by Tara Janzen
DREAM STONE
The Chalice Trilogy – Book Two
Tara Janzen
First published by Bantam, 1998
Copyright Glenna McReynolds, 1998
EBook Copyright Tara Janzen, 2012
EBook Published by Tara Janzen at Smashwords, 2012
Cover Design by Hot Damn Designs, 2012
EBook Design by A Thirsty Mind, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Titles
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Map: 13th Century Wales
Map: The Caverns Beneath
Carn Merioneth
Map: The Deeper Caverns
Cast of Characters
The Magia Blade
Prologue
Enchantments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Elixir Vitae
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Descent from Mercy
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Glossary of terms
Excerpt: Prince of Time
Titles
The Chalice Trilogy
The Chalice and the Blade – Book One
Dream Stone – Book Two
Prince of Time – Book Three
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To Stan, always—
sharing breath and a turn of the wheel
Acknowledgments
The author’s deepest thanks to Elizabeth Barrett, a most skillful and imaginative editor; and to Cindy Gerard, touchstone of the muse.
Author’s Note
A number of Welsh names and words appear in the book, along with a few words of Irish, the common language being Celtic. Welsh is written more phonetically than English, with each consonant having only one sound. For example, c always has the “k” sound, as in cake; s is always as in sit, never as in nose; f always has a “v” sound. In addition to the single consonants, digraphs are used to represent certain Welsh sounds: dd is pronounced like the English “th,” as in breathe; while th has the less soft sound of the English breath; ff has the “f” sound in the English film; si is pronounced like the English “sh” as in shop; and ch is always pronounced as in the German Bach, never as in church. The letter r is trilled in Welsh. Accents regularly follow on the next to the last syllable.
Since I used many foreign words in this book, as well as unfamiliar names for characters and places, I have included a glossary at the end of the book.
Cast of Characters
Ynys Enlli
Nennius — a monk
Gruffudd — former guardsman at Balor Keep
Carn Merioneth
Mychael ab Arawn — heir to Carn Merioneth; son of Rhiannon, last of the Magus Druid Priestesses
Madron — mistress of the arts of enchantment
Owain — Welshman who fought with the Quicken-tree in the battle for Balor
Edmee — daughter of Madron and Rhuddlan
The Quicken-tree:
Rhuddlan — King of the tylwyth teg
The Quicken-tree:
Naas — a seer
Moira — a healer
Aedyth — a healer
Liosalfar:
Trig — captain
Llynya — the aetheling
Shay
Bedwyr
Wei
Math
Nia
Pwyll
Roth
Deep Dark
Caradoc, Wyrm-Master — former ruler of Balor Keep
Varga of the Iron Dunes — Sha-shakrieg lord from Deseillign
Slott of the Thousand Skulls — the Troll King
Ailfinn Mapp — Prydion Mage
Dockalfar:
Caerlon — a mage
Lacknose Dock
Blackhand Dock
Frey Dock
Ratskin Dock
Redeye Dock
The Magia Blade
In a long-ago age on the edge of Deep Time, a star fell to Earth and landed not upon the great waters, but streamed a course across an island in the northern sea. Shards of the glittering orb fell like rain onto the mountains plowed up in the star’s wake, and ever after, when their time came, the people of the island prized the stones of light, Dream Stones, and the great metal wrought from the star’s core. In this they were not alone. Millennia passed millennia, bringing the Earth into one new age and then another before a darkling shadow came from afar, seeking the lost star.
From whence came the star and the darkness there is no record except for the star itself, which had sunk ever deeper into the rich matrix of the Earth until the surrounding rock turned the star’s light inward and its heat burned a path through the Earth’s mantle, opening a passage to a netherworld sea and an abyss to the core beyond.
Celestial flames, ignited by the star’s fiery descent, kindled life in the dark waters of the sea, and all those brought forth by the star’s fire were forever and truly called the Starlight-born. Fair of face with shining brows, they were of the union of Heaven and Earth, and the Ages of Wonders were theirs to rule: the Quicken-tree, Daur, and Ebiurrane, the Kings Wood and Red-leaf, Wydden and Yr Is-ddwfn.
The descent of the darkling shadow brought the first ages to an end. The scattered tribes of the Starlight-born reunited on the ancient fortress-isle of their birth, and in the thousand thousand years that followed, they delved deep into the arts of enchantment to find surcease from the chaos manifest in the everlasting night of Dharkkum. Thus in the Dark Age the Prydion Magi came into being, and the Seven Books of Lore, and all manner of things fashioned in the cauldrons of the magi. Of these, two had the power of war. Born of a single brew in a crucible wrought from the star’s great metal, a red dragon and a green roared to life and devoured the darkness, leaving naught but tattered remains of smoke and effluence. These the Prydion Magi sealed in the bowels of the Earth with crystal. The dragons they released into the great oceans of the world to churn the tides and keep the Moon coming back to the Sun so that between the two heavenly lights the shadow would ne’er fall again.
