The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy)

by Janzen, Tara

  “You have been in the wormhole?” Rhuddlan was asking, looking at Mychael with a keen interest that was being returned in equal measure, with an added degree of wariness and mayhaps a hint of threat.

  “Aye, many times,” Mychael answered, and Ceridwen thought how strong and beautiful her brother had become. His hair was peculiar, and not just because of the streak. He’d been tonsured as a monk, and though most of his hair fell to his shoulders, there was a good bit on top that had grown out only partway. Regardless of length, though, the stripe was consistent.

  Rhuddlan smiled, a bare curve of mouth. “And you have survived them all, thus far. We have much to talk about.”

  “If you are Rhuddlan of the Quicken-tree or Llyr of the Ebiurrane,” was Mychael’s measured reply.

  Rhuddlan’s smile broadened. “Not many know Llyr of the Ebiurrane, but I am Rhuddlan.”

  The tension flowed out of her twin, and though he did not smile, he removed his hand from the dagger shoved into his belt. “Aye, then Rhuddlan.” He nodded. “We do have much to talk, about.”

  “But not here,” Rhuddlan said. “Bedwyr, Nia, take the lady before we are washed out on the tide with Balor’s dead.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The journey through the pryf nesting grounds was much smoother with Liosalfar leading the way and clearing the tunnels as they wished. Despite their great size and what Ceridwen had perceived as a general intractability, the worms responded to commands from the Quicken-tree warriors, though the voice they used was unlike any she had ever heard. ’Twas a deep, resonant, multi-toned thing that seemed to come from deeper in their throats than normal sound. Mayhaps it came from someplace even deeper still, for it set up a vibration she felt strongest in an unnameable area in the center of her torso. They stopped in Lanbarrdein to refresh themselves before making the great climb up the wall to the Canolbarth, and from there the trek to the Light Caves was grim.

  Most of Balor had died in the midland caves, and though the bodies were proof of their great victory, none of the Quicken-tree or the Ebiurrane took pleasure in the deaths. Through every passageway and gallery, the tylwyth teg sang a song meant to ease the passing of souls, and to hear those fair voices raised in a mournful dirge was near more than Ceridwen could bear. There had been too much loss, and ’twas not all Balor. Amongst the piles of hauberked and mailed bodies were those of elves clad in shimmery cloth.

  By the time they reached the Light Caves, dusk was falling over the Irish Sea. From the Dragon’s Mouth, Ceridwen watched the sun slip below the western horizon. Behind her a fire burned brightly, casting shadows on Ddrei Goch and Ddrei Glas, and beside her was Dain, sitting with her on a pile of soft rugs, holding her hand in his.

  “We can stay if you wish, Ceri,” he said. “You must be thinking of it.”

  “Aye,” she admitted, “but I believe I spoke more truth than I knew at the weir. Look.” She directed his attention to the group talking farther back in the caves. ’Twas Mychael and Rhuddlan and half the Liosalfar, speaking of the keep and the castle wall, and of a wild boar and perhaps a bear reported loose in the caves, and speaking also of things she did not understand, of what was beyond the deep dark and the damson shafts being torn asunder there.

  “I have wondered, Dain. In the abyss... What happened to you?”

  He grew thoughtful for a while. “Words can bare describe it, Ceri,” he finally said.

  “I felt the light go through me,” she said.

  “I felt it too, a flood of light, and I know not if it came from God or another, or from nothing at all except the earth and what it is. Either way, ’twas a glimpse of something beyond what I knew before. I know I had to give up a measure of my cynic’s heart to get out.”

  She smiled and kissed his face. “Aye, and I’ll miss that I’m sure.”

  “Mayhaps I can no longer play the demon,” he said, giving her an ingenuous look from beneath his lashes. At her crestfallen expression, he laughed. “Aye, and you would miss that, wouldn’t you, Ceri.”

  Her blush was sweet, and he laughed again, pulling her into his lap for a kiss that had naught to do with demons and much to do with mouths and the sharing of breath, one into the other, with the feel of her in his arms and the even greater softness she promised.

