The Obsidian Throne Read online

  He slumped slowly to the ground, resting his back against the curve of the rock wall. The Grym had warmed him briefly, but now the cold began to seep back into his bones. Errol hugged his cloak around him, feeling something heavy drag at the hem as he did so. Intrigued, he pulled the cloth up close so that he could see in the near-total darkness, felt around the shit-caked material until he found the opening of a deep pocket sewn into the lining. A dim memory stirred as he pushed his hand in until he could feel what lay within. Scraps of cloth wrapped around something hard. He gripped one of them tight, began to pull it out, see what it was.

  And then a heavy weight landed on his shoulder.

  ‘Not dead. Can work.’

  Errol looked up into the eyes of the supervisor leering down at him. How had the man got so close? He found himself lifted off his feet by the front of his cloak, and gripped the rag tight as he pulled his hand out of his pocket, trying to get hold of the supervisor’s arms with the other one. The back of his head clattered off the rock wall, dazing him slightly, and he almost dropped his precious cargo. Then the supervisor had a hold of the slim silver chain looped around Errol’s wrist. He muttered something under his breath and Errol found himself once more unable to resist as he was led out of the cave, back to the vast cavern and its enormous midden.

  ‘Dig. Move.’ The supervisor grabbed a shovel, pushed it hard into Errol’s chest until he grasped it, palming the package he had found in his pocket. Before he had time to do anything else, the supervisor had shackled him to a cart. He gave Errol a heavy slap across the back as he departed with the ominous words: ‘Ten carts. Drink. Ten more, then you eat.’

  It was hard going. Harder than the first time. The manure was thicker and it stuck to his shovel so that each load was heavy and had to be bashed against the side of the cart to loosen it. The cloth in his hand made it difficult to grasp the handle properly too, but he didn’t dare stop to look at it or even to shove it back in his pocket. He kept two fingers clasped around it, feeling a soft warmth emanating through the material that helped to soothe the pain in his arms and legs, ease the compulsion so that he could work at a pace that didn’t leave him too exhausted to think.

  When he had finished the first load, he stuck his shovel point down in the dirt like the other dishevelled workers before pushing the cart along its tracks to the tipping site. He had timed it so that no one else was there, which gave him a few fleeting seconds to catch his breath and finally unwrap the magical parcel he had found. The cloth was frayed at the edges, torn from some piece of clothing. Memories buzzed around the edge of his mind like flies, impossible to ignore but even harder to catch. He saw his own hands tearing that cloth, using it to protect his bare flesh as he reached out for a dark red flame.

  The last piece unfolded to reveal a pebble-sized jewel of purest white crystal. It blazed amid the dirty fabric, beautiful beyond compare. A stark contrast to the muck and deprivation all around him. Entranced, Errol reached out a shit-caked finger, trembling like an old man, and gently touched the jewel.

  A wave of purest relief flooded over him, so strong he sank to his knees, letting out a gasp of surprise. The fog that had blanketed his thoughts was blown away as if by a tempest. And then a voice filled his head.

  ‘Where is this place? What—?’

  Flinching at the noise, Errol broke contact with the jewel. Immediately the warmth began to seep away, the fog edging back into his thoughts. He looked round, expecting to see the supervisor behind him, but there was no one to be seen. He looked back at his hands, shaking more severely now. The jewel still lay in its nest of torn fabric, and he slowly closed his fingers into a fist around it, letting his skin touch the cool surface.

  ‘I cannot feel the Grym.’ The voice spoke Draigiaith, but pure and perfect. Not like the heavily accented words of the men in the caverns.

  ‘There are no lines here. I think we’re deep underground.’ Errol spoke the words aloud, then cringed at the thought he might be bringing attention to himself. How long before the supervisor came? Or just one of the other diggers? Why had he let them push him around like that? Why had he gone along with it?

  ‘You have been placed under a compulsion. It’s a very crude working, but I’ve seen similar before.’ There was something about the voice that sparked a memory. It was far off, as if he had lived a lifetime since last he’d thought about it.

