The Obsidian Throne Page 20

  Standing, Errol looked further away. The ground rose from the pool, blocking the distant view as effectively as the heat haze, but a few paces away from the far bank he could just about make out the sand-covered remains of some ancient building. It was mostly buried, and at first sight looked like a natural mound. Here and there he could see the edges of cut stone. The more he looked, the bigger it became. A magnificent palace had once sat here.

  Glancing back at Nellore, Errol hesitated. He wanted to go to her aid, break whatever spell Gog’s jewels had woven around her that was compelling her to dig, but he knew he had little chance. Switching his focus, he brought the Grym into view and saw clearly how it swirled around her, directed her and fed her. This place was awash with power, all converging on the jagged rock and the pile of jewels currently resting on the sand at its base. He could do nothing until she had finished the task; he just hoped it didn’t take much longer. Already her aura was thinning and turning a pale, sickly colour. It was too much to watch, so he turned away, looked for something to distract himself.

  The sand at the water’s edge was cooler than the sun-baked earth, so Errol followed the bank around until he reached the stream. Three small stone steps brought him to the other side, and from there it was a short walk to the mound that was the start of the building. He scrambled up it, finding a wide flat area on the top dotted with more of the wiry bushes, but sparser here than on the other side. Nellore still toiled at her digging as Errol traced out the shape formed by the stones. He knelt down and dug away a little of the sand himself, revealing colourful tiles just beneath the surface. Tiny squares, they seemed to make up some kind of picture, although from the small area he cleared he couldn’t begin to see what it was. He’d seen something similar though, back at Emmass Fawr in the inner halls of the great library. The floors there were vast mosaics showing scenes of forests and wild animals.

  Errol stood up so quickly he felt his head go light. It came to him in that instant exactly what this place was. A magnificent building had stood on this spot, extending for hundreds, thousands, of paces in all directions. Like Emmass Fawr, it had not been men who had built it. Or at least not men for whom it had been built. This was a dragon palace, one so old and abandoned so long ago it had virtually crumbled to dust. But it had been home to beasts of legend once. He knew that now.

  ‘This is it. The place where they were both hatched.’ Errol spoke the words even though Nellore was too far away to hear, and too wrapped up in her task. He hurried down off the mound, back to the edge of the pool. The sun reflected off the surface too brightly to see below, but somewhere in the depths surely there lay the final remains of Gog’s mad twin, Magog. This was the place Benfro needed to find.

  ‘You are right, Errol Ramsbottom. This is indeed the place of my hatching, though much about it has changed in the millennia since that great moment.’

  He should have known better than to look for the source of the voice, and yet still Errol spun round, half-expecting to see the ancient dragon Gog standing behind him. But there was only the low rise, the scrubby bushes and the hot bright sun beginning to lower in the afternoon sky. He turned too swiftly back to the pool, overbalanced and took a step forward to stop himself from falling. Only on this side there was no gentle beach, just a steep bank disappearing into the depths, and with a horrible sense of inevitability he fell headlong into the water.

  It was surprisingly cold, shocking the breath out of him, and for an instant Errol panicked, flailing about as if he might drown. He remembered the night Trell had pushed him and Martha into the pool at Jagged Leap, the night he had first encountered a dragon mage’s memories. Sir Radnor’s jewels had been buried alone at a nexus in the Grym, away from the mingled remains of most of his kind. Clearly Gog had chosen this spot for his own endless solitude. Did he know that his hated brother’s remains lay so close by?

  Kicking out with his feet, Errol swam away from the bank where he had fallen in, headed for the beach on the other side. The water was cool and refreshing after the heat of the day and it washed away the last vestiges of the terrible stench that had ingrained itself in his skin down in the Anghofied. When he reached the centre of the pool, he trod water for a moment, trying to see the bottom. It was too dark to make out anything except for the pale shapes of the fish that had begun to swim around him, occasionally darting in and nipping at him with toothless mouths. Not painful, but it was disquieting, so he swam as swiftly as he could for the beach, dragging himself back on to dry land as Nellore finally finished her digging.