  “So you will go north with me?” he asked when she lifted her head.

  “Aye,” she whispered, her eyes languid. “We will build a palace out of ice, and every night melt it with our love.”

  “Rhuddlan has arranged for us to travel with the Ebiurrane.”

  “Good,” she said, and snuggled closer.

  “We will leave in a sennight. Does that give you enough time with your brother?”

  “Enough,” she murmured against his neck.

  Breath by breath, limb by limb, she slowly drifted into slumber. He held her and lazily stroked her back, watching the last shades of sunlight fade from the peaks of the waves until all was night over the open sea. Out above the northern horizon, a single star flashed in the new dark sky and fell toward the water in a glittering arc of celestial dust. ’Twas the sign of a child to be born, his child by the quicksilver maid. He cupped her face in his palm and placed a kiss upon her mouth. There was life in love, and as he gave, so would he drink it from her lips.

  Gently, so as not to wake her, he laid them both down on the deep-piled rugs of softly woven Quicken-tree cloth, magical stuff, and drew her close to sleep and dream with her, safe in the Dragon’s Mouth.

  Epilogue

  Outside the castle walls, on a wooded slope overlooking Balor and the Irish Sea, Mychael sat high up in an old oak tree spread with age. He was skimming the pages of the red book Ceri had given him two days earlier, before she and Lavrans had left on their journey north. ’Twas from Usk, she’d said, the Latin in it being the prophesies of Nemeton that Moriath had written down.

  He remembered Nemeton, a large man with a flowing red beard and a single iron-gray stripe running through his hair. Mychael had his own such anomaly now, copper running through blond, the mark he had gotten for venturing into the wormholes.

  As for the rest of the red book, the strange languages filling some of the other pages, Ceridwen had not known what they said or who had written them. Neither did he, but he’d seen fragments of the odd scripts before, seen characters from them carved into the rock in the deep dark. Aye, the red book was a treasure.

  The Latin in the book spoke much of dragons, as he’d hoped, and of maiden’s blood, which did him no good. He was no maiden, nor was he likely to have access to one. He was a man of God and had not abandoned the life of Strata Florida, despite the strange turn he had taken by coming north. In truth, the longer he had been in the caves, the more he’d come to fear the holy sanctuary of the monastery might be his only salvation when his task beneath Merioneth was done.

  A grim smile crossed his lips. He had once considered restlessness the bane of his monkish existence. Then he had been called by a vision, one of power and grace and frightening beauty, and of pagan things to be done, sure to damn his soul—and he had been unable to resist.

  Three days of hard travel had brought him to the cliffs overlooking the Irish Sea. From there he had followed an overgrown trail and his instincts into the heart of the caves, and he had remembered a long-ago night and grown afraid, thinking of Ceri. Mayhaps he would have left then, run back breathless and penitent to his monastery, except for the keening cry that had risen out of the dark and touched him like a caress. ’Twas that which had lured him onward, the yearning in the cry, the hint of desperation and of things coming undone.

  Thus he’d found the pryf trapped in the maze behind the weir gate and the old worm moving through the deep dark on a course of his own making. He’d found the great crystal cavern with its floating thrones; he’d found signs of those who ruled it all, and he’d found the gemstone that warmed to a man’s touch and burned bright.

  He turned another page of the book and his hand fell upon familiar likenesses. Ddrei
Goch and Ddrei Glas swirled and writhed across one of the pieces of parchment that was far older than those written on in Moriath’s hand. He smoothed his fingertips over the curved lines and felt the power of the ancient creatures reach for him from across the ages. This was what had called him from Strata Florida, the dragons he had yet to find.

  He’d seen their nest and the words carved into the rock that bespoke of dragon care and dragon need. He’d touched those words and remembered all the tales his mother had told, beautiful Rhiannon with her angel’s voice and the mother’s love he had learned to live without. But he’d found no dragons other than the ones calling to him from inside his heart.

  “Ddrei Goch,” he whispered, tracing a golden eye and the beast’s long, whiskered snout, a fierce creature with an incarnadine hide. “Ddrei Glas.” His touch turned tender. She was glass green, of air and water, pale and silvery, fierce and so essentially female, so other than himself that she fascinated him.

