The Twelve Dragons of Albion

by Mark Hayden

  ‘It’s Adaryn. You call me Adaryn Owain, in accordance.’

  ‘You’re Anathema. I can call you what I want, you blowsy tart, and no, this deal’s off the table.’

  Adaryn went red and blotchy all over her exposed arms and chest. She also surged forward and made a grab for the envelope. ‘Give that here, you horse-faced pikey.’

  It was important that Adaryn didn’t actually seize the envelope, and I didn’t want Vicky to lose a fight, so… ‘Captain Robson! Enough!’

  Both women backed off. Adaryn was wound up, yes, but Vicky was a coiled spring wound right to breaking point. If she didn’t get the next bit right…

  ‘Captain Robson, these are not our papers to give or withhold. We’re only the messengers.’

  ‘Sir!’ That’s my girl. Vicky performed the penultimate act of our plan by pulling the papers out of the envelope. They had to be accepted openly…

  ‘Adaryn Owain,’ she spat. ‘Do you accept these documents?’

  Adaryn’s internal alarm bells should have rung loudly at that point. They didn’t. She took the papers from Vicky with a disdainful, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Read them through,’ I said. ‘We’ll be outside.’

  We waited until we were in the hall before we high-fived, and waited until we were shod and lurking outside before we spoke.

  ‘Well done, Vicky. I don’t know how…’

  Vicky was in tears. ‘The bitch. The moon-faced fucking cow. Fuck her. Fuck all the Welsh sheep-shagging bitches.’

  ‘Here. Have a cigarette.’

  She breathed out and closed her eyes, then shook her head at my offer. I lit up anyway. The dinner at Usk View last Friday had been very pleasant: just us, two guests and the hosts. At one point, Vicky had mentioned that her mother was a second generation settled traveller who had broken with her family when she left her husband to escape domestic violence. That tidbit had gone straight from Clara to Adaryn and been turned into an insult. I hoped I never got to see Vicky that upset again.

  ‘How long shall we give her?’ asked Vicky, forcing herself to get back on track.

  ‘If she hasn’t just dumped them on the couch, she should be coming back around now.’

  The heavy door was open a fraction, and if Adaryn had worn the heels to go with her dress, we’d have heard her coming across the slate tiles. Instead, the door was flung back and the papers waved in our faces.

  ‘What the fuck is this? Which one of you came up with this idea?’

  ‘Him,’ said Vicky. ‘You should have slept with him when you had the chance. He’s ever-so nice to his exes.’

  ‘Conrad, come back here and explain this. Leave the poodle outside.’

  I turned my back on the door. ‘Fancy a coffee, Vic? I brought a flask.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Fine. Both of you come in.’

  We stepped back inside. ‘I think coffee really is a good idea,’ I said to Vicky. ‘Would you mind finding the kitchen while I go through the legal niceties?’

  ‘Just this once.’

  I told Adaryn where Vicky was going. She gave a nod of assent and pointed to a pair of couches flanking a coffee table. I sat down and weighed her up: she wasn’t ready to absorb the contents of those papers yet.

  ‘Tell me. How did you end up at a girls’ school in Gloucester rather than with the Druids?’

  ‘Chapel,’ she said, bitterly. She blinked at me and came to a decision: she was going to talk. Whether that was because I knew her as she was, or because she was going to turn on the charm again, I don’t know. She kicked off her slippers and drew her feet on to the couch, settling the dress around herself.

  ‘I never knew my Dad, and my Mam should never have been a mother, or not at that age. By the time I was five, I was with my Gran and Mam was off the rails completely.’ She looked at a picture in the far corner of the room, looking into the past. ‘It’s a cliché, and all that, but it’s still true. Apart from keeping me safe, Gran did me two favours. First, she put me in the only Welsh speaking school around, and second, she didn’t take me to a psychiatrist when I started hearing the voices.’

  ‘Oh? Is that common?’

  She turned back to me and made scare quotes with her fingers. ‘“The link between schizophrenia and magick is tenuous, but it does exist.” That’s what the Minister said. Gran was the last of the fierce Chapel generation, which probably explains why my Mam turned out like she did. I was always musical, Conrad, and I was in all sorts of choirs. One day, I heard a different voice singing in my head, and I joined in. The next thing I know, I’m in front of the Minister and his friend, trying to explain myself. The Minister’s friend thought I had a Gift, and both of them knew about the Druids. They also hated them.’

