The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy)

by Janzen, Tara

  Rhuddlan was not so easily dissuaded. “We head north this night. Let us take her with us and soon enough I can tell you if she can hold her place in the gates of time. I will even put Lavrans by her side to better her chances.”

  “Dain is not Nemeton,” she said coldly, liking not the turn of the conversation. She would countenance no union between Dain and the maid, least of all as part of the sacred trinity of man and woman—who truly were one—tylwyth teg, and the cosmos.

  “Neither are you Nemeton,” Rhuddlan replied. “We need a key, and many of the Quicken-tree think Lavrans is the key to breaking the seal on the maze, especially if he has the maid’s help.”

  “Then you have made him into something he is not.” Anger sharpened her voice, an anger born of fear. She and the Quicken-tree needed each other. They could not win if they were at cross purposes. “Dain is a charlatan. He plays at being a sorcerer. He plays at knowing magic. The villagers and castle folk of Wydehaw take great pleasure in believing in his charms, but his conjuring is no more than masterful trickery. He knows this and would be the first to tell you it is so.”

  “And I tell you he has the gift of deep sight that the maid lacks. I would end this exile, Moriath, and see Yr Is-ddwfn once more.”

  Madron bit back a rejoinder. She and Rhuddlan always argued. They had been arguing for fifteen years, ever since she’d left him for the last time. “There is more at stake here than the opening of the maze,” she said with forced calm. “What good is opening it if you can’t hold it? And you can’t hold it without also holding Carn Merioneth, a matter easily accomplished by a marriage the Prince of Gwynedd himself has sanctioned, and near impossible to accomplish any other way. Or would you go to the west and abandon all who are here?”

  “I would not abandon man. ’Tis the duty of the tylwyth teg to be the bridge ’tween men and their gods. But with the maze open, we would have the pryf on our side.”

  “To what end?” she asked, finally shocked out of her feigned calm. “They are not battering rams or warhorses.” Whatever in the world was he thinking? “You cannot do battle with pryf, nor with Ddrei Goch and Ddrei Glas. They are not there to serve us. We are here to protect and serve them.”

  “And we are none of us here to serve Welsh princes and English lords. Yet you would do both before you would serve me.” His face grew harsh in the firelight, reminding her of all that was unfinished between them.

  “I owe you much, Rhuddlan—”

  “As much as you owe the damned Sheriff of Hay-on-Wye?” he demanded, pointing at the toothed and clawed bearskin.

  “He gets naught from me but potions.”

  “And I get naught but cold gratitude.”

  She turned away in frustration and set about her business. In truth, her gratitude was not cold, at least not nearly cold enough. He had been her first man, her only man. Though others had tried to win her favors—or steal them, as had been the case with the lord of Carn Merioneth —none but Rhuddlan had ever held her heart. He tempted her so, but within that temptation lay her destruction. To be Rhuddlan’s woman was to not be her own, a price she would not pay.

  “After Ceridwen is married,” she said, keeping her voice steady, “we will have a ceremony in the caves and all will be set aright. You will be a keeper of dragons once more.”

  “And you?”

  “I?” Using the tip of the athame blade, she withdrew a small amount of fine black powder from the jar and cast it over the flames. Blue-and-white smoke roiled up and turned in upon itself “I will become what my father was, a watcher of the doorway of time.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Ceridwen smelled sweet, rich earth and felt warmth rolling over her body in waves. Her world had turned into one of blue-and-white mists, but it seemed not to matter. Moisture in the air beaded on her skin and tasted of salt.

  “She rouses,” a man said, and his voice was clear like spring winds.

  A woman’s voice came to her next. “Welcome, daughter of Rhiannon. Daughter of Teleri, daughter of Mair...”

  She turned toward the warmth of the fair sounds and let the lilting music caress her skin, let the melodies of the names slip into her veins.

  “Daughter of Nessa, daughter of Esyllt...”

  A face formed in the mist, one of soft curves, green eyes, and long, flowing auburn hair. White arms trailing diaphanous wisps of violet cloth reached for her through the fog, beckoning. Moriath. Ceridwen smiled. She was safe with Moriath.