  ‘Now I can be laid to rest here where I was hatched.’ The voice filled Errol’s ears as Nellore reached over and gently picked up one jewel, held it up to the sun for a moment and then placed it deep in the hole she had dug. That done she took up another and performed the same ritual. Then a third, and a fourth. One by one she presented the jewels to the sun, then buried them in the ground.

  ‘Arhelion, who is mother to us all, watch over these the last remains of Gog, Son of the Winter Moon. Keep him safe as he watches over your fold.’ Nellore spoke the words, but Errol could hear them in Gog’s voice echoing deep in his head. This was a ceremony that should have been performed by a great dragon mage, and yet here the greatest of them all was reduced to forcing an innocent young woman to do his bidding.

  ‘I am sorry for that. Truly I am.’ Gog’s words were only in Errol’s head this time. ‘My children have lost interest in the subtle arts. Not all of them, but more and more each year, almost as if they are cursed.’

  ‘They are cursed.’ Errol recalled the tales Benfro had told him. ‘Your brother’s parting gift when you split the world, the same as yours was to curse all the dragons who stayed with him and gift the power of magic to men.’

  ‘Such was our folly. My hatred for my brother died centuries ago. Indeed I had all but forgotten him, wrapped up in my own studies. So much to learn and so little time.’

  Errol tried to imagine the span of Gog’s years, thousand upon thousand. It was impossible; he had not yet seen eighteen summers himself, would do well to see sixty more. What secrets had the dragon mage uncovered in all that time? How could there be more to learn?

  ‘His hatred has burned deeper than I could imagine. Perhaps I am to blame for that, the agent of my own downfall.’ Gog’s voice was fading now, barely a whisper over the rustling of the dry bushes and the gentle trickle of water in the stream. Looking over to Nellore, Errol saw that the pile of jewels beside the hole had grown very small. With each gem laid in its final resting place, so the spirit of the great dragon mage seemed to fade further.

  ‘I must rest. Think about what has happened. Farewell, Errol Ramsbottom. Farewell, Nellore Henriksdotta. We shall not meet again.’

  ‘Wait. What do you mean not meet …?’ Errol started to ask the question but a vast pressure gripped him, squeezing him tight. For a moment he thought he was going to pass out. It was as if the world twisted, or he twisted and the world stayed the same. And then as soon as it had come, the sensation was past and everything was changed. He thought he could feel something go out of the air, as if he had been hearing a noise for so long he’d stopped noticing it, but now it was gone. And then Nellore let out a low moan of pain, toppled sideways to the sand, clutching her hands to her chest. Errol shook away the odd, dislocated sensation and rushed to her side.

  ‘What happened? Where am I?’ She pushed herself slowly up and he could see the sand caked on her arms, the front of her dress and all over her legs. Her eyes were bloodshot and weary as she looked around, confusion written loud across her face.

  ‘The jewels brought you here. This is where he was hatched – Gog. He made you bury them here.’ Errol pointed at where Nellore had dug her hole. It was filled in now, and the next flood would scrub away any sign the ground had been disturbed. Bringing the lines to his sight, he saw a powerful intersection, a nexus in the Grym far greater than the one where Sir Radnor’s jewels had been laid to rest. This truly was a place befittin
g the greatest mage to have lived, even if part of him wanted to dig up the shiny white gems and scatter them to the furthest corners of Gwlad.

  ‘What happened to my hands?’ Nellore sat inelegantly on the beach now, staring at her fingers. Errol moved around to face her, taking them in his own. The sand had rubbed away the skin in places, leaving them raw and bloodied.

  ‘Here. Let’s wash them clean first.’ He helped her up, led her to the water’s edge where it was shaded by the towering rock above them. Bare-footed and still damp from his earlier swim, he didn’t hesitate to walk in, but Nellore shied away.

  ‘It’s all right. The water’s not too cold.’ Errol crouched down and slowly Nellore did the same, still keeping her feet dry. She winced as he dipped her hands beneath the surface and gently splashed at her arms until the worst of the sand was gone. Then he reached out for the Grym, so abundant in this place as to be almost overwhelming, focused it and channelled it into her.

