The Obsidian Throne

by J. D. Oswald

  ‘It can be saved. Thank the Shepherd it only caught your hand. I don’t want to think what might have happened if you’d been standing in the tunnel mouth.’

  ‘It … it was there. Then there was a whistling noise. I …’

  ‘Calm yourself, Master Trell.’ Usel once more put his hand to the predicant’s forehead, soothing him with his magic words. Only once the young man’s breathing had steadied did he turn to face the rest of the party.

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have known. It’s in the verses, mad though they are. “The blood of kings will clear the way.” Ah, by Gog’s hairy balls I hate that damned seer.’

  ‘What are you talking about, man?’ Dafydd had been as patient as he could, but Usel’s cryptic words and the uneasy atmosphere of the cavern, the silent whispering of all those long-dead voices, all were conspiring to give him a headache worthy of an epic night on the town.

  ‘The escape routes. They will only stay open as long as one of King Balwen’s heirs remains in the cavern. Step through them or back up the exit stairs, and the magic that conceals them reasserts itself.’ Usel worked as he spoke, taking a long strip of clean white cloth from the bag slung around his shoulders and using it to wrap Trell’s hand. ‘The princess will have to stay here until everyone has gone through,’ he added.

  ‘I cannot. I’m needed in the Neuadd. If I don’t use the power of the throne, there’ll be riots before a hundred people have made it to safety. Before you’ve even got them down the stairs.’

  Dafydd reached out and took his wife by the hand. ‘I can go alone. I know as much of this magic as any of us. I can use the throne, just for this.’

  For a moment he thought she was going to agree, even though he had made the offer hoping she would protest. The unlikely figure of Usel came to his rescue.

  ‘You offer is well meant, sire, but it would not work. The Obsidian Throne is protected by many ancient spells. I have no doubt that given the time you would be able to circumvent them, but time is a luxury we cannot afford. The princess is a direct descendant of King Balwen himself. The throne will welcome her. You it will fight, and that conflict will spread throughout the city.’

  The silence that fell after the medic finished speaking was as deep as the cavern in which they all stood. The situation was impossible, and as Usel had so helpfully reminded them, time was running out. How soon before the dragons destroyed the gatehouse and the walls? How soon before Beulah’s army marched through the streets, putting everyone to the sword?

  ‘There is a way.’

  He almost didn’t hear the words, so quietly did Iolwen speak them.

  ‘Iol? You can’t leave. The tunnels will close as soon as you do. You saw what happened.’

  ‘No, Dafydd. I can leave. You can leave too, but Iolo must stay. His blood is Balwen’s blood.’

  ‘My lady, he’s but an infant.’ Lady Anwen cradled the sling with the still-sleeping child in it.

  ‘I would rather die than let him out of my sight, Anwen, but I have no choice. Take good care of him. Teryll, stay with her. Keep out of sight of the people coming through. If you can bear it, sit nearer the centre of the cavern. We will be just above your heads, no higher than the Fool’s Tower in Abervenn. If all goes well, we shan’t be gone long.’

  Iolwen bent low to her child, cradled in another woman’s arms, and kissed him gently on the forehead. He stirred, let out a quiet gurgle of contentment, then settled back to sleep.

  ‘Wait for us as long as you dare, but if all hope is gone, then take the rest of the palace guard and flee. He is our future. He can end these generations of needless war.’

  ‘Where is His Grace the Duke of Abervenn?’

  Beulah strode down the wide track between the ranks of white canvas tents so quickly that Captain Celtin and his warrior priests had to run to catch up. She had accosted half a dozen hapless soldiers already, none of whom had any reason to know where her husband was, and now she was nearing the edge of the camp. Beyond her lay the plain, the city rising in the distance, and a few hundred paces off a half-dozen dragons dozing in the afternoon sun. A light breeze blew towards the camp, bringing with it a stench that both turned her stomach and set the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She had smelled that musk before, in a tiny village on the edge of the forest many hundreds of miles north-west of here.

  ‘Your Majesty, I have sent word for His Grace. Would it not be better to wait for him in the command tent?’ Captain Celtin was smart enough not to stand too close to his queen when suggesting such a thing. Beulah wheeled angrily.

