The Golden Cage

by J. D. Oswald

  ‘Your Majesty, is this wise?’

  ‘These are my people, Petrus. I can’t look down on them from a horse.’ And with Clun at her side she set off to walk among her subjects.

  19

  Perhaps another example of the confusion within and surrounding the Guardians of the Throne is the contradictory beliefs held about this so-called order. Some say that it is a precursor to the three great religious orders known today – Ram, Candle and High Ffrydd – and that its main function is the pursuit of knowledge for the benefit of mankind. There are numerous although poorly documented instances of strangers appearing in the royal court at times of crisis, bringing wisdom and saving the day. Yet there are tales too of an order working behind the scenes to hasten the day when the Shepherd returns from the stars. Of fanatical members who demand the strictest adherence to the scriptures and think nothing of killing those who disagree with them, even members who spurn the Shepherd and worship instead the Wolf. These last are the followers of Mad Goronwy, who would pursue knowledge only to suppress it. And there are supposedly yet more who claim the title Guardians of the Throne whose heresy is even more contemptible. For they deny the existence of the Shepherd altogether and believe that – of all creatures – dragons once ruled Gwlad.

  Barrod Sheepshead,The Guardians of the

  Throne – A Noble Folly

  Lord Beylin’s castle stood in marked contrast to Queln’s sorry pile of stones back in Corris. It sat on a rocky outcrop that rose strategically over a bend in the River Hafren as it swelled sluggishly through the plains of the upper Hendry. Like Corris, it had been built many centuries earlier, but whereas Queln’s keep had not changed in the intervening years, Castle Beylin had been upgraded, expanded and remodelled until very little trace of its original form could be seen.

  Beulah had enjoyed her walk among the simple folk of Beylinstown, perhaps because it had discomfited Lord Beylin so much or perhaps because Clun seemed genuinely interested in meeting everyone. And far from the hostile reception she had expected, or at best a restrained indifference, everyone had seemed genuinely excited to be so close to their monarch. For a while she had basked in the adulation, the rushing energy of so much raw emotion, feeding on it until she felt like she could do almost anything. However, her entrance into Beylin’s castle, a place of calm in the midst of the maelstrom, had been a relief. And, still full of the power of her subjects, she had lost no time in demanding to see the prisoner.

  Lord Beylin himself led the party down into the depths. Beulah followed directly behind him, with Clun and Captain Celtin bringing up the rear. They descended through several levels, the air growing increasingly still, stale and rank, until finally they could go no further.

  ‘Were you worried he might escape?’ Beulah watched as Beylin fumbled with a heavy ring of keys given to him by the dungeon master. He selected one and inserted it into the lock on a solid oak door, which turned with an oiled ease at odds with the neglected appearance of the place.

  ‘Father Tolley proved a most slippery captive.’ Beylin took back the torch that he had handed to Clun and pushed open the door. It swung silently inward, only the obvious effort required to move it giving away its weight. ‘At first we just locked him in one of the guest rooms, but he managed to walk out of there as if the door were no more substantial than air. My guards only caught him because he was foolish enough to try and steal a horse from the castle stables.’

  Locking the heavy door behind them, he led them along another narrow corridor towards a final door. There were no torches save the ones they had brought with them, and the silence was total. Beulah reached out for the lines, but the few that flickered through the place were insubstantial, scarcely enough to provide a little warmth, let alone anything as comforting as light. Anyone left down here for any length of time would surely lose their mind.

  Beylin handed the torch to Clun once more as he searched through the key ring, looking for the right fit. As he slotted the heavy iron key home, he peered through the small slatted opening in the top of the door. It seemed a bit of an odd thing to do, Beulah thought, given the lack of illumination inside the cell. Perhaps he was trying to see if the predicant was hiding by the door, intent on rushing them as it was opened.

  ‘Father Tolley, I have a visitor for you.’ Beylin took back his torch once more, stepping into the cell and slotting it into an iron sconce on the wall. ‘I think you’ll be pleased to see … Oh.’

