by Holly Taylor
GWYDION SHOOK HIS head to clear it. The voice. The voice said that he could call to Rhiannon. The voice said she was looking for him.
If she found him she could lead him from this wood. This wood called—
“Sycharth,” the voice said. “That is what it is called.” Sycharth, Gwydion thought. That is the name of the wood.
Yes.
“She must come to you alone, Gwydion. She is the only one you trust. There must be no one else, for they mustn’t see you like this. Only Rhiannon is to know. Only her. And she mustn’t tell anyone.”
Yes. There was no one else. Only her. He would call to her. And she would come and let him out of the darkness. He would call to her.
His beloved.
Rhiannon sat across from Arthur at the small table in the garden room at Cadair Idris. The trees around the perimeter of the room seemed to shiver momentarily as Arthur stirred in his chair and hunched over the tarbell board, frowning in concentration. The fountain laughed as it threw droplets of sparkling water in the fresh, flower-scented air.
The High King’s massive torque of emerald and opal, of sapphire and pearl and onyx glittered around Arthur’s sinewy neck, bathed in the glowing light that emanated from the golden walls. His long fingers reached forward and curled around the silver dragon with outspread wings. The pearl around the dragon’s neck glittered as he shifted the piece forward from its white square to a black one.
Rhiannon stared down at the board, but she did not really see it. All she saw was Gwydion’s handsome face and his silvery eyes. She wanted to scream with rage when she thought of him as a prisoner of the Golden Man. Havgan would ensure that Gwydion suffered exquisitely before he killed the Dreamer. He would see to it that Gwydion died and died and died again. He would—
“Gwydion is not at Eiodel, Rhiannon,” Arthur said quietly. “Havgan himself does not have him.”
“Does that matter?” she asked sharply. “He is still a prisoner.”
“Of Llywd Cilcoed. Not of the Golden Man.”
“What do you care?” she retorted. “Either way we cannot get to him. Not if we can’t find him.”
“I told you why we could not rescue him when they first took him.”
Rhiannon looked up into Arthur’s piercing, dark gaze. The scar on his face whitened momentarily as he returned her stare. She clenched her hands in the folds of her skirt to keep herself from hitting him.
“So you did,” she said coldly.
“I could not risk the lives of those with me. They were my Great Ones. I could not pit them against twenty Coranian warriors and two Dewin. The odds were too great.”
“You lie,” Rhiannon spat. “You do. You are the High King.
You could have taken the powers of any of the Y Dawnus for leagues around. With those powers you could have saved him. But you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t,” Arthur said quietly.
“You mean you didn’t.”
“No,” Arthur said evenly. “I mean I couldn’t.”
She stared at him, for this was not something she had thought of.
“Do you think it so easy to take the powers of the Y Dawnus and shape it whenever I please? Do you?” Arthur asked, his face taut. “Do you think that I can do it on a whim? At a moment’s notice? At any time, anytime at all?”
She did not know what to say. For she had thought, perhaps, that it would be easy for the High King.
“It is not easy,” he went on, his dark eyes boring into hers as though willing her to understand. “I was tired from the effort to free the Master Smiths. That was the first time I had ever used those powers in battle. When I take those powers to fight I see the faces of the Lord of Chaos and of his mate, the Weaver. It is from them that the power springs and it to them that my spirit must journey. It is to Gwlad Yr Haf that my spirit goes, to the place where they dwell, the home of the dead. Do you think that is easy?”
“I do not think any of it easy, Arthur,” she whispered through her tight throat. “None of it has ever been easy. But I thought you could save him.”
“But simply chose not to?”
She nodded, unable to speak past the pent up tears in her throat.
“Ah, Rhiannon ur Hefeydd, do you really think so little of me?”
“I think, Arthur, that you are a man who has accepted his fate. And I think you will do what you must do to save Kymru. And I think that does not include saving the life of the man that you hate most.”
She stood and walked to the door. Her back was to him as she neared it so he did not see the expression on her face when she heard the voice in her head.
Rhiannon. Cariad.
