by J. D. Oswald
‘Go, then. I will find my own way into the chamber.’
‘That much will be easy, Prince Dafydd. Look.’ Merriel nodded wearily, indicating the back of the throne. Following her gaze, he saw that the stonework had opened up, revealing an entrance large enough for a man. ‘Go swiftly, and I will close the door behind you. In the chamber you must build all the white jewels into a pile, as close to the centre as you can. Be ready though. The dragon memories will be hurt, angry. Some may even be mad, and others simply desperate to reconnect with life. Do not touch any with your bare skin, and leave the unreckoned jewels where they are. At least for now.’
The commotion on the other side of the throne was growing louder, and as Dafydd’s hearing began to clear, he could make out individual voices shouting in guttural Draigiaith. He felt a brush of thoughts questing at his own mind, closed himself off as best he could and scrambled back on to his feet.
‘I will be fine. Do not worry about me.’ Merriel responded to the question before it could reach his lips. Dafydd merely nodded once, then walked through the door. Steps spiralled down, narrow and tight. He took one last look back, seeing the dragon’s hand reaching out for the entrance. Then the stones seemed to slide back over the doorway and he was plunged into darkness.
Far fewer people had fled through the tunnel to Nantgrafanglach than Iolwen had thought. Sir Council had spoken of thousands, but in truth their numbers were not that great. Iolwen could only hope that the majority of the people of Candlehall had made good their escape through the other hidden roads and not fallen into her sister’s merciless hands. She had no doubt that Beulah would put many of her subjects to death for their collusion in the fall of the city, even though the destruction of Candlehall had been the queen’s own doing.
Their initial meeting with the council had not sparked much in the way of action, and Iolwen had found Sir Conwil evasive afterwards, as if he did not like her conjured blade, nor the way Myfanwy had chastised him. She recognized the type, even though he was dragon not man. Set in his ways like Tordu, he didn’t take kindly to being told what to do. Instead of arguing the point with his leader though, he simply turned his ire on Iolwen and her party.
They had moved from the great hall to a smaller suite of apartments in a building Iolwen had discoveed was Myfanwy’s own home. Usel, Teryll, Anwen and the Llanwennog guards stayed with Iolwen, but Mercor Derridge and his grandson Beyn had soon left to find family. Iolwen was sad to see them go but understood their need; she missed Dafydd after all.
The few hundred men, women and children who had arrived at the great palace were beginning to integrate, helped in no small part by the deep magic of the dragons and their willingness to share it. Most of the Candlehall folk spoke passable Draigiaith now, and were working in teams with the local palace servants to restore rooms that had fallen into disrepair over years, possibly centuries, of neglect. Iolwen couldn’t help thinking they would be better off training to fight. The storm might still have raged outside the windows, but she was certain Inquisitor Melyn was out there, planning his attack.
Partly to take her mind off such worries, partly because she could find nothing else to do, Iolwen had taken to exploring the endless corridors and rooms that made up the central building of the palace. A vast tower rose from the centre, its spiral staircase daunting to one as small as her, so she wandered through the smaller wings, although these in themselves were bigger than the entire palace at Tynhelyg. The scale of Nantgrafanglach was beyond imagining.
‘You look lost, Princess.’
The voice startled her. Iolwen had paused at the end of a second-floor landing and was staring out of a thick glass window across the snow-covered parkland towards the distant wall. It was hard to make out in the endless whirl of the storm, but the view soothed her, made it easier to think. Now she turned to see the old dragon Myfanwy standing close by.
‘Not lost, no,’ she said. ‘Well, not physically. I’m confident I can find my way back to the others. I hope I’m not intruding.’
‘If there were parts of Nantgrafanglach we did not wish you to see, you would not be able to see them.’ Myfanwy tilted her head slightly, a mischievous glint to her eyes.
‘It is a wondrous place. I have never seen building on such a scale. It makes even the Neuadd seem small.’
‘It is still one dragon’s folly. There is room here for thousands of our kind, tens of thousands of yours. More. And yet we number in the few hundreds. Your people have more than doubled our ranks but scarcely need one wing to house them all.’
‘A hard place to defend from attack then.’
