The Golden Cage

by J. D. Oswald

  ‘Then what is the principle? How is it done?’

  ‘Well, consider your blade of light. To conjure it you reach out to the Grym and bring as much power as you can imagine back into yourself. But instead of burning you to a crisp, you turn the Grym on itself and channel it into your blade. Imagined as an extension of your arm, it becomes a terrible weapon. The art of hiding is, in a way, the complete opposite. Instead of taking in the Grym, you must try to turn it away. You want to divert it around you so that you become a hole, a black spot in the fabric of Gwlad. And you need to close down your thoughts so they don’t leak out into the Llinellau. Then when people look at you, their subconscious will tell them there is nothing to see.’

  It sounded easy enough, but Melyn could remember the excitement he had felt on first being told how to conjure the blade of light and how it had taken him many months of diligent study and practice after that to produce a faint glow for a couple of heartbeats. And two of his fellow novitiates had burned themselves to death, cooked from the inside, trying to master that same skill before they were ready.

  ‘So what are the dangers in this working? How can it go wrong?’

  ‘There’s no danger, as far as I know. It’s a skill we teach our kitlings long before they are allowed to study any other subtle arts. I suppose if you separated yourself from the Grym completely then you might die, but you would more likely become unconscious first, and then the spell would unravel.’

  Frecknock fell silent, and Melyn thought about her words. He considered the lines about him, thought about how he tapped them to conjure his blade of light. Then he imagined pushing the Grym away from himself instead of welcoming it in. It was an odd reversal, and almost immediately he felt the cold mountain air chill his bones. He tried to lift himself above the Grym, even though to distance himself from it was the complete antithesis of everything he had been taught, and everything he had ever experimented with in magic. And at the same time he pulled his thoughts in tight, as he did when dealing with Seneschal Padraig or Archimandrite Cassters, men who were adept at reading and manipulating the minds of others.

  ‘I’m impressed, Your Grace. I know you are there, and yet I can barely see you at all.’ Frecknock’s eyes were still fixed on him, but as he stood, then stepped to one side, she struggled to follow his movements. He said nothing but turned away and walked back into the camp.

  The first group of warrior priests were huddled around a tiny fire, enjoying the light of it more than any warmth. Melyn walked up to them quite openly, standing in the light from the flames in a space between two seated men. That they didn’t immediately leap to their feet was confirmation enough of the success of his conjuring, but he stayed where he was, intrigued to hear what their conversation might be in the absence of their leaders.

  As it happened, they were complaining about much the same things he recalled moaning about when he was a warrior priest out on a long mission. They missed the food and facilities at the monastery; they grumbled about long hours in the saddle, but they were excited about the mission and pleased to be out of the forest.

  Leaving the troops by their fire, Melyn wandered through the camp past other small groups with similar concerns. He noticed that even the horses paid him no heed, their heads down and grazing hard at the thin grass even though they should have been able to smell him. It gave him a certain thrill to be able to move about unnoticed, but at the same time it bothered him that nobody, no creature, could sense him at all. For now this was a fine new weapon, but sooner or later his enemies would acquire it, and he needed to know how to see through it before then.

  Captain Osgal was attending to his horses, which were close to Melyn’s own animals. As the inquisitor stood right in front of him, he looked to his left and right, then straight ahead, his eyes focused on something in the distance. Melyn was about to say something when the captain turned away, walking quickly over to the fire where Captain Pelquin sat with a couple of warrior priests.

  ‘Have you seen the inquisitor?’ Melyn heard Osgal ask as he approached the group.

  Pelquin stood up, scanning the small fires dotted about in the darkness. ‘He was walking the perimeter earlier. Then he went to talk to that dragon. Damned creature gives me the creeps. I thought we were supposed to kill them.’

  ‘That’s not what you were saying two days ago, when she got us all out of the forest.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking about that. I reckon all that trouble was down to her in the first place. I mean, we’ve had no end of problems since she’s been about. We lost good men back at that lake.’

