Ancestors of Avalon

The Peacemaker – Virgo

The Sorcerer – Saturn

The Sovereign – Jupiter

The Torch – Leo, also called the Scepter or the Great Fire

The Wheel – Ursa Major, also called the Seven Guardians or Chariot

Winged Bull – Taurus

PLACES IN THE STORY (#ulink_c629b814-c345-523a-a522-269ac5dedc1a)

Ahtarra – capital city of Ahtarrath

Ahtarrath – the last isle of the Sea Kingdoms to fall; home of the House of the Twelve (acolytes)

Ahurabath – an isle of the Sea Kingdoms

Alkona – capital of Alkonath

Alkonath – one of the mightiest of the Ten Island Kingdoms, famed for its seafarers

Aman River – the Avon, in Britain

Amber Coast – coast of the North Sea

Ancient Land – ancestral realm of the Atlanteans, located somewhere near what is now the Black Sea

Atlantis – a general name for the Sea Kingdoms

Azan – the ‘Bull-pen,’ territory of the five tribes of the Ai-Zir, from Weymouth northeast to the Salisbury Plain in Wessex, Britain

Azan-Ylir – capital of Azan, modern Amesbury

Beleri’in [Belerion] – modern Penzance, in Cornwall

Belsairath – an Alkonan trading outpost where Dorchester is now

Belsairath fortress – Maiden Castle, Dorset

Carn Ava – Avebury

Casseritides – ‘Isles of Tin,’ a name for Britain

City of the Circling Snake – capital of the Ancient Land

Cosarrath – an isle of the Ten Kingdoms

Hellas – Greece

Hill of the Ghosts – Hambledon Hill, Dorset

Isle of the Mighty, Isle of Tin, Hesperides – British Isles

Khem – Egypt

Mormallor – one of the Ten Kingdoms, called the ‘holy isle’

Olbairos – an Ahtarran trading station on the continent

Oranderis – an isle of the Sea Kingdoms

The Sea Kingdoms – the islands of Atlantis

Tapallan – an isle of the Ten Kingdoms

Tarisseda – an isle of the Ten Kingdoms

The Ten Kingdoms – the alliance of Sea Kingdoms that replaced the Bright Empire

The Tor – Glastonbury Tor, Somerset

Zaiadan – a land on the coast of the North Sea

PROLOGUE (#ulink_02c410d1-67dc-5c30-aba1-03d52d5c2c8b)

Morgaine speaks…

The people of Avalon bring to their Lady their troubles, both great and small. This morning the Druids came to me to say that there has been a rockfall in the passage that leads from their Temple to the chamber that holds the Omphalos Stone, and they do not know how it is to be repaired. Their numbers here are small now, and most of those who remain are old. So many of those who might have renewed their Order were killed in the Saxon wars or have gone instead to the monks who tend the Christian chapel that is on that other Avalon.

And so they come to me as they all come to me, those who remain, to tell them what they must do. It has always seemed odd to me that the way to a mystery that is buried so deeply in the earth begins in the Temple of the Sun, but they say that those who first brought the ancient wisdom to these isles, long before the Druids, honored the Light above all things.

The Sight no longer comes to me as it did when I was young and we fought to bring the Goddess back into the world. I know now that She was already here, and always will be, but the Omphalos is the egg stone, the navel of the world, the last magic of a land sunk beneath the seas so long that even to us it is a legend.

When I was a girl, there were tapestries in the Druids’ Temple that told the story of how it came here. They have fallen to threads and dust, but I myself once followed that passage to the heart of the hill and touched the sacred stone. The visions that came to me then are more vivid now than many of my own memories. I can see once more the Star Mountain crowned with fire and Tiriki’s ship poised trembling on the wave as the Doomed Land is engulfed by the sea.

But I do not believe that I was on that ship. I have had dreams in which I stood, hand in hand with a man I loved, and watched as my world tore itself to pieces, just as Britannia did when Arthur died. Perhaps that was why I was sent back in this time, for Avalon is surely as lost as Atlantis, though it is mist, not smoke that veils it from the mortal world.

Once, there was a passage that led to the Omphalos Stone from the cave where the White Spring flows out from the Tor, but tremors in the earth blocked that way a long time ago. Perhaps it is not meant that we should any longer walk there. The Stone is being withdrawn from us, like so many other Mysteries.

I know all about endings. It is beginnings that elude me.

How did they come here, those brave priestesses and priests who survived the Sinking? Two millennia have passed since the Stone was brought to this shore, and five hundred more, and though we know little more than their names, we have preserved their legacy. Who were those ancestors who first brought the ancient wisdom and buried it like a seed in the heart of this holy hill?

If I can understand how they survived their testing, then perhaps I will find hope that the ancient wisdom we preserved will be carried into the future, and that something of the magic of Avalon will endure…

ONE (#ulink_da5e597c-4650-5399-970e-044d5807f247)