Grail Quest 3 The Shadow Companion

The Quest for the Holy Grail has finally begun, but now three very unusual teenagers are riding along with King Arthur's knights: young squire Gerard, a stable boy named Newt, and Queen Guinevere's maidservant, the strangely magical Ailis. Packed with suspenseful action, fantastic creatures, and legendary characters, the Grail Quest trilogy is perfect for fans of King Arthur and anyone who loves exciting fantasies. In this spellbinding finale, talented author Laura Anne Gilman finally brings the three teens face–to–face with the dark foe that has been threatening the quest. Will Camelot's most unexpected heroes find the Holy Grail...and what will happen if they do? Ages 10 +

In the final book of the Grail Quest trilogy, Ailis, Newt, and Gerard join the quest for the Holy Grail and encounter the dark force that has been threatening them all along.

The Quest for the Holy Grail has begun. Three teenagers, Gerard, Ailis, and Newt, have earned a place on the Quest alongside the Knights of the Round Table. But they are not the only ones seeking this treasured cup. King Arthur's sinister half sister, Morgain le Fay, wants the Grail for herself. To make sure she doesn't fail, she has summoned help from someone more evil and powerful than she—the Shadow Companion. But what Morgain doesn't know is that the Shadow Companion has come with a secret agenda. Now it is more important than ever for Gerard, Ailis, and Newt to recover the Holy Grail . . . before a dark power gets it first.

Following the events of the high-stakes and propulsive Uncanny Times, Rosemary and Aaron Harker, along with their supernatural hound Botherton, have been given a new assignment to investigate…but the Harkers believe it’s a set-up, and there’s something far more ancient and deadly instead. Rosemary and Aaron Harker have been effectively, unofficially sidelined. There is no way to be certain, but they suspect their superiors know that their report on Brunson was less than complete, that they omitted certain truths. Are they being punished or tested? Neither Aaron nor Rosemary know for certain. It may be simply that they are being given a breather or that no significant hunts have been called in their region. But neither of them believes that. So, when they are sent to a town just outside of Boston with orders to investigate suspicious activity carefully, the Harkers suspect that it is a test. Particularly since the hunt involves a member of the benefactors, wealthy individuals who donate money to the Huntsmen in exchange for certain special privileges and protections. If they screw this up…at best, they’ll be out of favor, reduced to a life of minor hunts and “clean up” for other Huntsmen. At worst, they will be removed from the ranks, their stipend gone—and Botheration, their Hound, taken from them. They can’t afford to screw this up. But what seems like a simple enough hunt—find the uncanny that attacked a man in his office and sent him into a sleep-like state—soon becomes far more complicated as more seemingly unrelated attacks occur. The Harkers must race to find what is shadowing them, before the uncanny strikes again, and sleep turns into murder—and the Huntsmen decide that they have been compromised beyond repair. But their quarry may not be the only uncanny in town. Botheration and Aaron both sense something else, something shadowing them. Something old, dangerous…and fey.

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years. This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.