  “Daughter of Heledd, daughter of Celemon...”

  The face grew old, the eyes became wise, and all disappeared. Another face took its place, a face formed in fire with devouring flames for hair and a terrifying fury upon its features. Ceridwen felt the heat grow unbearable, felt her heart beat faster. The fire-woman loomed larger, her hair burning holes in the fog and licking at the sky.

  “Daughter of Arianrod...”

  Then it began to rain. The fury was washed away and the fire-woman’s own tears extinguished her flames. Out of the tears a water-woman was born, her hair like a cool running river, her eyes like the ocean below the waves, calm and untouched by the storms passing through time.

  Time.

  “Daughter of Don, Mother Goddess of us all, called Danu, Dana of the light, Domnu of darkness, she who has the earth as her womb and the sun as her heart. She whose tides pull with the moon, whose limbs spread wide to hold the stars. We are all children of the one who came before. Listen, child, to your mother.”

  Earth.

  Deeper than she’d ever been, and lost. The hushed sounds of continuous movement drew her onward, down and down, through tunnels bored smooth. Ahead of her, a cavern entrance glowed with a grayish-green light. She approached the opening with a sense of wonder in her heart and an elusive word playing upon her lips. She tried to speak the word, to make a sound... a soft sound from inside, and though her mouth formed the word, she couldn’t hear the soft sound. Yet a veil was pulled aside, and she looked into the cavern. All was well in the pryf nest, and she knew that as butterflies- gave birth to caterpillars, dragons first gave birth to pryf. There were always more pryf than dragons, for they were the makers and keepers of the tunnels. Farther along the tunnel, much farther, another cavern appeared, and with the shape of the word in and upon her mouth, she looked inside to find the dragon nest empty.

  ’Twas time to call them home.

  Deeper still, the smell of brine cut through the rich pryf scent. With the sea smell came the sound of thundering waves, of water ebbing and flowing, ever on the move in the sweeping curves of currents, and upon the shore of Mor Sarff, the subterranean ocean, were the bones of her childhood, dragon bones.

  “Thrice they come upon the land, to be born, to spawn, and to die.”

  The words were her mother’s and clear in her mind. The knowledge was hers. This was what Rhiannon’s child had been born to do: to call the dragons home to spawn and later to die, and to send the young dragons out to the deep beyond, where the rolling of their mighty bodies would churn the tides and keep the Moon coming back to the Sun, and the seasons of the Earth turning one upon the other.

  She made to leave, to return to the blue-white mists, when the sound of a voice raised in full battle cry drew her head around. She looked to the caves carved deep into the cliffs lining the shore. A man stood there, the wind blowing long strands of his hair across his face like a mask. A bright sword with a hilt of braided silver and gold flashed in his hand. He glanced once in her direction, meeting her gaze across the shingle beach, and she saw the warrior’s promise in his eyes, equal parts of courage and despair. She tried to go to him, but the fog rolled in from the open sea and swirled around him, until he was gone.

  The loss tore at her heart. Tears coursed down her cheek and pooled in the corner of her mouth. Salt water.

  “Moriath, stop,” Rhuddlan ordered.

  “She but cries, elf-man.”

  “I do not speak for Ceridwen’s sake. Look to Dain.” He liked not what he saw in L
avrans’s face. Beneath the younger man’s eyelids, his eyes were twitching in a dream state too wild to be naught but a nightmare. His color had grown pale, his breathing ragged.

  Dain had long since passed the subterranean ocean and was now so deep into the earth he felt its molten core, the hot center of it. Sweat ran down his face, under his arms, down his legs and the center of his back, salty sweat. Everything was darkness in the abyss, yet he could discern shapes.

  Concern drew Madron’s eyebrows together as she leaned forward and rested her palm on Dain’s forehead. His dream flowed into her through the pores of her skin, silent and intense, a dark place with unbearable heat and danger circling all around.

  Sweet gods, she knew where he was, just as she knew he should not be there. She started to remove her hand and bring him back, but as the tips of her fingers grazed his brow, another image came to her, a fleeting, tortured image of the mage’s past: a full moon night on an unsettled sea and a black tent hidden among mountains of sand; a candle; a brazier of coals, the heavy, cloying scent of a dangerous distillation. Three men, a bargain made, a deed done.

