The Obsidian Throne Page 13

  12

  Empty bodies will burn

  The wingless beasts will fly

  Servant on master turn

  And fire fill the sky.

  The Prophecies of Mad Goronwy

  ‘How much longer must we stay in this place? It’s so cold.’

  ‘There’s nothing keeping you here, Xando. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Nothing? They all know I was a favourite of the Old One. They’ll read my mind. They can do that, you know. See right into your thoughts like they’re just written out on your face. They’ll know I was there. Know I did nothing to save him. It’ll be the Anghofied for me. I know it.’

  Benfro lay on his good side, surrounded by cushions and the dusty animal skins that covered the sleeping platform as he listened to yet another argument between the young boy Xando and Martha. He was still weak and drowsy from the potions Cerys had made, but they were beginning to work on his fever. How long he had slept, he could not tell, and whether it was this place, Martha’s intervention or just that he was busy elsewhere, Benfro had not felt the tug of Magog’s presence at all since they had fled from the top of the tower. Too much to hope that the dead mage had given up on him; his missing eye showed Benfro quite clearly the looping strand of rose Grym that faded into the rest of the Llinellau criss-crossing the room. He reached out for it with his aura, checking the knot was still tight, then raised himself from his slumbers as best he could.

  ‘What is this Anghofied you keep talking about, Xando?’

  His voice clearly startled the boy. He had been sitting as close to the fire as he could get, unable or unwilling to tap the Grym for warmth. Now he stood up as if he’d been caught doing something wrong.

  ‘You’re awake, Benfro. Good.’ Martha sat on the other side of the fireplace, a bit further away from the flames. She stood slowly, reaching for a bowl keeping warm beside the fire. ‘There’s some stew here for you.’

  The young woman carried the bowl across the room to him, but even before it arrived Benfro could smell the food within. His stomach rumbled in anticipation, and he struggled up into a sitting position, feeling the wound in his side as a tightness rather than the stabbing pain it had been before.

  ‘Thank you.’ He accepted the bowl of stew, large in Martha’s hands but disappointingly small in his. It smelled good and tasted better but was soon gone.

  ‘Your appetite is as healthy as ever.’ Martha took back the bowl and returned to the fire. A whole cauldron of the stew sat close to the flames.

  ‘Tell me about this Anghofied, Xando,’ Benfro said to pass the time. ‘It must be a terrible place for you to fear it so.’

  ‘We are warned about it as children. It’s where they send anyone caught stealing, or worse. People who go there never come back.’

  ‘It sounds terrible. Where is it?’ Martha asked the question before Benfro could, and paused as she leaned over the fireplace, ladling more stew into the bowl.

  ‘Deep down in the bowels of the earth. Far beneath the palace. Or so they say.’ Xando had not moved from his seat by the fire, but he leaned towards Benfro as he spoke, eyes lit up with the telling as if the flames were inside him.

  ‘I’ve heard it’s where all the sewage and waste from the whole of Nantgrafanglach goes, and the condemned have to clear it all up. There’s no magic down there, not dragon magic anyway. And time moves differently there too. What feels like a day there can be weeks up here.’

  ‘Sounds like a tale told to keep youngsters in line.’ Martha returned with the bowl, brim-filled this time, and Benfro took it gratefully. Had he been feeling stronger he might well have stood up, crossed to the fireplace and helped himself to the whole cauldron. But that would have meant there would be nothing left for his two companions.

  ‘The Anghofied is real. I’ve heard Sir Nanteos and the others speak of men sent there for the worst misdemeanours.’

  All eyes turned to the door, and Benfro barely remembered his full bowl in time, only slopping a small amount of stew out on to the sleeping platform. Cerys stood in the doorway, glanced nervously over her shoulder before she stepped fully into the room and pulled the door closed behind her.

  ‘It is good to see you awake, Benfro. And looking better. I fear you cannot stay here much longer without being discovered though.’ Cerys strode over to the sleeping platform and put a hand to Benfro’s forehead, both feeling his temperature and forcing him to sit back down even as he began to rise.

