Night Birds' Reign

by Holly Taylor

  Amatheon’s bright blue eyes, now growing dim, fastened on Rhiannon. “Take care of my brother,” he gasped. “Take care of him.”

  “I—” Rhiannon began, but Amatheon did not wait for her answer. He turned back to Gwydion. “Good-bye, brother.”

  “Good-bye,” Gwydion replied steadily. His eyes were dry, for this was a disaster beyond simple tears. This was a blow too strong for the conventional signs of grief.

  He watched as Amatheon’s blue eyes dimmed, as his spirit fled his body and began the journey to the Summer Land. He watched as his brother left him irrevocably alone. He watched as a piece of his heart withered and died.

  Now he knew why the shadows in his dreams always tore out his heart.

  Now he knew, because now it was happening in the waking world.

  His nightmare had come true.

  CAI, TRYSTAN, AND Achren came forward to join Angharad beside Amatheon’s dead body. Gently Achren pulled Rhiannon to her feet, while Cai and Trystan helped Gwydion to stand.

  Angharad leaned forward and gently kissed Amatheon’s cold forehead, smoothing back his dark hair. Achren reached out and gently closed Amatheon’s eyes. Without speaking, the four positioned themselves around Amatheon’s body. Achren and Angharad took his arms while Cai and Trystan grabbed his legs. They lifted him gently and carried him to the well and laid him down beside the dark water.

  Angharad went to her pack and pulled out a square of white linen. She returned and knelt again by Amatheon’s body. She gently laid the cloth over Amatheon’s now lifeless, cold face.

  Then the four of them rose and recited the death song of the Kymri:

  In Gwlad Yr Haf, the Land of Summer

  Still they live, still they live.

  They shall not be killed, they shall not be wounded.

  No fire, no sun, no moon shall burn them.

  No lake, no water, nor sea shall drown them.

  They live in peace and laugh and sing.

  The dead are gone, yet still they live.

  They stood silently for a time after the song was done, each in their grief, although no one’s—even Angharad’s—was as profound as Gwydion’s. Yet still he could not weep. He thought it would be long and long before he did. He thought that his heart would remain cold and dead forever. There were still those that he loved who still lived. There was Uthyr, his half brother. There was Cariadas, his daughter. There was Myrrdin, his uncle. Only those three still had the power to touch him. Only those three, and nobody else now that Amatheon was gone.

  Suddenly it seemed to him as if his father was dying again. The pain was back that he had felt on that awful day that he had discovered his father’s body, when he knew that one who loved him was gone, forever beyond his reach. But then he had had Amatheon to help him bear it. And now Amatheon was gone.

  It was enough that there were three others whose loss could hurt him so. There would never be more.

  Never.

  “GWYDION.”

  He would not answer. If he didn’t they would leave him alone. That was all he wanted now, was to be left alone.

  “Gwydion.”

  The voice—insistent, implacable—would not leave him be.

  “Gwydion.”

  “What?” he answered at last, only to stop the sound of his name on her lips.

  “The sword,” Rhiannon went on. “Remember the sword.”

  “What of it?” he asked dully.

  “We must find it.”

  “We?”

  “The verse, Gwydion. Remember the verse:

  Until the two were one

  In strength and purpose,

  And raised up that which they had sought.”

  “The Shining Ones will wait a long time until we are one,” he muttered.

  “Gwydion—”

  “No,” he said harshly. “Leave me be. Haven’t you done enough?”

  Rhiannon drew back from him, shocked. “What have I done?”

  “You let him come!” Gwydion shouted. “Back at Caer Dathyl, you told him he could come!”

  “I didn’t kill him!” she cried. “You did! You sent him away! If he hadn’t been forced to sneak back, if he hadn’t been hiding, he might still be alive!”

  “You killed him!” he screamed back at her. “You killed him!”

  “Gwydion,” Cai said stepping in front of Rhiannon. “Stop. Stop this now.”

  Gwydion turned away but Trystan was there. “Gwydion,” Trystan said quietly. “It wasn’t her fault.”

  Again, he turned away, only to face Achren. “She didn’t kill him.”

  Again, he turned, and Angharad was there. “And neither did you.”

