The Obsidian Throne Read online

  Without a backward glance, he leaped over the stone balustrade, spreading his wings just wide enough to slow his fall. In an instant he was gone, but the smaller Cerys stood for a while, no doubt watching his descent. She looked around briefly, and for a moment Benfro thought he had been spotted. Then she hopped up on to the balustrade like a bird, fluttering her wings gently to keep her balance. Shook her head just once in a manner Benfro had seen his mother do a thousand times before, and then she too opened her wings and stepped into the void.

  6

  Perhaps Gog’s strangest and most persistent preoccupation has been his attempts to fully understand the nature of men. Even before he fell out with his brother over that strange creature Ammorgwm, he spent as much time studying the servants, and particularly their youngsters, as he did any other aspect of the subtle arts. He remains convinced that they are as much creatures of the Grym as dragonkind, and fully as capable of mastering our magics as any dragon.

  It is strange but not unsurprising that one quite so advanced in his knowledge can yet fail to see the simplest of facts. Most dragons do not even begin their training in the subtle arts until they have seen a hundred summers. It can take decades to learn even just to see the Llinellau Grym, let alone know how to manipulate them. To become even the most base of adepts requires centuries of painstaking and diligent study.

  In all my long centuries of life I have yet to meet a man who has lived beyond the age of ninety. Aggressive and warlike, they are apt to kill themselves and each other long before then, and those who do not succumb to axe or blade die from the diseases that spread through their woefully unsanitary towns and cities. It is a marvel that they reach an age where they can successfully breed, except that they seem almost to be born ready to procreate. Indeed their mortality is a blessing in disguise, for were they to live out their full natural lives soon Gwlad would be carpeted with them.

  From the journals of Myfanwy the Bold

  He is everywhere.

  All of Gwlad is laid out before him. Every living creature from the tiniest mote grubbing around in dirty soil to the massive, lonely beasts roaming the vast emptiness of the Southern Sea. Every man, woman, child. Every dragon, even the Old One. For an instant that is almost too brief to exist he knows them all, sees through their eyes, knows their thoughts. In that single moment he is Gwlad, he is a god.

  And then the pull of the Grym shreds him. There are no words to describe the agony as his being is torn into uncountable fragments, rendered down and down like the wheat he has seen pounded into flour in the kitchens, the sides of beef cut and cut and cut until they are nothing but mince. His sense of self is pared away even as he loses all feeling in his body, all feeling of ever having had a body. There is everything, and there is nothing.

  But there is him.

  He knows he exists even if he cannot remember who he is, where he is, what he is doing. Flashes of memory explode around him like lightning in a storm. The image comes to him then, standing on the threshold of a huge doorway, watching as a storm rages outside, beyond glass so clear it is almost as if it isn’t there. Where?

  Another explosion and the view is different. A clear sky, blue so deep it is almost black. There are rooftops far below; is he flying? Falling perhaps, and with that comes the sensation of fear. If he fears, then he must be. He just has to find himself, extract himself from this impossible situation. All he needs to do is remember who he is. What he is. Easier said than done when your thoughts are flighty things, spinning away before they can fully form.

  Not a name. That is too much to ask for. He knows … what? He is something, a single point in this seething cauldron of light and sound and smell and everything. If he can just focus, just find a tiny bit of peace and quiet, he can work out what is happening, how to stop it. How to get back to normal.

  Except that he doesn’t know what normal is. He has no frame of reference, and even the view is gone. There is just white, fizzing with possibilities, each new discovery taking a part of him away, diminishing him until there is nothing left. He fights against it, tries to hold himself together even though he doesn’t truly know what he is, how he came to be here.

  There was something. He was doing something. Trying to work out how someone else had done something. These things are important, he knows, even though the sense of them is always just out of reach, slipping through his grip. Grip? He remembers fingers, burning flesh turned red from within, the whorls and twists of his skin turned smooth. It is a half-formed image, but he clings to it with a desperation born of a sudden understanding that he won’t die in this place, but simply cease to exist. Have never existed. No one will miss him. No one will mourn him. No one will care.

