by J. D. Oswald
Barrod Sheepshead,
The Guardians of the Throne – A Noble Folly
The spiral steps that led down from the Obsidian Throne were uneven, and Dafydd tripped a couple of times as he inched his way cautiously through the total darkness. If it hadn’t been for the walls, close enough on either side for him to steady himself, he might have tumbled head over heel. This was not a good place to be injured, buried deep in the heart of Candlehall hill.
When he reached the bottom, it was with a jarring step, his foot hitting the ground before he expected it to. The shock ran up his back and into his neck, making stars in his vision that shifted and twirled. When they didn’t fade, he reached out, his fingers brushing warm stone inlaid with strange runes that glowed from the light beyond. At his touch, the wall melted away, and he fell through it into the cavern. Looking back, he saw the stone of the pillar ooze back into shape, hiding the entrance through which he had come. Yet one more mystery to unravel, but not now. There was too much to do, too much at stake.
The cavern hummed with power, the red, unreckoned, jewels clamouring at him for attention. Ignoring them, Dafydd hurried as quickly as his aching knees would let him across to the nearest alcove and its collection of jewels. He almost plunged his bare hands in, eager to free the spirit trapped inside, but at the last moment he remembered Merriel’s parting words. He pulled a cotton kerchief out of his pocket, folded it once for extra thickness and used it to cover his hand before reaching inside.
The touch of the jewels, even separated from his skin by the material, was like plunging his head into a clear, cold stream. He had not full appreciated how deafening was the noise of the unreckoned jewels, the pressure of it on his thoughts, until it was gone. Dafydd made a sling from the front of his tunic and swept the jewels into it, carrying them the short distance back to the pillar and the place where he had walked through it. He crouched, tipped the jewels gently onto the ground, then stood and turned to fetch the next set.
Only there was a dragon standing in his way.
‘Who are you?’
Dafydd asked the question at the same time as it appeared in his head, booming in a voice so unlike his own thoughts it had to be the great beast standing in front of him. He took a step back, wary of attack, but the dragon just stared at him, unblinking. Then it raised its head, slowly taking in the chamber, the pillar rising to the ceiling, the rows of stone columns with their alcoves. Finally its plate-like eyes settled back on him.
‘What manner of place is this?’
‘I am Dafydd, Prince of the House of Ballah. This chamber lies beneath the Neuadd. The Hall of Candles I have heard your kind call it. Once it was the palace of a dragon named Palisander?’ Dafydd left the question in his voice, unsure what reaction it might get him. The dragon tilted its head slightly to one side, as if considering his words.
‘I know Palisander. An upstart of a mage. Too full of himself, and not a care for the harm he causes others with his meddling. This …’ The dragon sniffed the air, looked around some more. ‘This has the whiff of him about it. But how did I come to be here? I cannot remember anything but darkness.’
‘I don’t know how you got here. This chamber was empty a moment ago, I could have sworn it. Only when I turned my back to place the jewels there …’ Dafydd let his words fade away. It occurred to him that this dragon, as big as the feral beasts that had taken up residence in the courtyard above them, was nonetheless speaking in easy-to-understand Llanwennog. And now he studied it closely, he could see the shapes of the stone columns through the dragon’s body, only partially obscured.
‘You’re dead.’ He said the words quietly, almost to himself. ‘Those are your jewels I just moved.’
The dragon frowned, then shimmered almost into invisibility. Dafydd found that he could see it, but only as an aethereal body superimposed upon the mundane world. Then it spread its wings wide, launched itself into the air and disappeared without another word. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw the lines pulse with the Grym as it went. They were shifting and twisting so much anyway it was hard to be sure.
