sandals crunching on the shingle, sending the boat gliding silently backward. Jacob waved, turned on the motor, and swept away into the night. The druid turned to me and grasped my arm.

"We must be quick brother. If you have any questions, do not ask me - I will not know the answers." I nodded in reply, and he pulled out a small package from within his robes. "These are the robes of a novice druid. Put them on."

I quickly opened the package, unfolded the green synthetic material, and pulled the robe on. The druid took my arm once more. "Follow me, and if we encounter anyone let me do the talking."

"Where are we going?"

"To a safe house. You'll be kept there until it's time for you to be seen."

"When will that be? With whom? Where?"

A thin smile appeared behind his hood. "You ask too many questions brother!"

The Tor was... different. Physically, it was simply a smooth rounded hill rising to a little over a hundred and fifty metres, its undulating surface carved into rippling terraces which spiralled around the hill. Some said the terraces were caused by geology, others that they were the remains of an ancient maze. But all said that the effect of the hill was magical. It was enchanted.

It was said that the Tor was imposing, that it somehow weakened those who attempted to scale its slopes. It did. As I climbed up the wooden steps that were set in the western shoulder of the hill, the air burned in my flaming lungs and my legs were leaden with fatigue. Many of those in the climbing file of pilgrims ahead of me appeared to be in a similar condition, their flaming synthetic torches rocking gently in the darkness.

"Is this your first visit to the Tor brother?" asked the middle-aged Druidess who was accompanying me.

"Yes," I wheezed.

She nodded knowingly. "The Tor - it is the focus of much power. And that is often overwhelming when first experienced." Then she reached out and took me by the arm, helping me step by step.

Ahead of us, crowds were already forming, the flattened summit area around the flame already covered with pilgrims, newcomers now backing up along the shallow western ridge. "Why here?" I asked, after the steep steps had given away to a gently rising path.

She took me aside for a moment, allowing those behind us to continue forward and whispered in my ear. "The person you are about to see is very high within the Knights. It would not do for you to see him in his quarters, or in a similar location that might reveal his identity. Equally, it would not do for him to go to a secret location on the island, for he might be seen doing so. Here, you and he can mingle with the pilgrims - so that it will appear that you have simply happened to stand together. Do you remember your cover story?"

"Of course."

"Good. Come on!" She stepped back onto the worn path and continued along the ridge.

Now that my breath was returning, I was able to take more notice of my surroundings. The fog of the earlier evening had cleared, blown away by the stiff ocean breezes funnelling up the Bristol Channel from the Atlantic. The black-violet night sky was clear, the stars shining as brilliant points of light in the thin, salty air.

From the top of the Tor, the whole Isle of Avalon was visible. To the west of us was the low mass of Chalice Hill, with the main, buried settlement of Glastonbury itself, beyond that. Just to the south of the town, the Wearyall peninsular extended into the dark waters of the bay. To the east, was the forgotten half of the island, the part the pilgrims never visited. There, rising above the yellow grasses were a cluster of concrete landing pads, accompanied by the ugly protrusions of defence bunkers and buried complexes extending to the surface. And beyond that, barely visible on the distant mainland, was the single small, brightly lit dome of Wells.

Other than the bunkers, and that far-away dome, no structures were visible - no dome was allowed to mar the serene Avalonian beauty. The Knights lived below the earth, and only surfaced at night.

"This way," my guide informed me, leading me off the path and onto the southern slope to skirt around the waiting crowd. She halted for a moment, enabling her to point out one of the waiting crowd. "Do you see the old man at the edge of the crowd? The one with the gold trim on his robes?"

I saw him and gave her a slight nod.

She spoke again. "Do not speak to him unless he speaks to you. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

She took hold of my arm, in a manner calculated to look casual, and led me over to a point where we could stand just behind the old man. I took a closer look at his ornate gold-encrusted robes, not being able to place the insignia, but recognising them as belonging to a senior High Druid. I shuffled to a halt beside his shoulder and waited for the service to begin.

"Beware the shadow soul!" screeched the cloaked figure, the sacred branch held high by his outstretched right arm.

"Beware! For if you do not - it will destroy you!"

Behind him, the eternal flame lit the night sky, its dancing tip jumping over five metres from the rim of the metre-wide sculpted cone that supported it.

"The shadow soul is your enemy, the work of the Devil!" He motioned with the branch, the rough knurled staff flicking in the cool air. Behind him the long rank of heavy drums erupted in a slow, rhythmic thumping. Boom. Boom. Boom.