  ‘Stay. You do not want to open up that wound before it can heal properly.’ Cerys bent to Benfro’s side, inspecting the poultice and running her hand over his scales in a manner that felt at the same time deeply awkward and most pleasant. Unbidden, a memory came to him of another time this young dragon had been close to him, wrapping her wings around him and warming him as he healed. And then again, in the darkness of the cave, clambering in beside him to sleep.

  ‘You should be able to walk now, at least slowly. I would caution against trying to fly any time soon though. Stretching those muscles will just tear you open again.’ Cerys’ words startled him out of his musing and he realized she was standing very close to him. She smelled different now, her musk less obvious than before, but still there and still enough to make his head spin.

  ‘I am forever in your debt, Cerys. If you hadn’t seen us, I’d probably be dead by now.’ Benfro glanced down at his stew just briefly as he spoke, and the green dragon smiled.

  ‘Eat. You will be ravenous after the healing. It takes as much out of the patient as it does the healer. More, really. It’s your body that does all the work, after all.’

  Benfro wasn’t sure why, but he felt the tips of his ears burn at her words. He turned his attention to the bowl, eating more slowly than before.

  ‘How are we going to get out of the palace?’ Martha asked. ‘Where will we go?’

  ‘Where were you going before?’ Cerys asked.

  ‘Away, as far as we could get from Inquisitor Melyn. Or whatever it is he has become.’

  ‘This Melyn. You’ve spoken of him before. You said he was the one who cut off your hand.’ Cerys pointed at Benfro’s arm and he reflexively turned it, almost spilling his stew in the process. ‘He is a man, and yet he has knowledge of the subtle arts?’

  ‘You make it sound as if that is unthinkable,’ Martha said. Cerys looked at her with an expression that Benfro found hard to read but suggested she thought very little of men and women or their abilities.

  ‘That is because it is. Unthinkable, that is. I have heard stories of the Old One, how he was convinced your kind could be taught simple tricks of magic. But he failed every time.’ She turned to face Xando. ‘I believe he was beginning to teach you, was he not? Only your minds are too small. You cannot— Oh.’

  If Benfro hadn’t been watching the whole thing from a distance he would probably have missed it himself. Martha dissolved from view, reappearing almost instantly beside Xando. Benfro’s missing eye showed him in the aethereal how she had moved along the Llinellau quite effortlessly. Before the green dragon could say any more, she had raised one hand, palm up, and conjured a small ball of fire in it.

  ‘Cannot do this?’ Martha asked.

  Cerys sat back on her tail perhaps a little more heavily than she had intended. ‘That is … astonishing. Sir Nanteos says—’

  ‘I imagine your Sir Nanteos says a great many things that aren’t true. Some day you’ll be old enough to understand that.’ Martha extinguished the flame then sat down beside the fire. ‘Where I come from dragons are small, timid creatures who barely use magic at all. It is men, and in particular men like Inquisitor Melyn, who wield the power of the Grym. What they lack in subtlety, they make up for in brute force. Their weapon of choice is a blade forged from pure Grym, sucking the life from anything close by to feed it. Such a weapon is what killed Gog, and Enedoc too. We only escaped because of Benfro.’

  At the mention of his name, Cerys looked over to where he was sitting, a strange gleam in
her eye. For a moment Benfro thought she was going to get up and walk over to him, but she stayed where she was, uncomfortable though it looked.

  ‘So it really is true. The Old One was not killed by a dragon turned feral, not by a monster, but a man.’

  ‘A man and monster both. He killed my mother the same way he killed Gog. He hates all of our kind, has dedicated his life to hunting us down. And now he is more powerful than ever. He walked the Llinellau like Martha just now, but from much further away. He could appear at any moment and strike us all down.’

  Benfro wasn’t quite sure why he said the words, why he felt he needed to frighten Cerys. Perhaps because they had all been hiding from the fear, gathering their strength and their will to go on. None of them wanted to admit just how powerful and mad Melyn had become because none of them knew how to cope with that knowledge. The room fell silent, just the crackling of logs on the fire and the sigh of wind outside. No one spoke for a long time as they each considered what he had said. It was Cerys who finally broke the spell.

  ‘I must try harder to find Myfanwy. I cannot speak to the council, but they will listen to her, and she will listen to you.’

