Concentrating hard, Beulah coalesced her thoughts into an image of herself. On the edge of her senses she could hear the clamour of the city, feel the presence of sweating, toiling peasants, avaricious merchants and effete gentry. Even the mindless existence of the pack animals could be a distraction that had to be pushed to one side. Dogs were particularly hard to ignore with their simple, single-minded drives: eat; sleep; breed. Focussing away from them, she cast her mind out across the hall, out the door, through the palace and along the northern road.
She went quickly, not lingering to be sidetracked by the endless possibilities of the city’s mindscape. Past the old wall and the Warrior Gate, it became easier as the distractions lessened. She sped up, covering the ground at a speed no horseman could hope to match. Faster she went, faster still until it felt like she flew just a few feet above the road.
Even here, in the dream, she could feel its call, insidious and compelling. The ancient spell that had imbued it with its power was as potent as the day Inquisitor Hardy had cast it. Life seemed so much more complicated now than it had back then. Beulah longed for the days of strong kings and iron rule. What would Brynceri have done about the endless rounds of diplomacy and bureaucracy? What would he have done about upstart dragons? She couldn’t help but think it would have involved fire and the sword. In both instances
Up ahead, far in the distance, Beulah could make out the mind-shape of a troop of men riding at a trot. In an instant she was with them, moving silent and unseen through the ranks of their thoughts. They were pale, ill-defined beings in this realm, some, where the skill burned brighter, more substantial than others. A few were no more than wisps flickering above the solid forms of their horses. Only their leader appeared as fully formed in the aethereal as in the physical. Melyn rode at the head of the column, bolt upright in the saddle. He appeared younger than his years, as if his mind harboured a vanity that even his prodigious strength of will had not been able to dampen.
‘Queen Beulah, it’s good to see you,’ he said, without turning. It was a small show of his superiority in the ways of magic and Beulah hated him for it as much as she cursed herself for not trying harder. Occasionally she managed to catch him unawares, but obviously not today.
‘I’m sorry, my queen,’ Melyn said, turning to face her. ‘Forgive an old man his little games. What brings you to the ghost road?’
‘This morning, not an hour ago, I saw a dragon flying over the city,’ Beulah said. Melyn flinched at the words as he always did when the subject was brought up.
‘I assume this wasn’t a physical dragon,’ the Inquisitor said. ‘No one else saw it.’
‘I was as I am now,’ Beulah said. ‘There are few in the Twin Kingdoms who have this skill, and only I can sit on the Obsidian Throne. But if any others were watching, they’d have seen it. It flew, Melyn. It had wings the size of a house. It circled the citadel as if it were looking for a nest.’
‘You tried to ensnare it?’
‘Of course,’ Beulah said. ‘I thought I had it, too, but it escaped. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. I might believe I’d killed it, but I can’t be sure. It must have escaped me.’
Melyn sat silently on his horse for a while. Beulah floated along the road beside him, fighting back the anger that retelling of the intruder had kindled in her. At the time she had been so furious she had crashed out of her dreamstate and almost fallen from the throne. She needed to retain control of her emotions.
‘You’re fading, Beulah. Get a grip on yourself,’ Melyn said. The rebuke stung her, but years of training kept her focussed.
‘What are we to do about this?’ She asked. ‘I can’t have these creatures infiltrating the aethereal. You know as well as I do that I must have total control over it to succeed in our plans.’
‘My warrior priests will seek it out,’ Melyn said. ‘There’re few enough of them left and we’ve archives accounting where all of them live. Your intruder will be captured and brought before you. It’s up to you what you decide to do with it.’
‘I wish I had your confidence,’ Beulah said. ‘Both in the skill of your warriors and in the accuracy of your lists.’
‘My lady is too harsh,’ Melyn said. ‘Even if our archives weren’t accurate, the intruder would’ve come from nearby. Dragons have only a rudimentary ability to exist in the upper sphere, as well you know.’