  But he cares, and he has fingers. Damaged by the Grym radiating from the fire. Healing now. He can feel them, flex them, give them his entire concentration. And as he does so, the noise all around him changes, the light fluctuating, modulating so that he is falling once more, plummeting through air that whips at his hair, tugs at his skin, his body, pulls tears from his eyes and blurs the view. He blinks them away, sees mountains capped with snow, dark rock faces, cliffs and waves of deep green that must surely be trees. He is tumbling downwards, tries to flap his wings to slow his fall, but he has no wings. He is not a dragon, but a man. Falling.

  The impact with the ground drives the wind out of him. For a long while all he can do is lie there in the grass, struggling to breathe, struggling to make sense of where he is, who he is. He is cold, skin damp and naked. His body feels all wrong, his limbs awkward and unresponsive. And then he hears voices off in the distance, coming closer. They speak a language he doesn’t understand, but their tone is unmistakable. They are alarmed, hurrying towards him and jabbering at each other. Two people at least.

  Hands take hold of him, pull him upright, and the world tilts dangerously into view. He sits in a field of long grass, looking out across a wide chasm towards mountains strangely familiar yet not quite right. Looking around he sees occasional trees, some animals he doesn’t recognize, buildings a way off, and beyond them what he took for another mountain but is something more. A vast slab of stone like a perfectly vertical cliff face, only pocked with uncountable hundreds of tiny windows. And beyond it towers reaching up into a cloudy sky.

  ‘Who let one of the mindless out, eh? Some novitiate’s going to get into trouble.’

  ‘Nah. Look at him. He’s too young. And they all have loincloths on. Shoes if they’re being took outside.’

  He turns to face the men, not understanding their words. The tongue is like his but different, and their accents are strange.

  ‘Here. He ain’t no mindless after all.’ One of the men leans down towards him, concern written across his features. ‘What’s your name, lad? How’d you end up out here?’

  He doesn’t know what they are asking, although the fact it’s a question is clear. Do they want to know where he came from? He would like to know that too. And how he got here, who he is. But he can’t remember anything except a long list of names, and at the end of it one that seems to fit.

  ‘Melyn.’ He sees their astonishment at his voice, sees their fear and feels a thrill at it. ‘Melyn son of Arall.’

  7

  All living things are connected by the power of the Grym, from the tiniest of gnats to the largest of leviathans swimming deep in the Southern Sea. The mighty oak trees of the Hafod and Hendry are joined with the scrubby ice plants that cling to the bare rock of the frozen north, and the mightiest of dragons shares that bond with the basest of creatures. All is one with the Grym.

  So what happens in a place where there are no Llinellau, where life itself is absent? What happens deep within the lifeless rock of Gwlad? Few such places exist that it is possible to reach, and they are places best avoided. To be removed from the Grym for a short while is uncomfortable, but prolonged exposure to these lifeless zones, these anghofieddau, will leach away first your memories, then your strength of will and finally your life itself
. And when you die you will not become one with the whole of Gwlad, but simply cease to be.

  Corwen teul Maddau,

  On the Application of the Subtle Arts

  It was never going to be enough.

  Dafydd watched the lines of tired and frightened people as they piled into the palace complex. What few city guards were left had put word out as best they could, going from house to house while trying to remain unseen by the great beasts flying overhead. There were lulls in the attacks by the dragons, and most of their attention now seemed to be focused on the main city gates and the walls on either side, but there were still a couple of the smaller ones patrolling. They had sharp eyes too, diving at the first sign of movement and grabbing whatever they could, man, woman, child, dog or goat. Some they would kill and devour on the ground, others they carried into the air, higher even than the topmost spires of the Neuadd, before releasing them. Dafydd didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget the screams and the horrible wet sound of body hitting stone at speed.