  She jerked her hand away.

  “Get water,” she said to Rhuddlan, scooting her footstool around to better face Dain. With methodical efficiency, and despite trembling fingers, she unlaced his gambeson. She would save him from the abyss, and then she would try to forget what else she’d seen just as surely as he tried to forget what he’d done—and what had been done to him.

  The walls of the tunnels were curved, bulging, and moving with a soft hissing sound. They were alive. How long had he been there? Eternity, a time beyond memory. There had been a woman once upon an ocean’s shore, but he had lost her long ago.

  “He should have only slept, nothing more,” Madron muttered, working quickly to strip him down to his braies. “Nothing more.” The gambeson came off, followed by his tunic.

  When she removed his shirt, she stopped short, able to do naught but stare.

  A blue-black tattoo encircled his upper arm with the interlocking curves of an ancient Celtic design. Other signs adorned him above the torc.

  “Who marked him thus?” she asked Rhuddlan.

  “I did. Two years back,” Rhuddlan said, lowering a bucket by her feet. “’Twas what he wanted.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “He did not say.”

  He wouldn’t, she thought. With her gaze, she followed the sinuous lines coloring Dain’s skin. He had chosen a most painful way to remember the mysteries of her father’s tower, by use of woad worked with a needle. A Druid symbol for the Sun was there above the torc, and waxing and waning moons disconcertingly similar to the scars on Ceridwen’s shoulder—and between the moons was a sign she did not recognize. More of a map it was than a symbol, being made of many parts strung together with lines. She reached out and traced the strange icon with her fingertip.

  A gust of hot wind—ah, sweet breath—traveled up from the opening at Dain’s feet, the wormhole. The scent was a lure, meant to entice him closer to the edge. The living wall behind him heaved and groaned, adding its own persuasion.

  “Damned swiving place,” he swore. Why was he there?

  He’d thought to save a woman, the answer came, and to do it with a sword. He looked down at the weapon in his hand. All was darkness, yet he could see the keen, gleaming edge of the blade. He’d thought to save her with his courage, his love, and his steel.

  ’Twould not be enough. Her salvation would cost his life.

  Madron removed her fingers from Dain’s tattoo and took the damp cloth Rhuddlan offered for cooling the mage’s fevered brow. She would do what she could to protect him from the dark place, which meant protecting him from Rhuddlan. When his temperature had dropped, she wrung out the cloth again and handed it to the Quicken-tree man. “Wipe him down once more. I will bring them out of their sleep, and you may take them back to Wydehaw. Ceridwen now has the knowledge she needs. When the time comes, she’ll know what she must do.”

  “And Lavrans?” he asked.

  She got up from the footstool, making room for Rhuddlan to take her place. “I know naught what the sorcerer dreams,” she lied. “I intended nothing for him.”

  “Yet he dreams.”

  “I did not say he wasn’t adept. Like all of his kind, his intuition exceeds his intellect, and in his case that is a considerable achievement, as you would know if you’ve ever played chess with him.” She bent and chose two fresh evergreen boughs out of a basket on the floor, and set them into the fire. The scent would wash the pryf smell from the air, creating a path for her two sleepers to follow. When Rhuddlan took them to Wydehaw, the night wind would do the rest, chasing the last of their dreams from their minds.

  “’Tis not uncommon,” she went on, “for a person to be drawn into the sleep of another, though usually only when there is a strong bond between them.”

  Rhuddlan smiled to himself. Lavrans and the maid were bound, whether Moriath recognized the ties or not, bound by the magic that had always pulled a man and a woman together. For himself, he would see those ties wrapped ever more securely around the pair, until where one began and the other left off would be no more than a matter of pure conjecture. Ceridwen’s bloodlines ran true enough for his needs, even if her art did not.

  He shifted his gaze to the warrior by the maid’s side. As for Lavrans, Moriath was right to fear him, for the Dane would be the one to take her father’s place at the gates of time.