  Beulah peered into the room. It was surprisingly large and dry, hacked out of the rock into a roughly round shape with a high uneven ceiling. On the far side a narrow shelf of stone protruded from the wall, offering a hard bed. To the left a small hole in the floor described its use eloquently in rich human odour. Opposite it a set of rusty iron manacles hung empty from a heavy ring let into the wall. There was nothing else in the room.

  ‘Is this some kind of joke, Beylin?’ Beulah pushed past him, looking around the back of the door. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Your Majesty, I …’ Beylin’s cool exterior vanished instantly, his confusion evident as he darted around the room, searching even when there was nowhere a man might hide. He even peered down the hole, though a rat would have had a hard time escaping that way.

  ‘I’d heard Castle Beylin’s dungeons were inescapable.’ Beulah stood in the middle of the cell, looking around and up. There was something not right about the place, something that niggled at the edge of her senses. She cursed the way her pregnancy dulled them. In the crowd outside she had felt alive, her old self. Perhaps that was why she had enjoyed the sensation more than she would have expected. But here, buried beneath thousands of tons of crushing rock, she felt constricted.

  ‘They are. No one can escape. He must have been let out. But only Marchant has the keys.’ Beylin held up the clanging metal bunch. ‘He would never –’

  ‘No one has escaped this cell. Well, at least not yet.’ Clun stood in the doorway, and though Beulah turned to face him, his eyes didn’t meet hers. Instead they were fixed firmly on the bed shelf. ‘Were you hoping that Lord Beylin would leave the door unlocked when he left?’ He walked across the room, sweeping past her as if she wasn’t there, keeping his gaze locked on something as if he feared he might lose it.

  ‘And what about the other door? Do you honestly think he’d be stupid enough to leave both unlocked?’

  Beulah couldn’t help herself. She let out a little gasp of surprise as Clun produced a slim short blade of fire, reaching forward with it until the tip was almost touching the cave wall at about the point a man’s neck might be were he sitting on the shelf. She felt the room chill and wondered just where it was he was taking his power from.

  ‘Your Grace? Are you sure you’re all right?’ Beylin stepped forward, but Clun held up his free hand, then slowly inched the other forward, the point of his blade moving closer and closer to the wall.

  ‘Please, please. Don’t.’ Something strange happened. First there was just the wall, poorly lit by the flame from the guttering torch. Then the shadows it cast seemed to coalesce into an indistinct shape, solidifying like candle wax dripped on to a tabletop, finally taking on the form of a man. The point of Clun’s blade rested on his Adam’s apple and Beulah smelled a faint whiff of burned skin over the other cloying odours of the cell.

  ‘Father Tolley, I think.’ Clun pulled his blade back a little but kept it alive.

  ‘Indeed it is. But how?’ Beylin approached the predicant, but Beulah waved him away.

  ‘An interesting use of magic,’ she said. ‘One I’d like to learn more about. But first a little discipline, I think. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you kneel in the presence of your queen?’

  Tolley looked straight at her. He was a small man, thin and austere like many of his order. His simple dark robe was tied around his middle with a length of rope. He wore open-toed sandals and his bare feet were black with grime. His face was nondescript; it had probably been round when he was a child, but now bones showed through
his skin, which stretched over a narrow nose. The only notable thing about him was the way his skull tapered to a point at the crown. That and his eyes. They were tiny, black accentuated by the shadows, reflecting the light of the torch and Clun’s unwavering blade. And they stared without blinking.

  ‘Kneel before your queen.’ Beylin grabbed the predicant by the shoulder and threw him off the shelf to the straw-strewn rock floor.

  ‘Patience, Beylin.’ Beulah looked down at the sprawled figure at her feet. He slowly gathered himself together, staying on his knees as he rose from the ground and stared back at her.

  ‘What was it you did to Lord Queln?’ She brushed the edge of his thoughts, trying to see what images the name brought to the surface. It was surprisingly difficult to find any. The man who knelt before her was in tight control of his mind.

  ‘So you think yourself something of an adept. Do you fancy your chances against me? Against the queen of the Obsidian Throne?’