The second pile of jewels, trapped in its own tiny stone cell, was smaller than the first. Dafydd scooped them all into one covered hand, then added them to the pile. He half expected to see another dragon appear, but this time there was nothing when he turned back to the shelves. Neither did anything appear for the next twelve piles, and he began to wonder if he hadn’t imagined the whole thing. The cavern was uncomfortably warm, and although each set of jewels was not particularly heavy, the repeated walking back and forth soon brought him out in a sweat. He paused a moment to strip off his tunic and mop down his forehead, then carefully eased the next pile out of its confinement. This was a large collection, and each jewel was as big as a hen’s egg. For a moment Dafydd considered splitting the load into two journeys, but that seemed somehow disrespectful. He juggled to get the big stones all wrapped up in his tunic, and that was when one rolled on to his bare palm.
He froze in panic, staring at the massive white gem cupped in his outstretched hand. From what Merriel had said, he had expected to be struck down dead maybe, or at the very least rendered insensible. But all he felt was a deep, deep sadness. It was like the day he had been told of his mother’s death, and the days and weeks that had followed. Only this anguish was rolled into one perfectly horrible moment. Such bleak hopelessness that his heart almost broke from it. For long moments he could not move at all, but then the muscles in his arm spasmed, the jewel popped out of his hand and tumbled in with the rest of them, nestling in the folds of his damp tunic.
With the touch of the jewel gone, he could move again. Dafydd sprang to his feet, hurried across to the pile, which was growing to a decent size now, and hastily tipped his cargo on to the top of it. This time the pile glowed at the addition, wisps of palest white smoke twisting up from it in tendrils that reached out for him, circled his head and caressed his skin. Then a white shape shot out of the top of the pile, bursting up into the darkness of the cavern before taking on the form of a magnificent dragon, hovering with wings outstretched, their tips reaching almost to the walls on either side.
‘By the moon, what foul … what horror …?’ The dragon’s voice was in Dafydd’s head, in his own language even though he knew that wasn’t really what he was hearing. She, and Dafydd could tell it was a female dragon’s form that he saw, circled the cavern, swooping past the columns and swiping at the cells with hands and feet as if to try and destroy them. He could do nothing but watch as the creature grew more and more frenzied until finally, with another blast of despair, she settled back down in the space between the pillar and the shelves. Only then did she seem to notice him.
‘You freed me from my prison.’ It was not a question, and despite his best efforts at keeping her out, Dafydd could feel the force of the dragon’s will push through his mental barriers and sift through his mind. It was not painful, but it was a violation nonetheless.
‘I should never have been locked away like that. He should never have been able to do it.’ The dragon withdrew from Dafydd’s mind, fading a little as she looked down at the pile of jewels. He had thought the stack large, but now it seemed inadequate somehow.
‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘That this was done to you. I am trying to put it right.’
‘I too am sorry,’ the dragon replied. ‘I should not have forced my way into your memories. But it would have taken far too long to learn what I needed to learn otherwise. You are Dafydd, and I thank you for freeing me. I am … I was Angharad the Fair. When I died, my body was burned in the Fflam Gwir and my jewels should have been placed with those of my ancestors. And yet he brought me here, to this abomination of a place. He trapped me, alone, unable to commune with my kin or the Grym, and all to feed a mad lust for power.’
‘Who did this to you?’ Dafydd asked, even though he knew the answer.
‘Palisander, who was so great he needed no other naming. That is who.’ Angharad raise
d herself once more, her anger giving her spectral form greater substance. ‘Palisander who was my mate.’
Dafydd said nothing for a while. There was nothing he could think of to say. What little he understood of dragon history he had learned in just a few short weeks, and the names confused him. He had never much thought about hoards of dragon jewels until he had first visited this chamber with Iolwen and Usel, and it had seemed perfectly natural that the jewels were organized the way they were. Was not each creature an individual, after all?
‘In death we become one, combining our memories and knowledge for the good of all dragonkind. That has ever been our way. This is as close to hell as I can imagine. These poor trapped souls. You must free them, Prince Dafydd. Free them all.’
Dafydd returned to the set of alcoves he had been busy emptying. He had tried not to count as he was going along, but there were at least a hundred stacked with white jewels in this column alone. There were too many columns to count, radiating out from the centre of the vast cavern.