"Watch for the shadow soul, seek it, find it - and destroy it!"

"Destroy!" chanted the crowd as the drums boomed on.

"Burn it!" he screamed, his agonised face shielded by the hood of his robe and only partially lit by the flickering orange light of the pilgrim's torches.

"Burn!" they chanted.

"For they are sent by God, for us to use - but their faked soul is sent by the Devil, to trick us." He turned away from the mass of watchers, and spoke a few inaudible words to someone hidden by the crest of the hill. A few seconds later two novices appeared, dragging a terrified, chained coder behind them, his eyes covered by a mask. They halted, one of them pulling a mallet from his robes and staked the manacles around the coder's ankles to the ground. A puzzled silence settled upon the crowd. Still the sinister, hypnotic beat of the drums continued.

The druid pointed his staff at the coder. "You wonder why he is here?"

A momentary mutter of conversation from the crowd answered his question.

"You wonder why we have bought one of his kind, to this sacred isle?"

The chatter flared a second time.

"To show you the devil's soul!" He motioned to the blindfold. "We have always said that one of his kind will never gaze upon this sacred isle - and he will not!"

The crowd cheered in relief, their confusion evaporating.

"Do you know why he will not see Avalon?" asked the old High Druid beside me, so quietly that for a moment I was not sure he was speaking to me. I glanced around, but the druidess had slipped away into the crowd.

"His blindfold..?"

He turned to face me, revealing the lined face behind the deep hood. "That is not a blindfold, brother. He will not see Avalon because they have torn his eyes out. The mask is simply to shield their cruelty, to avoid upsetting the pilgrims." He looked back to the service. "He will not see anything, ever again."

"We have bought him that you might witness his evil, feel his evil!" screamed the service-taker.

The crowd roared, causing the terrified coder to strain back against his shackles, his blinded face flicking from side to side as the wave of noise crashed over him.

The service-taker continued. "He is soulless, empty." He walked over to the coder and clamped his hand onto the coder's head. "He looks human, he acts human, but he is not human. He has flesh, and blood, but he has no soul! This is what is taught, is it not?"

A confused affirmative murmur ran through the crowd.

"It is what you are taught, and it is correct. But things are more complex! And as pilgrims, you must master those complexities. He has no soul, but he does bear the devils forgery - the shadow-soul. And what must we do to shadow-souls?"

"Destroy!" chanted the crowd.

"Yes," he smiled, "destroy. But how? Do we burn the body it infects? Rip the heart it inhabits from the chest of its host." He yanked the coder's head viciously. "Do we kill the one who possesses it?"

The crowd fell silent again, knowing the answer he seemed to be leading up to, but knowing that it could not be.

"No!" he reassured them. "For that is what the devil wishes us to do! God has provided us with this resource! Strong shoulders to build our cities, gentle arms to cradle our young." He strode away and pointed at the coder with his staff. "He gives us this creature, and the others like him to use - so that we might carry out his work! But the devil pollutes them, contaminates them! So what should we do?"

He paused, holding his audience transfixed.

"We must ignore his evil. In your life you will use biohumans - coders as most call them. You will probably own them. And that is good, because they are part of God's gift to you. But you must be wary, on your guard, watchful against being seduced by the shadow soul. For the devil will attempt to make them seem human, real - and you must never fall for that trap!"

"They are not human! They have no proper feelings! They have no proper thoughts! If you ever think otherwise - then the devil has won. Has he won?"

"No!" screamed the pilgrims.

"Will he win?"

"Never!"

"And now! Under the shield of the sky, with the sun far below - we repeat the Chant of Avalon, that we may feel the souls within us, and around us!"

The high druid beside me whispered as the crowd's chant swelled to an almost deafening volume. "I'm told you're interested in the Rook?"

"Yes."

"You have come to us under rather strange orders."

"Orders?" I wasn't sure from the flat tone of his voice how he felt about this.

"We have been asked to be as helpful as we feel able, about the Rook and his journey through here."

"Asked by who?"

The fabric of his enveloping hood creased for a moment as though his head had turned briefly toward me. "If you do not already know, then you do not need to know. It suffices to say that they are people who see certain things as we do."

"And those things are?"

He gestured at the coder, still chained beside the eternal flame. "There are some of us who believe he is human, and that he possesses a soul. In some ways it is simply a minor difference in theology, but in practical terms, and in this society - it is everything."

"And that's the only difference?"

"In purely theological terms it is all that divides us. The other things that keep us apart are more about how we apply our beliefs. The Knights... they are cruel and arrogant; so sure of themselves and their religion, that they will do almost anything, to anyone."