  Osgal made a non-committal noise and turned away to look around some more. Melyn let his mental guards down, relaxing some of his control in much the same way as he would in order to extinguish his blade of light. Osgal almost immediately stopped. His eyes swung this way and that, trying to focus on something in the darkness, never quite falling on Melyn’s face.

  ‘What is it, Osgal? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ Pelquin looked straight at the inquisitor with unseeing eyes. ‘There’s nothing out there, man.’

  ‘Actually there is.’ Melyn released his control on the Grym surrounding him, then pulled its energy back into his cold body, shivering at the sudden influx of heat. It was worth it just to see the look on his captains’ faces.

  ‘Your G-grace, how … ?’ Pelquin stammered. Osgal made the sign of the crook and bowed his head. Behind the two captains the warrior priests at the fire struggled to their feet.

  ‘You think the dragon Frecknock has brought us bad luck, Pelquin. But I know that the opposite is the case.’

  ‘Your Grace …’ Osgal began, his tone betraying what he was about to say.

  Melyn waved him quiet. ‘I know our teaching, our sacred charter. I still hold to them. Nothing Frecknock has told me has changed my mind on that. But she has knowledge that I mean to extract before I carry out Brynceri’s orders and send her soul back to the Wolf. This magic will be of great use to us in the days ahead. Tomorrow you and all the other troop commanders will learn it from the dragon, and then you will pass it on to all your men. Once you have all mastered it, then we will descend upon the godless Llanwennogs and destroy everything in our path.’

  In the end they left the horses behind, and most of the provisions Errol had bought. It was too risky to travel on the roads near Cerdys, given that one of Errol’s attackers had escaped. Errol freed the hobbled horse, which staggered to its feet and limped away to join the other animal. Benfro then left him to sort out the provisions while he went back down into the gully and fetched his own bag. By the time he got back, Errol was ready to go, though he wasn’t enthusiastic about flying. Benfro was confident he could hold a good course across the grasslands, if he could see the stars, but the clouds that had parted so conveniently earlier on had grown thicker.

  Taking off was easy enough in this flat land, even with the added weight. But with the moon obscured by clouds, it was difficult to get any bearings. After circling a few times to gain a little height, Benfro decided the best thing was to follow the road at least until the outskirts of the town. Hopefully there would be enough light spilling from windows and doors for him to skirt it and then pick up the road on the other side.

  Errol kept silent as they flew, his hands gripped tight around Benfro’s arms. Travelling more slowly in the darkness, Benfro thought he might have been able to talk, but after a couple of remarks went unanswered, he decided that it was perhaps better to concentrate on flying. As he had hoped, the town was a blaze of lights. If anything there was rather more than he would have expected, suggesting that more people were up and awake than normal. He flew around it, going far to the south and crossing the dark ribbon that was the river as the first fat drops of rain began to fall from the sky.

  Benfro had walked through enough rain to know that he didn’t like it, but flying in it was a whole new experience. Quite apart from his speed making it feel like he was walking into the teeth of a howling ga
le, the rain made his wings heavier and reduced their efficiency. His muscles had to work harder and harder just to stay up, and as the weather worsened, so it became increasingly difficult to see anything at all. In the darkness it was impossible to tell if the rain was a passing shower or part of a much larger system. He was going to have to land.

  No sooner had he admitted that truth to himself than Benfro saw the problems he faced. His vision was seriously impaired, making it hard to gauge distance to the ground. The darkness made it impossible to see any obstacles that might make him trip and break his neck on landing. And the grass was waist high anyway, swirling and swaying in the wind and rain.

  Then he saw, a good way up ahead, more lights. At first he thought it was the same town and he had turned full circle in the night. But the closer he approached, the clearer it became: a much smaller settlement than Cerdys, little more than a village judging by the size of the buildings. As he neared it, the rain eased a little, then stopped altogether. Benfro soared over a dozen rooftops and then he was speeding away on the other side, headed towards a small clump of trees that sat on the landscape like a tumour.

