by J. D. Oswald
Her strike was true. It should have taken Frecknock’s head off at the shoulders, added her meagre jewels to the collection, but at the last possible moment the dragon twisted her head to one side, raised a swift hand and caught hold of Beulah’s fiery blade.
‘We did not steal your magic. It was given to you by one of our kind. That was a mistake, I see that clearly now.’
Frecknock’s eyes were huge circles of dark purple pricked with tiny flecks that twinkled as they reflected the light of Beulah’s blade. She showed no distress at the fiery touch, indeed seemed to be absorbing the Grym and sending it somewhere. Beulah brought the lines to her vision, saw how they pulsed with the power of Gwlad. Always down here they had been ordered, converging on the central pillar before surging up to the Obsidian Throne high above. Now they snaked around the chamber, hugging the stone close as they spread like a net over all the individual alcoves, all the red, unreckoned jewels. The power that Beulah was tapping for her blade came from them, but Frecknock was channelling it away from the pillar and instead into the pile of white, reckoned jewels. Misty tendrils rose from it like smoke, twirling in the heavy air until they began to take on identifiable shapes.
They spun and flew, formed patterns that mesmerized the queen, even as they grew ever larger, came ever closer. And then they enveloped her completely, the spirits of a thousand long-dead dragons. Beulah scarcely noticed her blade of fire sputtering out. She was entranced by the beauty of the shimmering shapes, enthralled by the voices that called her, beckoned her to join them. They had such stories to tell, such knowledge they would happily share.
Her anger and hatred evaporated as quickly as it had flared. She had been so wrong, Beulah could see that now. For the briefest of moments she hesitated. There were things to be done. Clun needed help, and Princess Ellyn would need feeding soon too. But she could always come back to them; this was more important.
A ghostly hand formed in front of her, as small as her own but with long, thin fingers that tapered into sharp talons. It felt perfectly natural to reach out, take it in her own. Beulah shifted easily into her aethereal form and, leaving her body behind, stepped into the dragon hoard.
He knew the moment he closed his eyes he was dreamwalking. Benfro had never truly understood what it was that he did, how he travelled the aethereal in his sleep as if it were no more difficult than climbing a tree, but right now that didn’t matter. Here, in this plane, he could fly with ease. Here there was no pain, no tiny splinter of wood working its way towards his heart. Here he was master of the air, master of everything.
That it was night was no more surprising than anything else. It had been dawn when he had breathed the Fflam Gwir over Melyn, but he had lost weeks to the mother tree before. He soared through the black sky, scanning the ground far below in search of something familiar. Twisting, he took in the stars peeking out through occasional gaps in the cloud. One or two looked familiar, but there were too few for him to get his bearings.
The clouds parted and a fat full moon cast its silver light across the land. The familiar shapes of Candlehall and the Neuadd rose in the darkness. He hardened his aura against the onslaught he knew was coming, then dived towards the massive hall. In seconds he was upon it and then sliding through the stone walls into the empty space beyond.
Almost empty. The Obsidian Throne rose from its dais right in the centre. It glowed with the Grym, a strange light that illuminated nothing but itself. And the minuscule figure that sat upon its seat.
‘So, dragon. You are here, finally. I was beginning to think you might have died.’
For all her tiny size, Queen Beulah’s voice carried like a tempest, battering at Benfro as he hovered in the air before the throne. The Neuadd itself had been damaged almost as badly as the rest of the city. Its windows were gone, the massive doors fallen from their hinges. Cracks split the great pillars that supported the roof, and much of its ornately carved decoration lay shattered on the marble floor. It was the stench that almost knocked him out of the dreamwalk though. Benfro had never noticed any smells before, but now he could scarce breathe for the noxious fumes wafting up from the piles of ordure around the throne. He had smelled something similar in the Anghofied, but this was far worse.
