The adventure continues as Jack and friends search for the thirteenth treasure to keep the promise made to Bess before she died.

Can the thirteenth treasure save the dying fairy world? Or is it a foolish dream?

When the twelve fairy tribes arrived on misty isle of Avalon, each brought a talisman, the clan’s sacred treasure. Here the warring tribes forged a Thirteenth Treasure to bind them in peace and prosperity.

Time passes. People forget.

Even those as long lived as fairy queens.

The thirteen treasures were scattered, lost. Nothing remained but half-forgotten legends.

Can anyone find the Thirteenth Treasure when nobody knows where it, what it is, or if it even exists? 

A new adventure takes Jack and friends beyond everything they know of the fairy world. In ancient ruined kingdoms they face elemental forces and murderous monsters: a mad minotaur, a soul-stealing book and warring giants. All in the hope of uncovering the fairies’ ancient secret treasures.

 Does each perilous ordeal drag them ever further from quest for the Thirteenth Treasure?

If all they have are fragments of legend, how will they know the Thirteenth Treasure even if they find it?

What is the Glastonbury Zodiac?

 Map of the Glastonbury Zodiac

The Girt Dog sits around the Somerset town of Langport

Burrow Mump forms the Girt Dog’s nose. Like Glastonbury Tor there is a ruined church dedicated to St Michael on its summit. Ley line researchers say both hills lie on the ley line, or fairy road, from St Micheal’s Mount in Cornwall.

Some believe the Girt Dog of Langport is the fairy King Gwyn ap Nudd’s (Nuth’s) giant hunting hound, Dormarch, or ‘Death’s Door’. In some manuscripts the scribe scratched out the second ‘r’ making the name Dormach. Mach means bond or surety, making the name ‘Death’s Guardian’.

Dogs traditionally guard the underworld. Cerebus guarded the way to Hades. In Egyptian mythology the dog-headed Anubis was the god of the afterlife and the dog star’s appearance announced Osiris’ rebirth.

Critics claim the Glastonbury Zodiac was a figment of Catherine maltwood’s imagination. If so, how do you explain Dr Dee’s words from 350 years earlier?

In 1580 the English magician Dr Dee, scientist and astronomer to Queen Elizabeth the First, wrote about constellations lying mapped on the ground.

“the stars agree with their reproduction on the ground… all the greater stars of Sagittarius fall in the hindquarters of the horse while the others fall on its chest… exactly married and measured in a scientific reconstruction of the heavens.”I

The  Chalice Well leyline snatches Catherine away to the Moon

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“Take me to the moon, the mountains of the moon,” came a commanding voice from Catherine’s mouth.

It took Jack a moment to recognise the voice as Bess. Not the fragile old lady, shrunk in the armchair, but the powerful fairy queen of dream. Zombie-like Catherine took a step forward. One step followed another as she staggered out of the hollow tower along the path leading down to Glastonbury town.

The heavy wooden lid of the Chalice Well was open. Catherine stepped onto the metal safety grid covering the well. Jack wondered if she thought it held a ley line. He stared into the murky depths of the well; curious to see if a glittering blue light would appear.

A flash of light shot from the mouth of the well, flooding the garden in blinding, blistering, white. Catherine was gone. An arc of light shot across the sky like a wishing star.

from  the Thirteenth Treasure

The ancient sacred Chalice Well at the foot of Glastonbury Tor

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The Moon's ghostly ship sails the hight sky

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 Cresting a ridge, Catherine looked down into a valley ringed by shadow etched hills. They rose into the evening sky, darker than night. Moored on the meadow was a schooner, a full ten fathoms high and awash with cold eerie light. Its rigging glittered with ice crystals in the balmy summer night. Spectral balls of Saint Elmo’s fire played on the very tips of its three masts.

The statue of Diana, led the Handmaids of the Moon up the narrow gangplank, harnessing ship to earth.

“Unman the decks, unfurl the swirls and show the prow the uncertain sea, for before morn dawns anew, old Tiresias we must see.”