  Chapter 13

  Wine, Dain thought, groaning. He would never drink Madron’s again, posset or not. His head pounded. Pain flashed in sporadic bursts behind his eyes. He felt like he’d been wrung out to his very soul, and his face was cold. The rest of him was warm, though, pleasantly warm, surprisingly warm.

  He moved his fingers, lifting the tips up so he could better feel what was granting him his one level of grace. ’Twas soft, with a silky feel but a nubby weave. He dared to open one eye.

  Quicken-tree cloth, a great swath of it, enfolded him like a cocoon. Another cocoon lay next to him, or more truly a chrysalis, for despite the softness of the shell, the contents showed every indication of emerging with all the beauty and delicacy of a butterfly.

  He opened his other eye and swore to himself as he took stock of their surroundings. By means he found difficult to surmise, Madron had brought him and Ceridwen to the edge of Wroneu Wood. His presence this near to Wydehaw must have alerted Elixir and Numa. They could not be far, nor could the Cypriot.

  “Kom.” The command came out a weak croak, barely audible, yet a distant nickering answered him. The dogs might belong to Rhuddlan in their hearts, but the mare was his. A moment later a far-off barking, coming from the same direction as the Cypriot’s neigh, brought half a smile to his mouth. Mayhaps Rhuddlan should look to the loyalty of his hounds, especially Numa. The maid had enchanted the albino bitch as surely as she’d enchanted him.

  The thought gave him pause, sparking a memory, a noticeably unpleasant memory. There had been enchantment in the night. A vague sense of it haunted him, fleeting images slipping across the surface of his mind, then diving deep where he could not follow. Damn Madron. He hoped what she’d gained had been worth the price of their friendship, for he would not forget nor forgive her trespass. Jalal, too, had been skilled at mesmerizing, but Dain had learned how to shift his awareness to a place his master could not reach. Madron and her dreamstone had slipped by his defenses, reminding him that even here, in this place, a moment’s incaution could quickly turn a predator into prey—or a warrior into a whore.

  Damn her. He was not without talent himself in the art of casting sleep. The witch would not do the same to him again, and she would not do it to Ceridwen.

  He reached a hand out and touched the fringe of hair at the end of one of Ceridwen’s braids. So soft. He’d learned much of her in Deri and even more in Madron’s cottage. The red book was not to be heeded. By the author’s own admission, she’d done naught but write down her father�
��s prophesies, a term Dain was ever leery of, even from one such as Nemeton must have been. As Madron had said, time changed itself by its own passing. Prophesy often took on the trappings of myth, and myth, more likely than not, meant metaphor, a thing to be studied, but not to be feared.

  Caradoc was another matter.

  He tangled his fingers through the pale braids of Ceridwen’s hair, letting them slip across his skin along with the shimmering threads of Quicken-tree riband. Pretty maid. Unbidden by more than his heartfelt desire, she sighed in her sleep and turned toward him. His gaze fell immediately to her mouth.

  He remembered love, what it had been like to want a girl with all his body and soul, to wait and watch and suffer and need, to lie awake at night with his loins on fire despite the relief he gave himself, because his hand was not what he wanted, but the girl, the woman part of her, the feel of her beneath him, all satiny skin and heavenly mouth. He remembered the smell of a woman giving herself in love and the taste of a woman in heat. No food nurtured so deeply or with such oneness.

  He remembered love, the making of love with a whisper and a caress, and he remembered lust, the edge of it cutting deep, exacting satisfaction with a fierceness that would not be denied.

  And he remembered something else, something that had no part of Ceridwen, something he wished had no part of him, except he had been part of it, those dark games in desert tents, when a man wanted only what another man, or a boy, could give. He had heard of such in his youth, had even eluded a few amorous advances. But in the desert—ah, in the desert, ’twas so much different from the hasty couplings he’d imagined he would have to endure if his knife hand had not been quick and his feet even quicker.

  In the desert there was heat, languorous heat, and incense filling the air and teasing the senses; and there was kif to inhale, to fill up your lungs and numb your mind. And there was wine, to ease the lies into truth; and the seduction of opium to put a blessed haze over your perceptions and mask the most unbearable loathing, leaving only your disgust to be dealt with later. And disgust, he’d learned, was no deterrent to survival, not after the first few times.