  ‘Morgwm,’ he said finally. ‘Morgwm the Green. You’re Benfro’s—’

  ‘Mother. Yes. Or a part of her. I cannot sense the rest of me. Not surrounded by all this rock. Where are we? Where is Benfro?’

  ‘I lost him. Weeks ago. Possibly months. We were in Llanwennog, at Tynhelyg. Melyn was there. He captured me, was going to kill me. Benfro came back to save me. Then I …’ Errol stopped, partly because the memories were confused and muddy, partly because he could hear voices in the tunnel. He couldn’t let them catch him, couldn’t let them take him back there. Worse, what if they found the jewel and took it from him? He looked around the ledge where his cart still stood waiting to be emptied. Light flickered from a line of greasy torches in iron sconces bolted into the rock face. It illuminated only a few feet either side, thickening the darkness of the pit into which all the excrement was poured. The tunnel mouth reflected more light, orange and dirty, moving closer as another cart was wheeled towards him. There had to be another way out, surely?

  He took a couple of steps, then stopped as the thin chain around his wrist snagged. He tugged at it once, twice, hoping that it might break, but it held tight. A cart trundled from the tunnel on squeaky wheels, continuing its slow journey to the edge. Errol froze as the man pushing it reached for the lever that would release the load. Perhaps if he kept still he wouldn’t be seen, wouldn’t be missed yet.

  And then the supervisor stepped out, flaming torch held high as he scanned the ledge from side to side.

  4

  One aspect of Gog’s curse upon his brother’s half of Gwlad that is not well understood concerns the long decline in fertility of the dragons of that realm. Our lives are long, and it takes our kind many years – perhaps centuries – to reach maturity. We are very selective of our mates and breed infrequently. Even so for two thousand years and more the dragons of Magog’s realm dwindled in numbers, their kind becoming increasingly aged. What few young were hatched were only daughters – no sons of Magog would ever rise to take on his mantle.

  And yet all curses can only run for a finite time, even if that time is measured in aeons. As the curse upon our realm lessened, and some of our young began to abandon the feral life and seek once more our learning, so in the other realm it was only a matter of time before a male kitling was hatched.

  I have felt that moment, a tremor in the Grym as if Gwlad herself shivers with anticipation. So long divided, can it really be that our world shall soon be whole again?

  From the journals of Myfanwy the Bold

  His hands are healed now, the tips of his fingers shiny and smooth where once they had been rippled with prints. In time they will return to normal, that is what the old healer told him anyway. He doesn’t mind; just feeling them is a reminder of the power that surged through him, boiling off the fire. He has spent the time since that incident trying to feel the Grym again, trying to control how it flows into him rather than just letting it burn him up. At first it took all his effort just to see the Llinellau around him, but now he can feel them without even needing to look, especially here at the top of the tower, where they are so abundant. And he can let the Grym warm him just enough to keep the morning chill from nipping at his ears and nose.

  He still needs to build the fire though. Even though he has magic the boy can’t even begin to imagine, the Old One likes to have his fire waiting for him when he returns from his travels. It’s hard work, hefting logs as big as his legs from the stack beside the fireplace. He doesn’t know how they get there, has never seen anyone haul them up the long spiral staircase from the palace far below. Indeed, he has
never seen a tree save for in pictures. All his life has been bounded by stone walls and the view of the city roofs that greets him when he summons up the courage to venture out on to the wide ledge beyond the big glass doors. Roofs stretching to the hazy distance and then the mountains capped in white snow. On the clearest of days he has seen an indistinct green smudge in the far distance to the south and imagined that is the fabled forest of which he has read. Mostly he knows wood only as the logs that feed the fire, the floorboards and furniture, doors and servants’ stairs, and the rafters high overhead in the deepening gloom.

  ‘You are letting your mind wander again, my young apprentice.’

