Dreamwalker

by Oswald, J. D.

  His mother was dead.

  Benfro thrust his head into his hands, rubbing his palms hard against his eyes. He wanted to scream, to sob, to cry, anything. Surely there was some emotional response in him. But he could do nothing. Nothing except watch as, over and over again his mother’s head fell lifeless to the ground.

  He had abandoned her. He had to go back. His mother was wise, a skilled healer. He had learnt only a tiny fraction of her skills. Maybe it had all been a ruse. Some near-magic trick to get the men off her back. She would be whole and hearty and waiting for him to come home. She would laugh at him in that loving way and explain how she had beaten them once more. And she would have a hot stew of venison bubbling away on the hearth, with thick crusty chunks of forest bread to help it down.

  Benfro’s stomach grumbled and he realised that he hadn’t eaten since morning. The sky overhead had the dull purple twinge of twilight about it and already a gloom was settling in between the trees. But how could he think of food at a time like this? How could he be so callous.

  And what if his mother needed him? What if the magic she had woven required his help to complete? He had to get back to her, had to make her whole again before she really did die.

  Benfro picked himself up and clambered to the top of the bank, realising as he did so that the questing presence of the Inquisitor was gone. No more the soft pulses of fear, no more the prickling in his skin. Evening birds had begun their noisy chorus and the first nocturnal animals were scurrying about in the brush. If there were men in the forest now, they were a long way off.

  It took less time than he expected to get back to the clearing. For all that his panicked fleeing felt like it had taken hours, he had travelled only a short distance from home. His senses, those inexplicable feelings he had never noticed before, told him that there were no men around, but still he approached the house with care, his hearts fluttering with a mixture of desperate hope and fatal realism.

  The house stood in the darkening night, a familiar shape surrounded by familiar sounds and smells. Fourteen years, his life, had been spent in this clearing. Yet as he approached, even before he could see the spot of his mother’s execution, Benfro knew that there was something wrong. As he edged around the corner of the house, feeling the comforting rough surface of its walls, he saw the one thing he knew would be there and yet had hoped beyond hope would not.

  His mother was dead.

  Her body lay slumped on the blood-slicked ground.

  Her head was nowhere to be seen.

  *

  Errol knelt in the small apse off the main worshipping hall that was reserved for novitiates. In front of him the rough stone altar was adorned with candles, flickering in the cold draft that always whistled around the older parts of the monastery. They cast shadows on the mottled, rough surface of the walls and ceiling that moved in small leaps and bounds like wild animals in the depths of the forest. Distracted for a moment, he remembered happy times in his childhood when he would sit in the trees and wait and watch. It was something old Father Drebble had taught him, that if he waited long enough, the animals would come to him. But he was not here to dwell on the past, he reminded himself. He was here to pray.

  ‘I pledge my loyalty to thee, oh Shepherd, and to my queen, Beulah of the House of Balwen, and to this most holy Order of the High Ffrydd. I humbly beg thee to give me your wisdom, to guide me in my studies; your discipline to resist the myriad temptations laid in my path by the wolf. I thank you for gifting me the opportunity to serve in thy name and promise always to do thy will in all things.’

  Errol savoured the words, and the sentiments behind them, revelling in the power and purpose of them and the pledge he made daily. This morning the apse was empty save for himself, and he was able to take some time over his meditations. When he felt ready to face the day, he rose, bowing his head once. Stepping forward, he pinched out the wick of his candle, snuffing the flame that he had lit after his prayers the night before. His candle was large; only a few hours passed between each lighting and extinguishing. Not all the novitiates were as conscientious as he was, and some of the other candles were almost burnt to the base. If their owners did not graduate to the priesthood before they were melted completely, then they would be cast out of the order. To be candled was the greatest of shames and Errol had no intention of falling from grace that way. He would work hard and learn all he could learn. He would graduate with honour and serve the Inquisitor’s will, the Shepherd’s will, in whatever way was seen fit. His loyalty was without question – had he not pledged as much even at his choosing?

  ‘No, no, no, no!’

  A sharp pain cracked across Errol’s hands and he looked down to see a raw red welt across them. For a moment he was confused, but then the image of the apse in the worshipping hall faded away, to be replaced by the familiar surrounds of the library archives. Andro sat across a small table from him, glaring. The old man held a thin length of cane in one hand.

  ‘I… I was there,’ Errol said, trying to shake the disorientation from his mind. ‘It was real enough, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Andro said. ‘Very convincing. I particularly liked the bit where you let your mind wander briefly to your childhood. Just the sort of thing a real novitiate would do. But you went too far, Errol. You started trying to justify your loyalty. No one’s questioning it, not directly. Melyn won’t come up to you and say “are you loyal to me?” He’s going to look for signs that suggest you aren’t.’

  ‘It’s too hard,’ Errol said. ‘I can’t keep everything together at once. And that’s without Melyn charging around inside my head. Ow!’

  ‘Inquisitor Melyn,’ Andro said. ‘Or Inquisitor, or His Grace. He may be your enemy Errol, but he’s also the head of this order and as such your superior. You will give him respect at all times.’

  ‘Sorry, quaister,’ Errol said, bowing his head. ‘I forget myself.’

