The Golden Cage

by J. D. Oswald

  ‘Clun, your blade!’ Beulah shouted, then ducked, throwing herself to the floor as a wing swept through the space she had been occupying. She rolled, leaping to her feet and diving away as the dragon brought her wings above her head and then swung them down at the floor. Flagstones split, the whole building shuddered, and still Clun stood motionless, right beneath that head, as if waiting to be struck down. Beulah reached the relative safety of the nearest pillar, where she could gather herself. Over the other side of the warehouse two of her warrior priests had taken similar refuge. A third lay broken on the floor, his head split open.

  The dragon roared, rearing up to the ceiling as she threw off the last of her chains. She looked down at Clun, who returned her stare with a curiously calm expression on his face. He appeared defenceless but unafraid as the dragon hurled what had to be insults at him. The words echoed around the warehouse, much more painful on the ear than even their intense volume should have allowed. They rattled around Beulah’s head, making it hard to concentrate.

  Clun said something then, and the pain stopped abruptly. The dragon roared once more, this time just a simple cry of rage, and smashed her head down to crush the man who stood before her.

  Beulah was certain he was dead. But at the last possible moment Clun moved with a swiftness she would not have thought possible. Stepping sideways, he produced two long blades of light, swinging them with an economy of motion that was both beautiful and terrible. The dragon’s scream was cut short, but her head carried on down, striking the floor with a crash that dislodged slates from the roof and sent them clattering to the floor. The few soldiers still standing fell to the ground, and Beulah had to clutch the pillar to stay on her feet.

  And then the dragon’s head parted from her shoulders. It bounced on the stone, rolling forward in a spray of hot red blood that filled the room with a tang of iron. Once, twice it rolled over, then came to a halt, eyes wide open in surprise, staring directly at Beulah.

  25

  Take camphor wood, dried at least a season and flaked into thin slivers. Add essence of melar and wormwood berries ground to a fine powder. Crumble in some leaves from a year-old deaney bush and blend together well. This mixture when added to the embers of an oak fire will produce a thick smoke that will render a dragon insensible in moments.

  From the personal papers of

  Circus Master Loghtan

  Benfro sat in the small patch of scrubby trees and looked out over the empty gully. The ash pile of their fire from the previous night was the only sign that anyone had passed through this place in a hundred years. That and the bloody skeleton of the beast he had butchered. He had tried cutting strips of meat to dry, but as the sun’s heat filled the day a thousand, thousand tiny biting flies had appeared, attracted by the rich tang of spilled guts. Unlike the flies he knew from the forest, these ones didn’t seem deterred by the meagre smoke from the fire, and once they had gathered around the carcass, spoiling the meat, they had begun to pester him too.

  In the end he had been forced to retreat to the shelter of the trees, both by the flies and the intense heat of the midday sun. There was no wind in the gully, and the rocks soon shimmered with reflected warmth. At least he was in the shade, but he fretted that Errol would return and not find him, so he sat at the edge of the copse and stared out at the dead fire.

  Benfro had managed to sleep a little, dozing but never allowing himself to fall into a deep sleep. He constantly checked his aura and the thin traitorous cord that linked him to Magog. As the afternoon progressed, he became more and more obsessed with it. How was it that Magog had such a hold on him, and yet Melyn and his men had handled his mother’s unreckoned jewels unscathed? If what he had heard about men was true, then they collected vast hoards of jewels, stolen from countless smashed skulls, and stored them in their palaces. It horrified him to think of his mother’s jewels cooped up in some dark place, incomplete and bewildered, but at least they were reckoned. To be dead, unsustained by a living mind and yet still open to new experiences, still hungrily absorbing all that went on around them, all that came through the Llinellau; would that not drive a dragon mad? Perhaps that was what had happened to Magog, his original character supplanted over hundreds, thousands of years by the cruel presence he had become. But it still didn’t account for how the dead mage could attach himself so firmly to Benfro’s mind, how that dreadful rose cord could be so firmly fixed to his aura.

