by J. D. Oswald
‘The dragon is of no concern to you.’
With the voice Melyn felt a surge of relief flood through him. The aches and pains of too many days in the saddle were nothing more than a distant memory.
‘My lord.’ Melyn basked in the radiant joy of his presence.
‘And Queen Beulah’s chosen will serve her well. But you are right to be worried about the boy.’
‘What is he? How can he do what he does?’
‘He is an abomination,’ the Shepherd replied. ‘A union of godless Llanwennog and Balwen’s chosen. A servant of the Wolf, his soul is a dark thing, playing with the cubs in the Wolf’s lair.’
‘His thoughts are difficult to divine,’ Melyn said. ‘On the surface they seem normal, but beneath is turmoil. I’ve tried to see his plan, but it slips away from me. His thoughts hurt.’
‘You are foolish even to try, my servant. Step too close to the Wolf and he will devour your soul completely. No, the boy must be destroyed.’
‘I have tried, lord,’ Melyn said. ‘I ordered him thrown into the Faaeren Chasm.’
‘And I could have allowed him to die then, but such was not my will. It is important that Queen Beulah see the evil forces gathering against her. This coming war will not be easy for her. She will be assailed by doubts, tempted by the Wolf, brought low with grief and finally triumph over all adversity. The House of Balwen, the people of Balwen, will rise anew from her.’
Melyn felt the joy rise in him. The love for his lord was like first love, all powerful. Nothing would get in its way.
‘My blessing be with you, Melyn son of Arall,’ the Shepherd said. ‘You know what must be done.’ And then he was gone.
Melyn knelt in his ecstasy, tears coming unbidden from his old eyes. Slowly the room came back to him, and he realized that he had been somewhere else, somewhere perfect and undeniable. As the audience with his god faded to a cherished memory, so the floor under his knees grew harder and colder. And the whispering thoughts of the city crept up on him again. He found it harder and harder to hold the moment, though he clenched his hands together in prayer. The voices seemed to be goading him, telling him that the boy was more valuable alive. He held a secret, but was that secret so precious that he could forsake his god for it?
No. It was the Wolf tempting him. The boy must die.
But if he could give up his secret first …
Melyn struggled with his conscience for hours, praying for enlightenment, hoping the Shepherd would return and tell him what to do. But his god stayed silent, and finally the inquisitor rose to leave. Only then did he realize that he clutched the king’s ring tight in his hand. He had no memory of taking it out of the reliquary on the altar, let alone slipping it off Brynceri’s desiccated finger.
It was like nothing Benfro had ever seen before. The Llinellau didn’t cross the floor and walls; rather they formed a perfect replica of the room, following the curves of the furniture and fireplace, but hanging in the air like smoke. There were three major lines spearing up from the floor and anchoring the whole framework cage into the space. One of these came through the fire and disappeared up the chimney. One shot up into the vault of the ceiling. The third and biggest pulsed with a swirling light that hurt his head to look at and came from the shimmering spot in the middle of the floor. But this was not the most unusual thing about it, for unlike all the other Llinellau he had ever seen, this one was red and it ended in mid-air at about head height.
Colours bubbled out of it like water from a rising spring. They sprayed out around it, filling the cage formed by the rest of the lines with a sea of light that somehow dissipated into nothing before it reached the walls. Sitting on his chair, Benfro could only watch it for what seemed like an eternity. It was both beautiful and terrifying.
Finally, the image began to fade, replaced by a dull ache at the base of his brain like an echo of his hangover. He fancied he could still just see the Llinellau and the colourful fountain of Grym, but if he focused on any particular place they disappeared like playful ghosts. The point on the floor under the table still shone, as did the bigger spot, which shimmered unpleasantly and made his head ache more. He looked at the fire and realized he could see the source of its endless flame easily, nestling beneath the unburned wood and the flames. How he’d managed to miss it before, he couldn’t imagine.
