by J. D. Oswald
‘But why have her killed? And why take her palace as the centre for our order?’
‘Emmass Fawr is a place of great power, but it is also close to my brother’s mountain retreat, Nantgrafanglach.’ Melyn felt the hatred as the word formed in his mind, pictured the high tower and the endless roofs below it. ‘Were it not for this storm, you would see its lights from the northern walls, out across the Faaerem chasm. It always made sense to have my most loyal followers based here, best placed to watch for his return.’
Melyn approached the wide courtyard that would normally have been filled with novitiates practising their swordsmanship. Snow piled against the entrance and dusted the floor of the open passageways, brought in by a wind that howled like no storm he had ever seen in his decades of service to the order. It was the middle of the day, but only twilight made it through the heavy cloud, revealing a narrow path towards the rougher stone-built block that housed his room and the inquisitor’s chapel. A small group of young men were shovelling for all they were worth.
‘You there. Fetch Father Andro to my quarters.’ Melyn’s shout alerted the men to his presence and they all snapped to attention. The one he had commanded saluted swiftly, his shouted ‘At once, Your Grace’ almost lost to the howling wind. Melyn reached out and drew deep from the Grym, ready to warm himself before setting off across the open courtyard, then let out a curse as the power flowed through him far more swiftly than he had intended. With a flick of the wrist, he dispersed it in a sheet of flame that rolled out over the snow, melting it to slush.
‘Begging pardon, Your Grace, but the Grym’s acting up proper strange here. None of us dare tap it for warmth more’n a second or so.’
Melyn rounded on the hapless novitiate who had spoken, saw the fear in the young man’s eyes. He was beneath contempt, but he was also correct. The lines pulsed and whirled in a manner he had never seen before, and where usually they were the palest white, now they were tinged with red, as if something had bled into them.
‘You are one of Clun’s year, are you not?’ The inquisitor stared at the lad, trying to dredge a name from his memory. There was too much else to remember, his own experiences and the much longer life and life in death that Magog had endured.
‘Yes, sire. Quaister Mendrim tasked us with keeping the walkway clear for your return.’
Melyn looked at the path his fire had cleared, already beginning to cover over again as the storm continued to rage.
‘Well step to it then. I’ll be back shortly and I don’t want to be wading my way over.’
He picked away at the Grym in tiny, quick bites as he fought with the wind all the way across the courtyard. Emmass Fawr was always cold in the winter, but so naturally powerful that even with a full count of many thousands of novitiates, warrior priests and quaisters no one truly suffered. Except perhaps the servants, and they had fires to warm them. It was only autumn now, but the chill had settled deep into the land. With the lines so tangled and unpredictable, a lot of people would be feeling cold. One more reason to give them something to do.
The guard house at the bottom of the building was empty, and for a moment the inquisitor’s anger threatened to boil over once more. There should have been a full troop present, ready for his command. But then he remembered how he had come here. Alone, using magic no one else in the entire monastery was aware of. Word had probably only just now reached Father Andro of his arrival, so it was hardly surprising no one had detailed a guard for him. Most of his best warrior priests would be out in the mountains with Captain Osgal, seeking out Gog’s palace and mapping its entrances. Soon they would be ready to attack.
The plan was there, already fully formed in his mind, as Melyn climbed the steps to his rooms. With each passing moment the difference between himself and Magog became harder to distinguish. He should have been disgusted, alarmed, horrified perhaps. But instead he was exhilarated. Power and knowledge were things he had striven to achieve all his life.
‘We are destined for great things, you and I.’ Melyn spoke the words out loud in the empty corridor, and whether they were his or Magog’s he neither knew nor cared.
25
Not all dragons are masters of the Grym and the subtle arts. Some have no natural talent, whereas others find the years, decades, centuries of study too tedious to contemplate, preferring the immediate thrill of flight, the hunt and other more carnal pleasures. Men have no ability whatsoever, though some show a degree of sensitivity to the Llinellau. What then if they are needed half a world away?
