The Rose Cord

by J. D. Oswald

  Then his feet hit the bottom.

  The water was only chest deep. He stood in it while he coughed and retched and tried to get the rest of it out of his lungs. Once he could breathe properly, he waded through the dark to where he gauged the pillar to be, walking around it and feeling the stone for any sign of steps. There were none, and the surface was a smooth as glass, impossible to climb.

  Standing still, with the last of the waves from his impact ebbing away, he finally noticed the noise that had been at the back of his mind all the while. It was the gentle roar of water running over rock. He tried to locate where it was coming from in the darkness, but the cavern was too large, the echoes bouncing off water and walls confusing and disorienting. He needed to see and he needed to get out of the freezing water, but try as he might he couldn’t conjure up the Llinellau. If only he could find them, then he could reach out to the fire, so warm and welcoming far above. Or had it too gone out with Magog’s passing?

  In desperation, he reached out to it as he done before, using only his memory of the place. He didn’t expect it to work, but he tried anyway, scooping up the flickering flame, shaping it into a ball with his aura and drawing it back to himself.

  Light blazed in his outstretched hand, chasing the darkness away to hide in shadows. There was heat too. He could feel it burning through the inches of his aura. Bringing the orb closer to his chest, he shivered as he tried to warm himself by the captured flame, but it was too weak to make much difference.

  Keep moving, he thought, and now that he had light to see by, he could seek out the source of the noise. Wading to the wall nearest him, he saw that it too was smooth, but little rivulets of water ran down its surface from cracks and crevices higher up. He reached for one just above him, but it was too far and his arms were too tired to pull him up anyway.

  Something brushed past his leg and in his surprise he nearly dropped the ball of flame. Instead he lowered it to the surface and peered into the clear water. Fish surrounded him, attracted by the light. They were similar to salmon but completely white with opaque eyes. And they were huge, fully the length of his arm. They were quite unfrightened by his presence, swimming around his waist curiously, nibbling at his scales as if nothing interesting had happened to them for many, many years.

  As he watched, one of the fish darted away in that unpredictable manner of their kind. It swam swiftly to the cavern floor and prodded the nearest red jewel, nudging it with its nose until it floated a few inches above the stone. With a single almost vicious gulp, it swallowed the gemdown. Looking around him, Benfro saw a few of the other stones, shining red one moment, then gone the next as the fish gobbled them down. He smiled to himself, unsure whose jewels they had been but certain that a great deal of Magog’s power had resided in them. If there were fish in here, there had to be a way out, and if those fish could be encouraged out then the jewels would swiftly be spread over a huge area. The idea warmed his soul, but his body still shivered.

  Moving on, he traced his way around the outside of the cavern, one hand on the stone, the other holding aloft his light. He fancied the noise was getting louder, and finally he found its source.

  A large arch had been carved in the cavern wall. From what he could see with his meagre illumination, it had stood forty, perhaps fifty spans high at its apex, and almost as wide at the base. Some time in the past it had collapsed, the rubble forming a solid dam which held back this icy lake. Water poured over the top of the barrier, cascading away into darkness, but it was a thin sheet, not deep enough for the salmon to escape.

  Benfro climbed out of the water, hauling himself on to the rubble while the fish still clamoured around his light. The stones moved alarmingly under his weight and he could see how the water flowed through tiny cracks in the dam. Carefully he let himself down the other side and into a large tunnel. It wound down and away from him, the embryonic river swirling around its centre. It must, he thought, lead to the outside and escape.

  He set off down the tunnel, light held aloft, then he had a thought. Turning back, he returned to the dam, climbed up it and inched across to its centre. There were several large blocks which had been loosened by the constant current. He was sure they would not take much effort to shift.

  Benfro lowered the ball of flame to the water. He could see the fish shooting towards it, their fins rippling the surface. Without hesitating, he wedged himself as best he could and heaved against the first block with his feet. It gave way easily, opening a rift that let water pour through. The fish, caught by the sudden current, were swept through the gap to fall, slapping and jumping, on the tunnel floor before being washed away.