Benfro stood up on weary legs. Replacing the book in the bookcase, he noticed that he was hungry. He turned towards the door and then realized that he knew an easier way to the dining room. It was no more than a step away. Without even thinking, he was there. The dining room was dark, empty. Again without thinking, he imagined the fireplace in the room high above him, reaching out to it as he recalled the candelabra on the table. Almost too easily, the candles burst into light. His place, however, was unset, as was Magog’s at the head of the table. He sat and wished for food, but none appeared, nor any water to drink. Relaxing, he tried to imagine what the dragon mage had told him, what Ynys Môn had told him years ago, he now remembered. The Llinellau connected everything, everywhere. With practice you could travel them, but you could also reach out along them and bring things to you. Food, wine – anything you wanted was there for the taking. You just had to know where to look. And how.
The Llinellau opened up to him. There was an endless array, an infinite number of possibilities. He could feel some tug at him, others fend him away. He wanted food, but he didn’t know how to find it. There was no sense or logic to the impulses, no way to reason what he wanted into existence. Aware that instinct had served him well before, he cast out in a random direction, hoping to grab whatever came to hand. It appeared in front of him, dropping on to the table with a dull thud.
A turnip.
At least it was food. Benfro picked up the root and examined its white tip and purple skin. It had obviously not come direct from some field, as it was clean and the leaves had been removed from its crown. He put it back on the table and tried again. This time he managed to produce a melon, whole rather than prepared. At first he was not sure what it was, but slicing it open with a talon revealed its secrets. He marvelled at the skill Magog had gained, to be able to produce food, drink, cutlery and crockery all at once. It was an almost impossible task to contemplate, but he had seen it done. For now, though, he would have to be content with his melon.
Sticky but less hungry and thirsty than before, Benfro wondered what had become of his master. Surely many hours had passed since he had disappeared. In all the days he had been learning in the retreat he couldn’t remember a time, apart from when he was asleep, when the mage had not been at his side. He had not always been visible, but he had always been there, an indefinable presence.
Perhaps this was a test. Had he been left to his own devices to see if he could manage? The link was still there, the thin red line attached to his aura. Was it his imagination or did it pulse as if it were a tube sucking tiny gobbets of life force away from him? And where did it go if the dragon wasn’t in the room?
But the dragon had never been there. Magog was an image, a projection of his self in the same way that Corwen could appear. And yet how could this be so if Magog had only one remaining jewel and that was many miles away? Benfro looked at the insubstantial leak from his aura into the Llinellau. It twisted away from him as if trying not to be seen, but he could just about follow its trail – under the great chair, across the room to the door and through to the hall beyond. Benfro followed it out. He expected the cavern to be dark, but Llinellau criss-crossed its walls and floor, showing him its shape even if lichen had not glowed on most of the surfaces. The red line shimmered across the floor to the room opposite, its colour deepening as he came closer to the doorway. He paused, knowing full well what lay on the other side, then pushed open the door.
It was still pitch black inside, but as he looked the line started to define the space, rolling out across the void like dawn painting a distant hillside. Others joined it from the sides, forming spokes that met in a hub like
a blaze of crimson fire. Benfro stared at the far-off point, trying to make out some form to the darkness. All he could see was the angry red glow, pierced from all sides by slender rods of light. Feeling around the doorway, he thought there might be a ledge, but it was difficult to gauge how wide it was, and impossible to tell whether it was safe. He went back to the dining room and fetched the candelabra, but its candles went out as soon as he left the room. Putting it back, he cast his mind to the fire upstairs, endlessly burning, and wrapped a piece of his aura around it. Stepping back to himself was as easy as pulling on a leather jerkin, but he was still astonished to see the ball of flame appear in his hand. Somehow he felt it should have been more difficult, that it should have taken months of diligent study and practice to master the art. It was almost as if he was cheating, though he didn’t know how. Nevertheless, he held the glowing ball aloft and stretched forward into the all-enveloping darkness beyond the door.
