by J. D. Oswald
‘Oh, I am not Beulah. I am just using this vessel for now. I am not even Magog. This place was my greatest working long before those meddlesome brothers came along, and the people of Gwlad were little better than savages when I ruled its skies.’
‘Who are you? What are you?’ Benfro struggled to stand but his legs were too weak, the numbness spreading through him more swiftly now. Frecknock lay close by, shaking her head as she fought to regain her senses. Her leather bag lay beside her in the rubble, its strap snapped.
‘Who am I? Has it been so long that you have all forgotten me? I am the greatest mage ever to have lived. I built this chamber and the Neuadd above it to contain my workings of the subtle art so that even in death my knowledge would live on. I am Palisander. So great I need no other name.’
‘You’re the mad remnant of a long-dead fool. Begone!’
Benfro ducked as a ball of Grym flew over his head and exploded in the air above the queen. The spectral dragon flinched, Beulah’s legs mimicking its actions, as Myfanwy surged past him, hand already conjuring another attack. Her speed and ferocity had clearly taken Palisander by surprise, but he rallied quickly enough. Catching the second ball of Grym, he flung it back at the old dragon. For a moment she was engulfed in it, and Benfro thought she was dead, but his aethereal sight showed how she flitted along the Llinellau at the last minute. He searched for the source of the dead dragon’s power, but it was everywhere, as if every unreckoned jewel contained a part of him.
The numbness was spreading fast now. Benfro could no longer feel his legs or tail, and his arms were as heavy as his head was light. The blood leached from the wound in his side even as the splinter inched its way closer and closer to his heart. He cast out with his thoughts, trying to communicate with Frecknock where she lay. Myfanwy’s fight was a useful distraction, but he knew that she couldn’t hope to win, not against a foe spread so far into the Grym. There was only one way to stop Palisander, to stop everything. About that much the Mother Tree had been right.
Summoning the last of his failing strength, Benfro reached out his hand for Frecknock’s bag. As he stretched, so he could feel the traitorous splinter working its way into the edge of his heart. Every movement was agony, only hastening the end.
‘Frecknock. The book. Give it to me.’ Benfro whispered the words, but the grey dragon didn’t respond. Then a human hand grabbed the bag, passing it to him. Errol was by his side, using his bulk to hide from the queen.
‘You look like you need this,’ he said, despite everything, a grin on his face.
‘This and a jewel.’ Benfro pulled out the book and unwrapped it from the cloth wound around it. ‘Any jewel, as long as it’s red.’
Errol nodded, ducked away and returned a moment later with a dull crimson stone in his unprotected hand. Benfro opened the book at a random page, and Errol dropped the gem on to it.
‘Now go, Errol. Quickly.’
‘But what are you going to do?’
‘What needs to be done. There is no other way. Now go.’
Errol looked like he was going to argue the point, but then stopped himself. He nodded once, laid a hand gently on Benfro’s shoulder. A spark of the Grym flowed between them, dulling the pain and lending Benfro some much-needed strength.
‘Be careful, my friend,’ he said and backed away.
Benfro took one last look around the chamber, saw Frecknock slowly coming round, Cerys still unconscious but not badly injured. Myfanwy still battled the aethereal Palisander, but he could see that she was tiring, too old and worn down by the events at Nantgrafanglach. Bringing so many through the Llinellau to the mouth of the Heol Anweledig must have taken a great deal of effort too. As he watched, she stumbled, fell to the ground and didn’t get back up.
‘Just you and me then, Benfro Bach.’ The tiny figure of the queen turned back to face him, surrounded by the aura of a vast dragon. It leaned in close, head as big as Benfro’s entire body. Mouth wide and fangs dripping, it made to swallow him whole, to possess him and be reborn. Magog had tried that and failed. Benfro wasn’t going to let anyone else have a chance.
‘Just you and me.’ He felt the splinter pierce his heart, but the pain was no more than a prick from a rose’s thorn. With the last of his strength he lifted up the Llyfr Draconius, focused on the single red gem in the middle of the open pages and breathed out the last of his Fflam Gwir.