  ‘No, Captain. It would not. Send a man to the tent to tell Clun where I am. The rest of you can come with me.’ She turned back towards the distant dragons and began walking across the grass towards the nearest. She had seen enough of them to know that this one was the senior among them, the one who had bowed to Clun and who seemed to be able to keep the rest in line.

  ‘Your—’ Captain Celtin began to protest but wisely came to his senses. Beulah did not turn, but she could feel him hurry to keep up with her even as she could feel his trepidation. Her own she hid, though she could not deny it was there. The beasts looked large from a distance, but as she approached them they were bigger still, the smell boiling off them in waves. Rotting meat, spilt entrails and something deeper, earthier and far more sinister. She thought her approach quiet; she was so small compared to the creature she was like a mouse approaching a carthorse, but the dragon opened one eye to stare at her as she neared.

  ‘A visitor? Or maybe another meal.’ It spoke directly to her mind, directly to all of their minds if the reaction of Captain Celtin and his remaining warrior priests was anything to go by. Lucky the man who had been sent to wait for the Duke of Abervenn.

  ‘You know who I am, Sir Sgarnog.’ Beulah did her best to speak the Draigiaith, dredging her mind for memories of being taught the dry, dead language as a child in Emmass Fawr. Her mouth wasn’t designed to form the words; no human mouth was.

  The dragon lifted its head slowly, moving to get a closer look of the queen, sniffing the air as if it were possible to smell anything over its own rank odour.

  ‘My queen,’ it said after a while, addressing her in flawless Saesneg. ‘To what do I owe this great honour?’

  ‘The walls still stand. The gates are not yet open.’

  ‘What can I say? You construct your fortresses too well. One of us might simply fly over the wall and open the gates from the inside, but none of us is small enough to fit into the gatehouse. So we tear it down, but it is hard work.’ The dragon reached out one taloned hand in Beulah’s direction, but slowly so as not to appear threatening. The fine scales around his massive fingers – more like the claws of some vast raptor – were scratched, the talons chipped and blunted. He flexed them slowly, studying his hand for a while, then pulled it back and started to push himself upright. ‘I will rouse the others and we’ll have another go, if that is what you wish.’

  Beulah couldn’t read the creature at all. It seemed to be genuine in its deference to her, no hint of sarcasm in its speech. She had more chance of reading the mood of Clun’s horse, Godric, than seeing into the mind of Sir Sgarnog and his fold.

  ‘Actually, I have another task for you. One that will be less painful. The people trapped inside the citadel are attempting to flee through tunnels protected by powerful magics. I would have you guard the exits, make sure none escape.’

  ‘None?’ The dragon arched a scaly eyebrow.

  ‘These people have betrayed me. They have betrayed the throne and the Twin Kingdoms. I do not intend to let them skulk off into the night. My darling sister and her so-called husband least of all.’

  Sir Sgarnog shifted slightly, his wings rustling as he shook them. ‘Your Majesty, if I may offer some advice?’

  Beulah didn’t know whether to be offended or astonished, but she was rapidly reassessing her approach to these animals. She recalled the few pathetic creatures that had been paraded at court during her fathe
r’s reign – occasional tithes from the far corners of the Twin Kingdoms. They had been a nuisance, an affront to decency but hardly a threat. Benfro had changed all that, revealing the lie that dragons had been telling all those years. But Beulah was a realist. She had seen the devastation wrought by Caradoc, had read the reports from her army marching north to Tynhelyg, and finally she had seen the damage just a handful of the great beasts had done to Candlehall. It was only luck that had seen them side with her. Luck and the foolhardiness of Clun. Close up, she could sense their power, feel the deep magic running through them. Nothing she had learned about their kind as a child was true any more. If it ever had been.

  ‘This place you call Candlehall is your home, is it not? The centre of your realm?’ Sir Sgarnog continued as if taking Beulah’s silence as permission. She nodded once, prepared to hear him out, at least for a while.

  ‘Much of your army is from here too, I would expect. If not the city itself, then the surrounding countryside, the smaller towns and villages I have seen all around here. I would also hazard a guess that many of the people within these walls are close to those in your army. Cousins, sisters, parents. Maybe just friends.’

