There was now no doubt as to what manner of a beast had died and left its remains in the peat. What had once been a great dragon—easily twice the size of Emrys—towered over the boy menacingly, swaying and staggering as it tried to find its balance after waking from aeons of sleep.
“W-we’d better go, Emrys,” Bran stuttered, retreating onto the higher ground, searching for the wind goggles in his pocket.
The ring was now almost burning his finger. The jade-scaled dragon crouched towards its master, whimpering. Through their Farlink connection, Bran felt primeval fear growing in his mount’s heart as the skeletal creature began stumbling out of the mud pool. The bone dragon spread its wings—or what remained of them. Names from the anatomy manual popped into Bran’s head—humerus, radius, phalanges… It felt surreal to see the skeleton in reality, in full scale, dried-up joints grinding against each other. Can it fly? Impossible, there is no membrane to give it lift…
The jaws, still full of teeth, opened as if the beast wanted to roar. There was no roar—there couldn’t have been, the monster had no throat, but, disturbingly, there came a sound, a stifled, echoing humming rumble, as if from the depths of the Otherworld.
Bran managed to mount Emrys, his hands shaking with terror. He was trying to spur the terrified dragon to flight, when the bone monster flapped its wings and pounced onwards.
“Dive!” Bran cried out loud and in his head.
Emrys flattened itself in the marsh as the skeletal dragon, capturing the Ninth Wind in its phantom wings, soared above their heads. The monster circled in the sky once before swooping straight back at Bran, its jaws open, the unearthly noise rising again within the non-existent throat.
The boy tugged on the upper reins and pushed his heels into the dragon’s sides. Emrys stood on its hind legs and spewed bluish methane fire. The skeletal monster reeled in its dive and ascended again, gaining altitude for another swoop. With a single beat of wings, Emrys leapt over the tops of the trees, and farther up. Alone, it would stand little chance against the dragon twice its size, but Bran had been trained to fight exactly this kind of aerial battle, and now it seemed his life depended on his skill.
A summoned Soul Lance hardened in his hands into an unbreakable crystal. The bone dragon plunged forwards in a mad head-on charge, like a raging stag. Bracing himself for attack, Bran adjusted his goggles and raised the lance in an outstretched arm as he had trained so many times, although his hand was shaking with dread and excitement. He could not guess whether the weapon would work against a living skeleton—there were no internal organs to penetrate, no scales to pierce. He could only hope.
He waited until he could feel the buffeting of the Ninth Wind coming from the skeletal wings. He tugged on the reins, banking Emrys to the left and pushed his right arm forwards. He missed—the lance hit the air. The bone dragon flew past, the stench of death around it so nauseating it almost caused Bran to fall off his mount.
The bone dragon turned back and roared again. The tops of the trees beneath turned black and withered; the monster was spewing something from its maw, not fire or lightning, but some invisible veil of death.
I won’t get another chance, Bran realised, spurring Emrys to a charge. The two dragons sped towards each other, air whistling around them. Bran closed his eyes and focused on the Farlink connection he had with Emrys. The dragon’s eyes, claws and wings were now his. Only this gave Bran the precise control he needed.
Down!
Emrys’s wings folded and the beast dropped down, underneath the belly of the bone monster. Bran opened his eyes, breaking the Farlink, and struck upwards with all his strength. He felt the lance smash through the monster’s ribs and penetrate further, piercing through something that was as unlike a real chest and heart, as the unworldly rumbling was different from a real dragon’s dying roar.
He let go of the lance—the weapon disappeared in an instant—a fraction of a second before the impetus would’ve broken his arm. He watched as the monstrosity tumbled downwards and crashed into the marsh below, bones scattering into pieces again.
Emrys snorted and flew up higher and higher, until it deemed it was at a safe distance from the cursed pool. Bran let his dragon do as it pleased for a moment—he was too exhausted and confused to command the beast.
The blue gem on his finger was as calm and dark as it had always been.
