Read Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon for Free Online Page B

antler pick to hack at the soil of the Tor to create the spiral path around it; the elder priests thought it likely that she had been one of the acolytes who came to Avalon from the Sea Kingdoms that lay now beneath the waves. But Anderle’s visions were of the Sinking, of the last cataclysmic explosion when the mountain shattered and her city died in flame.
    If I was indeed there, then I did not survive it, she realized suddenly. Perhaps that is why foreseeing the destruction of Azan frightened me so. . . . Mikantor stirred in her arms and she turned on her side to make more room. And who were you in those days, my little one? Are you the child who was saved to inherit a new land? At the moment, it was enough to have saved him from the burning.
    It was said that Micail, who built the great henge, had come from a line of kings, though he had lived his life as a priest, not a ruler. It seemed to her then that the darkness had become a tapestry on which dim figures moved, fighting, dancing, shifting great stones. Still striving to understand, she slept as deeply as any of the ancestors.
    When Anderle woke again, the band of light that filtered in through the opening to the tomb was barely brighter than the gloom inside. For a moment she could not think where she was, much less what had awakened her. Then she heard the bleat Ara made when they had not given her enough water or food. Whoever had come was someone whom the she-goat expected to take care of her. The priestess smiled in the darkness and gathered her forces to send a mental call.
    “My lady!” came Ellet’s soft voice from outside. “Where are you? Have you turned invisible?” Her voice wavered. There were stories that some adepts of Avalon had known how to do just that. “It’s safe now—the evil ones have gone!”
    Mikantor squeaked in protest as Anderle pushed him through the opening, and Ellet gasped. When she got her own head and shoulders through the gap, she saw the girl staring, fingers twitching in a warding sign.
    “I’m no ghost—” The priestess suppressed a laugh. “But I am surely grateful to the spirits who sheltered me. When the Ai-Ushen came, they thought Ara was an offering. If you have brought any food, we should leave some in the tomb.”
    Ellet recovered enough to hold out a bulging sack. “You must be hungry, and poor Ara is more than ready to be milked again.” She took a wooden bowl and a waterskin from the sack and let the goat drink, then settled herself at the black-spotted flank and laid Mikantor in her lap.
    Anderle stretched carefully. The last light glowed in the west, and the new moon was already high. She sensed that Ellet had spoken truly, for a palpable peace lay on the land. She rummaged in the foodsack and drew out two barley cakes, setting one at the entrance to the tomb.
    “But what happened to you?” she asked as she began to eat. “Did the wolves come to the farm too?”
    “They did indeed, and we owe Chaoud and his people the blessing of Avalon! The wretches lined us up in the farmyard while they poked their spears into the thatching and the storage pits. Chaoud told them that I was his sister who had never been quite right since she had the fever, and I pulled my hair over my eyes and gibbered and drooled until they gave up any ideas they might have had about raping me.” Ellet grinned.
    “They carried off what food they could find,” she went on, “but in these times folk have learned how to hide their supplies. There was enough left to feed them, and spare us some provisions as well. Surely another day or two will bring us to the Tor . . .” She looked at Anderle hopefully.
    The priestess nodded. And what will I do if the Ai-Ushen follow us? she wondered then. The Lake People had no warriors. Our magic is for healing and growth, not destruction. If only I could draw the marsh mists around us and hide us from the world! Perhaps by the time they reached the Tor the gods would have given her some