The Golden Cage Read online

  The world turned upside down as he touched her. For a brief instant he saw through her eyes, knew something of her thoughts, and then he was pitching into blackness. There was a moment when he truly believed he had died, and then Melyn crashed into the hard stone floor, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

  ‘Inquisitor, are you hurt?’ The voice of the warrior priest came to him in the darkness. Still trying to make sense of what had happened, he didn’t answer at first. Melyn looked for the lines, seeing nothing at first, then the faintest of glimmers clinging to the walls. It was too little to work with. Then a different voice beside him spoke.

  ‘If I may, Your Grace.’ An orb of light more powerful than anything he could hope to control burst into being in front of him. Frecknock knelt close by, the light casting shadows on her face as she reached out to help him to his feet. The same hand he had grasped in the aethereal, he noted as he took it. She was strong, and not for the first time Melyn wondered why it was that all of the dragons he had slain had gone so quietly to their deaths. Only the creature Caradoc had ever put up a fight, and Melyn was beginning to suspect it wasn’t a beast of Gwlad at all.

  ‘What just happened?’ Melyn noticed that the air was full of dust, and his ears were ringing as if he had been close to a great explosion, even though he could remember nothing of the sort.

  ‘There was a cave-in up ahead.’ The warrior priest pointed down the corridor in the direction of the door. Only now it was blocked with huge rocks, creaking as they settled into their new positions. ‘I think we should probably get out of here before the rest of the passageway comes down.’

  Melyn thought about the door and how it had thrown him away. The Shepherd’s last remains on Gwlad lay behind it, he knew, and yet he was being given a very direct hint to leave it well alone. It was a curious kind of torment to be shown that briefest of glimpses, then to have it cruelly taken away. But who was he to question the will of God?

  ‘Let’s go then.’ He reluctantly turned away. ‘The beast’s not down here anyway. And we’ve been gone long enough.’

  They climbed the long slow winding steps in silence as Melyn tried to sort out the jumble of images in his mind. He had seen something of the dragon’s memories, felt something of her emotions, and they puzzled him deeply. As they neared the top, Frecknock stooped, her head bowed close to his in submission.

  ‘I am sorry, Your Grace,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I suggested you look at the tunnel with your aethereal sight. No sooner did you do so than the whole place started to unravel.’

  ‘Was that your doing?’

  ‘No, Your Grace. I’ve never seen anything like that before.’

  ‘Then you’ve nothing to apologize for. If anything I should be thanking you. I was adrift like a novitiate back there. You helped me back, even if I did crack my knees in the process. You didn’t have to do that. You could have left me to die.’

  ‘How long would your men have let me live if you’d been lost in there?’

  It was true. As soon as anything happened to him, his remaining warrior priests would dispatch Frecknock without a second thought. But there was more to her actions than simple self-preservation. Something else drove her to help him.

  He would have questioned her more, but as they stepped out of the stairwell and into the dining hall, a great roar of anger came bellowing through the doorway to the outside. The warrior priest, who had been in the lead up the steps, conjured his blade of light and ran forwards stopping only briefly before leaping out into the courtyard.

  ‘Stay in here.’ Melyn waited only long enough to see Frecknock’s nodded agreement before he too ran across the hall, summoning his own blade with a thought. He paused at the doorway, listening to the fracas outside, then stepped through.

  Caradoc was cornered at the far end of the courtyard. The great beast was surrounded by all the other warrior priests and backed into a corner, clutching the stump of his severed arm to his chest, the cloak wrapping it dripping now where the wound had started to bleed again. As one of the warrior priests darted forward, lunging with his blade, the dragon roared in defiance and lashed out with its tail. But the man was ready for the counter-attack, leaping out of the way and swinging his blade down as it swept past. Caradoc let out another howl, this time in pain, as a chunk of scale and flesh slapped wetly on to the dusty ground. Melyn walked slowly across the courtyard, and by the time he reached the line of warrior priests, the great beast was hunched against the wall.