Bran welcomed the sight of the familiar, tall sandstone towers and oak tree groves of the Llambed College with relief. Usually he went go out of his way not to pass it, but this time he wanted to see something real, something certain, and he needed some answers.
A flag with the four lions of Aberffraw flew proudly over the pile of grey stones. A remnant of a Norse castle, at the confluence of the Rivers Teifi and Dulas, only a few months ago had served as the Great Auditorium for the Graddio ceremony. The ruin had been left standing as a reminder of Owain the Wyrmslayer’s great campaigns against the Norsemen of Niflheimr and their Frost Armies. It was here, on the shores of Teifi, that the freedom of Gwynedd had been won once and for all, and the alliance with the oppressed Seaxe on the other side of Offa’s Dyke forged for the first time of many.
The grapevine leaves clung to the cracked walls, lush green when the summer had begun then scorched yellow by August heat, growing scarlet now. The oak trees in the sacred groves turned golden-bronze. The college grounds, sprawling to the north and east of the castle ruins, were eerily quiet during the summer holidays, with only the gardeners and janitors remaining. Gone was the daily hubbub of hundreds of boys and girls, learning, training and playing around. Gone was the noise of dozens of dragons stationed in the Great Stables, the flapping of wings, roar of wyrm flame and crackle of lightning, but there were always lights and fires coming from the Research Tower, and there Bran landed his dragon.
“I don’t see anything peculiar about the ring, I’m afraid,” said Doctor Campion upon finishing a long examination of the jewel. “The band is a local work, of that I am sure. The gem seems valuable—a sapphire, I believe, although we would need to do an analysis to make certain. Interesting shape. Where did you say you got it?”
“My grandfather.”
“And he…?”
“I… don’t know.”
Bran surprised himself with the realization that he had never questioned the ring’s provenance before.
“Mm, mm.”
The doctor nodded distractedly, playing with knobs on his telescope. They were sitting in the astrological observatory on top of the Research Tower. Doctor Campion was the only scholar who had time to meet with Bran at such short notice, as during the day he had little to do other than browsing through old horoscopes and solar tables in the library.
“What about the bone dragon, Sir?”
“This is an ancient land, boy, full of mysteries. You would not have heard of such things—it’s deep in the archives… Old, forbidden magic.”
“You mean—raising the dead? It’s just a legend, isn’t it…?”
“Nay, son.” The doctor leaned forwards and lowered his voice. “It’s more than that. The dead walked the land when the wars with the Sun Priests ravaged the world. It was almost the doom of us all…”
The clergy of the Bull-slayer God, the Old Faithers of Rome, had once been sworn enemies of all magic users. It had taken two centuries of war to settle their mutual differences at last. Many gruesome tales were told of the terrible Wizardry Wars, but this one Bran had not heard before.
“I’m not surprised,” the doctor said. “We have kept it secret—us and the priests alike. I’m only telling you this because you’ve already met one of those creatures, and because I know your father…”
He leaned closer to Bran, his eyes narrow and focused.
“It started with the Grey Hoods, the elite of the Sun Priests. They have discovered some ancient scrolls in the monasteries of Illyria, in the East. They were appalled at first, b
ut when faced with defeat from the wizards they began to turn to anything that could give them advantage.”
“Necromancy…” whispered Bran. The word had a dark taste on his tongue.
The doctor nodded.
“They were using it to raise fallen soldiers at first, but soon discovered that by using blood magic curses they could imbue the walking dead with great power, and keep them under control. They started raising our dead and send them against us. Then the wizards stole the secret and began doing the same. Not only with humans, but as you have also seen, dragons and other monsters. It was a travesty of a war, lifeless armies that could not be killed. Ere long the abominations learned to disguise themselves as if they were still alive. Bonds of trust have been broken—anyone could be killed at night and wake as an undead. Soldiers returning from the battles were no longer welcome home. And worst of all, some of the abominations started to work together, turn against their masters…”
“But we’ve prevailed in the end.”