  ‘You’re a long way from your throne now.’ Beulah had been expecting a thin voice, reedy and dry like the books of accountancy and management so beloved of the Order of the Candle, like the voice she had heard when Lord Queln had died. But Tolley spoke in a soft dark rumble far lower than a body his size should have produced. With his words, she felt the first whispering of his thoughts bubble through the protective shield he had thrown around them. She focused on that, looking for a way in.

  ‘I don’t need the throne to know what kind of man you are. I know you set great store by the prophecies. I’ve seen how you’ve studied them, looked for the meaning behind old Goronwy’s doggerel. So who did you think I was? The warrior maid? Balwen’s last? The blood-soaked sheep?’ Beulah rattled off a few of the more risible names she recalled from reading the prophecies as a child.

  ‘You are all of them. And none.’ Tolley smiled, an unnerving expression that made his whole face crease. ‘You scoff at Goronwy, but she was a true visionary. She saw through the great lie, this usurper you call the Shepherd. She saw the truth, and it turned her mad. But not before she had written it all down.’

  If there was fire in the predicant’s voice, it was nothing compared to the zeal that boiled off his thoughts. He was as mad as the prophet he so clearly worshipped, but there was an underlying logic to his delusion, Beulah was sure. And she knew also that he was part of a much larger conspiracy, a small cog in a very big machine. If she could just find a way past his barriers, then she could lay open his whole mind, pick out the names and faces of those with whom he conspired.

  ‘Why Corris?’ She changed tack. ‘How could you know I would pass through there and not come straight to Beylinstown? Lord Beylin has been busy building fine roads across all of his fiefdom, after all.’

  ‘The book told me it would happen there.’

  ‘So you hired a gang of bandits to attack our convoy. Surely you must have known they wouldn’t stand a chance against a troop of warrior priests, let alone my guards.’

  ‘That’s why they needed the drug. Call it a little encouragement. They nearly succeeded too.’ Tolley’s eyes dropped from Beulah’s face to her arm. Covered by the long sleeves of her riding cloak, the bandaging was impossible to see, and the wound was almost fully healed now, thanks to her days on the barge. It was possible that the predicant had heard more details about the attack than were widely known, but his words sent a little shiver through her nonetheless. Almost automatically she pulled her own defences tight around her thoughts, remembering Melyn’s lessons. To attempt to sense another’s thoughts was to open yourself up to the risk of them influencing you in turn.

  ‘Where is Inquisitor Melyn these days?’ Tolley asked. His question could have been a coincidence. ‘I would have expected him to have been at your heels.’

  Lord Beylin chose that moment to step forward, hitting Tolley hard across the face. Beulah almost felt the pain of the blow, but it dislodged a few images from the predicant’s mind. She saw again his hidden chapel within the walls of Castle Corris, only this time the small room was filled with other figures, hooded in dark robes.

  ‘You will speak to your queen with more respect.’ Beylin’s voice broke her concentration momentarily, and the image faded.

  ‘Lord Beylin. If you interrupt my interrogation again I will have you sent to serve in the infantry. You can lead the first assault through the Wrthol pass.’

  As she said the words, Beulah felt the first sensation of the predicant’s attack. It was subtle and far more powerful than she expected. Then she realized her mistake. This man dressed as a predicant, it was true, just another lowly scribe content to exist in the lower levels of his order. But that was his cover; that was the boy who had trained as a novitiate and showed studious promise but not the drive that would take him up through the hierarchy of the order. There was another person behind that persona, though: the young man recruited to a shadowy organization, taught things no man should ever know, shown the secrets, told the truth. And he had lapped it up, bloomed under their care into a skilled adept, a powerful manipulator with a mission to hasten the return of the true king.

  Beulah saw his whole life leading up to this point, and realized as she tripped through his thoughts that he was picking his way through her own. Her plans for the invasion of Llanwennog, the distribution of her armies between Dina and Tochers, Melyn’s diversion.

  ‘What? Did you think to pass a message on to your allies? Warn King Ballah?’ She pushed with all her might, shook his touch from her mind. And still he stared at her, smiling.

