Griffiths Black Valley

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9999263-6-6
Verlag: Garland Stone
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Reihe: Black Valley

Black Valley is The Wicker Man meets Silent Hill: a dark fantasy novel drawing on ancient Celtic Myth and grounded in post-industrial North Wales. 1918: The Manager of a Welsh slate quarry at Cwm Du (Black Valley) pushes ahead with plans to open up a new slate face in a natural cavern in the mountains, despite the protests of his workers and the wise woman of the village, the Druidess Myfanwy. The resulting explosion not only unleashes underground water to flood the quarry killing hundreds of quarrymen, it also brings with it the ancient race from the Otherworld below: Gwyllion. To save the world from the wrath of the Gwyllion and the pestilence they carry, Myfanwy seals Cwm Du from the outside world: Cwm Du becomes a forgotten lost valley shrouded in myth, guarded by her daughter, Becca, the new Druidess. 2020: a hundred years later: Becca's only female descendant, Laura, is bequeathed a house in the village of Cwm Du, beside the now flooded quarry. Laura travels to Cwm Du with her boyfriend Jimmy. Laura and Jimmy enter Cwm Du to find a place where the Gwyllion are suddenly returning, threatening the inhabitants and the outside world. Laura's unexpected role is to become the next Druidess, but can she do so and save the world when the Gwyllion are at her door? 'Nothing can hold back the Otherworld: Except You'

John Washbourne has been involved with film distribution for over twenty five years and is VP Development at Garland Stone Productions Ltd. John is also an international fencing champion (modern & historical), & martial artist. John's interest in mythology and history has culminated in co-writing Black Valley, Blood Eagle, Away Game and numerous other projects for Garland Stone.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Griffiths, Dewi

Leseproben

1. THE BIRDS OF ANNWN TAKE FLIGHT

“

”

? Arthur Machen

North Wales: 1918: During the Great War

The sun rises over the tallest mountain, casting a shadow on a blackened land. Eryri. Land of the Eagle. A land of myth and legend, now scarred by industry. Large areas with topsoil gone, baring the black rock beneath.

Slate. Famous and coveted all over the world. This is the best slate in the world. Roofing the homes of the British Empire.

Slate formed of soil millions of years old, holding the bodies of creatures not known to man when books like the Bible were written a couple of short millennia ago.

These once living creatures are now buried and preserved in rock. Rock blown from the earth in these massive pits. Quarries creating large unnatural valleys and craters in a country which used to be beautiful, leaving it looking like a wasteland. Like a black moon.

So much wasted. For every ton of world class slate exported from the bowels of the country, nine tons are left to lie in the sun and colour this once green valley black. Black rock left lying across the land as far as the eye can see. Creating its own geography.

In this place, everything made by man is made of slate. Roads, buildings, walls and fences which keep sheep fenced in at places where the slate has not been discarded on the face of the earth.

Men left this world of slate to fight for Great Britain in the Great War. Those who return know the desolation of mud and ordinance all around them. Now they are back in a world where mud has metamorphosed into slate, which is ripped apart by ordinance daily. The familiar sound of explosions rock the valley as they return to work, treading on the shrapnel of broken slate which lies everywhere. Men broken by war work in this man made hell to feed their families in this now barren land they call home.

Beyond the rim of the quarry, along the slate track is the Quarry Manager’s House. Close enough to allow quick access to the site lest there be more industrial disputes, just far enough away not to be rocked by the regular explosions.

A house built of slate some two dozen years ago, like much of the village just further along the road which grew to house the quarrymen from the countryside all around. Cwm Du. The Black Valley.

The manager’s house has been named after his place of birth. Mortlake in London. Within the dark windows is a place between worlds. The manager is named Salhurst. Granted the position of managing one of the largest slate quarries in the country based on an education at the Royal Masonic School for Boys.

Marrying an enchanting local girl, Rebecca, one who could speak good English and seemed to love him. One who preferred the name Becca as it was more Welsh, which reminded him of the Biblical character who the locals used as a figurehead when smashing toll gates in the west of Wales. The Rebecca Riots. Locals acting against His Majesty’s laws. So the name Becca always grated on him.

Rebecca. Or Becca. Living between two worlds, both wife to the Quarry Manager and daughter to the Druidess.

Two brief years ago, like many of the quarrymen, Salhurst left her and their son to serve His Majesty on the Western Front. Scarred like so many by the Great War, coming home to his old job of managing the quarry once more. Trying to hide his scars, the ones seen on his body and the ones hidden in his mind.