‘Nevertheless it came to Candlehall, to the Neuadd. It was drawn here,’ Beulah said. ‘And it was strong enough to fight me. This was no accident. Do what you have to at Emmass Fawr. Consult your archives and deploy your warriors, but I think this creature will be back before long. I expect you to lead the hunt for it yourself.’
‘Of course, your highness,’ Melyn said, bowing his head to her image. Beulah stopped in the road and let the troop pass her by. She waited for a few minutes, watching as they dwindled into the distance along the arrow-straight track. Overhead the sky was grey-blue and flat, as it always looked in this place. She scanned it for signs of movement, but could see only birds. On a whim, she reached out for one of them, grasping it with an invisible hand and squeezing the life out of it. She was reminded of her father on the dancefloor at her birthday ball. This tiny, feathered creature was no different, really. It had a simple life-force and a rudimentary intelligence. Without remorse, she relieved it of both. There was a faint, startled flash of anxiety and then the bird disappeared. Beulah imagined that anyone actually there that morning would have seen a crow fly across the sky and then suddenly drop down dead for no reason. It amused her to have such a power over even the most insignificant of her subjects. But at the same time it angered her to know that other creatures walked the upper sphere, flew in its skies in defiance of her. It would not be for much longer.
Turning, she sped back along the road, so fast that details were lost in a whirling blur. Returning to her physical self was always much easier than reaching out into the aethereal and in moments she was back at the Neuadd, looking down on herself seated on the Obsidian Throne. A flick of her imaginary head changed the perspective and once more she could feel the hard stone, cold and uncomfortable even through the thick cushions. As she came back to herself she looked once more around the vast, empty hall and realised what it was that was different. The Neuadd she saw now had windows of coloured glass all jumbled and patternless. She knew the tale of how Brynceri’s great masterpieces had been smashed by the armies of Llanwennog at the time of the Brumal Wars. When the invading army had finally been driven out of the Twin Kingdoms the great hall had been repaired. Only the damage was too much, the windows too large for the pictures that had graced them to be recreated. In the upper sphere, the windows were as they must have been before, depicting wild scenes from early history and legend.
It was too late to study them closer, Beulah knew. Once she had begun the return to the physical, there was no turning back. Still, it was an interesting observation to be studied at greater length some other time.
‘Captain,’ Beulah shouted as soon as she had centred herself. The Captain of the guard came running across the hall, two guards slightly behind him. All three dropped to their knees as soon as they reached the edge of the dais.
‘Fetch me Seneschal Padraig, I’ve a proclamation to make,’ Beulah said. The captain sent one of his guards and there followed a tense few minutes silence as they waited. Beulah tried to refocus her mind, to see the tall, thin windows as they had originally been, but she was too excited at the prospect of what she was about to do. She felt like a giddy schoolgirl contemplating breaking one of the rules, then laughed out loud. She was queen. She made the rules now.
Finally Padraig appeared. He came wheezing through the doors and limped as quickly as he could across the floor. He didn’t kneel, only bowing his head. Beulah considered rebuking him for his impoliteness but realised that if she forced him to kneel it would take him hours to get back up again.
‘Your majesty,’ the seneschal said. ‘I am at your service.’<
br />
‘Of course,’ Beulah said. ‘Now make a note of this. As of noon today it’s my intention to re-instate King Brynceri’s original charter of the Order of the High Ffrydd. The order will continue its current military activities, but it will also be charged with hunting down and exterminating all dragons within the Twin Kingdoms. In addition, the payment of aurddraig will be resumed. Ten gold flocks for every head delivered either to me, here at Candlehall or to the order at Emmass Fawr.’
‘Majesty, is that wise?’ Padraig asked, his eyes wide with shock. ‘We’ve had no quarrel with what few dragons still live for almost two centuries. Their tithes are a welcome addition to the treasury each year.’