"But you're a druid," I protested shocked, "how can you say things like that."

"I am a druid, and a follower of druidry. But the religion that they practice..? Well I don't know what it is - but it isn't druidry!"

"So you, and your people, work with the pro-democracy movement?"

"We are beginning to."

"Was that why the Rook came to you, to develop those links?"

"Yes. It was to finalise an agreement to work together. We have people in certain positions - people who may be able to help him in his task... Do not ask who those people are."

"Did he come alone?"

He hesitated, clearly unsure whether to answer.

"Was there a girl with him?" I pressed.

"There was."

"And they left together?"

"Yes."

"When was that?"

"Ten days ago."

"Do you know where they went to?"

Again he did not reply.

"Brother, it's important that I follow them. I have to know where they went."

He sighed, then spoke. "To Oxford."

"Oxford?"

"He went to see the leader of a scavenger gang. That's all I know."

"That's all?"

"The chant is about to end," he told me curtly, "we can speak no longer. When the service finishes, leave by the same path by which you climbed the Tor. One of our followers will be behind you, to guide you to your pick-up. Do not attempt to speak to him."

One by one the pilgrims peeled off into the scattered entrance ramps that led down to the various buried complexes. My unseen and unannounced guide suddenly reached out and tapped me on the shoulder.

"The path forks ahead. Follow it around to the right."

I said nothing, but obeyed his instructions, following the wide concrete track as it curved to the north to run along the eastern edge of the settlement, between the ruins of the old abbey and the rounded bulk of Chalice Hill. By now, most of the pilgrims had transferred to the underground passageways that honeycombed the Isle, leaving only scattered groups still ambling along the ancient roads.

"Continue along the path. From there we will follow the coast around the edge of Windmill Hill to the beach where you arrived."

I dipped my head, to show I had heard, and carried on along the path. Within a few minutes we had left the ruined abbey behind, and were approaching the western shoulder of the hill. Ahead of us, a group of six druids, all engaged in an animated conversation, were approaching Glastonbury town from the east, on a course that would take them across our route. Their costumes indicated that they were all at least mid-ranked. I kept my head down and continued towards them, sneaking quick upward glances as I did so.

The gait of one of them seemed familiar, though his face was hidden within his hood. It was something in the arrogance of his stride - the light, cat-like steps that sent him gliding along the path. The group crossed our route, barely ten metres ahead, and as they did so his head turned, the hood tipping back slightly, the steely eyes staring straight at me. When I saw the face I recognised him instantly, the memories falling into place. It was the man in blue, from Kerensky's.

It was his own surprise that saved me, allowing my reflexes and instincts the fraction of a second they needed to hurl me to the side, throwing my body off the concrete path and into the yellowing, near-metre high grass that grew either side. Sapphire.

Sapphire: 02:48:23> Activated.

Activate targeting system.

Sapphire: 02:48:25> Targeting system activated. Clearing text.

As the words appeared across my eyesight, I was already rolling into a crouched upright position, my right arm extending toward where he had been. Meanwhile, a trail of destruction was weaving along the roadway, leaving a pock-marked trail covered with chips of concrete and cement dust. He ceased his instinctive burst and looked around, the now-silent assault rifle weaving slightly as he searched for me. I swung the cross-hairs onto him and fired, not waiting for the targeting system to acquire him. The rounds thudded into his shoulder and glanced off heavily, tearing his ornate druid's robes apart, and hurling him into the long grass beyond. His dropped assault rifle spun onto the concrete in the midst of the milling, terrified druids.

A shadow bobbed in the dim moonlight as one of the druids reached into his robes and pulled out a small device - a communicator I realised - to raise the alarm. Without thinking I fired another snap-shot, the bullets ripping through his unprotected chest in a shower of blood and torn flesh. He fell, slowly and silently, to the ground, his lips mouthing the druid's oath. A companion cried out in surprise and dived for the assault rifle, clamping one hand onto the barrel, then seeing his wrist disintegrate as I fired once more. He hauled himself into a kneeling position and wrapped his left hand around the outstretched stump, mesmerised by the fountain of blood pumping from the severed arteries. I fired again as his head tipped back to scream, a better aimed burst this time that punched through his temples and ripped through his brain.

The three remaining druids stared mutely at the horror littering the crossroads, then snapped back to reality and began to sprint towards Glastonbury town itself. I moved slowly out of the grass, then spun round as I heard a voice from the road-side beside me.