“At a great cost. We signed a truce with the Sun Priests, a temporary alliance against what we had created. Both sides had to agree to abandon such pursuits, destroy the abominations, unravel the magic, erase the very memory of the evil power. You must have stumbled upon some remnant from just before the Truce, some bone golem cast in the river when the war was over.”
Bran scratched his forehead, trying to absorb all he had just heard.
“But what does my ring have to do with it?”
“Oh, I don’t think it does, to be honest.” The scholar leaned backwards. “It must have merely resonated to the magical energies abundant in the marsh. Some minerals do that, nothing mysterious about it. It’s a neat trick, certainly, but that is all.”
“I see…”
“Mars is in Sagittarius,” the doctor added, rising a finger, “which means people and beasts awake, stir, become restless. The heat doesn’t help—there hasn’t been a summer this hot for decades. The water reveals what it had once taken. I would advise you to stay away from dried up riverbeds, landslides, ancient ruins… All these places may be dangerous right now.”
“Yes Sir.”
“You did well.” The doctor smiled and patted Bran on the shoulder. “To have faced such a creature and defeated it takes skill and courage, especially when riding such a weak dragon. I would expect no less from the son of Dylan ab Ifor.”
Bran let the insult towards Emrys go. “Thank you, Sir.”
“By the by, would you like to see your father?”
“He’s here?”
“I believe so, I’ve seen him heading for the Chambers of Precision.”
Bran hesitated.
“I… I’m sure he wouldn’t like to be disturbed at work.”
“As you wish. Now, you must excuse me.” The doctor sighed, reaching for a pile of densely scribbled documents. “I do have a few divinations to prepare for tonight…”
CHAPTER IV
“Troubled, are you?”
Rhian didn’t need her Cunning powers to notice. Bran was sulking by the window, turning his grandfather’s ring in his fingers.
He had never paid any attention to the jewel. His father had given it to him on his eleventh birthday, just before Bran’s entrance to the Academy. He had worn it on a cord around his neck then, his little hands much too small for the piece of jewellery. On his fifteenth birthday he had tried it on his index finger and it fitted. He had been enjoying wearing it since, feeling it somehow made him a bit more adult. But there was nothing magical about it—at least as far as Bran could tell, straining his True Sight to the limits.
“Where did tadcu get this ring?” he asked his mother.
“Oh, Ifor brought it from one of his travels,” Rhian answered vaguely, “he kept bringing us trinkets like this all the time, he did.”
“So why was I given this one?”
“Grandpa wasn’t all there in the end… He insisted you be given this ring. I don’t really like it myself—a Prydain boy should wear a torc. Why, is there something wrong with it?”
“No, nothing,” he lied, “just curious… What was he like, Grandfather?”
“Shouldn’t you ask your taid about that?”
“Father never tells me anything. He didn’t even want to tell me about this ring.”
Rhian smiled and pulled up a chair.
“You know, you’re beginning to look a bit like Ifor, you are, when he was young,” she said, “from the True Images, I mean. Soon you’ll start growing a tidy moustache then you’ll be the same dap exactly.”
“Father’s not wearing a moustache.”
“Ah, well, he’s in the Lloegr Navy now, he is. They like ‘em clean-shaven.” She laughed briefly, but then turned serious. “Ifor was… a funny old man, as we call them down south. A good father for Dylan, for sure, but he never was much of a family man. You could tell he was a sailor through and through. I don’t know why he decided to settle here in Gwynedd after Dylan went to school—it was obvious he wasn’t in his oils on land.”
“Is that why he ran away?”
“He did not run away—he promised mamgu and us that he would return, one day, but as I said, he wasn’t all there.”
“What did he think of Father going to Llambed?”
“Oh, tamping mad, he was! At least that’s what Dylan told me. He hated wizards—superstitious, like all sailors. He wanted Dylan to be a Sun Priest.”
Bran’s eyes widened.
“A Sun Priest?”
There was still a mithraeum in Caer Wyddno, serving the small community of Old Faithers, but Bran had never seen his father as much as go near the cavernous building.