  He halted, staring at her, unable to speak.

  Angharad’s face was drawn and her mouth set with grief, the tracks of tears on her cheeks. But her green eyes were steady as she looked at him. “He was killed by the person who has tried to stop us all along from retrieving the sword.”

  “Will you let that person win?” Cai asked.

  “Will you let the sword remain hidden?” Achren asked.

  “Will you fail?” Trystan asked softly.

  The silence in the glade was complete as Gwydion stood there, surrounded by his companions. The four Guardians were gone, and it seemed to Gwydion that the five men and women that stood here in this clearing with him were the only living things left in Kymru.

  He did not count himself, for much of him had died today.

  Duty was all he had left, really. The Shining Ones had given him the duty to find the sword. He would finish what the gods had started. He would finish it. Because duty was all he had, all he had ever had.

  Wordlessly he made his way to stand before the well. The dark water was still and silent. He turned his head to look back at Rhiannon. At first she did not move. Her emerald eyes were filled with grief at Amatheon’s death, with rage at Gwydion’s accusation, with the fear that there was truth to it.

  “Rhiannon,” Cai said gently when she did not move to stand before the well. “He needs you.”

  “He needs no one,” she said bitterly.

  “He does, although he does not know it,” Achren said softly.

  “I do not care,” Rhiannon said between gritted teeth.

  “Think of it not as Gwydion’s need, then,” Trystan said. “Think of it as Kymru’s need. The sword, Rhiannon. We must have the sword.”

  “Do not let Amatheon die for nothing,” Angharad said with a catch to her voice. “Do not let it be meaningless.”

  All the while Gwydion held her with his eyes and did not let her look away. At Angharad’s words she flinched. At last she stepped forward and came to stand beside him. They both knelt down by the still water. He reached out and took her hands in his.

  HE SAW A figure step into the clearing. The man had long, auburn hair that hung lankly around his shoulders. He wore an ornate torque of gold and opals around his neck. He was dressed in worn, dusty, black riding leathers. An old bloodstain covered the breast of the tunic, as though someone had lain his head on the man’s chest to die. He carried a sword sheathed in a scabbard decorated with runes of gold and silver. The hilt of the sword was fashioned like an eagle with outstretched wings. The eagle had eyes of bloodstone and wings studded with onyx. Light flashed off the emeralds, pearls, sapphires, and opals that were scattered across the hilt.

  The man came to stand on the other side of the well, and stood looking down into the water for some time, his head bowed, his face hidden. At last the man released the sword. It plunged cleanly into the water with a bell-like sound that rang through the clearing.

  Then the man lifted his head and looked straight at Gwydion and Rhiannon. Tears spilled down Bran’s drawn, set, grimy face. He gazed at them both then lifted his hand to them—in salute, in farewell, in the knowledge that they shared calamitous grief.

  Then he was gone.

  GWYDION WRENCHED HIS hands from Rhiannon’s. “It’s here,” he said. “I can raise it.”

&nb
sp; “You need my help,” she said.

  “I don’t,” he snapped. “The sword is at the bottom of this well. The only thing needed to get it to come up is a Shape-Mover. Which you are not.”

  “And you are,” said Rhiannon in a monotone. “Nonetheless, you will need my help. The poem says—”

  “I am done with that,” Gwydion said harshly. “I am done with it all. I will bring this sword back to Kymru. I will complete my duty. Alone.”

  He turned back to the well and put forth his hands. He felt the sword beneath the water, slowly rising. But then it seemed to slip from his mind-hold, sinking back. He shook his head impatiently. He had lost his concentration, something that he hadn’t done in many years. Again he put forth his hand and called the sword to him. Again he could sense that it began to rise. Then again, he felt it slip away from him.

  And then he knew. There did not seem to be any end to the cruelty of the Shining Ones. He turned to Rhiannon and opened his mouth to ask—or, perhaps, to beg.

  But she had unsolicited mercy for both of them, and came to stand beside him before he even spoke. Her face was hard and angry, and she did not talk. But she took his hands in hers and gave him what she had.

  And it was enough.

  The sword rose from the well, whole and shining, as water streamed from the scabbard like a flow of bright diamonds.

