by J. D. Oswald
He nodded once, then walked away, head bowed slightly as he muttered soft words to his daughter. Only when he was out of sight and earshot did Myfanwy finally speak.
‘He has a dragon’s temperament, to mourn his soulmate so deeply and yet not let it destroy him.’
‘We all bear our losses as best we can, Myfanwy. So much death and destruction, all for nothing.’
A comfortable silence spread between the two of them for a moment, Iolwen’s thoughts vague as she watched Clun leave. Princess Ellyn had something of her grandmother about her, but she was also undeniably Beulah’s daughter.
‘You miss her, don’t you? Your sister.’
Iolwen looked round into the old face of the dragon. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘When you have lived as long as I have lived, you notice things like that.’
‘I just wish it could have been different. Sister or half-sister, it doesn’t really matter. I do not miss the Beulah who plotted and schemed, who stole the throne and slaughtered all of Prince Dafydd’s family, but I miss the girl I remember when I was six. Perhaps if I’d been able to—’
‘Talk to her? Do you really think she would have listened?’ Myfanwy shook her head slowly. ‘She was too much her father’s creation, I fear. If you must, then mourn the loss of your childhood friend, not the woman she became. Be a friend to her daughter as you are to Inquisitor Clun.’
Iolwen considered the old dragon’s words. There was much wisdom in them, hard though it was to accept.
‘And where is Frecknock?’ Myfanwy made a show of looking around the room as if expecting the dragon to be hiding in the corner. ‘I had hoped to see her. We have much to discuss, she and I.’
‘I cannot fathom her ways. She has grown, did you know? She’s almost your size now. I caught her stretching her wings in the courtyard the other day, thought she might even try to fly.’
‘It is her birthright, and now the curse on her line is lifted it’s only natural her true form should begin to emerge. I would have thought she would come to Nantgrafanglach, or go down to Pallestre to be with her own kind though. And yet she seems to prefer to stay here.’
‘She tends to Melyn even though he is a mindless imbecile now. And physically he is half dragon, growing more so by the day. He is tiny though, in comparison to most of you.’
Myfanwy chuckled. ‘The great Magog lives on. That was ever his aim. I suspect if he were aware he would not be so pleased at how it all turned out.’ She paused a moment in thought, then added, ‘And is there news of Errol and Martha?’
Iolwen sighed. It was something that weighed heavy on her heart that of all who had escaped the collapsing chamber, those two had not been in the palace or made it through the Heol Anweledig to Nantgrafanglach. Yet she could not bring herself to believe they had perished.
‘They are gone. I know not where, but I don’t believe they are dead. I don’t think Errol wanted anything to do with his birthright, so I hope they are somewhere far away, together and happy.’
Myfanwy closed her eyes briefly, let her head droop as if falling asleep. ‘Together and happy. Aye, they deserve that.’
Hot sun beat down from a midday sky, baking the rocks and radiating heat from the ground so that the air shimmered with the force of it. Errol paused in his climb, wiping the sweat from his eyes, and looked up at the distant ruin.
‘We could walk the lines, you know?’ Just ahead of him, Martha clambered over rocks that looked suspiciously like they might once have been a huge column. All around the ground was strewn with blocks, all the same sand-coloured stone. Some were chipped and scored, others almost undamaged and quite clearly carved.
‘I’ve never been to Cenobus. Have you?’ Errol took a drink from the water bottle he had filled at a stream that morning. It was already more than half empty; he’d need to ration himself.
‘Don’t need to have been there to get there.’ Martha stuck her tongue out at him, disappeared into the lines and reappeared a hundred paces higher up the hill. Errol sighed and trudged on.
It was well into the afternoon before they reached the massive arched entrance. The wooden gates were long gone, and the courtyard beyond had been scoured by the wind, its flagstones worn so thin they cracked underfoot as he walked across them. Even so, Errol sensed the power in the place, the aftertaste of magics that had preserved it, hidden it then trapped any who might have broken through those enchantments. Like much of the old workings, they were gone now, their potency spent. Soon men would arrive here, driven by legends of gold and treasure. This ancient palace would be looted and the knowledge trapped within its walls lost. Unless he did something about that.
‘This way, I think. Looks like Benfro came here.’ Martha, always two steps ahead, stood at the top of a stone staircase that disappeared into the ground. The ruins of the palace sat on a high escarpment, jutting out of the great forest of the Ffrydd like a snapped bone poking through skin. Errol approached with caution, even though he knew the place was safe now. Cenobus might once have been the home of Magog, Son of the Summer Moon, but now it was just a jumble of rocks.