But beasts of war are ever hungry, and even as the dragons spawned their first brood on the shores of the nether sea, the magi forged a peerless sword to rule them, its edge tempered with star-wr
ought metal, its hilt crowned with stones of light, the Magia Blade. A bloodspell was then cast over the people of the Earth so that forever after, those who could wield the blade would come forth in time, whenever needed.
Two such were born on the island, then known as England, in the twelfth century of the Fifth Age of Men when the threat of darkness again drew nigh: a woman-child of the Yr Is-ddwfn, and a man whose blood ran deep with dreams of war—Aethelings of the Starlight, bound by celestial ether.
Prologue
September 1198
Ynys Enlli, Isle of Saints
Wales
Nennius walked softly across the floor of his hermit’s cell, so softly that his slippers stirred nary a grain of dust into the air. ’Twas an act of natural grace for one such as he, to step lightly upon the earth, so lightly that there were those among the other Culdee monks on the island who thought him a favored saint. A few, though, would as soon ascribe to him a more sinister designation, and in truth, ’twas to the latter group he conceded whatever wisdom was to be found on Ynys Enlli.
A single shaft of light fell through a crack in the cell door, rending the gloom and shining down upon a roughly made table and the contents thereof: books. Made of parchment and bound in oak and leather, many were copied by his own hand; some saved from their in quaternis states on dusty monastery shelves where they’d been left unbound and forgotten; others more outrightly stolen and secreted beneath his robes across three seas to bring them to this far edge of the world where their words had led him—back to where he’d first awakened on the shores of a cold sea, sixteen years earlier, awakened lost and consumed by madness. His years of wandering had taken him to far and distant lands, before sanity and purpose had returned. With purpose had come the search for the books. A few of the weighty tomes had been literally unearthed and pried free from the corpses of monks who had sworn to take their knowledge with them to their graves. One had been a gift, a small Psalter, given to him two years past by a hairless, disaffected brother named Helebore.
He continued past the table to the paillasse on the floor. He had missed Brother Helebore after he and the rest of the Culdees had tossed the heretical fool off the rocks into the sea. Nennius’s guilt, and he’d harbored no great amount, had been assuaged, though, for the bald brother had floated, not sunk as they’d thought, and washed himself up for another year of life on the ill-fated shores of Merioneth—or so sayeth the man who lay on the paillasse.
Nennius knelt next to the straw pallet. Weary, half-crazed eyes rolled up at him from out of a weathered face nearly obscured by a shaggy beard and long, scraggly hair. Brothers William and Theo had brought the wayfarer to Nennius’s cell on the southeastern shore of the island, breaking Nennius’s self-imposed solitude and his peace. He did not fault them for the breach. Where else to bring a raving lunatic but to one well versed in the vagaries of unstable minds, especially when the lunatic had one’s own name on his lips? Nennius, Nennius, the man had cried while pounding on the church door during nones.
In a rambling stream of jumbled words the man had named himself Gruffudd, a garrison guard of Balor in the Cymraeg kingdom of Merioneth on the coast of Wales, the lone survivor of a battle waged against demons in hell whilst spring blossomed on the land above. He’d spoken of a keep ruled by a boar and flashes of blue light that cut as cleanly as knives, of women who fought like banshees by their men’s sides, and of a ghostly white, hairless devil priest with no eyebrows and a mouth full of rotten teeth, the Boar’s leech, who had died a devil’s death in the bowels of the earth, ground asunder by a creature too horrifying to recall—and Nennius had doubted not a word. Indeed, he’d felt a growing sense of excitement as the story had unwound.
“Rest, my son,” he said, soothing the man’s brow with a warm, damp cloth. “You are safe here.”
“Safe?” A large, palsied hand scrabbled for a hold on his robes. “Helebore cursed ye. Ye must know it. Cursed and conjured and called upon Satan hisself to bind ye with the flames of everlasting damnation. He said ye tried to murder him for what he knew. ’Tis why I came, Father.”
“To see if his incantations had proven fruitful?” Nennius asked, more curious than taken aback.
“No, Father. No, never,” Gruffudd swore, tightening his hold. “I prayed for ye, prayed for yer salvation from his wickedness. Prayed... prayed for ye to save me. Helebore and his twisted faith brought naught but evil to Balor, for ’tis lost now, and not one man left alive to tell the tale except me.”
“Are you so sure? If you survived, mayhaps another also found the way out of hell.” He wiped the damp cloth over each of the guardsman’s cheeks.
“Nay,” Gruffudd said, his voice harsh. “All that fell were dragged into the sea by the demons with the light-blades. If there’d been a breath left in any of ’em, they’d a drowned afore they’d found it.”
Just as well, Nennius thought.
“In the Irish Sea?” he asked, dabbing at the beads of sweat forming on the man’s brow.
“Nay, not the wild, open ocean, but a dark one far below the land once called Balor. A doomed well it is, Father, the beach washed with blackwater waves and glowin’ purplish like with the fire that burns inside the cliffs. I fear ’tis the lair of... of...” The man’s voice trailed off.