  ‘Accursed men. My tribe will hunt you down and crack your bones for what you’ve done.’ Caradoc spoke Draigiaith with that strange inflection Melyn had noticed the first time.

  ‘And where are your tribe now, Caradoc, son of Edryd?’

  ‘They will come. They will have missed me already. They’ll be looking for me, and they won’t stop their search until they’ve found me.’

  ‘Then they will find us waiting and ready.’ Melyn looked the beast in his huge eyes. He could tell Caradoc was in considerable pain, reacting rather than thinking. Perhaps that was all he had ever done. He reached out to the dragon’s mind, mixing fear with a certainty that he was going to strike to the left. The dragon’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly in that direction, but it was enough for Melyn to know.

  ‘Your jewels will make a fine addition to the queen’s collection,’ he said, stepping to the right, turning and striking where he knew the dragon’s head would lunge.

  His blade passed through thin air. Caradoc had disappeared.

  15

  Many histories have Balwen, Earith, Grendor and Malco as the original Guardians of the Throne, charged by the Shepherd himself with spreading his love through Gwlad and preparing for his eventual return from the stars. The title Guardians of the Throne is, however, a later addition to the scriptures. Balwen famously united the Hafod and Hendry into the Twin Kingdoms, and slew Malco in the process. Grendor fled north to what is now Llanwennog, establishing the heresy which eventually led to that benighted place abandoning the teachings of the Shepherd altogether. Earith was reputed to be wise beyond compare, and maybe she was to flee south back to Eirawen. Little is known of what became of her or her people; naught remains of that once-great civilization but jungle-devoured ruins.

  The true Guardians of the Throne are a much later invention, a romantic folly of noblemen with nothing better to do with their time. Built on a shifting-sand foundation of obscure religious texts and the unintelligible ravings of an insane woman who spent most of her short life living in a cave deep in the forest of the Ffrydd, the so-called order has nevertheless proved remarkably resilient.

  Barrod Sheepshead, The Guardians of the

  Throne – A Noble Folly

  The sun warmed his back as Benfro spread his wings wide, feeling the air ripple and curl over their edges. He scarcely needed to think to turn now; it was as natural as breathing or walking. He was even beginning to read the invisible currents, predicting where lift might be found and where he could suddenly dive. His muscles felt strong, no trace of his injury left as he climbed higher and higher with powerful wing beats.

  Bright and clear, the morning was perfect for flying. Benfro could see the great bulk of Mount Arnahi rising from the lower mass of the Rim mountains. Snow capped the highest peaks, but much of the lower hills had thawed, greening up in a thousand different shades. He was still drawn to the great mountain, but not by Magog’s influence. It was more that it represented the furthest point of his travels so far. He longed to go there, and then push on further, over the rim and on into the plains of northern Llanwennog. That was where his father had gone, after all. Finding Sir Trefaldwyn was still his best chance of ridding himself of the red jewel and that treacherous rose cord that linked him to it.

  Wheeling in a thermal updraught, Benfro wondered how he could even begin his search. Gwlad was a big place, and the dragons in it had long ago learned to stay hidden. Corwen’s words had been so vague, and in the week
s that had passed since last the old dragon had appeared, their meaning had only become more confused. What if Sir Trefaldwyn had actually succeeded in his quest, had found his way into Gog’s world, then not been able to get back? Wouldn’t that explain why he had never returned?

  Part of the reason why Benfro hadn’t set off yet on his search was the need for both him and Errol to heal properly, to rest and build up their strength. But Benfro had to admit that he had also been held back by the sheer size of the task he faced. If he could find his father, he might be able to find Gog’s world. If Gog still lived, Benfro might be able to persuade him to lift the spell of protection on the clearing where the two brothers had hatched. If he could find the clearing again, he might be able to recover some bones from long-dead Magog – as long as they hadn’t mouldered away to nothing. And if he could bring the red jewel and the bones together, he might be able to breathe the Fflam Gwir, the true flame of reckoning, and undo once and for all the damage that Magog had wreaked. There were so many things that could go wrong, and that was without worrying about the men who would hunt him down and slay him without a second thought.