  The weight of the water caught the next two stones, taking them after the first without any help. Too late he realized what he had set in motion as, one by one, the boulders were peeled off. He stumbled away until his back was pressed against the tunnel wall. Still the deluge ripped apart the weak structure, the gentle stream turning into a raging torrent.

  And then the rock he was sitting on went. He fell into the maelstrom, and before he could even think his head was underwater. His attention gone, the aura surrounding his light snapped away and the fire went out. In the pitch black he was turned over and over, banging against wall and floor as he was swept down. But after the initial torrent the water calmed itself into a swift-running river. He tried to get his feet down and his head up, to both stand and breathe, but the floor was slippery. Eventually he managed to break the surface, gasping for breath as he was borne down the tunnel.

  He couldn’t see where he was going or where the walls were. He could only feel them each time the current slammed him against the stone. And then he started to make out shapes. Gradually light seeped into the world, harsh and white. Benfro could see the stone around him and the surface of the water. Bubbles and eddies were fascinating things, so long was it since last he had seen natural light. Even his hands looked different as he held them up. Indeed he was so absorbed in the novelty of light that he didn’t notice the opening galloping towards him from which the illumination came. At least not until it was upon him.

  He shot out of the cliff face in a fountain of white water, and only after he had been in the air for a handful of seconds did he realize that he was far too far above the ground. He twisted and turned, instinctively flinging his wings wide to try and catch the air. But the water covering them froze in an instant, pulling them down and him along with them. Before he could even brace himself, the snow-covered ground slammed into him and the lights went out.

  25

  In dreams you have the power to take a person wherever you please. An unguarded mind is an easy thing to manipulate, an unguarded mind asleep even more so. Remember this each time you make your peace with the Shepherd and settle down for the night, for there are those around you who would slip into your dreams and do with them what they will.

  Be wary for the signs. If you wake feeling unrested and you can remember little of the night, then it is likely you have been under attack. If you find yourself unsure whether or not something you know is true, chances are that you have been told it in a dream. Many a battle has been won before a single drop of blood has been shed, simply because a general has ridden away from the field, convinced the fight is already all over.

  Father Castlemilk, An Introduction to the Order of the

  High Ffrydd

  ‘Wake up now. It’s time to go.’

  Errol heard the words through a warm fuzzy darkness. He was floating in a sea of nothing, his body senseless, the pain gone. He wasn’t sure how long he had been wherever he was, and he didn’t really care. If this was death then he was happy to be dead, away from the cares of the world, the pain, the random cruelty and suffering. Time had no meaning in the comfortable darkness until the voice came along and ruined everything.

  ‘Come on, Errol. You’ve got to wake up,’ the voice said. It was a pretty voice, a young woman’s voice. He knew it from somewhere but he didn’t want to think about that. If he
tried to remember who it was, then he would have to go back through memories he’d much rather ignore.

  ‘Errol Ramsbottom, I know you’re in there. You’re not dead. You’ve got to come back to me now.’

  Something fluttered on the edge of Errol’s bubble of nothing. It was as if the lightest of breezes played around his fingers, tousled his hair. But it was a definite sensation nonetheless. He tried to fight it, tried to maintain the pretence that he was bodiless. If he had no arms and legs, then no one could hurt him by breaking them. If he had no heart it couldn’t be pierced by the queen’s silver blade.

  The image of Beulah’s face leered at him as he fought against the tide of being. She had distracted him with her inane talk, he realized now. Her plan had always been to kill him, but she couldn’t let him know that was what was about to happen, or he might have disappeared on her. But why would she want to kill him? What had he ever done to her?

  ‘Errol, come on!’ The voice was insistent now. Not Beulah but another strong woman he had known. His mother? No, he didn’t want to search his memory. He would much rather be dead. No one could hurt him when he was dead.