It was a druid, urging, "Kill them!" I recognised the voice as the druid who had accompanied me. "They must not raise a warning!"

I knelt down to face their retreating backs and lifted my arm.

"Kill them!"

The targeting sight turned green on the first figure and I gently squeezed my fist, clenching it just long enough to send out a three round burst. A wide hole appeared in the man's back and he crashed to the ground, his legs flailing uselessly; his heart and lungs having been caught in the cone of destruction.

I shifted the arm sideways to bear on the second fleeing druid. The workings of the targeting system gave him three further seconds of life before I fired and the robes stretched across his back turned from green to blood-red. He fell onto the harsh concrete, his dying body tumbling chaotically until the momentum was absorbed. Two down, one left; eighteen bullets used, two remaining. I moved my arm to the last target.

He turned his head, terror written across his elderly face, the thin legs beneath his flowing robes pumping furiously on the solid path. His lips moved in what could have been a prayer - or a plea for help, perhaps?

"Kill him!" urged my guide.

I clenched my fist and dispatched the final two bullets to their target. The silver cylinders flashed across the darkened landscape and punched through his fearful face, leaving a neat entry hole in his cheek, and an exit cone the size of a fist in the back of his head. The thin legs stopped running and he crumpled to the road surface.

Less than twenty confused seconds, and six men were down, five of them slaughtered. I ran quickly across to where my pursuer from Kerensky's had fallen, keeping in a low crouch until I reached the flattened stalks. He had gone, a trail of blood leading into the thick grass showing his route. A glint of metal and plastic caught my eye - two magazines for the assault rifle. In the confusion they must have tumbled from his torn robes. I picked them up, and stuffed them in an inside pocket. The assault rifle was still laying where it had fallen. I lifted it from the road, carefully prized the severed hand from the barrel, and turned to face my guide.

"We must go!" he told me. "You have violated the sanctuary of Avalon. If they find you - we will all burn!"

It took us ten minutes to retrace our steps to the small cove where I had landed, and scramble down the steep winding path that led through the piled boulders and blocks of concrete.

"When's he coming back in?" I asked urgently.

The young druid looked nervously out over the dark, tumbling waves, a dim shielded torch pointed out to sea. "Any minute now."

The minutes dragged painfully by, our eyes continuously scanning across the horizon. Finally I glimpsed a small shadow riding in on the crest of a low roller. "I see him!" I whispered, my forefinger pointing.

The druid searched for a few seconds, then nodded in agreement. He kept the light outstretched for a few seconds, then switched it off as the boat surged onto the shingle and crunched to a halt. At its stern, crouched over the tiller, was the reassuringly familiar figure of Jacob, his blond grey-flecked beard surrounding a wide, beaming grin.

"Any messages?" he drawled.

The druid frantically shook his head. "No. You must go brother, there has been trouble!" He grasped hold of the stern of the boat and motioned me to board, but at that moment the sea around us erupted with a scattered hail of assault rifle fire, one bullet glancing off the upper-rim of the fibre-glass hull. I spun around, and saw at least half-a-dozen shadowy figures raining fire on us as they picked their way down the rocky path. I snatched up the assault rifle and fired a long snaking burst in their direction. For a moment the firing seized, as they ducked down behind the blocks.

The druid held out his hands to Jacob. "Brother, your weapon - pease!" Jacob reached down beneath the stern-seat he was perched upon, and pulled out a compact submachine-gun which he threw over to the druid, along with two spare magazines. I saw the pursuing knights cautiously lift their heads above the shielding rubble and fired another extended burst.

The druid checked the gun for a moment, then began to edge away from us across the beach. "Go! You must go now."

I stayed crouched by the grounded bow of the boat, while Jacob called to him, "You're surrounded! They'll kill you!"

The druid dropped into a firing position behind a small isolated boulder, let rip a short burst at the path, then glanced briefly in our direction. "And if I don't hold them off, you'll never get that boat out of here. Go! In the name of God, go!"

I fired a last burst along the path, the rounds ricocheting crazily off the random surfaces of the blocks, then turned to grasp the rim of the hull, the rifle hanging from its strap. For a moment my feet slithered uselessly, the boat staying fast; but then something gave and the hull was sliding slowly into the water. I pushed for a few seconds more, then felt the resistance ease as the water lifted the hull from the sea-bed, the same waters swirling around the hem of my synthetic robes, while the undertow hurled tiny pebbles at my bare legs.