‘I will do my best, but there are so many.’ He reached for the nearest pile, then remembered his bare hands. He pulled his tunic over his arms again, using it as an awkward pair of gloves.
‘You are wary of touching them unprotected,’ Angharad said. ‘That is wise, but there are better ways than an old shirt to achieve the same result. See.’
Dafydd wasn’t quite sure what the dragon meant, but then his aethereal sight reasserted itself, his aura swirling around him like a second skin.
‘Very much like a second skin. Only one over which you have control. Harden it over your hands and arms, protection against the power that lies within the jewels. Then you can touch them without fear.’
He wasn’t quite sure what the dragon meant, nor was he entirely convinced he had full control over his abilities, but as he thought it, so his aura darkened over his hands, forming a thick barrier. Hesitantly, he reached into the alcove and touched the first white jewel. He felt nothing but the warmth of it against his fingers, and the rest of them were just as quiet in his mind. Heaping them into both hands, Dafydd carried them across to the pile, carefully adding them to the top before returning once more to the shelves.
‘I could think of nowhere else to hide. I am sorry if I startled you.’
Time had caught up with Father Gideon, it seemed. Benfro remembered the man as being old when he had turned up at the cottage years earlier, startling him and his mother both. But now he looked close to death, and not just on account of his obvious injuries.
‘What happened to you?’ Benfro spoke in Saesneg even though the old man had initially addressed him in poorly accented Draigiaith. The slump in Gideon’s shoulders at the change was a sign of relief. He was propped up in his makeshift bed, the blankets pulled up around him, and yet he still shivered despite the warm afternoon.
‘For many years I have walked a fine line between helping people and treason. This time I found myself on the wrong side.’
Benfro said nothing, turning his attention instead to the fireplace. A pile of ash and damp charcoal was covered with a mess of sticks and dead grass, the fallen remains of a bird’s nest, if the little chips of broken eggshell were anything to go by. A pile of kindling and dry logs stood to one side, and with a wrench in his hearts he realized that they were the same ones he had himself chopped and stacked the day before Melyn had come. A chore like so many others he had grumbled about but carried out nonetheless. Part of the daily routine that he couldn’t have known would be disrupted for ever.
‘It has always been the way with our order,’ Father Gideon continued as if unaware of the turmoil in Benfro’s mind. ‘We minister to the sick and needy regardless of their nation or indeed species. We gather knowledge for its own sake, not for some military advantage, and we share it where it will be most useful.’
Benfro picked a few pieces of kindling and placed them carefully on top of the fallen nest. He should probably have fetched the ash bucket and shovel, cleaned the hearth and laid a new fire. His mother would have chided him for his laziness, but in truth he didn’t really need a fire at all. It was just something for the old man, a comfort perhaps.
‘I learned so much from your mother when I was young. She never cared what manner of creature needed her help; if it was asked for it was given. Perhaps that’s why I came here at the last. I knew she was gone, but this place holds such memories.’
Benfro clutched tight the jewel in his hand, feeling the edges of it dig into his palm. It was his constant companion, the feeling that his mother was just in the next room, waiting for him. He wasn’t so overwhelmed by it as he had been when first she had died, nor when Errol had rescued the jewel from Corwen’s cave before Melyn could find it and add it to the others he had stolen. But it was still an influence on him, possibly the reason he had walked all the way back here in the first place. Now that he was in his old home, he could feel the jewel for what it was. He knew that his mother was not in the other room, knew that she would never be coming back. And strangely the presence of the old man helped him to understand and accept that. He still wasn’t ready to relinquish her. Not quite yet. Not completely. Instead, he opened his hand, picked up the jewel between finger and thumb and then placed it carefully in the middle of the table. Then he bent low to the fireplace, breathing a tiny jet of pure white flame on to the kindling. It caught instantly, crackling merrily as he fed a few of the smaller logs on top.