  There was work to do. He couldn’t spare the time to watch these poor people as they filed into the vast reception rooms of the palace. His earlier worry that they might be panicked or intractable had proven unfounded. They were mostly too shocked to do anything but go where they were told. Some had to be physically led. Everything they owned was destroyed, and all because they had sided against their queen. They had welcomed him in, offered Iolwen the throne, and this was all the thanks he had to give them.

  ‘We have to go to the cavern, sire. The princess needs your help.’

  Dafydd turned away from his vantage point, where he had been watching the kitchen staff passing out bowls of nourishing soup, attending to wounds and generally making themselves more useful than he had ever felt. Usel stood behind him, a worried look on his face that suggested he was not used to plans unravelling all around him.

  ‘Lead on.’ Dafydd pointed in the direction of the corridor and stairs, then followed the medic. All around, the once-ornate palace was rimed with the dust of broken stone and cracked plaster. Pictures of long-dead kings and queens, princes and princesses hung askew or had fallen from the walls completely. No one had bothered to pick them up. There was no time, and few had good thoughts for their former leaders in this new crisis.

  They reached the door to find it already open. Usel hesitated on the threshhold, then disappeared down the spiral steps. Dafydd followed, feeling the growing power of the Grym as he came closer to the greatest collection of dragon jewels ever amassed. At the bottom of the stairs he found a small party of workers, mostly the soldiers who had come with him from Tynhelyg, but a few of the city guard as well. It was easy to tell the difference between them even without the darker hue of the Llanwennog skin. The Candlehall natives all stared in awe at the sights they knew they had no right to see. Some even covered their eyes, perhaps fearing that when this was all over – if this was ever all over – they might be punished for their transgression. His Llanwennog troops, in contrast, seemed unmoved by the magic of the place and knew nothing of the prohibitions surrounding it. Teryll had begun covering some of the nearest stone shelves with curtains and sheets, trying to explain to the workers in halting Saesneg what to do. A young man in the black robes of a predicant of the order of the Candle was helping him.

  ‘Usel, Dafydd. You’re here.’ Iolwen spotted them through the throng and pushed past the people to join them. She still wore the clothes of a commoner, which was perhaps why no one paid her much attention. ‘Teryll’s covering what he can, but I need to find the escape route so we can make a passageway.’

  ‘There are many escape routes from this chamber, Your Highness. All are protected by the same magic that prevents any but your family from opening the door in the palace, but they are also hidden from view. Please, let us move away from the crowd a moment.’ Usel held out his hands. Dafydd took one and Iolwen the other. Dafydd felt that strange sensation he had come to associate with the medic’s hiding spell, only here it was stronger, the air shimmering around them as they walked unnoticed towards the edge of the cavern. Only once they were out of sight of the entrance did he let go.

  ‘What do you know of these tunnels, Usel? I assume they are tunnels.’ Iolwen looked around the cavern, and Dafydd followed her gaze, seeing only rough-hewn rock. The ground beneath his feet here was hard-packed dirt and smooth stone, with no obvious sign of any path.

  ‘Only what I have been told by others who have never seen them. Some lead to the foothills north of the city, others to the woods to the west. In some of the more fanciful tales they tell of a passage that takes but a few moments to walk and yet brings you out in Abervenn. If such a thing is possible, then it is truly a marvel. We will need to exercise caution when entering them though.’

  ‘But where are they?’ Iolwen turned on her heels, arms held out wide to encompass the whole cavern. As far as the eye could see, there was just the one way in and the one way out.

  ‘Please. Give me a moment.’ Usel stood motionless, his eyes closed. Dafydd thought he felt something, the lightest of breezes past his ear. He closed his eyes and slipped gently into the aethereal trance the way his grandfather had taught him. Down here it was easy, the power radiating from the collected jewels almost overwhelming.

  ‘I did not know you were an adept, sire. Nor you, ma’am, although it is your birthright.’

  Dafydd looked around to see both Usel and Iolwen in aethereal form. The medic looked much as he always did, but Iolwen glowed a bright gold as if she stood in a ray of perfect sun.