The light pushed back the blackness in slow motion, as if it were molasses, cold and sticky. The cavern was enormous, reaching up above him to a massive vaulted ceiling and stretching away in a circle so large he couldn’t see the other side. And in the middle, rising from the emptiness as if it floated on air, a slender pillar of rock split the darkness in two. Its top was slightly higher than his vantage point and all the red lines converged on its tip.
From the doorway a rock ledge protruded forward perhaps five feet, then dropped away into nothing. Even holding the orb above his head and peering down, Benfro couldn’t make out the water he knew was below him somewhere. To the right of the doorway the ledge became a series of steps hewn out of the wall and descending in a slow spiral. He felt he wanted to get across to the pillar, but this was the only route so he took it.
The treads were greasy and damp, exuding an oily substance that made every step treacherous. Counting his steps under his breath reassured him for a while in the overwhelming space, but soon the mounting numbers and lack of obvious progress conspired to daunt him. He fell silent. Looking up occasionally, he could see the top of the pillar receding, marked only by those livid ruby lines.
Finally the stairs ended in a broad stone shelf. A neat arch in the wall was blocked by a massive wooden door remarkably similar to the one in the repository. It resisted all attempts to open it but a chill breeze squeezed through the gap underneath.
Opposite the door the shelf stretched out into the darkness, narrowing and rising as it did so. Even with his globe of fire, Benfro could not tell if it went all the way across to the pillar, but it was substantial enough to encourage him on. He stepped as lightly as possible on to the bridge, legs tensed and senses tingling for any sign of collapse.
It held, carrying him in a gentle arc across the depths. At its centre the arch was so narrow he had to put one foot in front of the other as if he was on a tightrope. It was a skill he had learned long ago, as a kitling, running back and forth along the fallen tree trunks that spanned the river near the village. So it was no great challenge, though the gaping black depths on either side tugged at him.
The pillar was of the same dark stone as the cavern walls, smoothly carved and coated with slime. An even narrower set of steps wound around it like honeysuckle clinging to a dying tree. They were barely wide enough for him to climb, scraping his left shoulder and wing on the stone as he went. To make matters worse, they frequently sloped away from the pillar towards the void, their slippery coating doing its utmost to throw him off. There was nothing on the pillar to hold on to – no rope, no carved handholds, no iron pegs.
It was slow going, and the climb began to take its toll. Benfro had not noticed the thinness of the air for some time, but neither had he tried to do anything more strenuous than writing and occasionally wandering along the gently sloping passageways of the complex. He could feel his lungs aching with the effort of extracting air. His legs were growing heavier and less responsive exactly when he needed them to be supple and quick. He looked up and was dismayed to see that the top of the pillar was just as far away as before, or so it appeared. But he couldn’t stop now other than to rest for a moment. The stairs were too narrow to turn and go back. So he pushed on.
It seemed to take a lifetime. Twice he slipped and fell, staying on the stairs more by luck than skill. Each time he felt it would be easier to lie there in the cold and slime, to sleep for a while. But he couldn’t give up now, not after coming so far. And if he fell asleep he would surely tumble off the steps into oblivion. So he picked himself up and forced his weary legs on.
As he reached the top, so the stair narrowed, until he could only climb sideways, hugging the pillar like it was his dearest love. Looking over his shoulder, he thought he could make out the pale green luminescence of the door where he had come in, slightly below him and far off in the gloom. It raised his spirits to think that he had climbed further than he had gone down. But then the stairway stopped.
He was on a narrow ledge not much wider than the length of his feet. Above him, tantalizingly close but just out of reach, he could see the top of the pillar. From this close it burned with a fearsome light and radiated heat. At least this had dried the stone, making it impossible for the slime to thrive. Still he was effectively stuck. He looked at the orb of fire he had made, still floating just above his right hand. He no longer needed it, so he let it extinguish and then reached up, searching the rock for handholds. He found one just above his head. There was also a crack in the stone by his knee that he could get a toe into, if he could just lever himself up a little bit.