‘Don’t want to get your precious feet dirty?’ the queen taunted him from her throne. ‘Perhaps you’d better come here then.’ Benfro felt the pull of her magic as if she had wrapped an invisible hand around him. He was dragged forward with such force that his wings twisted back behind his head and he tumbled from the air. He cracked his head on the cold stone of the dais upon which the throne sat, but at least up here he was away from the worst of the mess. He pulled himself to his feet, hardening his aura against Beulah. She waved one hand and he felt the tug of it again, but this time he was able to resist. He stood tall and slowly folded his wings across his back.
‘Melyn is dead. The warrior priests are defeated.’
The queen shrugged. ‘And what, you expect me to surrender? I don’t think so.’ A wave of pure aggression rolled from the throne, engulfing Benfro with such swiftness it took his breath away. He recoiled, one foot slipping off the first step of the dais, his tail nudging something vile that stirred up yet more stench. Clenching his fists, he pushed back at the terror, sweeping it aside as he felt the power surge up in his stomach. He took in a deep breath even as he realized his aethereal form had no real need to do so. The magical flame exploded from him, taking on the form of an attacking dragon, wings wide, talons extended. For a moment Queen Beulah looked worried, but then she raised a hand, fingers outstretched, palm towards the fiery beast, which burst apart on the invisible bubble surrounding her and the throne, dissipating into the darkness. And as it went so she began to cackle.
‘It will take more than your precious Fflam Gwir to defeat me, Benfro of the Borrowed Wings. Yes, I know all about you and your base magics. I understand more than even Melyn knew about your precious subtle arts.’ Beulah shifted in her seat, seeming to grow in size until she filled it completely. The Llinellau glowed bright as the sun as she pulled in the power from all around her. So much Grym should have burned her away to nothing, but instead she absorbed it all, growing larger and larger until the great throne could no longer contain her essence.
The fear swept over him again, stronger still. It held Benfro in an impossible grip as the massive figure of the queen lurched to its feet. She towered over him, head reaching into the vaulted ceiling of the Neuadd as she stretched an impossibly vast hand towards him. Benfro could only watch, frozen by the sight, his thoughts overwhelmed by the sudden shift in circumstances, the dread stench and the corruption of the Grym.
‘Do you understand now, little dragon? This hall was built on the jewels of the greatest mages ever to have flown the skies of Gwlad. It is not bound by the Llinellau; it binds them to me. Melyn was a fool, Magog too. They had such small dreams. But I … I will not rule Gwlad. I will be Gwlad.’
Queen Beulah’s form was shifting now, morphing and bulging. Her face began to elongate; massive feet thrust forth great talons that gouged the stone floor. Spectral wings sprouted from her back, a thick, scaly tail from her rear. Her shoulders hunched and with a great crash that knocked masonry from the roof, she slammed down on to all fours. Still the queen, she was also a dragon so vast Benfro was barely as big as her head, and as she opened her mouth he could see nothing but darkness, a void more terrible even than the Anghofied beneath Nantgrafanglach.
‘She is not real, Benfro. This is not real.’
The words were little more than a whisper deep inside his head, but Benfro recognized the voice as his mother’s. It brought a flicker of hope, damped down his terror just enough for him to spring back and into the air as Beulah’s giant fist crashed through the space where he had been standing.
‘Still fighting, little dragon? You have spirit, but it will do you no good. You are mine. You were always mine.’
And now the voice was less Queen Beulah, more something
ancient and sinister. It spoke Draigiaith with cadences that reminded Benfro of the old tales Sir Frynwy would recount after all the villagers had feasted well. The first tongue, from the time of fair Arhelion and great Rasalene. This was the language of bards, of Palisander.
‘I will never stop fighting. Not until this great wrong you have done is put right.’ Benfro swooped to one side as the dragon queen swiped at him with a hand the size of a house. He felt the pull on his aethereal form, knew then that only his dreamwalking protected him from the full force of this attack. His body was far away, sleeping, watched over by Malkin and the mother tree. He was safe as long as they were safe. But to end this fight would require something more substantial.