  The afternoon progressed to evening in a series of jumps, as he napped, woke with a start, checked he had not succumbed in some way to Magog’s influence, then fell back to his musing. Eventually Benfro would doze again, his thoughts jumbling in unlikely combinations until some subconscious sense of self-preservation kicked him awake once more.

  As the light began to fail he left the shade of the trees and went back to their campsite, wondering whether Errol might have returned, seen the place deserted and left some kind of message. He was being daft, of course. The boy would have had to walk down through the wood to get to the bottom of the gully anyway, and the trees weren’t so big that Benfro could hide himself completely. But with each passing hour the dragon worried more. What if Errol had got himself into some kind of trouble? What if he had been attacked on the road?

  When the first stars began to prick the darkening sky overhead, and still Errol had not returned, Benfro panicked that he might have lost the jewels. They had left the empty food bag back in the mountains, its woven grass handle burned through. Errol had taken his cloth sack with him, leaving Benfro’s leather satchel with the remaining gold coins and the map from Magog’s repository. Benfro emptied it out on to the ground, picking through the treasures, looking for the small cloth-wrapped bundles. No matter how many times he looked as darkness fell and the cool night air dropped into the gully, the jewels were not there. Errol had taken them with him. And now Errol was gone.

  Benfro slumped. He hadn’t realized just how much he had come to rely on the young man, just how alone he was without him. Only the night before, as they had talked about their dreams and the possibilities they presented, he had dared to hope that he might succeed, that he might rid himself of Magog once and for all. But even if he did, his mother would still be dead. Melyn would still be hunting him. He would still be hated and feared by the people who covered Gwlad. And if he found Gog’s world, where dragons ruled supreme, then what? He was just a kitling, not much more than sixteen summers old.

  Such was his gloom, Benfro didn’t at first notice the noise. Only when he heard the first shout did his brain catch up with what his ears had been hearing. The faintest of breezes brought both familiar and strange odours to him. He smelled horses even as he heard their hooves on the dry ground, their urgent whinnying. And he smelled men too, their bodies unwashed and sweaty, unrecognizable. Or was that a familiar odour mixed in with the rest?

  Swift but silent he got to his feet, holding his wings in tight by his sides as he crept up to the lip of the gully. Heavy clouds had obscured the moon and most of the sky, but a few stars shone through the gaps. Enough for him to make out dark shapes in the night.

  A voice spoke, gruff and demanding, in a language Benfro didn’t understand. He sneaked closer still, relying on the steady swish of the wind in the grass to mask his approach. He needn’t have worried. Three horses stood riderless by the edge of the road, one laden down with bags, the other two lightly harnessed. The voice came from the long grass to the side of the road, and as he crept closer Benfro made out movement – a scuffle. He heard what sounded like wet cloth being slapped against a rock and a series of low grunts. Then silence.

  The voice spoke again, and a dark shape rose from the grass, heading back towards the horses. Another bent down and hauled up something heavy. Benfro stole closer still, tasting the air like he had been taught by Ynys Môn, keeping himself as silent as possible, hunkered down in the swaying grass. And then two things happened at once. A stiff breeze blew up, taking his own scent towards the horses, and the clouds roll
ed back, spilling moonlight over the scene.

  Two of the horses reacted instantly to his presence, their ears going flat to their heads, eyes opening wide in fear. They would have run, but they had been hobbled; instead they tried to kick out, wheeling and snorting, and finally crashing to the ground in terror. The third horse, laden with packs, reacted more calmly, simply ambling out of the way of its panicked fellows. But Benfro’s attention had been drawn swiftly away from the horses by the man still standing in the grass.

  He was no taller than Errol, thin, with a narrow face topped with very little hair. He wore spectacles that glinted in the moonlight, and was dressed in a long flowing gown. More importantly, he held an unconscious Errol by the throat, and seemed to be trying to choke him to death.