  ‘Exactly Errol,’ Andro said. ‘You forget yourself. And you must not do that. Never. Your only hope is eternal vigilance. You’ve got to immerse yourself totally. Be the person who is unquestioning in his loyalty to the order.’

  ‘But I hate the order,’ Errol said.

  ‘No, you only hate what it’s become. Remember that. If it helps, imagine that you’re loyal to what the order used to stand for – knowledge and learning. Now I want you to start again, only this time I’m not going to tell you when I start trying to pry into your thoughts. You should be able to sense me and block me. Melyn will expect you to block him, too. But he won’t expect you to succeed for any length of time.’

  Errol settled himself down into his chair once more, laid his hands out on the table top and closed his eyes, building the image of the perfect novitiate in his mind. A sharp rap on the knuckles startled him out of concentration.

  ‘Eyes open this time,’ Andro said.

  *

  The bulk of Morgwm’s prone body lay exactly where it had fallen. Dark blood stained the ground around it, lending an iron tang to the air that reminded Benfro sickeningly of the end of the hunt, when a young hind or stag would be strung up and bled. For once he cursed his keen eyes that could pick up the slightest detail even in the quickening gloom. The ground around his mother’s body was trampled where dozens of feet had milled around. The vegetable patch was ruined, the cabbage leaves all torn, potatoes smashed off at the haulm before they could ever have reached a decent size. The swing chair where he had spent many a warm evening listening to his mother’s herb lore lay on its side now, shattered beyond repair. And someone had kicked in the door to the house. His eyes darted from this to that, never once settling on the one thing he didn’t want to see.

  He found his mother’s head some distance from her body. A deep runnel in the ground showed where it had been dragged. His hearts leaden, Benfro stole himself to approach. Any hope that his mother might have been alive, any triumph over the evil terror that had so suddenly swept into his life, had long since disappeared. He had to acc
ept that his mother was dead. She would not be coming back. And now there was an important ceremony to be performed.

  Benfro had touched his mother a thousand times before, hugged her, kissed her, held onto her and sobbed into her shoulder as only a son could. Yet it was the hardest thing he ever did to stoop down to pick up her severed head. And as he came close, he saw something that made him first pause, then leap away to retch dry, empty heavings into the vegetable patch. For the once proud and beautiful features of Morgwm the Green had been split, lengthwise between her eyes, exposing a raw, ruddy mess of brain and bone within.

  If Benfro had been angry before it had been tempered by fear. Now his rage was pure and unbridled. Bad enough that these men should kill his mother, but to mutilate her after her death was beyond his comprehension. What manner of beasts could do that? And why? In his fury, he lashed out at the vegetables, finishing the job of destruction begun by his tormentors before collapsing in a heap. The tears that had so long eluded him came thick and fast then, great sobs of pain and grief, anger, despair and hatred.

  It was a long time before Benfro could bring himself to go back to his mother’s mutilated remains. Night had fallen completely by the time he managed to place her head in some semblance of the right position beside her neck. The sticky blood on his hands felt like a curse, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to wash it off.

  Inside the house, the last embers were still glowing in the hearth. For a fleeting instant, he felt a flush of guilt, knowing the trouble he would be in for letting the fire burn so low. Then reality came back to him. His mother was beyond caring about such matters.

  The men had been through the house, turning things upside down as if just for the hell of it. Pots lay broken on the floor, wet and dry contents mingled to a sticky pulp that smelled sour and sweet with the pungent odour of drying herbs. Benfro did his best to ignore it, heading instead for the store room at the back of the house.

  By the time he had finished covering the prone body with Delyn oil, the moon had breached the treetops, full and fat. Its pockmarked face formed the shadow of a dragon with wings outstretched; great Rasalene, the father of them all. Except that Benfro knew no dragon could have wings that large. His own thin flappings were more of an embarrassment than anything else, a vestigial remnant of some earlier creature. Like the lore, the dragon in the moon was a pitiful, pathetic children’s tale to his current state of mind. But there was one part of being a dragon that could not be denied.

  Finally he went back into the storeroom and fetched the tiny blackwood box, sliding the close fitting lid from it with trembling fingers. The powder within was darker than the night, as if it absorbed whatever light came its way. It smelled like nothing he had ever come across before, at once alien and exotic and frightening.

  Benfro took a pinch between his finger and thumb, feeling its soft coolness almost numb his whole arm. His hearts were racing now, his mind a churning turmoil of grief and excitement and fear. He looked up at the moonlit night sky, seeing the thousand thousand pinprick lights of the stars and then with what he hoped was a flourish, he cast the powder over his mother’s body.

  *

  It was late, the night sky outside pocked with stars where it showed through the low clouds that covered the city. Beulah sat in her stateroom, an empty glass of wine in one hand as she stared out the window, thinking. She had tried to contact Melyn earlier in the day, but he was neither at Emmass Fawr nor close enough to Candlehall that she could trace him. She missed his wise counsel and realised, not for the first time, that she relied far too heavily on him. Not that she couldn’t make decisions for herself. And this was a big decision, so perhaps it was better to take it in small steps.