Bringing his wings together with all the force his aethereal self could muster, Benfro climbed high into the darkness that was the ceiling of the Neuadd. The vast spectral creature that was part Beulah, part something much more ancient and malign, reared up, swinging round in an attempt to swat him like a fly. He dodged this way and that, some sixth sense helping him to predict where the next blow would be aimed. No, not some sixth sense; it was something far more focused than that. He felt the massed memories of a thousand dragons and more come to his aid. He knew what they were, and the sacrifice they made so that he might succeed. He swept up into the highest point of the Neuadd, far above the great black throne, then folded his wings and dived. At the same time he reached out across Gwlad, searching for his true body, and with a snap that almost broke him in two merged with it. Not back in the Mother Tree’s clearing, but there in the great hall.
With his body came the pain, the splinter working its way towards his heart, the aches and bruises and a hundred unhealed wounds. Far from overwhelming him, they gave him focus as he plummeted towards the throne. And now he had to take a deep breath, build the fire in his belly. The dragon that had been Beulah had no presence in the mundane. Benfro still saw its vastness with his missing eye, but the physical presence was a twisted wreck of a woman, seated upon a dragon’s throne. Benfro was too close, falling too fast. There was nothing he could do to stop himself, and neither did he want to.
‘How is it—’ The creature’s words echoed in his mind as he opened his mouth and let loose the flame once more.
This time there was no stopping it. Benfro watched as the Fflam Gwir spread over the empty throne and the dais upon which it stood, dissolving the man-made blocks to reveal the true obsidian beneath. He let out another great roar, and more fire attacked the ancient stone, cracking and weakening it, reducing it to so much black chalk. And still Benfro fell, gaining speed as he hurtled towards the ground.
He tensed for the impact, expecting hard stone to smash his battered body into pieces. Instinctively, he hardened his aura the instant before impact, and as he hit it, the throne burst apart, chunks flying in all directions. The marble cracked beneath him like an earthquake, and Benfro crashed on through. It was as if his body were rock and the world around it mere flesh and bone. The ground split away from him like water in a pool. Like diving from the top of a high rock into a deep river and swimming down, down, down to dead remains far below.
38
False god on his throne of black
Puppet master in the shadows
Weaver of spells, weaver of fates
Would kill the world so he might live
The Prophecies of Mad Goronwy
Benfro burst through the cavern roof in a hailstorm of rock, shattering the pillar that had supported the massive throne above. It exploded into tiny fragments, shooting out in all directions and clattering off the walls. All the air was driven from his lungs and the wound in his side tore open as he tried to spread his wings to slow his fall. For a moment everything went dark, such was the agony. Then the pain eased as if it had never been there, replaced by a feeling of warmth like his mother’s embrace.
Wings wide, Benfro circled the area directly beneath the demolished pillar, searching for a spot to land before his strength left him. He had expected the chamber to be empty save for the collected jewels of generations of dragons, but there were people down here, spilling out of an open tunnel mouth at the edge of the cavern. He snapped his wings together, narrowly missing the nearby stone columns, and saw the hellish red glow from the countless alcoves cut in the stone. Some had been dislodged from their cells by the collapsing roof, scattered over the floor like discarded toys. To land on any of them was to invite disaster. He had been a slave to the rose cord that had linked him to Magog for too long. That was something Benfro did not want to have to go through again.
He turned as sharply as ever he had done at the circus. It wasn’t enough. He was still falling too fast, and there was only one place he could aim for. If he hit the stone floor, he would surely be killed, so Benfro crashed into the clear white jewels piled up against the stump of the pillar. They broke his fall, even as the touch of so many memories swamped him. They clamoured for his attention, demanded his experiences while thrusting their own upon him. Winded by the impact, he struggled to keep control of his thoughts as he rolled away from the hoard, scattering jewels hither and yon, white mingling with red in uncomfortable intimacy.
Bursting from the pile, at once gasping for breath and oddly light-headed, the first thing Benfro saw was the queen. She stood motionless just a few paces away from him, and at first he thought she was preparing for an attack. But that couldn’t be right. She had been above, in the Neuadd, on the Obsidian Throne. He had breathed fire and destroyed her utterly.