Finding on his return that the local wise woman, or Druidess as some would have it, Myfanwy, his wife’s mother, has taken up residence in his home. Myfanwy who never learned to read nor write, who remembered everything she ever needed to know, so she claimed. He can hardly say her name, it is so alien to him. She was the woman all turned to for help, until Huw the local minister spoke out against her from his pulpit during the Religious Revival of the chapel a dozen years before war. But at times of crisis the people of the area still turn up at Salhurst’s door to see Myfanwy, when they should be at the Minister’s door at the Manse.

This place where the two worlds collide is a strange one for the little boy. Arthur Salhurst, living in a black world full of the myths of the once green land taught to him by his grandmother. A world hidden from view beneath the wasted slate.

Arthur sitting on his grandmother’s knee. His cheek on her old white home spun dress, looking at the slate amulet around her neck. Apart from her harsh broken voice the only sound the ticking of the slate framed clock on the slate mantlepiece. She finishes the story telling of how thousands of years ago her foremothers drove back the dark folk into the earth, so people could raise their animals and crops on this land. Before the slate. When it was green and open.

In the doorway Becca smiles, recognising the tale she has heard a hundred times as a child. The front door slams.

Her husband pushes past her. Angry. “What have I told you Myfanwy? English. I don’t want my son brought up like some wild heathen colonial.”

Myfanwy bristles, bending her mouth to speak a language she only learned as an adult. “I’m teaching him history. It is important, yeah.”

“History!?! Myth and nonsense! Arthur, to your studies.”

The little boy climbs reluctantly from his grandmother’s lap. “Yes sir.”

Myfanwy looks at her daughter, standing uncomfortably in the doorway. “Tell him Becca.”

Becca looks down, not wanting to antagonise her already angry husband.

Myfanwy glares at Becca, storming out of the house ‘accidentally’ knocking over a photo of Salhurst in British Army uniform. The front door slams. Arthur winces.

Salhurst glares at Arthur. “I said, to your studies boy!” Arthur runs out of the room.

Becca rights the photo. “Henry. Please! Don’t antagonise my mother.”

“She will put this stuff and nonsense into the boy’s head! If she taught him something practicable... In English!” Salhurst looks haunted.

“What’s wrong Henry? What is this really about? Why are you home?”

“I just spoke to the company accountant. I don’t know how long this quarry can last.”

“But there are millions of tons of slate there Henry.”

“And not an ounce of good slate Rebecca. It’s a good thing so many went to the Front. There will be no work for anyone within a couple of weeks unless we find a new seam. We’re having to tunnel to find any rock of use.”

Absolute darkness. Sounds. Voices in the void. A language long forgotten on the surface of the earth. Clicking. Tongues tapping to let others know where they are. A constant sound in the darkness.

This part of the Otherworld is their darkness. A place not frequented by the husks of those who live above in light. The living dead of that different race. The race that drove them down here into the darkness hundreds of lifetimes ago.

And there are no other creatures here. There has been safety in this darkness. Until now.

Loud thuds. Hurting their ears. Resounding all around. Drowning out the tapping of tongues. Cries from those now lost in the noise in the darkness.

A dark hand touches the wall of rock, withdrawing as the rock vibrates. What is happening?

Myfanwy walks towards the mountain. Eryri. Land of the Eagle. Given that beautiful name back in the days before the land was ripped up for slate. Now there’s nothing for eagles to hunt in this ugly world.

Her feet slip on the loose slate, the dust grey on her white dress. She climbs away from the giant hole in the ground, the quarry her son-in-law manages for men who have never been there. If it was in her hands no one would have dug deep towards whatever lies beneath this world. Towards Annwn, The Otherworld, where all that is no longer welcome here are banished. The Dead. The Old Gods. And those half humans defeated millennia ago by her kind so their families could farm this land. So that they could live without fear of those footsteps in the snow, silencing their approach, deadening the screams of those they killed by weapon or pestilence in the darkest of times. Gwyllion. The dark things in the night. Long since banished to the Otherworld but always on her mind these days. Why?

Myfanwy reaches the top of the ridge and looks back at where she has come from. She stands looking out across the once beautiful countryside, now scarred with millions of tons of black slate waste. A black valley she remembers as green.

Beyond the low lands is the sea. Named The Irish Sea. Even its name taken from her people. Wales seen as an extension to England because it is attached. Her mother told her that the wise learned to swim to Ireland. But there is nothing there. No slate. No good stone. No coal. Nothing but peat and rotten vegetables. There was talk of rebellion there. Good luck to them.

That won’t happen in Wales. Here they have forgotten their past. Forgotten their princes, their stories and their language. Her role is not to forget that bigger threat than even those from across the border. The threat which was driven below ground all those centuries before there was a difference between England and Wales.

There are worse things which have walked this land than the English. More evil than the Germans their young men...