Errol stumbled away through the debris of the fallen ceiling as pale blue flame erupted from Benfro’s mouth and nose. It flowed like storm water, engulfing the book and the dark red jewel sitting in it. Over Benfro’s arms, his shoulders, flowing down his body like a cloak, it finally covered his head. Then it washed over the floor, leaping up Queen Beulah’s legs and over her body. It spread over the cavern with such speed he could not hope to outrun it.
‘Do not panic, Errol Ramsbottom. This is the Fflam Gwir, the true flame. It will not harm you.’ Errol knew the voice, although he could not have said from where. It reminded him of his earliest dreams, reassuring and peaceful. He stopped running and let the pale flame engulf him.
He was wrapped in a warm embrace, soothing away his aches and pains, restoring his strength so that he could concentrate on the events unfolding across the cavern. With his aethereal sight, he saw the great spectral dragon anchored to Queen Beulah’s mindless body and the endless collections of red jewels. But they were not red any more, the colour leaching out of them as the flame grew, leaping along the lines and bursting into each stone alcove. The queen was fading too, not burning like Osgal, but dissolving into the Grym as if her physical essence was feeding the magic as it unfolded.
Then he saw that Benfro too was turning pale. The flame danced over him with unchecked joy, devouring scales, wasting away bruised flesh and cracked bone. And as his battered and broken mundane form began to fall apart, so his aethereal self rose strong and clear.
‘Isn’t he magnificent? To reckon all these jewels when their bodies are so long gone. Every unreckoned jewel, all across Gwlad. He’s saving them all.’ Errol felt a hand take his and looked round to see Martha standing beside him. Her mundane form was more beautiful than anything he had ever known, but her aethereal form, bathed in the Fflam Gwir, took his breath away. A human shape clad in the aura of a great dragon. Looking down at his own aura, Errol could see that it matched.
‘How is this possible?’
‘The Fflam Gwir reveals your true nature, Errol. Do you not think it strange that we are both so skilled at the subtle arts?’ Martha smiled and spread the wings of her aura wide.
‘But what of Benfro? The flame is killing him.’
‘No. It is saving him. His injuries were too severe. He was dying, and now he is one with the Grym. And his parting gift will put an end to the madness that has plagued Gwlad all these thousands of years. See?’ Martha raised her free hand in the direction of the huge aethereal dragon that was Palisander. It fought against the flames that stripped it of its essence, flailed about the great chamber and smashed into the columns with their alcoves. One by one they shattered, spilling the jewels on to the floor. And where before they had been crimson, now they were purest white.
Shrinking, the aethereal dragon stumbled on, smashing his greatest and most terrible creation. Errol feared for the ceiling. Already the central pillar was gone and the Obsidian Throne with it. Would they all be crushed if the last of the columns gave way?
‘We have to leave. Before the whole place collapses.’ Errol shouted over the screeching of the aethereal dragon. He squeezed Martha’s hand tight, pulling her towards the tunnel entrance. As he did, another column exploded, fragments flying through the air in all directions. He ducked instinctively, but the stone faded to nothing before it could reach them.
‘We have to help Myfanwy,’ Martha said. Errol looked over to where the old dragon lay against the cavern wall, then back to where Benfro grew ever larger in his aethereal form. Frecknock lay close by, and Cerys was not far from them. All were bathed in the
Fflam Gwir, but unlike Benfro they grew ever more substantial. They were stirring too, as they regained consciousness.
‘What can we do? I can’t drag something that size.’ Even as he said it, Errol headed towards the centre of the chamber. He ducked as the aethereal Palisander swooped past him, feeling the scrape of ghostly talons against his aura. A nearby column exploded and an ugly crack appeared in the ceiling, spearing upwards towards the hole through to the Neuadd. Was it his imagination, or could he see stars high up above?
He reached Myfanwy first, crouching beside her as she shook her head and struggled to her feet. When she looked at him it was with eyes clear as a spring stream, and her face was fuller too, the many scars gone, missing scales regrown.
‘You have to get out of here. The chamber’s going to fall in and crush us all!’
Myfanwy’s eyes widened as she stared up. Palisander threw himself against wall and ceiling like a caged beast in fear of its life. Errol could sense his desperation and terror. He closed his mind to it as Myfanwy hauled herself to her feet.