The chill was welcome as they descended into the depths, though Errol shivered as his body adjusted to the temperature. Martha didn’t seem to notice. With each passing day, she became more like the impetuous young girl who had dropped out of the tree and into his life all those years ago at Pwllpeiran. He wished he could just shrug everything off so easily, but his experiences weighed heavy on his heart.
‘You still miss him, don’t you?’ Martha conjured a tiny ball of fire to light their way as they reached the bottom of the steps and set off down a wide tunnel.
‘He gave his life to save … well, everything.’
‘He’s still here though.’ Martha touched her chest with her free hand, then moved it to her head. ‘And here.’
Errol dipped his head in understanding. He knew she was right, but Benfro’s death still saddened him. That final ‘Farewell, my friend.’
‘Reckon this is what we’re looking for.’ Martha held her light up high, revealing a heavy wooden door set with iron studs. Bones lay on the ground before it, men who had come this far only to find they could go no further nor turn back. Shivering at more than the cold, Errol looked up the tunnel with his aethereal sight, relieved to see that it was as he expected. When he looked back, Martha had already opened the door.
‘Magog’s great repository.’ She sniffed, stepped inside. ‘Smells a bit.’
Errol followed her into a room that seemed to stretch on for ever. Squat pillars held up the roof, carved with shelves that held books, parchments, treasures, and row upon row of pale white jewels. A heavy writing desk hauntingly similar to the one in the room at the top of Gog’s tower in Nantgrafanglach had been pushed against a wall, and the space where it had sat was filled with yet more jewels in a pile. Beside it smaller piles lay ready for sorting, exactly how Benfro had described his dreams when Magog had taken control of them.
‘It’s just how I remember it,’ Errol said.
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Martha gave him that quizzical smile he loved so much. With his aethereal sight he saw her harden her aura around her hands, then bend low to the first small pile of jewels and swiftly add it to the larger hoard. ‘Come on, Errol. Time’s a wastin’.’
He paused a moment to concentrate on his own aura, still not used to the shape it formed around his hands, the talons rather than fingernails. With a thought it turned from swirling colours to solid black, and he plunged his hands into the first carved alcove in the nearest stone column. Scooping up the jewels within, he carried them over to the pile and let them drop. As they clattered against those already there, he thought he heard a distant voice, its tone like that of someone greeting a long-lost friend, but he couldn’t make out any words.
Shaking his head, Errol turned back to the stone columns and the collected jewels of Magog’s repository. There were a lot of them to move.
He had been expecting nothing, j
ust an endless peaceful darkness away from the pain and the weariness, the constant fear and battling just to survive. Instead, Benfro gazed up at a sky of perfect blue marred only by the occasional bright white cloud. His wound was gone, not just the constant sensation of it, but he knew that the splinter was no longer there, the muscle and flesh knitted back together, the damage undone. His heart, both his hearts, beat strongly, their rhythm reassuring.
A large bird flew across his view, and that was when he realized that his eye too was healed. Regrown would perhaps have been a better description, since Fflint had gouged it out and flung it aside like offal. Slowly, expecting his joints to creak and complain, Benfro lifted his hands in front of his face, twisted them this way and that as he inspected them. There was no sign of the scars, the chipped talons and scratched scales that he remembered before. Nor could he see the signs of regrowth where Myfanwy had begun her healing magic and Earith had finished the task. His arms felt strong, his whole body rested. And he couldn’t remember how he had come to be here.
Rolling over, Benfro got to his feet and glanced about. He was in a clearing surrounded by mature trees. Rolling hills climbed into a distance made hazy by the heat of the sun, but they were covered in green forest and strangely familiar. He looked behind him and saw a narrow river running close by, a track through the grass crossing it at a ford.
In this peaceful place it was hard to remember the pain and the struggle. He knew he had battled first Magog and then Palisander, knew he had breathed fire to reckon all the stolen jewels of Gwlad. As he remembered that, so he remembered too that he had burned the Llyfr Draconius, and he felt a moment’s panic that Sir Frynwy would be beyond angry with him for that.
But there had been no choice. And if the knowledge contained within that book was the same knowledge Gog and Magog had used to split Gwlad in two, then it was better off burned.
