The Winter Oak

by James A. Hetley

  "Oh, you can ride this horse clear to Glastonbury Tor on a fine spring night, mo croí. It's sound enough." She shrugged. "Hey, maybe I'm helping you because you and I are the only two men in this nest of de-balled worms. Maybe I hate Duncan, and you're my way to knock him off the ladder and climb past his perch through the glass ceiling of our Old Boy network. Maybe I'm as pissed and disgusted about slaves at Castle Corbin as you are." She turned and grinned an evil caprice, a face and body as expressive as any mime. "And maybe the answer is D, none of the above."

  Or maybe it was E, all of the above. Brian's head spun. A lifetime of small-unit tactics left him totally unprepared for the murky long-term strategies necessary for survival in this treacherous inner circle. Maureen might fit in, with her convoluted chess gambits and deeply hidden goals. Or Fiona, all malice and deceit.

  Dierdre sure fit.

  He pushed himself to his feet, still testing muscles and bones and tendons, still regaining his balance. His creaks and groans whispered between stone arches, and he hoped that only two pairs of ears were listening to the echoes of this surreal conversation. The shadows could hide an army.

  She laughed at his searching eyes, an innocent chuckle totally out of character. "Don't worry, Brian. This is the only part of the whole keep free from spy holes and secret passages for listeners. They took confession seriously when it was built, and they all had serious sins to confess. Nobody wanted eavesdroppers."

  And she, of course had checked that. In detail. Or she was lying, and didn't care who heard. With Dierdre, you could never tell for sure. She wouldn't offer a handhold you could grab.

  "Six. Joseph's Throne, in Glastonbury, and the cellar under Dougal's keep. Any idea of where the others are?"

  "Glastonbury and here are the only ones the Order admits to, on the record. Now you've told me where another lies. Llewes may know more, but he's not tellin'. I think the rest each opened into another land, four other worlds. There's no way left of checking. Old Merlinus Ambrosius made sure of that."

  Brian felt a cold pit open in his stomach. "Merlin? He set this up?"

  Dierdre's smile turned wry. "Not in building and powering the star. That goes back long before the Romans and the Picts, even, much less Christianity. No, our nasty little founder just buggered the heathen game. He always was better at destruction than creation. Glastonbury's the only door left open."

  That sounded like what the Order's records said of Merlin, a much . . . darker . . . figure than White's absent-minded bumbler. The old wizard had been too sure that his cause was right. If he couldn't control something, he'd break it so that no one else could use it as a weapon against him and his cause. The same went for people, too.

  "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." That was Dierdre all over, answering his thoughts rather than his words. No wonder she could ride the twisting winds of this inner Circle like a hawk. "Merlin was the first Utilitarian philosopher. The greatest good for the greatest number. The end justifies the means. That's the Pendragons, my little chickadee. We are the vision our founder dreamed."

  His head spun. He couldn't keep up with the dance -- the trip through strange doors to this place, finding rot in the heart of the Pendragons, finding Dierdre as an ally. Dierdre, for God's sake. The worst aspect of the Pendragons turned out to be the face of his only friend in this dark swamp.

  She was guiding him again, that firm hold on his shoulder just caressing the nerves. He found himself wondering how she was with a lover, turning her knowledge of the body into a system of pleasure rather than pain. Or was interrogation her whole sex life? Or vice-versa?

  They turned aside into the gloom of the left transept, and she aimed him straight at shadow. Dead black opened at his feet, she nudged him, and his toes felt their way onto a spiral stair down into damp darkness. Down, down, around, around, cold stone beneath and to each side, steep and narrow and no handrails, he groped until he saw a flicker of yellow ahead that grew into an oil lamp in a wall niche. Some kind of crypt or catacomb opened from the stair, leading straight out from the last steps.

  Catacomb or columbarium, deep niches to either side filled with musty dusty bones, air thick with the soot of oil lamps. Multiple skulls in each niche, generations and centuries of burials piled one upon another. She nudged him forward again. They passed cross-corridors and more blocks of niches, shadows and shadows and shadows between the far-spaced lamps, until they reached the end of their main corridor and a small shrine flanked by more votive candles.