  Benfro let out a bellow and leaped forward. The man saw him but didn’t react until it was far too late. He dropped Errol, who slumped to the ground unmoving, and tried to flee. But Benfro was upon him already, and all the frustrations, all the anger and fear and pain he had felt since that terrible day when his mother had been slain, all his rage came out at that point. He grabbed the man by his shoulder, feeling a savage glee as he sank his talons into soft flesh, crushed brittle bone. He picked the man up off his feet, twirling him around so he could look straight into his eyes.

  ‘Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just leave us alone?’ Benfro shook the man violently, then threw him away from him, disgusted by the bloodlust that had come over him. He turned back to see the second man un-hobbling one of the kicking horses, jump on to its back as it scrabbled to its feet, and gallop away down the road. Benfro would have given chase, but Errol let out a moan of pain.

  He knelt down and picked the boy up carefully. Errol’s face was covered in blood, seeping from a wound on the top of his head, but otherwise he appeared unharmed. Benfro carried him out into the grass, away from the horses, and laid him down again. As he did so, Errol opened his eyes and said something in words Benfro didn’t understand.

  ‘What did you say? Are you all right?’

  A brief moment of puzzlement flashed across Errol’s face, and then he spoke again, this time in Draigiaith.

  ‘Thank you, Benfro. I think you just saved my life.’

  ‘Who were those men? What did they want?’

  ‘One of them is a gold dealer called Tibbits. The other I don’t know, though he might have been a friend of the ostler who sold me the horse.’ Errol sat up slowly, wincing as he felt his head. ‘They hailed me on the road. I thought I must have left something back in Cerdys, but when I slowed down to let them ride alongside me, one of them coshed me over the head. I guess I’m lucky they didn’t use a sword.’

  ‘But what did they want? Why attack you like that?’

  ‘Gold, of course. I should have expected it, I suppose. Tibbits never believed me when I said I only had the one coin. What happened to them?’

  Benfro looked back towards the road. The hobbled horse was still struggling, but less frantically now that he had moved away. The other had ambled out into the grassland and was grazing quietly, as if seeing dragons was an everyday occurrence. It was too dark to see far down the road, but at a gallop the second of Errol’s attackers would be a couple of miles away by now. The first man still lay in the long grass where Benfro had thrown him.

  He was sprawled on his back, one leg tucked up behind him in a manner that suggested it was broken. His back was twisted, and a dark stain spread from the wound in his shoulder where Benfro’s talons had pierced skin and broken bone. But it was his head that gave the game away; it was never meant to point that way.

  Errol held a finger to the man’s neck for a few moments, then reached out and picked up the shattered spectacles that lay beside the body. ‘He’s dead. Poor old Mr Tibbits.’

  Benfro felt a shudder run through him and was unsure what it meant. Part horror, part elation. He had killed a man, had picked him up and shaken him until he broke. Admittedly he had been no warrior priest; it wasn’t Melyn lying there with his neck broken. But he had killed him nonetheless.

  ‘We have to hide the body where it won’t be found. The other man got away, you say?’ Errol scanned the open plain as if his eyes were able to make out anything distant in the pale moonlight.

  Benfro nodded.

  ‘Then he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that there’s a wild dragon on the loose. It won’t be long before there’s a whole gang of them out here looking for you. We have to get away from here tonight.’

  Benfro looked down at the dead man and remembered the rage that had swept over him when he had seen him choking Errol. His stomach gurgled, still full of meat, and he knew instinctively what to do.

  ‘Stand back,’ he said, and when Errol had moved to the road Benfro took a deep breath and let it out. Flame burst from his mouth, billowing around the dead body like a thousand caressing fingers. It gave off no heat, left the dried grass untouched, but swiftly consumed the man and his clothes. In a matter of minutes there was nothing left save the spectacles, their lenses cracked and hazed, at the head of a small pile of fine white ash, already being dispersed by the wind.