She stopped, for the voice was faint. But she knew who it was. She knew, as she knew the beat of her own heart.
Cariad. Beloved. Help me, please.
Where are you?
I am in Sycharth. You must come to me. Only you. I wander in the woods. I am lost. Please. Please, cariad. Please. Help me.
“Rhiannon,” Arthur called as he rose from the tarbell game. “Are you all right?”
She turned to face him, her emerald eyes veiled.
“I am fine,” she said shortly. She left the room and waited for the door to close behind her. In the faintly glowing corridor she stopped and put her hands to her cold cheeks, her heart beating wildly.
I am coming, she called.
Only you. Only you, cariad, his voice whispered to her heart. No one else.
Yes, she answered. I am coming to you. Alone.
Llundydd, Tywyllu Wythnos—evening
REGAN SAT IN the Queen’s ystafell, a feeling of dread inexplicably settling around her.
On the surface there was nothing out of the ordinary. She and Queen Elen sat near each other, Regan on a chair next to the canopied throne where Elen sat. The pearls set within the canopy of white and sea green glowed softly in the light of the fire on the hearth. The firelight burnished Elen’s auburn hair to a reddish sheen. But Elen’s blue eyes were cold and frosty. The silver and pearl torque of Ederynion gleamed around her slender neck as she sewed tiny pearls onto a white veil with swift angry stitches, savagely jerking the thread through the delicate silk.
“Elen,” Regan began, her own light brown eyes wide with a fear she did not yet understand. “Please.”
Elen slowed her stitches but did not look up at her friend. “Dewin,” Elen asked softly, “do you, of all people, not understand?”
“You know I do,” Regan said just as quietly.
“I doubt it,” Elen said dryly.
And Regan began to doubt it, too. She was not a fool, but Elen had always been better at understanding subtleties, at reading between the lines.
Memory of the small incident from this morning nudged at her. She and Elen had risen from the table in the hall after breakfast. And Guthlac, the Master-wyrce-jaga of Ederynion, had not risen when they did. General Talorcan had, of course, done so, as had all the other Coranians at the high table. They always did, at General Talorcan’s orders. Even Guthlac always had.
Until this morning.
At the time Regan had noted an expression of triumph on Guthlac’s heavy-set face. But she thought it had been triumph only at such a small defiance of the protocol Talorcan had insisted on. She had not understood, until just now, that it had been more than that.
Now she knew where that sense of dread had come from. Guthlac was, at last, making his move. And though Elen might survive it, Regan knew that she herself would not.
And Elen knew it, too.
Regan cleared her throat so she could talk past the lump there. Though she had been a prisoner these last few years, she still loved life. Though she had tried to avoid the truth, she loved Talorcan with all her heart and the thought of dying, of leaving him, brought tears to her eyes. And the thought of leaving Elen all alone among the enemy—well, that was even worse.
“Do you think Guthlac will slaughter me privately? Or have it done publicly in the marketplace?”
“O
r send you to Afalon,” Elen said in a low voice. “I do not think it is Guthlac’s plan to make it quick. He would want Talorcan to suffer, knowing that you are suffering.”
“Ah,” Regan said quietly. “In Afalon, with an enaid-dal around my neck, dying inch by inch, day by day, with the rest of the Y Dawnus there. Yes, I would suffer. Suffer enough to satisfy even Guthlac.” Regan clutched the cloth she had been embroidering. “They say Havgan likes to go there sometimes, to watch the Y Dawnus die in slow agony.” She smiled bleakly. “If I see him, I’m sure I can think of a few choice words to say. Is there any message you wish me to give him?”
Elen flung the veil to the floor and flew from her chair, kneeling in front of Regan, her blue eyes blazing. “I will never let them take you. Never.”
“Elen, there is nothing you can do.”
“Talorcan will never let you go.”
“He won’t be able to stop it. If Guthlac dares to do this it is because he knows he can. Because Havgan himself has said he could.”
