by J. D. Oswald
Iolwen took a deep breath and focused on the central pillar that rose to the cavern ceiling. Above it stood the Obsidian Throne and seeped into that was the combined knowledge and skill of generations of the House of Balwen. Her father had sat upon that throne, and her grandfather before him. Back and back until the time of great Balwen himself. And now she could see that it had been there even before then, a centre of such potency she could not even begin to understand it. But she didn’t need to understand, just needed to know that it had accepted her as it had accepted her sister. If they shared nothing else, then the blood of Balwen ran through both of their veins. She could save her people, ease their fear, help them escape.
‘You can relax now, Majesty. We are all but done.’
The voice startled her out of what had almost been an aethereal trance. Sweat prickled Iolwen’s face and her legs felt as weary as if she had marched a dozen leagues. She had not felt time passing, but hours must have gone by. There was no way that so many people could have entered the dark tunnel ahead of her in mere minutes.
‘How long …?’
‘Enough. That is all that matters.’ Usel stood beside her, his hand still on her shoulder, but as he spoke so he lifted it off. Judging by the way he tensed at the movement he was as exhausted as Iolwen, the both of them strained almost to the limit by the effort of channelling such potent Grym. She looked around the cavern once more, noticing that the jewels had darkened again, the whispers become less intrusive. It was still an uncomfortable place to be, as was evident by the way the last few remaining people clustered around the tunnel entrance. Captain Venner and a half-dozen palace guards were still there, as was Teryll and Predicant Trell. Iolwen was pleased to see Mercor Derridge and his motley band had waited for her too.
‘You must all go now. It can only be a matter of time before this tunnel disappears too. I will take the prince.’
The infant beamed a happy smile as Iolwen stumbled over to take him from Lady Anwen.
‘Everyone else must leave before the two of us. I don’t want a repeat of the last time.’
Trell nodded his understanding, then turned and stepped into the tunnel. Its mouth was black, no light shining from within and precious little of the dark red glow from the jewels penetrating beyond the entrance. Attuned to the Grym, Iolwen thought she felt a surge in the force as he disappeared and concentrated a little harder on the lines as the others walked through one by one. It was similar to what the young lad had seen when Dafydd disappeared, a feeling of displacement that was hard to understand. Could this tunnel be dragon magic? The thought was at once exciting and disturbing.
‘I will see you at the other end, Your Majesty.’ Usel was the last to go, giving her a solemn bow before he too was swallowed up by the tunnel. Iolwen paused a moment, looking once more around the now-empty cavern. In her arms, young Prince Iolo wriggled and then let out a tiny wail of impatience. The poor thing must have been starving, but it was not the time nor the place to feed him.
‘O Dafydd, I hope you are safe, wherever you are.’ Iolwen faced the black mouth of the tunnel, took a deep breath and stepped inside.
It was hardly the triumphal return Beulah had been expecting when she had left her capital all those months ago. Then her plan had been to tour the Twin Kingdoms, meet her people and drum up support for her war with Llanwennog, distracting King Ballah while Melyn found his way into the northlands. She had imagined returning to a city full of joy and welcome, its people happy that their queen had once and for all put an end to the menace of their godless neighbours. What greeted her was rather different.
The main city gates had been destroyed by the efforts of Sir Sgarnog and his friends. Stout walls that had stood for generations had been reduced to so much rubble in just a few days. The streets were empty save for the occasional stray dog searching for food. Here and there the half-eaten carcasses of larger animals rotted in the heat, and there were human remains aplenty too. When she had first heard of the treachery of Candlehall she had wanted nothing more than to raze the place to the ground, kill every living being within its walls. Now faced with her wish almost fulfilled, Beulah began to see the wisdom in restraint.
‘This will take a long time to rebuild,’ she said under her breath. Her horse pricked its ears as it heard her words, and beside her, looming on his massive stallion, Clun leaned forward.
‘My lady?’
‘I had not imagined there would be so much damage. It will take months, years to rebuild.’