  Errol wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing, and yet he somehow knew how to heal Nellore’s wounds. He had never used the Grym this way. It felt natural though, to divert some of that power into the young woman’s hands and arms, to encourage them to heal more swiftly. He could see the tight weave of her aura, clinging to her like a thin shift, sickly with her weariness. Slowly, as the power of the land seeped into her, the colours began to swirl, first around her damaged fingers and then reaching up her forearms, over her shoulders. At the same time Errol felt the Grym warming him, easing away his own aches and pains. It was a joining both comfortable and profoundly uncomfortable, something much closer than he had ever had with Martha. The thought of her made him step back, dropping Nellore’s hands with a twitch of guilt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and then noticed that the sun had sunk low on the horizon, pinprick stars appearing in the sky. The air was chill too, and when he looked down he could see the skin of his bare feet puckering with hours spent in the water. Where had the time gone?

  ‘What just happened?’ Nellore held up her hands, turning them this way and that in the failing light. She flexed her fingers a couple of times, then laughed. ‘Why are you standing in the water, Errol?’

  One of the fish took that moment to nip his ankle. Unlike most, this one had sharp teeth. Errol let out a yelp of pain, kicking up first one foot and then the other as he rushed to get away from it. Nellore backed up swiftly, the look on her face more of glee than concern. The cut on his foot was tiny, but it bled profusely as he hopped up the beach to a dry spot and sat down heavily with his back to one of the bushes. In the chaos Errol trampled over the soft sand where Gog’s jewels lay, but the dead mage made no sound.

  ‘Ow. Bloody thing bit me.’ Errol rubbed at the cut with his thumb. ‘Didn’t think they had teeth.’

  ‘This one does. Ugly-looking thing too.’ Nellore was down by the water, bending over something, and when she stood up again she had the fish in her arms. Errol couldn’t understand how she had managed to catch it, unless in his rush to escape he had somehow brought it with him on to the beach. It was a good size, and the young girl looked very pleased with her trophy. ‘Least now we’ll have something for supper.’

  17

  When blizzard hides the summer’s sun

  And hidden roads reveal’d

  Locked doors no longer sealed

  Once two, now become one.

  The Prophecies of Mad Goronwy

  ‘Keep very still and do not make a sound.’

  As advice went, Iolwen felt Usel’s words were rather unnecessary. No one was moving so much as a muscle. The three dragons had them effectively penned and were poised for attack. The flurrying snow had the effect of making them seem even larger than the great beast that had eaten Seneschal Padraig, and they stood tall on their hind legs, long necks raised and wings half furled.

  ‘Why are they not attacking?’ Captain Venner asked. He had not conjured his puissant blade, Iolwen was pleased to see.

  ‘I don’t know, but let’s not provoke them, shall we?’ She cradled young Prince Iolo closer to her breast, feeling his breath on her skin, and willed him to stay silent. Was it possible that the dragons hadn’t seen them? By the way they were standing it was almost as if they were waiting, but for what?

  As if frustrated by the lack of action, Prince Iolo took that moment to let out a wail, timed perfectly with a lull in the wind. His lungs might have been tiny, but the noise was like the loudest crash of thunder, the roar of the mightiest of waterfalls. The nearest of the dragons cocked its head slightly at the sound, lowered itself slowly on to its arms and leaned in close, sniffing. Iolwen was frozen to the spot by something beyond terror as the enormous head of the beast came nearer and nearer. She could see its scales, even the tiny ones that surrounded its eyes in intricate patterns. Its mouth was closed, but fangs pierced those leathery lips upwards and down. Nostrils the size of her head flared as it took in a deep breath, then let it out again. Iolwen tensed, expecting the stench of rotting meat that was the mark of the creatures she had seen in the Neuadd, but instead this dragon’s breath was sweet-smelling, almost spiced and intoxicating.

  So close now she could feel the heat radiating from its skin, the dragon studied her with something more than sight and smell. Iolwen had tightened her mental shields the moment she had stepped out of the tunnel; now they withered under a pressure unlike anything she had felt before. Not even King Ballah had been able to break through so easily. She felt like a little girl under the disapproving scrutiny of a severe nanny.