  ‘And yet an example must be made, or my right to be their queen is baseless.’

  ‘True.’ Sir Sgarnog tilted his head slightly, and, fixated on his eyes, Beulah imagined the earth itself shifted under her feet. She fought off the feeling, tugging her mind away from the aura that surrounded the dragon. Had he been doing it on purpose, or was it just the nature of the creature to swamp both her physical senses and those more attuned to magic? Beulah shook her head, building up her defences once more.

  ‘So you think I should not put them all to the sword. Or feed them to you and your fold.’

  ‘There’s scant eating on a man, and I for one have never been fond of food that can talk. Much less food that can wield the Grym with such deadly effect as Master Clun. No, I do not think you should put them all to the sword. Their leaders, of course. String them up or feed them to Gwynedd Bach. She’s not so fussy what she eats. But the commoners? I would show them clemency, or you may find you have a mutiny to deal with as well. Put them to work rebuilding your city, perhaps.’

  Beulah considered the dragon’s words. They were not so far from her own thoughts on the matter, now that the initial shock of finding her capital taken from her had passed. She would still raze much of it to the ground by way of punishment, but a large part of the city was overcrowded, the buildings old and dangerous. Demolishing them and making way for something new would be an improvement. The work would keep her people occupied too.

  ‘I will consider your advice, Sir Sgarnog. But I still do not wish my people to flee. The tunnels must be sealed lest the leaders escape.’

  The huge beast raised himself slowly, as if the effort of moving that vast bulk were too much. He lifted his head, turned it this way and that, sniffing the air with a distant, faraway look in his eyes. After perhaps a minute he peered down at Beulah.

  ‘Five routes. Most interesting. I had thought any Heolydd Anweledig would long ago have lost their potency, yet these are still strong. Some exit nearby but one leads too far for me to see without deeper investigation. It has been crafted with a skill in the subtle arts I would have thought beyond any man. Intriguing. We will have to inspect each exit closely. This is not just a matter of bolting a door or collapsing a tunnel. We will return when it is done.’

  Sir Sgarnog dipped his massive scaly head by way of a bow, then carefully turned away from the queen and lumbered off to the nearest sleeping dragon. He barked out orders in guttural Draigiaith, so rapid Beulah could only make out one word in ten. And then with a rumbling in the ground like an earthquake the entire fold took off like a flock of geese disturbed.

  Wafts of gas fouler yet than those that filled the upper cavern stung Errol’s eyes and prickled his skin. He could scarcely breathe, flailing around in the darkness as he fell headlong into the abyss. And then with a snap that almost wrenched his arm out of its socket, he stopped, held in place by the chain looped around his wrist and still tied to the cart above.

  Dangling over the edge of the precipice, he looked down and watched as the tiny speck of flame that was the torch tumbled end over end towards the bottom of this impossible cavern. Somewhere in the black, falling alongside it, the supervisor continued to scream until his cries were abruptly cut short by a sound more like a stone dropped into a muddy bog than a body hitting rock. And then light, blue and white, billowed out from a single point. Flame rushed up to meet him with impossible speed. Instinctively Errol turned away, screwed his eyes shut tight.

  The heat enveloped him, drying the muck that encrusted his skin and soaked the hem of his travelling cloak in an instant. It was impossible to breathe, his lungs squeezed as if a giant hand had grasped him tight. The strain on his arm lessened as Errol found himself being borne upwards by an invisible force. For a moment it was as if he floated in a sea of boiling water, and then his hand was snapped down again, his body pulled around in an arc. Before he could do more than tense, he crashed heavily into something hard and unyielding. The wind was driven out of him like a punch to the gut, and the brightness that had shone even through his tightly closed eyelids turned inky black, just a few dazed stars flickering about the edges of his vision.