  ‘The Guardians of the Throne care nothing for King Ballah and his godless Llanwennogs. We answer to a higher power. We serve the true king.’ Tolley’s voice was all around her now, inside her. He was tearing away at her mind like some frenzied beast, reaching for her core, trying to destroy her from within. And as he spoke, she was paralysed, held fast by the power of his madness.

  Beulah gathered herself in the storm that was her thoughts, preparing for one final push, knowing that if she didn’t break free of Tolley’s control, he would kill her. Or worse, simply destroy her mind and leave her body still alive, an empty husk to be tended, fed, wiped and cleaned until age finally took it. She knew how to do it, if only she could concentrate. If only that voice would stop grating in her head. If only those eyes would let her go.

  ‘He’s coming, Beulah of the stolen throne. And when he gets here, his wrath will be mighty to behold. He will lay waste to the whole of Gwlad, then rebuild it as his own paradise. And only those who have shown him loyalty down the centuries, those who have fought against the lies of his hated brother, only we will be allowed a place in that safe pasture. Only we will live in the presence of –’

  Tolley never finished. In an instant Beulah’s head was clear, as if she had stood at the edge of a terrible storm, battered by it until she could feel nothing but the wind and the rain, and then someone had closed a door, locking it out. It took a few moments for her brain to catch up with the noise her ears had heard – a sort of rasping sound like the cutting of pigskin. Then her eyes found their focus, saw the light in the predicant’s eyes fade away as his pupils rose to the ceiling.

  He fell sideways, crumpling to the floor like a sack of offal, his head tilting as it toppled away from Clun’s sizzling blade.

  The cave was dark beyond the waterfall, but even so Melyn could feel the power flowing through it. He waded forward, hauling himself up out of the water and on to rocks miraculously dry. No damp moss clung to the walls, no smell of mould hung in the air. Everything was held back by a working of such sophistication it was staggering. He could feel the charge in the air, thickening it, trying to push him back as he walked into the darkness. It was like a solid but silent wind, making each step as heavy as if he weighed as much as a horse, but he knew it was all in his mind. He pushed on, pitting his mental discipline against ancient spells, until with a final surge he broke through.

  Only faint light from outside made it through the silently rushing water, but
as his eyes adjusted to the gloom it was enough to show the outline of a large cavern. Melyn moved among huge pieces of ancient carved furniture never intended for men. He heaved himself up on to a chair that made him look like a child, and looked across a table that could have sat a party of two dozen. If they were prepared to stand on boxes to eat. Letting himself down to the floor, he disturbed the dry dusty earth on the ground. A spicy aroma rose around him. He had noticed it in the other cave, and it reminded him of something, but he couldn’t place it. Shaking off the thought, he went to a large wooden chest that stood against one wall close to a vast bed. It resisted all his attempts to open it, and he was about to conjure a blade of light to cut his way in when a sound distracted him.

  His first instinct was to look back to the waterfall. As he did so he remembered the two warrior priests he had ordered to follow him. They stood close to the deluge, cloaks soaked through, hair matted to their heads and feeling around in the air like a pair of bad mimes. Melyn almost laughed. They obviously couldn’t see the magics that protected this place and would be puzzled as to how their inquisitor had disappeared. But he realized as he watched that he could hear nothing of them or the flood of water behind. And then he heard the noise again.

  It was behind him. Turning, Melyn saw that the back of the cave wasn’t a solid wall but the opening of a black passage. He walked towards it, conjuring a small flame to light his way. It flared in his hand, as bright as the sun, chasing all the shadows away and filling him with a sense of power even more potent than when he conjured his blade. Focusing on the lines, he could see why this cave had been chosen as a hiding place and a focus for the powerful spells that spread from it across the forest. The Grym concentrated here like nowhere else he had seen outside the Neuadd, and its power seemed to flow down the rocky tunnel that led away from the end of the cave.

  The passageway dropped slowly and turned a long arc so that he could never see more than a dozen paces ahead. The further he went, the more he was convinced he could hear a voice. He couldn’t make out the words, but the inflections, the accent and pitch were all unmistakable. Errol was ahead, in earnest conversation with someone.