A wave broke over the square stern, showing Jacob with spray and jarring my wrists as the bow jumped towards me; then the boat was sliding down the back face of the wave and I was hauling myself in. Behind us the harsh, fast rattle of the druid's submachine-gun split the night air.

"Hang on brother," muttered Jacob as he activated the engine, pulling the boat backwards through the next wave, then quickly spinning the stern around to face the breaker beyond. They say that waves come in sevens, with the seventh huge. If that's true then this was the seventh, a steep, terrifying wall of tumbling water sweeping in from the Atlantic, an unstoppable force roaring as though in fury. The front slope of the wave rose up underneath the bow as the white-tipped crest curled above us. For a moment I held my breath as the boat's angle increased, but then we were through, the hull's sharp bow punching through the breaking crest and surging into the empty air. The boat hovered in the void for a split-second, then fell back to the white waters. Jacob gunned the engine and we accelerated forward, rising smoothly over the next unbroken wave.

I relaxed my grip on the hull's edge and turned to look back at the rapidly receding beach. The rate of fire was increasing now, more shadows darting across the surrounding slopes and pouring fire on the beach. The druid glanced back at us, his face lost at this distance, saw that we were clear, and made a break for it, sprinting across the shingle beach towards the rocks that ran around the island.

For several seconds it seemed that he might make it, his erratic, slithering path evading the stream of bullets that screamed around him, the shingle literally exploding under the assault. Then he slipped, the gravel giving way beneath his thrusting foot, causing him to thud face-down onto the stones. Instantly the interlocking network of fire found its target, his body disintegrating in seconds.

"May your soul fly free my brother," intoned Jacob sombrely.

He had died, to save me - and I'd never even known his name.

An air-car roared past us, not spotting our low dark hull slicing silently though the crashing waters, although to me the flying vehicle seemed close enough to touch. I muttered a silent thanks that the moon barely shone this night, and took another look behind us, gazing at the rounded hills of Avalon a couple of kilometres to the south. Even now, after what had happened, the velvety shadow still seemed to possess a serenity that I could feel but could not describe. I turned away, and looked ahead. Before us, some three kilometres to the north, was the rounded ridge of the Wookey peninsular, one of several that divided the Somerset Bays.

"I'm starting to turn," warned Jacob, gradually pulling the tiller towards him. The boat rocked slightly and started a long arcing turn, the bow slowly changing its orientation until it was pointing on a near-westwards course that would take us out into the ocean and around Wedmore Island to Chedder. I settled down onto the central seat, still grasping the sides of the hull as the boat skipped and danced across the broken, choppy ocean.

"Can you hear something?" asked Jacob in a calm, low voice. I listened for a moment and heard the sound that had alerted him, a low rumble that his experienced ears had known instantly was not of the sea.

"Yeah. What is it?"

He listened again, rocking his head from side to side in an attempt to get a more accurate bearing. "Engines. Gas Turbines."

"They fast?" I asked, looking at the gently humming electric motor.

He smiled enigmatically. "Faster than us..."

I scrambled up the long narrow hull and scanned the horizon in the sector the sound was coming from. For long seconds I could see only darkness, but then I spotted them, two large, dark smudges slamming through the waves on a parallel course to the south of us. I touched Jacob on the arm and pointed.

"There they are."

After a few seconds he nodded and nudged the tiller away from him, slowly changing our course back towards the peninsular and Wedmore Island beyond. "I'll take us in along the coast."

"Can they get us on radar?" I asked quietly.

He shrugged. "Perhaps. But we're small, we don't reflect much, and the sea's pretty choppy."

I looked back to the two power-boats, still holding their westerly course along Glastonbury Bay. For thirty seconds they continued, the distance between us steadily increasing; then they split, the nearer of the two curving towards the north, and us. Jacob noticed almost as I did and swore silently.

"Think they've seen us?"

He shook his head. "They're probably just increasing the size of the search net. They will see us though - if they come much closer."

The tensions within us grew, as we sailed closer to the coast and the other boat sailed closer to us. I tore my gaze away from our pursuers and looked along our course. About six or seven hundred metres further, along the rocky eroded coast, the peninsular reached its most western point. Just under a kilometre ahead of that was the beginnings of Wedmore Island, with a small rocky islet in between. Connecting them was a line of muddy, swirling water. I looked back to Jacob.

"What's that gap ahead?"

"Bleadney Passage. Leads between Axe Bay and Glastonbury Bay."

I thought for a moment. "Why don't we take it?"

"It's only exists at high tide. And the tide's been going out for a couple of hours. There's no knowing whether we'll get through."