Beulah looked down on the slight figure of the priest. His flesh was pale around his jowls and he looked deeply unhappy at this proclamation. Was it simply that he was being denied the few slads that trickled in each year from the remote parts of the Twin Kingdoms, the tribute paid by each dragon to the throne? Knowing how closely the seneschal monitored the treasury it probably was.
‘I don’t want their gold, Padraig,’ she said, fixing him with her stare. ‘I want their jewels.’
*
‘This is what you’ve been hiding all these years? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It was important that as few people as possible knew.’
‘Does he know?’
‘Of course not. And he never should.’
Errol came slowly to his senses, wondering where he was and why he was so cold. He could hear the voices of two men talking and it took a while to register that he knew who they were. The careful, measured tones were those of his tutor, the master librarian Andro. The other voice, questioning and incredulous, was the surgeon he had met, Usel.
Usel. He remembered now. He had gone down to the mortuary to help the medic examine a dead body. A princess.
‘What about Melyn? He wants a report by the end of the day.’
‘He must never learn the truth of this. I’m sorry my friend, but you must do everything in your power to stop him finding out.’
Errol opened his eyes to a view of stone vaulted ceiling, flickering gently in the light from numerous torches. He tried to sit up, but his head ached like someone had hit him with a rock, and his body felt impossibly weak. Instead, he rolled sideways until he could make out the blurry image of two men in heated conversation.
‘Oh, I can keep this from the Inquisitor, don’t you worry about that,’ Usel said.
‘Well be careful, Usel. And don’t underestimate our leader. He didn’t get to be Inquisitor just by being old, you know. Ah, it looks like our young patient has awoken.’
Errol groaned as Usel came over and knelt beside him.
‘How are you feeling?’ The surgeon asked.
‘Tired,’ Errol said. His voice came out as a whisper.
‘Well, I guess you would be. You gave me quite a turn fainting like that.’
‘I fainted?’
‘Dead away. I’ve seen it happen before with trainee surgeons. Fine one minute, the next... bang.’ Usel made a falling motion with his hand, then helped Errol up into a sitting position.
‘The autopsy?’ He asked, glancing across the room to the narrow table, its contents now covered over with a white linen sheet.
‘Oh, I did that already. Don’t you worry about it.’
‘Come, Errol,’ Andro said, helping him off the low bench where he had woken. ‘Let’s get you out of this cold cave and back upstairs. Get some sun on your face and the Grym in your bones, you’ll be right as rain.’
Bemused, it was all Errol could do to be led out of the mortuary and up the stairs. His strength seemed to return to him the further he went from the stone casket and its tragic occupant, so that by the time he reached the ground floor of the monastery he was hard pushed to remember what all the fuss had been about.
‘Feeling better?’ Andro said. Errol nodded.
‘Good. Well, you’d better go off and get some exercise. Then I want you back in the library after evening prayers to help me with the archiving. Trainee surgeon indeed. If Usel wants to poach my best novitiates he’ll have to try a lot harder than that.’
*
Benfro swam up from the darkness in a panic of thrashing limbs. He was flexing his wings desperately to stay aloft, but the ground was beneath him, he could feel its solidity beneath his feet. He had to drop and roll, take the momentum out of his fall before is snapped his bones. At least if he could still walk he stood a chance of getting away. Acting as much out of the instinct honed from years of climbing cliffs and trees as from any conscious thought, he threw himself forward blindly.
There was a terrible crash, the sound of splintering wood and heavy objects hitting the ground, but the impact was far less than he had been expecting. Barely winded, he lay still, eyes clenched tight shut, breathing heavily.
‘My dear Benfro, are you all right?’
Lying on his back, Benfro thought for a moment he must be dreaming. He knew that voice well, but it was a world away, surely. Then, as the rush of sensation began to subside he remembered a time before he had been flying over the land, before he had seen the great city, before he had been caught by the tall, thin figure. It seemed days ago, but the more he thought about it the more he realised it had been only moments since he had begun to recreate the room in his mind. Slowly, Benfro opened his eyes.