A mage, or even a skilled adept, can travel with ease along the Llinellau to any place in Gwlad. With but a thought, the distance from Nantgrafanglach to Pallestre need be no more than stepping through an open door. Yet for his retinue, his household servants and followers, a simpler means of travel is necessary.
The Heolydd Anweledig, the invisible roads, are such a means. A permanent link along the Llinellau, they allow for any living thing, dragon, man or beast, to move in an instant from one place to another.
Such magics must not be undertaken lightly though. Fixing a working of the subtle arts to a place rather than a mage runs the risk of that working becoming unstable, with unpredictable results. Travellers along a failing Heol Anweledig might find the journey takes no time, but ages them as if they had walked the distance on foot. Or the exit might move from its intended target to somewhere else entirely, perhaps deep under the ocean or in the heart of a mountain. Worst of all, the subtle arts anchoring the road may simply unravel as it is being used. If this is the case then any traveller on the road will be dissipated into the Grym and vanish as if they had never existed.
Corwen teul Maddau,
On the Application of the Subtle Arts
It was almost as if he had never been away. Dafydd stood on the top step in front of the fallen doors into the Neuadd, staring out across the courtyard at the devastation wrought by the dragons. The only thing that had changed was the weather. He had grown accustomed to the heat of Pallestre, and here the cold wind cut through him like a knife. Overhead, the sky was leaden grey, and flurries of snow swirled around. A light dusting lay on the cold cadavers spread around the courtyard too, and all around was a terrible silence, as if the city had been abandoned.
‘How long have I been away?’ He released his grip on Merriel’s finger as the nausea of the trip began to fade. Instinctively, he reached for the lines, tapping their energy for warmth. Or at least he tried. At first he could find no trace of the Grym, and then it surged into him like a storm. For a moment Dafydd thought it might overwhelm him. His skin prickled with the heat, his scalp itching as his head grew hotter and hotter. Then, as quickly as it had come upon him, the power died away to nothing. He stumbled forward a step, breathing heavily.
‘Have a care. The Llinellau are bent and twisted out of shape. It is fortunate we were both here together before. Without that memory I might have been lost. We might both have been lost.’
‘What is causing it?’ Dafydd brought the lines to his vision and saw something strange and alien. Where all had been order, the Grym gently flowing between the myriad forms of life on Gwlad, now it was pulsing and writhing like a nest of snakes disturbed.
‘The death of Gog has undone a working of the subtle arts so immense, so all-encompassing, that it threatens to destroy Gwlad herself. The Llinellau, this weather,’ Merriel indicated the snow, thickening now as the temperature dropped, ‘these are just the easy signs to see.’
‘How can we stop it? How can we put it right?’
Merriel turned so suddenly, Dafydd thought for a moment she was going to hit him. ‘We? Put it right? This is magic so far beyond my understanding it can’t even be imagined. I doubt even my mother knows what those mad brothers did when they split Gwlad in two, let alone the consequences of that spell unravelling. No, Prince Dafydd, there is nothing you or I can do except stay alive and help others to stay alive too. Gwlad must be given the space to heal herself. And we can start by righting Pali
sander’s wrong. There is an entrance to this cavern that does not require the travelling of the Llinellau, I take it?’
Dafydd looked once more around the deserted, ruined courtyard and wondered where the dragons who had almost killed him and Iolwen had gone. ‘There is an entrance built for men. You would fit in the corridor leading to it, but the stairs to the chamber are too narrow and winding. And if the door has been locked then I am not entirely sure how I will enter the chamber myself. It is protected by magics that deny entry to any who do not carry the blood of King Balwen in their veins.’
Merriel fixed her gaze on him, those massive eyes seeing straight through to his thoughts. Dafydd knew he should have told her and Earith the whole story, but there had not been time.
‘And who in this city carries that bloodline?’ she asked.
‘The queen herself is the only one I can think of. I could ask her if she’d let me in, but I think it unlikely. And there’s the small matter of the key as well.’
Merriel frowned. ‘Only the queen?’