  The boy spins, seeing the Old One standing in the open doorway. His wings hang half open, as if he has just landed on the wide ledge that surrounds the tower, but the boy cannot recall hearing his dragon master’s landing or even the familiar sound of his approach. Was he really so lost in his thoughts, or is this the other magic? He studies the Llinellau around the Old One, looking for clues, but he doesn’t know what is a clue and what is normal.

  ‘How are your fingers? Not burned any more?’ The Old One folds his wings tight and weaves a route through the collected apparatus and curios that fill this vast room. The boy has no idea what most of them are for – mainly it seems collecting dust that he then has to clean off.

  ‘Much better. Thank you, master.’ He bows his head in deference as the Old One approaches the fire, withered hands outstretched towards it. Whether the great dragon can see through his ancient eyes clouded white by the years, he cannot tell, but the boy has long since learned not to guess.

  ‘Good. Good.’ The Old One stares sightlessly into the flames, falling silent in that way of his the boy has become used to over the year since first he was summoned from the kitchens. Quite how the dragon had even known of his existence, he is unsure, but know of him he did. The Old One had known the boy’s family history going back tens of generations, names he himself had never heard before, people long since forgotten even by their direct family. And yet the Old One had recited them as if reading from a book only he could see. It had seemed important to him, almost as if he were trying to justify something. To this day he refers to him as ‘Son of Arall’ even though that is not the name of the boy’s father. He was just ‘boy’ until the Old One called him ‘Melyn’, the name of another man who died over a thousand years earlier.

  ‘Your studies? You are progressing through the scrolls?’

  ‘I have read all the ones you have given me, master. Some more than once.’

  ‘More than once, eh? That’s good. Knowledge does not come from a casual glance but a deeper consideration. You would do well to remember that. Still, I must look out some more for you. Come.’

  He follows the ancient dragon across the room to where the writing desk stands. Beside it, shelves are crammed with rolls of parchment, scrolls and leather-bound books. The boy has looked through most of them when the Old One has been away, but most mean nothing to him.

  ‘Here is a history of the first times, when men were little more than beasts roaming the dusty plains of Eirawen. There is much to be learned from it. And here …’ The Old One reaches up high, pulls out a slim volume with a cover made of some strange green material that shimmers in the light falling on it from the candles nearby. ‘This is my own copy of Aderyn’s Educational Notes for the Young. I think you will find it, well, educational. And perhaps you might like to …’

  The Old One falls silent. His white eyes never look focused on anything, but now they take on that faraway stare the boy has come to recognize. Soon his master will leave, though whether through the glass doors and on the wing or by the subtle arts he cannot tell.

  ‘I must go. Just briefly. Read these words, young Melyn son of Arall. Absorb them, their meaning. I will quiz you on them upon my return.’

  He takes the scrolls and the book, light for a dragon but almost enough to drop him to his knees. Without any further word, the Old One steps around the writing desk and then is gone. At least that is what the boy’s eyes tell him. His other sight, the view of the Llinellau he has been practising ever since he burned his fingers, tells him a different story. Without even a thought, the dragon has become the Grym, stepping into the Llinellau, and then … what? It is not hard to imagine the Old One using this magic to travel along the lines at the speed of thought. It happened so quickly, but the boy is certain he saw a flash of brighter Grym moving along one of the lines, dissipating so fast he might have missed it had he not already suspected. Had he not been looking for it.

  But how was it done?

  Holding tight to the scrolls and book, the boy seeks out the nearest major line of the Grym. He can sense it in a way that is not seeing nor hearing, but elements of both and all his other senses. There are voices calling him, glimpses of places he doesn’t recognize, smells both exotic and revolting. For a moment there is heat on his skin, but not the burning of the fire. Then he is so cold it might be midwinter in the deep snow piled up around the main courtyard behind the kitchens. All these sensations and more flood him, tug at him, tempt him. Is it so easy as to just choose one and step? But which one? There are so many, so enticing, so exciting.

  And then he sees it. A tree, vast, with leafy green branches spread wide. He can hear the swish of wind in its leaves, smell something like the scent that comes from the logs, only this is far more vital, more intoxicating. It is so real, so near he could just reach out and touch it.