  ‘Where is she? Have you not spoken to her since you …’ Benfro waved his arm in the direction of his healing wound.

  ‘I do not know where she is. She left me here with Sir Nanteos and the others weeks ago, and nobody has seen her since. I am surprised she didn’t come back the moment the Old One was slain. Even I felt that disturbance in the Grym, and I have little skill at the subtle arts yet.’

  ‘Has she gone back to the Twmp, do you suppose?’ As he asked the question, Benfro recalled Martha’s earlier words. ‘What if somehow she has been displaced to Magog’s world and can’t find her way back?’

  ‘Is that possible?’ Cerys asked, her alarm even greater than Benfro’s.

  ‘If what you say of this Myfanwy is true, then it would take a creature of great power crossing over to displace one such as her.’ Martha paused for a moment before adding, ‘Magog himself came across the divide, of course. It was he who guided Melyn’s hand when he slew Gog. Such a powerful combination would surely have displaced hundreds of feral dragons. Or one of great power.’

  ‘Then there is no hope, surely. If Myfanwy is in Magog’s world, how can we persuade the elders of Nantgrafanglach of this new danger?’

  ‘Don’t give up so easily.’ Martha stood up, waving her arms around the room. ‘Gog is dead, Magog has been dead for thousands of years. The subtle arts they wove are unravelling fast. The barrier between the two worlds is fading. Can you not feel it?’

  Benfro looked about, then saw it in the aethereal with his missing eye. The Llinellau shivered, there was no other way to describe it. As if they were the strings of some vast instrument, pulled tight and then plucked by an unseen musician. Only where their hum had always been tuneful, now it was discordant and angry.

  ‘If the barrier is fading, then Myfanwy will surely find her way back soon.’ He struggled to rise, ignoring the pain of the wound in his side. ‘But if she can find the way, then so too can Melyn. And this time he will bring his warrior priests. Whether they will listen to us or not, we must warn the elder dragons. Before he comes back to finish what he started.’

  ‘What he started?’ Cerys asked.

  ‘The annihilation of all dragonkind.’

  Days had passed since his return to Tynhelyg and still Melyn felt unfocused. The shock at his discovery of the true nature of the Shepherd had worn off, the violent rage dulled now to his more customary simmering anger. The warrior priests were keeping their distance as best they could, used to his temper, but the palace servants had taken a while to learn. There was no getting away from dealing with King Ballah’s administrators. The Llanwennog equivalent of Seneschal Padraig’s Candles were grey-faced men with no discernible sense of humour. At least they were pragmatic; no sooner had news of the death of Prince Geraint and the rout of his army reached the city than they had accepted their new ruler and set back to their dull work. There had been a few who had harboured resentment, nursed grudges or secretly plotted some kind of revenge, but their minds had been easy enough to read and their heads now adorned the main city gates. In a way they had done him a favour, since Melyn had always intended executing a few of the more senior officials to ensure the loyalty of those lower down the ranks.

  It hadn’t taken long though, and it hadn’t eased his discomfort. Physically he was as strong as he had ever been, but mentally he was like a river in spate. The calm, bored exterior hid a whirl of thoughts, a crashing cascade of images and memories only some of which were his own. It was as if holding the heart of the Shepherd – or Magog’s first jewel if he were giving it the correct name – had opened up his mind to secrets and knowledge gleaned over millennia. Too much for him to process, this had sent him over the edge, plunged him into the madness that still haunted his dreams. Melyn had managed to recover a degree of control now, not least by removing both Brynceri and Ballah’s rings, giving them and the heart to Frecknock for safe keeping. She lay on the floor beside the throne like a monstrous dog, scarcely stirring as the morning parade of merchants, minor nobles and peasants paraded in front of him, seeking favours or justice.

  ‘I never wanted to be a king,’ Melyn said as the last supplicant was escorted from the room by a pair of warrior priests. He felt the words echoing through his mind, bringing back images of other men who had said similar things in the past. Hastily he drew up his mental shields, recognizing the trigger for another crushing wave of someone else’s memories.

  ‘Your Grace?’ Frecknock’s voice was an anchor, and he reached out to touch her shoulder as she stood. She no longer repulsed him in quite the way she and her kind once had. He knew now the lie that had been behind his loathing, even if it was yet another part of his confusion.