  Melyn couldn’t be sure at what point on their journey through the pass they had crossed over from the Ffrydd, which was technically part of the Twin Kingdoms, and become an invading army in Llanwennog. The trail through the mountains was fairly easy going, twisting and turning through steep-sided valleys, though their horses left behind them bare earth where scrub grass and heather had grown.

  The first couple of days were hard work. Although his injured hand was completely healed, the inquisitor suffered from a kind of numbing exhaustion as his body caught up with the magic that had been performed on it. He spoke little during that time, dozing in his saddle whenever the road was smooth enough to relax. On the third night they pitched camp in a large clearing where two valleys intersected. Water was plentiful, and the horses were allowed to roam free in search of feed. Captain Osgal posted guards to look out for wolves, but so far the only creatures they had seen were eagles, soaring and screaming in the clear air. It was cold this high up, and wood for fires was hard to come by. Melyn wasn’t concerned for the wellbeing of his men – they were used to such conditions at Emmass Fawr and could tap the Grym to keep themselves warm – but he did worry about the horses. They couldn’t afford to lose any more before they reached the first of the Llanwennog settlements.

  As night began to fall, he took a walk around the camp, talking to his warrior priests and casting an eye over their mounts. In truth he needn’t have bothered; his men were trained for worse conditions than these. They knew how to look after themselves and understood the importance of keeping their horses fit. But Melyn needed some time away from the busy centre of the camp, needed some peace and quiet to develop his strategy for sowing panic in the northlands. Soon he would need to contact Beulah too. Loath though he was to admit it, Melyn knew that he couldn’t do that without help.

  He found Frecknock huddled in the lee of a boulder. She was curled up as if asleep, but at his approach opened her eyes, looked up and then struggled to her feet. In the darkness her black colouring disguised her bulk.

  ‘Your Grace. How is your hand?’

  Melyn could have done without the reminder of his debt to her, but her concern seemed genuine. He held up his palm, unsure whether she would have been able to see it.

  ‘Better. Though you could have warned me about the side-effects of the healing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Your Grace. I underestimated the severity of your injury. Most men would have passed out from the pain long before they could damage themselves so.’

  Melyn supposed it was a compliment of sorts, though he wasn’t about to acknowledge it.

  ‘I want to know about this spell of concealment. Is it hard to learn?’ He sat himself on a smaller rock beside the boulder and indicated for Frecknock to be seated too. She hunkered down, trying to lower her head to his eye level, then slumped on to her belly instead.


  ‘Not especially, no. At least I didn’t find it so. It’s something we teach our kitlings almost as soon as they can speak. You might think it cowardice, but being able to blend into the background is an effective way of staying alive in a hostile world.’

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me that your kind would resort to such tactics, but I can assure you avoiding a fight is not my intention. So, tell me how it’s done.’

  ‘Well, Your Grace, the principle is quite simple. All life flows from the Grym, as you know, but the Grym also flows from living things – trees, animals, dragons, men. Anything that lives, really. Dragons are constantly aware of that connection, but other creatures, it seems, are not, and only a few men such as yourself and your warrior priests are skilled enough to perceive the Grym in any manner at all. So your kind rely on the more physical senses – sight, touch, smell, hearing. You define your world by them; your language is full of references to them.

  ‘But what you don’t perhaps realize is just how much you rely on your unconscious knowledge of the Grym to get by. It affects you subtly but constantly, and if manipulated the right way it can confuse those other senses so much that you will ignore something that is quite plainly there.’

  ‘So this hiding spell, it won’t work on dragons. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Not on all dragons, and not all the time. But you and your men are possessed of superb mental discipline simply because you have to work so hard to manipulate the Grym. Your blades of light are fearsome weapons forged by sheer concentration. That same quality is the most important factor for success in turning the Grym to hide you from sight, so I’d guess once you understand the principle of the working, you’ll be far better at it than most dragons.’