  The light glittered on a reliquary, silver or gold, he couldn't tell in the yellow glow. It was old work, old beyond old, none of that Cellini baroque down here. It housed a skull, shiny with much handling and streaked green with the dripped minerals of long centuries underground.

  "Giuseppe Verdi," she offered, from behind him.

  "Huh?" She was still keeping him off-balance.

  "Joe Green. Supposed to be Joseph of Arimathea, although I have my doubts. Touch him. Hold both hands on his bones, long enough to say three 'Our Fathers.' It's another of Merlin's little safeguards."

  Brian did as he was told. She knew what worked here. He had to trust, untrustworthy as she seemed. The bone felt warm under his hands, almost as warm as if he touched a living head, and the surface was slightly damp. He could feel it as skin if he half tried.

  And it throbbed as if he imagined a pulse.

  ". . . for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen." She turned him. "It's the timing, not the words. I tried it once, by the watch. Safer to use the long form. I'm guessing our ancestors were less glib. That was after I found out that the language didn't matter. And you have to use both hands. Merlin didn't cut any slack for a one-handed knight, or even temporary injuries."

  That was Dierdre, always poking, always testing limits. They strolled back past the musty dusty bones. Some of the niches showed traces of worn carving, as if they'd originally had epitaphs or at least names chiseled above the bones. Or below. He couldn't tell which level the traces labeled.

  "Anyway, if you don't lay your hands on Giuseppe first, the labyrinth refuses to take you back to Glastonbury. And a bell rings, up in the chapel tower, bringing rude people with sharp blades to ask who you are and what you're doing and whether you belong. I'm one of them. Merlin didn't trust anybody."

  They came to the bottom of the stair, barely visible in the flickering lamplight, and climbed back into shadow. "One other empirical observation: you have to go directly from here to the labyrinth. Can't clear customs with Joe and then wander around for a day and a day, stealing the crown jewels or assassinating slimy bastards like me, and then just bounce back out again. The limit is something like fifteen minutes, although it seems to vary. Once it refused me after ten."

  She was giving him a mission briefing, in her own peculiar way. She really did mean to let him go.

  That was, if she wasn't just playing with her mouse. With Dierdre, you never could be sure.

  They spiraled up into the transept. Dierdre turned aside into another shadow, returned, and slapped a shadow into his right hand. His fingers recognized the weight and balance of a kukri, heavy and cold and familiar.

  "There'll be guards in Glastonbury. One at the labyrinth and one at the tunnel entrance, and they'll not be looking for someone to come out who never should have gone in. I'm sure you'll come up with a solution."

  Queasy feeling. Brian wondered if he'd know the men he'd have to kill. If he'd trained with them, served with them, bled with them, if they'd guarded his back in deadly shadows or paid for a round of drinks at his last promotion party. But if they served the Circle . . .

  "And they'll be looking to kill you, once they hear. Before you came here, the Circle wanted to ask you a few questions. Now you'll be 'Shoot on sight.' Every Pendragon, everywhere. Including me."

  She stopped in front of the altar, back to him, and slipped something from her pocket. "This is the point where someone hits me from behind. Treachery insid
e Castle Corbin, the hidden hand. Brian Albion has an unknown ally. How hard is up to you."

  Sweet Jesu, the woman had brass balls. Torture him, say she would be hunting him, and then give him a free shot at killing her? And with her reputation, he had to do more than just a simple knockout to make it credible.

  He tucked the kukri into his belt, stepped forward, and scissored her neck with double knife-hand strikes. She slumped and spun away from his kick to the knee, but he followed up once, twice, three times, feet and hands and elbows, her own training that taught you never stopped until your opponent was down and out with a finisher after he lay still.

  He checked the body twisted on the floor, blood flowing from her mouth or nose and one ear. She had a pulse. He let her keep it. The strikes he'd used, a human would be dead or in hospital for months. Between her training and the Old Blood, she'd be fit to fight again within a week.