‘This man, Melyn. You truly believe he will come for us?’ Myfanwy asked.
‘I do. He is driven by such hatred of your kind and he is so powerful in the ways of magic. His order have slain almost all the dragons in our world, taken their jewels and collected them all together beneath the Neuadd. That is the power that has kept King Balwen’s bloodline - my bloodline - on the Obsidian Throne for two thousand years.’
Myfanwy stared out the window for long moments, as if searching the raging storm for any sign of approaching menace. ‘The council will not accept it, but it was a man who killed Gog, and my son Enedoc too. He wielded a blade like the one you conjured in the meeting, only his burned red with anger. If this is your Melyn, then he is more dangerous even than you think, for he is possessed by the dead spirit of Magog and the hatred between those two brothers has almost destroyed Gwlad once before.’
Iolwen was about to ask the old dragon to explain. She had heard the stories from Usel, but there was more to them than the medic knew. Before she could open her mouth, Myfanwy turned to her, a renewed urgency in her stance.
‘Tell me, Princess. These jewels beneath the Neuadd, are they reckoned?’
‘Reckoned?’
‘White and pure, but if I have to ask then that answers my question. They are red, I can see it in your mind. And sorted into individual cells too. Ah, what mad hell is this? No wonder Gwlad writhes and screams. Such abomination. Such injustice.’
Iolwen felt the brush of Myfanwy’s thoughts on her own, more delicate than anything her teachers and old King Ballah had ever managed. Unlike them, the old dragon shared her own concerns, and with them her resolve to find a solution to the situation. Still, it was a shaky foundation.
‘But how can we hope to fight one so powerful?’ she asked. ‘And if we cannot fight, then where can we run? There is nowhere in the whole of Gwlad we could hide from him.’
‘Magog can be stopped, and with him your Inquisitor Melyn. Cut off the source of his power and he is just a man.’ Myfanwy placed a gnarled hand softly on Iolwen’s shoulder, her touch light even though the dragon could have crushed her if she chose. Together they stared out at the growing storm. ‘There are plans already afoot to break Magog’s hold on this world. Let us hope - pray even - they come to fruition before it is too late.’
26
For every working of magic there are consequences. That is hardly surprising, as otherwise there would be no point in seeking to manipulate the Grym to your own ends, but not all consequences are intended. If the working is small, then the potential for mischief is most often equally so, and likewise if it is simple. As workings become more complex, however, so the potential for danger increases. Worse yet is when an ancient working, left behind by some long-forgotten mage, goes unnoticed. The mixing of magics is a delicate art at the best of times, to do it unawares risks disaster.
A powerful mage can maintain a great many workings of the subtle arts, holding them apart or combining them in just such a manner as to prevent them feeding on each other. A wise mage knows to limit the use of his power and to undo such workings as are no longer needed. And when a mage feels the end approaching, for all must die in time and merge with the Grym once more, then he must go about untangling the magics he has made throughout his long life, lest they cause untold damage when he is gone.
Great mages manipulate the Grym with sc
arcely a thought, but the greatest of them all leave no trace of their subtle arts once they are gone.
The Llyfr Draconius
‘You are perhaps all wondering why I am here and yet none of the warrior priests who rode out with me has returned.’
Melyn stood on the raised platform at the top end of Ruthin’s Hall. The largest room in the monastery, he now knew that it was where Maddau the Wise had held parties for her friends thousands of years earlier. Like most of the great complex of buildings that made up Emmass Fawr, it was vast by the scale of men, merely ostentatious by the scale of the dragons who had built it. Either way it was big enough to hold the massed ranks of the order with plenty of room to spare. Even had not more than half of his warrior priests been out in the field, the hall would still have held them all.
‘Some of you may ask how it is that I arrived here without being noticed. That is a lesson for another day.’
Shifting his gaze to take in both the Grym and the aethereal, the inquisitor considered for a moment giving them all a demonstration of his new skill. He could easily enough step from the dais, disappear and reappear at the far end of the room. The mad fluctuations in the lines quickly convinced him otherwise. They mirrored the storm raging outside and spreading ever further south across the Twin Kingdoms and beyond. Best to couch things in language the order had been trained to understand.