  ‘All this I have done in the name of the Shepherd.’ Melyn waved his free hand at the empty throne room. ‘The war between the Twin Kingdoms and Llanwennog has always been about their rejection of the teachings of our god. Strange to think that Ballah had the right of it all along.’

  ‘Surely there’s more to it than that, sire. Did not King Ballah send assassins to kill Queen Beulah? On many occasions?’

  Melyn should have been surprised at the dragon’s knowledge, but his own mind was so full of the experiences of others that it hardly seemed all that unusual. And she had a point. Talking of the queen reminded him that he had not checked on her lately. He would have slipped into the aethereal, sought out Clun or even Beulah herself if her magic was returned sufficiently, but to do that was to open himself up to the madness and he was too weary to contemplate fighting that now.

  ‘Do you have news of the queen?’ He opted for asking Frecknock instead, waited with uncharacteristic patience as she went very still. A part of him sensed her leaving her mundane body and heading out across Gwlad. He longed to go with her but knew better than to give in to that call. So much had happened since last he had communicated with Beulah and Clun he had some difficulty recalling where they were, what they had been doing. They’d been at Tochers when Beulah’s child was born, ready to march through the pass and relieve the siege of Tynhelyg. But the siege had never come; Magog’s dragons had put an end to that. Where were they now? Melyn wondered.

  ‘Queen Beulah and His Grace the Duke of Abervenn are at Candlehall, sire. They have not recaptured the city yet, but it is only a matter of time. There are dragons helping them break down the gates, and the escape tunnels have been blocked. Prince Dafydd and Princess Iolwen have no way of fleeing.’

  Frecknock spoke as if in a trance, her voice flat and monotone. Melyn sank back into the throne as he took in her words.

  ‘Dragons? Are they the same ones who destroyed Geraint’s army?’

  There was a long pause before Frecknock answered, time enough for him to consider his next move. With Ballah and Geraint dead, Prince Dafydd was the only one with a claim to Ballah’s throne, the onl
y one who might gather some sort of rebellion around him. Destroy the boy and the whole of Gwlad was theirs. At least all of it that mattered. No point worrying about distant Eirawen; only savages lived there. Was it really that easy? Melyn shook his head even though no one could see. Nothing was ever easy when dragons were involved.

  ‘I do not think so, sire. I cannot see them, but from what Master Clun tells me these dragons have some learning, some skill in the subtle arts. The creatures who attacked Prince Geraint’s army were scarcely sentient.’

  Melyn clasped his hands together, rubbing at his fingers where the rings had so recently been. He had an inkling now of where these dragons were coming from, but the idea of it sent a chill through him no amount of Grym could warm.

  ‘Come back to me, Frecknock,’ he said, then waited for the flutter in the air that only his long-trained senses could detect, the return of her thoughts.

  ‘Sire.’ The dragon slumped slightly as if the effort of communicating halfway across Gwlad had tired her.

  ‘The rings and the heart stone. Give them to me.’

  Without a hint of a pause, Frecknock opened the leather bag she carried with her at all times, slung over her neck and one shoulder. She withdrew a small box and a velvet bag, and handed them both to Melyn. Her eyes were full of questions, but she did not ask them. He couldn’t help but like her for that.

  Opening the box revealed the two rings, so alike and yet so different. Melyn sensed the presence of the Shepherd in them, of Magog, but they were merely conduits to a far greater power and knowledge. Snapping closed the box, he slipped it into the pocket of his cloak before untying the velvet bag and drawing out the heart stone, holding it up to the light.

  Were it not for Magog’s gift of fine golden scales, the heat that blazed in the heart of the Shepherd might have stripped the flesh from his fingers and palm. Melyn instinctively raised his mental shields as the constant background chattering of his thoughts became a cacophony. It was an intoxicating feeling, more heady than the finest wine, more intimate than any moment he had shared since Queen Ellyn had died. The memory of her, of them, surprised him. The guilt that had suppressed his past indiscretions no longer had any meaning for him. What cared he for the warrior priest’s oath of celibacy when the god to whom it had been sworn was a lie?