  A movement in the glade below caught his eye and drew his attention from the book. Leaning forward, he swept aside a veil of leaves better to see. A girl was walking alone through the woods. He remembered her from the weir of the pryf’s dark maze. She’d fought well, but had lost her friend, and the sadness of the loss still clung to her. He saw it in the unnatural heaviness of her movements, as if every step were a burden she scarce could bear, and her face was drawn, her eyes downcast. Llynya was her name.

  He watched her bend low over a patch of yellow flowers at the base of a hazel tree. She picked one and brought it to her lips. ’Twas a buttercup.

  Eyes closed, she blew into the bright lemon-colored petals, setting them all aflutter. Delicate pistil and stamens trembled within the sweet draft of her breath, tangling together, and for an instant... a twinkling, no more... the aureate hue appeared to lift off the flower and grace the air with its light golden tones, as if the girl had blown the color from the petals themselves.

  A fanciful musing, he thought, yet he still gave the girl a closer look, and ’twas then that he saw the tears upon her cheeks. Her sadness ran deep, but in time he knew she would find comfort in memories and a lessening of her grief, just as he would find the dragons, for all things came to pass in time.

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  Glossary

  anthanor—an alchemist’s stove

  aqua ardens—“water that burns,” alcohol

  athame—a small ritual knife

  bedzhaa—Arabic word for “swan”

  Beirdd Braint—“privileged bard,” the second class of the Druidic Order

  Beltaine—Celtic festival falling on May Eve and May 1

  Calan Gaef—Celtic festival falling on October 31 and November 1

  Canolbarth—the midland caves beneath Carn Merioneth; ceremonies are held in the largest cavern by the scrying pool

  cariad—love, lover

  crwth—musical instrument, a bowed lyre

  Cymry—Welsh name for themselves

  Ddrei Goch, Ddrei Glas—the dragons of Carn Merioneth

  Ebiurrane—northern band of the wild folk

  gwin draig—dragon wine

  hadyn draig—dragon seed

  kif—hasheesh

  Liosalfar—Quicken-tree soldiers

  penteulu—leader of a great Welsh prince’s war-band

  pryf—dragon larvae, worm

  pudre ruge—a red powder used in the healing of wounds

  Quicken-tree—southern band of the wild folk

  rasca—Quicken-tree medicinal ointment

  rihadin—small combustible packets of resin that ignite in various colors

  tylwyth teg—Welsh fairies

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Read on for an excerpt from Dream Stone, Book II in the enchanting Chalice Trilogy:

  Dream Stone

  The Chalice Trilogy – Book Two

  Chapter 1

  October 1198

  Carn Merioneth

  Merioneth, Wales

  Wolves howled in the darkness. From his vantage point on Carn Merioneth’s east wall, Rhuddlan of the Quicken-tree watched the fleet forms weave their paths through the moonlit forest. Swift and deadly, the shadows were hunting, coming down out of the mountains of Eryri to claim the land from the river to the sea. Wolves alone were naught to fear—but the wolves were not alone. Here and there, Rhuddlan caught sight of a more upright shape running with the animals. The man beside him nocked an arrow into his longbow.

  “Hold, Trig,” Rhuddlan commanded softly. He was tall and slender and wore no badge other than his bearing to proclaim his rank as king. Gray marked the pale blond of his hair and was woven into the five-strand plait on the left side of his head. A long green cloak was thrown over his shoulders.

  “Ye know what they are.” His captain’s voice held an edge of impatience. Trig was as tall as his sovereign, but broader in girth, with a squarish face bearing the scars of a long-ago war. He, too, wore a fif braid streaked through with gray.

  “Aye.” They both knew. Men were running with the wolves. The question was why.

  When Rhuddlan said nothing else, Trig snorted and lowered his bow. “It’ll be our heads on pikes, or worse.”

  “’Tis too soon to be worrying about pikes. Find your bed, if you wish. I’ll wait with Naas.”