‘The blizzard outside and the turmoil in the Grym are a sign. A sign that the Wolf is at our door and the Shepherd himself is returned to Gwlad.’
Melyn did his best to push the words out to the assembled thousands, but it was not easy. The hall itself was so vast it swallowed his voice, and for once the lines were not his ally here. Nevertheless, those close by heard him well enough, and the message soon spread through the crowd like fire.
‘I have seen the Wolf, faced him in his lair.’ He waited for the news to ripple out before continuing. ‘With the Shepherd’s aid, I have slain the Wolf.’ And this time his words aligned with the shifting of the lines, thundering through the entire hall. The effect was better than he could have hoped, those nearest the front clasping at their ears as the message almost deafened them.
‘His death has shaken Gwlad itself. That is why we have blizzards in summertime. That is why even the Grym is twisted and hard to control. These things will pass.
‘But his children still live.’ Melyn spoke more quietly now. ‘They live, and they are close. Given time they will recover from the blow they have been dealt, and they will come seeking mischief and revenge. Not just the Twin Kingdoms, not newly conquered Llanwennog, but the whole of Gwlad is at risk if we do not seize this moment.’
He let the silence grow for a while, the murmur of whispers as neighbour conferred with neighbour, the message morphing as it spread through the entire hall. Behind him the senior quaisters and Father Andro were tense, until now no more wise to his message than anyone else.
‘We must take the fight to them. Destroy the Wolf’s lair and his children both. I have new magic, the Shepherd’s magic, and I will teach it to you. But go now, prepare yourselves well. For tomorrow we march upon the enemy. Tomorrow we put an end to the Wolf and his tricks.’
The journey through the forest took far longer than he had expected. Benfro followed paths he had known as a kitling, only to find they led to places he didn’t recognize or looped back on themselves and returned him to his camp of the night before. The forest was different in many ways. Some were subtle, like the strange animals scuttling in the undergrowth, creatures he recognized more from his time with the dragons of the Twmp than his days spent hunting with Ynys Môn. Others were far more obvious. He spent a whole day trekking across a wide sandy clearing where scrub grasses clung to arid soil, and the cracked yellow rocks looked like they had been baked under a hot sun for centuries. The rain spattering off their dusty surfaces was a reminder of how Gwlad was changing all around him, as was the rapidly shifting weather. Only the storm at his back was constant, a dark menace that blotted out his view of the mountains. Gog’s tower, the place of his death, was the point around which all the magic was unfurling.
Despite this, Benfro felt happier than he had in as long as he could remember. The wound in his side still gave him pain, but it was healing, and as long as he didn’t do anything too stupid it would soon be mended enough for him to try flying. The aches and pains of his fall and the treatment dealt out to him by the dragons of Nantgrafanglach were fading now, as was the worry about finding Errol, Martha and Xando. He had his mother with him, clutched tight in his hand. Nothing else really mattered.
When he finally stumbled into the village where he had grown up, Benfro almost walked straight through without realizing. The forest here was lush and green, enjoying a warm wet summer even though blizzards raged in the mountains. The front gardens, so lovingly tended by Meirionydd, Sir Frynwy and all the others, had turned to jungle, overrun with brambles and wildflowers. Butterflies flitted between buddleia bushes, resting on petals of deepest mauve and purest white, and it was only his memory of the well-tended shrubs so beloved of Ystrad Fflur that made him stop walking and look at them more closely. That was when he saw the cottage.
It was almost completely overgrown with vines, and what had once been a small apple tree in the front now towered over him, heavy with fruit. Benfro stared with his one eye, picking out more and more detail. The shape of the door was outlined in twining honeysuckle, thorny rose bushes filling the spaces where the windows had once been. He remembered how the path had wound in a gentle S from the gate by the track all the way to the front porch. Now it was tall grass, fat seed heads waving in the gentle wind. His missing eye painted a very different picture.
The Grym flowed through the land here more strongly than anywhere he had seen it, rolling along the lines in great surging waves. All the trees glowed with it fit to burst. There was so much life filling the place it was hard to reconcile it with his memories of that fateful day Inquisitor Melyn had ridden in with his troop of warrior priests. And yet as the aethereal image of Ystrad Fflur’s cottage overlaid the mundane, so Benfro was sure of it. This was where he had come so many times as a kitling, listened to the old dragon’s tales of travel and adventure. What would he have made of Benfro’s own experiences?