  Epilogue

  Caer Dathyl Kingdom of Gwynedd, Kymru Ywen Mis, 495

  Addiendydd, Lleihau—early afternoon

  Now,” Gwydion said, his hands on the cold stone.

  Uthyr, his palms also on the rock, his fingers grasping the edges of the stone slab pulled along with Gwydion. The stone door opened with a grinding moan.

  Uthyr and Gwydion stepped back from the now open door of Aelwyd Cerdinen, the tombs of the Dreamers at Caer Dathyl. At that moment a cold wind swooped from the sky, emitting a low moan of its own. The flame-colored rowan trees in the sacred grove of Nemed Cerdinen shivered in the breeze.

  Taran of the Winds had come to say farewell.

  UTHYR HAD ARRIVED at Caer Dathyl only that morning, and had greeted his brother with a bear hug that would have made Gwydion weep if he had yet been able to. Yet the sight of his remaining brother comforted him somewhat.

  He and Uthyr had gone up to the Dreamer’s Tower so that Uthyr could pay his respects to Amatheon. When Gwydion had returned to Caer Dathyl two days ago he had Amatheon’s body laid on the pallet in Ystafell Yr Arymes, the Chamber of Prophecy. He had wanted his brother to rest there for a while, beneath the glass roof in the room where Gwydion’s dream’s had begun. It had seemed fitting, somehow.

  Uthyr and Gwydion had sat with the body for a few hours. Gwydion had told Uthyr the whole story of what had happened.

  “And after I raised the sword from the well—” said Gwydion.

  “After you and Rhiannon had raised the sword from the well,” Uthyr corrected.

  Gwydion ignored Uthyr’s comment and went on. “I took it to Rhufon the Steward, as he had asked me. Now the sword lies in the golden fountain in the empty throne room at Cadair Idris.”

  “Waiting for the touch of my son’s hand,” Uthyr said quietly.

  “Waiting for that,” Gwydion agreed.

  “And the others? Did they go with you to see Rhufon?”

  “No,” Gwydion replied. “We rowed back across the lake to the eastern shore. I told the Captains that they could return to their masters. I told them that they could tell the story to them, but to no one else.”

  “When I got your message Cai had not yet returned. I left Tegeingl as soon as Susanna gave me the news.”

  Gwydion did not answer, merely looking down at Amatheon’s shrouded form.

  “What about Rhiannon?” Uthyr pressed.

  “What about her?” Gwydion asked absently.

  “What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing,” Gwydion said in surprise. “Why, what should I have said?”

  “How about thank you?” Uthyr answered. “Or, perhaps, I’m sorry?”

  “Sorry?”

  “For what you said to her. For accusing her of killing Amatheon.”

  “It is best that Rhiannon and I not be on speaking terms, brother,” Gwydion said before he had really thought it through.

  “Because?”

  Gwydion fell silent, unwilling to explain. But Uthyr, who knew him so well, did not need an explanation to understand.

  “I see,” Uthyr said softly.

  DINASWYN’S FORMAL ROBES of black and red whipped and tossed in the fierce wind. Her long silvery hair streamed out behind her. Her silver eyes were undimmed by tears, her face frozen in a smooth mask, even as she knelt down beside the shrouded body that awaited internment.

  Deep inside herself, Gwydion knew, Dinaswyn was mourning, weeping bitter tears in the stone fortress of her heart, where no one could see. He knew this, for did he not do the same? Had she not been his teacher in all things, even in this?

  Not for him the tears that streamed down Uthyr’s drawn face as they lifted Amatheon’s body. He envied Uthyr’s ability to grieve. He would have liked to do the same, but it seemed he could not. He had not shed one tear since Amatheon’s death almost two weeks ago.

  He wondered now if he ever would. He wondered now if he ever could.

  Carefully cradling Amatheon’s body the three of them entered the tomb. Both Dinaswyn and Gwydion evoked Druid’s Fire at the same time, and flames danced in the air, illuminating the darkened chamber.