  ‘You know I’m still the newbie in this game, don’t you? I still don’t even know what happens to Roman Catholics, never mind Methodists.’

  ‘Baptists. Gran was a Baptist. They’re all signed up with the Invisible College, have been since the 1820s. I was taken to Salomon’s House, assessed, and offered a scholarship to that school in Gloucester. It was the nearest sanctuary school to Wales. Some fucking sanctuary.’

  I cast my mind back to the summer after Pirates of Penzance. ‘You left, didn’t you? You didn’t stay for sixth form.’

  ‘No chance. Have you any idea what it was like to be the scholarship girl from Cardiff Docks? The one with no father and a tart for a mother? The only thing that stopped me topping myself was the music and magick teacher who arrived when I was fourteen. She was brilliant, and she was Welsh. Before she turned up, all I’d learnt was how to detect Lux and open locks.’

  ‘That’s just about all I’ve learnt, too.’

  ‘Are you really that rubbish? You can’t be that bad if they’ve made you a Witchfinder.’

  ‘Yes I can, I just happen to have powerful friends, one of whom has one eye and lives in Asgard.’

  ‘So I hear. Are you two still…?’

  ‘Not at the moment, but we’ve got each other on speed-dial.’

  She laughed. ‘What a thought. Tread carefully with that one.’

  ‘I will. Did you turn me down because I had no magick?’ In the background, Vicky emerged from a door, carrying a tray. She stopped to listen.

  ‘You weren’t my type at the time,’ said Adaryn. ‘Margaret – the music teacher – was a raging lesbian. That’s what she called herself, by the way: raging lesbian. Lesbian in a rage. I sort of followed her lead for a while. It kept me away from boys like you.’

  My eyebrows furrowed. ‘She didn’t abuse you, did she?’

  ‘Just because she was gay? You should know better than that, Conrad. She took me, in flagrant breach of the rules, to a Druid gathering that Christmas, just after Pirates. I never looked back from that moment. In the summer, I left school, changed my name and reinvented myself. The rest is history, mostly engraved on trophies at the Druidic Eisteddfod.’

  Vicky took that as her cue to rattle the tray. She brought it over and passed out cups, pointedly not asking Adaryn if she wanted milk or sugar. The Bard took neither, and sat up again.

  ‘Tell me this is a joke, Conrad. I didn’t get far, but this looks like a writ for damages. What’s going on?’

  ‘That’s exactly what it is: MADOC are suing you. Because you’re Anathema, you can’t be tried for embezzlement, but you’re still liable for damages in court. They’re suing you for all the Alchemical Gold you stole from MADOC, and they’ve petitioned the court to make over those debts with Clan Farchnadd to you as well. The Druid Council, despite the Welsh Petition, still recognises the Cloister Court. I said I’d arrange a special sitting, with a Welsh Judge, if necessary. You’ll cop the lot, Adaryn. They’ll hang every ounce round your neck.’

  ‘It wasn’t just me!’

  ‘On paper, it was. If you want to sue Gwyddno and the others in their turn, you’re more than welcome.’

  Vicky spoke up. ‘What did you know about Gwen?’

  ‘You mean Guineve
re, as in the twins? What are you on about? And where the hell are they? I can’t find out a thing about them.’

  ‘They’re safe. What do you know about them?’

  She looked genuinely confused. ‘Gwen’s a nice kid, lovely voice. I don’t do lessons, but I made sure she had a good teacher, and I’ve brought her along to all my masterclasses. Obviously, we won’t know if she’s going to be a Bard until she matures.’ Vicky and I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Why? What’s the problem?’

  We’d discussed this, and decided that if Adaryn was ignorant, she should stay that way. On the off-chance that the twins returned to Wales, they had a right to their biological privacy. It also made Adaryn much less complicit in Surwen’s evil acts.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Back to business. You’ve done very well for yourself, Adaryn. I’m impressed, and I’d love to hear you play that harp one day, but…’

  ‘We’re here as officers of the Court, as well as of the Watch,’ said Vicky. ‘We can take you into custody if we think you might flee the jurisdiction.’

  Her face turned down. ‘Did you to rehearse this?’

  ‘No. We’re just partners, that’s all, and your associate tried to kill us on Saturday.’