‘An opportunity to make it better, stronger. If more of these dragons appear, we will need to rethink the design of our cities.’
‘More of them? I thought you said they considered you their leader. Will they not do as you say?’
‘These ones, my lady, for now. But what if one of them challenges me for the leadership? What if all of them do? And dragons live long lives. Far longer than you and I. Who will control them once we are gone? It pains me to say it, but the warrior priests of the Order of the High Ffrydd are no match for these beasts.’
Beulah said nothing in reply. His thoughts mirrored her own. For generations the threat from dragons had been an abstract thing, the creatures themselves too small, timid and few in number to pose any kind of danger. All that had changed with the appearance of Caradoc. No, even before that, with Benfro. Where had they come from, these dragons so horribly reminiscent of the beasts of legend?
They took the route Beulah had ridden in a carriage on the way to her coronation, not the quickest way to the palace and the Neuadd, but the widest street. The steep, narrow way was blocked in at least two places by fallen buildings, impassable except on foot and even then dangerous. Slowly their small party picked its way past the rubble of destroyed lives, trying to ignore the stench that hung over the city like a curse.
Things were slightly better as they approached the palace itself. The parade ground to the front of the huge complex of buildings was mostly clear, even though the main gates had been knocked in and the heavy wooden doors hung broken. A smear of dried brown blood and ichor marked the marble steps in front of the entrance, where something, someone, had met a decidedly sticky end. Beulah felt a disturbance in the Grym here, but she was too much on edge to focus on it.
‘We should sweep the palace before you enter, my lady.’ Clun dismounted, letting his horse stand where it would. The great stallion didn’t move a muscle until he patted it on the neck, then it lowered its head to sniff the stain on the steps once before walking purposefully over to the ornamental fountain for a drink.
‘I’m not a helpless princess.’ Beulah swung off her own horse, letting her senses expand around her. The warrior priests who made up her guard were tight behind their mental shields, and she knew them all well enough after months on the road. Sensing others within the building would not be difficult, especially given how few of them were left. She brushed past Clun, who looked like he was trying to decide whether to argue with her or not, and climbed swiftly up the steps to enter the palace. Her palace.
The first thing she noticed was the floor. Normally the rooms were kept scrupulously clean by an invisible army of servants. Now grit crunched underfoot, and looking up at the ceiling she could see cracks in the plaster, whole chunks of cornice missing entirely. Paintings hung askew on the walls, some fallen completely, as if the existence of dragons had twisted and buckled the world, picked up the whole hill and shaken it vigorously. In the outer reception rooms parts of the ceiling had fallen in completely, blocking the main stairs to the residential floors, so Beulah set off for the kitchen wing, Clun close at her heels.
They met no one, and the kitchens themselves were deserted. Beulah cast her thoughts out wide, touching the alien minds of the dragons wheeling in the sky overhead, but she could sense no one in the entire palace beyond their immediate group.
‘Come with me,’ she ordered, setting off up the servants’ stairs at speed.
‘Your Majesty, should we not proceed with caution?’ Capta
in Celtin asked. He had already ordered two men to sprint up the steps ahead of them.
‘The palace is deserted, Captain. We are in no danger from my sister’s supporters.’
‘I was more worried about a ceiling collapsing, ma’am. I never thought to see such destruction. Do these beasts not understand people live here?’
‘Oh, I think they know that well enough.’ Beulah reached the top of the stairs and headed swiftly down the corridor towards the door she knew would be standing ajar even though it was supposed to be the best-protected secret in the palace, if not the entire Twin Kingdoms. The dragons might not have much appreciation for the labours of men, but what Iolwen had done was a far greater act of vandalism. The closer they came, the more obvious it was that a great number of people had come this way. The dust was trodden by countless feet, the tapestries on the walls hanging at odd angles or ripped. A couple of benches close to the doorway had been knocked over in the rush, or so it appeared.
‘Clun, you come with me. The rest of you stand guard. No one is to enter this doorway without my express permission.’ Beulah didn’t wait for acknowledgement, but set off down the steps, soon finding herself in the great cavern deep beneath the Neuadd.