  So that is what he does.

  5

  Woe betide the novitiate who does not master self-discipline and self-knowledge before attempting to use the lines and the power of the Grym. It is a skill required of all who would serve the Order of the High Ffrydd, and only those who show an innate talent are chosen, but still the almshouses of the mindless swell their numbers each year. For the Grym sings a siren song to all who would connect with it, promising a world of infinite wonder should you just answer its call. Harden your heart to it, ignore the voices, the sights and smells. They are nought but illusion and to acknowledge them is to surrender to a fate far worse than death.

  Quaister Timmins,

  On the Workings of the Grym

  ‘The walls cannot hold much longer, Your Majesty. Candlehall will be ours by tomorrow at the latest.’

  Queen Beulah stifled a yawn as she received yet another report from yet another nameless general. None had anything new to say. The dragons had been alternately smashing rocks and occasionally themselves against the massive entrance gates or lying around on the plain in front of the city bickering with each other and sleeping. They seemed to have an insatiable appetite for beef, preferably served still mooing, but at least they hadn’t tried to kill any of her soldiers. Not yet.

  ‘I’m sure I heard a very similar report yesterday, General. Come to me when you have something useful to tell me, or don’t come at all.’ She sat behind a large table in the command tent, strewn with maps and endless lists in Lord Beylin’s distressingly tidy handwriting. The man himself sat to the left of her, the seat on her right empty where Clun should have been. His Grace the Duke of Abervenn had a knack for missing all but the important briefings. He was probably out riding that great horse of his, scaring the common soldiers even more than the dragons. On the other hand, he was the only one those same dragons would take orders from, so it was as well to keep him sweet. He had other uses too, the thought of which brought a slight flush to her speckled cheeks.

  ‘Enough of this.’ Beulah pushed herself up and out of her chair. ‘We can plan and strategize and revisit the figures all we like, but the truth of the matter is we’re stuck here until those wolf-cursed beasts break down that gate.’

  ‘I rather think they would be quicker about it if we gave them less to eat.’ Lord Beylin had risen from his seat at the same time as Beulah, as was only correct, but she could see by the way he hovered that he really wanted to sit back down and carry on counting his cows. Damn, but he was an irritating
man. He had his uses too, not least of which was providing for her army. It was the slaughterhouses of the Hendry that fed this war, and Beylin would grow rich on it. She’d probably have to make him a duke too. Either that or cut off his head.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to suggest that to them yourself?’ Having him eaten by a dragon would solve her problems just as well.

  Beylin nodded his head once in deference. ‘I wouldn’t dream of overruling His Grace the Duke of Abervenn, ma’am.’

  ‘Good.’ Beulah waved a dismissive hand at the papers on the table. ‘You carry on with the admin, Petrus. I’m going to see if our captive has regained enough strength to be interrogated.’

  Captain Celtin and a couple of warrior priests fell in behind her without being asked. Beulah considered dismissing them, but their presence was expected, and Clun would have their hides if he heard she’d been wandering the camp alone. She strode swiftly through the lines of tents. In truth she had almost forgotten about the man they had captured in Abervenn, the disciple of the so-called Guardians of the Throne. He’d been kept sedated for the journey up the River Abheinn and since they’d arrived. Her plan had been to wait until she had the power of the Obsidian Throne behind her, then peel away the layers of his mind one by one until she knew his every last secret. Weeks of being drugged should have battered down what few mental barriers he still had, even if it looked like she was going to have to wait a little longer before regaining her city and its magics. This close, she could use some of that power behind it anyway, and her skill was growing stronger by the day.

  The soldiers had built a makeshift wooden hut to act as a prison, the drugged man its only inmate so far. Two warrior priests stood guard at the door and another two were stationed inside. All came to attention as their queen arrived; only the young man remained seated, leaning back against the rough wall of his cell. A quick skim of his thoughts showed his lethargy was feigned.