Shedding robes and veils, the lithe handmaidens, sporting tunics short as the Moon’s, rushed to their stations. Catherine lost track of the statue in all the activity. Seconds later, a fat yellow moon rose over the hilltops. As it did, the women cried as one, “We sail. We sail.”

They drew in the gangplank and dropped acres of delicate cloth from the yardarms. Ghostly as spider’s webs, or dead men’s shrouds, the sails filled with an unfelt wind. The ship rocked unsteadily in its grassy cradle, shuddering and groaning as its keel ploughed over earth, until with a sickening lurch the ship broke free. Catherine looked down in amazement as the world dropped away.

from the Thirteenth Treasure

The Girt Dog appears on Burrow Mump as Jack & Ken enter the Glastonbury Zodiac

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      “According to that book on the Glastonbury Zodiac, Burrow Mump is the Grit Dog of Langport’s nose. The hill is an old fairy place called a sidi, claimed to be a hollow hill, one of the ancient underground fairy palaces. That’s another reason why it might be the entrance to the Zodiac. And, it’s exactly twelve miles from Glastonbury Tor, one mile for every house of the Zodiac.

Jack was amazed to see Burrowbridge Mump looked like Glastonbury Tor, although smaller. From the car park, he saw the top of an old church tower behind a massive ruined arch in the near wall. At one time, the tumbled down wall would have held a big stain glass window. Reaching the summit, Jack saw most of the church walls still stood, despite having great big holes in them.

Madog pulled out a Y-shaped stick. “This is a dowsing rod,” he said, holding it with two hands by the handles, letting the pointy end bob up and down.

“What does it do?”

“Finds things. There’s something hidden here," said Madog. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.” Madog paused for a second. “Listen, you two, I don’t know what will happen once we enter the Glastonbury Zodiac, but Taliesin called whirling around without motion, so don’t expect it to be easy.”

Jack’s past experiences told him never to expect anything to be easy in fairy places.

Madog slowly walked around the church with the tip of the Y-shaped stick held out before him. “Come and take a look at this.”

The dowsing rod shook up and down as Madog approached the empty arch of the old stained glass window. When he moved a little to the left or right, it stopped.

“This is the ley line.”

Jack half closed his eyes to imagine the empty arch as a doorway, with a door. Pulling the imaginary door open with his mind rewarded him with a familiar sliver of blue light. As he opened it a little more, something moved inside. Jack jumped back in shock.

“There’s something in there. It’s like a big monster.”

Madog half closed his eyes and burst out laughing. “Well done, you found the Girt Dog guarding the Zodiac. Now all we have to do is get past her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. There has to be a key somewhere.”

“That book we read said something about keys,” Ken piped up.

“What about that Tally-sin bloke’s poem,” Jack added.

“Taliesin,” Ken corrected him.

“Of course! Jack, do you mind running down and getting me the book from the van?”

Jack ran all the way down the hill and all the way up, without even being winded. “On the cover, it says the Key to the Mysteries of Britain,” he told Madog.

Madog hastily leafed through the pages. “Here’s that poem, the Spoils of Annwun by Taliesin.”

At the word ‘Annwun’ a pair of huge ghostly doors shimmered in the ruined arch at the nearest end of the church. Although they looked nothing more than mist, they seemed solid enough.

Madog got excited and cried out in a commanding voice, “Caer Sidi.”

He nodded with satisfaction as the doors became a little more solid.

“Caer Pedryvan.”

He turned to the boys. “The poem is about Arthur going into the Zodiac to rescue someone trapped inside. It gives a list of names. The keys, exactly like you thought. By the time Madog finished the list of twelve names, the doors stood solid as oak.

“How do we open them?” asked Jack.

“Here’s another poem by Merlin called The Apple Orchard. Glastonbury is Avalon and Avalon means Place of Apples.

“Avallenau.” cried Madog.

The doors swung open, turning transparent as glass. On the other side, the ruined church with its tower had vanished. Instead there was a grassy orchard with apple trees heavy with fruit, stretching as far as the eye could see.

“Let’s go,” said Jack ready to charge through the doorway.

Madog held him back. “Something’s wrong, Jack, the dog must take us through. We need to summon the dog.”

“Why don’t you call it,” Jack suggested. “What’s its name?”