‘My lady, what have they done?’ Clun stopped by her side, following her gaze. Curtains Beulah recognized from the public reception rooms had been draped about the stone columns that housed the royal collection of dragon jewels, no doubt to dissuade casual pilfering and dampen the magic that flooded the room. The deep red glow was muted too, making it harder to see in the perpetual gloom.
‘Ignore it, my love. There are more pressing concerns.’ Beulah set off around the perimeter of the cavern, studying the rocks for the places Inquisitor Melyn had shown her so many years before. What would she have given to have him by her side now? She shook her head to dismiss the thought. The inquisitor had his own business to attend to. He would return as soon as he was able, of that she was certain.
‘It should be here.’ Beulah placed her hand on the rock, felt the warmth of it like a living thing. The Grym was concentrated around this cavern in a manner she couldn’t understand. Normally deep rock interfered with the life force, blocking it completely in places like the lower levels of Emmass Fawr and the dungeons of Castell Glas where they had interrogated Father Tolley. Perhaps it was the concentration of jewels, so inherently full of Grym, but for whatever reason, the magic was not working.
‘Is something wrong, my lady?’ Clun asked.
‘Each tunnel is concealed by magic. Only one whose veins carry the blood of King Balwen can reveal it. This one has opened for me before. And yet now it remains closed.’
‘It must be the dragons’ doing. They said they would seal the exits.’
‘I did not expect them to seal the entrances too. And too late, by the look of things. Everyone has left already. My traitorous people have fled.’
‘Are they all sealed? Angharad the Red has not yet returned, so maybe that exit is still working?’
Beulah ran her hand over the stone once more, then set off for the next point, and the next. She could see the prints of many feet in the dirt floor that skirted the edge of the chamber. How many hundreds had passed through here? This place was meant to be a secret! How could her sister have betrayed the family so? But then the family had betrayed Iolwen, hadn’t they? Sent her off to live with the enemy when she was only six years old. It was hardly surprising this was the way she saw fit to repay that kindness.
Four exits remained stubbornly hidden to her touch, and Beulah was almost back to the stone steps leading up to the palace now. Slow to follow, Clun caught up with her as she reached for the spot where Melyn had shown her the fifth tunnel. She took his hand for luck, then brushed the rock with delicate fingers. The Grym surged around her and the cavern wall dissolved into blackness as the tunnel was revealed. A faint wind ruffled her hair, warm and carrying a scent that she couldn’t immediately identify. Distant sounds echoed from the stone, rhythmic and soft like waves on a beach. Beulah took a step forward, intrigued by the mystery, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her.
‘My lady, it is not safe. Angharad the Red might close this off at any time. What would happen to us if we were inside it then?’
Beulah shrugged off Clun’s concern, but she stepped back nonetheless. The tunnel remained open, and she stared at it for a while, wondering where it led. But there were more urgent matters than this to attend to. She took one more look around the cavern, then strode to the exit. At the top of the stairs, Captain Celtin and the warrior priests were waiting, spread out in an arc around the doorway as if they expected to be rushed at any moment. It would have been funny had the silence of the normally bustling palace not been so disconcerting.
‘Captain, send word to the army to reoccupy the city. We’ll need teams to begin clearing up the mess these dragons have caused.’
Celtin slapped a fist to his chest in salute. ‘I will suggest to His Honour Lord Beylin that he might like to oversee that, ma’am. It is the sort of task he would relish.’
Beulah smiled at the joke. It was no secret Beylin was ill-suited to warfare. She was less happy about how much richer the reconstruction of Candlehall would make him, and how much more indebted to him she would be, but no one else would be up to the task.
‘Good idea, Captain. Make it so.’ She turned once more to Clun, took a deep breath and steadied herself, aware that this was the final task and the one she had been dreading. ‘Now it is time we went and reclaimed my throne.’