‘You are badly injured.’ He turned back to the old man, his missing eye seeing past blankets, clothing and flesh to the damage done. Father Gideon had been beaten severely; several of his ribs were cracked and at least one ankle had been broken. Beyond that, arthritis had taken hold of his joints. The man must have been in constant torment, and yet he seemed to bear it stoically. For a moment Benfro wondered how he had managed to get here, to climb the steps and enter the cottage, but then he noticed the sticks leaning against the wall behind him, just within reach. The crude crutches would have helped him get around, but they would have done nothing for Father Gideon’s pain.
‘It’s as well I have a few friends left in Gwlad, or I might not be alive at all,’ he said. ‘I was travelling with Queen Beulah’s army, carrying out my duties as a Ram and helping the sick and injured. Only some of Melyn’s more zealous warrior priests took exception to my helping the Llanwennog wounded. They accused me of being a spy, a collaborator, all manner of things.’ Father Gideon managed a weary, pained smile. ‘If only they knew the truth of it. I escaped with my life, but only just.’
Benfro imagined the scene all too easily, and the effort it must have taken the old man to travel this far so badly injured. ‘Have you eaten anything recently?’ he asked, although he knew the answer, could see it in the lines on the old man’s face and in the hope that sprang into his eyes at the mention of food. ‘Wait there. I will see what I can find.’
It was good to have a task, and not a simple one at that. Otherwise Benfro would have had to think; better just to act. Someone needed his help, and that was an easy enough thing to give. He went back out to the overgrown garden, digging around until he found some vegetables and herbs not too far gone to seed. It took a while to gather together enough ingredients and find his mother’s old cauldron amid the mess the warrior priests had left of the cottage, but soon enough he had a pot of soup bubbling away.
Father Gideon watched at first, but soon drifted off into a disturbed sleep as the front room grew warmer and filled with the scent of cooking. Benfro let him rest, squeezing his way into the back of the cottage and the storeroom where his mother had kept all her medicines and herbs. There had been a time not long ago when he could have found anything he needed in here blindfolded, but now he was so much larger, the little wooden drawers and stone jars on shelves seemed too small, too close together. It didn’t help that Melyn’s men had gone through everything. They hadn’t stolen much, hadn’t broken much either, but they had jumbled it all up. He had to hold things up to the light to read t
he labels, recognizing his own neat script on the brown-spotted paper. Each new discovery brought with it a memory of the time when he had prepared it, or presented it to his mother, having successfully foraged in the forest for it.
Eventually he found what he needed and took everything back through to the front room. The soup was simple but filling, and he ate a hearty portion before finding a small bowl for Gideon. He crumbled some of the medicine he knew would help with the old man’s pain into the broth before taking it to him, waking him as gently as he could manage. When Benfro had first met him they had not been all that different in size. Now Gideon’s head would have fitted in his hand.
‘How is it that you have grown so large, Sir Benfro?’ The old man set about his bowl of soup with the desperation of someone who had not eaten properly in many weeks. The heat of it brought some colour to his pale cheeks, and the herbs eased his pain, but Benfro could see that it was too little, too late. Nevertheless, he fetched another bowl for him, settled down on the floor as best he could and told Father Gideon the tale. It took a long time, but the old man stayed awake throughout the telling.
‘I had thought Magog made me a gift of these wings, and the size that comes with them. But in truth all he did was lift the curse his brother had placed upon our kind.’ He struggled to his feet, went back to the fire and put more wood on it. Outside the afternoon was turning to evening now, heavy storm clouds rolling in from the mountains.
‘It is a remarkable tale.’ Father Gideon coughed, his lungs sounding watery, then eased himself back into the cushions he had made into his bed and drew the enormous blankets around himself again. ‘And it confirms something I had suspected but thought never to see in my lifetime.’
‘It does?’ Benfro asked. For a moment the old man didn’t answer, just breathing in short gasps as if he had run a mile and more. Benfro didn’t need his missing eye to tell that Gideon was suffering. He could hear the man’s heart beating too fast, sense the tension as he struggled to keep conscious. Had the herbs been too potent? Benfro had only intended to take away his pain, not anything else.