  His body was getting heavier and it seemed he was lying on a cold stone floor. Something hard and unyielding pressed into his back. He wanted to move, but he couldn’t remember how. A part of him flinched at the memory of the pain. His ankles throbbed, and he was suddenly aware of a grating noise in his chest. He was breathing, and his heart thump, thump, thumped away, roaring in his ears like a summer storm.

  ‘Errol, wake up now.’ He felt hands touch his face. The queen had touched his face, and now he saw her through eyes tight closed, bending over him. She had a dagger. How had he not noticed it before? She was pulling it out, palming it as expertly as a trained assassin. He wanted to stop her, but his arms were paralysed by her stare as slowly, oh so slowly, she reached forward and pushed the blade into his chest.

  Errol screamed. White-hot pain filled him like fire exploding in his heart. He snapped forward, hands clutching at his chest, eyes wide open, dragging in a great lungful of air.

  ‘You’re alive.’ The voice filled with a joy he had not expected. He tried to focus, shaking away the image of the smiling queen. A vision of perfect beauty swam before his watery eyes.

  ‘Martha?’

  Magog came to him in his dream.

  Benfro knew it was a dream almost from the moment he found himself in it, though he couldn’t remember going to sleep, couldn’t remember anything. He wanted to leave, to wake up, but he was stuck. He didn’t even have the luxury of reacting to events. All he could do was watch as they unfolded in front of his eyes.

  At first it was nice. He was flying again, soaring above the trees and mountains with effortless ease despite the slight ache in his left wing, which niggled away at the back of his mind. From his vantage point he could see the whole world stretching away from him in a great dome. Mount Arnahi was directly below him. It reached up into the sky, surrounded by smaller mountains and hills that cut through the land like a crusted scar, puckering as it healed. Beyond the mountains to the east he could see endless blue, stretching away to the horizon. To the west and the south was green, ringed with a great ridge of rock but spilling out through a gaping hole opposite the great mountain. To the north the sky darkened and white snow covered the ground. If there were more to the world up there, he could not see it.

  Benfro was fascinated. He was higher by far than he had ever flown, much higher even than the top of Mount Arnahi. He wanted to circle more, to commit what he could see to memory. And he yearned to explore the world. He needed to see all the places laid out beneath him like so many pieces in a game of shards. But he was not in control of his actions. He could only try to remember it all as he folded his wings and dived earthwards.

  He plummeted towards the green, building speed so that the air buffeted his face, ripped at his scales and made it almost impossible to breathe. Closer and closer the trees loomed. He would surely crash, surely die. Then, at the last possible moment, he thrust open his wings and pulled back his head. The strain was enormous. It was as if he were trying to lift the weight of his mother’s cottage. He felt like his back was going to snap in two, but slowly the dive turned into a swoop. Still falling, but more slowly now, his momentum carried him forward as much as down, and he finally levelled out at treetop height, whistling past the uppermost leaves with a wind that ripped them from their branches and sent them dancing through the air. His tail clipped twigs, and with one great downward sweep of his wings he rose again.

  At once he saw where he was heading. A tor rose from the forest like the carcass of some impossibly huge beast, long dead and turned to stone. On its top a once-proud castle stood, its walls now fallen into ruin save for a massive arch marking the entrance. But he was not heading for the top. Instead he skimmed the trees, climbing abruptly towards a cave mouth halfway up the tor’s smooth vertical side. A small flat ledge appeared to grow out of the cliff as he approached, and he landed on it with a dexterity he had never mastered before. A quick glance over his shoulder at the forest below and the great mass of the mountain so far distant as to be almost invisible, then he turned and walked into the dark recess of the repository.

  It was exactly as he had left it, the great pile of gems heaped at the base of the reading table and spilling over the floor. The pillars marched off in all directions, holding up the low vaulted ceiling and supporting the endless bookcases, map stores, trophy cabinets. In the walls close to him the niches stood empty and waiting. He knew why he was here, knew what it was he was going to do even though he fought it with every fibre of his being.