  ‘It is not something I have had much practice at. Nor anything in the way of tuition. It feels natural here. Safe.’ The princess took a step forward but stopped when Usel placed a hand on her arm.

  ‘Stay close to your true self, ma’am. The aethereal is easier to reach here, but it is also easier to become distracted. Now you are here though, look closely at the walls around you. Is there anything unusual? Anything that isn’t there in the mundane?’

  Dafydd scanned the rock, seeing nothing odd. Iolwen walked a few short paces to a point that seemed no different from the rest, yet when she reached out and placed her hand on the surface, the golden glow spread from her to form a neatly carved arch. With an effort of will, Dafydd slid back into himself, the aethereal view disappearing slowly. For a moment he had the uncomfortable sight of Iolwen’s golden form in front of him, while her real body stood motionless by his side. And then the light faded, Iolwen stumbling slightly as she let out a little gasp. Instinctively he put a hand out to support her, but she pushed it away, striding forward to the exact spot her aethereal form had stood. Where before there had been nothing but rock, now a wide tunnel opened up on to blackness.

  Dafydd wanted to stop and investigate, but Usel bustled Iolwen on to a further point along the cavern wall, where another tunnel soon appeared. Three more followed, bringing them eventually back to the point where they had started, the bottom of the spiral steps. A group of soldiers and palace guards clustered close to the entrance as if they dared not venture further into the room. The young predicant who had been helping Teryll saw them approach and bowed deeply to the princess.

  ‘Your Highness, we are as ready as we will ever be.’ He pointed at the nearby pillars, draped to conceal the jewels. Iolwen approached the young man, but he kept his head down, unwilling to meet her eye, so all Dafydd could see was a head of cropped straw-blond hair.

  ‘What is your name, lad?’ the princess asked.

  ‘Predicant Trell, ma’am.’ The young man finally looked up, revealing a face pale and thin, unremarkable save for the crooked nose that had clearly been broken in his childhood and not set properly.

  ‘No longer predicant, I think. Precious few Candles left, and none of them dared come down here.’

  ‘This place is sacred. We cannot enter without the permission of the queen. I suspect my fellow Candles still do not believe that has been given.’

  ‘Well they’re welcome to stay in the palac
e if they wish. I want you to lead the first group through the tunnels. We’ll be sending them down just as soon as we’ve made it back up the stairs.’

  The young predicant’s eyes widened. ‘You’re going back, ma’am? Surely—?’

  ‘I won’t leave until I know the people are safe. And besides, there’s something I have to do. Something only I can do.’ Iolwen reached out and patted the predicant on the arm. ‘Look after my people, Trell.’

  He nodded once, then hurried away towards the nearest tunnel, tugging at the drapes as he went to ensure they were well fixed. Iolwen looked around until she saw Lady Anwen, still carrying Prince Iolo in his sling. Dafydd was still watching the young predicant as he walked over to the first hidden tunnel but turned when he heard a voice address him.

  ‘We must go to the Neuadd, sire. The people are calm now, but that cannot last once word gets out that there is an escape route from the city.’ Usel hurried them to the bottom of the stairs, letting Lady Anwen and Teryll go first, then Princess Iolwen. The moment she set foot on the first step, a cry of alarm echoed in the great cavern. Everyone turned, trying to locate the source of the noise. Dafydd spotted it first – the young predicant lying on his back and clutching his hand tightly to his chest. And then Dafydd noticed something else. The exit tunnel had disappeared.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Iolwen asked as they hurried towards the recumbent Trell. He was moaning, clearly in pain, and as Dafydd reached him, he could see why. The young man’s hand was a bloody mess. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to it, or it had been trapped in a rocky fissure as it slammed closed.

  ‘Calm yourself, lad.’ Usel knelt by his side, pressed a hand to his forehead and murmured some low words. Dafydd felt the strange sensation of someone tapping the Grym, all-powerful in this cavern full of dragon jewels, and the predicant’s moaning eased. Gently, Usel helped him up into a sitting position, took hold of the mangled hand and began inspecting the damage.