Madog flipped to the chapter on the Girt Dog of Langport.

“Dolmarth, death’s door. It’s not going to be pleasant. We’ve got to hold hands.”

“Do we have to?”

“For me. Please?” He said, holding out a hand.

“I’m not happy,” said Jack.

“You’re not happy,” Ken replied.

As soon as they were holding hands, Madog cried out “Dol-ma-ath”

The orchard faded before Jack’s eyes, trees vanishing to silver wisps of cloud, the apples dwindling to points of light as the blue sky turned black. Within seconds all the stars of the universe stretched into infinity.

It came from deep in the heart of the universe. It came so suddenly Jack did not see it come. It came like the big bang, devouring stars and stardust, gaining size and form until a hulking great brute of a dog charged through the open doorway in the church arch. It expanded to fill the horizon, dull red saucer eyes, big as twin suns, and a gaping maw large enough to swallow the world, or at least Jack, Ken and Madog.

Arturos was not looking. His wild man eyes were fixed firmly on the western sky as if he would ride across the face of the whole, wide world.

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    The luminescence grew steadily into an unmistakable green tinge. It pulsed, eerily creating dancing shadows and highlights on the dirt-smeared rocky walls. Eventually, Catherine, doubting her own eyes, turned off the torch to make sure.

“We are near the sleeping chamber,” Pete whispered. “Can’t you hear them snore?”

She could, a deep low noise like the earth itself grumbled. They followed the sound, to emerge in a massive cave where four and twenty knights and their milky battle steeds slept behind a curtain of lambent green flame. A knight yawned; a horse whinnied as if troubled in sleep.

“They hear us and wake,” Pete muttered in hushed awe. “Give me the ring.”

Catherine slipped off the ring, clutching it tight until securely in Pete’s grasp.

 “Here,” she said.

Once the ring was safe, she handed Pete the flashlight. Pete turned it on. Its strong beam picked up the ghostly trail of pebbles in the tunnel.

“Good luck, Pete.”

“And good luck to you,” he replied already leaving.

Catherine ran to the curtain of cold fire. The flames shrank and guttered in unfelt breezes. A knight opened his eyes. Around her, more knights yawned and stretched. Their horses stamped the sleep from their feet.

“We ride,” cried one, a bear of a man at the heart of the group.

“We ride. We ride,” the men cried in response, leaping on their steeds.

The knights formed up in pairs with the huge man at their head. The curtain of flame flickered out. Without a sound the far wall of the chamber cracked in two. Daylight flooded the chamber.

“Forward, cried the leader, his horse trotting forward to the opening. Passing Catherine, the bear of a man reached down and picked her up with one huge paw-like hand, and flung her, face down, over the pommel of his saddle.

The bear like man impatiently snapped the end of his reins against the neck of his horse and they were off, cantering through the sky. Far below, Catherine saw Glastonbury Tor. The sight of the broken tower brought her to her senses. Two shapes stood, staring and pointing, in the tower’s shadow. Around Jack and Ken milled tourists, unaware of the spectacle in the sky.

The knights had to pick up Jack and Ken to take them to the thirteenth treasure. Catherine tried turning in the saddle to let Arturos know her friends were below. Arturos did not look at her. His wild man eyes were fixed firmly on the horizon as if he only desired to ride across the face of the whole, wide world in pursuit of never-ending day. She reached up to grab the hem of his garment and signal for him to look at Jack and Ken.

Twisting in the saddle, Catherine began to slip. Panicked, she sought to steady herself. There was nothing at hand to grab. Helpless, she struggled for a moment, then, to her horror, she fell.

Plummeting to earth, she saw the looks on Jack and Ken’s faces. They shouted, pointing at her. Tourists turned to look to where they pointed. But the tourists could not see. Catherine fell directly into the centre of the hollow tower. She saw Jack and Ken run inside as she plummeted at them like a meteor, growing larger and larger. Soon, she would blot out the narrow patch of sky seen through the open tower, and then what? Jack and Ken stood directly underneath her. Maybe they thought they could somehow break her fall.

 from the Thirteenth Treasure