“Of?” Nennius encouraged. When no answer was forthcoming, he pressed harder. “Is this the place where you saw the—” His question was cut short by Gruffudd grabbing his scapular at the neck and dragging his head down.
“Don’t say it, Father,” the guardsman warned, his breath coming short with budding panic. “Helebore called to the beast and it kill’t him. I can still hear his screams.” The man grew quiet, his eyes narrowing and shifting toward the door. “Aye, I can still hear him screamin’ and see the beast draggin’ him. It’s hauntin’ me, Father, stalkin’ me nights. Ye must make it go away.” His gaze returned to Nennius’s, and his voice became tinged with desperation. “If anyone can make it go away, it’s ye. Ye alone are left who knew the blackness of the leech’s soul. Just ye and—and me.”
“Aye,” Nennius calmly agreed. “We are together, you and I. Alas, poor Brother Helebore had a black heart in search of black deeds.”
“Very black deeds,” Gruffudd said, then lowered his voice to a confessional whisper. “Mayhaps even blacker than ye know, Father. At the Boar’s bidding, he brought a witch to Balor, a fair, lovely lass, name of Ceridwen, and she was’t the ruin of us all. I thought ’twas greed, but ’twas blasphemy, pure blasphemy a’needing the witch’s blood that took us into the caves time and again, may God forgive me.”
“You were with Helebore when he searched the caves?” Nennius asked, giving little credence to the man’s talk of a witch. Men had always found themselves in need of women, especially fair and lovely ones; and a witch, he knew, could be either this or that and seldom what was thought, depending on the whim and motive of the man in need. Many a kingdom had fallen on account of a fair face, sometimes justly so, as he well knew. And sometimes unjustly, as he knew even better.
A faint memory stirred at the edge of his consciousness, a fleeting scene of a woman striding away from him across a bleak landscape, cloak billowing, sand blowing, a flash of golden skin and even more golden hair showing between the white folds of the loosely bound turban flowing onto her shoulders. Away from him.
He swore silently, gritting his teeth, and turned his mind to the present. Women were a danger, especially fair and lovely ones. As for blood, ’twas a basic elixir, good for all manner of things and worthless for as many others.
Gruffudd nodded, his hold loosening on the scapular. His hand fell back to the paillasse. “I was strong once, the strongest of the Boar of Balor’s men, and ’twas I who helped the leech get through the rock slides barrin’ the way into the caves, but I swear I didn’t know what he was lookin’ for. ’Twas gold most likely, I said to myself, or silver, or gemstone, but up until the demon warriors with the blue blades came and took us so deep, we found
naught but a bubblin’ pool o’ water in the middle of a great cavern. Helebore liked the pool well enough, but I thought to myself that he’d have to do better than that to keep his promise of riches to the Boar.”
“So the master of Balor thought to get rich on Helebore’s secrets,” Nennius murmured, hiding a smile. Once he too had lusted after the wealth inherent in precious metals and gems.
Beads of sweat had begun to show on Gruffudd’s cheeks, and Nennius carefully wiped them away.
“Rich beyond his dreams, all our dreams, that was what the leech promised, and all he gave us was death and horrors.” A trembling took him, and Gruffudd turned his face aside, into the rough wool blanket covering the straw. “Ye’ve never seen such things, Father, such creatures as I have seen in the dark. Huge, rolling beasts wet with their own slime. S-s-s-serpents,” he stuttered. “S-serpents of monstrous size, sliding and prowling through the deepest, darkest places in the earth. If they be not creatures of the Devil hisself, I know not what they’d be.”
Nennius knew. His hand tightened on the damp cloth, squeezing so hard that droplets of moisture ran into the corner of the guardsman’s mouth.
Pryf. The lunatic had proven to have worth beyond measure. The rolling beasts, the serpents the man spoke of, could only be pryf, dragon larvae.
In unconscious reflex, Gruffudd’s tongue licked the wetness away. Nennius watched the small bit of liquid disappear, then glanced toward the other door in the cell, the one leading into the hill and down to the labyrinth below the island’s surface. His years of searching that dark and dank maze had yielded very little other than proof that the giant worms—Gruffudd’s serpents, Nennius’s pryf—had once existed in this place, very near to this time. There was a shaft marked with the word pryf, but a word carved into rock was impossible to date with the tools he had at hand. He had gleaned better proof from striations in the rock where the creatures had bored their passages and left bits of dried slime on the walls, a sweet, earthy greenish black resin when solid, but easily returned to its natural state by soaking in seawater, unless ’twas too ancient. The slime he’d found had reconstituted into a lovely mess, much to his encouragement. Most telling had been the piles of fibrous material he’d found tangled and matted in a cavern nearly impossible to reach, an apse at the end of a narrow and low-ceilinged tunnel. He’d pulled the threads of one knotted bundle apart and felt their tensile strength, and he’d known what he held in his hands—the larval silk of pryf, spun within the last millennium by the color of it, silver but yet with a sheen of green.