Benfro stood for a long while, the sun warming him as he considered the track. He couldn’t shake the feeling he had been here before, but neither could he remember ever having seen it. From where he stood he could turn right and cross the ford, or left and drop quickly into the trees. Both options had their merits, but he couldn’t decide which way to go.
The heat of the sun decided for him. The ford would cool his feet for a while, but the trees would give him the best shelter. No sooner had he stepped into the cool of the forest than he began to recognize individual trees, the shape of the land, the little streams that tumbled between the trunks. In no time at all he was walking down the wide track that led through the middle of the village, only where he had expected dilapidated and burned-out cottages, now it was all as he remembered from before when Melyn had come through. The gardens were well tended, the cottages welcoming.
‘Benfro. You’re looking well.’
He stopped in his tracks, not quite believing he saw Ystrad Fflur at the door to his house. The old dragon looked different somehow, and it took Benfro a while to realize that he was standing upright, not bent over with arthritis. His eyes were clear too, and the joints of his wings rose high above his head.
‘Going to the feast early, eh?’ Ystrad Fflur nodded his head conspiratorially. ‘Very wise.’ And then he turned away, stepped back into his cottage.
Bemused, Benfro carried on through the village. Other dragons greeted him and all were healthier than he remembered, younger, larger. There was Ynys Môn, whittling away at a stick as he sat outside his tumbledown house. There was Meirionydd dead-heading the roses in her garden. Sir Frynwy snoozed in the afternoon heat, slumped in a chair outside his front door. They were all here, all as he remembered them. Better.
The hope grew ever stronger, overwhelming him as he headed towards the centre of the village and the track that would take him home. He paused a while, staring up at the stone hall where he had eaten many a feast and heard many an epic tale. It wasn’t as grand as the Neuadd, but it was magnificent all the same. Strong stone and slate roof, glass windows and that stout oak door. It stood open now, and as Benfro looked a dragon stepped out into the sunlight. His hearts almost stopped as he saw her, and he rushed towards her.
‘You came back.’ Morgwm the Green swept him into a strong embrace, and if Benfro was bigger than his mother now he scarcely noticed. ‘I knew you would.’
Acknowledgements
It’s been more than fifteen years since I began the fool’s quest that would eventually become this epic tale. Back then, at the start of the noughties, I had recently relocated to the heart of Wales, up in the Cambrian Mountains inland of Aberystwyth. Learning about that wonderful country, its language, culture and mythology was a fascinating and magical experience, and although I have now returned to Scotland I still feel a certain hiraeth for the place.
The germ of the idea for the series was born out of taking evening classes in Welsh, and I have to thank my tutor, Ioan Guile, for introducing me to the delights of that wonderful language. Sir Benfro himself would not have existed had not my long-suffering partner, Barbara, pointed out that the Welsh name for Pembrokeshire was also clearly that of a dragon, and a slightly bungling and inept one at that. All my friends from Cwmystwyth and the Pwllpeiran Research Farm deserve a mention too, for the friendly welcome, the work, and the introduction to such interesting sheep breeds as Beulah Speckle Face, Llanwennog, Torwen, Tordu and Clun Forest. Not to mention Divitie and Diseverin the CAMP rams.
Many others deserve a hearty thanks. Stuart MacBride, who persuaded me that sheep don’t make such good villains in an epic fantasy; the late, great Dot Lumley who tried so hard to sell my unique vision of epic fantasy to the world; and the effervescent Juliet Mushens who finally succeeded. I must thank the team at Penguin, too. Although it’s hard to name everyone who has passed an eye over this tale, you have all left a mark on it and for that I am ever grateful. If I name any, then they must be Alex Clarke, Jillian Taylor, Sophie Elletson and Hugh Davies. I’m hugely indebted to Roy McMillan and Wayne Forrester for the amazing audiobooks too. I can’t read these stories out loud without slipping into a soft Welsh accent now. I must thank Andrew Farmer too, for taking my rough scribbled drawings – done for my own reference – and turning them into the rather splendid map of Northern Gwlad that adorns this book.
And last, but by no means least, I would like to thank all you readers who have stuck it out to the bitter end. Special thanks to those dedicated few who picked up Dreamwalker in its original self-published ebook guise and liked it enough to stay the course. You all know who you are, and I love you all equally. Without you I’d probably keep on writing these strange stories, but it wouldn’t be half as much fun.
The Beginning
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published 2016
Text copyright © James Oswald, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover illustration by Sam Headley
ISBN: 978-1-405-91781-0
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