‘I will take care of the dragons, Errol. Go now. We shall meet again.’ She was in front of him, and then with a blink she was standing beside Cerys, helping her up. Another blink and the two of them were hauling Frecknock to her feet, but as they did so Errol could see she was not the tiny dragon he had seen before. Now she stood as tall as Cerys, and her wings drooped low to the ground around her. He had one last glimpse of the three of them, huddled together, and then they were gone.
A last screech from the aethereal form of Palisander turned into a despairing wail. There weren’t many pillars left now, the ground scattered with clear white jewels freed from their imprisonment. The air grew thick with dragons bursting into the aether like smoke from dead leaves thrown on an autumn fire. They danced and flew and embraced, their joy in stark contrast to the beast who still careened around the chamber, cracking walls, ceiling and pillars as it smashed into them.
And there, at the centre of it all, Benfro knelt in the midst of his own flame. He was almost transparent now, scarcely any form left to him at all, but he towered over his mundane remains. He stared straight at Errol, smiled and nodded.
‘Farewell, my friend,’ he said as the last of the pale blue flame flickered to nothing. And as it went, so Benfro disappeared.
The aethereal dragon reared up over the spot where Benfro had been and where now a pile of white jewels lay all on their own. The creature swelled to fill the whole cavern, stretching itself until it was almost invisible. Then with a bang that Errol would hear for the rest of his days, it exploded. The ground shook, cracks spearing through the rock as the remains of the Obsidian Throne and the rest of the Neuadd began to topple into the cavern. Errol couldn’t move, stuck between the urge to escape and the need to rescue Benfro’s jewels. He could hardly even accept that they were Benfro’s jewels. His friend was dead, burned up in his own fire. He had sacrificed himself to save everyone else. How could that be fair?
Errol was too stunned to react, even as the ancient palace fell about him. Then a hand slipped once more into his, warm and familiar.
‘It’s time we left,’ Martha said. And they did.
Epilogue – Rebirth
The Mother Tree’s bargain is a simple thing. You give her a story, and she gives you a choice. For generations of dragons of Gwlad, that choice has been to hide away unnoticed by men or to take the long road in search of another world. We who chose to hide grew smaller, more timid, lost the ability to fly. Those who took the long road ran the risk of death at the hands of men, their unreckoned jewels collected and stored in vast underground chambers.
These were not always the only choices, and neither was the mother tree ever obliged to fulfil her bargain. And yet she has ever been a friend to dragons, however capricious or foolhardy they might be. Hers is the power to grant wishes, even if you do not know what it is you are wishing for. For she is Gwlad and she is everything.
Sir Frynwy,
Tales of the Ffrydd
Iolwen stood at the top of the Street of Kings, where once the inner gates had opened on to the parade ground. Now she looked at a deep pit already beginning to fill with muddy water. There was nothing left of the Neuadd, and hardly anything of the old palace. All the buildings at the top of the hill had disappeared into the hole made by the collapse of the chamber beneath.
‘We will have to rebuild the city, but the palace and the Neuadd are gone. This place is not for our kind any more. If ever it truly was.’
‘A dragon hoard lies deep beneath this hill now. A true hoard, not the abomination begun by Palisander and continued by Magog. You are wise to leave it well alone. Perhaps in time it will become a place of learning, but for now we should leave the departed to themselves.’
Beside Iolwen the dragon Myfanwy shifted her weight and stared across the pit. They had seen a lot of her, and of Cerys and Frecknock, in the month that had passed since Queen Beulah’s end. Theirs was an uneasy truce that Iolwen hoped would grow into a lasting peace as the armies once loyal to the queen were dispersed. She had thought Lord Beylin might have been a problem, that he might have made a play for power, but he had proved to be more pragmatic. There was money to be made in the rebuilding of the Twin Kingdoms – the Three Kingdoms as people were now calling them – and Beylin loved nothing so much as money.
‘How fares Nantgrafanglach?’ Iolwen asked.
Myfanwy turned away from the pit, and the two of them headed back down the road towards the city gates. All around them the sounds of building echoed in the morning, hammers and saws and the shouts of busy men. ‘We mourn our dead and repair the damage done. I have sent young Cerys south to Pallestre with my sis— Lady Earith. We will need her help and wise counsel in the coming months and years, I suspect.’