Then he understood. That had been the aethereal, and the figure who stood before him was entirely mundane. Without a thought, his missing eye painted the view for him, the Llinellau pulsing red into the carved alcoves, white into the hoard, bleeding into pink where they mixed. All around him ancient magics were unravelling, twisting the aethereal and making the very air hum with energy. But the queen was a blank slate. She had no discernible aura, her aethereal self departed and destroyed. Like Melyn, she was mindless.
It was hard to walk, so heavy were his legs, and Benfro approached the queen with caution. He waved a hand in front of her face, then extended one sharp talon and prodded her forehead. A single bead of dark red blood welled from the cut, but Beulah did not move.
‘She is not there.’
Benfro whirled round too swiftly, his legs giving way beneath him so that he slumped on to his tail. A dark figure emerged from the shadows between two fat stone pillars, and as his head cleared, so Benfro recognized her.
‘Frecknock?’
She was smaller than he remembered. Or was it that he had spent so much time in the company of large dragons and had grown so big himself that she seemed a mere kitling in comparison? Her scales were dull grey, and she looked thin. Only her eyes were the same, darkest black with flecks of purple glittering within. She wore a leather bag slung over one shoulder, and Benfro’s missing eye could see the power it held.
‘I always said you would be trouble, squirt.’ She walked up to him slowly, brushing past the unmoving form of the queen, then embraced him in a hug that was as awkward as it was surprising. ‘But you killed Melyn, and Queen Beulah is lost to the Grym. We are safe, Benfro. We are free.’
She stepped back again, looking him up and down with that same critical eye he remembered so well. Benfro wanted to hate her; it was her fault that Melyn had come to the village in the first place. But try as he might, he couldn’t blame her. She was as much a victim of Magog’s scheming as any of them, and she had been through just as many trials as he had to end up at this point.
He realized then why she carried the bag with her, why it glowed in the aethereal. ‘The Llyfr Draconius. You have it, don’t you?’
‘It is the greatest treasure of our kind.’ Frecknock’s hand went to the strap over her shoulder and pulled the bag close to her. Benfro opened his mouth to speak, but a commotion from the side of the chamber distracted them both. Two dragons had appeared at the tunnel entrance now, accompanied by a group of people some of
whom Benfro recognized. Errol broke away from them and hurried over towards him, but Cerys swiftly overtook him.
‘How is it you’re here already?’ She looked him up and down, then noticed Frecknock. ‘And who is this kitling?’
‘I am no kitling.’ Frecknock raised herself up to her full height but was still half the size of the other dragon. ‘I am Frecknock the Grey, last of the line of Albarn the Bard.’
‘Never heard of him,’ Cerys said, turning back to Benfro. ‘Your wound. It has opened up again. If you don’t stop crashing into things you’ll die.’
Benfro looked down at his side for the first time since he had landed in the pile of jewels. His scales were slick with blood, and drops spattered the dusty floor at his feet. The warmth that he had felt as the pain lessened now seemed more like a numbness, spreading slowly through him. He tried to stand up but found that his legs no longer wanted to work.
‘Let me rest a while. I’ll be fine.’
‘Oh, but you won’t be fine, Benfro Bach. Far from it, indeed.’
Benfro’s head snapped up at the voice. Cerys and Frecknock turned as one, all eyes on Queen Beulah. She still stood, but there was a change in her stance now, her shoulders squared and hands clenched into tight fists. The cut in her forehead had dribbled blood down the side of her nose, pooling on her upper lip like a ruby bead, but it was the crimson glow in her eyes that held them all.
‘Did you think me lost when you broke my throne, little dragon?’ Beulah stepped forward, raising one arm and thrusting Frecknock aside as if she was no more than air. She stumbled on a piece of fallen rock and fell heavily. Cerys put herself between the queen and Benfro, but with another contemptuous wave she was tossed aside. Benfro could only watch helplessly as she smashed into a stone pillar and slumped unconscious to the floor. He was too tired, too weak to fight.