  As she walked out of her room, two guards snapped to attention and began to follow her down the corridor, maintaining a discrete distance and trying to keep their movements quiet in the silent palace. Beulah ignored them for as long as she could, before turning on them with a fierce fury in her stare.

  ‘By the Shepherd, must you follow me everywhere?’ She shouted, knowing that they had been ordered to do just that and if they failed in their duty they would most likely be flayed alive. ‘Oh very well then. Come with me.’

  She turned again, stalking down the corridor towards the guest wing. When she reached the door she had been looking for she stopped.

  ‘Now you can stand guard,’ Beulah said. ‘Make sure no one enters until I am finished in here.’

  The two guards saluted and formed themselves up on either side of the door.

  ‘Or leaves, for that matter,’ Beulah said with a wry smile before opening the door and stepping inside.

  The room was dark, only starlight picking out the rough shapes of the furniture. Quietly, Beulah stepped around a low couch and two plump armchairs, approaching the great bed that dominated the far wall. By the time she reached its edge, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. She stood for long minutes, watching the sleeping figure of Merrl, heir to the dukedom of Abervenn.

  He wore no bedclothes and the sheets covered only half of his body. His chest was broad, the muscles in his arms and shoulders well developed. His blonde hair draped across his face, boyish and relaxed in sleep. Beulah sniffed the air, noting the gentle aroma of bathing oils. He was clean and biddable; he would do.

  Silently, gently, she climbed onto the bed, reaching out and stroking the light golden hairs on Merrl’s chest, feeling the tension in his stomach muscles and the powerful taughtness of his ribs. He woke slowly, which was how she had planned it. Beulah could feel the colour of his thoughts deepen and coalesce as he slowly swam up out of the depths of sleep and into the dream-zone. Here he was at his most suggestible; here she could mould him to her will. It was just a question of finding the place she already occupied in his mind, finding the image he held of her, and reinforcing it with suggestions of love, loyalty and total commitment.

  It was almost too easy. Beulah found that she was already at the centre of Merrl’s thoughts and feelings. For an instant she was flattered to be the recipient of so much undivided attention. But the flavour was wrong; this was not slavish devotion. Beulah knew what that tasted like; she dined on it daily from the masses who thronged her halls. No, this was a different thing altogether, something closer to the way her own thoughts had been; dominated by images of her rotting father in the weeks and months before he had finally died. Before she had finally killed him.

  Merrl didn’t love her; he wanted her dead.

  Beulah probed deeper, her hands still caressing the firm body she now straddled. A tumble of images flickered past her: shadowy figures in cloaks with deep hoods standing around a fire in the darkness; an impossibly old man, yet still vital and brooding, undeniably Llanwennog, King Ballah; a young woman, still a girl in many ways, her face unmistakeable despite her foreign garb, Iolwen; a dagger, concealed in the sleeve of an elegant evening coat. The meaning was quite clear; Merrl was part of a plan to assassinate her and put her sister on the throne.

  Beulah sighed. It was predictable, to be expected in many ways, but she had hoped for more from Merrl and the House of Abervenn. She knew that producing an heir was essential, however much the thought of pregnancy and childbirth disgusted her. There were other potential suitors, but none brought the huge financial benefits of a union with Abervenn. Then again, perhaps she didn’t need to worry about that anymore.

  She leant close to Merrl, her silk gown brushing against his chest as she whispered quietly in his ear: ‘Wake, my love. Wake.’

  Slowly Merrl’s eyelids began to flicker. His body tensed beneath her as he sensed her presence; his hands reached out to feel her soft skin. Then he opened his eyes and gazed dreamily into her face. For a split second he was all contentment and hazy joy as she pushed herself against him, feeling his drowsy pleasure. Then his whole body stiffened, his stare widened in alarm and surprise.

  ‘My queen... Beulah...’ he started to say. She pushed him back against the pillows, silencing him with a
single finger to the lips.

  ‘This could have been yours,’ she said, sitting up on his stomach and caressing his cheek lazily with one hand. ‘You could have ruled by my side. In time a child of Abervenn would have sat on the Obsidian Throne. That won’t happen now.’

  It was a small blade of light, short like a huntsman’s knife, but its blaze chased all shadow from the room. Merrl’s struggle was futile and short-lived, his head swiftly parted from his neck. A bloom of warm read spread out over the white sheet and sprayed across her face and arms, ruined her gown as, still riding his thoughts, Beulah felt the astonished life leach out of her would-be assassin.

  ~~~~

  About the Author

  J. D. Oswald is the author of the epic fantasy series, The Ballad of Sir Benfro. Currently, Dreamwalker, The Rose Cord and The Golden Cage are all available as Penguin ebooks. He is also the author of the Detective Inspector McLean series of crime novels under the name James Oswald.

  In his spare time James runs a 350-acre livestock farm in North East Fife, where he raises pedigree Highland Cattle and New Zealand Romney Sheep.

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  Also by James Oswald

  The Inspector McLean Novels

  Natural Causes

  The Book of Souls

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  The Ballad of Sir Benfro

  Dreamwalker

  The Rose Cord

  The Golden Cage

  ~~~

  Other Novels

  Running Away