He turned back. “What do I do?” he said, desperate. “What do I do?”
Bron’s face was gaunt with tension. “You just look, Cal.”
The doors were opening. Into the silence the light came, that glorious, golden light, the two boys with their candles, and behind them the tall, pale boy, the one with the lance. Bright red, the drops of blood fell from it; they made a trail across the floor, spattering on the shaven wood and the scattered trampled rushes, soaking in.
And behind them, the girl came, with the Grail. She held it high, and he saw that this time it was covered with a white cloth, but even then the light burned from it, the fierce white purity that he remembered, that he’d longed for, a light that scorched him and warmed him and gave him peace, and the people looked down, away, anywhere but at it. But the girl looked at Cal.
He recognized her. She was younger, his age. Before the nightmare, the drink, before everything had gone wrong with her. She was young and calm and strong, and she carried the vessel without fear, and she crossed the room and paused at the secret door with it.
Cal turned to Bron. “Who drinks from the Grail?” he whispered.
The room was utterly silent. Then Bron put both hands on the table, and gripped it, and with a terrible, almighty effort he pulled himself up shakily, and he and Cal were face to face. Leo kept close, but Bron was standing, shaking, exhausted, his knuckles white on the table edge. When he spoke his voice was hoarse with joy. “You do, Cal,” he said.
Cal nodded, and turned. The Grail was carried through the secret doorway. He went after it, into a room brilliant with light. She handed him the cup, fingers over fingers, and he drank from it.
And he drank in its light, its terrors, its marvels. He saw the flame and the blood and the five mystical transformations, and when he handed it back to her he was healed, and she took it from him, and they laughed.
Chapter Twenty-seven
No one should repeat or describe the great wonders he encountered, which gave him many fearful moments. Anyone who does so will be sorry, for they are part of the mystery of the Grail.
1st Continuation
Shadow turned from the window and came to the edge of the bed. “When we pulled you out of the lake you weren’t even breathing. Hawk and Kai worked on you for at least five minutes. We thought you were dead, Cal.” She sat on the tie-dyed coverlet, and took his raw, scuffed fingers, trying to pin down the change in his face, understand the story he’d told her.
“Maybe I was,” he said.
She smiled wryly. “What did you see when you drank? Visions? Dreams?”
“I can’t tell you. Not that.”
Outside a soft drizzle was bringing the cherry blossom down in drifts in the abbey grounds. Easter bells were ringing from the church in the High Street. The Company had lit a fire; its smoke drifted through the van.
“And the Waste Land. Is it healed?”
Cal lay back and looked at her. “I think it must be,” he whispered.
And thus it is told of the Castle of Wonders.
Acknowledgments
Epigraphs by kind permission of the translators: Nigel Bryant, “Conte du Graal,” from Percevaclass="underline" The Story of the Grail, by Chretien de Troyes (D. S. Brewer, 1982); John Matthews, “Oianau of Merlin,” from Merlin through the Ages (Blandford, 1995); T. Jones and G. Jones, “Peredur Son of Efrawg” from The Mabinogion (Everyman Classics, 1949).
About the Author
Catherine Fisher’s acclaimed works include Darkhenge, Snow-walker, and The Oracle Betrayed, which was a finalist for the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. She lives in Newport, Wales.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Credits
Jacket art © 2006 by Douglas Mullen
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Corbenic
Copyright © 2002 by Catherine Fisher
First published in 2002 in Great Britain by Red Fox Books,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.
First published in 2006 in the United States by Greenwillow Books.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
The right of Catherine Fisher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fisher, Catherine
Corbenic / by Catherine Fisher.
p. cm.
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: In this modern-day version of Perceval and the Holy Grail, a guilt-ridden British teenager leaves his mentally ill mother to live with his wealthy uncle and begins a journey of self-knowledge and redemption after being briefly transported to the Waste Land of Arthurian times.
ISBN-10: 0-06-072470-6 (trade bdg.) ISBN-13: 978-0-06-072470-2
ISBN-10: 0-06-072471-4 (lib. bdg.) ISBN-13: 978-0-06-072471-9
[1. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 2. Grail—Fiction. 3. Identity—Fiction.
4. Space and time—Fiction. 5. Coming of age—Fiction. 6. England—Fiction.]
PZ7.F4995Co 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2003056866
First American Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Epub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062193759
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (P.O. Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com