They walked in silence for a while. Iolwen was not comfortable with the authority thrust upon her, for all she had agreed to accompany Dafydd on his mad quest to have their child born on Twin Kingdoms soil. So much had changed since then, it was hard to believe she was the same person sometimes. Dafydd too was different. The loss of his entire family had left him deeply depressed, and while she had no doubt he would recover in time, she sometimes found herself annoyed at his selfishness. They had been her family too, after all.
‘There is the matter of Emmass Fawr and the warrior priests.’ Myfanwy brought the subject up out of nowhere, and Iolwen could tell that this was the real reason for her visit. The old dragon came often, working the magics that would eventually create a new Heol Anweledig between their two cities.
‘Sad to say, but we need the Order of the High Ffrydd more than ever. Most of your kind are content to leave us alone, but there are some who cleave to the old ways. Too many dragons out there look upon this newly rejoined Gwlad as one great hunting ground. I need warriors skilled in the subtle arts, if not to kill them then at least to persuade them to limit where they hunt. I have chosen a new inquisitor. It won’t be easy, but I think he can begin to change their ways.’
‘Fair,’ Myfanwy conceded with a nod of her huge head. ‘But who is this person who can earn the trust of Melyn’s men?’
‘You should meet him. He’ll be your near neighbour up in the mountains, after all.’ Iolwen and Myfanwy had reached the entrance to the large merchant’s house that had been commandeered as a makeshift palace. Two guards, one Llanwennog, the other a Candlehall man, snapped to attention and then pulled open the doors. One of the main reasons Iolwen had chosen this house over the many others lying empty was that it was big enough to accommodate a dragon of Myfanwy’s size. The larger beasts still hanging around the ruins of Candlehall had to content themselves with what remained of the parade ground and the churned plain where Beulah’s seige army had camped.
‘Your Majesty, I received your summons.’
The man who had been waiting for her return sprang to attention as Iolwen stepped into the reception hall. He bowed to both her and Myfanwy, clearly not concerned by the dragon.
He was young but carried himself like a much older man, and though he seemed to see without difficulty, his eyes were clouded white. He wore the plain brown robes of a warrior priest, and hung around his shoulders was a sling of soft white cotton in which an infant slept, snuggled contentedly against his breast. It was at once incongruous and the most natural of things.
‘Inquisitor Clun, may I introduce Myfanwy the Bold, Mistress of Nantgrafanglach.’ Iolwen watched as the young man bowed once more, supporting the child with one hand. Then he addressed the dragon in perfect Draigiaith.
‘My lady, I am honoured. I would like to apologize for the actions of my predecessor. I hope that our two houses can coexist harmoniously.’
‘Would I be right in thinking Inquisitor Clun was your sister’s consort?’ Myfanwy asked Iolwen.
‘Beulah was the mother of my child, Ellyn.’ Clun struggled to lift the sling over his head without waking the sleeping infant. Cradling her in his arms, he offered her to Myfanwy to see.
‘Just Ellyn? Not Princess Ellyn?’
Clun shook his head. ‘She has no need of titles, no claim on any throne. And besides, my lady Beulah was not of Balwen’s direct line, for all that matters any more.’
‘How do you mean, not of Balwen’s line? Was she not Iolwen’s sister?’ Myfanwy peered at the child, which was not much bigger than her hand.
‘Half-sister,’ Iolwen said. ‘We shared a mother, but her father was Melyn, not King Diseverin’
Myfanwy seemed to consider this for a while, her focus distant as Clun hung the sling and his child back around his neck. ‘And do you not thirst for revenge for your dead wife?’ she asked eventually.
‘I mourn her, Lady Myfanwy. I miss her. I loved her and always will. But I am not so blind that I cannot see how she was at fault. Nor the way she was manipulated from such an early age. Gwlad is changed. She is whole again, and we share her with dragons once more. There is far more important work to do, building peace where we can, defending ourselves where we cannot. I do not think I have the stomach for revenge. Or the time.’ Clun bowed again to both Iolwen and Myfanwy. ‘And now if you will permit me, I must return to Emmass Fawr. There is much work to do.’