  She looked from me to Vicky. ‘Yet you’re still sitting here. Why do I think this isn’t over?’

  ‘Because the fat lady hasn’t sung, yet,’ said Vicky.

  ‘Body confident, Vicky, not fat. And she’s neither, anyway.’ I took a deep breath. ‘First, Adaryn, I want to make it clear that any deal we do is dependent on you helping us find the Dragon. If I discover you’ve left anything out, the deal’s off, and that goes retrospectively. Clear?’

  ‘Abundantly.’

  ‘Vicky? Show her the goods.’

  My partner dug out the Egyptian Tube from her pocket. Adaryn recognised it straight away. ‘We rescued this from the Lions,’ said Vicky. ‘And it’s not in our report. If you co-operate, we’ll say that it was yours, and that you surrendered it to the Court voluntarily, as security against your debts.’

  Her eyes widened, and didn’t leave the manuscript container. ‘But that’s worth a fortune. Why? Why haven’t you handed it in? Or kept it?’

  ‘Because I’m willing to bend the rules, not break them,’ I responded. ‘That scroll should be in the Esoteric Library, and if they have to pay for it, they can afford it. We’ll get the Dragon, you won’t be ruined for ever and the secret of the Lions can be guarded. All in all, a win-win-win, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I want it sealed now, before I say anything.’

  ‘No dice, Adaryn. I said this was retrospective. If you deal fairly, we’ll seal the deal when we’ve found the Dragon, not before. You’ll just have to trust us.’

  ‘Drink to it.’

  I looked at Vicky; she nodded, then said, ‘Not whisky. I’ll have gin.’

  Adaryn rose from the couch. ‘You do have some taste then. I’ll get the drinks.’

  She paused to check her phone again. It looked like more bad news, and whatever it was, it made her determined to get on with it. She rapidly poured three neat drinks and thumped them on the table.

  ‘A deal’s a deal,’ she said. We echoed her and drank off a measure.

  ‘Tell me about the operation,’ I said. ‘Just tell the story and we’ll ask questions.’

  ‘All right. It was in three parts, and we’re up to stage three. I found the manuscripts for dealing with the Lions of Carthage, for the location of the eggs and for summoning VOLAC. Surwen did that stupid thing with the mole, but it didn’t work, so we got help de-coding the cipher. Once we’d got the egg, Surwen got into the Nest and penned up the Lions, Gwyddno summoned the Dæmon and Myfanwy looked after the egg until it hatched. We moved the Hatchling straight away, and that was the end of Surwen and Gwyddno’s involvement. Surwen said that she had stuff she wanted to do in the Nest.’

  Vicky and I exchanged glances. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘Iorwen – you know she’s an artificer, right?’ We nodded. ‘She made a cage to transport the Hatchling, and she’d sorted a cave somewhere for it to grow. She and Myfanwy have been looking after it. Iorwen’s also been making the spear and shield.’

  We looked lost at that, and Adaryn knew that she’d come to the end of our knowledge. She took another drink. ‘Three of us, me, Iorwen and Rhein, are the only ones who know the full plan, and we made sure it stayed that way. Myfanwy thinks we’re going to let the bloody thing loose, you know. She wants Dragons to take their place in the “Original Ecosystem of Albion.” It was her who gave it the name Welshfire. Bloody tree-hugger. Surwen and Gwyddno knew that it was going to die, but not how.’

  It was a shock to hear one Druid calling another Bloody tree-hugger, but there you go. ‘How is it going to die?’

  ‘I wanted the Royal Commission set up, with me on it. It would have catapulted me on to the top table of the Druid Council in one move. That was my price. Iorwen was different, she did it for her son.’

  ‘Her son? No one said anything about them being related.’

  ‘Rhein. He doesn’t call her Mummy, but she’s his mother. She wanted him to be the first Dragonslayer in a hundred generations, and I was going to propose he be named Warleader of the Druids. We haven’t had one since the Romans. To do that, Iorwen is making a Dragonspear and Dragonshield. You wouldn’t take on the Dragon without them.’

  Vicky smiled. ‘Conrad wants to use a nuclear warhead.’

  ‘God, man, are you insane?’ said Adaryn. I said nothing. ‘I suppose it would work… Anyway, Welshfire is in a nursery cave.’