“Aye. ‘Only the Unconquered Sun will save us when the abomination returns’, he used to say. I don’t know what he meant. He had the house painted red, to ward off “evil”. I told you—funny old man.”
“I had no idea about that.”
Abomination?
“You’ll find there are many reasons why Dylan is not eager to talk about his family. Now see, it’s getting late—I’ll run the bath, shall I?”
“Yes, please!” Bran agreed.
“If you really want to find out more about your tadcu, have a tidy in the attic. There’s bound to be something interesting up there. I don’t think even Dylan has ever looked through everything that’s in those chests.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Will you come to watch the Ellylldani dance?”
Bran smiled. When he was little, he loved to observe the tiny Fire Fairies—Salamandrae Inferiores, as the biology teacher called them—frolic under the bathtub as the water boiled above their heads.
“I think I’m a little too old for that, Mam.”
“Yes, of course, son.”
Rhian smiled, but Bran could see sadness in her eyes.
Ifor’s chests—a couple of old navy trunks of thick leather hidden away in the corner of the attic—contained a treasure trove of books, scrolls and old papers. They had all been printed long before Bran’s birth. Most of them were boring accounts of trade negotiations and maritime treaties, but there was among them a collection of fascinating reports on mysterious lands of the Far East, the customs, culture and language. There was even a volume on Eastern dragons, long-bodied, wingless creatures that very few Western Dracologists had a chance to see and research. Bran searched through the books, trying to discover any clues on the elusive man from notes on the margins, but they were all written in strange scribbly markings of some unknown alphabet.
One early September evening, hot and muggy, he dug down all the way to the bottom of the largest trunk, hoping to find some more forgotten mementos. There was usually something interesting at the very bottom of a chest like this, some artefact from Ifor’s journeys, either deliberately hidden or sunken through the papers over the years. A pile of documents and books grew on the floor as Bran dived farther and farther in. At last, he reached one fina
l bunch of yellowed, densely written pieces of paper. Apart from those, the trunk was empty. Slightly disappointed, he picked up the sheets.
A small box of strange material lay underneath. It was neither wood nor metal, smooth to the touch, but strong like ivory, raven black with a reddish glint. On the top was a golden emblem, a diamond shape split in four.
He lifted the box carefully and stared at it for a while, hesitant to open. What could it be? Why had it been hidden in this chest? It certainly seemed more precious than any of the useless souvenirs forgotten in the attic, the unknown material glistening mysteriously in the light of the setting sun like polished onyx. The emblem, as far as he could tell, was made of real gold leaf.
He opened it carefully. Inside, the box was split into two compartments. One of them held a golden brooch of an unusual sort, or rather a buckle tied to a slender ribbon of silk, in the shape of an Eastern dragon coiled around an irregular jagged hole, where a stone was missing. Bran pressed his ring to it—the blue stone fit snugly.
In the other compartment lay a round silver medallion with the True Image of a young woman. The woman, gazing sadly at Bran from the thaumaturgic illustration, was unlike any the boy had ever seen. Her skin was pale and without blemish, her eyes child-like, almond-shaped beneath thin straight eyebrows, her nose small and flat, her hair black and glistening, coiffured into a tall bun intertwined with flowers and elaborate leaf-shaped ornaments.
When he touched the surface of the image, the scribbled hieroglyphs from the margin notes appeared vertically along the side of the medallion. A translation in Prydain materialised below.
Beloved Ōmon. Ifor, 51Geo. III
Whoever the woman was, she was not Bran’s grandmother. The boy remembered mamgu Branwen well as a decent Gwynedd woman with nothing remotely exotic about her. He had definitely stumbled onto some secret from Grandpa’s past.
He now turned his attention to the yellowed crumbling papers covering the box, which he had dismissed so readily earlier. They appeared to be pages from a diary—Ifor’s diary. Bran had found a few scattered fragments of the memoirs earlier, but these sheets had been deliberately set apart, tied together with black cord and stamped with a red ink seal of the same split diamond shape as the markings on the box.
The Shadow of Black Wings (The Year of the Dragon, Book 1) Page 4