  Slowly the roar in his ears subsided, the pain in his chest lessening as he managed to suck in a few shallow, unsatisfying breaths. It might have been minutes or hours, he had no way of telling, but eventually Errol started to feel the pain in his neck, the twisting of his back and the awkward way his arm was wrenched up behind his head. He shifted his body, looking for a more comfortable position, and only then realized that he had something in his free hand, clenched into a fist. He held the supervisor’s purse, torn from the man’s belt as he fell away into the pit. Gases, no doubt thick and noxious and oozing from what must have been a deep lagoon of manure, had ignited when the torch had hit. The explosion had lifted him in the air, swept him in an arc, tethered to the cart by the silver chain. Somehow he had landed inside it, and that had probably saved his life.

  Errol shuffled on his backside towards the point where his arm was being stretched by the chain. He had no idea which way was which, but the cart started to tilt alarmingly, so he shuffled quickly back until everything settled. He dimly remembered tipping the contents of the cart into the abyss, but had he re-latched it when he was done?

  Keeping as still as he could, he tried to undo the purse strings with his free thumb. It took a long time, and the cart wobbled precariously with every slight movement. Errol was convinced that it was balanced right on the edge, ready to plummet at any moment. The purse was a source of warmth and strength though, and he was almost certain he knew what was inside it, how it would help him escape. But the leather thong was tied tight. Eventually he resorted to using his teeth, spitting at the foul taste on his fingers until finally the purse loosened and its precious contents tipped out on to his palm.

  The gem was smaller than the one that had come from Morgwm the Green, but it was the same brilliant white colour. His eyes had become accustomed to the near-total darkness and he had to squint against the glare. Discarding the cloth purse, Errol rolled the tiny jewel around in his palm, trying to sense the dormant consciousness inside it. He could feel nothing though, just an intense jolt of Grym with no intelligence behind it whatsoever. Intrigued, he pinched it between two dung-encrusted fingers and gently reached over, touching it to the loop of chain around his other wrist. With the slightest of clicks, the links parted and the chain fell away, and with it the nagging feeling that he should have been obeying someone.

  Inching his way to the end of the cart that he didn’t think was teetering over the edge, Errol stood up on unsteady feet and peered out. The explosion deep below had blown out the torches that hung on the cavern walls, and the light from his tiny jewel struggled to penetrate the deep gloom. There was a tiny pinprick of light not far off though
. It called to him in the silence with a deepening panic.

  Getting out of the cart wasn’t easy. It rocked alarmingly as he hoisted himself over the lip and lowered himself to the ground. Errol gripped the edge tight, felt with his feet until he was certain he was putting them down on something solid. Only then did he let go. The cart tipped, knocking him backwards as it upended over the edge. For a while there was just the whistling of something large falling through still air, and then a dull thud echoed in the darkness, followed by a sound disturbingly like a fat man belching.

  He gasped in great lungfuls of air, his heart thudding away in his chest as he realized how close he had come to dying. And then a sense of fear and desperation cut through his shock. He shuffled over to the tiny ball of light, closed his hands around it.

  ‘What happened? Where did you go?’ The voice of Morgwm the Green filled his head, louder than before as if the dragon’s spirit were shouting in alarm. Perhaps it was; she had been left incomplete, alone in the darkness in a cavern where no Grym flowed. It was hard to imagine a worse hell.

  ‘I had to drop you. I had no choice. I’m sorry.’

  ‘This place is so cold. There is no Grym here at all. No voices.’

  As the words formed in his mind, Errol remembered the other diggers, away down the tunnel in the next great cavern. Why had none of them come to see what was happening? Surely they would have seen the explosion; they couldn’t have failed to hear it. What if they were angry at him? What if they caught him and threw him over the ledge like the supervisor had threatened?

  ‘We have to get away from here.’ He scrabbled around on the cavern floor until he found the strip of cloth in which Morgwm’s jewel had been wrapped. For a moment he thought about wrapping the two jewels together, but the one from the supervisor’s purse felt too different. It had no spark of intelligence, just a compressed power like a spring trap waiting to be tripped. Something told him it would be best to keep them separate. He began to wrap it, then realized that it was his only source of light, feeble though it was. Unwrapping it, he carefully put the piece of cloth into the pocket of his robe, down beside the other wrapped jewel – Magog’s jewel – and the strange glass orb. He had lost everything else, and yet somehow these two things had stuck with him through all his trials. A pity the same couldn’t be said for his companions. First Benfro and then Nellore.