  Lost in thought, it was a while before Benfro realized he had been gliding south, away from Mount Arnahi and towards the ruins of Cenobus. At first he thought he had let his guard slip, been drawn in by Magog’s subtle, malign influence. But he could see his aura, strong and bright, surrounding him in a healthy glow that mirrored his renewed strength and vitality. He hardly needed to concentrate at all to maintain the knot that choked off the rose cord these days; it was second nature. Something else had drawn him south, something he had seen but not registered consciously.

  Scanning the horizon as he flew, Benfro tried to make out the all-too-familiar hump of barren rock that poked from the sea of green like a thumb stuck through a hole in a blanket, but he was too far away still to see it, and a dull haze obscured the line between tree and sky. He sped on, looking down to see his shadow sprint across the canopy and flash across the larger clearings that linked the trees here in a vast patchwork. Over to his left, looking east, he could see the Rim mountains etched clear by the morning sun; to his right, far to the west, they continued their march round the Ffrydd, white-tipped peaks like the jagged teeth of some long-dead gargantuan fish. They were hundreds of miles distant and yet so clear he could reach out and touch them.

  Only straight ahead, to the south, was the horizon obscured. As Benfro headed towards it, he could see that the haze was not due to the weather, but dust rising high into the morning air, disturbed by something below and much closer than he had realized.

  His swift glide had lost him considerable altitude, and he had dropped to a level where the slow undulation of hills and valleys obscured his view of the distance. Benfro swept his wings together again and rose swiftly towards the thinnest of clouds that wisped across the sky far higher than the peaks of even the tallest mountains. He had gained so much from his time in the mountain retreat, not least the ability to cope with thin cold air. Truly he could have learned all he needed to know from Magog, had the long-dead mage not been insane.

  Now Benfro could make out the rock upon which Cenobus sat, still far to the south. The great mass of dust he had first taken to be morning haze rose between him and the ancient fortress; it would be directly beneath him in just a few minutes, given the speed he was flying. Birds wheeled and dived in the dust as if they had been disturbed from their rest, or were keen to feast on others who had been dislodged. Whatever it was that moved through the trees was huge and heading steadily north.

  The canopy here was thick, blocks of ancient oak and beech, their heavy boughs spread wide, obscuring the ground beneath. Benfro wheeled, trying to work out what could cause so much turmoil, but there was no way to see through the lush growth. Ahead, about a mile, the trees opened up into a series of raggedy clearings, and he climbed high above them, circling in the warm air as he waited for the beast to appear.

  It was the slightest tingling sense of fear at first, an almost imperceptible thing, like the faintest of aromas carried on the breeze. Nevertheless, it brought the memories crashing back. He was hiding under a laurel bush, watching as a dozen or more men surrounded his mother, forced her to the ground, humiliated her and then killed her. He watched as they hacked away at her severed head like a pack of wild pigs, blood spraying on their cloaks and faces in their frenzy to get at the jewels within, and he knew with terrible certainty what it was that fought its way through the forest.

  They rode on horses and hacked their path wide with their terrible blades of light. Row upon row of men emerged from the shade and out into the clearing, increasing their pace as the terrain allowed more speed. Waves of terror swept over Benfro as he gazed down on more men than he had ever seen before, but he knew they could not fly, could not even hit him with a bow from this distance. The angle of the sun took his shadow far from the clearing, so the chances were they didn’t even know he was above them, all their attention fixed on making swift progress through the trees. Fear was just another of their weapons, and once he understood that, he could put it aside.

  He studied them as best he could, though seen from directly above they all looked much the same. They reminded him of nothing so much as a swarm of ants as they moved across the clearings in a seemingly random swirl. Benfro had disturbed enough ants’ nests as a kitling to know that they were a most unpleasant foe, thousands of individual bodies all acting as if controlled by one omniscient mind. And he knew that mind was down there somewhere, deep in the middle of the flow. Inquisitor Melyn, his sworn enemy.