“I do what they tell me because by doing so I can keep you alive,” Elen said fiercely. “If they think I will not give them trouble—”
“Oh, Elen, you must not. Don’t you see? If they take me it is because they do not need you to bend to their will. They will kill you next, if you do not take care.”
“They will kill me in any case,” Elen said matter-of-factly. “They always meant to do that eventually. What in the world is taking my brother so long?”
“You know better than that, Elen,” Regan reproached. “You know Lludd would free you if he could.”
“He had better find a way soon,” Elen threatened,” or I will roast him whole next time I see him.”
“He would no anything for you,” Regan said. “You know that. I am sure he will find a way to rescue you before they—”
“But not before you are taken,” Elen said bitterly. “For he will be too late for that.”
“But he will come for you. You have always known that.”
“Yes,” Elen said as she stood up with her fists clenched. “I have always known that.”
“HURRY UP, WILL you?” Angharad exclaimed impatiently.
The Druid sent by High King Arthur looked up at her coldly. “If you think it is so easy, you do it,” Ceindrech said.
“I’m not a Shape-Mover.”
“No, you are not. But I am. So kindly step back and let me do what I came here to do.”
Muttering beneath her breath, Angharad stepped away from where the Druid crouched on the forest floor. The glimmer of torches faintly illuminated the edges of the trapdoor, disguised so cleverly that she could scarcely believe it was there. And to think, neither she nor Prince Lludd had ever known of this secret passageway that led underground from the forest outside the walls of Dinmael to the Queen’s ystafell in Caer Dwyr. According to Rhiannon, the passageway actually ended beneath the throne itself. Of course, Angharad would believe it when she saw it. For Queen Olwen had never told her of such a tunnel. When the Druid, Ceindrech, had shown up at Prince Lludd’s camp speaking of such a passageway Angharad had outright called her a liar—an act that had gotten the two women off on the wrong foot. But Angharad had been shocked. She still could not understand why Olwen had never spoken of it.
It was Rhiannon who had told Arthur and Arthur who had informed Ceindrech of the existence of this tunnel. For Rhiannon and Gwen had discovered the tunnel while escaping from Dinmael last year with Queen Elen’s ring. It had been General Talorcan himself who had led them to it, saving their lives in the process. Talorcan locked both trap doors and he alone had the key.
Which was why Ceindrech was busy manipulating the lock with her druidic Shape-Moving abilities—for it was hidden from their sight on the inside of the impregnable trap door.
Prince Lludd stood stiffly, his jaw clenched. His brown eyes glittered with impatience but he did not speak.
Next to him stood his cousin, Prince Rhiwallon of Rheged, the younger brother of King Owein. The torchlight glittered on his reddish-gold hair as he fingered the sharp blade of a short sword, a martial light in his blue eyes and a half smile on his handsome face. A likely boy, Angharad thought indulgently, who had been schooled well as a warrior by his father, King Urien. Rhiwallon even had the dead king’s bluff good nature and bull-like physique.
Emrys, her lieutenant, stood quietly, his dark eyes never leaving the trap door—unless it was to look at her. Angharad pretended not to notice how often he did so. But she knew full well that Emrys was in love with her. It was truly a shame that she did not return his regard, and never had. So she pretended not to know his feelings for her, treating him as a much-valued fellow warrior and nothing more.
Her heart ached, momentarily, for Amatheon, her dead lover. Sometimes she could be surprised, still, at how fiercely and unexpectedly grief could grip her heart. Resolutely, as she had a thousand times before, she forced her thoughts away from her memories of him.
Talhearn, Lludd’s Bard, sat on a nearby log, his legs stretched out before him. He fingered the torque around his thin neck and the sapphire glittered beneath his long fingers. His gray hair shone silver under the starry light, for he sat away from the light of the torches. Behind the Bard stood several warriors, each holding the reins of a horse. Horses and warriors stood rock still, not making a sound.
An audible click got Angharad’s attention and the Druid rose smoothly to her feet. She gestured and the trap door slowly rose, the hinges creaking. A dark hole gaped in the forest floor.