  ‘What’s a nursery cave?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘What do you know about Dragons? Or more to the point, where did you get it from?’

  Vicky named the compendium that Desirée had been studying. Adaryn shook her head. ‘Barely scratches the surface. Not that I’m an expert, or anything, and the real expert is no longer with us. Everything I learnt, I learnt from Surwen. As did the others.’

  A horrible thought struck me. ‘She didn’t interfere with Welshfire, did she?’

  ‘No. Too dangerous, she said. In a way, I’m glad she’s gone – I’m fairly certain she would have had a go with the next one.’

  ‘Small mercies, I suppose. Go on.’

  ‘A Dragon goes through three stages: Hatchling, Wyrm and mature. A Hatchling has no fire and a Wyrm has no wings. When it can fly, it’s considered mature. You probably knew that.’

  ‘We knew it had to spend time underground. We didn’t know about the Wyrm part.’

  ‘That’s because it doesn’t last long. You’ve seen the blocked up tunnel in the Nest? When an egg is quickened, that tunnel should be filled with specially prepared firewood. The Wyrm has to burn its way out. Once it’s loose, it hunts around the area until its wings are fully formed. That’s when they’re hunted – before they can fly. That’s what Rhein is going to do.’

  ‘Tell me you’re joking,’ said Vicky.

  ‘I agree with my partner: letting a fire-breathing monster loose on the countryside is the worst idea I’ve heard in years.’

  Adaryn shrugged. ‘Part of the deal. Put it this way, I wasn’t planning to watch. You’re a Chymist, Captain Robson. What do you know about Aristotelian elements in magick?’

  ‘I know a fair bit. Conrad here knows nothing.’ She spoke to me. ‘It’s all about Earth, Air, Fire and Water, but more than that: there’s Hot, Cold, Dry and Wet, too. It’s all been replaced by Quantum Magick these days, which is why it’s in the history section of the Occult Curriculum.’

  ‘Another small mercy,’ I said. ‘Please don’t tell me we’re in for a long explanation.’

  ‘Dragons are ancient,’ said Adaryn. ‘Their very nature is bound up with the Elements. A Dragon is beyond heat – its nature is pure Fire, and that’s its weakness. A shield or weapon of pure Cold will be immune to Dragonfire. Up to a point.’

  ‘Those aren’t the sort of odds I’d go into battle with,’ I said. ‘I normally pref
er better than up to a point.’

  ‘The Wyrmhunt is as much a rite of passage for the Dragon as the hunters. In history, a whole group of young Druids would take part in the hunt. They’d give the Wyrm time to escape and to feed. The hunt could last for days, and it was common for the Dragon to survive and for most of the Druids to die. Dragons would be extinct if they didn’t have a chance – and they’re intelligent. They wouldn’t play along if the odds were stacked against them.’

  Vicky was bug-eyed. ‘That’s tantamount to suicide for the hunters.’

  ‘Yet they still find volunteers for suicide bombings,’ I chipped in. ‘In most of history in most of the world, the life of young men has been cheap. In some places, it still is.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Adaryn. ‘Iorwen doesn’t feel that way, though, especially when it comes to her son. She’s going to stack the odds against Welshfire. According to Surwen, that is. Rhein knows nothing about it. He thinks it’s going to be a fair fight.’

  Mothers and their magickal children. Again. ‘What’s she going to do?’

  ‘Release it early, before it’s fully grown. It should take days to burn through the stack of wood in the tunnel. According to Surwen, they’ve only ordered enough for a few hours.’

  ‘Ordered?’ I said. ‘They’ve bought it?’

  ‘Two trailer loads of fresh pine trunks.’ There was an air of defeat about her now; she’d just given us the piece of intelligence she’d been squirreling away.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Iorwen made a joke of it. They bought the wood from Dragon Forestry Products.’

  ‘Do you know anything else?’

  She shook her head. I believed her and stood up. ‘We’re going to lodge the Julius manuscript with Rick James,’ I said. ‘In a sealed box, of course. He’ll have instructions to give it to you if something happens to us. Here’s the Keyway.’ I placed a strip of metal on the table.

  She nodded. ‘Thank you. I did wonder how you’d keep your side of the deal if you’d been fried or kebabed.’

  ‘I don’t plan to be either, Adaryn. Could we use your bathroom before we go?’

  ‘There’s one off the hall.’