Hearts almost in his mouth, Benfro pushed through the long grass where the gate had been, treading a careful path to the front door. There was a peace about the village, a quiet that was both mournful and joyous. At his approach it seemed almost as if the undergrowth slithered away from him, revealing the smooth stone threshold and the solid ancient oak of the door. There was a glamour on this cottage, a protection woven long ago. It would have deterred any who meant ill, but Benfro it recognized, welcoming him in like an old friend. When he reached for the black iron latch, lifted it and pushed, the door opened for him on almost silent hinges.
He stood in the hall for a while, just breathing, remembering. The last time he had been here had been the day of Ystrad Fflur’s reckoning. He had been so proud to carry the amphora of Delyn oil for his mother, and yet so ignorant of the honour he was being accorded. What would they make of him now, breathing the Fflam Gwir like some throwback to a bygone age? Some of the villagers would have been appalled, but others, Ystrad Fflur among them, would most likely have been delighted.
The front room where the body had lain was empty now, but oddly dust free. It put Benfro in mind of Magog’s repository. That too had been abandoned for countless years and yet had never changed until he had arrived. But of course it wasn’t ages since Ystrad Fflur had died, just a few years. His cottage had lain empty until Frecknock had made a start on clearing it out, sure that any day the galant Sir Felyn was going to come and sweep her off her feet. Benfro almost laughed; Melyn had certainly done that.
The furniture was still pushed back to the walls, the old open-backed chair Ystrad Fflur had sat in by the fire still shiny from years, centuries of use. Behind it Benfro found the carved wooden table and the heavy ja
r the old dragon had kept his crystallized ginger in. He reached out tentatively, took hold of the lid and lifted it off. If he had been expecting a familiar waft of spice, he was disappointed. But of course it had never actually contained crystallized ginger. That had been a ruse. Ystrad Fflur had used the subtle arts to bring his favourite treat to him, taken from some unsuspecting merchant’s storeroom in distant Tallarddeg.
Not quite knowing why he did it, Benfro slipped his own hand into the jar. He could feel the Grym all around him, so powerful here it was overwhelming. It linked everything, everywhere, and even though the undoing of the terrible magic that had rent Gwlad apart was putting the Llinellau in turmoil, still he could remember the feel, the smell, the taste of that sweet, sharp root. He had never been to Tallarddeg, had no idea where it was other than far to the east, but he knew another place where ginger was grown. A place he had visited not so long ago. And as he remembered it, remembered his slow healing at the hands of Earith, so the memory formed links within his mind.
There was a knack to the working. Benfro was still unsure exactly what he was doing, but as the idea of ginger formed in his memory, so he felt it through the Grym and in his fingers. For the briefest of moments he was in two places. It would have been the easiest thing to step through the Llinellau, reappear in Pallestre and seek out Earith’s help. Something stopped him though, some sense of self-preservation. The Grym was too powerful and turbulent, his skills too meagre. He would be lost, or worse he would be open to Magog. Clenching his fist against the idea, Benfro pulled his hand from the jar to find it clasped around a half-dozen pieces of sweet-smelling crystallized ginger root.
‘His bones are knitting well, Your Majesty, and the wounds inside are all healed. It is only his eyes that still give me concern.’
Beulah didn’t think she would ever grow used to having a dragon around, even one as small as Frecknock, but the days made her presence more familiar, and her usefulness was without question. She wasn’t as threatening as the great beasts wandering the parade ground and the courtyard outside the Neuadd either. As far as the queen was aware, Frecknock had never stolen cattle from the nearby farms or, indeed, eaten any people. And it couldn’t be denied that her skill as a healer surpassed that even of Archimandrite Cassters. The old Ram had taken one look at Beulah’s broken ankle after Frecknock had done her work on it and declared that there was no point in him being there any more. As far as she knew, he’d taken himself off to his order’s headquarters, the hospital that dominated the western end of the city, there to administer to those unfortunates who had been injured during the siege.