‘Well, her daughter, I suppose, but she is just an infant.’
‘Then she is unlikely to put up much of a fight.’ Merriel looked up at the snow swirling down from the sky. ‘But we should step into the hall now, much though the smell of the place sickens me. The dragons are returning.’
‘They are?’ Dafydd followed her gaze, unable to make out anything in the deepening gloom. He could feel it though, a sense of unease as if something were reaching out to touch his mind. Instinctively he closed down his mental barriers, turned and leaped up the steps, disappearing into the darkness of the hall itself just as the swirling sound of the wind took on a different note. Merriel followed him, wrinkling her nose against the meaty stench. The two of them made as swift a path as they could to the dais and the great throne. Outside something heavy thumped on to the ground and then a voice began bellowing in the tongue of dragons.
‘Gwynedd Bach.’ Merriel managed to put so much venom into her voice Dafydd was surprised she didn’t breathe fire as she spoke.
‘The big one? Black as night and, how can I put it, fat?’
‘The same. She visited Pallestre once. Stupid and vengeful cow, tried to eat the stallholders in the market place. Mother protected them of course, but there was no persuading Gwynedd that men were not prey. In the end we had to drive her off, wipe her memory of the place. There was no reasoning with her.’
‘That’s what Seneschal Padraig found, to his cost.’ Dafydd recalled the incident all too vividly, shivering at the memory. ‘What is she saying?’
‘Mostly that she’s hungry and that her mate is a useless hunter. It surprises me that any dragon would find her attractive in the least. But then those who abandoned the old ways have become so feral that they have lost all sensibility.’
‘What if she comes in here? Sees us?’
‘She won’t. This is a male dragon’s place now. They have marked it as their latrine, and the courtyard outside as their feeding ground. It is disgusting but it is also predictable.’
Dafydd looked around at the mess that had once been the grandest hall in all of Gwlad. The polished marble beneath his feet was scratched by talons and smeared in dung. Shards of glass lay everywhere, and chunks of carved stone from the ceiling littered the ground. He caught a glimpse of a face and thought for a moment it was a man before realizing it was part of a statue. Other figures lay discarded and shattered as if the craftsmanship that had gone into their carving were worth nothing.
‘So this is Palisander’s great Obsidian Throne then.’ Merriel turned from the doorway and the screeching dragon beyond, her head tilting back as she looked up to the top of the vast black structure. Even compared to her it was massive. She climbed the dais, approaching the throne with the same caution Dafydd might have approached a catlion. Reaching out one hand towards the stone, she almost touched it, then withdrew as if it were hotter than fire. She maintained a constant distance as she circled it once, taking in every tiny detail. He had no doubt that the dragon was seeing the throne in the aethereal as well as the mundane, teasing out all its secrets and traps.
‘For two thousand years and more the kings and queens of the House of Balwen have ruled from this throne,’ he said as Merriel finally dragged her gaze away from it and back to him. ‘They use the power of the Grym that flows through it to read the minds of their enemies, to influence the people and make everyone love them. Or they cannot handle the voices and go swiftly mad. The bloodiest wars in these lands have not been between our two nations, but within the Twin Kingdoms itself.’
‘It has been adapted so a man can sit upon it, I see.’ Merriel pointed one taloned finger at the awkward blocks of stone that had been inserted into what had been the original seat. Steps led up to a platform that was wide for a fat man and must have been uncomfortable to sit on even without the whispering voices. Dafydd could hear them now, chattering away, pecking at his mental barriers. It was hard to concentrate for all the noise they were making, and the confusion in the lines didn’t help.
‘Hold yourself together, Prince Dafydd. We are close to the source here. You must keep your wits about you.’
‘Close, yes.’ Dafydd looked down at his feet, imagined the solid rock giving way to the huge chamber deep underneath. ‘But there is no way in from here.’
‘You are wrong, although it is perhaps unfair of me to say so.’
‘Wrong? How?’