  Trig grumbled again. “She’s been at it all night and seen naught. More ’an like, she’s gone full blind on ye.”

  Rhuddlan let him leave with his complaint unanswered. Dawn was not far off, and if Naas was to see for him, it had best be soon, or they would have to wait the month out in hopes of another clear night with a full moon.

  Behind him on the wall-walk, the old woman tended a fire of hot burning coals. She was small, a bundle of greenish gray cloak and dark gown huddled next to the flames. The brazier holding the fire had been forged of a rich alloy, giving the bronze a fey, purplish cast. The shallow rim of the pan was circled ‘round with dragons in relief, all of them spouting ruby flames into billows of smoky quartz. Magic was to be done in the night. Rhuddlan but waited for the old one to pull it down out of the sky and into her cauldron.

  The last wolf disappeared into the northern woods, and Rhuddlan turned toward the upper bailey of the castle. Light from the full moon slanted long, dark shadows across the grass and the scarred remains of what had once been Balor Keep. Since taking the demesne in May, he’d had his people destroying the structures built by the previous ruler, Caradoc, the Boar of Balor, and by the Boar’s father, Gwrnach, except for the stone wall. That great defense he would leave for time and the old white-eyed woman by the fire to dismantle. He had need of it for now.

  “Naas.” He spoke her name, and the woman lifted her strange gaze. Pale irises discernible only as rims of milky luminosity were barely visible across the rising smoke. The bones beneath her age-lined skin were delicate and finely fashioned, giving her a fragile appearance. Pure deception, that was, for few had Naas’s strength—and none had her singular skill with fire.

  She whispered something unintelligible, then turned and added another stick to the flames. Sparks rose with the wind and cascaded by him, a thousand brilliant stars slipping through the merlons and falling to their death on the sward.

  Trig was wrong. Naas was not blind, only too replete with the past to see beyond the memories of her race. Those memories ran through her veins and filled her eyes with visions of life from a long-ago world, a world she brought forth through burning heat and the light of the moon. Rhuddlan needed such knowledge if he was to keep the wolves from the wall. He needed to know what darkness threatened Merioneth, for the heralds of darkness were there, creeping into his woods and lapping at the shores of the River Bredd with black rot.

  Yet ’twas not the rot in his woods or the strangely mixed wolfpack they’d seen that night that stole his sleep and put Trig on edge. Dangerous though they were, the men were yet true Men; they had not been turned. Of the danger he did fear
, there had been no sightings. He’d sent scouts as far north as Finn’s Road and as far south as the white horse and none had seen sign of skraelings, the fierce and dirty beast men that were all that remained of the fell legions conjured by the Dockalfar, an ancient enemy that had once ruled the caverns below. Nor had there been any reports of disturbances in the troll fields of Inishwrath.

  Nay, ’twas not wildmen and wolves he feared, but things unseen yet still felt. In the sky the tension had played itself out in thunder and lightning, mellt a tharanau, a summer of storms. Nearer to earth, the air held a certain heaviness, the ground a certain softness, as if the earth herself was giving way to some greater force. Verily, one part of the earth had given way. In spring, after the battle to reclaim Merioneth, Mychael ab Arawn had reported the breaking of a damson shaft in the caverns. The damson shafts were pure veins of crystal set into the matrix of the Earth by the mages of old. That one would crack was a grim portent, but how grim, Rhuddlan could not judge. The crystal shafts harkened back to time long, long before his, but not beyond the reach of Naas’s vision. To this end, he’d set the old woman to her fire. Five months past, he’d looked to another for answers. He had sent runners to the four directions in search of Ailfinn Mapp, the last of the Prydion Magi. The wandering mage was e’er difficult to find, but that he’d had no word in nearly half a year of looking, and that not even the old men of Anglesey had seen her since the winter solstice, was yet more cause for worry.

  Naas added another stick to the fire, and Rhuddlan looked to the sky. Dawn still lay beyond the mountains, but not for much longer. The morning stars were rising.

  “Nothing lost, nothing gained. All is change. All is change,” Naas muttered, drawing his attention. She reached out with a rowan branch to stir the cauldron nestled in the coals.