  Her hand had opened, and something glinted from the floor -- a button, attached to a shred of blue cloth. He knelt close, not touching it. A metal button, probably brass, with Duncan's family crest.

  He left it.

  He straightened up and took a couple of limping steps. She'd still managed to get in a shot or two, going down. Amazing. His left leg -- he'd swear she was already out cold when that kick caught him. It'd cost her a broken ankle from his own reflex trap and twist.

  His hands hurt. Damned woman had a hard skull. And she hadn't told him where the labyrinth hid. She'd used up at least five of the ten minutes he could count on, to find it and walk it and escape. Just like Dierdre, to set him another test. He looked around.

  Shouts echoed out in the corridor, and he heard the latch clicking. The door thumped instead of opening. Dierdre had set a bar across it. With this lot, that might hold a minute, maybe two.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Khe'sha sniffed the dark witch again. She smelled of treachery and lies. She smelled of machines and lightning, of strange unnatural liquids and acrid powders and herbs that could kill or heal. She smelled, faintly, of Shen, but she'd explained that by her scouting of the stone tower on the hill.

  {I do not trust you.}

  Treachery and lies made dangerous weapons, teeth sharp on both ends that sank into your own jaw when you tore your prey. You used them sparingly, and only when necessary. But this witch never told the truth unless it served her better than a lie. She probably even lied to herself, when it served her purpose.

  She stood within biting range now, and he could settle that question with a quick lunge and snap of his jaws. She rested her hands on the fat bulge of her belly, standing calm under his nose, and smiled up at him. She must be defended, to act so confident.

  "And I don't trust you either, love. But you need me, and I need you, and neither of us will get what we want if we don't work together."

  {I must not leave the nestlings.} Even revenge couldn't break that duty. Sha'khe lived in them. He saw his dead mate in the line of one's snout, the infant crest of another, the iridescent scale-patterns of a third. Even so fresh from the egg, Sha'khe lived in them.

  The witch looked puzzled. "The tower threatens all of them. Your enemies killed your mate. They stole your hatchling. Don't you think they'll kill you, when it serves their purpose? Don't you think they'll use what they learn from Shen against you and against your nestlings? Why else would they steal her?"

  Khe'sha couldn't remember telling the dark one of Shen's name, only of his rage at the sneak thief. But he must have mentioned her name and sex. And the witch was right. The tower threatened all his hatchlings. If they had stolen one, they could steal the rest. If they killed Sha'khe, they could kill him.

  "When you attack the keep, you defend your nest." She echoed his thoughts.

  But the world was hungry, with teeth and claws everywhere. He must not tell this witch too much; she would have power over him. {If I leave the nests untended for long, I will find nothing left to defend when I return.}

  She cocked her head to one side, studying him. "And what besides the tower would be a danger to you? I've seen those little dragons, seen their teeth. There's nothing in this swamp would threaten them."

  And then she paused, running one finger over her cheek, and smiled. "Ah. I see, love. Those teeth. And I'd wondered why you set the mounds so far apart. Ah, but they must run you ragged."

  Her mind was too quick for him, and she had learned too much. Now he could tie a smell with that watching shadow in the mists. Rage flashed through him, burning hot. Khe'sha gathered his muscles for the lunge.

  * * *

  He blinked. He looked up. Up, into the dark witch's face. His chin pressed into cold muck at the swamp's edge. If he could read Old One expressions right, her face looked amused. Amused, and mocking.

  "So Brian was right."

  {?}

  "Old family history, love. Brian guessed that he could stun a dragon. He was right."

  Khe'sha tested one toe, stirring the muck on the swamp bottom. His foot moved -- awkward and twitching, but it moved. He'd eaten a dozen Old Ones, maybe more. None had ever shown this Power. Her strength swelled with her belly, just as she had said. Between them, they could destroy the tower.

  But this witch knew far too much. His rage still burned. He thrust against the mud and twisted his head for the killing bite.

  * * *

  "Don't try that again, love. The next time, you won't wake up."

  He opened one eye, bleary, and focused on the shape in front of him. She looked paler than before, and her eyes squinted as if the bright sun hurt her head. And he smelled her sweat, acrid and tinged with the hatchling in her belly.