‘There is a way from this throne to the cavern beneath us. Here, at the back of the seat.’ Merriel walked swiftly behind the throne, and Dafydd had to run to catch up. ‘Here in the space between the legs, where later masons have tried to blend impure stone into the original design, there is a doorway. Hidden by the subtle arts.’
Dafydd stared at the stonework, remembering it from his brief visit before he, Iolwen and Usel had been chased out by the twins. It looked no different to the rest of the throne to him. Deepest black, polished to a shine that mirrored his features darkly back at him. ‘I see no doorway.’
‘Then look again.’ Merriel’s voice had an edge to it, almost a taunt, and her eyes showed a curious twinkle, as if she were enjoying his lack of ability. Dafydd couldn’t understand how she could be so calm, here in the heart of enemy territory and with feral dragons just outside. At any moment one of the male dragons might come in and see them. Attack them.
‘Relax. Calm your thoughts. See the throne as it truly is. We are as safe here as anywhere in Gwlad.’
Dafydd was not convinced, but he steadied his breathing and willed his heartbeat to slow. He had never been as adept as his grandfather at achieving the trance needed to see the aethereal, but he knew he could do it. He just needed to concentrate, block out all distractions.
It came to him slowly. First the edges of the throne began to sparkle as if it stood outside and a fresh sun had newly risen. Then veins of pure white Grym appeared in the shiny black stone, criss-crossing it in regular patterns and flowing over the carved surface. Seen like this it was easy to tell the difference between original throne and later additions. The men who had added to the stonework might have been skilled masons, but they knew nothing of the Grym, nor of how to weave life into lifeless rock.
‘You see it now.’
Dafydd turned his head and almost dropped out of his trance. Merriel was a magnificent creature in the mundane, but in the aethereal she glowed.
‘Concentrate on the doorway there.’ Her voice echoed in his head, the compulsion in her words impossible to ignore. He studied the joins between the blocks that made up the back of the throne, seeing how they were arranged and how they might be made to move. All he needed to do was reach out and press that point there …
Something clicked in his head at the same time as the stone in front of his eyes shifted. Dafydd snapped out of the trance with such force he was flung back, tripping over his feet and tumbling on to his backside. In the corner of his eye he saw Merriel reach out an arm, swift as a striking snake. H
e half feared she would cut him in two, half expected to feel her strength as she caught him. Neither happened, and he fell to the floor with a crash that drove the wind out of him and sent a jolt of pain lancing up his spine.
‘What the—?’
‘Just a little something left behind by the last adept to use this doorway.’ Merriel held up her hand, clenched tight into a fist, and then brought it down hard on to the floor a few paces away from where Dafydd lay. He didn’t need the aethereal trance, or even the Grym sight, to see the power she had somehow trapped. The marble cracked like ice, shattering into a thousand pieces at her touch. The noise engulfed him, so loud it left his ears ringing and must have been heard far beyond the courtyard. Beyond the city walls even. Dafydd felt the heat blast through him, momentarily expelling the chill that had seeped into his bones.
‘Was that a curse?’
‘Originally, yes. A working of the subtle arts to prevent anyone from using this entrance who was not supposed to. It is ancient though. Far older than me. Time has warped it, and if what you say of the chamber below is true, that perversion of magic has twisted it too. I almost didn’t see it myself.’
Dafydd looked more closely at Merriel as she spoke. He had thought her merely winded by the sudden movement, but now he could see that catching and destroying the curse had cost her dearly. She stooped, her legs trembling beneath her as if they could barely carry her weight. The hand that had smashed into the floor was now bent and twisted like an old woman’s, the talons blackened.
‘Are you … Are you all right?’ It seemed such an insufficient thing to ask, but he really didn’t know what else to say.
‘I will be.’ Merriel glanced up, past the edge of the Obsidian Throne towards the entrance. Noises filtered through Dafydd’s hissing ears that suggested the sound had indeed carried far and alerted many to their presence. ‘But I cannot stay here. I must return to Pallestre before the turmoil in the Grym becomes too much even for that.’