It took a long time and caused agonizing pain in his talons, but eventually he managed to wriggle his way to the top of the pillar. He hung there, clasping handholds that were big enough for only one talon at a time, and pulled his head over the ledge to see what lay there.
It was a pile of jewels.
Dragon jewels.
Red dragon jewels.
24
What can be said of the Grym that has not been said before? It is the very stuff of life itself, the force that fills every living thing, from the lowliest blade of grass to the most powerful of inquisitors. It is a power of such immensity that only the tiniest fraction of it, mishandled, can cause a man to burst into flames. Yet controlled, channelled and moulded to the will of a warrior priest, the Grym becomes a weapon of incredible power.
Most novitiates will have seen the blades of fire conjured by the inquisitors and lesser warriors. These are but the most obvious manifestation of control over the Grym. Remember that the power runs through every living thing, gives it form and meaning. Thus it is that one so skilled can use the Grym to manipulate the very core of another man’s being. An enemy can be influenced so subtly and so completely that he is content to plunge a knife into himself or the body of his most cherished friend.
The Grym is thus a weapon, but it is much more than that. Not only does it inform every living thing, it also connects them by the most subtle of links. You do not need to be standing beside your target to influence him, nor even to be able to see him. It is enough to know that he exists to be linked to him. The skill lies in finding that link among the uncountable number of connections in the web of life.
Father Castlemilk, An Introduction to the Order of the
High Ffrydd
Beulah stared through the bars at the sleeping boy. He was lying in filthy straw, his legs positioned awkwardly so as to take the weight off his ankles. His very existence angered her; that someone could go to so much trouble to make her think he had never been born. After all she had done to right the wrong that was Lleyn’s infatuation with the Llanwennog Balch, all the sacrifices she had made over the years, consolidating her power and rebuilding the status of the House of Balwen so that she could carry out her divine mission, for him to suddenly appear was like a slap in the face.
But she couldn’t kill him.
It wasn’t that she had a problem with eliminating family. Her rise to the throne had been on the dead backs of her less able relatives. She
’d only kept her disgusting excuse of a father alive for as long as she had because of the laws of the Twin Kingdoms. And now that she was the ultimate power, she could and would change those laws to suit her needs. Any who protested would soon find out how much she valued the lives of those who opposed her. But that wasn’t why she couldn’t kill him.
It wasn’t even because of the secret ability the boy had. True it would be a weapon beyond imagining, but if it were to fall into the hands of Ballah and his adepts carnage would ensue. And what if it was something to do with his half-breed nature, a side effect of the mingling of the blood of the two royal houses, a hybrid product of the two magical lines. If that were the case then Iolwen’s child, already growing within her if intelligence reports were to be believed, could not be allowed to reach term. Better to kill them both, and as soon as possible. But even that wasn’t why she couldn’t bring herself to kill the boy.
Leaving him, she climbed from the dungeons and walked across the palace complex to her private rooms. She paused at the door to her bedchamber, then changed her mind and continued on to the room where Clun slept. She had asked him to move into her chambers, but he had protested. The first sign of resistance in him, she realized, but he was right nonetheless. It was one thing to visit him, talk with him, sleep with him when she chose; quite another to have him live with her before she had formally taken him as her consort. First he would have to be ennobled, introduced correctly to court society. And then he would become something belonging to everyone, the royal consort. In time she would let go of that much of him, but for now she wanted him all to herself.
And that was why she couldn’t kill Errol. He was Clun’s stepbrother. It puzzled Beulah why that should bother her. She had ordered the elimination of his father and stepmother after all. But Clun had spoken at such length about Errol and held him in such high regard. Beulah recognized something of the way she had felt about Iolwen. Until her sister had ruined it all by sleeping with the enemy.