  {I . . . must . . . protect . . . nests.}

  "You won't do it that way. You waste our time and my Power by even trying."

  He measured the way she stood, swaying slightly, the way her hands cradled her unhatched young. He sniffed her again, finding weakness on the breeze.

  {I doubt if you have the strength left to kill me.}

  "Ah, but do you dare take the chance? What if my threat isn't empty? Where does that leave your little cannibals? And if I can't trust you as an ally, why should I let them live to match your strength? If I have to kill you, I promise I'll kill them."

  She swiped hair out of her eyes and flipped it back, holding her head higher. Already her color had returned, and her eyes brightened. Each breath gave her more of her strength back, while his legs still tingled and he could not feel his toes. She was right. He did not dare attack again.

  {I must not leave the nests unguarded.}

  "Then we have a problem, love. I've counted on you as part of my attack. You'd said we have a common cause." She looked thoughtful, but he sensed that each step and word followed a plan she'd practiced.

  Twisted and untrustworthy and very cunning. And strong. He'd have a better chance to eat her after she had spent herself, destroying the keep. After her hatchling breathed air. So they had to come up with a way . . .

  {Can you witch the hatchlings to sleep until I return?}

  She appeared to think. "Do you want that, precisely that? That they will sleep until you wake them?"

  He grunted. He saw too many traps, too many forkings to the path. He could die attacking the tower, or she could kill him after as he intended to kill her. If he never returned to the nest mounds . . .

  If they woke without him guarding, some would survive. The strongest, as the songs had always told.

  {To sleep a night and a night.} In that time, the tower would fall and he would live and return, or die.

  She ran a finger along her jaw, thinking again. Or appearing to think. "I believe I can do that, love. Remember, spells can be tricky things. They work differently on different species. Sometimes an Old One will be far stronger than the rest, barely affected by an attack that would leave others sleeping for a hundred years." She paused and smiled, as if remembering one particular savory meal.

  "Even working with humans, one will wake up hours or days before another.
One might not wake up at all, if the heart is weak or something else goes wrong. And I can't steal practice dragons from a lab supply warehouse. I'll have to get it right, first go. Are you prepared to risk that, or do I kill you now and change my plans?"

  She was lying about something. He could smell it on her. But she wasn't lying about killing him. She'd try, if he didn't agree. He didn't dare find out whether she would succeed.

  {Do you need to touch your prey?}

  She laughed. "Prey, love? I don't eat lizards and snakes. I often don't eat meat at all. It's bad for working certain kinds of spells. But I'll need to be within a fathom or less, if I'm to judge my Power closely."

  A small boat glided into view, empty, brown and vague against the water and the weeds, narrow and double-ended. She stepped into it, ripples spreading out across mirrored sky, picked up a leaf-shaped paddle, and settled to her knees.

  "Lead on, my noble ally. And you'd best hope that none of your ravenous little terrors attack me. I'll not be held responsible for actions taken in haste."

  He smelled a touch of fear in her voice. If she feared the hatchlings, she knew far too much about the ways of dragons. Perhaps Shen was not in that tower on the hill . . . .

  But the keep still hid his enemies. He must complete the song of Sha'khe, which could end only with revenge.

  "I asked you to lead, love. I'm not letting you behind my back. Stay a length away from me and stay on the surface. I've watched how you hunt."

  And she would kill the hatchlings, Ghu and Po and the rest. The threat froze his rage. Sha'khe lived in them.

  He remembered the wisdom and patience of Pan'gu. A wise dragon eats his enemies one at a time. The dark witch would be weaker after fighting the tower, after her belly lay empty and flat again. He must wait.

  He led. He swam at full speed, hoping the waves of his wake would distract her, even swamp the boat she'd conjured out of the mists. He reached Liu's mound and stopped abruptly, digging his claws into the deep muck, hoping the dark witch would turn careless and overrun him in her speed. Neither trick worked. Although she paddled delicately, gracefully, the boat seemed to move independent of her actions. It matched his speed, never bobbing or swerving, and stopped a dragon's length away from him.