“It is done,” Ceindrech said coolly, triumph in her dark eyes.
“And the lock at the other end?” Angharad asked.
“Will be much easier,” Ceindrech said. “For I will be able to see it, not work blind as I had to with this one.”
Angharad grinned. “Good work. I see Arthur sent the right Druid.”
“In spite of the opinions of the Archdruid’s heir,” Ceindrech said with a touch of asperity.
“Aergol did not want you to come?”
“He can be overbearing at times.”
“What was his objection?”
“That the mother of his son should not place herself in such danger,” Ceindrech sniffed derisively.
Angharad’s brow rose. “Indeed?”
“Men can be foolish,” Ceindrech said with disdain.
“Foolish we can be,” Prince Lludd broke in, “and we can be impatient, too. For I tell you, Druid, I have waited long enough to rescue my sister. I will wait no more.”
“For the completion of such a task, I am also impatient,” Ceindrech answered. “Come, then, Prince of Ederynion, let us rescue your queen.”
Ceindrech went first, dropping lightly through the dark hole to the ground below. Angharad handed one of the torches down to her. Lludd went next, then Rhiwallon. Emrys stepped back to stand with the rest of the warriors. He looked at Angharad with his heart in his eyes, but he said nothing.
At the edge of the hole she turned back to look at Talhearn as she clutched the second torch. “If we are not back within two hours we aren’t coming back,” she said.
“I know,” the Bard replied quietly.
“Tell Arthur to come for Elen himself if we cannot free her.”
“I will.”
Angharad hesitated for a moment, not certain what she wanted to say. But of course Talhearn said it for her. He always had.
“Go, then,” Talhearn said gravely. “The warriors and I wait here for you. Go, brave heart, and free our Queen.”
ELEN STIFFENED AS she heard the footsteps. She reached for Regan’s hand and the Dewin rose from her chair. The two women stood side by side in the center of the room. On the wall behind them the white swan with outstretched wings on a field of sea green shivered, its eyes of pearl gleaming.
The door opened and Guthlac, the Master-wyrce-jaga of Ederynion, strode into the room. His black robe with its tabard of dark green was rucked up over his huge belly. There were food stains on the front of hi
s robe. But at the smile on his fat face and the coldness of his blue eyes Elen’s derisive comment died on her lips. For this was indeed a Master-wyrce-jaga in all his power. And the gods help them now.
Iago, her one-time Druid, entered behind Guthlac. His head was bowed so that he need not look her in the eyes. Iago rarely returned her gaze directly, though she knew he watched her all the time.
Behind them came two Coranian guards. The firelight played off their woven byrnies and their helmets shaped like boars’ heads glittered in the light of the flames. With them were two wyrce-jagas, their hooded black robes covering them like shadows.
Guthlac clutched a piece of parchment in his greasy hands and did not even bother bowing. “Queen Elen,” he began.
“And where is General Talorcan?” Elen interrupted.
This brought Guthlac up short. “General Talorcan?”
“Yes. Surely you remember him—blond hair, green eyes, commander of the Coranian army in Ederynion. That General Talorcan.”
“His presence is not necessary,” Guthlac said stiffly.
Elen threw back her head and screamed piercingly. Guthlac started and Iago’s head came up, his dark eyes wide and shocked. Within moments she heard running footsteps and smiled as Talorcan burst into the room.
“What in the name of Lytir is going on here?” he cried, his sword in his hand.
“That is just what we are preparing to find out, General,” Elen said crisply. “I thought you might like to know as well.”
“Guthlac, Iago, what are you doing?” Talorcan asked. The fact that the general did not sheathe his sword was not lost on any of those present.
“We are doing our duty, General Talorcan,” Guthlac said. “We are doing what you should have done long ago.”
“And that is?” Talorcan asked.
“Taking the Dewin to Afalon.”
“No, Guthlac, you are not,” Talorcan said, his green eyes cold.
“Are you prepared, General, to ignore a direct order from your commander?”
“What order?” Talorcan asked with contempt. “You have no such order. I am in command here.”