  Almost as if it had been sent to help him, the moon poked out through a small gap in the clouds, illuminating the grassy plain surrounding the woods. Another gully cut through the grass and trees, narrower than the ones they had encountered before, deep and steep sided. Benfro banked hard, losing height as fast as he could, all too aware that the moon would be gone again in seconds. His wings were too heavy to consider flying on, even if the rain held off, so he swooped down in a series of tight turns, coming finally to a heavy landing on the grass.

  Errol dropped to the ground like a discarded sack, muttering something that sounded very much like ‘Never again,’ and they walked quickly across the dark grass to the woods, reaching the trees just as the first heavy drops of rain started to fall again. They found a cave in the side of the gully, surrounded by trees and boulders. In the darkness it was impossible to tell how far back it went, but it kept the rain off, and Benfro couldn’t smell anything inside that suggested it was already occupied. He would have liked to build a fire, but he knew that any light would attract attention from the village.

  ‘How far do you suppose we came?’ Errol asked after they had settled themselves into what little dry space there was.

  ‘Not far enough. A rider could cover the distance in half a morning, I’d say. Quicker if the road’s good.’

  ‘Which it is. I’m sorry, Benfro. I’ve got us into rather more trouble than we needed right now.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Benfro shoved his fist in his mouth to stifle a yawn. Now that he had settled down, he could feel sleep tugging at him, the weight of his exhausted muscles dragging him down.

  ‘Here, you should get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.’ Errol shuffled himself upright against the rock wall to make more room. Benfro was too tired to move. Muttering a quiet, ‘Thanks. Wake me after an hour or so,’ he settled down on the hard dry earth and was asleep in moments.

  The sun was shining down through wet leaves and birds were singing a loud dawn chorus when he woke. Benfro stretched, pushing his wings wide as it occurred to him that Errol had been awake all night and that he had not dreamed a thing while he slept. Looking round, he saw the boy still wedged against the cave wall, his eyes drooping slightly, his brow creased in concentration much like Sir Frynwy’s when he tried to remember a particularly obscure bit of lore. Benfro reached out with his aura, automatically knotting it around the ever-present rose cord and erecting his mental defences against Magog. As he did so, Errol’s frown relaxed and he looked up.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. You look like you could do with a nap yourself.’

  Errol struggled to his feet, knees popping like an old man’s as he stretched. ‘I could. But I think I’d better check out that village before word gets out from Cerdys. I might be able to pick up some food too. I can sleep all afternoon and we can head off after dark.’

  ‘Won’t they be suspicious if you walk in from nowhere?’

  ‘Villagers are always suspicious. But they’re usually more hospitable than townsfolk. At least that’s been my experience. I should be fine.’ And with that Errol heaved his bag over his shoulder, scrambled out of the gully and was gone.

  26

  To a citizen of the Twin Kingdoms, the Llanwennog circus is an inconceivable thing. Dour Hafod and rural Hendry take their entertainment from travelling minstrels and mummers, or else celebrate with drinking and eating to excess. Our cousins to the north, however, enjoy a different kind of amusement.

  So how to describe the circus to one who has never encountered its like before? Well, there are minstrels and mummers, it’s true. But there are also magic acts and freaks of nature on display: bearded women of terrifying demeanour, scaled men who live underwater like fish, dwarves who can lift ten times their own weight, acrobats who can walk along a thin wire suspended over a killing drop as casually as if it were no distance at all. And there are animals, the wildest, rarest creatures from all the corners of Gwlad, caged, tamed or at least controlled, trained to perform such tricks as would give anyone wonder who could not see the cruelty in their entrapment.

  But the most prestigious circuses, and there are very few of them today, are those that have dragons. For whereas we have persecuted these magnificent creatures by hunting them down and killing them, in Llanwennog they have perfected the art of humiliating them.