  Ivory bones glimmered as the light danced over the niches carved into the stone walls. The bones of all the Dreamers of Kymru decorated the walls, each lying within their proper niche. If he went far enough back through the stone chamber, Gwydion knew, he would come to the bones of Llyr himself. And those of Penduran. For although Penduran had not been a Dreamer she had chosen to lay next to Llyr in death.

  Gwydion resolutely did not look at the niche that contained his father’s bones. That was another body who had been buried here that was not a Dreamer. But Gwydion had insisted, all those years ago, that Awst be buried here in Aelwyd Cerdinen. He had also insisted that his mother’s body be laid to rest elsewhere. He would not under any circumstances permit his father to lie next to his murderer.

  Gwydion, Uthyr, and Dinaswyn gently laid Amatheon’s body on the empty niche just beneath Awst’s bones. Gwydion noticed that as they did so Dinaswyn’s eyes refused to even flicker to Awst’s final resting-place. That meant something, he knew, but he was too tired, too uncaring to pursue it.

  They stepped back, not taking their gaze from the shrouded form.

  “He gave his life for that sword,” Dinaswyn said, an underlying bitterness to her tone.

  “He gave his life for me,” Gwydion said, his voice steady.

  “He loved you,” Uthyr said with a voice full of tears. “He loved all of us.”

  “If I knew exactly who was behind his death I would swear vengeance on him,” Dinaswyn said fiercely. “He would owe a galanas so high that the Shining Ones themselves could not pay it.”

  “The Shining Ones do not care about a little thing like justice,” Gwydion said bitterly. “They do not care about us at all.”

  “Brother,” Uthyr said quietly, putting his hand on Gwydion’s shoulder.

  Gwydion subsided, but in his cold heart a rage was growing.

  “I loved him, too, Gwydion,” Uthyr went on.

  At first Gwydion did not answer. But he knew that his brother deserved a response and so he spoke, not bothering to choose his words. “When we were children, it was just Amatheon and I. Our mother did not care for us, she only noticed us when she wanted to use us to punish our father. Awst rarely saw us, for he let our mother drive him away time and time again.

  “Amatheon was the only thing that kept me from loneliness. He was the only warmth in my life, the only love, the only laughter, the only cheerfulness in my existence.”

  Gwydion fell silent for a moment, and then forced himself to speak to
Uthyr beyond the grief lodged in his throat. “You had a mother and a father that loved you. Amatheon and I only had each other. And now he is gone.”

  “I know, Gwydion,” Uthyr said softly. “I know.”

  “And now you and Cariadas and Myrrdin are all I have left.”

  “And Dinaswyn,” Uthyr pointed out with a nod to Gwydion’s aunt.

  “But Dinaswyn and I, we come from the same cold place, and so cannot warm and comfort each other. We are the same, she and I.”

  Dinaswyn’s mask did not even slip as Gwydion spoke. Gwydion knew it would not, for he knew his aunt well. He even loved her, if truth were told. But it was also true they were too alike to be of any aid to each other. And Dinaswyn knew that too well to dispute it.

  “So now all I have left is my duty as the Dreamer. That is the only solid rock left for me on which to stand. Do not tell me, brother, that it is not enough. I know it is not. But it is all I have.”

  “Gwydion—” Uthyr began.

  “All that I have. All that I am likely to ever have.”

  The three of them stood there silently; gazing down at Amatheon’s still shrouded form.

  “Sing his song,” Gwydion said quietly. “Sing my last gift to him.”

  Dinaswyn began to sing in a minor key:

  He was a vessel of silver filled with pleasing wine.

  He was a sweet branch with its blossom.

  He was a vessel of pure glass filled with honey.

  Uthyr’s rich baritone echoed in the stone chamber as he sang next:

  He was a precious stone with its goodness and beauty.

  He was a brilliant sun round with summer.

  He was a racehorse over a smooth plain.

  Lastly Gwydion sang:

  He was white-bronze, he was gold.

  He was all that was good and strong.

  He was my brother, Amatheon.

  When they were done Gwydion gestured for the other two to leave. He stood looking down at Amatheon for a moment. He reached out his hand and laid it gently upon the side of Amatheon’s still face beneath the linen shroud.

  “Farewell, best of my heart,” Gwydion whispered. “Farewell.”