It was still dark, lit only by the single sliver of light that pierced the crack in the old shutters. He was staring up at the ceiling and couldn’t help noticing the mottled patterns on the plasterwork, the heavy cobwebs that lurked in the corners and around the simple chandelier with its stubs of candle ribboned by melted wax. The detail held his attention completely as he tried to remember where he was, who he was and what he was doing. All these things he knew, he realised, but the understanding of them was elusive, as if the memories were greased.
The patterns of light and dark shifted in the room and a face loomed overhead. It peered down at him and blocked his view of the chandelier, forcing him to reconnect with reality.
‘You fell out of your chair,’ the face said, and Benfro remembered that it had a name. Meirionydd.
‘Actually, to be more accurate, you threw yourself out of your chair,’ she said. ‘It was very impressive.’
‘I… What just happened?’ Benfro asked, looking around the room and then down at his own body as if unsure that it was real. He was sprawled out on the floor in a quite undignified pose, the rug that had brushed his face rucked up against him like a heavy blanket.
‘You tell me,’ Meirionydd said. ‘I only asked you to look for the llinellau, not go off for a little jaunt.’
‘I went… away?’ Benfro asked, rolling over and sitting himself up on the floor.
‘Not physically, no,’ Meirionydd said. ‘But for a moment your spirit was gone. I take it you were flying again?’
Benfro told her what he had seen, the memories slowly settling themselves into a more or less logical order as he tried to recall them. Meirionydd listened quietly, asking questions only when he muddled up the details or jumped ahead too far. When he had finished she sat for a long time silent. Benfro watched her, waiting, confused and frightened. This was not what he had expected the subtle arts to be all about.
‘You saw only one woman?’ Meirionydd asked after long moments had passed.
‘Woman?’ Benfro asked.
‘Men and women, male and female. Like Palisander and Angharad, Rasalene and Arhelion. I’m sorry Benfro, I sometimes forget how young you are. And what little you know of the world of men. We’ve kept it so deliberately. They’re not something that a kitling needs to be curious about. But maybe that decision was wrong. Still, this woman you saw must have been a very powerful mage. And you, too have a natural talent that is stronger than anything I’ve ever seen. You must be very careful, Benfro. You understand so little of what you are doing and that’s dangerous, for you and for us.’
‘What do you mean?’ Be
nfro asked, worried by Meirionydd’s serious words.
‘You are a dreamwalker, Benfro. You walk with ease in places that a trained mage might take years to reach. But you don’t know how it is that you do these things, they just happen. And the places you go are dangerous places. Emmass Fawr and The Neuadd are both seats of power for men, though they belonged to us long ago. You’re attracted to them like a bee to a flower. It’s a miracle you haven’t come to any harm so far.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Benfro said. ‘What are these places? How do I get to them?’
‘That’s the problem,’ Meirionydd said. ‘You don’t know how you do it. You need to learn and I’ll do everything I can to teach you. But it’s difficult. You’ll have no control until you’ve learned how to see the Llinellau Grym. Yet something seems to be stopping you from mastering the most simple of the subtle arts.’
‘Could what Frecknock did to me have, I don’t know… affected my ability to see the llinellau?’
‘I doubt it,’ the old dragon said. ‘She merely put a suggestion in your mind that made it impossible for you to talk about that incident. No, it’s something in your nature, Benfro. But don’t worry. We’ll overcome it. I’ve had worse students than you. Why do you think Ynys Môn spends all his time hunting and fishing?’
‘He can’t see the lines either?’ Benfro asked, feeling a lot better in himself.
‘Oh, he can see them,’ Meirionydd said. ‘If he tries. But it took him long enough. And he’s never had much of a talent for it. Now enough chattering. You have to practice until it comes. And if that takes ten years, so be it.’
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