  Before he knew what he was doing, Benfro was sinking in the air, getting closer and closer to the moving mass, until he could begin to pick out individual men. From above he could still not see faces, and he doubted he would have remembered many of them except that of the inquisitor. His face was etched across Benfro’s memories in all too terrible detail. He fancied he might also recognize the tall guard with the big horse, mainly because of the animal rather than the man, and he suspected he would be able to identify the young man who had been placed in charge of Frecknock.

  Almost at the moment he thought of her, he saw her step from under the trees. Just in front of her a man rode the largest horse in the whole army, and behind her, his head a shock of white hair, was Melyn. A rage such as he had never known before gripped Benfro. The heat boiled up in him, its flame ready to be spat out at his tormentor. He swooped lower, eyeing up the best angle for a dive, trying to remember the long hours he had watched hawks stoop for he kill.

  ‘Benfro! You have to flee. Get away from here. As far as you can. They’re coming to kill you.’ The voice spoke directly in his mind, and he knew it as well as he knew his own. Frecknock. So intent had his focus been on the inquisitor that he had momentarily forgotten that she walked among the men, unshackled as if she were their equal.

  ‘Dragon!’ This time he heard the word shouted aloud in the language of men. The heads of the warrior priests all tilted up, following his movements as he was spotted. There was a series of sharp twangs and a dozen arrows speared towards him. For a moment Benfro froze, but he was well out of range. The arrows dropped away, falling uselessly into the canopy.

  ‘Don’t waste your shots.’ The unmistakable voice of Inquisitor Melyn rose on the still air, and with it came a redoubling of the fear that he had felt before. It reached into his brain, making it almost impossible to think, freezing his muscles, robbing him of the fine control needed to stay aloft. Benfro fought against it, but it was as if he was submerged in a great deluge that overwhelmed him. He could feel his control over his aura slipping away, and Magog taking the opportunity to renew his attack, almost as if the dead dragon mage were coordinating his onslaught with that of the inquisitor. Through the haze of his battered senses, Benfro knew that he was falling again. Perhaps not quite as uncontrollably as when he had ended up in the river, but losing precious height all the same.

  ‘You can fight them, Benfro. You have
to. Use those wings of yours and fly away from here. Save yourself.’ Frecknock’s voice cut through the fear just enough for him to focus. He brought his wings together in a massive sweep and the movement eased the panic, strengthened him against Magog. He beat at the air again, feeling himself rise away from the trees. Down below he could see the warrior priests milling around, their progress brought to a halt as their leader cursed and railed against the sky.

  He took one last look down, seeing Frecknock standing between the inquisitor and the tall man on the big horse. Part of him felt she had brought her predicament on herself and deserved whatever fate threw at her, but he also pitied her, to be at the mercy of men. Benfro struck out with his best speed, heading for the clearing, wondering as he went what Frecknock had done to keep herself alive.

  ‘There’s nothing here, Your Majesty. Just some spare clothes, a few religious books.’

  Beulah stood in the middle of a dingy little room built into the thickness of the wall on the ground floor of the castle. A tiny windowless chamber leading off it was dominated by a narrow sleeping-pallet. There wasn’t even a personal privy; Father Tolley, it seemed, was expected to mix with the rest of the castle staff when it came to ablutions.

  Like most of the rooms in the castle, the predicant’s cell was lit by a single narrow slit of a window. This cast barely enough light to see by, which didn’t matter as there wasn’t much to see. A plain desk with parchment and quills laid out on it, two chairs, a tall bookcase filled with leather-bound books and rolls of parchment, and a stout iron-hooped chest. Breaking this open revealed only a collection of neatly pressed but threadbare predicant’s robes, socks and underwear. Father Tolley didn’t even own a second pair of boots, it appeared.

  ‘What of these books?’ Beulah moved to the bookcase, conjuring a small flame to see what reading matter interested a working predicant of the Order of the Candle. Beside her Captain Herren winced as if he had never seen magic before. Perhaps, she thought, he never had. She pulled out a heavy tome, dropping it on to the desk. ‘The Eleven Principles of Administration. I remember being forced to read this as a child.’