  Then as quickly as it had begun, it ended. The dragon’s mind withdrew so completely it was as if the beast was not there. Astonished, Iolwen took a moment to see what was happening and then let out an involuntary gasp. Unnoticed as all her attention was taken up with the dragon, Prince Iolo had rolled over in her grip. His arms were short, but the creature was close enough, and so he had reached out and touched the delicate tip of its nose. And now the infant let out a little squeal, not of fear but of delight.

  The dragon snorted more of that odd-smelling breath, then as slowly as any predator it withdrew. It took two steps back, folded its wings completely and then finally spoke in perfect Saesneg.

  ‘Welcome to Nantgrafanglach, Princess Iolwen. I am Sir Conwil. Please accept my apologies for our wariness, but recent events have shaken our community to the core. Not least the arrival of several thousand of your people. Do not worry for them; they are being tended to. We will never turn away refugees even when there are so many.’

  ‘You … you know my name?’

  ‘Your people speak of little else, although I will admit that I was not sure it was you until I sensed your party using the subtle arts. And your kitling, he is strong with the Grym. He would grow to be a powerful mage were he one of our kind.’

  Iolwen shivered, both from the cold and the dragon’s words. Something about it – him, she corrected herself – struck her as not quite trustworthy. Perhaps it was just a lifetime of considering his kind troublesome when she considered them at all. And the memory of Seneschal Padraig’s violent end was never far from her thoughts.

  ‘We have much to discuss, the terrible actions of my fellow dragons among them. But I fear this place is not conducive to such things. Perhaps we would be more comfortable out of this storm.’

  Iolwen was about to ask how far it was to shelter, aware that some of the party might not be able to walk much further, but before she could say anything the sky darkened around her. The snow disappeared and a feeling not dissimilar to that of stepping through the tunnel from Candlehall smothered her like a warm blanket. Prince Iolo let out a quiet gurgle, and she hugged him close to her as the darkness faded to light again, revealing somewhere else entirely.

  It was a hall, but built on such a scale as she could scarce imagine. Bigger even than the Neuadd, it stretched away into a distance she couldn’t clearly see. There must have been a ceiling high overhead somewhere, since the wind had died to nothing, and snow no longer fell. All I
olwen could see was an endless series of bright crystal chandeliers floating above her and spreading into the distance. They cast light over a smooth marble floor that was remarkable both for the warmth radiating from it and for its utter emptiness. She turned slowly on the spot, noticed that they had arrived a hundred paces or more from the nearest wall and door. Counting the members of her small party and finding all present, Iolwen saw that most looked pale, and Teryll was hunched over, trying hard not to be sick.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked. The strange journey from outside had left her with no ill effects, but she could imagine how it might be disorientating for some.

  ‘The Grand Hall of Nantgrafanglach once echoed to the voices of many.’ Sir Conwil drew himself upright as he spoke, and Iolwen noticed then that the other two dragons were no longer with them. ‘Dragons would meet here to discuss all manner of things, and men have always been welcome. But the years have not been kind to our race. We have dwindled in number and many have abandoned the subtle arts in favour of much baser living. Those … creatures, I believe you have already met. But come, you must be hungry. Please, eat.’

  The dragon gestured, and when Iolwen followed his hand she was astonished to see a long refectory table laid with cutlery and plates. The stomach-rumbling aroma of roasted meats wafted across the short distance, coming from the large platters that were lined up along the centre of the table and covered with huge silver domes. The table had benches to either side, a tall-backed chair at one end. Iolwen hung back, wary, but most of the party had no hesitation in crossing the floor, sitting at the benches and helping themselves. Soon they were tucking in, chatting together like old friends. The goblets filled with dark red wine from a slender jug probably helped break down the social barriers as much as their shared experience. Most of all though she felt the influence of the dragon, the compulsion that hid behind his words. It was something she was used to resisting, but even without it she couldn’t blame her companions; it was very possible none had eaten much all day and the city had been on siege rations before they had all fled.