  He bent to the pile, taking a stone from it and feeling the resonance inside. It was like the sound of a question without the meaning behind it – a curious shrug. Unwilling, he picked up another, comparing it to the first. It was not the same so he put it back. He sifted through the piled stones until he had seven that were identical. They felt whole, even as they filled him with a sense of panic and fear. Screaming inside, he carried them over to the wall and placed them in an alcove.

  The pile glowed with a livid green when he returned to it. Ghostly images flew from its top, circling in the air, peering at him. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could tell from their expressions that they were pleading with him, cursing him, abjuring him. He wanted to stop what he was doing, to apologize and put everything right, but he could only sit in the back of his mind and watch as he picked the jewels out, painstakingly matching them before restoring them, group by group, to their little prisons.

  He could see the Llinellau too, spreading through the room, only instead of the pattern he was used to, here all were regimented and false. Tiny thin strands went to each of the alcoves, but none intersected. Individually, each alcove was connected to a single fat red line that began at the table and headed arrow-straight for the far distant Mount Arnahi and its broken retreat. As each alcove was filled, so the pale cord stretching from it turned pink and then red, pulses of something he could not begin to understand being sucked from the jewels. Not Grym for sure, but something more potent even than life itself. It sickened him to see it, especially knowing he was responsible.

  ‘Don’t weep for them,’ the voice of Magog said. ‘They have a great purpose still to fulfil.’

  With these words Benfro gained some small control over his movements, the dream of the repository fading into the background. It was still there, if he chose to focus on it, but mostly there was just him, surrounded by an indistinct location, and the dragon mage.

  Magog looked smaller than he had done before, but was no less terrifying for that. His eyes blazed with a fiery hatred, beyond insane and now simply evil. His wings were half folded, a pose that allowed their joints to rise higher than his head, twin bony spears of ebony black. His arms were folded over his scaly chest, claws extended to scrape at leathery skin. Benfro could feel himself shrinking under that glare, mesmerized by the thin strand of red
that curved from Magog’s forehead to his own. Other than that one connection, the dead dragon had no aura at all, whereas Benfro could see the light flickering around himself like a protective shield.

  ‘Don’t try to fight me,’ Magog said. ‘You’ll only damage yourself, and you have an important task to complete.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Benfro asked, though in his hearts he knew that the dead mage cared for nothing but himself and his own preservation.

  ‘Because of you, young would-be usurper,’ Magog answered. ‘When you removed these jewels from their proper place, it was annoying. But I’d outgrown them. My knowledge and wisdom was preserved in the pillared hall. My power came from the earth itself. I only had to bring you there and make you ready. But I misjudged your curiosity. I won’t do that again. There was just one small task I had to do. I left you alone for not more than two days and you almost destroyed everything.

  ‘So now, as you can no doubt see, I need to fall back on my old source of power. These jewels go back to the time of great Rasalene himself. They contain knowledge, strength, experience and wisdom. But above all they contain power. You will help me harness that power again. And when that task is complete, you will surrender to me completely.’

  Benfro stared around him at the repository. He knew he was standing there, talking to Magog, but he also remembered his fall, realized that he must be lying at the foot of Mount Arnahi. This was a dream. It had to be. But he could feel the anguish and alarm billowing from the pile of gems. It had to be real. Confusion paralysed him, his mind flipping from impossibility to impossibility.

  ‘Ah, young Benfro,’ Magog said. ‘If you’d just kept to your studies and not stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, then you might have begun to understand. I really did mean to teach you all that I know. That way your body would be better able to withstand the strain of holding my consciousness. But you’ve denied me that luxury now. I’ll possess you soon, and when I do it will be needlessly painful and restricting for me. You will feel such pain as you cannot imagine. And then you will cease to exist.’