Errol thought he was going to faint. The jewels sucked all the life out of the room, and from farther afield too, heedless of anything but their own desperate need. He dropped heavily to his knees, could scarcely muster the energy to put a hand out and stop himself from slamming into the floor. He had been weak even before he had arrived, now he was being pulled apart by the newly awakened jewels. But his torment was nothing compared to what Nellore must have been experiencing.
Her eyes blazed bright with a terrible power she couldn’t possibly understand. She was held fast by that tiny connection between one fingertip and the pile. Her hair stood out from her head in a wide arc and steam rose from her jacket. If he didn’t do something soon she would be burned up completely.
Errol closed off his mind as if he were sparring with Father Andro back at Emmass Fawr or trying to hide his thoughts from King Ballah in Tynhelyg. It had been part of his novitiate training, and he remembered too the words of Father Castlemilk in his Introduction to the Order of the High Ffrydd. There were exercises he knew if he could just concentrate, routines that would lessen the effect of whatever magic the jewels were weaving.
Slowly the tension eased, the sense of having his insides sucked out of him faded away. And as he regained some strength, so Errol saw his aura, tight around him like a second skin. It was a second skin, one he could control if he could just concentrate enough. He had used it, extended it and wrapped it tight around that rose cord of Grym that linked Magog’s malign essence to Benfro. Perhaps he could do the same with Nellore. If he could just get a little closer.
He had to hurry. Her skin was turning red now and she was shaking so hard her scream sounded more like a gurgle. Ignoring the cuts from the glass strewn all over the floor, Errol dragged himself towards her. He willed his aura to grow, stretching it out from his arms and hands with all the effort he could muster. In Corwen’s cave, and later on the journey through the mountains, he had been stronger. There had been plenty of time each evening to ready himself for the task. His time in the Anghofied had weakened him, and now his aura stuck to him like sweat on a sick man, clinging to his skin and refusing to stretch away.
He shuffled closer, moving as fast as he could. Glass cut through his palms and the pain gave him focus. Just a few feet away from Nellore now. Perhaps he could stand, knock her over and break the contact that way. The effort was almost too much, his balance way off so that for a moment Errol thought he was going to topple back, lose the
few precious feet he had already gained. And then he was pitching forward, arms outstretched, still trying desperately to extend his aura and give himself the protection he knew he needed.
It all happened in an instant. Tripping over feet too weak to walk, Errol tumbled into Nellore. They both fell away from the pile of ashes, crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs. She burned as hot as a fire, her clothes smoking, hair wiry and singed, but she was still alive. Errol rolled over on to his back, his head glancing off the base of the writing desk. For a moment he was stunned, staring up into the dark shadows of the roof, the criss-cross wooden beams hung with things he couldn’t quite see. Shapes that writhed and twisted in the breeze like tortured souls. Then he heard Nellore groan, roll over and not so quietly throw up.
‘Wha—?’ she began, her voice croaky like an old woman.
‘Who are you? Why are you here? You should not be here. This is not your place.’
The voice hammered through Errol’s thoughts like nearby thunder. Something pale and ghostlike moved in the corner of his vision, and then he was looking at an image of a dragon growing rapidly from the pile of jewels that lay on the floor a few paces away. Not an old creature like Myfanwy or Corwen, but a huge, magnificent beast of legend.
‘Gog.’ The word was barely a whisper, and yet the image of the dragon clearly heard it. He bent low to Errol, peering first at him then at Nellore sprawled side by side like young lovers in the spring. And finally at the pile of jewels now free of ash.
‘I am dead.’ The ghostly creature rose from the ground, growing ever larger. ‘Killed by my brightest pupil. By my own brother.’
Errol rolled on to his side, then levered himself upright. The jewels were no longer trying to leach the Grym out of everything close by, but he still found it hard to tap the lines for warmth. He couldn’t help but notice how thin the air was too, each breath a struggle that left him light-headed. The cold nipped at his feet and hands, his whole body slowly shutting down. How had Martha survived here for months, trapped in the cage and cut off from it all?