I looked back to the power-boat, it's roaring gas-turbine rapidly eating up the distance between us. "You want to stay round here with them? I'll push - whatever it takes. Let's just get out of here!"

"Okay citizen, let's try it." He nudged the boat further into the coast, skimming past some of the outlying rocks, the weird flooded landscape seeming close enough to touch. The power-boat was much nearer now, the details of it's superstructure visible, as was the radar receiver endlessly turning to scan the surroundings.

I held tight while we bounced sickeningly over a tangled sequence of waves, then turned to Jacob. "You think they've seen us?"

A flare shot up from the deck of the power-boat, arcing high into the air and turning the night to day, the glowing object drifting gently down to the dark water. Another followed, then another. Jacob grinned up at me. "Yeah. I think they've seen us. Hang on." He pulled the tiller towards him, then flung it away, piloting the tiny craft along a mad, weaving course towards the gap.

A cannon boomed on the power-boat, accompanied an instant later by a spray-showering explosion just tens of metres behind us. I wiped the stinging, poisoned sea-water from my eyes and looked ahead to the gap. Nearly there. Nearly.

Another shell exploded, this time to the left of us, this time barely ten metres away, the blast catching hold of the boat and almost lifting it from the water. Somehow Jacob kept us from capsizing, expertly manipulating the tiller in those terrifying seconds that the boat skated along on its side.

I ducked down till the boat righted, then glanced out over the bow. Dead ahead, past the last rocky outcrop, was the gap, now a violent maelstrom of swirling water; the point at which the waves of each bay reached shallow banks, rose up in height to near-breaking point - and collided.

"Here we go!" called Jacob, his voice almost drowned by the crash of the swells. The tiny boat rounded the outcrop and turned for the gap, being caught almost instantly by an incoming wave and hurled forward into the gap. Around us, dozens of rocks pierced the frothy waters, the muddy sea-bed just visible well under a metre below. Another shell whistled in, falling some fifteen metres to our front and sending up a spout of mud and water which hung dream-like in the thin air, then slapped, clinging, across us. Then we were through, the confused meeting point of the flows behind us, allowing Jacob to feed the power back in and send the boat skimming across the sheltered expanse of Axe Bay.

I looked back in time to see the power-boat surging into the gap after us, the flag of the Knights just visible, flapping from a pole at the stern. The streamlined bow curved up through the first of the heavy waves and slammed down, the engines screaming in protest as the propellers at the stern lifted from the water and spun wildly. Then the bow was lifting again, slicing through the second wave and moving into the gap proper, again losing speed from the impact. The gap stopped closing as we speeded away at full-power, and the Knight's boat wallowed in the heavy swell. The sleek boat powered through a chaotic patch of white water, the bow lifting again as the swell moved under it, then dropped to a patch of still water. And slid to a halt.

"What..?" I cried out in disbelief. Jacob, who had been hunched over the tiller twisted round to see.

"They've grounded!" he called out.

"What?"

"They're stuck on the bottom... because they draw more water than us." He looked at me, and saw the confused, but relieved, look upon my face. "They're bigger and heavier than us."

He looked ahead, adjusted the tiller slightly, and sat back, the boat running fast and smooth across the clear black waters.

It was time to go. I had rested, sleeping on a hammock slung in a corner of one of the side caverns. I had eaten, side-by-side with the rest of the community in the main cavern. They'd assured me it was possible to purify the polluted, deformed mutants they caught, but I politely refused, and ate from a packet in my supplies.

"You're welcome to stay awhile longer," Jacob told me when we reached the entrance to the caverns and stood in the evening twilight.

"No. Thanks, but I have to go." A guilty thought occurred to me. "Will you have any trouble from the Knights?"

The relaxed, enigmatic grin returned. "No, shouldn't think so. We're too small for them to bother about, and they don't actually know it was us. We'll just keep our heads down, like we always do." He held out his hand. "Good luck citizen, and may God accompany you on your journey."

I took his hand, and shook, feeling the warm but firm grip. "And may God protect you and your people." I noticed the boats stacked beside the entrance, ready to be carried down the gorge to the sea. "And may he find you better looking fish!"

He laughed. "Good luck."

I turned away, and began the long slow climb up the gorge. I did not look back until I had reached its head, and stood atop the heights of the Mendips. From there I could see the gorge laid before me, the lower reaches hidden from view by its own twists and turns. And beyond that, shimmering blue-red as the sun slid below the horizon was the triumphant sea, and its creation - the wide, shallow expanses of the Somerset Bays.

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