  From the travel journals of

  Usel of the Ram

  As Errol had predicted, the villagers were wary of him to start with, but hospitable. The small tavern at the centre both fed him and provided him with provisions for his journey. He hadn’t been able to buy another horse, since none were available, but this was probably not a bad thing as most seemed to be skittish around dragons. Errol had thus concluded his business in the village by midday and was about to leave when a small band of rough-looking men rode into town.

  Their arrival caused much excitement, and it wasn’t long before Errol heard the word ‘circus’ whispered among the grubby children who played at the roadside, chasing chickens and hitting each other with sticks. The men went into the tavern, laughing among themselves and ignoring everyone else. Errol ducked back in behind them. His empty plate and tankard still sat uncleared at the table by the unlit fireplace where he had eaten, so he quickly sat himself back down again, pretending he had never left. The men didn’t seem to notice him, too intent were they on shouting for the barmaid to bring them ale. She bustled around, drawing several tankards from the barrel and banging them down on the bar.

  ‘It’s not often we see the circus here these days. Will you be giving us a show?’

  ‘Sorry, love. We’re just camped up for the night. Master Loghtan’s got some bee in his bonnet. Reckons he’s found a new act and wants to make sure it’s all ready for the royal performance.’

  The barmaid’s disappointment was obvious even to Errol. ‘How long you staying, then?’

  ‘Not long, I’d wager. We’ve not made a proper camp or anything. We’ll probably push on down to Gremmil first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘So you’re here for the night, then?’

  ‘Oh, aye. If you’re looking for a show, why not come out to the camp? We’re always practising something or other. An audience is always welcome.’

  Errol could see what was going on as plain as day. No doubt the barmaid would go out to the circus camp, and if she didn’t come back until the morrow morning, then that was her business, he supposed. Still, it gave him an idea. He slipped once more out of the tavern and headed off up the road in the direction from which the men had ridden. There was only one road running through the village, itself no more than a dozen small houses clustered around a central green with a spring feeding into a small stream. The road rose gently to a ridge about a mile distant. Errol climbed slowly, the midday sun hot on his head, until he reached the top, and there
, spread out over the grassy plain below, was the circus.

  Having only ever read about such things before, the circus looked to Errol very much like a small travelling army. There were perhaps four dozen large wagons, drawn up in lines just off the road. Horses grazed the grass, tethered so that they didn’t wander too far, and a couple of large tents had been set up. Smoke rose from a fire near the centre of the camp, and as he approached Errol could smell cooking meat.

  Closer to the circus, he saw people wandering about, busy at tasks he couldn’t begin to comprehend. A group of children juggled and skipped over a long rope, their play skilled and graceful in marked contrast to the village boys. He supposed they were practising, but as soon as they saw him, they stopped, running off between the great wagons screaming with laughter. Errol felt a bit awkward just walking around staring. He could see now that many of the wagons were ornamented, painted in vivid colours and hung with cooking implements, shovels, water barrels. It struck him that they were people’s homes and he had no right nosing around them.

  ‘Can I help you, young man?’ The voice almost made him jump out of his skin. Errol turned to see an old woman, her face darkened by a lifetime in the sun and wrinkled like dried fruit. Her hair was white, but her eyes were sharp. She was dressed plainly, and held herself upright with all the vigour and self-importance of a noble.

  ‘I was in the village over there.’ Errol pointed back up the road. ‘I heard the circus had camped here and thought I’d come over to look. I’ve never seen one before.’

  ‘Never seen the circus before?’ The woman’s face relaxed and she smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. ‘Why, where you been all your life, young man? The Twin Kingdoms?’

  Errol tried not to start at the suggestion, but something of his alarm must have shown. The woman laughed.

  ‘Tis a joke, young man. For sure, they’re so tied up with their Shepherd over the hills, they don’t know how to enjoy themselves. But I’m forgetting my manners. Please. Any traveller’s welcome in our camp. Can I offer you a bite to eat? Some tea perhaps? I’m Griselda, by the by. I work with the lioncats.’